LibDem voters - will you vote for them again?

Messianic Trees · **Joined:** Fri Mar 18, 2011 10:50 pm **Posts:** 2832

Someone on LibDem Voice suggested:

Quote:

the combined coalition vote is 47% against Labour's 38%. Over the next three years the general opinion of most economists is that the economy is (give or take another Euro crisis or two) going to pick up and start growing again. On these results at this time, Labour isn't wining the next General Election.

Althea · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 7:19 am

The blind man seeth not that which seeks to undo him?

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 8:46 am

Jut like last time.

ezinra · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 11:10 am

The Lib Dems actually increased their representation in Eastleigh. They won two seats from independents, and now have 40 of 44 seats on the council. The independents were both ex-Lib Dems who had been de-selected during the course of their mandate by the local party, allegedly for their hostility to the national leadership and in particular to the local MP, Chris Huhne, and his expenses. However, as if to prove the old adage that a person can leave the Lib Dems but Lib Demmery never leaves the person, one of the independents managed to lose his seat through his own incompetence. He claimed to have put his nomination papers in the post several weeks before the closing date for candidatures, but they never arrived. Some have wondered why he didn't send them by registered post, or simply hand them in at the town hall where he attended a meeting on the same day. He demanded a special dispensation on the basis of his long service, and was politely told to fuck off.

The local Labour party is a bit disappointed: one of our candidates lost by 13 votes in a ward where the turnout was below 30%. The party hasn't been represented at all on the council since the early 2000s even though this time we won close to a fifth of the votes. Ukip beat the Tories in three wards out of 13 where they were standing. The English Democrats averaged barely 2% in two constituencies.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 11:49 am

Anyone with half a brain knows you do not risk sending nomination papers in the post. You take them in personally and do not leave without a formal receipt.

mattomac · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 10:31 pm

Seemed to happen to quite a few of them, apparently that happened to several around here, or that was the excuse why they didn't have anyone running.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 11:00 pm

But the best, the very best, was UKIP filling the forms in wrongly, so that their name didn't appear on the ballot paper. In the London Mayoral and Assembly elections...

new puritan · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 11:05 pm

The Tories are revolting, it would appear. It looks as if things are about to get even tougher for the Lib Dems.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... rds-reform

Quote:

The prime minister and his deputy also hope that Wednesday's Queen's speech, when the government will outline its legislative programme for the next year, will relaunch the coalition around a set of shared objectives. But several senior Tories broke cover on Saturday to protest that priority was being given in the speech to a bill on Lords reform when the public wanted ministers and MPs to focus more on creating jobs and fostering economic growth.

Cameron's former rival for the leadership, David Davis, told the Observer: "I think if you ask the man on the street what his priorities are, House of Lords reform and gay marriage would not be among them. It would be jobs, cutting taxes, prosperity, growth. It is the economy, stupid. That has never been more true." Davis said Tories wanted "more Conservative flavour to the coalition. That is putting it as mildly as I can."

Bernard Jenkin, the Tory chairman of the public administration select committee, said he and many other Tory MPs would not vote for Lords reform. After Cameron said last week that he would campaign for Tory-led government, as opposed to a solely Conservative one, Jenkin added: "For a party to be electable it has to concentrate on what matters and not descend into the dangerous vortex of Lords reform. We don't want to be a Conservative-led government, we want to be a Conservative one."

I love that quote from Jenkin, it just oozes pure Tory arrogance. You didn't win the election fuckwit, which is why you needed the yellow peril to prop you up in the first place. Suck it up.

They've really got a bee in their bonnet about Lords reform, though. The 'man on the street' doesn't give a flying fuck either way and ditching it isn't going to do a thing for the Tories' flagging poll ratings. I thought Peter Oborne was well wide of the mark when he said the issue of Lords reform could split the coalition a while ago, but maybe there was more truth to it than I thought.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Sat May 05, 2012 11:08 pm

They really don't understand that they can't have a Conservative government because they failed to win the last election...

mojojojo · **Joined:** Fri Mar 19, 2010 1:33 pm **Posts:** 4271

Personally I'd rather keep my job than have my taxes cut. Oh wait..he doesn't mean my taxes.

ezinra · **Posted:** Sun May 06, 2012 7:47 am

Quote:

David Davis told the Observer: "I think if you ask the man on the street what his priorities are, House of Lords reform and gay marriage would not be among them."

It's inconceivable to the Tories, isn't it, that the 'man' on the street might be gay? Apparently it's also unthinkable for the government to have more than one policy at a time. It's certainly beyond Davis's capabilities to imagine that someone could be both gay and interested in the economy.

Possibly my least favourite of the politician's box of rhetorical tricks is this arrogant, reductive omniscience which allows an MP to read the minds of the entire nation and then speak on our behalf. Reducing the public to one figurative "'man' on the street" is even worse, it's just a means for ignoring diversity and silencing minorities. So yeah, fuck off, David Davis.

new puritan · **Posted:** Sun May 06, 2012 9:43 pm

The most bemusing thing about the flapping from Tory backbenchers is that it's their right-wing economic policies which are being exposed as self-defeating and which are driving voters away from them - yet they think they can make up for all that by being more socially reactionary. For one of the most electorally successful parties in the western world they can't half come up with some absolutely bollocks ideas.

Althea · **Posted:** Sun May 06, 2012 9:52 pm

This makes me giggle and sums up why the Lib Dems don't have my confidence:

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Tue May 08, 2012 8:30 pm

Clegg says we're wrong if we think they just want to shrink the state for its own sake.

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue May 08, 2012 9:20 pm

Bwahahahahahaha!

LibDem voters - will you vote for them again?

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