General UK politics

[KDLarsen]

Not sure I'd want to try that ice cream, just in case...

Allegations and accusations are doing quite a bit of heavy lifting there.

Still, that whole affair lead to one of the funniest bits on HIGNFY, with Trevor McDonald as host (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrl9rx the Oaten bit is from 12 minutes onwards, but the whole section leading up to it just gold).

 

[gypsyjackson]

Allegations and accusations are doing quite a bit of heavy lifting there.

Still, that whole affair lead to one of the funniest bits on HIGNFY, with Trevor McDonald as host (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrl9rx the Oaten bit is from 12 minutes onwards, but the whole section leading up to it just gold).

Will check that out. (ETA - 10.15 on Oaten.)

There were rumours around Westminster before the story broke that Oaten enjoyed a Cleveland Steamer, but I don’t recall anyone ever knowing the source of that - I was amazed the detail appeared in the story.

He certainly didn’t deserve to lose his frontbench role for the LDs over it, and being on the right of the LDs he might have had a role in the Coalition government, had he not withdrawn from politics as a result.

 

[angrysoba]

Will check that out. (ETA - 10.15 on Oaten.)

There were rumours around Westminster before the story broke that Oaten enjoyed a Cleveland Steamer, ...

A Cleveland Steamer? I thought it was called a Texas Steamer!

*suddenly panics and looks around nervously*

I ... just... heard that it was called that, whatever that is....

 

[zooterkin]

A major problem in UK politics is that a party can regularly come up with policies that the majority of the electorate agree with and still not have people vote for them because they are perceived as having no chance of winning.

A vote for what you actually want is “a wasted vote”, AKA first past the post.

I inherited support for the Liberal party (now LibDems), from my parents (I only recently learnt that was a compromise on their part, as one was originally Labour and one Conservative), but any time I do one of those political alignment tests or review of policies, the LibDems are the party which very closely aligns to my views. The attitude you mention is constantly frustrating.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I've mostly voted LibDem, because for most of my adult life they were the only actually left-wing party. Last election was a definite Labour vote, though, because it seemed very, very important to do whatever was the most likely to not allow the Tories to get in. Not that it made any difference, in this very safe Tory seat, but every little helps as the old woman said when she pissed in the sea.

But it is worth pointing out that there's another reason why many don't vote for the LibDems in recent years - their time in power. More specifically university fees.

Part of that whole thing is the Tories somehow magically managing to make the LibDems' tempering of their worst excesses be, in the public eye, the LibDems being responsible for all the Tories worst excesses. But they had campaigned extensively on tuition fees, so to turn around on it in such a huge way was seen by many as a massive betrayal. I imagine that there's a whole generation of people who were young at the time who then and there decided that they would never vote for the LibDems as long as they lived.

On the plus side, the current generation of young people have lived through the A-levels debacle, and were either forced back in to schools with no help from the government or are now being told that they'll likely have to stay at university over Christmas because it's unsafe for them to go home. So I imagine that's a generation of people who will never vote Tory as long as they shall live.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I've mostly voted LibDem, because for most of my adult life they were the only actually left-wing party. Last election was a definite Labour vote, though, because it seemed very, very important to do whatever was the most likely to not allow the Tories to get in. Not that it made any difference, in this very safe Tory seat, but every little helps as the old woman said when she pissed in the sea.

But it is worth pointing out that there's another reason why many don't vote for the LibDems in recent years - their time in power. More specifically university fees.

Part of that whole thing is the Tories somehow magically managing to make the LibDems' tempering of their worst excesses be, in the public eye, the LibDems being responsible for all the Tories worst excesses. But they had campaigned extensively on tuition fees, so to turn around on it in such a huge way was seen by many as a massive betrayal. I imagine that there's a whole generation of people who were young at the time who then and there decided that they would never vote for the LibDems as long as they lived.

On the plus side, the current generation of young people have lived through the A-levels debacle, and were either forced back in to schools with no help from the government or are now being told that they'll likely have to stay at university over Christmas because it's unsafe for them to go home. So I imagine that's a generation of people who will never vote Tory as long as they shall live.

Bear in mind that the Lib Dem could have formed a coalition with Labour instead of the Tories and quite frankly everything the Tories did is on them.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Bear in mind that the Lib Dem could have formed a coalition with Labour instead of the Tories and quite frankly everything the Tories did is on them.

This, sort of. I don't agree with blaming people as much for not preventing something as the people who actually did it, and I think that the Dems were a mitigating force to the Torys* (but that probably contributed to Cameron's disastrous victory.. So guess I'm back on side with you). But the idea the Lib Dems are left wing is kind of strange. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition might have been a great government.

* I actually had a conversation with Nick Clegg's father where I said this and predicted they'd get no credit for it, but all the blame for everything the Torys had done.

 

[GlennB]

UK govt. set to invade the media

Charles Moore (ex Daily Telegraph editor) touted as their favourite to head the BBC.

Paul Dacre (ex Daily Mail editor), touted as their favourite to head OFCOM, the media watchdog.

link

And, in case you wandered in here not too familiar with the UK media, The Torygraph and The Daily Fail are about as right wing as Brit papers get.

Oh ****

 

[P.J. Denyer]

The Telegraph isn't known as "The Torygraph" for nothing, still looks like all those years of paying Johnson £1/4mil a year for 200 words a week have paid off for Moore. And the Daily Mail has such a fine reputation for impartiality, truth and accuracy I'm surprised they get their cover price right so an ideal choice for the media watchdog...

 

[Tolls]

Bear in mind that the Lib Dem could have formed a coalition with Labour instead of the Tories and quite frankly everything the Tories did is on them.

Which would have involved another party, as a Lib/Lab coalition would still have fallen just under 10 seats short.

In the end, however, I suspect it came more down to Clegg not really liking Brown, and the idea of (arguably) propping up a government that had just taken a bit of a battering at the polls.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Bear in mind that the Lib Dem could have formed a coalition with Labour instead of the Tories and quite frankly everything the Tories did is on them.

They could have, but only if they abandoned their stance of proportional representation. It wouldn't be very consistent to have the main focus of your platform be that the number of votes each party gets is very important, and then form a coalition with the party with fewer votes just because they are more closely aligned with you ideologically, would it?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

But the idea the Lib Dems are left wing is kind of strange.

For most of my adult life they've been left of Labour.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

They could have, but only if they abandoned their stance of proportional representation. It wouldn't be very consistent to have the main focus of your platform be that the number of votes each party gets is very important, and then form a coalition with the party with fewer votes just because they are more closely aligned with you ideologically, would it?

It wouldn't be very consistent to claim to be a centre-left party that gives a **** about people and then get into bed with the Tories. Forming a government with Labour would in no way have meant abandoning their stance on PR, which is and was never going to happen anyway, but forming a government with the Tories meant abandoning their pretence on everything else.

And they fitted in rather well with their friends in the Tories in that coalition. As they do in Scotland where they parrot the same old Unionist tropes shoulder to shoulder with their Tory mates.

ETA: It would be a strange claim to suggest that PR means that you have to support the policies of the party that gets the most votes anyway. That's not how PR works. Stranger still to claim that the principles of PR have any relevance to a FPTP election.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Which would have involved another party, as a Lib/Lab coalition would still have fallen just under 10 seats short.

In the end, however, I suspect it came more down to Clegg not really liking Brown, and the idea of (arguably) propping up a government that had just taken a bit of a battering at the polls.

To have a majority, yes. Not to form a government they wouldn't have, though. They would have had the support of the SNP, Plaid, Green etc anyway so they would have got their 10 if they needed them.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

For most of my adult life they've been left of Labour.

That's a truly bizarre statement. Why for example do you think that Lib Dem are the 2nd party in areas where I live with huge Tory majorities? Because they are to the left of Labour?

I've always seen LD as being the non-gammon wing of the Tory Party. They've always had a few progressive policies and generally been pro-Europe and pro-immigration but to say they are left-wing is odd. Although it also reflects how much of a basket case of ideology Labour has been where you can certainly find policies where the LD have been to the left of them.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

It wouldn't be very consistent to claim to be a centre-left party that gives a **** about people and then get into bed with the Tories.

Politics is all about creating compromises with people you don't agree with.

Forming a government with Labour would in no way have meant abandoning their stance on PR[...]

It would absolutely have gone against the stance that the power a party has should be proportional to the number of votes a party gets to have ignored the fact that the Tories got the most votes and for the major party with the fewest votes to unilaterally decide the winner of the election.

 

[The Don]

That's a truly bizarre statement. Why for example do you think that Lib Dem are the 2nd party in areas where I live with huge Tory majorities? Because they are to the left of Labour?

I've always seen LD as being the non-gammon wing of the Tory Party. They've always had a few progressive policies and generally been pro-Europe and pro-immigration but to say they are left-wing is odd. Although it also reflects how much of a basket case of ideology Labour has been where you can certainly find policies where the LD have been to the left of them.

I think a case can be made that the LibDems were to the left of Labour during the Blair/Brown new-Labour years.

However, IMO that's comparing apples with oranges to a certain degree. New Labour had to deal with the realpolitik whereas the LibDems could promote policies which likely had little or no chance of becoming law.

IMO the coalition government of 2010 shows what happens when LibDem policy runs slap-bang into the reality of British politics

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

That's a truly bizarre statement. Why for example do you think that Lib Dem are the 2nd party in areas where I live with huge Tory majorities? Because they are to the left of Labour?

I've always seen LD as being the non-gammon wing of the Tory Party. They've always had a few progressive policies and generally been pro-Europe and pro-immigration but to say they are left-wing is odd. Although it also reflects how much of a basket case of ideology Labour has been where you can certainly find policies where the LD have been to the left of them.

Well, put it this way, ISideWith.com aligns people's political views with UK political parties, by analysing voting records, policy, issues discussed in speeches, how frequently they're discussed, etc. and you can see the analysis for yourself.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I think a case can be made that the LibDems were to the left of Labour during the Blair/Brown new-Labour years.

Yes, the fact that Labour swung so far to the right is definitely a huge factor.

 

[Darat]

The Telegraph isn't known as "The Torygraph" for nothing, still looks like all those years of paying Johnson £1/4mil a year for 200 words a week have paid off for Moore. And the Daily Mail has such a fine reputation for impartiality, truth and accuracy I'm surprised they get their cover price right so an ideal choice for the media watchdog...

The Daily Mail has actually got "better" since PD left. Granted that wouldn't have been difficult considering where it was.

 

[Darat]

For most of my adult life they've been left of Labour.

No they haven't, they have been liberal. Which is way the coalition worked so well, Cameron in most aspects was a liberal conservative, there was very little difference between Clegg and Cameron I regards to policies.

 

[Darat]

To have a majority, yes. Not to form a government they wouldn't have, though. They would have had the support of the SNP, Plaid, Green etc anyway so they would have got their 10 if they needed them.

Which is exactly what May thrashed out with the unionists.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

For most of my adult life they've been left of Labour.

You've heard of the Orange Book?

Which is a good part of why Clegg and Co jumped at coalition with the Tories and would never have countenanced jooining with Labour...It also explains why they all voted in favour of Lansley's 2012 bill and much of what else they did in coalition.

As a retired NHS worker, who had voted LD a couple of times, including 2010, I am never doing so again until there is a full apology from the party for what they did in government. (There was ceretainly an element of deception from Clegg - at the time I cast my postal vote, 'cos were were on hols for election day, there was not hint that they would join the Tories. If there had been...)

And then they elected weasel word Farron as leader...And didn't publicly execute Norman Lying Get Lamb...

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Politics is all about creating compromises with people you don't agree with.

It would absolutely have gone against the stance that the power a party has should be proportional to the number of votes a party gets to have ignored the fact that the Tories got the most votes and for the major party with the fewest votes to unilaterally decide the winner of the election.

PR means that parties should be represented in proportion with the votes they gather. That's nothing to do with who forms a government. The LDs unilaterally decided that the Tories should have a majority in government even though the public didn't. They were the kingmakers. They could have let them continue with a minority government had they really felt it was wrong to allow Labour to form a government (which is stupid anyway)

I don't agree on your first paragraph but remember how this began - with the idea that the LDs can't be blamed for the Tories. They put them in power. They carry the can.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

PR means that parties should be represented in proportion with the votes they gather.

Yes, I understand what proportional representation is. You cannot have as your core policy that power should be determined by votes and then pass over the party with the largest number of votes in favour of one with fewer votes, based on which ideology you prefer. Not and be consistent.

 

[Dave Rogers]

You cannot have as your core policy that power should be determined by votes and then pass over the party with the largest number of votes in favour of one with fewer votes, based on which ideology you prefer.

Why the hell not? If two smaller parties in a PR system are close enough in ideology that they can combine to form a coalition that commands a majority, then they've formed a government that has the support of the majority rather than there having to be one that represents the largest minority. That's the whole point of PR; it gets away from a system where the largest single party automatically gets to form the government, and replaces it with a system that favours coalitions with compromise positions that have broad support.

Dave

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Why the hell not?

Because it's ignoring what people actually voted for in favour of unilaterally deciding for yourself.

 

[shuttlt]

Because it's ignoring what people actually voted for in favour of unilaterally deciding for yourself.

What is the point of the Lib Dems if they just back up which ever of the other two parties is the biggest? If they do well, they drain support from the party that is perceived as being closest to them and then support the other. If they do badly, then a government more closely aligned to their beliefs has a better chance of getting in, but doesn't need them.

 

[catsmate]

Yes, I understand what proportional representation is. You cannot have as your core policy that power should be determined by votes and then pass over the party with the largest number of votes in favour of one with fewer votes, based on which ideology you prefer. Not and be consistent.

Yes, actually can. And many countries do just that. A coalition with a majority of seats does not have to include the party with the most votes, that's nonsense.

An example.
Party A gets 40% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 40% of the seats)
Party B gets 35% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 35% of the seats)
Party C gets 20% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 20% of the seats)
What is the problem with parties C and B forming a governing coalition?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Yes, actually can. And many countries do just that. A coalition with a majority of seats does not have to include the party with the most votes, that's nonsense.

An example.
Party A gets 40% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 40% of the seats)
Party B gets 35% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 35% of the seats)
Party C gets 20% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 20% of the seats)
What is the problem with parties C and B forming a governing coalition?

That wasn't the situation.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

The Daily Mail has actually got "better" since PD left. Granted that wouldn't have been difficult considering where it was.

Yes, which just emphasises how much of it's decline was down to him and what an inappropriate choice he is.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

(Whether the government managed to keep those saving or paid out to the private companies in other ways, I don't know).

Probably not, private companies with public contracts tend to shave at both ends, by cutting wages and then using the previous public servant wages plus a percentage as the base for their contract price.

See, for example, the NHS Internal Market, brought to you by the same people as the privatisation of BR.

I also remember someone arguing, when British Gas was being privatised, that it was necessary because government policy was to reduce gas prices, and this couldn’t be done while it was in public ownership because the Treasury wouldn’t allow it.

Look at BT's privatisation. The UK was the world leader in the development and manufacture of broadband capable fibre optic networks and looking to be the first to get to high speed broadband in the late '80s & early '90s until Maggie the Milk Thief sold off the section responsible for developing and making fibre optic (because some USians were eyeing it suggestively) and then the Grey Man decided to go full hog on privatisation in the mid '90s. Now the UK has broadband that's good enough to rival some countries in Africa and dear with it to boot.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Bear in mind that the Lib Dem could have formed a coalition with Labour instead of the Tories and quite frankly everything the Tories did is on them.

Plus vast majority of the people who voted for them in 2010 wanted them in coalition with Labour. I believe the polling shortly after election showed a 72-28 split of Lib Dem voters wanting a Labour coalition over a tory one. Plus the polling for the Lib Dems went from c35% to 23% in the last two weeks of the election, largely due to Clegg (the idiot) categorically ruling out a Labour coalition.

But hey, like with the proposed national unity government in 2019 when the Lib Dems eff up, it's all Labour's fault in the media.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Yes, I understand what proportional representation is. You cannot have as your core policy that power should be determined by votes and then pass over the party with the largest number of votes in favour of one with fewer votes, based on which ideology you prefer. Not and be consistent.

Of course you can. I'm pretty sure it must happen all the time in countries that have actual PR. It's a ridiculous justification of a ridiculous decision by Clegg.

Are you trying to tell me that in PRistan in the case of the following result

1. Kill all Greens Party 31%
2. Be nice to Greens Party 30%
3. The Green Party 20%

That the Green Party is morally obligated to form a government with the Kill All Greens Party because they got the most votes?

Not only that but we aren't in a PR system. The LDs had no obligation to make a pact with ANYONE!

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

That wasn't the situation.

It wasn't much of a kick in the stones away from it. Actual result

Tory 36%
Labour 29%
LD 23%

A Labour/LD coalition would have represented 52% of voters. Stick the SNP and Plaid in there and you are at 55ish.

 

[shuttlt]

It wasn't much of a kick in the stones away from it. Actual result

Tory 36%
Labour 29%
LD 23%

A Labour/LD coalition would have represented 52% of voters. Stick the SNP and Plaid in there and you are at 55ish.

I'd understood at the time that the reasoning was that:
1. A Lib/Lab/SNP/Plaid coalition would have been so weak that it would hardly have been able to govern.
2. The assumption had always been that the Lib Dems would side with Labour, so why not just vote for Labour? If they'd formed a coalition with Labour they would have confirmed this view.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I'd understood at the time that the reasoning was that:
1. A Lib/Lab/SNP/Plaid coalition would have been so weak that it would hardly have been able to govern.
2. The assumption had always been that the Lib Dems would side with Labour, so why not just vote for Labour? If they'd formed a coalition with Labour they would have confirmed this view.

1. Then don't make a coalition. Form a minority government. Or let the Tories form a minority government. That's not a justification for siding with the Tories.

2. I'm confused by this logic. Labour and Lib Dem policy was not the same at that point and I still don't see how you get from there to 'so we need to make a coalition with the Tories'

The LDs didn't prop up May's minority government so obviously they know that they don't HAVE to. It was Clegg's choice to get into bed with Cameron because, at the end of the day, they were basically the same.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

No they haven't, they have been liberal. Which is way the coalition worked so well, Cameron in most aspects was a liberal conservative, there was very little difference between Clegg and Cameron I regards to policies.

That's because Clegg was a true blue tory. Remember the orange book of which he was one of the primary movers, it was tory policy from the front cover to the last page of the appendix.

Because it's ignoring what people actually voted for in favour of unilaterally deciding for yourself.

Which exactly the opposite of what happened in 2010. About 80% of Lib Dem voters, all Labour and most smaller party voters (SNP, Greens, Plaid) voters were voting to keep the tories out, which would consist of an absolute majority of voters.

 

[Tolls]

1. Then don't make a coalition. Form a minority government. Or let the Tories form a minority government. That's not a justification for siding with the Tories.

A minority government at a time of financial instability was considered a bit dangerous to the economy.

The was pretty much the reasoning.

I mean, look at how strong and stable May's government was, and that only required the 10 members of the DUP.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Not only that but we aren't in a PR system.

Right, which is why the examples you keep coming back to are different to the actual situation that existed at the time.

As it is, I've explained my position three times now, and you keep addressing something else, so I'm not really convinced that anything productive will come out of reiterating it a fourth time.