If the Lib Dems could hold the balance of power in the next parliament, then they should be subject to the same level of scrutiny as the two major parties

ollie

This is the Limp Dims' biggest paradox - they want a "breakthrough", whatever that means, but are only too happy to go virtually unscathed in any section of the media.

Just look at the way Cable is revered by the BBC - like an independent commentator rather than a serious politician.

I hate whats going on in the media at the moment - this obsession with a hung parliament is bad for the country.

People must not understate the role of Mandelson and Campbell in "persuading" the media to follow a narrative, which has stopped any scrutiny of Labour to the extent in which it feels like the Tories are in government.

If people think Brown is a mad socialist, can anyone imagine Cable as chancellor? He is to the left of Karl Marx.

Undecided Libertarian

"If there was such a difference of opinion between two senior front benchers on the Labour or Tory side, it would be written up as a splits story. But Laws’ comments when almost unnoticed."

And how is that the Lib Dems' fault exactly? Who cares if there are splits anyway? Wow big news - some people in political parties disagree with each other! That's just evidence of the media's immaturity more than anything else.

James Forsyth has absolutely nothing interesting to say about politics. His blogs take the word 'vapid' to whole new levels of meaning.

Pedantic Virgo

"But Laws’ comments when (sic) almost unnoticed." Went, I think.

Richard

Next you will asking for the Ulster Unionists as well...oh sorry forgot they are your friends.
Blimey the pressure must really be on.
You really think they could hold the balance of power? Nah! Tories will walk it, how can they fail with such wonderful policies and a charismatic leader. Almost forgot and a transformed shiney new party of caring people.
Perhaps you can shed some light on the Tory who brought down the poverty bill in mysterious circumstances yesterday...see Times for details.

Holly ......

I have watched Vince Cable and he just mimics everything the Conservatives say.
Clegg is the same.He comes across as an impersonator....Labour says something/the Conservatives say something...Clegg mixes them up and ends up with a Conservative policy.
I earn £17k and it's all very well making my first £10k tax free,someone earning £60k has a different lifestyle,with different
financial outgoings,they also probably studied for years to get to where they are,so why should they have to pay more
just because I slacked off in my youth?
I am where I am through my own choices,when I was younger.
One section of a society should not have their efforts 'taxed'because another section
of society couldn't be arsed to improve their lot.
I do not agree that someone should have to give half of their income to any government.
Bonuses,expenses etc are a different kettle of fish.These should be taxed,capped,fixed,
stopped,whatever.
Nick Clegg has a big oppinion of himself and the Lib Dems are just as underhand and are happy to use dirty campaign tricks as the Labour bods.
Iain Dale is a great source of informing us of the Lib Dems dodgy campaign methods/scare
stories that are lies,usually against the Conservative candidates.
The Conservatives must have something for BOTH the other two to be trying to smear them all the time.
Nick Clegg is not the man to be in No 10.

David Lindsay

They have effectively ruled out both Labour and the Tories today. As if either would ever have asked them, anyway. Half of the Labour Party hates the Lib Dems far more than it hates the Tories, with whom it has very little contact. Half of the Conservative Party hates the Lib Dems far more than it hates Labour, with which it has very little contact. In a hung Parliament, most MPs would come from those heartland seats in both parties, either of which would split organically and permanently if there were any deal with the real enemy.

Coalition between Labour and the Tories, usually for the specific purpose of keeping out the Lib Dems, is quite routine in local government. Germany was run on much that basis until fairly recently, for essentially the same reason. Clegg expects to be asked whom he would support in a hung Parliament. But in reality, no one was ever going to ask him it, anyway. In which case, what is he for? What is his party for?

Merger between the Labour and Tory remnants is both inevitable and overdue. It will create the space for proper parties instead. The Lib Dems will not be one of them.

Instead, there will be one or more serious forces for civil liberties, local communitarian populism, indefatigable pursuit of single issues, the Nonconformist social conscience, the legacy of Keynes and Beveridge as corrected by a popular and Christian-based movement, traditional moral and social values, conservation rather than environmentalism, national sovereignty, a realistic foreign policy, the Commonwealth, the peace activism historically exemplified by Sir Herbert Samuel, redress of economic and political grievances in the countryside, and the needs and concerns of areas remote from the centres of power both in the United Kingdom and in each of its constituent parts.

And there will be one or more serious forces of those who were never hysterically hostile to the unions that exhibited the greatest need for a broad-based and sane opposition to Thatcherism, who never made themselves dependent on a single donor (as the Tories have now done) who was later made a Minister by Blair without the rate for the job, who never betrayed Gaitskellism over Europe, who never betrayed Christian Socialism and a section of High Toryism (and, lest we forget, Gaitskellism) over nuclear weapons, who never adopted the decadent social libertinism of Roy Jenkins, who never adopted the comprehensive schools mania of Shirley Williams, and who never shared her regret over past Labour action to control immigration.

The election of even one such voice this year would light the fire.

Nick

Vince Cable is treated by the BBC as an independent financial expert. He's often described as the "man who forsaw" the banking crisis, despite there being almost no evidence for this at all. He made a speech in Nov 2004 stating that he thought the UK economy was too dependent upon consumer debt and over valued property. A view held by pretty much most economists and commentators. Cable admitted in his interview with Andrew Neil that he had never forecast the timing nor scale of the crisis. Furthermore, is it not odd that LibDems are so keen on someone whose professional credentials involve working for Big Oil.

On current economic policy he believes in savage cuts to public spending "but not quite yet, wait until conditions improve." So when then Vince ? What constitutes improved conditions ? What if the economy flat lines, do we just keeping borrowing ?

Nick Clegg was in the Independent earlier this week saying that there needed to be £10bn of cuts now, yet today he says completely the opposite.

Chris Huhne. He has lots of financial expertise. Where was that ? Setting up his own ratings agency, which he sold to Fitch (remaining as vice chairman), an organisation, together with the other ratings agencies, more culpable than most in the causes of the banking crisis. Yet is this ever aired ? Imagine if Osborne had a property portfolio bought on the City proceeds of running a company that gave triple AAA ratings to subprime mortgages, the BBC would never stop going on about it.

toco

As a previous member of the Labour Party the dithering know-all that is Saint Vince('not sure I can remember your question')Cable will be more than happy to return to his alma mater and Nick Clegg will do anything to get his name somewhere.

TrevorsDen

Mr Lindsay - I can save myself from having to read your rambling post simply by picking up on this remark -- "never made themselves dependent on a single donor (as the Tories have now done) " ---- the Tories are not dependent on a single donor, unlike Labour and UNITE - so the rest of your diatribe is likely to be equally rubbish.

Clegg gave a right wing view to the Spectator and a left wing one to the Economist. Two faced does not come into it. Labour do not like the libdems locally because they are a bunch of dissembling cheating so and so's

David Lindsay

Keep telling youself that, TrevorsDen. No one would be making a fuss about Ashcroft if he really were only giving one per cent.

Unite, by contrast, is of course merely a collection mechanism whereby hundreds of thousands of people (masochistic ones, but that's not the issue) make small donations that they are perfectly free not to make, as one fifth of Unite members do not.

Those people neither do nor can avoid tax in this country, still less do they declare a foreign state to be their natural home and then presume to sit in our legislature. They just choose to waste their money, that's all.

Jez

er, How?

These people deserve nothing....

Holly ......

TrevorsDen,
I also stopped reading the Lindsay essay when I got to the 'independent on a single donor'sentence.
This is rubbish,untrue and could be a case of brainwashing by the MSM.
It would seem that people take the words of proven liars above the truth from the horses
mouth,so to speak.
I double check everything the media say with the organ grinder not the monkeys.Then correct people when they repeat the rubbish.

David Lindsay

Keep telling yourself that, Holly.

2trueblue

Nick, I am so delighted to read your post on the lack of evidence re V Cable and the warning of the banking crisis. The BBC and others fawn over him when there is no recoerd of him or the 67 economists who are now warning about rushing into repaying our defecit, saying anything about our problems.

There were a handful of people like R Bootle, G Randall, A Pritchard, and a few others warning that we were in deep water and were ignored. Our friends were sick and tired of us talking about CDOs, etc and told us to take a pill. We got our pension into cash in April 2007 and were lucky. No one wanted to know and still don't.

The Brown/Mandy/Balls/Adonis/Byrne brigade are given massive amounts of airtime and thus people are not informed. That is what is really so wrong as we do have a right to know. There is no fair play in this election run up, it is all about Liebores lies, lies and more lies. A Neil is a rare breed as he does say it how it is. Wish there were more like him.

denverthen

I'll give you this, Lindsay. When you talk utter bo*****, (which is just about all the time), you do stick to your guns. Relentlessly.

Twit.

Gawain

Apparently Clegg gave an hilarious interview to the Economist last week. Ian Martin quotes him as saying:

“I hope there is a coherence now between the yin and yang of credibility and aspiration, realism and idealism, discipline and hope.”

What a wonderful summary this is of the depth of Liberal philosophy. I'm now quite enjoying the prospect of him in government. The news will be a bit like watching an episode of the Telletubbies and much funnier than any of the dull, humourless dross that is currently passed off as comedy.

oldtimer

The essence of Cleggology is kidology. Policy is marked by the flipflops which political commentators, who have the misfortune to attend their political gatherings, assure are the footware of choice for the left wing of the Clegg party.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

Those who might have to hold their nose and vote Tory to remove Brown need a straight answer from Dave to know what LibDem "red lines" will be rejected if their support is needed in a Hung Parliament.

What is the point of voting Tory only to get LibDem wibble? This is the problem of not being able to vote against something without being presumed to be voting for.

stephen

Sorry for posting this again on the CH but it shows Lord Mandy has identified the Lib Dems in the Westcountry as Fellow travellers with the Labour voters there. I am surprised this story has not got national media attention yet. IMHO the worst Lib Dem Fellow Traveller is Vince Cable!
The Western Morning News says as follows:

"LORD Mandelson has made a direct appeal to non-Tory voters in the Westcountry to support the Liberal Democrats in a bid to hold back a Conservative landslide in the region.

The Business Secretary and key architect of Labour election strategy told the Western Morning News that the Lib-Dems "have more in common with Labour than with any other party".

Only Labour could form a government and deliver on Lib-Dem aspirations, he added."

Fergus Pickering

Richard, what you write as 'shiney' is written as 'shiny' among the educated classes. That comprehensive did you no favours, old chap.

Major Plonquer

I think its great. The LIb Dems are the New Tories. The Tories are the New New Labour and New Labour are rapidly becoming the New Tories.

All change.