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Posts Tagged ‘Lib Dems’

A reckoning for the second rate: the Lib Dems are simply not qualified to govern

24/12/2010, 07:00:10 AM

by Dan Hodges

In his classic work Fever Pitch, the book that finally enabled middle class supporters to emerge from the football closet, Nick Hornby devotes a whole chapter to a single player, Gus Caesar.

Caesar’s place in literary history was secured in the eighty third minute of the 1988 League Cup final between Arsenal and Luton. With his side 2-1 up, the England under-21 defender chased down an innocuous ball in his own penalty area. Then something strange happened.

Some say he was distracted by a Luton striker who had moved goal side of him. Others that his studs became caught in the Wembley turf. Whatever the reason, with the option of sliding a pass to a colleague, or launching the ball to safety, he chose to do neither. Gus Caesar simply fell over. A melée ensued, in which Luton scrambled an equaliser. They went on to snatch a late winner and raise the trophy. Caesar was swiftly transferred, never playing in the top flight of football again. (more…)

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Thursday News Review

23/12/2010, 07:48:21 AM

Telegraph strikes again

David Heath, the deputy Leader of the House, said the Chancellor had the “capacity to get up one’s nose” and did not appreciate what it was like to lose £1,000 a year – the value of the cut in child benefit for higher earners. Paul Burstow, the care minister, told reporters from The Daily Telegraph: “I don’t want you to trust David Cameron.” And Andrew Stunell, the local government minister, said he did not know where the Prime Minister stood on the “sincerity monitor”. Norman Baker, the transport minister, even privately compared the Conservatives within government to the South African apartheid regime, claiming that it was his job to campaign from the “inside”. The disclosures come on the third day of this newspaper’s investigation into the true feelings of senior Liberal Democrats towards the Coalition. – Telegraph

Mr Baker is a minister in the transport department, working closely with the Conservative Secretary of State, Philip Hammond, and a junior minister, Theresa Villiers. “But what you end up doing in the Coalition, as much as we can is we play them off against each other. You try to get the Tories [to] do things. For example, telling you more than I should be telling you, in the Department for Transport, the rail minister, Theresa Villiers, is actually pretty sound on railways, the Secretary of State is more sceptical, so you know I’ll get Theresa Villiers to argue with him about that, because she can persuade him from the side of the Tory party, because she wants to deliver effectively what is Lib Dem policy.” – Telegraph

David Heath, the Liberal Democrat MP for Somerton and Frome, said that “the awful thing” about the General Election result was that it left his party with “no alternative” but to join forces with its Conservative rivals. He said his party would have been “wiped out” at the next election if they had refused to enter the Coalition, because voters would have asked, “What’s the point of the Liberal Democrats?” The former optician also said that some of his Tory colleagues “have no experience of how ordinary people live”. – Telegraph

Ed on the attack

Talk about a Christmas miracle: Ed Miliband has set about the task of Opposition with ruthless efficiency today. As both Guido and Nicholas Watt have noted, the Labour leader is all across the broadcast news this afternoon, after upping the heat on Vince Cable and the coalition. His party’s attack comes in the form of a letter sent by the shadow business secretary, John Denham, to the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell. It asks, mischieveously, whether Vince Cable has broken the ministerial code by promising to wage war against Rupert Murdoch, and whether Jeremy Hunt is impartial enough to step into the breach. And while nothing is likely to come of these exhortations, they have already done their work in terms of grabbing Labour, and Miliband, some rare attention. – The Spectator

Ed Miliband’s new media advisers appear to be making their mark. Tom Baldwin and Bob Roberts have only been in their jobs for a few days but already the Labour party appears to have sharpened up its act. Miliband, who had struggled recently to develop a clear message, is dominating the headlines after outlining a sharp two-pronged attack on the government after the downgrading of Vince Cable’s position in cabinet. So far the signs indicate that Miliband is winning the media battle today but making no progress on substance. But Miliband has made a decisive mark in perhaps the most significant part of his intervention today – sharpening a broader strategic attack on the coalition. Miliband now wants to ram home a very simple message: Britain has a Conservative government, enacting Conservative policies that will alarm progressives by, for example, increasing child poverty. – Guardian (more…)

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I am not a Lab Dem. I am a free man.

14/12/2010, 07:00:16 AM

by Dan Hodges

Still they come. Nick Clegg’s tired, hungry, huddled masses. The Liberal Democrat refugees.

Labour is providing them with sanctuary. Of the 30,000 new members who have joined the party since the election, almost a third of them are reportedly former Lib Dem members.

The pace of the relief operation is set to intensify. The Sunday Times carried “a bold appeal” from Ed Miliband for “disaffected Liberal Democrat MPs to join the opposition to the coalition”. There are rumors that the shadow cabinet is preparing a charity re-mix of the Red Flag in time for Christmas. Billy Bragg is considering a “Lib Aid” concert at the O2.

OK, I made up those last bits. But our tanks are no longer parked on Clegg’s lawn. They’ve bulldozed through the French windows and are rumbling towards the dinning room.

In the wake of the tuition fees debacle, it may appear to be a sound strategy. The Lib Dems are a broken party. Just look at Vince Cable. At the start of the year he was one of the brightest stars in the political firmament. Standing at the dispatch box on Thursday, attempting to justify his tuition fee betrayal, he resembled one of the Germans at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark who have unleashed the furies of the covenant. It was as if the life force were being sucked from his body. (more…)

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The Lib Dems are in a race to destruction – with the church of England

29/11/2010, 03:00:07 PM

by Kevin Meagher

Poor old Rowan Williams. He is a decent man who deserves a break. Instead, all he gets is to see the Church of England fall apart on his watch. Last week’s general synod saw yet further attempts to bandage the gaping wounds in the Anglican communion. They go deep: divisions over fundamental points of theology; a pervasive sense that they have lost their way and are on the cusp of being eaten up by a larger rival.

Nick Clegg, the cherubic but rather less devout leader of the Liberal Democrats, faces parallel problems: simmering internal discord and an existential crisis about his party’s future. But Clegg does not deserve a break. He is the architect of the afflictions that beset his tribe.

Just as women bishops were inevitable once the general synod voted to allow the ordination of women clergy back in 1992, so, too, it should be a short journey of logic for the Lib Dems to realise that supporting a right-wing Tory government leads to VAT hikes, benefit cuts and scorched earth public services.

Despite the pervasive threats to his organisation, Rowan Williams’ emollient circumlocutions keep the show on the road. Clegg’s line to his own party, however, is now much tougher: welcome to coalition politics. Compromise is now a way of life. Deal with it.?And for hitherto allies on the left, Clegg is equally disabusing. He used his recent Hugo Young Memorial Lecture to slam the door in the face of Labour ecumenists. “Old progressives” he opined, “emphasise the power and spending of the central state”. In contrast, shiny “new progressives” focus on “the power and freedom of citizens”. (more…)

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Conrad Landin blames Labour for the Browne report

18/10/2010, 11:30:20 AM

Reaction to the Browne report on higher education has focused on the broken promises of Liberal Democrats who pledged to vote against rises in tuition fees. For any opposition party, it is easy to fall into the trap of concentrating exclusively on the Lib Dems’ betrayal of their election pledges. Yes, this betrayal is the one, among many, that I still can’t get over – even more than their U-turn on the fundamental issue of the economy immediately after the election.

But the photos of Nick Clegg holding up his card pledging to vote against fee rises speak for themselves. While the media has devoted so much space to the betrayal that the morality of the rise in fees itself is put to one side. Which is exactly what David Cameron wants. (more…)

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Kevin Meagher looks back at the coalition’s first year in office

23/09/2010, 05:01:00 PM

Britain, June 2011.

The loss of last month’s referendum on the alternative vote has left the Tory-Lib Dem government reeling. The 90% No vote capped a miserable first year in office for deputy PM, Nick Clegg, and few were surprised at his resignation. Widely blamed for the fiasco, Mr Clegg had never really recovered his popularity following the embarrassing incident when apprentices angry at the scrapping of the future jobs fund tried to throw him into a smelting pot on a visit to his Sheffield constituency.

In a year that saw many dramatic reversals of fortune, Lembit Opik swept back into the Commons, agreeing to take over as interim Lib Dem leader. “I’ve grown up and can give my party exactly what it needs” he smirked, standing on a segway next to his latest fiancée, the recently-divorced Katie Price, as they posed for a double-page spread in the launch edition of Frisky Boy magazine. (more…)

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Monday News Review

20/09/2010, 07:00:23 AM

Lammy at Lib Dem conference

So to David Lammy. The Labour MP acknowledges that some think his party is too aggressive towards the Lib Dems and is getting more tribal. I would certainly put myself in the pluralist quarter of the Labour party but it may be shrinking to 10%. I don’t think any one political party has all the ideas. We need to get used to ministers being able to publicly disagree within government.” He gets applause for this. – Guardian blogs.

Ashcroft’s departure

“Going into the election, many voters had little clear idea of what we stood for or what we intended to do in government. At a national level, too much of our message was focused on unnecessary and counterproductive attacks on Gordon Brown and Labour, which meant that voters were not clear about our own plans.” – Lord Ashcroft, FT.

Lib Dems on 9/11

The Lib Dem motion notes “the widespread public concern about the human rights abuses that have taken place since 11 September 2001 under the guise of the so-called ‘war on terror’ initiated by the Bush government and backed by the Labour government in the UK. The abuses have included enforced disappearance, rendition and torture.” It also says “there has been a lack of transparency as to whether and to what extent the UK has been involved in these abuses and that such a lack of clear information is both detrimental to Britain’s reputation and damaging to public confidence in our security services”. – The Guardian.

‘Useful Idiots’

Labour’s Liam Byrne accused the Lib Dems of being the “Tories’ useful idiots”, who offer “progressive poses for a Conservative Budget that hits the poorest hardest and an economic strategy that puts honest people’s jobs at risk”.
The measures against tax evasion came amid reports that Tory backer Lord Ashcrof is to quit as the party’s deputy chairman after attacking its failure to win an outright majority at the General Election. – Mix 96.

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Rob Carr on the Lib Dems’ exit strategy

17/09/2010, 10:09:54 AM

If you are a viewer of Dragons’ Den on the BBC, you will have heard the phrase “exit strategy”. The idea being that if you want someone to invest in your business, there has to be a way for them to make a profit and get their money back out of the business. The obvious way to recoup capital is to sell equity, and the Dragons do that all the time. Four years or so into an investment, they’ll begin looking to sell their share of the business for a profit.

We also hear it more and more as a military term. How does a nation get its troops out of a given conflict? George W Bush didn’t have an exit strategy for Iraq. The Iraq war began on March 20 2003 and there was no real exit strategy until 2007, four years later.

Andy just you need an exit strategy in business and in war, you need one in politics too. (more…)

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Wednesday News Review

25/08/2010, 07:10:28 AM

The Milibands get personal

“David Miliband will today make his strongest criticism of his younger brother Ed with the Labour leadership contest getting personal as it reaches a critical stage. The former foreign secretary will suggest his brother is pandering to Labour’s core vote rather than reaching out to the middle classes and that his strategy will keep the party in opposition rather than return it to power. David Miliband will set out clear dividing lines between him and his brother, seen as the two front-runners in the race to succeed Gordon Brown. Ballot papers will be sent out next week and the result announced on 25 September.” – The Independent

“We must look forward for new ideas and outward for a new coalition of voters. There is no future for Labour in the comfortable but deadening policies of the past. And there is no future in a politics based on a tactical, patchwork approach to building electoral support.” His speech at the King Solomon academy in north London comes as the Labour leadership contest appears to have narrowed to a straight fight between the Miliband brothers, whose strong relationship has become strained over the summer.” – The Guardian

Diane Abbott: The myth of the forgotten middle class

“There was a ubiquitous television advert for sweets in the 1980s where the catch line featured an endearing moppet saying “Don’t forget the fruit gums mum!” You no longer see this ad. But the right of the Labour Party has it’s own ubiquitous recurring theme where someone pops up and says “Don’t forget the middle classes!” The latest tribune of the right to utter this sentiment is my leadership rival David Miliband. We do not have to choose between appealing to middle-class and working-class voters. It is bogus to pretend that anybody is suggesting this. But only when we leave the “New Labour” era behind will voters of all classes be willing to trust us again.” – Diane Abbott, The Independent

The first of many?

“A Liberal Democrat councillor in Liverpool has defected to Labour because of his opposition to the coalition government’s latest cuts. Ian Jobling is believed to be one of the first councillors in the country to switch sides since the May elections. Mr Jobling, who was first elected in 2003 and is a member of Merseyside Police Authority, said the proposed cuts to the police force had really bothered him. He told the BBC: “On 28 May, when the coalition was only two weeks old, communication came through that we would have to have a £4m budget cut to policing.” – bbc.co.uk

Changing of the guard in Wales

“The Welsh Labour Party’s general secretary is to quit, he has announced. Chris Roberts, 52, said he intended to step down from the top job after five years in the post, saying five years was “about right” for the job and he was leaving in order to pursue new challenges.” – Wales Online

6 lbs 1 oz

“There were cross-party messages of support for the couple on Twitter, with Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls writing: “Wonderful news about the Cameron’s new baby – she will share a birthday with our 9 year old son – just finishing birthday cake.” – Ed Balls, politics.co.uk

“Shadow foreign secretary and Labour leadership favourite David Miliband said: “I’d like to offer many congratulations to Samantha and David Cameron on the birth of their baby girl.” – David Miliband, Daily Telegraph

Paternity leave, but when?

“Despite presumably being the last thing on Mr Cameron’s mind, the early birth has several political implications. The prime minister used the scheduled paternity leave as a decent reason to excuse himself from the invitation to speak at the TUC annual conference, where he was likely to receive an angry reception from delegates. The birth raises the possibility of him attending the conference.” – politics.co.uk

Another Tory non-dom?

“The controversial hedge fund manager who gave £500,000 to the Tories faced questions about his tax status last night after official records suggested that he is resident in Switzerland. Millionaire Jon Wood did not pay tax in the UK until 18 months ago and his business moved from the tax haven of Monaco to Britain only earlier this year. Yet he became the Tories’ largest donor in the run-up to the General Election when he handed over the cheque two days before polling day.” – Daily Mail

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James Ruddick bids farewell to Nick Clegg

06/08/2010, 08:05:05 AM

Let me be the first to wish Nick Clegg well in his new life outside British politics. Is this premature? Not at all. Clegg will begin this new life – probably back in the corridors of Brussels – much sooner than he or anyone else realises.

Clegg’s political demise has already started. He may have secured an AV referendum for his party during negotiations with the Tories, but he secured nothing for the electorate except pain. On the only issue of importance facing the country – how and when to retrench – Clegg sold out. And for that alone, he is doomed. He finds himself deputy prime minister in a government which has smashed the recovery with a single 40 minute speech.

And the stalled recovery – confirmed by the latest Markit and YouGov data – is only one feature in the pincer movement that is sealing Clegg’s fate. As our economic problems set in aspic, the electorate will start to feel the first wave of the cuts – the cuts that Clegg was hired to ameliorate; the cuts which he has unblinkingly sponsored. There will soon be vast numbers of casualties staring shell-shocked and limbless into the lens of the Sky News camera, all of them looking for Clegg’s phone number. Some aspect of the hacking and sawing will be felt by every family in Britain, especially the seven million who voted Lib Dem. (more…)

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