Vote LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

Main pledges

• Balance the budget fairly through a mixture of cuts and taxes on higher earners
• Increase tax-free allowance to £12,500
• Guarantee education funding from nursery to 19 with an extra £2.5bn and qualified teachers in every class
• Invest £8bn in the NHS. Equal care for mental & physical health
• Five new laws to protect nature and fight climate change

You know it makes sense.
Discuss.

 

What was their main pledge last time? This election will see them consigned to the margins of politics.............

 

Lib Dems are about to walk into political oblivion and they deserve it for breaking their main political pledge which was to eradicate tuition fees.
Every manifesto is worthless as it will be another coalition.

 

PGF

Some news for you (and the majority of the country it seems), the Liberal Democrats did not win the last general election.
Therefore they couldn't implement all of the policies they had.

They negotiated with both parties and opted to form a coalition with the Tories as;
1) This was fair - as the Tories had more seats than any other party and a lot more votes
and
2) They compromised (unbelievably Gordon Brown and the gang didn't want to compromise....maybe this was to do with the state of the country at the time, maybe...just maybe...the Labour Party knew that some action would have to be taken over the course of the last Parliament which they knew would be unpopular).

The Tory's accepted 75% of the Liberal Democrat manifesto. One of the policies that was jettisoned was the tuition fee policy.
That's how coalitions work. Neither side gets all of their own way.
E.G. The Liberal /democrats also had a policy to scrap Trident. The savings of which could have paid for their tuition fee policy and much more.
The junior party in a coalition can not call all of the shots. They could only negotiate and get what they could.


.....and yet you (and most of the country it seems) can't seem to get your head around this.
You wish to hold a party with only 57 seats responsible for not getting all of their policies through.

If everyone who bitches about Tuition fees believes that students aren't getting a fair deal PERHAPS THEY SHOULD HAVE VOTED LIB DEM IN 2010.

 

The economy was in such a state at the time of the last election Labour didn't want to win. If Labour had governed this last 5 years Tories would probably be in for the next 20 years.

 

So, in your view they should have refused to form a coalition with the Tories yes?

So they should have either;
a) formed a coalition with the Labour Party - The party most responsible for the mess we found ourselves in and THE LOSERS of the General Election - and let the Labour Party call all the shots.
or
b) refused a coalition with any of the parties forcing another general election (and all of the inevitable consequences) plunging the country into chaos


They did the best thing for the country.
They sacrificed themselves (as they knew full well, as did everyone, that the junior partner in a coalition always suffers at the ballot box consequently) in order to get through policies that helped people at the bottom in this country and indeed tempered many of the Tory party's own policies.

They did the right thing.
The fact that so many people in this country can't see that is both predictable and utterly depressing.

 

you do realise it was just unlucky for the red team 2 be batting at the time of the global collapse don't you...........and you do realise that the money didn't just vanish into thin air like...................just saying init



ps don't waste your time voting it makes no fking difference end of

 

I didn't say that it was all Labour's fault, although much of it was. What money are you taking about? the reckless spending of the 2000's? no I suppose it didn't vanish a minority became very wealthy from it.

Vote UKIP.

 

I have voted for the Libs most of my life but as I can't stand Nick Clegg, who has been a disastrous leader for them, I won't be voting for them this time. I alwys regarded the old Libs as having better social policies than the Labour Party. The problem with the Labour Party is that they are like a lot of individuals in this country who want to spend money they haven't got and get themselves into financial difficulty. Most of the jobs the Tories boast about are low paid in the retail sector and this is why they can't collect enough tax to fund Education and the NHS etc.Not one party seems to address the main problem which is that we need to be manufacturing more of the everyday items which we all buy and are now made in other countries. I am going to show my contempt for the established parties this time and vote UKIIP.

 

The economy was growing. It was the Tories that produced the double dip recession.

 

Their anti tuition fees was their main policy. The should have stuck by that. Instead Clegg betrayed the thousands of students/potential students that voted for him, and he also betrayed his beliefs so that he could throw is lot into government and become deputy prime minister. Historically, the Lib Dems hate the Tories more than Labour. The Tories offered Clegg the DPM job and he's bent over as their puppet ever since. Hopefully he and the Lib Dems will get annialated at the election.

 

Come on Terror, do you really believe that Labour were the cause of the world economic collapse? Or have you also forgot they pumped nearly £100 billion to bail out the banks? Maybe they should have let the banks go under. Under the Tories, things are worse, living standards have collapsed, poverty increased, wages destroyed and a debt increased to well over £500 billion.

 

Vote Plaid Cymru. They're the only party concerned about Wales.

 

He didn't betray anyone and he certainly didn't betray his beliefs.

The options were;
1) act like a child and refuse to deal with anyone - Therefore not delivering any of the policies that he and the Lib Dems believe in
2) Go into coalition with the Labour party - Who offered the Lib Dems **** all (Now that would be betraying his beliefs). Not to mention unfair...in a first past the post system we vote expecting whoever gets the most seats to win and form a government.
3) Do what they did - and actually see Lib Dem policies and his beliefs implemented (The only time in living memory that it was possible for the Lib Dems to make policy in the UK)

The losers were the Labour party and it is they and their supporters who feel betrayed because they rather patronizingly saw the Lib Dems as their own little pet to pat on the head and nick policy off

The last thing Nick Clegg did was betray his beliefs. The last thing he wanted was to be sat next to Cameron but he manned up and got on with what was necessary in order to help people in this country.

How many of these bleating Labour voters want to tell me how many people they know who no longer pay any tax BECAUSE OF THE LIB DEMS?
How many of these bleating Labour voters want to tell me how many people got off their arse and took a job they wouldn't have otherwise because it was now a tax free job?
How many of these bleating Labour voters want to talk about what that did to the employment figures in this country?
How most of these jobs were in the private sector which has gone some way to rebalancing the economy?
How many of these bleating Labour voters want to talk about what actually happened to the numbers of students from poor backgrounds who now attend university? The difference between what Milliband and the boys were predicting and what actually happened?
How many of these bleating Labour voters want to talk about the numbers of apprenticeships created in this country? (Not what Ed says he'll create and, along with the rest of New Labour, never did when they were in office)
What about the UK economy creating more jobs and growth than the rest of Europe combined?

If Nick Clegg had been a self-interested cynical politician he would have demanded only 1 constitutional change or no deal....Proportional Representation.
Not a silly ****ing title and a seat next to some toffs.

Nick Clegg did the best thing for the country and stood by his beliefs. The result of which has undeniably been successful, nearly all of the coalition's most successful policies were Lib Dem policies....and all he'll get is shat on for it. but he'll definitely be getting my vote!

 

Leanne gets my vote merely for her loathing of mrs. windsor.

 

Terror, his main political policy at the last election was to do away with tuition fees. That was his pledge. He then betrayed students and future students by agreeing to TREBLE tuition fees. If that isn't a betrayal then I don't know what is.

 

At least someone does. Shame the Labour Party sucked up to her big time in the aftermath of the bitchs death.
The debate on ITV tonight should be good. Watch how angry Carwyn Jones will get. He's a bully

 

It's not as simple as that.
When the economy they inherited was booming and creating a surplus they were still borrowing more in order to "invest" (spend is a better word....or buy votes) in public services. An extra million public sector jobs were created. A million!

This put us at risk if a recession hit because we were committed to expenditure way off into the future which we couldn't even afford when the economy was booming.
When LABOUR decided to bail out our banks....America let Lehman Brothers go bust it was Gordon Brown who made the first move regarding bail outs....after the great swindle on Wall Street and the City of London (Which they were responsible for supervising...Gordon Brown was relaxing financial regulation, taking Bill Clinton's lead, not tightening)....this left us right up **** creek.
I read Economic publications and at the time several compared our finances to the Greeks.

The only way out was to cut spending in the short term and rebalance the economy before things went tits up. Something all of the parties would have had to deal with.
It could have easily gone wrong and got much worse and it hasn't.
The people responsible for steering the ship through a hurricane are now facing a mutiny, a young sailor called Ed who was part of the team responsible for guiding us into the hurricane says he would have got us out of the **** quicker if he'd been allowed to wear the pointy hat and promises the rum is on him.

What a ****ing joke.

 

But that's the trouble with politics, we had no alternative until now. Love them or loath them, Plaid and the SNP are fighting for the best deal for Wales and Scotland and couldn't give a toss about the Westminster establishment and their rich cronies. That's why we should vote Plaid as it will IMO produce a better politics as the Labour and Tory parties have arrogantly assumed political votes.

 

Re: the banks

If nationalising them was necessary then New Labour should have ensured some people were locked up, some assets seized and the UK government could override any decision made in the boardroom and set any rules it wanted to.

They handed over the cash and left us having to watch as the ****s continued to pay themselves massive salaries and bonuses.
Why did the Labour Party (the supposed party of the people) agree to this?
Is it because everyone in government was totally naive?
Answers on a postcard please.