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[QUOTE]Originally posted by FawnDoo: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Reverend: [qb]You know I was sort of kidding, but since you put it that way I do wonder if some Scottish MPs have been watching too many Mel Gibson films.[/qb][/QUOTE]That's Alex Salmond you're thinking of. If ever there was a man who needed his Braveheart DVD confiscated, it's Salmond. The man looks like an angry Mister Potato Head, for god's sake. [QUOTE]Originally posted by Reverend: [qb]Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic but with a little compromise on both sides I think the coalition might be a positive thing in the long run. Remember how when Blair first got in, it was by such a landslide that they just went ahead and did whatever they wanted, literally steam-rolling the opposition. Having to first negotiate with LibDem may temper anything that would otherwise get shoved through on the Conservative agenda.[/qb][/QUOTE]I completely agree that a party having such a huge majority as Blair did in 1997 is not healthy for parliament: too much temptation to just do whatever the hell you like with so many seats behind you. However, when it comes to the potential for a Lib-Con coalition I'm not so sure. There is no way the Tories are going to give ground on voting reform - the holy grail for the Lib Dems - and outside of a few issues there just isn't any common ground between the two parties. What I think would happen is that the Lib Dems would very quickly find themselves to be an extremely junior partner in a coalition and they would be made to know it at every opportunity. Cameron has already gone on record saying that it was "reasonable to expect" that the bulk of the Conservative manifesto should be adopted. The two parties don't agree on Europe, voting reform, immigration, trident, the timing of cuts to reduce the deficit...in almost every major area of policy, they are either in extreme disagreement or just outright diametrically opposed. If Clegg thinks that he can act as Jiminy Cricket to Cameron's Pinocchio, then he's kidding himself, frankly. [QUOTE]Originally posted by Reverend: [qb]As for the voters' attitude towards Clegg after the dust settles, I don't think it will backfire too harshly. Party loyalty isn't what it used to be and I think people are finally starting to vote a little more pragmatically rather that out of some outdated vestigial concept of class identification.[/qb][/QUOTE]It's not class identification I'm talking about (though I think that is a stronger motivation than you do - I wouldn't call it "vestigial"), it's where the voters lie on the political spectrum - it's a matter of ideology, not identification. If the people who voted Lib Dem wanted a Tory government, then they would have voted Tory. They had that choice, and they didn't. They voted Lib Dem because I assume they wanted to see a progressive, centre-left party gain seats and wield influence. Not to become the whipped patsy of a Tory government intent on reducing the size of the house of commons and redrawing constituency boundaries to make sure they stay in power for evermore. Clegg has run roughshod over the way things are done, and in doing so I'd be willing to bet that he's running contrary to the wishes of an awful lot of those 5 million people who voted for his party. And if that wasn't arse-ache enough, I saw this on the BBC news site today: [QUOTE]Similarly, Labour MP and former sports minister Kate Hoey told BBC Radio 5 live she could not see how Mr Brown could "continue as prime minister in any kind of coalition" because "he wasn't elected originally" and had now "lost over 100 MPs".[/QUOTE]I really wish that people (not anyone here - this is a bit of a freeform rant on a general bugbear of mine) would stop going on about Gordon Brown not being elected as PM. We don't elect the PM in this country - we elect a party (well, usually anyway! :) ) and the leader of that party becomes PM. And this is from a former minister, on the BBC! F**k me down dead, can we not do better than this? To listen to people going on about this you would think the man had led a bloody coup d'etat. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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