The Blood is The Life 20-02-2013

[miss_s_b]

• Cicero's Songs: The Liberal Democrats must rediscover why they even exist- or extinction is certain
  "Some would say that this is a result of the inevitable new disciplines of being in a coalition government. I say it is selling out the proud radical dissenting Liberal tradition for a mess of pottage." - This, this, a thousand times this. Every time I get told off by a so-called Liberal for asking inconvenient questions because it hurts those in or seeking power, a little part of my soul dies.
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• We should think about being good the way we think about being clean « fearlessknits
  Yes, this.
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Comments

[ggreig.livejournal.com]

This is based a bit on gut feel rather than logic, but I had no objection to coalition between the Lib Dems and Labour in the Scottish Parliament between 1999 and 2007. I was annoyed by their failure to enter coalition with the SNP in 2007 over the issue of an independence referendum. That suggests to me that it's not coalition government I have a problem with - it's this coalition government and the way the Lib Dem part of it has retreated from what I (as an outsider) understand as Liberalism. While I'm sure there'll be a range of opinions out there, and not everyone will agree with me, it seems to me that it's a really dangerous assumption - from the Lib Dem point of view - that the troubles are "a result of the the inevitable new disciplines of being in a coalition government". That's a cop-out that won't help you to recover. Good article.