Brown and Clegg should form a natural majority coalition of the centre left.
Who are these voices that say that the Conservatives have a moral right to govern?
They do not. Nothing of the sort.
If this was Germany we would have had a government sometime early this morning. The centre-left combination of Liberal Democrat and Labour would make an obvious voting block at over 50% of the electorate; deals would be done, a new leader announced, markets becalmed by the thought of 5 years of stable, centrist political and economic policy. As it is we debate notions of the moral authority of the largest centre-right party to govern alone as a minority, otherwise known as the Conservatives. Why ?
Why? It is simple; we are conditioned by an archaic electoral system built out of a need to have democracy that allowed the traditional elites still to govern. There is a majority in this country that favours centre-left politics of one variety or another. You don’t believe me? Then just add the Labour and Liberal share of the vote together for as many elections as you want to count back to in the twentieth century, including this one in 2010. Should we condemn a Lib Lab pact if it materialises? Of course not ,it is the natural inclination of the British voting public, imprisoned by a Victorian voting system.
Clegg should and Brown should feel no inhibitions about running a shared future government.
By Mark on History
Who are these voices that say that the Conservatives have a moral right to govern?
They do not. Nothing of the sort.
If this was Germany we would have had a government sometime early this morning. The centre-left combination of Liberal Democrat and Labour would make an obvious voting block at over 50% of the electorate; deals would be done, a new leader announced, markets becalmed by the thought of 5 years of stable, centrist political and economic policy. As it is we debate notions of the moral authority of the largest centre-right party to govern alone as a minority, otherwise known as the Conservatives. Why ?
Why? It is simple; we are conditioned by an archaic electoral system built out of a need to have democracy that allowed the traditional elites still to govern. There is a majority in this country that favours centre-left politics of one variety or another. You don’t believe me? Then just add the Labour and Liberal share of the vote together for as many elections as you want to count back to in the twentieth century, including this one in 2010. Should we condemn a Lib Lab pact if it materialises? Of course not ,it is the natural inclination of the British voting public, imprisoned by a Victorian voting system.
Clegg should and Brown should feel no inhibitions about running a shared future government.
By Mark on History
Comments
1) Parties in government make laws. Once a party has won power via the direct representation (or first past the post system), they are loathe to surrender that power for the coalition with other parties that would like follow a PR election.
2) PR is ultimately less democratic. PR further increases the power of parties over individual candidates. While under FPP it is very difficult for small parties to win seats, it is not impossible - and independent candidates have been successful in recent years. PR requires candidates stand on a list (even if it is a list of one) and to receive a minimum threshold of votes nationwide - a virtual impossibility for a local independent unless they are very rich.
An example of a more democratic system is Cuba. Political parties are not allowed to campaign in elections in Cuba. That includes the Communist Party. Candidates in each constituency are nominated at an open meeting. There can be a minimum of two and a maximum of nine candidates. Election materials are produced and distributed by the government listing the candidates in alphabetical order. No party or individual can legally use advertising or mass organisation to influence voters.
The British system of democracy pre-dates both the Victorian era and organised political parties by hundreds of years. Political parties are what skew British democracy, and they would continue to do so, perhaps even more so, under PR.
Well it's certainly not less democratic than the current first past the post system. Moreover, the point Mark is making is that we have a NATURAL coalition of the centre left in Britain representing around 50% of the British population.
PR is representative.
The point to make about Democracy is that it is pretty much a con. The companies hold the ring.
Look what Standard and Poor has just done to Greece. That decision was a political decision made top people in a subsidiary company of McGraw Hill.
The decision to downgrade Greece had to pass muster with Harold McGraw Hill III himself. And he is as political a beast as you will ever find anywhere.
All three parties are more or less capitalist in outlook, but the Lib-Dems are closer in class terms to the Tories. Didn't Nick Clegg launch some pretty strong attacks on the trade unions during the campaign.
PR can be stitched up in so many ways. MP are elected from ranked lists submitted by each party. That makes it more difficult for a local party branch to choose its own representative and then elect them to parliament. If there had been PR since 1997 then the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell could easily have been squeezed out of parliament by the New Labour clique.
How does one determine who one's MP is under PR? There is no direct representation under that system.
The Liberal Party was made obsolete when the Tories stole their clothes as the party of the industrial capitalists and the Labour party (with universal adult suffrage) took the working class vote. They have struggled to find a political identity ever since. They are a relic, and artefact. Do they deserve the power to hold a Labour prime minister to ransom for the next four or five years? No.
No matter how personally ambitious Clegg and Cable may be they cannot join a governmnet that has these policies.
They nkow it.
Simon Hughs is amphasising the points they share on taxation and deficit reduction just to increase the Liberal Democrats bargaining power with Labour. If the Liberal Democrats do not enter into coalition with Labour and the SNP and others then they will never get PR ever.
They should stop pussyfooting and get to work negotiating with labour NOW. They are wasting valuable time.
In 'Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder' (1920), Vladimir Lenin quotes Liberal leader Lloyd George arguing that the liberals must always side with the Tories against Labour:
"In his speech Lloyd George entered into a polemic with Asquith (who had been especially invited to this meeting but declined to attend) and with those Liberals who want, not a coalition with the Conservatives, but closer relations with the Labour Party. (In the above-quoted letter, Comrade Gallacher also points to the fact that Liberals are joining the Independent Labour Party.) Lloyd George argued that a coalition—and a close coalition at that—between the Liberals and the Conservatives was essential, otherwise there might be a victory for the Labour Party, which Lloyd George prefers to call "Socialist" and which is working for the "common ownership" of the means of production. "It is ... known as communism in France," the leader of the British bourgeoisie said, putting it popularly for his audience, Liberal M.P.s who probably never knew it before. In Germany it was called socialism, and in Russia it is called Bolshevism, he went on to say. To Liberals this is unacceptable on principle, Lloyd George explained, because they stand in principle for private property. "Civilisation is in jeopardy," the speaker declared, and consequently Liberals and Conservatives must unite....
It could mean I lose my job. It could mean my children can't afford their university tuition fees. It would mead the privatisation of education and of the health service, it will mean an accentuation of all the worst and most reactionary policies of the worst of New Labour.
The Liberal Democrats policies ARE to the left of New Labours. We know this to be true.
Whether historically they have always been? Well ask the historian, Mark, who wrote the article.
But the last thing we want in the UK is a Tory governmnet. Those of us who remember Thatcher.
You keep saying that the Liberals are to the left of Labour, but then complain that they are making deals with the Tories.
How are today's Lib Dems any different from Lloyd George's liberals in 1920?
What would a Labour-Liberal coalition government be like? The Liberals would be forever demanding one thing or another, and threatening to take their ball and go home if Brown doesn't give in. Eventually enough Labour backbenchers will get pissed off to start a serious rebellion. Then Brown, between a rock and a hard place, will call the Liberals' bluff, and maybe they will walk out and make a deal with the Tories. Brown will call another election to try and prevent that, but the electorate will be so disillusioned with both Labour and Liberals that the Tories will win an outright majority.
Maybe it's better if all that happens to the Tories instead.