Lib Dems

After Cleggs speech today regarding immigrants. Are the Lib Dems dead as a party ?  As his remarks were more on the right than anything you would expect of a centre party

Will they ever again be a party of power again and could they swap loyalties and work with Labour if there is a further hung parliament ?

Comments

  • They are a prime of example of what happens when you're not careful what you wish for.

    People voted Lib Dem because they liked what they said. They loved the 'we won't raise tuition fees' line and 'we love you and we won't raise your taxes' patter that they were spinning when they had a snowflake's chance in hell of getting in. They could've offered us free beer every Friday night for life, they were that unlikely to make an impact.

    And then they got an offer to taste the big time. And they did what I'd probably do too. They took it and ran with it. And then when push came to shove and they were playing with the big boys, they had to face REAL issues and realised that the game is very different in real life.

    I don't think they betrayed anyone. They simply spouted idealistic policies that they could NEVER have delivered because they thought it would make them popular. And then they were called to book and caught out. The real point is people fell for it in the first place.
  • Nose NowtNose Nowt ✭✭✭

    Why do so many people criticise the Lib Dems because they have not implemented their manifesto word-for-word?

    They got 57 MPs.  The Conservatives got 307.

    They have no right to implement their manifesto.

    They've had their problems, understandably. I didn't vote for them, but it seems that they've done a fair job of getting some key social-justice policies weaved into government legislation.

  • MartenkayMartenkay ✭✭✭

    Where would we be if the LibDems had sided with Gordon Brown and New Labour after the last General Election? With Labour policies of building schools, hospitals and aid to Africa knowing as one of their front bench admitted there was no money left?

    I agree with most of what Liverbird writes but I give full marks to Nick Clegg for going with the Conservatives despite the LibDems natural 'home' being with Labour. We won't see much of their manifesto materialising but they will in turn restrict the more radical Conservative ideas from being implemented.

    I think given the way of the world and the European Union at present the LibDems are a real force for moderation in the U.K. at present. Sadly though because of past over generosity by Blair/Brown we have many people disgruntled about 'benefits' without considering that 'benefits' should be based on taxes raised and not from borrowing money. I hope that if we swing to Labour they will also need LibDem moderation to their policies.

  • I think they have definitely betrayed their voters..they seem to have caved in to the tories on everything until now and managed to push none of their own policies through........

     

    I am sad as it means we are going back to 2 parties instead of having a third party grow and challenge the other two........

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  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭

    The Lib Dems are already finished. This is nothing but a desperate grab by a party on deaths door trying to realign itself with Tory/UKIP right wing extremist voters.

    Laughable posh boy running or should that be ruining the economy for a generation or two rather than taking the taxation and spending measures required to line the pockets of their mates. Same old Tories.

  • And same old Labour, who will be back in a couple of years to write endless cheques they can't cash and leave the country in a massive heap of financial shit again. We'll be like Greece but without the weather.

    Anyone who thinks the economy is in better hands under Labour when they plunged this country into the worst DEBT we've ever seen is dreaming.

    But you keep blaming the Tories for at least trying to sort it out if you want. Your chance to "make it all better again" is coming. I can't wait to see Labour in EXACTLY the same position as the Lib Dems. They'll want to offer everyone the Earth but sooner or later it might even dawn on THEIR thick skulls that the credit card bill has arrived and you have to pay it.

    I'm not a Tory. I'm not Labour. I'm not anything really I'm just SICK of the bullshit.

  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭

    Labour are idiots too, but we'd be in better shape by now under them than Gideon and his fixes for his mates.

    The Tories aren't fixing anything other than their mates bank balances and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. They are attacking the poor, the weak and making them the scapegoats for financial issues. It's easy to blame the weakest who can't defend themselves when all our issues are caused by those in power, and in this case that was the banking industry. Labour in their fear of being anything but right wing fanatics to that sector let them run amok, the Tories would have done the same. Funny that estimated benefit fraud and the like that they so push in our faces is a fraction of tax evasion by corrupt companies.

    The focus should be on closing tax loopholes, increasing taxation. Oh, and actually we're nothing like in the worst debt we've ever seen going by GDP. Don't believe the hype. That's all that is hype to scare the population to accept getting shafted while the rich get richer and laugh at our stupidity. Also we're nothing like a Greece.

    Some folk are so easily brainwashed by the media.

  • seren nos wrote (see)

    I think they have definitely betrayed their voters..they seem to have caved in to the tories on everything until now and managed to push none of their own policies through........

     

    I am sad as it means we are going back to 2 parties instead of having a third party grow and challenge the other two........

     

    There is one, for better or worse,  it's called UKIP

  • Martenkay wrote (see)

    Where would we be if the LibDems had sided with Gordon Brown and New Labour after the last General Election? With Labour policies of building schools, hospitals and aid to Africa knowing as one of their front bench admitted there was no money left?

    I agree with most of what Liverbird writes but I give full marks to Nick Clegg for going with the Conservatives despite the LibDems natural 'home' being with Labour. We won't see much of their manifesto materialising but they will in turn restrict the more radical Conservative ideas from being implemented.

    I think given the way of the world and the European Union at present the LibDems are a real force for moderation in the U.K. at present. Sadly though because of past over generosity by Blair/Brown we have many people disgruntled about 'benefits' without considering that 'benefits' should be based on taxes raised and not from borrowing money. I hope that if we swing to Labour they will also need LibDem moderation to their policies.

    Bollocks. In the last year of Labour, with reflationary policies, we were getting out of the mess - which was caused not by labour borrowing but by a global depression caused by the banking system. This government has allowed the banking industry to get away with it, and the poor and needy are paying for it. The Lib Dems have allowed them to do this. They have no shame.

  • Lib who?  All I see is another Tory Government.  

  • Nose NowtNose Nowt ✭✭✭

    I'm one of the many who don't feel happy with any party...  but the ones that wind me up most at the moment are Labour.  Not particularly their policies... but the childishness and disengenuousness of their arguments.

    Balls & Milliband go on about the Tories 'cutting taxes for millionaires'.  Every bloody time they opens their gobs.

    Balls and Brown only set the 50p rate literally 4 weeks before leaving power (as a blatant political time bomb).

    Now the coalition has changed it to 45p. Which is a lot more than the 40p rate that Labour taxed millionaires' during their 13 years (except 4 weeks) - they bang on and on and on as though the Tories are evil.    That they may or may not be, but not in this respect.

    Labour are absolutely pushing me away with this line

  • Run Wales wrote (see)

    I'm one of the many who don't feel happy with any party...  but the ones that wind me up most at the moment are Labour.  Not particularly their policies... but the childishness and disengenuousness of their arguments.

    Balls & Milliband go on about the Tories 'cutting taxes for millionaires'.  Every bloody time they opens their gobs.

    Balls and Brown only set the 50p rate literally 4 weeks before leaving power (as a blatant political time bomb).

    Now the coalition has changed it to 45p. Which is a lot more than the 40p rate that Labour taxed millionaires' during their 13 years (except 4 weeks) - they bang on and on and on as though the Tories are evil.    That they may or may not be, but not in this respect.

    Labour are absolutely pushing me away with this line

    Agree 100%. It was 34 DAYS before they left us and ran away to let someone else pick up the pieces. And then try to make it "look like" a cut.

    It isn't a cut. It's a reversal. And who EARNS £1m a year anyway? Anyone on here?

  • Eggyh73 wrote (see)

    Labour are idiots too, but we'd be in better shape by now under them than Gideon and his fixes for his mates.

    Don't you LOVE it that Osborne's real name is GIDEON??? image

  • The highest rate of income tax peaked in the Second World War at 99.25%.It was slightly reduced after the war and was around 90% through the 1950s and 60s.

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/U.K.-Tax-Revenues-As-GDP-Percentage-%2875-05%29.jpg/350px-U.K.-Tax-Revenues-As-GDP-Percentage-%2875-05%29.jpg

    http://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.21wmf11/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png

    Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP for the UK in comparison to the OECD and the EU 15.

    In 1971 the top-rate of income tax on earned income was cut to 75%. A surcharge of 15% on investment income kept the top rate on that income at 90%. In 1974 this cut was partly reversed, and the top rate on earned income raised to 83%. With the investment income surcharge this raised the top rate on investment income to 98%, the highest permanent rate since the war. This applied to incomes over £20,000 (£155,247 as of 2013),. In 1974, as many as 750,000 people were liable to pay the top-rate of income tax. Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s. In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60%

     

    There in lies the mistake, recent "mock" Labour Governments have not reinstated realistic Tax rates.  Margaret Thatcher won, and carries on winning every day we allow a bank manager to earn £4.4 Mlilion (before bonuses)... Santander UK.  Let alone failed bankers collecting bonuses.  She believed in encouraging entrepreneurs who would create wealth, provide jobs and spread wealth, she had no idea that these basterds would keep the wealth for themselves.  Even Margeret did not intend this!!!!

  • If I were Chancellor, I would introduce income tax at 90% at £100 000 and establish a 20% of income limit on all bonuses.  If people are really so good at thier jobs, then businesses will raise thier salaries sufficiently that they will cover the additional tax  payments in order to keep them.  If not,.. they can compete in a free market,against Poles and Romanians right across Europe.

  • I hope none of you are so racist as to suggest a Pole or a Romanian cannot run/ruin a bank as well as any other European.

  • So long as we live in a free market.

  • 1971... That's Edward Heath... Tory Government... 75% income tax on salaries over equivalent of 2013: £155 000.  AND 90% on bank interest.

    Where did we go wrong?

    Oh yeah, we threw away The Social Contract.

    Our higher tax rates are ridiculously low.

  • 98% taxation is not taxation. It's confiscation.



    However, it matters not what the rate of tax is for the richest. They will avoid or evade it anyway.
  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    There's not a lot any political party can do. Human nature being what it is.

    If you gave every single person in the country £1000 today, in 48 hours that money will end up in the possession of only about 10% of them.

     

    🙂

  • Nick Windsor 4 wrote (see)

    Liberals are the worst part of any argument. At least the tories and labour have ideas, Liberals sit around with reasons the plans of others don't work. They just disgree with everything offering little in the way of sensible alternative

     

    Labour has yet to convince me that it has any ideas at all. The Tories have yet to convince me the have any that really work.

    While making a valid point about improving access to apprenticeshis yesterday, Miliband still  referred back to the ridiculous notion of 50% of school leavers going on to university.

    He has still got a very long way to go before he persuades me to vote for his lot.

  • Listening to Danny Alexander on Radio 5 this evening was like listening to aTory party conference speaker

  • We should probably all agree then that we're all off to hell in a handcart?

    Hold on tight!
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