Lib-Lab-love?

Publius

Doesn't the hubristic nonsense about "progressive" just get right up your nose?

oldrightie

No chance, LibDems will take second spot from Labour.

Faceless Bureaucrat

I suppose it is not impossible that the Lib Dems will be fooled once again by promises from Labour and throw in their lot with them in an attempt to derail the Tories. However giving the Conservative Party the opprtunity to use 'Vote Lib Dem, get Labour' at the next GE would be a gift.

If they have any brians, the Lib Dems will give this a wide berth - then again...

Gordon Musgo

The libs wouldn't campaign on this basis beforehand and lose the chance of selling themselves to the highest bidder after the election. This is just desperate Labour stay-in-at-all-costs wishful thinking, and can be treated with the contempt it deserves.

mac

"But it's still striking how much the idea is popping up 'round Westminster."

And what does John Prescott say? 'Go Forth and . . ?' Didn't Giovanni threaten to resign over the same idea in 1997?

David

Hmm. What about those voters who would have voted to get Labour out? How happy woudl they be with this? I suggest the result would be a collapse in the LibDem vote in favour of the Tories.

Clegg would be nuts to contemplate it.

Tiberius

We may charge the PLP with being supine over allowing Brown to destroy the country, but the charge against the LibDems would have to be something more ferocious if they actively campaigned with him.

Surely they have more of a collective brain than that - don't they?

strapworld

Of course it is a starter, With people like Cable, who would die for a chance of becoming Chancellor, about. If the Lib Dems poll ratings continue to fall. Clegg will be replaced pretty damned quick by Cable. who will then go back to his true party and agree to a pact!

BUT it will mean that the BNP will be the winner and cerrtainly not the Labour nor Lib Dem party. They will be confined to the history books.

No party can get this country out the mess it is in in a short time. It will take, at least, three year or more!

So, The Fabian Society - who are not known these days for sensible thought, will kill of the Liberal Democrats should they attempt to push this.

But we all know the Lib Dems. They are the most untrustworthy politicians in local and national government.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Fortunately Labour and the Lib-Dems hate each other, especially at constituency level, so this is a non-starter.

Ian Walker

Running the numbers on this, with the latest polls, then assuming that 100% of Lib/Lab voters go for it, it would result in a coalition of about 300+45 seats versus 275 Tories.

This is very attractive for the LibDems, since their current 16% takes them down to only 20 seats in a straight three-way election, and would of course, put them in their dream scenario of being the coalition partner in a hung parliament.

But why would Labour go for it? Any Lib/Lab coalition would require a gurantee of electoral reform - and that means Labour losing seats for good.

And once the LibDems have their hallowed prize of PR, they're completely disincentivised to go along with it, since a new election would see them with 100+ seats, and a say in power for the forseeable future.

Nicholas

Seems cynical of the Lib Dems to consider this bearing in mind that New Labour more closely resembles a fascist regime and they seem to have more in common with the Tories. They must be mad to contemplate this. New Labour is toxic.

julieg

I've voted Lib Dem since 2001 (before that Labour, but never, ever again). If they make a pact with Labour to keep it in power I will vote Tory, as will many others.

TrevorsDen

Since when has anyone in the Fabian Society had a clue about anything?

We are asked to believe that the LibDems will prop up a poisoned chalice? That the Libdems would serve in a cabinet with a certified lunatic as PM?

Well they might - just might, after all there is they say one born every minute.
But can anyone really believe that after the last fiasco where they were blatantly and cold bloodedly sold down the river by Blair over PR - can anyone really believe they would be fooled again.

And just which policies would both sides jettison? Will lib dems accept 42 days detention? or will the govt suddenly decide security is not so dire after all?

The list is endless. The story is preposterous.

Sam Armstrong

It would last about half an hour.

Ben

It could spell the end of the liberal democrats. They would not dare do it.

Diswiss

How desperate can they get?
It's so pathetically sad.

Madf

Clegg is stupid enough to agree.

Veronica Blakey

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the Lib Dems are prepared to conspire with Gordon Brown to confound the will of the people and keep the Conservatives out of office.

Pete, Scotland

Who, apart from the desperate, would jump on a sinking ship?

JONNY

The Lib-Dems getting into bed with Gordon Brown?
Quel Hoot! Quel Desastre! (if you pardon my franglais).
They'd be losing half their MPs in Toryland and end up chewing a miserable scrap of a rump. Ooh-la-la.
And as for Vince Cable as Chancellor. He's welcome to it, if I read the economic runes correctly.

mitch

Didn't blair try this ruse when he thought he wouldn't win? then dropped the idea when he got a majority.

Andy Leeds

The LibDems are stupid enough to do this. It would destroy their party. One of the reasons their poll ratings are sinking is because people realize that to get rid of this God awful Government you have to vote Tory. If they do this it could destroy their party for ever. So let em get on with it.

mac

Pete:

Mandelson, I'd like to think.

TGF UKIP

If the Tories have any sense they will proceed as if this is a done deal.

The LibDems have a chronic political problem - who do they think they are?

Cable has given the Tories a great deal of ammo in the past few months, so they should ignore Clegg, Laws and Co and proceed on the basis that Cable's LibDems and Brown's Labour have a de facto electoral alliance.

Then we can all look forward to the next LibDem Party Conference (and not to say all the leaks that precede it.)

Nobody hates each other more than the LibDems - it's all about being cornered in that confined space!

Ray

Never forget that the Liberal Party sustained Jim Callaghan's government in office during some of its darkest days.

seb

What's progressive about New Labour? What progress has the country made since 1997? Labour's progressive days ended, some might argue, with the provision of universal free health care after the war.

Trevors Den - Yes, you'd have to be the world's most cynical opportunist to form an alliance with someone so pathologically flawed as Brown. It's a treasonous idea.

Hawkeye

What makes the lefties imagine that

a) The Libs would jump on to a sinking ship?

and

b) All the libs would join Labour?

Many Libs would defect to the tories as would many voters. There might even be a sizeable "split" that would reform as "The Official Liberals" and who would huffily occupy the old Liberal ground.

Good luck to Labour. If they are dumb enough to be having factional fights during a recessionary period and giving the Press the chance to accuse them of "fiddling while Rome burns" so be it.

RW

This is what Katwala proposes. No, really:

"By the time Barack Obama leaves these shores in April, Gordon Brown should invite Nick Clegg to be deputy prime minister with Vince Cable as chancellor. The coalition would govern for a year.."

Aha, it all becomes clear. The long-awaited Obamessiah will return to this green and pleasant land, declaring Gordon the Blessed, the Magnificent to be a Saint; the bow of burning gold will finally twang, and amid the dark satanic mills of Westminster, Fabian socialism will live forever...

Sorry. I need to go and have a nice lie-down.

Hawkeye

Thinking about this some more whilst doing the dishes.... could this be the start of the postponement or cancellation of the next general election?

Unless some miracle occurs Labour and Brown know that the game is up and after the next election they will be lucky if they have enough MPs to fill a Routemaster bus.

If, as seems likely, the recession is still going strong, the consent of the Lib Dems to merge with Labour allows a National Unity Government for the duration of the "emergency" and the postponement of the election. The "emergency" can then be extended as often as necessary.

Those who think that this is a ridiculous scenario - that Brown would trample over the UK to retain power - need look no further than Zimbabwe where the callous Mugabae will do anything to cling to power.

This technique is in use around the world today. The real questions are whether Brown is so desparate that he will sell us all down the river to hang on to power and how many pieces of silver would be needed to purchase the Lib Dem's soul?

THX1138

Much more importantly popbitch the site that knows everything is reporting that a prominent Conservative has a secret past running group sex parties?

I wonder who? Any ideas anyone!

hadrian

Electoral suicide for the Liberals, I'd say, to put their hands anywhere near the tainted Broonite camp. If I were considering my options in a constituency where tactical voting was required I'd certainly wipe the Libs off the slate if this threatened to be the outcome. Not a good move, I'd opine.

James J

The “Centre” may not extend as far as the political class thinks or even be where it thinks it is. Let’s wait for the EU elections.

Aless

Considering a huge proportion of Lib Dem voters are only doing so because they don't want to vote for Labour or the Tories I think that a Lib-Lab coalition would send a fair few Lib-Dem votes the way of the Tories and a few more towards the greens.

If in 2005 Labour took all the Lib Dem votes then they would have a majority of 412

Or if Labour and Tories split them 50/50 the Labour majority would be 76

Hawkeye

@THX1138 - Popbitch? Are you serious?

Anyone posting there probably thinks that a "political party" is a rave held in the Commons, that a conservative is a glass building at the back of your house and labour is something your girlfriend does whilst shelling out another illegimate love-child.

Please do better....

David Bouvier

THX1138 - Not ANOTHER conservative sex-party promoter.

It depends on your definition of 'prominent' but it sounds like a story that was all over the tabloids years ago.

THX1138

To paraphrase Michael Corleone in The Godfather

now, who's being naive, Hawkeye.

popbitch is where tabloid journalists go to post stories they can't get past their editors. It has a history of being right.

Grim Reaper

If the Gen Sec of the Fabian Society is contemplating it, it justs shows how bankrupt of intellectual ideas and how desperate these pathetic figures on the left are to cling to power.

This 'Dead Labour'Government is in it's death throes and such articles are just a death rattle.

I will be down to collect them in due course......