UK Politics
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Labour are the ones to convince. LD doesn't have the power to bring it to fruition.
Didn't they play this game when Nick Clegg ran the party? After which they gave up on it as soon as they entered into a coalition with the Tories?
@jonne @Syldon
They had no option, as the Junior Party in the coalition. They didn't win the election. The Tories did effectively. Reality is a bitch, ain't it.
One of the most fascinating stats coming out of that period is that, with the Lib Dems having only 9% of the MPs in Parliament, Clegg still delivered 70% of the Lib Dem manifesto including all four of the 'priority' policies promoted on the front cover of the manifesto. They also achieved other good things that weren't even in the manifesto, like Lynne Featherstone's same-sex marriage legislation.
Cameron by contrast, with 47% of the MPs, failed to deliver many of his signature manifesto promises such as abolishing the Human Rights Act, reducing net immigration to the tens of thousands, introducing the Snoopers Charter, etc.
Objectively, Clegg's 57 MPs were a pretty effective parliamentary unit, and yet it's fascinating how the Tory media helped shape a narrative that it was the Lib Dems who were facilitating a Tory government and not the other way around. I remember in 2010 after the coalition agreement was first published, a lot of the discussion was about how successful the Lib Dems had been - it's interesting how that perception evolved after five years of the media hammering voters with a different message.
@theinspectorst @i_am_not_a_robot @Syldon @jonne
Yes. Clegg has been much maligned for going into the coalition, and it was a gamble, but one he had to take. If he had failed to take the opportunity when offered, the Lib-Dems would have been sneered at for ever more and dismissed as not being a serious Party. He was right to do it, and the ignorant blinkered electorate treated the Lib-Dems disgracefully in 2015. That is my view.
They are not a serious party. They exist to scoop up protest votes from tories, there's no other point to them
@kux @i_am_not_a_robot @Syldon @jonne @theinspectorst
Bull-crap frankly.
@theinspectorst @i_am_not_a_robot @Syldon @jonne @kennethb Cameron did manage to commit the UK to allowing a minority of the electorate (37%) to force the UK to leave the EU.
Not during the Coalition years - that came after the Tories won a majority in 2015. The difference between the 2010-15 and the post-2015 government is perfect evidence of the outsized role that the Lib Dems had in government.
They held the balance of power and could've made it the core demand of entering the coalition. I do take the point that there was a referendum about it, I forgot that happened.
@jonne
They were very much the Junior partner & wholly nonsensical & unrealistic expectations never help. They did a terrific job of holding back the worst excesses of the Tories for 5 years. We saw what happened when their restraining hand was no longer on the tiller. They were entitled to expect some respect & understanding & support from the electorate, but the electorate were too stupid and/or uninformed to realise what was actually happening & had actually happened in that 5 years.