Who would you like to lead this Lib/Lab coalition?

Presumably not Broon?

Good god no.

In a coalition you cannot pick which of their policies that are adopted, they choose. They may choose their Trident policy, but what else?

In his 2005 interview with the Indy Clegg said:

“One very, very important point – I think breaking up the NHS is exactly what you do need to do to make it a more responsive service.” Then he goes further, even refusing to rule out the insurance-based models used in mainland Europe and Canada.

In my opinion that one statement rules Clegg out of any chance of getting his hands on the NHS. It is exactly the same as Cameron’s. Sorry, but the break up of the NHS under a Labour administration (even one under duress) is too much to endure. The policy would break the country, and Labour would be complicit. If Cameron gets into Number 10 (and I sincerely hope he doesn’t) then he would have the same sentiment as Clegg and break up the NHS, but, and this is important, voters will look to the Labour party to put the NHS back together again, just as they did in 1997. If Labour goes into coalition with Clegg then there will never be a chance to rebuild the NHS because never again would voters trust Labour with it.

No, we do not need a coalition with Clegg, it would be the worst thing possible.

@2: “No, we do not need a coalition with Clegg, it would be the worst thing possible.”

So a Conservative coalition government with the Scottish and Welsh nationalists and the Ulster Unionists in support would be a better option even when that meant the incidence of forthcoming spending cuts would therefore fall disproportionately on English voters?

I think we should know in good time for the election on 6 May as it might well affect the voting in English constituencies. Btw I doubt English voters would quickly forget that betrayal.

Let’s hope that tactical voting makes a welcome return. Hold you nose if you must, but when you cast your vote make sure the Tories don’t get it.

The biggest problem for the Labour Party, both in terms of winning votes from the left, winning back voters from the Lib Dems or even forming a parliamentary alliance with them is that 13 years of autocratic government (and several years of strict internal party government before that) have turned the party from a big tent of varying political ideals into a intellectually monolithic bloc. There is dissent and disatisfaction, but it isn’t ideological or even political, but largely the result of personalities. A national movement has been reduced to an unruly social club for ‘reformed’ socialists.

Why would anyone who described themselves as liberal want to be involved with that?

[2] The break-up of the NHS – and indeed the benefits system, too – is inevitable.

This is because of demography. We have an ageing population which, to put it crudely, we cannot afford to care for. Hence the debate about the “death tax” – to give just one example.

The “solutions” that are put forward will make things worse. For example, “workfare” will simply destroy jobs – why should anyone pay wages to an unskilled (or even semi-skilled) worker when they can get someone from the Labour Exchange to do the work for nothing?

Apart from high-skilled work which requires face-to-face contact – of which, ironically, a surgeon is perhaps the locus classicus – there are, outside of the financial services sector, almost no forms of employment in which it makes sound commercial sense to employ Brits. That anyone still does is simply a measure of inefficiency – what economists call “stickiness”.

To suppose that a country in this demographic and economic pickle can afford to promise its citizens that they will only die of old age – or a disease medicine can’t yet cure, or by a so-called “Act of God” – as has pretty much been the case for the last generation or two, is to live in la-la land.

The classic left response to this kind of situation used to be to call for a “siege economy”. There will presumably be some point during the free-fall of our living standards during the next decade or so when this will once again start to look attractive.

Hi Sunny.

I see your quandry. As a Plaid member, you can imagine the slight nerves in reading the FT story today, but ultimately any party discussing in a hung parliament situation will have to be grown up about it.

My one goal outside of Plaid’s aims is PR at Westminster. It might seem crazy to make that a precondition with the economy like it is, but I genuinely believe it will force the Westminster bubble to grow up. It will mean that plural politics and tribalism is at least put on a back burner when forming a government is concerned.

I find it crazy that despite Welsh and Scottish Labour previously being in coalition Government with the Lib Dems and Labour in coalition with Plaid in Wales, that you still have Ed Balls dismissing them as weak. That tribalism may mean Carwyn Jones is the highest ranking Labour politician come May 7th.

In a more dispersed electorate, people simply don’t put all their ideological eggs in one basket. Critics say coalitions are ‘backroom deals’, but that is politics and life. We all have to compromise, sometimes for the greater good. In a PR system, people are more than capable to understand coalitions and the agreed programmes of Government.

In Wales, the ‘One Wales Programme’ is for the four year period. So by and large the public, business and the markets know the Government’s plans for four years. How would such a programme in Westminster would somehow scare the markets is never explained? A coalition government agreeing a parliament long programme of Government is surely far more stable than a single party with a small majority who seem to offer policy according to the media wind?

The problem isn’t only that they, not you, get to pick their policies as Richard Blogger says, but that it is our Labour Leaders not us who might get a veto. The danger with all coalition building, and the problem with electoral systems that make them a permanent feature of government-formation, is that the deals are done in private; no transparency, no accountability. Except that we have already seen Gordon Brown on television veto some of the very policies that you and I would pick from the Lib Dem list. And we know that the Blairites would veto still more.

I’m not against building coalitions. You can’t be serious about politics unless you do. A coalition is delivering good socialist policies in Wales. The Lab-Lib coalition in Scotland was less impressive, but still much better than Blair. The Lib-Lab coalition you seek for Britain, however, is likely to be a very different affair, and, if it happens, we shall all find ourselves opposing its cuts and its layoffs of public sector workers providing vital public services.

@5: “Why would anyone who described themselves as liberal want to be involved with that?”

Because of the alternative?

The danger with all coalition building, and the problem with electoral systems that make them a permanent feature of government-formation, is that the deals are done in private; no transparency, no accountability.

I’m puzzled by such claims.

What ‘deals’ might be done in such a future that would be any less transparent or lacking in accountability than the same types of deals today?

The fact is that some west European countries – such as Germany and the Netherlands – often have coalition governments without having to endure continual or even frequent political and economic crises in consequence.

As I have no special tribal affection for Blair and New Labour, it is perhaps worth recalling that our present fiscal predicament is the result of strong leadership in Parliaments where the governing party had secure majorities. Evidently, strong government doesn’t in practice guarantee much comfort.

There is much in the news on Wednesday about Greece’s economic crisis, the downgrading of Greek government bonds to junk status and the urgency of the Greek government’s need to borrow substantial sums in the near future to pay off tranches of existing debt due to mature in May.

The Greek government’s credibility has been weakened by the extent of popular protests there against public spending cuts and in favour of defaulting on repayment of maturing bonds largely held by external European banks.

Predictably, with the election campaign in Britain in full spate, some have drawn parallels between Greece and Britain but see this independent assessment of sustainability of public debt for many relatively affluent countries, including Britain:

Public debt sustainability
http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/press-room/2010/public-debt-sustainability-hawksworth.jhtml

Key facts are that outstanding public debt in Britain is 56% of national GDP, compared with 113% in the case of Greece, and that the average time to maturity of government debt in Britain is 14 years, compared with 3 years in the case of Greece.

Scaremongering hysteria about funding Britain’s fiscal deficit should therefore be taken with appropriately large doses of salts – which doesn’t mean that the problem of the deficit can be ignored now or after the election.

So it makes logical sense to not only support a Hung Parliament, but support a coalition government that is truly liberal-left in its policies.

Nice fantasy, Sunny, but have a close look at Labour.

Where are the liberals?

They’ve got Brownites and Blairites and a number of other kinds of “ites” but what they all share is the conviction that they know what is best for us and they are going to legislate to prove it.

They have had their dirty fingers on the levers of power for far too long and they need a spell in the wilderness to repent their sins and develop some less centralist vision.

Clegg should stay well away from them- their authoritarianism is probably infectious.

Pagar,

I think the question is really whether labour’s authoritarianism is genuine, or the result of them perceiving it to be necessary to retain power. If it is the latter, then it quickly gets dropped to bring Clegg on board/join clegg.

This may be what you want but what you are likely to get (unless Brown and Clegg pull out all the stops between now and Thursday week) will be a Cameron-News International coalition.

Neither Brown nor Clegg has done enough so far to blunt the tory attack & they haven’t spelled out why we need greater fairness – they just assume this is what voters want. Likewise they have allowed Cameron to commandeer the empowerment argument through his ‘big society’ brand suggestion.

Brown, so far, has made a miserable fist of defending the ‘jobs tax’ and this is supposed to be his home turf.

[14]

Neither Brown nor Clegg has done enough so far to blunt the tory attack & they haven’t spelled out why we need greater fairness – they just assume this is what voters want. Likewise they have allowed Cameron to commandeer the empowerment argument through his ‘big society’ brand suggestion.

They probably assume it because every single poll during the campaign has shown Lab+LD at 55%+ and not one IIRC has has the Tories at 40%+

As for the “big society” no one really knows what it is – and those wretched polls have the Tories at 33-36%, in comparison with the 33% Michael Howard achieved last time when he made no secret of the fact that he was simply trying to hold the Party’s core vote together.

Neither Tory nor Labour are fit for purpose: they are World War II battleships which should be broken up for scrap.

‘ Planesgjift

I think the question is really whether labour’s authoritarianism is genuine

Are you suggesting that, for the last thirteen years, they’ve only been pretending to try to dictate what we may do, say, think and dream of ?

I think the question is really whether labour’s authoritarianism is genuine, or the result of them perceiving it to be necessary to retain power.

Really? So ‘the people’ want a politician to be able to point his finger and have someone locked up indefinitely, or an inquest to be held in secret, etc?

You may be right, but…

@15 Tory and Labour are most cetainly not fit for purpose and New Labour are totally irrelevant, at least we expect the Tories to support right-wing policies and no-one in their right minds really believes that they would represent the many.
It might do New Labour a lot of good to become the opposition, they will have time to reflect why they have lost their core support, yes it might be painful,but if we want a leftist party, a reformed NL is probably the best we’ll get any time soon.

@18

A reformed NL? Really? Even if that were possible… is it really desireable? NL always was, and remains, a cynical spin obsessed vehicle of doubtful political provenance. It is authoritarian, deeply illiberal and as bereft of ideas as it is of principle. It can’t be reformed, it needs to be “un-made” – preferably with extreme prejudice.

With luck, the imminent kicking the electorate are about to deliver should allow the half dead corpse of NL to be finished off: only the diminishing band of true believers in the NL project will shed any tears.

So ‘the people’ want a politician to be able to point his finger and have someone locked up indefinitely, or an inquest to be held in secret, etc?

Yes, if by ‘the people’ you mean the dogfuckers like the Bigoted Woman and others who share her views and are looking for someone black to blame for their problems, and by ‘someone’ you mean immigrants/Muslims/darkies.

Vote swapping is a way of helping to bring about a hung parliament and making your vote count . I have just found a fantastic site on face book called voting buddies it could make a diffrence. Check it out.

@ 11 Bob B

Maybe, but I’m not convinved enough Lib Dems are apalled by the idea of a Tory government to swallow a Lib-Lab deal.

The question beg,s
why are you working out ways to tactically vote,
holding your nose and voting for some one else other than your Ideal party just to make sure the Conservatives don,t get in to power is a dirty cheap tactic
its that sort of mentality that has led to the country being a total mess
with every person out for them selves trying to see what they can get out of the system.
Stick together and do it right or not at all, when I vote for a party I want to be contributing towards them getting elected end of story, we don,t have time for games!
The problem with the whole country is mainly the outrageous cost of living vs wages, there are so many uncounted potential voters out there and they will respond with a vote if you make a simple promise to help tackle this ridiculous situation.
Why are people still living at home aged 30?
answer (the cost of private property renting and bills )
Why do 16 and 17 year olds on minimum wage earn 3.73 an hour it should be the same as 18 year olds so they can get independent and get out in to the real world.
If they wish they should still be able to seek education at a later time when they learn how hard it is out there!
And by the way! It should not cost so much money to go back to school!

If we allow every one in the UK to earn at least 10,000 pounds before tax instead of the current figure approx £6,035,
That will give minimum wage earners a huge amount of money to enjoy spending and help boost growth and employment again, they may even begin saving for a home, which could lead to more new affordable housing being a justifiable project and creating yet more jobs.
This will also free up some spending cash for their parents which will help boost the economy further.
Its tough to admit to a large audience, but the truth is there are a hell of a lot of people 2.4 millon at least out of work on JSA and many also claim millons in housing benefits and the truth of the matter is this,

The effort and stress of working a full time entry level job which leaves little disposable income vastly out weigh the benefits of
having your rent and living allowance provided for free, think about it.
Also this endless stream of NVQ,s and certificates people need to aquire in order to take unskilled jobs is a major obstacle in raising employment,
when a person gets up off their back side and go,s out to get a job digging holes or washing dishes
how do you think they will react when they are told they are not qualified ?
thats right they go home and sit back down on the sofa.
unless a job is obviously unsuitable with out qualification it should be as easy as possible to apply for it!!!
give back some responsibility to the employer to teach people how its done don,t waste money on all these schemes.

Forget ideals, and the driven responsible people you associate with in the world of politics and work you are a rare and dying breed in this country a new approach is needed to get people back into the working week.
we have had 20 years of vast wealth divide and ” why should I try and catch up”
culture in this country you can not just pretend its not there!

But first you have to accept that a lot of people seek a simple life and are not so aggressively capitalist that they wish to keep on powering through life.
get the balance right how ever and you will have a lot of people in work long term.

With the current wages on offer, is an 18 year old going to go out and rent a home and hold down a job?, no he/she is going to live at home claim JSA and sponge money of their parents till they are 30
(like i used to, and 100,s of people in my home town still do)
If they come from less well off situation then they will likely start a new family with good intentions but soon fall into the benefit bubble at the first sign of trouble or when the supporting parent lose,s a job. (like a large number of my freinds)
then its up to the state to pay once more, we have to stop this some time soon or its going to be game over for the UK
measures needed

The minimum wage needs to be fair and even for all and brought up to at least 7 pounds
no tax before 10,000 pounds a year to be reviewed overtime to keep it in tune with the cost of living.
new affordable housing to be built.
grammer schools for all gifted children
lower university fees for all
less red tape thats preventing people taking unskilled work because they do not possess certain GNVQ s and certificates
do that for 10 years and we will be sorted out

This is a wonderful site with an inventive, open spirit thanks to Sunny especially but so many of the comments look up the rectum of policies, if I may say so, rather than attending to the whole person. Sunny is right. Not because the Lib Dems say this or that about this or that and Labour does or doesn’t. We are heading into paying for a major financial crisis made much worse by Brown’s pro-Banker and neo-liberal policies but made less bad than it might have been by his response to the crash he helped to permit and worsen. However, now we are going to pay for it, stand by for VAT at 20 or 21 per cent in June whoever gets in. Given the dire economic scenario the Lib Dems embody, if despite themselves, three clear possibilities: 1) proportional representation being offered in a referendum; 2) the dismantling of the database state and the transformation of the state into a hi-tech despotism that is undebated, unpopular and underway; 3) the release of popular energy and an amplification rather than asphyxiation of the potential for a purple revolution that many clearly want. I am only saying the Lib Dems _possibly_ represent these huge opportunities for “lefty” progress. But New Labour definitely does not. In this circumstance a hung parliament and an alliance of the centre left, a realignment is the only immediate hope even if thanks to Labour’s unspeakable stupidity a Lib Dem-Con alliance may be more likely in the short run.

[24] Anthony, how on earth could a Lab-LD coalition work, even if the numbers on the green benches were there.

The latest polls show the LibDems up to eight points ahead of Labour, yet our crazy system will still deliver Labour twice as many seats as the LibDems. So who gets the keys to No.10?

Unless the polls move to Cameron quickly (and I’d say that’s as likely as not) the options are a Cameron minority government or a Blue-Yellow coalition. Which would be better for the country? Which would have the authority to make the tax hikes and “savage” public sector cuts required? Which would provide stable government?

Yup, the one that nobody can vote for.

Our political system is utterly broken.