I am not a big fan of all this criticising Clegg for sacrificing the tuition fees policy to join a Coalition.

The Lib Dems did not win the election. They were the third party. Therefore they have to act appropriately in order to form a coalition.

The problem is if everyone gives a third party leader stick over compromising on parts of their manifesto, we will end up with someone stonewalling when there's a hung parliament, and holding the largest party over a barrel "we'll only join you if we can have OUR way on everything". That isn't democracy, thats just bullying the third party in to power.

Both the Conservatives and Lib Dems had to give things up from their manifesto in order to form an agreement. The Conservatives had pledged to reduce inheritance tax in fact that was a big part of debate in the last leaders' debate where Brown was giving Cameron a hard time and he was making a robust defence that it was the most natural thing in the world to want to leave things for your children and the government shouldn't take it off you....and yet that policy got dropped a week later.

If a party gets an overall majority and then backtracks on its pledges then thats out of order, but when there's a Coalition, by necessity there needs to be some kind of compromise and agreement. There are plenty of people in Northern Ireland that said David Trimble and Gerry Adams were sell outs but if they had stuck to all their core demands we would still have a terrorist war...

I don't quite agree with the argument that the Lib Dems HAD to join the Tories in Coalition. They didnt have to join anyone if it meant compromising their principles.
The Tories could have had a go at minority government or we could have had another election. Which may have turned out differently if no agreement had been reached and any of the parties had been seen to be unreasonable in their demands.

What I have never understood is why it was in the national interest for a Tory - LibDem coaltion. If a national-interest coalition was the thing to do why weren't Labour involved in it (or is there something in the constitution I'm missing)? The vote was split Tory-Labour so why didn't those two reflect voters wishes?

I thought it was a 50:50 decision whether the Lib Dems should form a coalition with the Tories or let them go it alone. If they done the latter they'd have had a hard sell at the subsequent election. What's the point of a third party that isn't prepared to form a coalition? To be honest I thought they negotiated a very good deal with the Tories.

I don't think they got a good deal really. Forced to cave on certain principles like tuition fees and didnt get a major ministerial position.

But even if it was a good deal, it wasn't a deal that HAD to be done. The country wasn't going to fall apart if the Tories had gone it alone or if we'd had another election.
I think the Tories might have had a hard sell too, as the Lib Dems could easily say the Tories tried to railroad them into accepting Tory policies. Plus it wouldn't have taken much of a swing away from the Tories to enable Labour and the Lib Dems to form a coalition.

The limp dem benefits cheat David Laws has just been on BBC Breakfast. Now childrens' minister, the lying, fiddling cheat should have been doing time rather than rewarded with a ministerial post

Or downsize just like those who are hit by the bedroom tax have to.

I agree they could have got a better deal on tuition fees, it wasn't that big a deal for the Tories. It was claimed that they just overlooked the issue in all of the other wrangling. I think all of the parties will be better prepared for coalition negotiations in 2015. But overall I don't think they did badly.

The last time we had two elections in a short period, 1974, there wasn't that much change in the outcome. But it did marginally benefit the minority government rather than the opposition parties. Labour benefited from still being in something of a honeymoon period and were able to mount a more positive campaign.

I just can't see how the Lib Dems could have done better at a second election than at the first. That was their chance to prove that they could make a coalition work.

In my utopia (and it will happen, oh yes) there will be no such threads like this one and no party conference season for there will be no political parties, just a conglomerate of constituency representative sent to London to represent the will of their voters.

Of course they will gather in rooms of like thinkers and as all humans do (especially the alpha males) they will consider electing themselves as committees and having special car park spaces marked out for them, but political party's will be banned and the whips system of forcing representatives to vote against their own, and their constituents will, will be banned by means of a law promising imprisonment for anyone who tries to resurrect it.

A small table of key policy deciders, senior representatives who have real life experience rather than university graduates who have worked for free within political parties since they left Uni with trust funds and free gratis parents spare houses to support them, will decide which of the hundreds of suggested policies should be presented to parliament and free votes will drive them all.

I'll take up the post of Speaker of the Commons of course and will kick when necessary using forthright language that everyone understands, we will be a TV sensation when the day comes, and it will...

Interesting point Jerry, could the system work without political parties? We could all vote for our local MP and the commons as a whole could vote for a Prime Minister who would then appoint a government

A simplified form would be to just remove the whips system and allow a free vote on everything, MP's could still have their party colours if they wanted and we could still wave the flag of our choice or pick a candidate based on what his party proposes at an election (as if that means anything at all), but during any parliament an individual MP would be allowed to vote on behalf of their constituents according to how they measure their opinions - would also encourage more MPs to get involved in their constituency to find out what those opinions are.

You can't go from a policy of zero tuition fees to tripling them and suggest that was a "compromise". Furthermore once the zero tuition fees policy was abandoned the Lib Dems were as vociferous in arguing FOR the tuition fee increase as any Tory. It suddenly became right and proper for students to contribute via increased fees.

Finally you may recall it came out that Clegg concluded the zero tuition fee policy was a non-starter before the election took place. They still went to the country on the back of the zero tuition fee pledge.

What they did wasn't compromise to form a coalition, it was to display rank hypocrisy.



Using the forming of a coalition to abandon your principles on which you went to the country isn't democracy either. A compromise on tuition fees would have been leaving them as they were. Instead we didn't get a compromise we got a 100% Tory policy as regards tuition fees.



It should not have been about "giving things up" but about compromising. As I said instead of a 100% Tory policy on tuition fees the Lib Dems could have compromised by arguing for them to remain unchanged.



You seem to have a strange view of the word compromise. What has actually happened is a majority of largely undiluted Tory policies have been enacted. In particular the NHS reforms and also Education are two areas where we see a thoroughly right wing agenda being carried out. Any minor tweaks the Lib Dems secured are just that, minor.

What actually happened is the Lib Dems gave a free hand to the Tories in major policy areas in return for what turned out to be some rather small crumbs. That is not how I envisage coalitions working.

My late father used to say he never liked large majorities in governments of any flavour because they tended to go the extremes if given a free hand. You would have thought a coalition government would also have reigned in some of the extreme Tory policies but it has not.

Instead of discussion and compromise on all areas of policy the two coalition parties simply divided up the spoils with the Tories getting the majority of departments to do as they pleased with.

Any idea the Lib Dems have put a significant break on Tory excesses is joke. They have enabled much of the bad policy this government has enacted.

We have the stupid situation where the Lib Dems vote with the Tories because they are both part of the government and have no option to do otherwise, not because they actually agree with the policies.

I'm seriously hoping for an outright majority for either of the main two parties at the next GE to keep this lightweight numpty well out of the picture.

His closing speech this afternoon reminded me of David Steel in 1981 with his "go back to your constituencies and prepare for government". History has documented what ensued.

Clegg is either pathalogically deluded or simply a spiv who has taken the opportunity to enjoy the only vestige of power he will ever experience

At least Steel wasn't as detestable as the current incumbent.
Miind you, neither were Charlie the head Kennedy, Ming Campbell, or Uncle Vince in his interim capacity.
Admittedly Paddy pantsdown Ashdown was, and still is, a grade A t0sspot but still not as bad as the little scrote in charge presently.
On the upside, I wouldn't mind shagging his Mrs.
In fact, I'd probably make him watch.

Quite so.
100% capitulation (as in the 15-minute U-turn on the economy) is not compromise.

A deal could have been done involving abstention on various issues rather than simply voting with the Tories.

Which bits of the bedroom tax, the NHS, tuition fees, welfare reform (for which read "reduction"icon_wink.gif, etc etc are "compromises" that a genuine Lib Dem could support?
What support on electoral reform and House of Lords reform did the Lib Dems get in return?

There are even instances where the Lib Dems have simply been ignored, e.g. the "Illegal immigrants go home" van episode happened without the Lib Dem Home Office minister (Jeremy Browne) or Nick Clegg even being informed of it (or so Browne says).
Some compromise.

The only good bit that comes to mind that Clegg has achieved is the increase in the tax threshold for the low-paid ... and even that was to a large degree, and for many completely eliminated, by welfare reductions and increased VAT.

According to Newsthump, Clegg is going to be forced to wear a full veil, to protect the public from his lying face...

Would need to be 100% coverage, because, as everyone knows "you can't hide those lying eyes"

The Tories would still have implemented the welfare reductions and increased VAT (and more) without the increase in tax threshold, if they'd had a working majority.

So what?

The policy isn't that brilliant anyway in that if you don't pay tax you don't benefit. Those out of work, underemployed, on part time work who earn below the threshold won't see any benefit of it going from 9440 to 10000 anyway. They will however be paying the increased VAT and Bedrooom tax etc.

I read this earlier by Suzanne Moore:

[urlhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/19/nick-clegg-speech-liberal-democrat[/url

An absolutely blinding and spot on assassination and exposure of Clegg and the Lib Dems.

Isn't that rather beside the point though? ... i.e. they didn't have a majority and have only been able to do the things that they have done because they have had Lib Dem support.
They can't say that something was all the Tories fault, what they need to be able to do is say, yes, we let them do that but it was worth it because we got this or that in exchange.

As a leader of the Lib Dems, the party most in favour of Proportional Representation and, by extension, the likelihood of coalition governments, you could have been forgiven for thinking that Clegg would very likely have been the best-prepared for coalition negotiations.
But his U-turn on the economy and cuts tells it all.
He was either so cravenly scared of what the result would be in the event of a second election or simply unprepared and not tough enough for the horse-trading required.

Maybe his declarations on economic policy, made before the election, were just a vague whim, a mere notion, nothing really serious ... so when he said, in the week of the election, “[iMy eight year- old ought to be able to work this out – you shouldn’t start slamming on the brakes when the economy is barely growing.[/i” he didn't really mean it.
Unfortunately for us, it was the most pressing, most debated issue of the day and the one on which many people decided their vote but, for him, it was disposable policy.

Earlier this year, he admitted that "[iIf I’m going to be sort of self-critical, there was this reduction in capital spending when we came into the coalition government, I think we comforted ourselves at the time that it was actually no more than what Alistair Darling spelled out anyway, so in a sense everybody was predicting a significant drop-off in capital investment.[/i”
But that's not true either, according to figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, up to Q2 2013, the coalition had spent £12.8bn less on capital projects than was planned by Alistair Darling.

Clueless.