Nick Clegg has made much about his proposed referendum on AV next May.
And you can understand why. This was his pay off for what he’s agreed to so far.
He sold out his party and the near seven million people who voted Lib Dem by letting in a Tory-led Government that’s hit the poor with 20% VAT, slashed child tax credits and sanctioned the prospect of 40% cuts to Government budgets that will devastate public services and lead to more than 1.3 million job losses.
Now on the very day plans for more than 700 new state schools were axed, Clegg championed AV, a form of voting he once described as a ‘miserable little compromise.’
And on this occasion, I agree with Nick.
That’s exactly what it is – cover for the biggest gerrymandering of seats that I have ever seen in my 40 years in politics.
This is a poisonous package and Labour must fight against every single part of it.
So let’s make the May elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and local councils a proper referendum on this ConDem government and a set of savage and brutal policies that no-one would have voted for at the last General Election.
Update:
I’m indebted to Stephen Johnson who made a very important point in my comments section which really sums up Clegg’s inconsistency.
Clegg cancelled Labour’s £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, which would have built a new press to make parts for nuclear power stations, providing a sustainable future for the company and creating hundreds of new jobs at the plant and thousands more in the supply chain.
He defended the cancellation of the loan, saying: “We have to take difficult choices to make sure taxpayers’ money is spent as wisely as possible.”
And the cost of a referendum for a voting system he described as a “miserable little compromise?”
£80m.
I’m a socialist. Not an anarchist, or a conservative or a fundamentalist, thank you. But some people are taking a liberty. You can be a non-conformist up to a point but no further, not when your behaviour impacts adversely on the rest of society. That is what socialism is about. ensuring that all elements of society integrate and work for the good of the society. Its the fable of the Hive.
Swatt your a Thatcherite who prays at the Blair table.
Blair is old hat. Cameron and Clegg are the heirs to Blair and the policies of the Coalition are just a continuation of Blairism in another guise.
More accurately, on relection I think I’m more a ’scientific socialist’ in the same vein as HG Wells and Aldous Huxley, seeing socialism develop in a New Age.
Blair may well be ‘old hat’ but we are still living with the awful consequences of having such a shyster running the country!
We must do all we can to fight the injustice of this Government and all its policies and not fight amongst ourselves like the tories want us to divide us and stop us fighting them and thier policies so all stick together and fight the tories who are the real enemy!
Why! why should i stick with a Party that we are told went off the rocks, Mandy’s new book has come out before Blair’s! Blair is fuming because it will take the prize of being the first big un, I now like Mandy, he should be the new leader just for shagging Blair and his money making machine.
We should not be fighting each other, why not labour did it.
rw4732 ssays: “We must do all we can to fight the injustice of this Government and all its policies…..”
That would be the government that illegally stole power from labour then? Oh! Hang on. Got that wrong.
That would be the government whose constituent parts got twice as many votes as labour then?
Bloody illegals ………
I’m funming that we are sill paying for the Security of Ex-PMs. They should take their chances like the rest of us. Tear down the barricades outside the Commons and Downing Steet. Or if they are so fearful, let them pay for their own security. We should not be protecting Thatcher from a vengeful public. Let them take their own chances.
The most refreshing thing seeing Dave and Nick walking hand in hand from Downing Street to the State Opening of Parliament. Tears welled up and I almost choked with joy. Democracy at last! Democracy at last!
OK rw4732, so that was a bit tongue in cheek…
But what makes their policies an injustice? The fact that YOU don’t believe in them? For everyone who says it is an injustice, I reckon there is at least one other that says it is in fact justice. It’s called having an opinion. And voting for it.
The proof of this particular pudding will be in the eating. If it produces the desired result (reduction of the stuctural defecit – that bit that was nothing to do with the recession whoever caused it – and which was in fact the result of Gordon spending like a drunken sailor during a boom, rather than exercising Prudence) then it will be absolutely justified. But until the results are in after a few years then I suggest you are being bloody minded.
Those amongst us who remember living through the McMillian, Douglas-Hume, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, and Brown governments have seen most of it before.
Reality is that all government spending slowdowns (there have not actually been any cuts by any government during my political lifetime) where the planned GROWTH in government spending has been cut back a bit has always resulted in a significant increase in the GDP growth rate.
Now I am not claiming that what happened in the past will always be reflected in the future, but as my old granny used to say “if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks – then it is a duck”
Pass the bread – I am off to the pond.
“Now I am not claiming that what happened in the past will always be reflected in the future, but as my old granny used to say “if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks – then it is a duck”
Or Gordon Brown