A True Coalition Would Never Blame One-Another

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• apaul Posts: 9,846

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  08/05/12 - 10:00 #2

  Do you really think the present government is more divided and takes less responsibility than a Labour government with the prime minister and chancellor at each others' throats or the Major government? Nutters like Dorries and Bone make a lot of noise, but they have no influence. The only time such fruitcakes would have to be listened to is if there were a Conservative government with a small or no majority.

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• Phil 2804 Posts: 21,846

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  08/05/12 - 10:09 #3

  Tassium wrote: »

  In this government we see an example as to why coalition is only nice in theory.
  
  
  In practice neither party takes responsibility for government actions, always blaming the other.
  
  
  How can they therefore be held to account by the public?
  
  That's an essential part of democracy, that politicians can be linked to failed policy.

  
  Labour and the Lib Dems ran Scotland for 8 years and baring the odd hiccup it was a fairly seamless operation. That is of course because those two parties share a great deal of common ground. The Government ended as after 2007 Labour were no longer the largest party and the Lib Dems didn't feel comfortable power sharing with another party whose core policy they opposed.
  
  That is essentially the trouble with the present coalition, its made up of two parties at very different ends of the spectrum. The Lib Dems are paying the price of betraying the large anti-Tory vote they carry and the Tories are being punished either for being too Tory, or not Tory enough.

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• jmclaugh Posts: 63,997

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  08/05/12 - 10:18 #4

  Tassium wrote: »

  In this government we see an example as to why coalition is only nice in theory.
  
  In practice neither party takes responsibility for government actions, always blaming the other.
  
  How can they therefore be held to account by the public?
  
  That's an essential part of democracy, that politicians can be linked to failed policy.

  
  Last time I checked they still have individual ministers in charge of departments and general elections and I haven't noticed them not being held to account.
  
  Btw it was the result of a democratic general election that brought a coalition into being.

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• Sallyforth Posts: 7,404

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  08/05/12 - 11:51 #5

  "I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden - along with the sunshine, gotta have a little rain sometime."
  
  The coalition is, as they always are, one of convenience and each partner must take the rough with the smooth.

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• Tassium Posts: 31,639

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  08/05/12 - 12:44 #6

  Phil 2804 wrote: »

  Labour and the Lib Dems ran Scotland for 8 years and baring the odd hiccup it was a fairly seamless operation. That is of course because those two parties share a great deal of common ground. The Government ended as after 2007 Labour were no longer the largest party and the Lib Dems didn't feel comfortable power sharing with another party whose core policy they opposed.
  
  That is essentially the trouble with the present coalition, its made up of two parties at very different ends of the spectrum. The Lib Dems are paying the price of betraying the large anti-Tory vote they carry and the Tories are being punished either for being too Tory, or not Tory enough.

  
  Well, I was not defining "a true coalition".
  
  
  I cannot see that a group of people with near identical ideological ground can be said to be "in a coalition". That would tend to be a single party in reality.
  

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  What has been claimed by others is that a coalition (of ideology, what else?) is a good thing.
  
  'The people are represented!' they say.
  
  Those at the extremes of any single party find themselves marginalised for the same reasons a true coalition can never work:
  
  Ideologies cannot mix. People are always at each others throat and at the first sign of difficulty blame each other.

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