I suppose I should be pleased that the Lib Dems are making the headlines!
It's ironic that when we have a big announcement on something that really matters to people like last week's plans for more affordable homes we hardly warrant a mention. But as soon as we hit the 'Westminster bubble' with personality issues, speculation about who said what to who etc. then the press is interested. It's hardly suprising people get turned off politics.
On the substance of the issue, it's a crazy idea that a Government elected with a healthy working majority and a programme for Government should put members of a different party into office. It's true to say that Labour got nothing like a majority of the popular vote last time, but our electoral system did them a mandate to govern, and they should get on with it. I'm pleased to hear that Ming Campbell made it clear that there would be no Lib Dems in this Brown government, and unless there is mischief-making going on in the Brown camp, that should be the end of it. We will be fighting the next election as an independent political party, seeking a mandate to govern the country, and that is as it should be.
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Lib Dems in the new Brown Government?
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3 comments:
Glad to hear us trumpet our independence.
Maybe we can take the opportunity to highlight the dependence of our opponents on the patrimony of trades unions and big business, their susceptibility to the fads of the fashionable and to the agendas of lobbyists.
Why did Brown bother asking in advance? He should just have announced his full list of Ministers once he got in, including both a Lib Dem and a Tory in each department, and said that people who didn't want the job were free to resign.
Those approached need to ask themselves what it is about them that Brown found so attractive politically. The Lib Dems also need to ask this about each of them, as well as what the point of their own party is if it is going to pass up offers of Ministerial office, even including at Cabinet level. Everyone needs to ask what the reply from Ashdown, never over-troubled by self-doubt, would have been if Brown had offered to make him Foreign Secretary; also, to consider that, just as Sarkozy gave the Foreign Ministry to Kouchner, the only prominent French Socialist to support the Iraq War, so Brown has tried to bring in Ashdown, a pioneering neocon cheerleader from the Yugoslavia days, and who recently surprised no one by coming out as holding the same views on Iraq.
The Tories need to ask themselves why nobody bothered to do try and do a deal with them (although I suspect that that would have been Phase Two, and might yet be Phase One And Only instead). Labour Party members need to ask themselves why not one of their number - MP, Peer, or able to be raised to the Peerage for the purpose - was deemed capable of doing any of the Ministerial jobs in question, including one at Bevan's NHS. Labour MPs, in particular, need to ask why, at least where these particular positions (and how many more after this?) are concerned, the man whom they gave a clear run for Leader would rather have a Lib Dem Peer than ANY of them.
And we all need to ask ourselves and each other what we are doing to replace this whole sorry lot with proper parties and proper politicians, speaking and acting for us.
Thanks for the comments David. Just interested to know who these mythical "proper parties and proper politicians" are? It's a free market out there - if a 'proper party' wants to set itself up and find some paragons to stand, then I'm happy to take my chances against them...
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