Will the Lib Dems be extinct in six months?
chemical2009b
Posts: 5,250 Forum Member
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Another horrific by-election result so will they end up with no seats in May and fold as a result?
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chemical2009b
Posts: 5,250 chemical2009b
Posts: 5,250
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I really do hope so. They are a truly awful party masquerading as something good. Most of the good Lib Dems have left the party. Their record on gender equality, their dodgy senior staff, their record on ethnic minorities, they are just hypocrits.
Let's not forget the party that proclaims fairness voting against boundary changes. I also received a leaflet from them during the european referendum that was little more than a threat. If I didn't vote for them, then millions of jobs could be lost. It went on to claim that one of them might be my job or the job of a family member or friend. It's just a load of scaremongering bull. But it speaks volumes for the mentality of the party.
One can but hope. They sold out and they should pay with being wiped off the political map.
The student loan debacle and allowing the bedroom tax to happen are unforgivable.
They won't be wiped out though as they do have certain strongholds which I think they'll hold on to.
They've been in dire straits before but seemed to muddle through. The biggest mistake they did was to abandon their principles and to betray their core voters.
The Liberal voters I know are earnest, left-of-centre, social justice types... who have all been shafted by the 'Orange book' wing of the party, led by Clegg.
They now have no supporters because they've alienated those people and there's no way they can out-rightwing the tories or UKIP.
They're toast.
I think the Libs have been correctly wiped off the UK political map in the mind of voters. The amount of lying they partook in is such, that even there core supporters are embarrassed to discuss them in public.
I believe many people asked in polls who they would vote for will often be a bit shy to say UKIP and say something more socially acceptable like Labour. However, come elections they will vote UKIP.
In the same vein, I believe anyone who claims they will vote or actually does vote Lib, is putting themselves in a position to be ridiculed, as the bare-faced lying and scheming of the Party is simply indefensible. Even discussing people who think Libs are the answer is embarrassing for goodness sakes.
Clegg was wise to hide after the Rochester vote. He probably took comfort in his wife's breasts..and tried to hide from the world in-between them. I know I would if I were him. He, like Ed - is a disaster of a career politician. So little charm and banking on his wide eyed sincerity when everyone knows he has the believability of a 5 year old, lying to his mother about having not eaten chocolate before dinner, with a chocolate covered bouche.
Ed can rely on leftist fanatics with the letters NHS tattooed to their foreheads, to vote Labour, even if he starts wearing a clown suit to work and starts speaking in Portuguese - the damage Thatcher did 30 years ago will still be fresh in their minds 100 years later. Clegg on the other hand made a mockery out of the liberal middle class bicycle riding, Guardian reading leftists who trusted him - they will go elsewhere I believe...
One commentator said the other day that the SNP's gain in Scotland will probably be on the Lib Dems seats rather than Labours. As long as the Lib Dems lose their seats to one of the other centre left parties, I'll be happy about that.
I think former Lib voters are hunting around for something now. Many are trying to like the Greens, but finding it difficult. I think some will go Tory and a few Labour. Many will vote for strange new parties they find on the ballot on the day.
I think the only strong chance the Libs have of keeping their seats are in the South West though even the Tories might gain those off them too.
I'd love it if Clegg loses his seat. Clegg and Danny Alexander are the ones I want most to lose their seats, maybe Jo Swinson too. She seems oblivious to the sell out they've done and or doesn't seem to care as she's getting her own taste of power and seems to be loving it.
I agree, it would great for the country as a whole to see Clegg lose his seat and a massive lesson to all those politicians who think they can lie their way through life.
Having said this, Clegg has won career wise. IMO he never cared or believed what he said anyway. He looks like liar. I think he just wanted Deputy PM on his CV and he has got it now. Getting a highly paid job, where he does nothing for big wages will be a piece of cake for him now. Most career politicians are the same. Look Ed's brother. I am pretty sure if Ed had lost the leadership vote, he would be in his brother's exact job about now. Politics for these types is simply like another degree course in Oxford, once they serve out their term, they can make even more money in their next job. None of them actually care about politics or believe in anything. They are simply there to make money and move on to the next thing. Clegg was amazingly ambitious and now he has the CV he always dreamed of. I doubt he cares 1% about the GE. He may be slightly embarrassed if he loses his seat, but his next pay check will help heal his pride..
Clegg was a member Cambridge University Conservative Association when he was studying his degree. He tried to lie and pretend he wasn't but he was and the documents are as clear as day placing him in that association.
People never believe me when I mention things like I'm about to mention but in a way I kinda blame myself for Clegg becoming leader!
I once met and got talking to someone quite high up in the running of the Lib Dems though this person was not an MP. He was expressing "regret" for them selecting Ming Campbell when they did but seemed resigned that there wasn't too much that could be done about it nor anyone else who could replace him like.
I mentioned to him Chris Huhne and also mentioned that Clegg wasn't bad at the time as their Home Office spokes person but he'd be seen more for his face than substance as a leader and therefore Huhne would be better. As soon as I mentioned Clegg though, this guys face lit up as if he hadn't thought of Clegg. In the coming months after that, Campbell quit and then Libs had their leadership election and the rest was history.
I wonder if Huhne would have gone for the coalition as well if he was Lib Dem leader? I wonder if he stil would have fallen from Office or would he have been too busy to have ever left his wife?
I would like Clegg and the Libs to really lose badly because they convinced themselves that "It will all be worth it in the end and they need the proof that it wasn't. If they keep a fair few seats, it will only encourage more betrayals like this in the future.
On Ed Miliband, I think if he lost the leadeship election, he would have gladly served in the shadow cabinet, probably in his old role of Energy and Climate Change.
I think the media would have made David Miliband look like a right wally too as well though but D Miliband was growing into being a good speaker at the time Labour left office but he didn't show this in his confrerence speeches, only at Question times in the commons.
I get you but its happening all again, this time with Farage! Will people never learn on the salesmen leaders?
I think a big part of being politics, is the ancient art of oratory. Cameron is a very poor speaker as is Ed/G. Brown and Clegg is hugely pretentious - offensively so.
BTW, I would not worry about Farage, the Tories would rather have Ed in power than Farage. Portillo looked like he was going to have a stroke last night when someone mentioned UKIP. All the parties will tag team UKIP to make sure they don't get in. That is a given.
I think Ed will probably win. So many people in this country vote labour as a cultural reflex and he is well aware of that. He doesn't have to do much - especially the way the elections are set out in favour of Labour. He also has the complete muslim vote according to polls whatever he says or does and any immigrants who have been here long enough to get voting privileges will probably vote Labour too. He is right to be complacent. Farage and Clegg have to sell ideas and earn votes from the ground up. Ed and Cameron just have to sit tight and rely on people's voting backgrounds and upbringings to kick in come the GE.
I think Farage is more ideologically opposed to the EU rather than being driven by facts. I don't think he has concrete evidence at all that we will be better off leaving the EU and I actually think we will be worse off leaving the EU and will end up paying much more in all sorts of ways if we leave.
I think Farage knows that but doesn't care, All he wants is to get us out of Europe and if he gets what he wants and it goes belly up, I think he will be quite defiant and say "no one forced you to believe me". He has said he will quit politics if we do leave the EU and I think he wants to do that because it won't be long before the public realise they were fed incorrect information about being better off leaving the EU.
You kept a leaflet from 1976?
On topic, I think the student fees lie will tarnish them too much for many people to support them in 2015 and they will probably go to pre Ashdown / Kennedy support.
We've not had a European referendum! Did you mean the EU elections? If so, it's not much different from what Tories or Labour would warn you about leaving the EU.
However the LibDems gave too much ground in areas that their supporters would have seen as key areas and bizarrely voted against measures which were in keeping with their own manifesto.
They should never have backed the rise in tuition fees. It could be argued that the tuition fees are actually a pretty good idea (you only pay back once earning over a particular threshold, and it's not 'real' debt in that it won't affect your credit rating), but to break a personal pledge that virtually every LibDem MP signed up to was just plain stupid.
They also voted against the boundary reforms and reducing the number of MP's. This was actually an area where they could have given full backing with little kick-back, it was in their manifesto to reduce the number of MP's (to 500 I think) so very little ground would need to be given to back boundary reform. Yet for some reason they actually voted against the proposals, apparently to give the Tories a 'bloody nose'.
Sorry, but like many other LibDems I believed that the party was 'grown-up', sensible and believed that we could be governed in a better way than the 'knock-about' Punch and Judy show of Labour v Tory. Yet here they were acting as bad as the other two.
The referendum on AV was also a mistake, they should never have agreed to that. I don't just mean that from a hindsight viewpoint eiher. AV was never a consideration of the LibDem party, it is no more proportional than FPTP and can actually give worse results in some circumstances.
If proper PR/STV wasn't possible then they should have either held on for AV+ which was backed in 1998 by the Lab/Lib Jenkins Commission (then quietly dropped by Labour) and made a big noise about it's Labour background (forcing Labour to either back it, or look like the bad guy) or not bother at all and get greater concessions elsewhere.
Personally I won't be voting LibDem for a very long time (assuming the party survives). I currently lean more towards the Greens, but find some of their policies a little too 'out-there' (Citizens Income, open door immigration). I will likely vote UKIP, mainly because of their anti-establishment stance and backing for vote reform.
Yes - I would use UKIP to get voter reform so that I can then swap to a smaller party and not have my vote wasted. Especially since I live in an area which has had a Labour MP since the seat's creation in 1950 (with the previous seat being held by Labour since 1922 except for a four year period starting 1931).
I could see Salmon going up against Alexander, but does Clegg really have a risk of losing his seat. If there are any odds on this, what roughly would they be?