Nick Clegg: we caused offence by joining Tories, but it's worth it

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

Nick Clegg today defends his decision to spurn a progressive coalition government with Labour, saying it would have been unworkable and regarded as illegitimate by the British people.

But http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/14/nick-clegg-coalition-aims-are-liberal">in an article for the Guardian the Liberal Democrat leader acknowledges the ill-feeling that his party's decision has created, admitting: "It has caused both surprise and with it some offence."

Before a closed party conference on the decision tomorrow, Clegg concedes: "There are those on both the left and right who are united in thinking this should not have happened.

"But the truth is this: there was no other responsible way to play the hand dealt to the political parties by the British people at the election. The parliamentary arithmetic made a Lib-Lab coalition unworkable, and it would have been regarded as illegitimate by the British people. Equally, a minority administration would have been too fragile to tackle the political and economic challenges ahead."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/14/nick-clegg-tories-coalition-liberal-democrats

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Disillusioned Liberal Democrats desert their party

Amelia Hill and Rajeev Syal
The Guardian, Saturday May 15 2010

=snip=

Some Liberal Democrat officials, party members and voters have withdrawn their support from the party. Alex Kear, the chairman of the Worcester Liberal Democrats branch and a lifelong member, said that he felt "betrayed" by new deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and was leaving to join the Green party.

"I've always been one who is for proportional representation and having a better and more fair voting system," said Kear, "and I felt that opportunity of getting that in through legislation has been lost this week. I feel the Lib Dems have opted for a watered down version to get themselves in power. A hung parliament means hung – it shouldn't be two parties making it up."

Other former Lib Dem supporters, especially younger voters, said that Clegg's decision had caused them to lose faith with mainstream politics and return to grassroots activism.

Jane Watkinson, 22, a longstanding Lib Dem blogger and secretary of the Lib Dem Society at Leeds University, is also joining the Green Party. "My policy disagreements are vast," she writes on her blog, "but here are a few I am specifically adverse to: I did not like our policies on immigration already, but we are now going to support a total cap – illiberal.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/15/liberal-democrats-grassroots-members

[mwooldri]

1. This was the rock and the hard place that the Lib Dems had to choose.

I'm not happy about the choice either but party-wise this is the best the Lib Dems could really have done. That Rainbow Coalition would have been fragile and would have legitimacy questions. A Conservative minority government may well have been seen as a Con-LibDem deal anyway... just to keep the Cons in power. Best be in bed with the beast and be able to tame it some way from the inside than to just prop it up from the outside.

Bottom line: the Lib Dems will have a chance to make changes... at the Tories expense - and with their permission. The Additional Vote referendum is a chance to eventually get towards PR... because AV will help the Lib Dems out a bit.

[onehandle]

2. I think Clegg is just another Blair. Ready to abandon his convictions for power.

Doesn't matter. This 'team of rivals' (picture Clegg begging Cameron for more gruel, 'Please, sir...') will fall apart in a few months.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Why would it have been regarded as illegitimate?

And how does he know that?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Because many senior Labour MPs said they thought it was illegitimate

Blunkett (disgraced former Home Secretary, but still an MP):

"Lib Dems 'acting like every harlot in history'"

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett has questioned whether the Liberal Democrats can be trusted in coalition talks.

Speaking to Today presenter Sarah Montague, he said a "coalition of the defeated" would damage the Labour party at subsequent elections.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8674000/8674224.stm

Burnham speaks out against a rainbow coalition

It’s not just David Blunkett, John Reid and Tom Harris speaking out against the idea of a Lab-Lib coalition. Andy Burnham has now broken cover on BBC World at One and said the election decision should be respected. At Cabinet yesterday, he spoke out against the idea of a rainbow coalition, as did Bob Ainsworth, Sadiq Khan and Jack Straw.

Ed Balls didn’t come across to the Lib Dem negotiating team as being very engaged with the idea of coalition. How will all this play in the Labour leadership contest?

Talking to Labour MPs today it’s hard to find one who supports the idea of a grand multi-coloured coalition. So Ed Balls won’t have done his candidacy (nobody declared yet of course) any harm with that word getting around. Andy Burnham looks like a man who is testing the ground and flexing up for a possible contest.

David Miliband kept arms length from the coalition idea but didn’t condemn it in public. Ed Miliband is assembling a team and seems certain to run for the leadership but is on the negotiating team. Again, the Lib Dems said they thought he was a bit cool on the deal and didn’t seem to get the idea of coalition the way the Lords Mandelson and Adonis did.

http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2010/05/11/burnham-speaks-out-against-a-rainbow-coalition/

And if your partners in a possible coalition are saying "this coalition wouldn't be right", then the populace are likely going to listen to them.

[enlightenment]

5. Because

on edit: I'll leave my original comments below, because I don't want to waste a morning rant and this really torques me off - but pay more attention to Muriel above (the basic issue is that Labour and the Lib Dems despise each other . . .)





The Tories captured the majority (not A majority, just a numerical one) of seats with 306. Labour ran second. Under this mode of 'who was closest to a true majority' - that would be 350 seats - Clegg can claim that the people want a Tory led government.

If the Lib Dems had formed a coalition with Labour, that would have given them the numerical majority (barely) - and more if they had brought in the smaller party PMs.

The 'government' is formed by the party in the majority - so right now they have a Conservative/Lib Dem government. Presumably, that is 'legitimate' because the people wanted the Tories. At least some of them did. If they really did, they wouldn't have a hung parliament right now - but let's no allow the facts to get in the way of the rhetoric.

Clegg is a fool who traded principle for 'power' - but it's not real power, it is largesse handed out by Cameron and crew. They promised a referendum on voting reform, but promising that is meaningless unless they also back it - and many of the Tories have already said they will fight it tooth and claw.

In return, Clegg gave them Trident and a handful of other Lib Dem planks without a fight - and more troubling, is supportive of the new scheme that will make it almost impossible to remove a government for five years. That's what the Tories REALLY want; and they'll get it.

You make your bed, you lie in it.

[LeftishBrit]

6. I agree with Onehandle, I'm afraid

I realize that a coalition with Labour wouldn't have been possible at present (too many Labourites didn't want it). But even a Tory minority government propped up by the LibDems, on an understanding that this was strictly temporary, would have been better than this formal coalition with all the attempts to change the rules to a five-year fixed-term parliament with the need for a 55% vote in the House of Commons to dissolve parliament. I think that the 'hung parliament' was in part because voters were trying to *prevent* leaders having too much power or the next government lasting too long; now Clegg and Cameron are trying to ensure that they stay in power as long as possible.

At least it's much better than the Tory majority government that we were expecting until very recently; and there must be *something* good about it as the real RW are so hostile. But it still isn't that good, and I do regard Clegg as something of a weathercock.

I hope things will turn out OK.

[BunkerHill24]

7. Nick is all about him, and him alone....he wanted power, and got it. n/t