Continual Lib Dem bashing by certain people is beginning to get me down.

[miss_s_b]

NB: this post is in response to a person I consider a friend. I hope I can still say that after she's read it...

I can understand people who hate the Tories. I'm from Yorkshire. I can understand the disquiet of lots of members of my party at being in coalition with the Tories; I share it. What I don't understand is what people who claim not to be Labour supporters hope to achieve by continually bashing the Lib Dems when what they are actually objecting to is Conservative party policy which we are actively trying to restrain. What do they hope to achieve by attacking the people who are doing what they want done?

I can understand why Labour supporters are doing it: they are conferring an electoral advantage onto the Labour party by denigrating the option their supporters are likely to choose of the two governing parties. The fact that it's all tribalist nonsense, and when you dig beneath rhetoric you still couldn't slip a rizla between what the reds and blues would actually do in sole power is neither here nor there.

I can understand why some segments of the mainstream media are doing it: the red-blue pendulum suits them very well indeed.

What I don't get is people who claim not to support Labour yet who still trumpet the Labour party's lines; or who claim to be independent journalists but who parrot the memes of the mainstream media.

What would they have us do?

Leave the coalition? 6 months of Tory minority government, followed by an election which the Tories would win outright*? that would be better, would it, for a person who claims to detest the Tories?

Assert ourselves more? Well, I hate to break this to you people, but we're outnumbered 6 to 1. I genuinely think that in terms of actual legislation, we're punching a long way above our weight in government.

The thing that annoys me more than anything else is the continual trotting out of the line that the Lib Dems have betrayed their voters. Exactly how have we betrayed our voters? By doing our level best to get Lib Dem policy enacted into legislation? By preventing the Tories from riding roughshod over as many things as humanly possible? Perhaps it's by getting Lynne Featherstone into a position where equalities legislation is being meaningfully enacted, or by having Julian Huppert on the Home Affairs select committee, making sure that a sensible evidence-based approach to things is actually represented? Or is it, and I suspect this is closer to the truth, that we have betrayed our voters by actually getting somewhere, when a certain segment of our voters would prefer us to just sit on the sidelines and carp, rather than doing something useful?

I'm with Andrew on this one: it would have been a betrayal of our voters to let the Tories govern alone when we had the opportunity to stop that from happening. And we didn't do it.

By all means insult the party's media handling; it's been rubbish, and I've said so myself. By all means tell us that our priorities need to change; I've said this myself too. But when you start throwing round emotive words like betrayal, and "yellow Tories" and all the other gutter sniping we're getting used to now, just be aware that we're going to bristle.

* anyone who doubts this is naive in the extreme: not only are the Tories the only ones with any money left to fight an election, but all they would have to say is "do you really want this incompetent shower back in?" and "they criticise our policies: let them tell us what they would do differently" to scupper Labour. And if an election were held tomorrow, under FPTP, Labour would be the only other party in contention.

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Comments

[crashmatt.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll comment on this one.

I have voted for the libdems for many years. I'm not sufficiently interested in politics to get involved, I've cast my vote and encouraged others to do the same, and to do it for the libdems.

I feel betrayed.

Regardless of what you'll say about attempting to mitigate the effects of the the tories, that is how I feel.

The libdems are sullied by their association with the tories - the shit that the tories are dumping all over us is staining the the libdems.

I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how to best rule the country or how to best reform the voting system.

What I do know is that I will have a really difficult time casting a vote for a libdem candidate this time round.

I may, for the first time since I was eligible, find myself not casting a vote. This is sad, but I don't trust the libdems any more. I've never trusted the other two.

I currently feel utterly apathetic regarding politics and have, for the first time, come to feel there is no point voting, because "they're all the same". A phrase I thought I'd never say or think.

From my point of view, the libdems have sold out, but didn't even manage to get 30 pieces of sliver, they got magic beans - and as well all know, magic doesn't exist.

I appreciate you will vociferously disagree, but that is my opinion - as ill informed as it may be.

[miss_s_b]

Why do you feel betrayed? Apart from the tuition fees thing, which I have been furious about myself, what have we done that we didn't say upfront that we would do?

[matgb]

I feel betrayed.

Regardless of what you'll say about attempting to mitigate the effects of the the tories, that is how I feel.

The libdems are sullied by their association with the tories

This is the problem though--Clegg said that if he didn't win, he'd work for the party with the most votes and the most seats.

He kept that promise. Arguably, he came close to breaking it when the Parliamentary party insisted he find out what Labour would offer.

I, genuinely, am baffled that anyone paying any attention to the campaign and him saying that didn't expect the Tories to be the party with the most votes and the most seats.

Not talking to them would've been a clear, explicit, broken promise. Not trying to govern with them would've been to throw away all hope of ever being taken seriously ever again. Not talking to them would've been a statement that a) the LDs aren't serious and there's no point in their policies at all and b) electoral reform would inevitably lock the Tories out forever and therefore they're right to oppose it,that PR would make the country less, not more, democratic.

I fundamentally disagree with the idea of that.

the shit that the tories are dumping all over us is staining the the libdems.

Overwhelmingly, "the shit" is caused by spending cuts and tax rises. All three parties were committed to both of these this Parliament. The Govt has ended up with a position closer to what the Lib Dems said they were going to do than what the Tories wanted.

Labour fucked the economy up, and were spending more money than they were taking in tax revenue even before their failure to regulate financial services or listen tot eh clear, explicit warnings blew up in their faces. The 2005 LD manifesto was committed to deficit reduction, that was under Charles Kennedy.

Most of "the shit being dumped on us" is Labour's mess. Am I happy that it's Tories making lots of the choices necessary for it to be cleared up? No.

Would I be making cuts of a similar level myself? Yes. Different cuts, hopefully, done better, but they'd still be needed. The Govt will still be spending more in2015 than it did last year, despite all the cuts.

That's scary.

I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how to best rule the country or how to best reform the voting system.

No one does. What we're getting isn't my ideal solution either.

But I do know that change is needed, and a change that crucially gives voters real power and allows for new groups and parties to emerge without electoral pacts and forced mergers is essential for changes to actually happen.

I also know I never again want a single party in Govt on its own for more than a decade.

Look back at what Brown was saying about the economy, prudence, house price bubbles, etc in the late 1990s, then look at what he actually did in the late 2000s. Power corrupted, he became blind to what he was doing.

The system is at fault with that--winner takes all creates systemic blindness. We have to move away from that.

The LDs are, currently, the only vehicle available to take us in the right direction. With AV and STV for the Lords, the Greens and even the Cooperative become viable again. That'll allow for genuine choices.

Until we've got them, the least worst option is to push for more change from within. It's just really horrible trying, hoping, that they'll stop fucking up and start getting it right.