Ashley skated over the boundary review as an argument against an early election. My guess is that the pressure for it will intensify, for the reasons she gives, particularly in the Tory press. Which Tory press cheerleader is going to argue against an early election?

I came to a similar conclusion to Sunny, that an early election is unlikely as it is not in either Coalition partner’s interests:

http://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2011/04/not-yet-time-for-pfj-moment.html

Great post Sunny. This is why you NEVER do deals with brown shirts. Clegg is a very stupid man if he thought the brown shirts would play nice over the AV campaign. What is worse is that he tasted their Goebbels propaganda during the election. After the first debate when the Lie Dems shot up to 30% the brown shirts did their usual character assassination ,and low and behold the Lie Dems support collapsed in a heap. Yet he still entered into a coalition with these vipers.

He could have let the brown shirts swing in the breeze, promising to co-operate on an issue by issue basis. Smoking out all the brown shirts lies from the election But silly Nick was blinded by office and now he is up a gum tree. Brownshirts never play nice with maters of power. The believe they have a divine right to rule, and that all power should rest in their hands. That is why you never, never do deals with them. You never help them, and when you have the chance you bury them.

I thought the Parliamentary term had been fixed at 5 years for this very reason – to prevent either party in the Coalition from being tempted to unpick it. So that without a change in the law we can’t have an election anyway?

Wouldn’t enthusiasm for an early election, in all camps, rely hugely on whether or not AV is chosen at the referendum? If it does, I imagine both the Tories and Labour would either want to get an election in ASAP before it passes into law, or to stretch things out as long as possible to reconsider their strategies – certainly an early election under AV would suit neither of them.

[5] CG, if you think AV has a chance you can take some money off the bookies.

Lib Dems and Tories have very public fall out to create illusion of distance shocker.

An election isn’t likely because it isn’t in the interests of any party at the moment. Not just Lib Dems or the Conservatives. They all need cash to fight an election and only the Tories are anywhere near it- besides the coalition are doing a blinding job of doing everything Labour would have done- and need to be let get on with it for a bit- so that Labour don’t have to do it when they get in.

Next stage in saga- when election seems imminent- a bit of a power struggle in the Lib Dems- Lib Dems running round like headless chickens screaming ‘the mean old tories made me do it’- dispatch Clegg- and just in case Labour can’t win outright(unlikely)- a ‘progressive’ coalition?

Luckily by that time we will have blue labour, so all parties will be able to fully agree that that women, mothers, carers, the ill, the disabled, the unemployed don’t come under the taxpayer bracket who are entitled to be represented by parliament.

Only real mystery is who you will be chugging us to vote for. Who will be ‘Liberal Conspiracy’s’ party of the left? The tories? Labour? Lib Dems? Can’t wait to find out.

Lesson from history…Whenever Liberals/Lib Dems get into bed with the Tories. It ends in disaster for them.

Last time the Liberals got into bed with the Tories, was the coalition during World War I under David Lloyd George. Unfortunately he split the Liberals down the middle into effectively two seperate parties. When for his own vanity he decided to continue the coalition after the war had ended. Half the party went along with this and the other half didn’t and stood against the coalition. The turmoil and backbiting that ensued during the 1920s ensured that Labour overtook the Liberals as the main opposition to the Tories.

The Liberals got their act together by the end of the 20s and started to recover.. However then they spit again in the 30s, with some of them deciding to join the Conservative dominated National Government. And others choosing to stay out.

The Liberals didn’t even start to recover from all this until the 1960s.

Despite Chris Huhne’s best efforts? I must have missed something apart from useless, ignorant wittering.

The metaphor you’re looking for is lying with a dog and getting flees. Or fees, in this instance (ho, ho).

The metaphor you’re looking for is lying with a dog and getting flees

That’s there too. but I’m pretty sure lying down with a snake and getting bit is also one

@OP, Sunny: “They’ve also called each other ‘liars’ at the highest level…”

Not quite. The highest level would be within the Commons chamber and would be outside the rules of debate. The coalition agreement permits the two parties to belt ding dongs out of one another outside of parliament and requires them to support specific agreed policies within it.

Thus what we see is exactly what the agreement conferred on the two parties. It is remarkably similar to how broad church Labour and Conservative parties conducted themselves when in majority government. Whatever a Labour or Conservative government decided would never suffice the ultras of their own party and whenever something completely bonkers came up, there was a revolution by the moderates.

The significant difference is that in ten days or so the coalition parties will be fighting elections in opposition to one another, defending or attempting to create coalitions with other partners. And there’s that fascinating parliamentary by-election in Leicester South.

Even if the AV referendum is lost on May 5th, electoral politics will never be the same again.

@ 8:

“Lesson from history…Whenever Liberals/Lib Dems get into bed with the Tories. It ends in disaster for them. “

Well, it’s only happened once before, so I think you’re probably reading too much from it.

Womble & Sunny @ 10, 11

I would suggest that ‘getting fleas’ implies that you become infected by accident. The fleas are on the dog, but not through the choice of the dog. Laying down with a snake is more accurate because snakes are far better metaphors for the Tories, but it also implies that the snake is just doing what it does naturally and that if you are going to lie with a snake, you surely must accept that the snake is not to be trusted.

However, perhaps an even better metaphor is the frog?

One day a scorpion wanted to cross the river. He came across a frog and asked if the frog would carry him across the river on his back.
‘But you are a scorpion’, said the frog, ‘you will sting me’.
‘If I sting you then we will both drown’, replied the scorpion, ‘I will hardly sting you if I know I will drown’.
‘Hmm’, that make sense’, so the from agreed. ‘Jump on’, said the frog and as the scorpion jumped on, the frog swam across the river.
The frog got exactly halfway across the river, when the inevitable happened and the scorpion did indeed stab the frog with his poisonous tail.
Before the poison took hold of the frog, he managed to rasp out one question.
‘Why? Why have you stung me? Now we will both drown’ the frog croaked.
‘Why?’ replied the scorpion, ‘isn’t it obvious why I stung you?’
‘I am a scorpion’

The Tories were always going to betray the Lib Dems, from day one. Not because they are especially cynical, but because betrayal is in their collective DNA. Not them all, of course, but collectively they simply cannot help it. I am pretty sure that at a personal level there are good personal friendships within both parties and I am sure that there are friendships (and more) across all political lines, but at a ‘Party’ level, I am afraid the Tory Party are simply not to be trusted.

Once the greater movement of the Right get their teeth into an issue, they will stop at nothing in winning the propaganda battle. They lie. They lie on every subject because they are ideological fanatics. They lie about unemployment, incapacity benefit, asylum, immigration, Global Warming, the NHS, education and everything else. It is no secret that the Tories are opposed to AV and once that was the case they unleashed the dogs of war. The synchronised lying started within the press and those lies have been backed up ministers sort of saying the same thing.

So now the AV campaign has been brought down to a farce. Like every other political battle we have one side telling us the benefits (as they see it) of the case and the Tory side telling us whatever they think is necessary to scupper the vote. The ‘best’ thing being of course the hard core Tory vote will stay on target no matter what, the political mud slinging tends to favour them, whilst the general public will get bored with the ‘punch and judy’ stuff and stop reading about the merits or otherwise of the case.

We have seen these cunts poison every single debate with lies. From Europe, unemployment, asylum, immigration, Global Warming et al. The ironic thing is it is these very ‘people’ who demand ‘an honest debate’ regarding any of the above. Yes, after you have had ‘Europe forces fishermen to wear hairnets’ for twenty years, you suddenly want an honest debate about the EU.

After all is said and done, the Lib Dems have managed to get into bed with these people and have therefore cut off any room to manoeuvre with regard to the coalition. They are currently balls deep in a quagmire of their own making and a snap election will push them into electoral oblivion, they have been railroaded into ‘believing’ that the Tories are acting in the ‘National Interest’.

A bit like when someone pretends that their new partner is not flirting (or more) with an ex. You know that if you push it, then you risk catching them in acts that that will force you to take destructive action.

I believe Simon Hughes has spotted the Tory machine has began squirting shite into the AV debate, no doubt many Tories have pretended not to notice, but how many times does your sister tell you that she has ‘walked into a door’, before you speak to your brother in law?

@13 XXX: “Well, it’s only happened once before, so I think you’re probably reading too much from it.”

Thanks for that reminder. Graham also forgets that British (and Irish) politics were revolutionary during the period. No heads were chopped off but Lloyd George, Asquith and Churchill were a new breed of Liberals before World War I.

There is no agreement amongst historians for the decline of the Liberal Party. Some attribute it to military conscription, others (eg Dangerfield) to a loss of purpose and identity that provided an opportunity for the Labour Party. Foolish political alliances and inter squabbling were not the cause of Liberal decline, just symptoms.

15
Also the conservatives became liberals towards the end of the nineteenth century when it was clear that the landed classes were in decline.
Thatcher constantly made reference to the liberal writers of the nineteenth century not least Smith, (l8th), the cons and the libs are actually the same species, 2010 just saw them reunited.

@15: “There is no agreement amongst historians for the decline of the Liberal Party.”

The issues are certainly complex. For the 1929 election, the Liberal Party was advocating a keynesian policy of public works spending to create jobs but that was evidently regarded as too unorthodox at the time – the Treasury was saying that additional public works spending would crowd out equivalent private spending and that view prevailed. At the election, the Liberals regained some seats but Labour emerged as the largest party in Parliament for the first, albeit without a majority:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1929

A minority Labour government with Ramsay Macdonald as PM struggled on until 1931 without achieving much and than collapsed in disagreement over welfare cuts so there was another election in 1931 at which the Conservatives emerged with a majority of the votes cast – a “National Government” was formed, initially with Macdonald as PM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1931

The Conservatives won the next election in November 1935 – on rearmament – with a landslide as George Lansbury, by then Labour leader, was a declared pacifist. For reasons I don’t begin to comprehend, Lloyd George, who had already long retired as Liberal leader, came to be an admirer of Hitler. He went on a visit to Germany in August 1936 to meet with Herr Hitler – here is a video clip of that meeting:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ApfE3Wjxg

On his return to Britain, Lloyd George wrote an article for the Daily Express on 17 November 1936:

“I have just returned from a visit to Germany. In so short time one can only form impressions or at least check impressions which years of distant observation through the telescope of the Press and constant inquiry from those who have seen things at a closer range had already made on one’s mind. I have now seen the famous German Leader and also something of the great change he has effected. Whatever one may think of his methods – and they are certainly not those of a parliamentary country – there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvellous transformation in the spirit of the people, in their attitude towards each other, and in their social and economic outlook. . .

“What Hitler said at Nuremberg is true. The Germans will resist to the death every invader at their own country, but they have no longer the desire themselves to invade any other land. . .

“The establishment of a German hegemony in Europe which was the aim and dream of the old pre-war militarism, is not even on the horizon of Nazism. …”
http://www.icons-multimedia.com/ClientsArea/HoH/LIBARC/ARCHIVE/Chapters/Stabiliz/Foreign/LloydGeo.html

The impression I get is the Conservatives quite enjoy humiliating the LibDem part of the Coalition as a sop to the activists. The Conservative cabinet is not as reactionary as the Conservative core vote so being in coalition helps to appease criticism for not enacting some of the loonier ideas of the base. We can’t do X Y Z because of the LibDems is a convenient excuse. Moreover, they can’t believe their luck that most of the flak towards the Coalition ends up on the LibDems.

I don’t think the Tory element in the Conservative party have much influence now and are certainly not dominant. I hate to think about these things on a left right axis but the elected Conservative party are probably closer to being a right-wing liberal party nowadays. I think the liberal part of the LibDems have discovered being part of the Coalition that they are still personally quite a distance away from even a right-wing liberal Conservative party. The social democrat part always knew that. I can only see further tensions in the future.

@15,17

Very true. But factional infighting also played a big part in their decline. During World War I.the two leading lights of the Liberal Party in the early 20th century David Lloyd George and Herbert Asquith had a big falling out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Asquith

And after the war had ended, Asquith led a breakaway “Independent Liberal” faction which opposed the continuation of the wartime Conservative/Liberal coalition led by Lloyd George. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Liberal_Party_(UK,_1918)

At the 1918 general election, the pro and anti coalition Liberals stood against each other and split the Liberal vote down the middle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1918

The turmoil in the Liberal party lasted until mid-1920s when the two factions were reunited following the downfall of the coalition and Asquith’s retirement from politics.

However by that stage the damage had been done and the Labour Party co-opted most of the Liberals support.

Anyway that was a nice diversion into history.

Poor old Lib Dems are in a quandry aren’t they? They really need this referendum result to be YES or else the world is going to look very different come 6th May.

I thought Huhnes outburst was mainly him signalling that he is going to challenge Clegg for the leadership.
Tim Farron must be spitting feathers as presumably he was waiting till may 6th.

@19: “Anyway that was a nice diversion into history”

And then there was Jeremy Thorpe, Liberal leader 1967-76
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Thorpe

Jesus Sally, will you please get a sense of perspective. And stop using the phrase “Brown Shirts” it’s counterproductive and undermines the gravity of genuinely fascistic actions. In comparison:

– Tories – pursuing an economic programme which may well ruin the country, and might undermine state support for vulnerable people within society

– Brownshirts – beating Jews to death in the street, street fighting with communists, burning down Jewish shops. A collection of vicious paramilitary thugs.

So you would NEVER do any sort of deal with a legitimate democratically elected political organisation? One which possesses the same share of the vote as the last Labour government.

Fair enough you may disagree with the tories and their policies, but don’t dress them up as Captain Hook in your ridiculous pantomime vision of politics.

Ed troll.

Don’t tell me what I can and can’t say. You never do deals with tories because they will always screw you over. Because they want no deals with anyone long term. They don’t like power going any ware but in their hands. They are brownsirts, and they are anti democratic. The only thing they care about is power.

For 150 years they had no problem with the house of Lords being a tory second chamber , slowing down and frustrating labour govts. Yet when Blair got rid of the tory majority they squealed like the fascist pigs they are.

But this is not about fascist brown shirt tories. It is about the idiocy and stupidity of Clegg and his stupid decision to go into govt with brown shirts who are now screwing him over like they always do. Clegg did not learn from the election campaign where they destroyed him , yet he ran and did a deal with the very people who tried to finish him off. His is a week , feeble , dishonest and very stupid man, who is now getting what he deserves. .

Reading folk can still mull over to savour JM Keynes’s pen-sketch of Lloyd George, the last Liberal PM of Britain:

“How can I convey any just impression of this extraordinary figure of our time, this siren, this goat-footed bard, this half-human visitor to our age from the hag-ridden magic and enchanted woods of Celtic antiquity?….that flavour of purposelessness, inner irresponsibility, existence outside or away from our Saxon good and evil, mixed with cunning, remorselessness, love of power.” [Essays in Biography (1933)]

@24 sally

One can understand (if not sympathise) with the Tory stance vis a vis The Lords and opposition to reform (the clue is in the party name…); what is rather harder to understand is why Labour governments signally failed to abolish/reform the Lords over decades, why New Labour in particular didn’t do the job properly in 1997, and why a party which purports to represent “labour” did so much to condemn us not only to theis odious colaition, but to a dire economic melt down they helped to make worse.

Obviously a case wishful thinking from Ashley. Reminiscent of Toynbee’s predictions the great ‘clunking fist’ was going to obliterate Cameron. Funny how the guardianistas never mention their support for Clegg during the election.

Its possibly the same for Montgomerie, who hates the Liberals and is still pissed the Conservatives didn’t win an overall majority.

The current Lib Dem anger spasms are a result of opinion polling on AV. They think AV will win them another 30 or so seats so they are lashing out in desperation.

The game hasn’t changed though. The two sides are locked in and the coalition will continue to the next election.

3. sally

Who are the brown shirts you refer to?

The Sturmabteilung (SA) were the paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party.

@26: “what is rather harder to understand is why Labour governments signally failed to abolish/reform the Lords over decades”

Contrary to popular mythology, the House of Lords has litttle constitutional power in consequence of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1948. In international comparisons by academics, the Lords rates as a very weak second chamber compared with, for example, the US Senate or the German Bundesrat.

The Lords can’t debate finance bills and can only delay other government legislation for a year – except for a bill to extend the life of the Commons beyond the present maximum of five years where its approval is required.

The value of the Lords is as a revising and deliberating chamber. The cross-benches include many experts from experience gained through their previous careers.

Governments of all colours routinely use the Lords to revise bills as the result of second thoughts and lobbying as well as informed opinion from peers. A regular function of the Lords is to scrutinise the continual stream of EU legislation which the Commons has insufficient time or inclination to do.

I doubt the valuable cross-benches will survive the conversion of the Lords into a “democratically elected” chamber. Doubtless, myopic politicians might welcome that. Besides, the Labour party is struggling with existing election debt and will be hard pressed to finance election campaigns for an elected house of Lords – which is the most likely explanation for the declared intent of the Conservatives to transform the Lords into an elected chamber.

The Lords was made a convenient scapegoat over the legislation to ban hunting with dogs – on which Parliament spent more than 700 hours. Whenever Blair wanted to divert public attention from some mess his government was in, the bill to ban hunting with dogs would get wheeled out and a row with the Lords would get stoked up.

@29 Bob

The fact that the upper chamber here was an archaic, ineffectual nonsense only goes to reinforce the fact that Labour should have done something about it long before Blair’s feckless tinkering. There are many ways to skin a cat, so I’m less concerned about the minutiae of how the second chamber is eventually reformed, than to see it is done, and that it provides the kind of effective oversight, revision and challenge required, whilst cutting back the ridiculous size and medieval fripperies that hold it back.

We deserve better.

@30: “The fact that the upper chamber here was an archaic, ineffectual nonsense only goes to reinforce the fact that Labour should have done something about it long before Blair’s feckless tinkering.”

The Lords does a job. Many second thought amendments to government legislation are moved in the Lords and nodded through – sometimes, a few aren’t. The Lords has much hugely experienced, expert opinion on the cross-benches.

We need to give careful thought as to how the upper chamber is to be revised. We could easily end up with something far most costly to run, more partisan and much less useful.

It has been suggested that a reformed Lords could be elected by PR – which is curious, given that we are also being told AV – which is much simpler as an electoral system than PR – will be prohibitively expensive compared with FPTP. Besides, why go to all that trouble if the Lords keeps only the weak constitutional powers it presently has? If the Lords is elected by PR, it will be able to claim to be more representative than the Commons – and that could prove embarrassing.

Reform the Lords ! may be a popular political battlecry but I don’t believe much reflection has gone into how or whether the end result would be worse than current arrangements. For starters, it’s very clear to me that few actually understand just how weak the powers of the Lords really are – mostly because they know little about the intricacies and realities of Britain’s constitution.

@31

It has been suggested that a reformed Lords could be elected by PR – which is curious, given that we are also being told AV – which is much simpler as an electoral system than PR – will be prohibitively expensive compared with FPTP. Besides, why go to all that trouble if the Lords keeps only the weak constitutional powers it presently has? If the Lords is elected by PR, it will be able to claim to be more representative than the Commons – and that could prove embarrassing.

I think Billy Bragg came up with an idea that the second chamber. Rather than having a separate election. Would instead be made up proportianally from a list depending on the shares of votes the parties get at general elections. An interesting idea.

@Jim 14

I suspect that no-one a year ago could have know that the present government would turn out to be the most extreme right wing government possibly ever in British history. Even surpassing Thatcher.

David Cameron gave every impression of being quite a moderate conservative. And at first. I along with a lot of people were relatively ok about the coalition. Thinking that the Lib Dems would be a moderating influence and we would end up with a fairly centrist government. That was probably what Clegg and a lot of Lib Dems thought they were getting into.

Boy how wrong that idea was..

Instead they find themselves chained to a bunch of of lunatics bent on completing Mrs T’s unfinished business, destroying the welfare state and NHS.

How long the Lib Dems can stay part of this without destroying themselves is anyone’s guess. If I was advising them, I’d say if they want to retain any shred of dignity or integrity they should pull out of the coalition early. And that way, whatever the short term cost, they could at least claim some credit and integrity. Staying locked to these lunatics for another four years is likely to rip the Lib Dems to shreds. Possibly returning them to 1950s levels of support for a generation.

@32: “Would instead be made up proportianally from a list depending on the shares of votes the parties get at general elections. An interesting idea.”

That would give central party organisations total control over the official candidates and the order in which they are selected. Independently-minded members of the three main parties as well as independent candidates wouldn’t stand much of a chance. Even so, a House of Lords elected that way could – with some justification – claim to be more representative of public opinion than the Commons.

That could lead to embarrassing difficulties when governments have small (or no) overall majorities in the Commons and in situations like that in February 1974 (or October 1951) when the party winning the most seats in the Commons has attracted fewer total votes in the election than the main opposition party.

There is still the issue of what powers and functions would the new elected House of Lords have? That issue is usually evaded but why bother to reform the Lords when its existing constitutional powers are so weak compared with many of its peer chambers in other countries.

Graham @ 32

The trouble is everyone knew what the Tories were intending to do. They are STILL Tories, when all is said and done. David Cameron may act like the acceptable face of the modern Tory Party. He might nod his head at the right places and appear to have a conscience. How much of that is genuine and how much of that is fakery, we may never know, but I do know this, however ‘decent’ the man is, he is STILL a Tory and he is still in thrall to some of the most vilest scum in the Country. He has still to pander to he prejudices of some of the most bigoted people in Europe and he has to at least shape some policy to appease these people. I make no apology for drawing parallels between the rhetoric of the modern Tory Party and the Nazi Party circa 1930 Germany. No-one in the Tory Party have advocated concentration camps, and I do not see Nazi ideology in every policy of course.

However, I find the language used towards many of the Country’s most vulnerable to be absolutely as repellent as the type of things that were being said last Century by Nazis. No, I am not saying that everything advocated by the Tories is a straightforward lift from Nazi ideology, but rather some of the language is. When I hear people including the sick, unemployed and even public sector workers described as ‘workshy’, ‘parasites’, and ‘drains on society’ etc, I genuinely wonder what is happening to our Country. That is not hyperbole on my part, I seriously wonder at the tone of the headlines in our newspapers when the unemployed and incapacity benefit claimants are described and the type of society that fosters such filth from our major newspapers.

As I said. Like it or not, Cameron requires the support of these papers and uses language and advocates polices to appease them Which means he can be trusted about as far as you could spit him.

For comparison, readers here may be interested to see the basic 25-point programme of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP).
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm

It was publicly proclaim by Hitler in Munich on 24 February 1920 and never subsequently amended – presumably on the grounds that any later amendments might convey an (unacceptable) impression that the Führer was capable of making mistakes or being insufficiently prescient.

Jim……… ” he is STILL a Tory and he is still in thrall to some of the most vilest scum in the Country. He has still to pander to he prejudices of some of the most bigoted people in Europe and he has to at least shape some policy to appease these people. I make no apology for drawing parallels between the rhetoric of the modern Tory Party and the Nazi Party circa 1930 Germany.”

Well said Jim. Clegg tried to tame the beast. He thought the beast would play nice with him. Silly little man.

“”I make no apology for drawing parallels between the rhetoric of the modern Tory Party and the Nazi Party circa 1930 Germany.”””

Then you’re a fucking, insulting, idiot!

Just like when Muslims (more and more power, more and more say over others, more and more mosques, more and more numbers) say that they are treated in the UK like the Jews (ironic given the increase in anti-Simetic attacks carried out BY Muslims) were in Nazi Germany (yeah under Hitler Jews grew in number, influence and places of worship and of course strapped bombs to themselves to cause trouble. Yeah…sure) you insult this country, you belittle those that died fighting The Nazis and you make light of the entire Nazi set-up.

You’re a bunch of cowardly, traitorous, cretins and should be disgusted in yourselves( if you had any kind of moral framework that is).

As I keep pointing out, the Nazis were highly authoritarian and psychopathically antisemetic but their economic policies were leftist – large scale public works programmes to create jobs in times of high unemployment, a highly regulated economy with import restrictions and exchange controls, public ownership of big corporations, strong on pensions for German citizens – but excluding jews, and profit sharing. VolksWagen was set up as a state-owned venture to make a people’s car. Of course, they were also into the master race stuff, enslaving Slavs and acquiring lebensraum in eastern Europe but I can’t detect a lot of similarity between all that and Britain’s Conservative Party – on the evidence.

“Then you’re a fucking, insulting, idiot!”

Nobody gives a fig what you think troll. Go back to Conservative home with all the other brownshirts.

@ Jim 34

I’m not disagreeing with you. I was just saying I can understand what the Lib Dems thought they were getting into. They probably thought they could tame the wild beast and bring a moderate counterbalance to the wild eyed tory activists. Clearly, events have proved this view to have been gravely mistaken. But that wasn’t something they could have known a year ago.

This isn’t a mistake the Lib Dems are likely to make again in a hurry. I think the lesson to draw from this episode is that the Tories are toxic. And no centre-left party should touch them with a bargepole.

I suspect that the coalition will come under severe strain over the next year or so. I don’t think the lib Dems can survive if they stay in it for more than about another year. At least by getting out early they can retain some self respect and dignity. Something they will be stripped of by staying in.

Bob B @ 38

I would agree with you that the Nazi Party did embark on a ‘fairly left wing’ economic policy, but if you were being honest, the Nazi Parties are not remembered for their shipbuilding.

Let us be honest with each other. I am not suggesting that everything I disagree with is therefore Nazi ideology. No, closing libraries is not specifically Nazi ideology, nor are speed cameras, collecting rubbish or on the spot fines for dog fouling. In fact, I would go so far as to say that even collecting a census is not Nazi ideology either. I cannot see that if you want gas chambers, first you need to collect everyone’s address. I think we can agree that tuition fees are not a step away from Gas chambers either.

However, when people within the middle and lower ranks of a given Party and those in popular columns in the newspapers that openly support that Party are describing normal people with debilitating illnesses, mental health issues or handicapped as ‘drains on society’ or when human being appear to be compared to ‘baby machines’ or ‘pumping out babies for cash’. Does that draw comparisons with the eugenics of the Nazi era? I have to say, Bob, I think it does. I don’t particularly care about the Party name or their political allegiance, show me someone who is using dehumanising rhetoric and I will show someone who is being extremely careless, to say the least.

I have to say, I find many of the comments I read regarding, perhaps the most vulnerable in our society, being co-opted in to compulsory ‘work programmes’ sit side by side with the Nazi Party. Okay, I am not saying that the people are treated as badly as the Slavs, but for me at least, I find the concept that someone sees a wheelchair bound person merely as an opportunity to squeeze a bit of profit out of as unnerving.

Again, I am not drawing an exact comparison between Volkswagen and the various groups around the Country making money on work placements, but the difference is one of degree, not principle.