Pissflaps posted:

Exactly! They've got little room to 'dictate terms' to the Labour party.

CoolCab posted:

They don't want or need a huge amount of room though, is my point. Ideologically, or at least, in terms of ideological ideals they're extremely similar. Don't pay too much attention to "dictate", focus on "terms"; we'll support Labour legislating big thing as long as we get to define some small implementation.

mediadave posted:

How many seats do the Tories/Lib Dems/DUP/UKIP combined currently have? Whilst a workable government of them seems very unlikely, how many seats do they have to lose before a Tory led government becomes impossible?

dispatch_async posted:

Also I find it bizarre that people think that every single policy that a Labour government might want to bring forwards over the next 5 years is already set out in their manifesto. Much of the awful poo poo the last Labour government did wasn't in any manifesto (as was some of the positive stuff - circumstances change over the course of a parliament).

Pissflaps posted:

Well that's hard to find fault with.


The ideal solution to all this of course is for the SNP to drop their commitment to independence and for Labour to pull out of Scotland entirely, then in about 20 years the parties can merge.

namesake posted:

I think the Lib Dems want to be out of government again and so are proposing all kinds of red lines and deal breakers about all kinds of things so they can refuse to form another coalition while remaining 'principled'.

Pissflaps posted:

Well that's hard to find fault with.


The ideal solution to all this of course is for the SNP to drop their commitment to independence and for Labour to pull out of Scotland entirely, then in about 20 years the parties can merge.

Lord of the Llamas posted:

If we assume that the SNP are unlikely to vote with the Tories very much then Labour can deal with the Lib Dems to pass any votes that the SNP abstain on.

CoolCab posted:

Aligning with the Tories already killed half their base, aligning with Labour and the SNP would kill the other half. The Lib Dems are waffling this election because pandering to their now radically reduced base means pandering to people who enjoyed the coalition.

CoolCab posted:

Aligning with the Tories already killed half their base, aligning with Labour and the SNP would kill the other half. The Lib Dems are waffling this election because pandering to their now radically reduced base means pandering to people who enjoyed the coalition.

Lord of the Llamas posted:

For most of the seats they're going to keep their base in this election is anti-Tory tactical voters...

Pretty sure most of the "Orange Bookers" like Clegg and Alexander are likely hosed in this election.

Antwan3K posted:

Yeah, I heard some UKIP guy talking about how with Farage's name on the ballot they'll have 5-10% more than just UKIP as in the polling for Thanet South. I can well imagine the opposite to be true for Clegg in Sheffield Hallam.

quote:

Clegg’s majority is around 15,000 but Labour have been fighting hard in the seat in an attempt to “decapitate” the Lib Dems. Clegg said he had not seen Ashcroft’s latest poll, but added that private Lib Dem polling of the constituency put him “firmly ahead” and repeated that those polled had not been told the name of the candidate, which he argues distorts the result.

quote:

Labour is unhappy about the make-up of the audience at Thursday’s BBC Question Time event.

Party sources said it is another example of the BBC giving into Cameron’s demands, as 50% of the audience will be from government parties. The split is Conservative 25%, Labour 25%, Lib Dem 25% and don’t knows 25%.

Ed Miliband is taking part in the Question Time event last, after David Cameron and then Nick Clegg. They will each face 30 minutes of questioning from the studio audience, who will submit questions in advance and on the night.

Hosted by David Dimbleby, it will be broadcast from Leeds Town Hall from 8pm and is being shown live on BBC One.

Labour consider Cameron has previously got his own way because he refused to debate head-to-head with Miliband and the broadcasters shied away from empty-chairing him.

Metrication posted:

quote:

A Lib Dem peer who is wheelchair-bound today told how she was made to feel like a nuisance “inanimate object” after she was barred from boarding an almost empty bus.

Baroness Sal Brinton was told by a bus conductor to wait for the next number 24 from Euston station after a young father refused to move his pram, despite wheelchair users taking priority just after midday yesterday.

The Lib Dem party president, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and can only walk a few paces, said the father just turned his back on her and the bus conductor refused to even ask him to move his buggy.

Baroness Brinton, who had been on her way to party HQ in Westminster, told the Standard: “The guy just refused to cooperate and turned his back on me and the conductor refused to even have a conversation with him.

“The conductor told me there was another bus coming soon, but that sailed past while we were having that discussion. In the end they just closed the doors on me leaving the people at the bus stop frothing at the mouth with anger.

LemonDrizzle posted:

quote:

Up to two thirds of the audience in Thursday’s Question Time Leaders’ debates will be left wing, The Telegraph can disclose.
The numbers of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters in the audience for the programme will reignite the row over audience bias which dogged the last election debate.

mediadave posted:

I have heard that before, but that's a bit stupid if it is their plan. That would mean the only example anyone would have of Lib Dems in government in 100 years and being the influence they claim they want to be is of them being the least popular part of an unpopular government (that, I think is only going to get less popular in hindsight).

keep punching joe posted:

It's a companion piece.

keep punching joe posted:

It's a companion piece.

notaspy posted:

Can you reupload this as when I click on it I get a 404 error

notaspy posted:

Can you reupload this as when I click on it I get a 404 error

Pistol_Pete posted:

Counterpoint!

quote:

Up to two thirds of the audience in Thursday’s Question Time Leaders’ debates will be left wing, The Telegraph can disclose.
The numbers of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters in the audience for the programme will reignite the row over audience bias which dogged the last election debate.

Looks like both sides pre-emptively claiming that the audience is biased against their guy!

Badger of Basra posted:

This is a cool thing :http://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion?CMP=fb_gu

Consider sending it to Misters Balls and Osborne.

Prince John posted:

Just going back to this article. Does anyone more familiar with the Labour party know if they're not fighting the Conservatives on this point because they're fully signed up to an austerity = good vision of the world, or because they know it's wrong and have taken a tactical decision not to speak out about it?

Zalakwe posted:

People forget. Remember when no-one was ever voting Labour again after Iraq? Those were the days.

The only exception to this rule seems to be WW2 which our national identity has been pretty hung up on ever since.

keep punching joe posted:

It's a companion piece.

Prince John posted:

Just going back to this article. Does anyone more familiar with the Labour party know if they're not fighting the Conservatives on this point because they're fully signed up to an austerity = good vision of the world, or because they know it's wrong and have taken a tactical decision not to speak out about it?

GimpChimp posted:

It must really gall Murdoch that there's not even a party who'll do well enough UK-wide that he can run an endorsement that'll allow for SUN WOT WON IT trumpeting post-election

GimpChimp posted:

I wish they had ran a more pragmatic front page that's like IT'S A TORY-LIB DEM-DEMOCRATIC UNIONIST-UKIP- OH GOD OH MY GOD KILL IT and the baby is Cameron with like Nick Clegg's head attached to his head and one arm is a miniature Peter Robinson and Nigel Farage's mouth is bellowing from where its navel should be

Zalakwe posted:

People forget. Remember when no-one was ever voting Labour again after Iraq? Those were the days.

quote:

Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, has taken the extraordinary step of lifting the lid on Tory plans for an £8bn plan to cut welfare, including slashing child benefits and child tax credits.
Alexander reveals that in June 2012, members of the Quad – the inner group of the four most senior cabinet members – were sent a paper by the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith entitled “Welfare Reform Quad Summer Reading Pack” setting out plans for £8bn of welfare reforms.
The proposed cuts included:

• Limiting support to 2 children in child benefit and child tax credit, so cutting up to £3,500 from a family with three children.
  
• Removing the higher rate child benefit from the first child, an average cut of over £360 for every family with children.
  
• Means testing child benefit – cutting £1,750 for a two child middle income family
  
• Removing child benefit from 16 to 19 year olds – a cut of over £1,000 for parents of a single child.

The £8bn worth of welfare cuts were drawn up by Duncan Smith at a time when the cabinet was considering whether to stick to its timetable to reduce Britain’s national debt as a proportion of GDP. The plan was dropped.
In a statement setting out his reasons for disclosing the existence and content of the documents, Alexander said: “I am lifting the lid on this now because the Conservatives are trying to con the British people by keeping their planned cuts secret until after the election.
“It’s clear from our time in government that the Tories target will be slashing support for families.
They now ask the British people to trust them when they make unfunded pledges on health and tax yet they won’t tell us how they will cut welfare for millions of families to pay for their plans. They may give with one hand but they will take away twice as much as with the other.”
A Liberal Democrat source added: “The measures set out in the document would have raised over £8bn – and shines a light on the scale of the cuts to working age welfare support the Tories will need to make to deliver on their cuts to welfare.
“Whilst the Tories refuse to make their cuts public it is clear they have already done the thinking If this is what they were capable of proposing in 2012, this is what they will be planning in 2015. It’s really important political leaders should be held to account on this in the last TV debate of the election. The public need the full picture to make the judgement.”

Pissflaps posted:

So they're endorsing the Tories because they can stop the party they're endorsing in Scotland.