Clegg will never get an opportunity for people to vote for him again. He's sold the sole of the Libs Dems (Fees, Trident, Voting reform etc etc etc).

Would lowering taxes to practically nothing and raising VAT not help. Even the 'current' tax dodgers would struggle if the tax was on things we bought rather than earned ?

Exactly, the Tories and the Lib Dems keep harping on about how Labour has ruined the country's finances and so on - well you had George Bush in the US who was a free market Republican who wouldn't spend a penny on welfare, and their finances got ruined....Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece all in worse mess than the UK, was it Labour's fault for ruining them as well?

The Tories and Lib Dems harp on about "13 years of wasteful public spending" but they both contested Labour in the 2001 and 2005 elections and neither of them fought on a platform of cutting public spending and austerity measures. The Tories fought on anti-immigration, anti-Europe, and spending more on prison building, more police on the streets, more money for defence, more money for cleaner hospitals, and tax cuts as well. Lib Dems fought on free tuition fees, increases in spending on health and education.

There was no talk about overspends and austerity measures until this last election. You had George Osborne writing this rubbish in the Times in 2006





So basically George Osborne's plan for the economy was to base it on the Irish model, he liked the idea of doubling public spending whilst reducing taxes. This is a bit like some football manager writing that they should model their business plan on Portsmouth when they won the FA Cup.

When we had the run on Northern Rock it took everybody by surprise but Osborne didn't come up with a credible suggestion, all he did was criticise Alastair Darling for taking action to guarantee deposits without which you would have had it spreading rapidly to other banks and causing chaos. Meanwhile at this time his flagship policy was the cut in inheritance tax which he defended hard throughout the lead up to the election then dropped it straight away as soon as they were in power and said it wasn't a priority. All in all he just gave the impression of being somebody who was out of his depth in the job he had, he was only in his 30s, had no business experience, all he'd done was be a Tory party worker in William Hague's office. All in all he comes over like a guy who doesn't really know what he is doing.

The reason they went for VAT as a tax rise is for the reasons you say, it is hard to avoid and it brings a lot of revenue in. They can't really put it up any more than they have done though. Already with the rise to 20% people will start to 'think twice' about buying consumer goods because everything costs more, which is fair enough. But if they put it to 22.5% or 25% then people would just not be able to afford as much so they would cut their cloth accordingly. Which means if you have a job which depends on selling anything, everybody is buying less, so the firm will have to make cutbacks and start laying people off. You would push the economy back into recession.

Increasing the saving rate and getting people to save rather than spend has many benefits but the fact that nobody is spending means nobody is going to have a job either...

They are increasing vat instead of income tax because the way things are going if you have no job or are poorly paid they can't make you pay much income tax.

John Bishop was good last night on the Royal Variety Show when he was going on about the French protesting about the retirment age to 62, he said it wouldn't happen here as most people in Britain haven't had a job by the age of 62 lol

u turns or lies Yed ......?

I can be equally cynical when it comes to politicians but maybe they actually wanted to do the things they stated and when in with chance to look at the books thought 'oh sh-t, we can't do it'.

You never know.

you tube david cameron exposed its brilliant....(its clean its not a mad monday prank)

I said it on election night and again when the coalition was formed. Lib Dems have gone into governemnt with the torys for a) experience and b) give the labour party long enough to get rid of brown and get a new "election winning" leader in place. Give it 2-3 years and they will rebel over something, vote against the govenment and bring Cameron down...and then Cameron can spend the next 5 years spouting his favoruite punchline .."its the other sides fault"

The Lib Dems went for the coalition to give the appearance that they could run a country. It's just backfired however as one of their major policy's has been instantly changed.

There was an interview with Nick Clegg on the radio the other day, and he was being quizzed about why the sudden turnaround on student fee's, and for every excuse or answer he gave, the interview simply replied "but you knew that before, why have you changed your mind", and it went on for 4 or 5 answers, and Clegg couldn't give a legitimate reason why.

The reason I've heard him use frequently is that they have changed their mind because they were not elected to Government.

The voting system in this country meant that no party got a good enough majority to take power automatically. So the Conservatives, who 'won' the election in the logical sense through being voted for a lot more than the other main parties get to use the power the majority of the country wanted them to.

Clegg said that as the Libdems were not voted for in significant numbers, it really has no right to demand the policy's they trumpeted in their campaign as they clearly weren't what the majority of the country wanted.

Labour made an absolute mess of the country. I liken the situation under Labour to driving your car towards a cliff, the driver being Labour, the kids in the back being the population. It all seemed fine enough, the parents were in horrendous debts but the kids didn't notice as they had three PSPs and DSs each, Nike trainers and an Iphone 4 each. All the conservatives have done is stop that car as it was about to fly off the cliff.

The last election is the best possible situation for Labour. They had thoroughly messed it up, but were able to walk away quietly, without the election whitewash they deserved. The Conservative/Libdem coalition then inherits a horrendous situation where the only option is to make cuts. The ignorant public then notice the cuts and the ridiculous way they are blown out of all proportion by the media and votes Labour, still devoid of ideas, back in a landslide victory at the next election.

Think Camerons so good? Who did he model his self on, Tony of course, watch the clip it's good! www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkGThMYmbk

Think Camerons so good? Who did he model his self on, Tony of course, watch the clip it's good! www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkGThMYmbk

That funny that, exactly what Blair said when he took over form the tories, things were left in a mess then, do you remember the boom bust years of the tories, if not it's on it's way back.