Cameron's Clause 4 moment

General Zod

"A small minority may even try to rally against Team Cameron" - including your editor?

lids

It is becoming clearer tonight that there is a very strong possibility of a formal coalition agreement that could be in place by monday.
I have the greatest respect for the views of Fraser Nelson and Lord Tebbit, but I believe their assessments are wrong and based on an outdated view of the make-up of the modern "British" electorate. Cameron is playing his hand well, Clegg is doing OK. This could result in a long term coalition or one lasting only a year or so. But if Nelson and Tebbit are prepared to think strategically, we could be seeing the downfall of Labour for a generation. God, I hope so. All the right wing purists should bite their lips do anything to stay silent. The European experiment has been derailed. Let Cameron play it out, he will rapidly win the British people over if he is given the chance.

Bill Rees

It's fairly obvious that a promise of a referendum on proportional representation would clinch the deal with the Lib Dems.
So is it worth doing?
The answer has to be yes, when we think about it seriously.
It seems fairly obvious that the Labour Party will introduce PR when it can, and the one thing we can be sure of is that it will dream up a scheme to disadvantage the Tories forever.
So what Team Cameron should do is pre-empt that decision by dreaming up their own PR scheme that will not disadvantage their own party. And if they do they will get a lot of credit for it when it comes about, and when the first votes are cast under that system.
And, of course, there is always the chance that the electorate will reject it in a referendum.
But I think it's worth doing, so that we can re-align politics in this country on the basis of a centre-right majority, rather than a centre-left majority, which is what we are told we now have.

Neil Turner

Yes, the Tories have changed. But the change you describe makes them look even more like the New Labour Government they aim to replace.

As a Tory voter of over 30 years, I feel sense of foreboding, rather like that that I experienced in 97.

To accomodate Clegg, Cameron will have to become more liberal, more PC, more anti-carbon, more anti-Christian.

TrevorsDen

I do not see the comparison frankly. The decisions being made are necessary for the nation, not some narrow personal advantage which was Blairs moment.

Ideally we would not need an agreement with the LDs. ideally for the Lds they would have gained 25 seats not lost half a dozen.

the reality is where we are and we need to to what is good for the country (and in effect what the country as voted for) - ie a stable govt and action on the debt.

BTW - its typically disingenuous to say that the block of voters who vote lab con and Ld are uniform. They are not. There is no left wing consensus. Many Lab voters went straight over to Cons. There is not necessarily any natural affinity between LD and Lab voters.

Simon Stephenson

Er ... why would those who don't believe in social democracy welcome and support a social democratic party even if it calls itself Conservative? Wouldn't they be more likely either to show their support for another party more in tune with their views, or, if there isn't such a party, not vote at all?

Maybe the Conservatives think they can veer to the left and, by virtue of still being to the right of Labour, continue to hoover up all the votes of the right. If so, they're quite wrong.

Kirsty Richards

Are you out of your mind? Don't underestimate Tory MP's, especially in their current mood. If Cameron tries to engineer a clause 4 moment his feet won't touch the ground. There is one key difference between Tory MP's and Labour ones, Tory MP's won't sacrifice their principles like Labour MP's did. Also Blair delivered a decade plus of unchecked power Cameron has not.

Beer Moth

'That they have changed'?

From what, to what? Just what would you Daniel, deem to be the necessary change?

From Conservative principles, to a party called Conservative which has rescinded those principles?

Some things are not re-brandable. An expensive lesson they've yet to learn.

Fred Blogs

Quite right. Whatever anyone may think of Blair, and Kinnock even, they did have the balls to take on their own backwoodsmen when they were in opposition.

lamebrain

Oh, so now his rebranding didn't go far enough, or deep enough, or lacked sincerity?

You think the average punter was thinking to himself "I refuse to believe the Tories have changed until I see Lord Tebbit in public wearing a pink tutu". Utter cobblers!

Forget Scotland. Remove them from the results and you get a totally different picture. Remove the public sector teat-clingers from the results and that picture comes into sharper focus.

The picture is that the English are entirely comfortable with the Tories. Indeed, there is a case to be made that the nicey-nicey rebranding may ultimately have cost them a majority.

Admit it Korski - you're just a leftie masquerading as a sensible person who won't be happy until the Tories have abandoned all reason and moved to the left of centre. Why you're paid to write this crap by the Spectator is beyond me.

Snowman

The analogy doesn’t cut it, Daniel.

The tanned one had one key thing going for him. The country’s economic engine regenerated by the Tories spending cuts in the early 90s was filling people’s pockets with heaps of money. China with her plentiful reserves of cheap labour began flooding the world with cheap manufactures. Inflation was a forgotten word. The world was reaching for the skies. Add to it the emergence of the real estate bubble early in the decade that allowed the 70% plus of the home owning segment of the population to feel richer by the hour. Until the curtain dropped, it felt so good that the great unwashed laughed off Labour’ spin and deceit, and even chose to brush aside the military adventure in Iraq.

You see the great unwashed feeling like they did in the ten years to 2007, do you?

and another thing: what did dropping the Clause 4 do for the Duffys of the Labour creed, and the country at large within the space of the thirteen years?

David Lindsay

The Conservative Party has been hoovering up Liberals for a very long time: Liberal Unionists, Liberal Imperialists, National Liberals, Margaret Thatcher's father, those around the Institute of Economic Affairs, and before long at least the Cleggite faction of the Lib Dems.

The Conservative Party is itself therefore two parties in one, which would be entirely separate in many other countries, competing hardly at all for the same votes and co-operating hardly at all on any issue of policy. The next few days may very well be the point at which the metropolitan, urban, capitalist, secular, libertarian, make-the-world-anew party finally defeats and banishes the provincial, rural, protectionist, church-based, conservative, mind-our-own-business party; the point at which the Whigs finally defeat and banish the Tories. But in a context of electoral reform, which would suit the Tories down to the ground.

Meanwhile, those Conservative MPs and activists who are asking where their meeting and their triple lock are, did you not know that your party's Constitution ran, "There shall be a Leader, and he shall do what the hell he likes until the Top People who put him where he is tire of him, whereupon he shall be out on his (or, lest we forget, her) ear"? Come off it, Norman Tebbit. When, exactly, would you and Margaret Thatcher have held an all-member ballot?

Bob Cat

Seeing as how Cameron's policies are barely recognisable let alone recognisably Conservative, I don't see how this compromise - if that's what it proves to be - is going to effect matters.

As for it being 'electorally beneficial' - wouldn't it have been more 'beneficial' to fight a campaign that convinced more people to vote Conservative, in the first place ?

Or os that too obvious for you ?

nickp

It is understandable that activists who have worked for years to support the cause they believe in might feel sold out. But Cameron is right. The country needs stable government. Rejecting this opportunity out of ideology is even more dangerous than holding out in the name of idealogical purity.

To Ow

General Zod
"A small minority may even try to rally against Team Cameron".

Because all Cameron delevered was the greatest swing to the Conservative Party ever seen, including in the whole of the 20th Century.

Including the big Maggie in 1979.

Quite a feat. Don't you think?

Michael Ulman

Wasn't Cameron's Clause 4 moment when he decided to do a U-tern to support nationalization. First he opposed the bailout of Northern Rock and then switched to supporting the nationalizing of the rest of the busted banks debts (Halifax, RBS, etc) and saddling the rest of us with the bonus chasers losses,instead of letting them all go to the wall, which if he was a capitalist, market principles would have dictated.
At least Ted Heath got into office first before doing a U-tern.

Fergus Pickering

There's no end of yacking here about Conservative principles. What attracts me to the Conservatives is they don't have principles. I hate principles. People with principles rob you blind. WhatI think Consevatives have is feeings about how things should be, far too shadowy to be called principles, but deeply felt nevertheless. Can you HAVE a principle about the voting system? Or about immigration, come to that? You can have a deep suspicion of foreign things and foreign people. I have that. But it's not a principle. I don't like new ideas either. I prefer old ones. But it's not a principle. It's a feeling.

lids

Cameron won't blow his chance, the Tory party is desperate to get back into power again. What concerns me are the ideologists on the sidelines. Look gentlemen, we are mired in a genuine economic crisis, my pension has gone down the tubes in the last few days and it could be a whole lot worse on monday morning. You chaps ought to wake up and smell the coffee. No more agitation from Fraser please, The Spectator should be leading the dance! We all have a shared aim, remove the socialist clowns from the corridors of power and bring some order to government. This is no time for the narrow minded.

wonderfulforhisage

lids 9:24pm writes:-

'I have the greatest respect for the views of Fraser Nelson and Lord Tebbit, but I believe their assessments are wrong and based on an outdated view of the make-up of the modern "British" electorate.'

And I've got a larder stuffed full of 'outdated' cheese that I've picked up from Tesco, Waitrose etc. for a fraction of the marked price. The funny thing is that when my children come to visit they search through the larder highlighting all the 'outdated' items silently (and sometimes quite noisily) sneering as they do so.

Little do they know the joys of mature cheddar, stilton, brie etc.

'twas ever thus'.

Minnie Ovens

One has to put up with Mr Korski because he reminds one that, no matter how much one might dislike their point of view, the general standard of analysis of The Spectator writers is conscientious, thoughtful and intelligent. Bugger me, I never thought I might say that. Except, of course, for Mr Korski,who is the runt of the litter.
Mr Cameron has absolutely no need to do a deal with anyone.
He has an old Bear holed up in No 10 Downing street who has no respect, no validation and no ideas whatsoever except cling to the door.
The Bear has rejected Mr Clegg in a manner whereby Mr Clegg would pee on him before joining him.
And even if he did have the LibDems he would still be in a position of vulnerability since he can still be outvoted.
Of course, all the Libdems would unanimously follow Mr Clegg. They are so loyal.
Now the Big Beast of The Spectator brings up "Clause 4". There are times when it takes a second or two to comprehend the dimness of certain remarks.
If Mr Cameron makes any concessions to Mr Clegg then I will put it down to the continuing idiocy of Mr Hilton or the lack of any common sense of Mr Letwin. They both have lost about 20 votes for the Conservatives, firstly on immigration (I know the ABC's don't understand but the C2DE's do) and then on Europe.
Any concessions from Mr Cameron will immediately lose him support and it will show him to be, yet again to be the puppet of others, a person who will sacrifice much to become Prime Minister.
The sacrifice, of course, will be all those people who voted for him.
At present,the Prime Ministership of Great Britain is a poisined chalice.
The next six months will, either through internal decree or through the IMF, expose to the voters the absolute dishonesty of their political leaders in discussing the terrifying debt that Mr Brown has incurred.
To leave Mr Brown skulking in Downing Street is much like Macbeth watching the woods.
He deserves it.
Mr Cameron, you have no need to do any deals. If you are really a Europhile and like immigration from outside the UK then do not bother to read further.
But if you are really are a Conservative, and by not appearing to be you lost your majority, then can I suggest you stop listening to hacks who might be intelligent but who ought to get to live in Bolton or Leicester to understand.
As for you Mr Korski, keep trying and keep learning. I'm sure you will improve.
Oh, by the way, I did read your other points but I'd lost interest.

Major Plonquer

Why all this pandering to the losers? The Tories should offer the LibDems something that will actually change politics. PR won't. It will only change the way the circus selects its clowns.

How about Trade Union reform? Forbid Trade Unions from funding political parties and there goes Labour - forever. That's REAL electoral reform.

Labour are playing hardball and are threatening to change the electoral system so it is perpetually in their favour. Turn the tables and starve Labour of the oxygen of union cash. Put them out of business.

The LibDems would then be the only lefty wierdie beardie party and would be happy to comply.

Frank P

Why do idiots keep mouthing the mantra ‘Britain needs a stable government’? It's meaningless. China has a stable government because it has its boot on the neck of its people. Most people last Thursday voted for a conservative government. A stable government, yes, but only inasmuch that it is now expected to clean out the Augean stables, pronto. Some of us who voted for a conservative government doubted that we would get one, even if we put our cross against the Tory candidate. Events are beginning to prove us right. We have achieved only one thing so far: Brown is clearly dead in the water. That is very good and was absolutely necessary. He must now get his ugly carcass out of Downing Street and let Cameron take over. If Cameron is really a conservative (and I still sadly suspect that he may not be) he should first establish power as the leader largest party, albeit without an overall majority, and then negotiate with the Liberals on his own terms. Have a word with your friend at the Palace, Dave (the one who put a word in for you when you were vying for the CP leadership). Brown not only usurped the office in the first place; he is still strutting around like an eminence grise, after being well and truly whupped in the polls: further proof that he is stark staring bonkers, and dangerous. He simply has no logical excuse for remaining in Downing Street, he got there by bullying and blackmailing the pusillanimous pricks in his party, using arcane and impractical party 'rules', without a mandate from the electorate; now he is remaining there using another piece of 'constitutional' gobbledygook (has anybody checked it out?), after a clearly stated rejection by the people in a general election. If that's democracy then it's time we had a military putsch. Get the fuck out Gordon! Your are a L-O-S-E-R!

Clegg also has no right to demand anything, either. His bid for power was rejected out of hand by the electorate, despite the attempts of the lamestream media to turn the whole election process into a game-show. His be-sandaled supporters rabbiting on about PR must be told to foxtrot oscar. I had a fit of hysterical laughter today as he left the Liberal Party HQ after a meeting of some self-appointed bunch of meddlers and struck his Mussolini pose - jaw jutting arrogance despite his party having just finished up with two less seats than in the last parliament. What a pretentious twerp!

If Cameron wants to throw him some crumbs on the promise that his little party will not vote against the Tories for the first two years – fine! Give him an honorary seat in the cabinet to implement some parliamentary reform (i/c expenses should do it). He can prove that he has 'the good of the country at heart' by allowing Cameron to carry out conservative policies forthwith, which is what the majority of voters want. Cameron must fill the Queen's speech with promises of conservative measures, rather than hopeychangey shit. And someone must stick a gigantic dildo in Mandelson's gob and another up his jacksey so that he can pleasure himself to death - in silence,

If what happens then is a legislative defeat as a result of a combination of the outgoing traitors and light-on-their-loofahs-liberals, together with the Celtic mafias, ganging up on him - then so be it! Call another election, canvas this time round on proper and sanguine Tory policies and get an overwhelming majority. If Dave has not got the cojones to do that then he should throw in the towel as leader and let someone who has take over. I'm sick to death of mincing Kuwaiti tankers spouting pretentious rubbish while watching our country go down the plug-hole. Nero was butch and active in comparison to these prats. There is a war on; the economy has crashed, the markets are in turmoil and our debt mountain is Everestian. Why is somebody not advising HM QEII to call Cameron to the Palace, anoint him as PM and tell him to get on with the job he has been elected to do? “She must not interfere in politics” – my arse! With Europe descending into violent chaos, the markets on edge, there is a state of National Emergency here. It's not constitutional red tape and semantics we want, it's good old fashioned Tory government. We voted for one, now give it to us! We are entitled to it.

One of the first things he must do when taking office is the strip out all the Gramsci mechanics from the civil service installed during the last thirteen years by the NuLab crooks. You now have a chance to become Hercules, Davey Boy. Prove you are a Tory. Get cracking! - Preferably on Monday, you can watch the denouement of the EPL tomorrow as a reward for winning the election and witness Chelsea taking the Championship trophy. Now there’s multiculturalism for you! They even have Englishmen in their team, even though some of them do not behave like English gentlemen.

Btw did Paddy Ashdown put you up to this ludicrous piece of shit, Korkscrew?

strapworld

well said, wonderfulforhisage, I am sick and tired of these kids mouthing off with so little experience of life. They know it all do they not?

That the old adage that children should be seen and not heard is very much lacking in these 'modern' times. Lord Tebbitt was a fearless fighter for Democracy at a time when this country was in real danger of the loony left and mad union leaders following a Labour government!!! Times do not change YET what de we have? Boy Cameron who has proved that he aint a leader and he snatched defeat from the jaws of vistory.

For those lefty conservatives, let me repeat, CAMERON LOST!!!

TomTom

This Election is over...the next one awaits..

Roger Davies

It is to the Tory Party's advantage to take over the reigns of power and do everything possible to deny Labour a majority Gov. forever. We have just had 13 years of a FPTP majority Gov. and that was a decisively bad Gov. Remember FPTP provides for good and bad majority Governments.

Gil

I agree with Fergus Pickering about the Tories. If people would read Edmund Burke they would realise that Pragmatism is the way to run a country. All the 'movements' that had 'principles' buggered their respective countries at great cost in blood and treasure.

By the way, to say that Brown should have left yesterday or leave today or tomorrow, is missing the point. He is perfectly correct to stay in office until there is an alternative. Would you have ANOTHER unelected leader in No. 10? He is doing is job and people need to think about the national interest.

PeterH

Dear Lamebrain - "Forget Scotland” well that is Conservative and Unionism for you. What I love about so many of these blog posts is the inherently undemocratic democracy espoused by the Tory right. The current system "favours me so I'm all right jack". I return to a point from one of my earlier postings: It took 34,989 votes to elect a Tory, 33,350 votes to elect a Lab and 119,788 to elect a LD. Hardly representative; hardly democratic.
AMS works in Scotland and indeed has helped resurrect a moribund Tory constituency in that country by giving the conservative voice in Scotland an opportunity to be heard in the Assembly – rather than the FPTP singleton that you have in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale.
Just to labour the point (no pun intended). MSPs are elected on a a mixed member proportional representation system. As a result, 73 MSPs represent individual geographical constituencies elected by the plurality ("first past the post") system, with a further 56 returned from eight additional member regions, each electing seven MSPs. It works, it is proportional, and it is fair.
Wake up guys, the British public do not want strong right wing Conservatism. To be more parochial the English don’t want it either – you only got 39.6% of the popular vote in England as against a national share of 36.1% - not exactly a mandate.

Mister Jabberwock

Well remembering from school how the primary colours (Red, Yellow and Blue) mix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYB_color_model

We now see that Cameron has been absolutely true to his word.

Vote Blue, Go Green!

AndyinBrum

If only Cameron had been elected by his peers and party members after running a leadership campaign instead of being annointed by a back room deal.

lids

Oh well, all these right wing agitators on here are about to get very annoyed. As predicted, we are now very close to a deal including referendum on PR in parallel with the preferred tory option.

Well done Mr Cameron, ignore the sniping from your own side, the snipers only delivered 3 election failures and they would rather you have led a minority govt that would only last a few months. I hope we are heading for a four year deal and I hope Brown rots in hell for what he has done to the country.

PeterH

Blimey – FAO Frank P “calm down dear”. Such vitriol and on a Sunday. Please keep the colourful language for the saloon bar or your regular meeting of the bigot’s club. Your posting is full of cant and is patronising. The majority of the electorate did not vote for the Conservatives or for Conservatism.
However more voters did put their cross in the blue box than any other. QED we have to deal with what we have got. And that is not to allow a reactionary right wing clique to impose narrow, dogma on the majority. Replace Right Wing with Left Wing and isn’t that exactly what you have claimed GB has been doing for the last 13 years?
BTW – given your asinine comments, Clegg is not the “pretentious twerp” – you are.

NR

Unfortunately for Cameron, the time to show his reformer's mettle was before the election.

He won't be able to pull the 'superficial change' trick twice. He's now got nothing to convince the 1922 types to keep quiet so as not to scare the electorate. So he either goes back to the country with 'real Conservatives' (or 'the nasty party', depending on your perspective) in fuller view. Or he actually delivers the substance of reform to match the surface.

Maybe the red-meat brigade have a point and blasting on about immigration, Europe, nanny state, etc. will deliver the extra votes needed. Maybe they don't.

John Shields

I'm afraid that this is a time for the Conservatives to compromise. Labour should most definitely be out of the picture for the Lib Dems, and of course the Lib Dems hold a good hand currently. But though it's definitely not for Clegg stringently to dictate terms, the Lib Dem's vote must be recognised by the Tories. The fact is that whilst Thursday represented a huge step forward for the Conservatives, the country only partly endorsed the Conservative vision. We need to get over ourselves, and sort a deal with the Lib Dems pronto so that the country doesn't punish everyone at Westminster for worrying about a political sideshow (coalition forming and electoral reform) when the economy is the big issue. And if this deal points towards some form of voting reform in good time? Well so be it: whilst the localised nexus of a constituency MP with his constituents MUST be kept at all costs, a political party cannot show itself to be afraid of PR. As Ashdown is saying to Marr on BBC1 as I'm writing this, one of the 'advantages' of FPTP is that it delivers strong government. Well, so much for that one. As it is, I'm afraid that the Lib Dems - a party supported potentially by a quarter of the population, especially when you take into account the 'they're never going to get in' effect - get a rum deal under the current system. As, indeed, do the Conservatives. Time to compromise on this with the Lib Dems to keep Labour out of the picture. Permanently.

Tom Pride

What’s the way to Tipperary?
Oh, I wouldn’t start from here.

Well we are here.

Frank P – I share your frustrations, your concerns about Cameron and many of your aims but:

‘Why is somebody not advising HM QEII to call Cameron to the Palace, anoint him as PM and tell him to get on with the job he has been elected to do?’

Just ain’t going to happen.

‘We have achieved only one thing so far: Brown is clearly dead in the water. That is very good and was absolutely necessary. He must now get his ugly carcass out of Downing Street and let Cameron take over.’

This has not been achieved. He is still in Downing Street and will use the levers of power and his guile to stay there. He has absolutely no intention of going. He has no morals and, as you well know, believes that his statist / collectivist views are so intrinsically morally superior that he may act in anyway necessary to achieve his aims. And he will.

His henchmen and others in the Labour party are doing everything they can to destroy the Conservative / Lib Dems talks – why? Because the only way he can be removed is if those talks succeed.

We may not like this situation. We may wish for something else. But we face the world as it is not as we wish it to be.

Lizzy

I am inclined to agree with Bill Rees over striking the first blow in the PR battle. If Labour get back in they will rig it in their favour again so the Tories need to pre-empt with a tailor made system that will be of their choosing. It is coming so they need to be one step ahead.
There will be benefits to them. For instance I see in Scotland they polled nearly as many votes as the SNP yet have just one seat.
Perhaps there is a case for House of Lords reform with PR and council voting on the same basis and see how that pans out.
These are difficult and dangerous times and pragmatism needs to prevail in order to stop Labour in its tracks.
I feel utter despair at the thought of them taking power again and stitching up the rest of our freedoms and civil liberties simply because a few hard liners in both the Conservatives and the LDs can't see the wood for the trees.

JB

Surely the conservatives have more to gain from electoral reform than anyone. If labour had as many votes as the tories, then they would have a large majority.

Wouldn't they? Or have I misunderstood? Cameron seemed to hint at this in his speech offering a deal to the LD's.

Tom Pride

Adding to my comment above:

‘A Lib/Con coalition is the only route. But….
May 7th, 2010 Posted in Election, UK Politics by Angela Harbutt

http://www.liberal-vision.org/2010/05/07/a-libcon-coalition-is-the-only-route-but/

By now we all know about the Liberal “triple lock” - Nick has to get any coalition deal through his party - and as we speak Labour high command are beavering away to make sure that a Lib/Con deal breaks down. Phonelines are hot as they call senior Liberal MPs and activists to put pressure on Nick NOT to do a Tory deal - using the “Tories wont give you PR , we will” line. How do I know - I had a call from a “mate” from the other side asking me who in my opinion were the big guns on the Federal Executive (oh how I laughed).’

Simon Stephenson

lids : 9.09am and PeterH : 9.37am

I'd guess that you are both fairly young and modernists, because you both follow the 21st Century discussion technique of painting alternative thinkers as loony extremists. Don't you understand that in life there are very few stone-cold certainties, and that in political life there are precisely none? Rational thought is based upon the concept of doubt, and is geared towards seeking most likelihood, not towards establishing certainty. Belittling the opposition by misrepresenting the quality of their argument is a bastardisation of meaningful discussion.

MikeF

The post-Clause 4 Labour Party is more extreme,arrogant,conceited and intolerant than ever it was before. Blair's supposedly courageous confrontation with his party's entrenched 'old guard' and forcing of them to accept 'modernisation' was nothing of the sort. It simply cut them loose from any external benchmark by which the relevance or effectiveness of their policies could be judged. Like everything Blair did it was a con trick. Cameron, in contrast, seems to making a genuine attempt to combine principle with pragmatic acceptance of current polictical reality. There is no comparison between the two situations.

EC

Thinking the unthinkable ....

If Brown resigned then deputy leader HH would become party leader until a leadership contest could be organised. Would Clegg be tempted to get his feet under PM HH's cabinet table?

Would this buy enough time for Tony Blair to stage a 'second coming' in time for an Autumn election? Would straight talkin' sortofaguy, the Original Tone defeat the mewling Clone of Tone? Now that would be an interesting TV debate!

Worry Balls on standby chaps!

Tom Pride

He is currently on Elba; I want him on St. Helena without the cost of a Waterloo.

Willie de Peepul

@lamebrain
10:30pm

"Forget Scotland? Don't be daft; give 'em STV PR, and see how many Conservative seats suddenly reappear.

Just as an experiment, you understand, as was done for the pole tacks (er- sorry, Community Charge.)

Zebra

If I were Cameron/Clegg and, assuming agreement is reached between them today, I would announce tonight the principles agreed and say it was subject to the approval of members. In that scenario, is there any reasonable prospect of either set of members voting it down and then allowing their party to be considered as self-interested and not acting in the best interests of the country etc? In other words, I would bounce my members into it

lids

Simon, you judged me wrong. I share many of the views of the right wing of the Party, I am not particularly young and I don't seek to denigrate the right wing of the Party. Lord Tebbit remains mty political hero! (I also happen to be a pilot..) I believe in Grammar schools, freedom of choice, low taxation ec etc. But cane you believe it? The LibDems are proposing axing NHS spending on management, NO taxation for the first earned 10K, MORE support for schooling and electoral reform which could easily be legislated to the advantage of the Conservative Party. I want Cameron to run the govt for four long years. Labour are running very scared, they are trying everything to derail this deal. We should ALL support DC and take great delight in turning the screw on Labour EVERY day for the next four years.

Call me an aggressive modernist with a hatred for socialism..

Frank P

Tom Pride

Yes, you are right, of course. But note the time of my post. At my time of life if you don't get the dirty water off your chest before you turn in, it chokes you. And time is short; corrupt - nay, evil - and destructive forces have had their hands on our levers of power for the past 13 years. Now ineffectual leaders of twisted and adulterated ideologies are in a series of protracted duels with feather dusters to get their hands on them - God alone knows what other protuberances they are fiddling with while they are are courting for each other's favours; you know what these public schoolboys are like.

Where are the Old Grandee arse-kickers? They surely can't all be dead?

As for you PeterH ...

I assume you are a supporter of the party that came a piss-poor third and is now now vying with the bigger boys for a consolation prize? "All must have prizes" - typical!" And pretensions? If you need to use Latin acronyms such as 'QED', use them correctly. Perhaps 'ergo' would have been more appropriate - but equally pretentious. I also note that you subscribe to the Brown 'bigot' riposte to an argument that exposes the weaknesses of your own. No doubt you would like to see Captain Brown and Private Pike in bed together - so that you can watch; I am old enough to remember when the Liberal Party HQ of Leicester Square was a homosexual brothel and pillow-biting was de rigueur if you wanted to get on - so to speak! (Pardon my French - as you say, it is Sunday). If I was thirty years younger it would be Bloody Sunday, as most of the bastards would be dangling from lamp-posts, having been tried for treason by a hastily convened tribunal of ordinary citizens. O England, my England! And yesterday was VE Day, too. I have so far not seen or heard anybody point out the irony of that. To think that it was all for what we have at this moment that so much blood was shed.

Frank P

EC

Nah! Blair is too busy counting his money.

PeterH

Dear Simon Stephenson. Please re-read my posting in the context of Frank P's original.
Dear Frank P - I have just read your response to my posting. I was going to respond but you are not worth the effort.

lamebrain

Dear PeterH,

I think it entirely reasonable to 'forget' Scotland - they should be allowed to go, unimpeded, full steam ahead into the Marxist/nationalist nirvana they so clearly lust after.

Why they should continue to be allowed to impose their own brand of anti-English hatred on the English taxpayer who keeps the Scottish ship of state afloat is beyond me. (Bizarre that you should use the word 'parochial' - it was Labour that loosened the bonds of the Union, and it has been the Scottish and Welsh who have demonstrated most clearly the desire to be left to their own devices. You can't possibly wield the 'parochial' stick and stand up for PR in the same breath - they are not compatible).

As far as England goes, I refute entirely your assertion that they don't want a rightwing government. Returning to the second point in my original post, if you also 'forget' (don't get hung up on semantics) the public sector or client state, the desire of England for a Conservative government becomes more obvious.

As for PR, if it can even be considered to have been an issue at the GE, then it is entirely clear that it was resoundingly rejected. No one appears to have voted for it. Indeed, the net loss of seats by the LDs might reasonably be attributed to the electorate's fear of weak government at a time of crisis.

Wake up PeterH, the British public (apart from the Celtic fringe) are sick to death of socialist government and everything that that entails.

(And, just in case you were trying to identify some inherent bias in my views, you should know that I am a Scotsman living in England.)

PeterH

Dear lamebrain

My point re Scotland is that the Conservatives have accepted the principle of a more proportionate electoral system through acceptance of AMS in Scotland; and have benefited greatly from it. You have also accepted various other forms of proportionality for other elections. Hence my issue with the Tory hostility to its adoption south of the Border for Westminster - as articulated in the various posting above. Regards PeterH

Simon Stephenson

Dear PeterH,

I have re-read what was written earlier, and I stand by my earlier comment. Your political strategy must consist of ad hominem attacks on your opponents, because in any battle of reason or logic you can do nothing else but lose. Certainly you can argue that politics should embrace factors beyond reason and logic - I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you there - but this does not mean, as most modernists seem to think it means, that reason, logic and reality can be dispensed with entirely.

You wrote:-

"However more voters did put their cross in the blue box than any other. QED we have to deal with what we have got. And that is not to allow a reactionary right wing clique to impose narrow, dogma on the majority."

There is only one group of people who are admitting the hard economic reality of what has to come in terms of rebuilding our economy on a sustainable basis, and that is the people you describe as a "reactionary right-wing clique". Everyone else is living in fairyland about this, so excuse me if I am dubious, too, about the intellectual credentials of all the other mass-popularity measures that they are proposing.

PeterH

Dear Simon Stephenson

My original posting in response to Frank was in response to his use of lets call it colourful language to describe his political opponents. I only replied in kind.
I am more than happy to have a reasoned debate on issues - and it is evident that on many of the substantive issues in this thread there is no agreement between us, so be it.

However colourful language such as "pusillanimous pricks" and "Get the fuck out Gordon!" as used by Frank do nothing to move the debate on. They are a rant and should be treated as such. His later posts only served to confirm this view. Regards Peter H