I wasn't aware we could vote on bankers and on a world financial collapse.
Oh wait don't tell me you belive the hype about Labour being able to control the entire world and that they were the ones who decided to slash and burn and strangle any hope of a recovery.
Right?

So what was it that the Lib Dems have got out of the coalition agreement? Oh yes, silly me... ministerial salaries.

As a life long Liberal/LD supporter, they've a lot of recovery work to do to get my vote back.

Been lied to too much, and for nothing.

The Lib Dems are a small party so its obvious they have to be a secondary partner in a coalition government and end up compromising on their principles.

However the Lib Dems want a PR system which generally produces coalitions and so their argument for that is that coalitions work.

So they cannot just take the principled stance and walk away else it destroys their own argument.

They won't walk away and I fully expect yet another u-turn from Camoron, especially when you take a look at the maths:

There are 23 LibDem ministers and if a minister votes against the government, he is expected to resign (before he gets sacked). Three of the ministers are peers, so there are 20 LibDems that either forego their ministerial privileges (and salaries), vote with the government (that wouldn't be popular with their constituency parties) or the simple solution is - they abstain.

So let's look at the maths now:

646 MPs (discounting the speaker & deputies)

305 Conservative
57 LibDems
254 Labour
30 Others

Of the 3 others, 8 are from the DUP, who usually side with the tories

So 305 (con) + 8 (dup) = 313

37 (libdem) + 254 (lab) + 22 (others) = 313

That's assuming that all Conservatives vote with the government, certainly not a cast-iron guarantee, given that some will be in danger of deselection due to merged constituencies. It also assumes that no LibDem minister has the balls to vote against and forego his ministerial bonus, in favour of keeping his constituents happy.

I have also not included the probable Labour gain in Corby, now Mensch has decided to sling her hook

It all becomes too close to call and rather than risk a defeat, I reckon Camoron will suddenly find that there won't be sufficient time in this parliament to debate the issue.

The problem is this is exactly what they didn't do. They were so determined to try and get their holy grails of PR and House of Lords reform they were prepared to wave through hugely unpopular Tory polices. As Cibaman mentioned earlier more concerned with constitutional changes than other policies that the people are bothered about.



If they wanted to convince the voters that coalitions work then they should have put their constitutional aspirations to one side as soon as they saw the proposed NHS changes. Putting a block on that would not only have been sensible in its own right but would also have made a far better case of for a coalition government.

Stopping that bill as soon as the details emerged could hardly be called reneging on the coalition agreement. It may have cost them any attempt at getting legislation through on constitutional reform but it would have been in both their political interests as well as the countries to block it.

It is also apparent that coalition government as the Tories and Lib Dems crafted it was simply to mean the Tories as senior partners got the majority of their flag ship legislation through and the Lib Dems would get much less of theirs through. A kind of 80/20 split if you like. I don't think that is what voters expected a coalition to work like. The fact most Tory policies got through and key Lib Deb ones didn't just makes it look like a coalition government means you get a government of the major partner in all but name.

The fact both parties in the coalition have clearly pursued their own agendas under the smoke screen of being all very principled about forming a government to sort out the economic crisis doesn't make much of a case for coalitions either.

In any case aren't we stuck with this lot until 2015 as they did pass the act whereby we have fixed term parliaments and a government can't be voted out in a no confidence vote unless 55% of MP's vote it out (and the figures do not allow for that)?

I despise Cameron and everything he stands for, but he's fairly transparent in what he values.

Clegg, on the other hand, is far more despicable!

I don't think most voters, and possibly more importantly the UK media, understood anything at all about how a proper coalition works. Otherwise they wouldn't have been howling about how long it took to establish the existing deal.

A 'coalition' agreement thrashed out in 2 weeks of feverish post-election activity, with no preparatory talks between parties prior to the election, was always going to be deeply flawed. It [imight[/i have been made to work if the Lib Dems had displayed sufficient testicular fortitude, but sadly they just capitulated.

What excesses? You need to specify.

In any case aren't the 'Tories' spearheading an austerity policy?

There are all kinds of excesses, in the Tories case its an excess of cruelty and indifference to those who HAVE to do the suffering to pay for the obscene other 'excesses' of the bankers (mostly Tories and mates of Dave and Gideon).

Have you been living in a cave since May 2010?

What about the sell-off of the NHS?

What about the reduction in Working Tax Credits?

What about the reductions and restrictions on Housing Benefits (most of which is paid to those in work)

The re-assessment of DLA?

All aimed squarely at the most vulnerable in society, as is typical of any tory, ideologically-driven agenda.

This bunch are spending and borrowing more than Labour ever did. June saw the largest trade deficit since records began.

It's all Labour's fault - keep repeating the mantra

Clegg screwed it all up in the deal-making between the election and forming a government.

He had the whip-hand and could have held-out for an agreement where the LibDems would abstain on some tory policies in return for for which the tories could have agreed to abstain on some LibDem policies.
Instead he agreed to a 180 degree turn on policies against which he had been campaigning (the economy, student loans etc) and ended-up being wheeled out in front of the cameras to defend policy he had vehemently fought against in the election run-up.

For a guy who supposedly wanted a more proportional government, he was totally out of his depth when it came down to the sort of negotiations that would occur much more often under PR ... and, in the process, has scuppered several of the main aims of his party and the electability of several of his MPs for years to come ... and there's nowt he can do about it except sit and watch his party sink.

The worst LibDem leader for many a decade ... and that is saying something.