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I was being a bit snide with that comment, but you generally do post rather well... so a little for column A, little from column B

I think we'll agree to disagree on the Nuclear Weapons thing though.

So does anybody else think that Nick Clegg really should go? I don't think him leaving could damage his party any further. I'd like to see Charles Kennedy as the leader to be honest.

Clegg leaving could only do good in my eyes.

The guy represents poison to me.

Clegg needs to go before the next election if the
LibDems are to even have a chance, but I think he's already done too much damage to make a difference. He's nothing more than a sellout and a liar in my eyes.

 Paradigm wrote:
Clegg needs to go before the next election if the
LibDems are to even have a chance, but I think he's already done too much damage to make a difference. He's nothing more than a sellout and a liar in my eyes.

After the Lib Dems went into a coalition with the Tories they were always going to get battered in the next general election, its too much of a betrayal for their voters. The tuition fee 'promise' really didn't help them either, nor has their track record in government. A new leader may salvage something but unless he is Jesus its not going to do much for them overall. Its a shame that Charlie Kennedy isn't still the leader to be honest.

I quite liked his proposals to change voting for elections, but sadly that was shot down.

The student thing really fethed him over. I can't see him or hear him without thinking about it. It didn't effect me, being in Scotland and getting my fees paid, but it did piss me off for all the other students around the country. Such blatant lying. Where was their "spin Dr" when they made that decision?

Time to go Mr. Clegg, you fethed your career and party at a shot for power. The Lib Dems are equally responsible though.

Verdict?

I'm happy UKIP won't work together with Hitler Le Pen.

Le Pen. Just one n.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Le Pen. Just one n.

Only one n? Dangit. Was what I typed first, but then I wasn't sure and for some reason added another "n".

Le Pen seems pretty out there. I heard on the BBC that they (her party) were quite heavily anti-Semitic in the past. The commentator said that "they've done a lot to get rid of that image and it isn't really a valid criticism anyore" which I think is a load of bs.

While UKIP undoubtedly has some racist & unsavoury elements, I'd say Farage is more of a jingoist than an out & out racist. He'd be shooting himself in the foot to side with Le Pen.

The Lib dems would have been found out in either a Tory or Labour led coalition.

They would have had to back track on key policy points either way, and would always be a junior partner in any coalition- leading to them winning points on marginal matters of policy and having to convince their members that key election pledges being flipped is "the best thing in the long run".

Really though Liberal MP's wanting Cleggs head should have shouted louder before any agreement was entered into after the last general election. They all wanted to be the ones to clip the tories wings.

Hybrid, how are you feeling about the FN's rise? I reckon it's a bit of an indictment of the apathy of the average French voter.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Le Pen seems pretty out there. I heard on the BBC that they (her party) were quite heavily anti-Semitic in the past. The commentator said that "they've done a lot to get rid of that image and it isn't really a valid criticism anyore" which I think is a load of bs.

The Front National are like the Far-Right All-Star. They are very, very good in making very different brand of people vote for them. They get votes from Christian extremists and very anti-Christian NSBM fans. They get votes from “anti-Zionist” nutcases and the get votes from hardline anti-Muslim jews. Or at least they are trying in the last case.
I have never been to a Front National meeting, but I would love to, just to see how they manage not to fight each others .
They have been working hard to get a clean face to show to the general public, and actually, the less stuff they actually say about their opinions, the better it is for them. So, they mostly say populist consensual stuff, and a lot of various attacks on the other partys. They have coined the expression UMPS to describe how the two main party, the UMP and the PS, are actually just the same gak with another name.
What do they actually believe in? I am not sure. But I do not want to get them in power just to find out!

Da Boss : I feel pretty bad for not having voted, mostly.

Medium of Death wrote:I was being a bit snide with that comment, but you generally do post rather well... so a little for column A, little from column B

Good enough for me!

I'm a somewhat arrogant sod from time to time, so it probably does me good to get brought back to earth every once in a while.

I think we'll agree to disagree on the Nuclear Weapons thing though.

Fair enough, that's a whole other debate, and tends to ultimately come down to opinion at the end of the day.
I did see a funny clip with a comedian once though. He said we should scrap the nukes, but just not tell anybody. Make cardboard missiles or something, and the deterrent effect will be the same, just cost a lot less!

So does anybody else think that Nick Clegg really should go? I don't think him leaving could damage his party any further. I'd like to see Charles Kennedy as the leader to be honest.

I doubt it would make much of a difference by this stage tbh. The Lib dems in general are taking a kicking.

Palindrome wrote:
After the Lib Dems went into a coalition with the Tories they were always going to get battered in the next general election, its too much of a betrayal for their voters. The tuition fee 'promise' really didn't help them either, nor has their track record in government.

I don't think there was anything inherently wrong in going into coalition. The Lib Dems haven't had a sniff of power in decades, and it would have given them a chance to do something finally. I think that where they went wrong, was prioritising the accumulation of power above all else. That's what burned them.

The Lib Dems, as junior partners were never going to be able to have more than two or three red line policies that they were going to be able to push on the Tories. Clegg sat down, and thought about it, and decided that it wasn't going to be tuition fees. It wasn't going to be anything on his manifesto. It was going to be anything economy related ( in the middle of a recession). No. Clegg decided that the two things he wanted the Tories to let him push for were House of Lords reform, and voting reform ( the AV system).

The reason he picked those is because the Lib Dems have always polled fairly well, but not got very many seats into either chamber. They scored 23% of the general vote in the 2010 election, meaning almost 1 in 4 people voted for them, but only got 57 seats out of almost 650 due to the first past the post system. If AV had come in, it would have built them into a serious contender for second largest party at any given time, and given them the chance of forming their own government some day. Likewise, if the House of Lords was directly elected, their own influence in there would have been greatly increased.


The yellow is the Liberal Democrats percentage of the overall vote


In other words, Clegg picked to push the two policies that would give his party the best shot at hanging onto power/gaining more power in future, over holding to any of his election pledges. And it's ruined him. Both policies were shot down, one of which was in a national referendum. The Lib Dems then moaned and complained at the Tories about not just forcing these things through despite being democratically shot down (very liberalistic, eh wot?).

They then deliberately sabotaged the Tories from returning the constituency boundaries (to where they were before Labour strategically redrew them to give themselves voting advantage) as a revenge tactic. Which was very mature.


~And on that day was the Earth plunged into an eternal darkness of misdirection, incompetence & general fudging~

Frankly, the Liberal Democrats have acted like nothing more than power hungry, petulant, untrustworthy children, and the thought of a Clegg/Miliband coalition ruling the country fills me with horror. I don't like Cameron much, but I'll be voting Tory just to avoid that.

 Ketara wrote:
I don't like Cameron much, but I'll be voting Tory just to avoid that.

While I will be voting for the Red Tories to do my bit in preventing the abomination that would be Farage and Cameron.

The Lib Dems could have re-created themselves as a genuine alternative to the nearly identical Labour and Conservatives, the UK is almost completely lacking in genuinely left wing political parties and that is the role that the Lib Dems should be filling. Painting themselves grey and attaching themselves to the Tories has done nothing but force them to support policies that their own voters find objectionable and it will be a millstone around the parties neck for years to come. The Lib Dems have accomplished very little of note in this parliament (except perhaps restraining the Tories more outlandish schemes) and while it may have gotten them close to power it isn't close enough to have been worth the fallout.

At the general election, I voted liberal. Not this time, I voted green, and will next year.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
The Lib dems would have been found out in either a Tory or Labour led coalition.

They would have had to back track on key policy points either way, and would always be a junior partner in any coalition- leading to them winning points on marginal matters of policy and having to convince their members that key election pledges being flipped is "the best thing in the long run".

Really though Liberal MP's wanting Cleggs head should have shouted louder before any agreement was entered into after the last general election. They all wanted to be the ones to clip the tories wings.

For decades the major charge filed against the Liberals was that they had no experience of real government.

Now they do.

Was it worth it?

 Ketara wrote:

Medium of Death wrote:]I think we'll agree to disagree on the Nuclear Weapons thing though.

Fair enough, that's a whole other debate, and tends to ultimately come down to opinion at the end of the day.
I did see a funny clip with a comedian once though. He said we should scrap the nukes, but just not tell anybody. Make cardboard missiles or something, and the deterrent effect will be the same, just cost a lot less!

That'd work for 5 min...and then Wiki-leaks would get wind of it.

Well it didn't take long. Less than a week in and the first UKIP councillor is suspended. Alas, this will probably be the first of many, and considering his comments and attitude were previously known this must be seen as a failure of the party to properly vet candidates.

 dæl wrote:
Well it didn't take long. Less than a week in and the first UKIP councillor is suspended. Alas, this will probably be the first of many, and considering his comments and attitude were previously known this must be seen as a failure of the party to properly vet candidates.

While this is certainly a nice bit of ammo for the anti-Ukip-ers, I do think the fact they bothered to suspend him suggests the party are just as aware of the fact they have dangerous idiots on the inside as the public are. They are obviously trying to do something about it, which is good.

The one thing holding Ukip back more than anything is people like this. If they get rid of the extremists, racists and general plonkers, I think people would take them far more seriously.

Cameron and Orban move to sabotage Juncker's candidature. Not that this is terribly unexpected.

Random source in English for those who haven't heard yet:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/27/david-cameron-jean-claude-juncker-eu-top-job

*slow clap*

Way to go, lads! A needless power struggle between Council and Parliament that neither side can win is *just* what the continent needs at the moment.

So Reding, the vice-president of the EU, has branded a significant portion of the parliament fascist. Great. I'm sure that will really help everyone get along.