Telegraph.
Nick Clegg will boast today of all the Tory policies he has blocked as he pledges to make the Liberal Democrats more influential within the Coalition.Now trident apart, none of the other blocked pledges would strike me as being particularly unpopular with the general public, even trident itself if looked at properly is pretty good value for money as a defence system of last resort. Cutting inheritance tax might look (to leftists) as a sop to the rich, but with rising house prices it was cutting into ordinary folks who were suddenly discovering that instead of inheriting their parents estate, the "State" via the taxman was now taking a goodly chunk of it. A tax on the supposed rich was now hitting the general public.
The Deputy Prime Minister will say that David Cameron has been forced to abandon pledges to cut inheritance tax, replace Trident in this Parliament, build more prisons and reform the Human Rights Act. He will claim that being in coalition has been tougher on the Conservatives with the Lib Dems “punching well above our weight”.
The Lib Dems apparently stopped the Tories building more prisons too, this is partially the reason why dangerous criminals are released early and judges are now reluctant to lock people up for violent crimes. The prison system is full and the Lib Dems stopped the government building more prisons, yep real vote winner there.
They also managed to prevent the government doing something about the horrendous
Well it might keep the party faithful on board at thwarting the "Evil Tories" plans, but as a vote winner to make your party more popular after some awful election results and a nose dive in the polls it doesn't have a lot to recommend it now does it?
3 annotations:
Dear Nick Clegg,
Now it's finally been conceded by Guardian scribblers that the 'progressive majority' doesn't actually exist, perhaps the LibDems could consider changing their policy making procedure? Instead of deducing what makes sense to the previously unidentified and ignored conservative majority and then offering the exact opposite, could you now concentrate your minds upon a very simple concept called 'doing what normal people want'?
'Normal people' meaning not grievance-mongers or minorities with vested interests, including but not confined to asylum seekers, welfare claimants, adherents of religious superstition, convicted felons, anti-everything-that-works-ok activists, eco-loons, vegans or sandal wearers but, you know, everybody else. Which is known as 'a majority': understandably a word with which you are not very familiar in these trying times.
I know it must sound like insanity to a politician to actually use common sense, but hey, what have you got to lose?
I think Dave would be well advised to call a snap election.
Weird LibDem thinking. They loose an election all round (AV and lots of councils) and then expect to exert increased power over the Tories.
Cameron needs to keep telling them they lost out and they are clearly living in a different world! Perhaps he should threaten to call a snap election and be prepared to carry out his threat.
Incidentally, it seems some of the things that they are now opposing in respect of changes to the NHS were in their own manifesto (such as cutting the top-heavy administration). Presumably they work on the basis that no-one actually reads their manifesto, so they won't notice if they do a "U" turn.
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