So, it's Official

[miss_s_b]

Cameron has announced full coalition. While we wait for the details of the agreement, I shall just list a few things that will and won't happen.

Things that will happen:

• The media will continue to speculate furiously, and will probably not read the agreement properly and will need to have their mistakes pointed out by bloggers.


• Tories shackled in government by a coalition with the Lib Dems will be orders of magnitude better than Tories in government unfettered and running amok.


• Nick Robinson will continue frotting Dave until Dave can stand it no more.


• We will lose members, supporters and voters who don't understand how we can coalesce with the Tories and put tribalism over making things work.


• The Murdochised press are not going to be fair to us - but we're used to that.

Things that will not happen:

• Lib Dems will not suddenly start being lovely to Tories; we will be keeping a close eye on what they do because it now affects us too.


• I am not not going to start paying attention to any Tory blogs that I am not already reading. Unreasonable people do not suddenly become reasonable just because our parties are in coalition.


• The world will not end just because that smug twat is occupying #10 Downing Street.

This is not ideal. Not by any means. But it's better than it could have been. Lets wait for the details to emerge, and then we can do what we Lib Dems do best: disect them and point out the flaws :D

Comments

[ingo]

We will lose members, supporters and voters who don't understand how we can coalesce with the Tories and put tribalism over making things work.

I am very close to abandoning the Lib Dems, but I don't like the implication that this is purely because of tribalism. I don't dislike the Tories because of some tribal loyalty to another political party. I dislike them because time and time again they've shown me and people like me that we simply aren't equal and never will be. I think I have more than sufficient right as someone who IDs as both queer and disabled to be absolutely horrified by the thought of anyone willingly co-operating with the Conservatives, and I'm getting sick of being expected to be the better person here.

The Tory plans for welfare reform appear to be going ahead unchecked. I can only assume the Lib Dems didn't care enough to try and challenge this. I'm pretty used to feeling like a political afterthought, but damn.

Sorry, I am a random stranger who found this on latestthings. I didn't mean to sound quite as irate.

[miss_s_b]

That's OK. I'm bi and poly and thus not really in the tories' group of favourite people either. Tories shackled by a Lib Dem conscience has to be better than tories unfettered, and yes, there's some stuff I am very unhappy with (immigration for one), but they have made huge rafts of concessions, and they can't stop the party campaigning to change anything, they can only whip the MPs.

We remain a democratic party, and I think this is going to be a lot harder on the Tories than it is on us.

[matgb]

Some of the Tories, definitely, evil vicious gits that I don't trust at all. But others? Some of them are genuinely not luddite backwoods types, some of them are genuinely committed to social equality.

That they've kept, and allowed senior roles, to people that I don't think should be given any time whatsoever is something I find difficult, but they are a broad church party. The thing with this deal is that Cameron said his party had changed, and put forward a social position. Then idiots like Grayling showed it was, partially, a front that many weren't happy with.

But now he (and they) are forced to stick to the line they said they agreed with.

Yes, the welfare policies worry me, and I need to see them in detail, but when the details come out, they won't be able to be really vicious because LDs won't stand for it. There are a lot of concessions in the agreement, from both sides, and I'm not happy with some of them.

But overall, better this, with them tempered by us, than a minority govt and another election in a few months. Them in Govt isn't something I'm happy with. But them in Govt backed up by the DUP? Horrifying.

Also? If we get a preferential voting system of some kind, there's no excuse, at all, for other parties to not put up in every constituency (except, obviously, cash). Read your top current entry; the big reason Greens aren't everywhere is mostly that they a) can't afford it and b) lose deposits constantly, as they get squeezed out.

But preferential voting reduces that squeeze almost to nothing, and that's a very good thing.

[ingo]

I didn't say the Tories were a group of backwards evil Luddites. But honestly? I'm past caring if there are a few nice Tories interested in social justice. Looking at the party's track record, they don't make a damn bit of difference. As I said, I'm sick of having to be the bigger person. I'm sick of having to be the minority person grateful for any scrap that gets thrown my way. No, they're not all 'like that' -- but more than enough of them are and the ones that are have hurt me quite badly.

BTW, I am aware of the reasons the Greens aren't everywhere, but when I wrote that post I had neither the spoons nor the inclination to go into much detail (in bed on painkillers, surprised it makes any sense at all actually). I'm still ashamed that my constituency had a UKIP candidate and a BNP candidate. Yes, PV would be fantastic, especially in the long run. But I'm still worried about welfare reform.

Yes, it's better than nothing. Yes, it's the first time there's someone in Parliament who actually had my vote, even if it isn't the whole party. But I'm still very far from happy about the circumstances and will need a hell of a lot of action from the Lib Dems over the next couple of years--not just words & promises--before I'm inclined to drop my guard.