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UK PoliGAF: General election thread of LibCon Coalitionage
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Ventron said:
She was the only one to stand up to the unions who would call a strike if the bog paper was too hard in the toilets.... The country needed it as it was getting pathetic. The miners spent more time on strike than actually digging and it was all at the taxpayers massive expense.
The miners blame Thatcher for the mines being closed and sold off, and obviously lots of people hold resentment to it but it was because of the unions that they largely became untenable in the end.
kitch9 said:
As a descendant of mining stock, numbers of whom have ailed and died from silicosis and the like, I have to moderate (about two-thirds reject) the demonisation of the unions that Thatcher achieved. It was fucking dangerous, and most of the adversarial excesses on the union side were mirrored in Whitehall.
travisbickle
Member
Ventron said:
North Sea Oil saved Britain, Maggie believed in the IT and banking sector and look where those industries are today. The only thing Maggie did right was the Falklands, everything else was disgusting: privatisation, foreign policy (didn't give a shit about human rights in Africa just trade.), social issues "there's no such thing as society" she didn't care about unemployment, homelessness or reducing poverty.
Phisheep is being flippant about poll tax, the Tories bought in fucking POLL TAX, holy shit that was a tax on the poor like you have never seen. I wonder what would happen today if the Tories tried that?
Everyone but the wealthy struggled under Margaret Thatcher, and if you have any belief in a society then you should hate her, and not vote Conservative.
brain_stew nicely sums up how i've been feeling we should go for the last few days. my initial response would be to go with labour and pr, but my suspicion is that such a deal would be a massive threat to pr and possibly kill it for another generation, as well as being a total mess of a government. by demonstrating that coalition governments can work effectively and in the national interest and showing that the lib dems are more than just a pr pressure group, we in fact make that case much stronger next time round, instead of condemning it to a referendum loss as an angry public lashes out at backroom dealing, putting electoral reform ahead of the economy, brown still in power and the mess that such a government would cause. a watered down tory party, with actual liberals in government, is a hell of a lot better than a tory majority forced rightwards (so that cameron can hold onto power) in six months time, and of the three options it's the best for giving us the stability we need for the economy.
killer_clank
Member
SmokyDave said:
Man, the guy on the news got it wrong. No one's going to activate the queen, but THE QUEEN WILL ACTIVATE THATCHER!
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
As a Labour supporter it's really sad to see them trying to cling to power as hard as they possibly can, without any thought for the electorate. I think we should just accept a spell in opposition, after over a decade in government, take a long, hard look at ourselves and where we went wrong and build on the momentum that the upcoming cuts may give us.
industrian said:
Depends how you define 'win', doesn't it? They got more votes than anyone else. They got more seats than anyone else. If they're not the winners, they're the closest thing to it that we've got. They're more winny than Labour. They're more winny than the Lib Dems. They're the winningest party since 2005.
brain_stew said:
Saves me expressing my opinion on the state of play - this sums it up pretty much perfectly.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
SmokyDave said:
Seems to me it is the only argument anyone can come up with to attempt to justify hate/fear of a Tory-lead government.
Not that it's a very good one. To some people Maggie has achieved semi-mythical status as the sort of opposite of King Arthur, sleeping beneath Glastonbury ready to be resurrected as soon as any one dares vote Conservative.
Bonkers.
freethought
Member
blazinglord said:
Bullshit, the Lib Dems campaigned on a progressive agenda, not a liberal economic policy. They called for tax cuts for the poor, hikes for the rich. He made numerous overtures to the working class, he even claimed the Lib Dems were taking the place of Labour in one speech. So your revisionism of what happened less than two weeks ago isn't really that convincing. Clegg also never said he'd enter talks with the Tories, just that the party with the most seats and votes had the natural right to seek to govern. If Clegg had said he still thought this but the Lib Dems had no interest in working with the Tories, that would not have a been a change of position.
Yeah, if you ignore the shift to the left the Lib Dems have undergone over the past decade or more. Progressive taxation, tax on corporations, pro-EU, pro-Euro, aggressive regulation, pro-NHS, in favour of nationalising the banks... the Lib Dems are not the party the Tories tried to make a deal with in the seventies. They are a leftist party in a lot of ways and there is way more common ground between the Lib Dems and Labour (who are also a liberal party these days if the past thirteen years of government managed to pass you by).
Nice try though. I mean not really, it was a piss poor effort and completely transparent. But hey, you gotta try haven't you.
radioheadrule83
Banned
kitch9 said:
Its revisionist history to say fighting the unions or closing the mines wasn't arguably justifiable, but its also revisionist to paint Thatcher as some kind of hero that sorted out the unions' mess.
The coal and steel industries were failing - yes, the unions fought tooth and nail for their members - true, but the government could have done a lot more to compensate people, and ensure welfare for people and reskill people. They did nothing to cushion a vulnerable working class as their skills became useless and the jobs disappeared. Regions that relied on the mines were left decaying and destitute. Thatcher was completely dispassionate about it, and its no wonder a lot of the hard working men who had been loyal benefactors of the British economy were left feeling betrayed and disenfranchised... its no wonder families still hate the tories for it either. Lets not forget how social inequality and her stop and search measures resulted in a slew of 1981 riots including the toxteth riots, or the attempted introduction of the Poll Tax and the riots that followed for that. It will take generations to heal the rift that she caused in parts of this country.
killer_clank
Member
BBC Live Text feed:
God damn.
God damn.
blazinglord
Member
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about what the Liberal Democrats consist of. There are two wings within the Liberal Democrats which has been there since its merger. The SDP wing and the Liberal wing. The SDP has dominated the leadership of the Liberal Democrats up until Menzies Campbell who was more straddled in the middle, uniting the two wings. The future direction of the party was decided in the leadership election that ensued after Campbell's departure - the party elected Clegg who represented the Liberal wing. He made a lot of noise about lower taxes, civil liberties etc but the federal executive dominated by the SDP wing (like Simon Hughes) has forced Clegg to keep appealing to the left.freethought said:
Progressive taxation - like the Tories they want to cut tax credits, lower taxes for those on low to medium income like the Tories.
Pro-EU - nothing really left-wing about the EU dominated by centre-right governments who want an internal free market. You do realise there exists Europhiles within the Conservative party? And it was a Conservative PM who took Britain into the EEC? The problem Eurosceptics in the Tory party (and some in the Labour too) has with the EU is the transfer of sovereignty, not really the economic aspect.
Pro-Euro - Meh, didn't Clegg say that he cannot see Britain joining the EU for the foreseeable future? Hardly a sticking point.
Aggressive regulation - Er what? The Liberal Democrats are pro-business. All the parties are,.
Pro-NHS - Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the Tory party promise to ring-fence NHS spending which neither the two other parties promised? Also correct me if I am wrong in believing that all three parties are, as you put it, 'pro-NHS'.
Nationalising the banks - And now want to break up the banks and re-privatise them?
Again, I stand by my point that there is more common ground economically between the Liberal Democrats and the Tories. Social policy is another matter, but I would say that the Liberal Democrats aren't socially that much in line with Labour either as they too have also rail against 'amnesty for illegal immigrants' and been pretty hostile to drugs decriminalisation, pro-retribution and less rehabilitation, forced through the DE bill and so on.
So yeah, nice try to characterise the Liberal Democrats as a hanger-on for the Labour party, well no I mean not really it was a piss poor effort blah blah, transparent blah blah, but hey, you gotta try right? The truth isn't pretty.
MarshMellow96
Member
blazinglord said:
So fade into obscurity but leave the system more proportional as a result of it.
OR
Fade into obscurity anyway, and have Nick Clegg become the next Lloyd George.
'Natural interest' my cock.
There will be no electoral reform guys. We're being sold the economy issue to take our eyes off the electoral issue. Unless you count every single boundary going blue next year.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
MarshMellow96 said:
I don't know about that obscurity stuff.
Clegg earned a lot of personal popularity over the last few weeks, which didn't translate into votes.
But he's earned a good deal of respect over the last few days. And respect beats popularity when it comes to politics.
brain_stew
Member
Zenith said:
Don't tar us all with the same brush. There's been many of us arguing a sensible and realistic agenda here and plenty of us see this coalition as a real opportunity and the will of the elctorate, which it is.
travisbickle
Member
phisheep said:
Looking back at the last time the conservative government were in charge...bonkers!!
The idea that the Tories have changed their attitude, "there's no such thing as society", are bonkers.
killer_clank
Member
phisheep said:
Dunno about you, but I'm having PM's with some other people about a different consensus.
"Bubububu--what about US?"/bothpartieskiller_clank said:
It's like I said earlier, when I wasn't drunk (sorry about the previous rant) - only the Lib Dems know what's going to happen next. Though Lucius86 is right - no matter who they choose, they're going to piss off some powerful interests. What could this mean for the stability of any given coalition/agreement/whatever?
Exciting, suspenseful times, indeed.
radioheadrule83 said:
Don't get me wrong fella, I think she was very quick to put up the closed signs on the gates of the mines. I would guess if it happened today there would be more done to minimise the impact on communities.
I think if Scargill had chilled the fuck out a bit that would have helped the situation from being as harsh as it was. Because of him the mines were costing a fortune just to open the gates as it was a constant battle just to get anybody down there. She obviously decided enough was enough, and it re-shaped the entire strike culture in this country. Scargill refused to budge when the government wanted to closed 20 uneconomical pits out of the 186 it had running, and like a retard he made ALL the pits walk out so they ALL started losing money hand over fist. The miners stupidly followed him, and in the end the government shut most of them, as Scargills refusal to compromise at all meant that's all they could do in the end. The guy never fucking shut up.
But yeah, just sticking the closed signs up was harsh, very harsh.
killer_clank said:
Makes perfect sense. If they can't find common ground with the Conservatives, having a deal hammered out with Labour would speed the process of getting a government in place. It would be ridiculous to spend an age negotiating with the Conservatives and have no plans for what to do if that fails.
There's also, of course, the potential to use it as leverage to get more out of the Conservatives.
iapetus said:Makes perfect sense. If they can't find common ground with the Conservatives, having a deal hammered out with Labour would speed the process of getting a government in place. It would be ridiculous to spend an age negotiating with the Conservatives and have no plans for what to do if that fails.
There's also, of course, the potential to use it as leverage to get more out of the Conservatives.
Exactly, the news is acting like there's no possible way there could be enough time in the day for 2 meetings....mind you it is the BBC, that probably is just above the average workload per day.
Dr Zhivago
Member
Thatcher Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.
Thatcher had too short-sighted a view on the mines and manufacturing. Whilst other European countries subsidised their industries, she destroyed them in order to make Britain a 'service economy'. We can see how well that turned out.
HERE IS MY FUNNY ARTHUR SCARGILL STORY: My brother is a journalist and had arranged an interview with Scargill, but Comrade Arthur never turned up. Later that week, my brother's then girlfriend was in Manchester when she was asked for directions by none other than our favourite Weetabix-haired union guy - so she deliberately gave him the wrong directions. :lol
Thatcher had too short-sighted a view on the mines and manufacturing. Whilst other European countries subsidised their industries, she destroyed them in order to make Britain a 'service economy'. We can see how well that turned out.
HERE IS MY FUNNY ARTHUR SCARGILL STORY: My brother is a journalist and had arranged an interview with Scargill, but Comrade Arthur never turned up. Later that week, my brother's then girlfriend was in Manchester when she was asked for directions by none other than our favourite Weetabix-haired union guy - so she deliberately gave him the wrong directions. :lol
painey said:
Ofcourse he's playing both sides, he wants the greatest chance possible to get the most for the LibDems, play them off against each other and take one when they have enough of a compromise.
To be seen to "not" be dealing with Labour would put LD in a much weaker bargaining position. But he needs to keep it quiet in the press as he doesn't want to fuck up his parties future prospects in the next election.
blazinglord
Member
On the news, apparently its been Labour who has been instigating most of these meetings and I was quite surprised by the political spokesman saying that it was starting to look quite desperate on Labour's part.Xavien said:
Also Labour seem to have completely ruled out Gordon Brown stepping down to appease the Lib Dems, and the Lib Dems seem to have completely ruled out keeping Gordon Brown in power. Is it the end of the road for Gordon Brown and Labour? I think it just might well be.
Nexus Zero
Member
painey said:
If he spoke to Brown today and the talks with the Tories have been going well it could be the case that Clegg wanted to give him the heads-up so he could prepare to stand down.
tubgirlsplumber
Banned
MarshMellow96 said:
No issue is more important at the moment as the Economic issue.
Electoral reform can wait, avoiding bankrupcy can't.
I look forward to more taxes and less spending (well I don't but you know), because that's the only thing that's going to fix this mess we're in. It's going to be a bitch ... but there's no avoiding it.
killer_clank
Member
kitch9 said:
I was at primary school in the 90's and we only got milk if you paid for a lunch. Right wing bastards, taking my free milk.
tubgirlsplumber
Banned
Sage00 said:
I blame the Normans in '66.
killer_clank said:I was at primary school in the 90's and we only got milk if you paid for a lunch. Right wing bastards, taking my free milk.
Me too, i think i wanted answers when they said no more biscuits with my milk. You dont come between a 7 year old and his biscuits, unless you want REVOLUTION!
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