Nice get-out at the end to let them avoid implementing any policy that has any sort of budgetary cost.

There’s a lot in there and it seems dedicated to tons of little snippets to appease various groups both national and international. There’s the publishing of EU project budgets; the vague noises about solving the West Lothian Question; recall and referenda wherever they can possibly shoehorn it in. There’s also a surprising amount of pointless platitudes for what’s supposed to be an outline and program for governance.

“We will use our relationships with other
countries to push for unequivocal support for
gay rights and for UK civil partnerships to be
recognised internationally.”

Wow that’s real nice of them [sic].

Nothing about homophobic bullying in Schools. Nor the big promise he made about gay criminal records.

I’m surprised by the fact that there is quite a lot of Big Society stuff in there – I rather took this as an empty slogan for the duration of the election campaign. But there are real measures on mutuals, co-ops, third sector, community organizers etc that I cynically never thought would see the light of day.

The Gove schools policy appears to have come out intact and is likely to be the thing that makes a big early impact. If it works, Labour will have to re-think whole approach.

Quite a number of things (e.g. pensions, social care for the elderly etc. seem to have been kicked into the long grass of commissions etc but there’s a pretty full legislative programme here.

Tommy @ 2

Nothing about homophobic bullying in Schools.

It’s on page 29.

Nor the big promise he made about gay criminal records.

See page 24.

This is just my impression of jobs and welfare – I haven’t read the other sections yet:

I notice that those ‘facing the most significant barriers to work’ are now going to be put straight onto welfare to work programmes instead of waiting up to 12 months. We need more of a definition of what are ‘significant barriers’ here. Are the vulnerable and those with disabilities who will have been thrown off ESA and incapacity be given something they can’t cope with?

All claimants of incapacity benefit will be reassessed. This is not that different to what is happening now.

‘Work for yourself’ sounds good but often these ‘encouraging people to volunteer and start up businesses’ schemes are just used as another way to punch claimants and it can get very complex because the other legislation around the unemployed is so ready to shoot bullets all the time. Welfare will still be too confrontational and not at all useful. Courses need to be less group based and more help needs to be given on an individual basis.

No raise in the minimum wage.

I’m not impressed with jobs and welfare.

I’m actually quite impressed they produced it and so quickly – I thought it would be quietly put on the back burner so no more hostages to fortune were given.

No comments as yet in case I fall into the trap of 2 above but I leave you with its closing words:

“The material used in this publication is constituted from 50% post consumer waste and 50% virgin fibre”

Mostly reads like the Tory manifesto with some Liberal civil lib/electoral reform sweeties thrown in for the LD voters who are feeling disgusted.

Will see what the Queen’s Speech says before passing any judgement.

Well, s3 seems good on a scan, but this bit jumps out:

We will establish a Commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of Rights that incorporates and builds on all our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, ensures that these rights continue to be enshrined in British law, and protects and extends British liberties. We will seek to promote a better understanding of the true scope of these obligations and liberties.

There is a lot of fuss about the HRA, with Tories wanting it repealed etc. The fuss seems based for the most part on our legal inability to deport foreigners to countries where they face a real risk of torture – this results from the absolute prohibition on torture. It is difficult to pin them down on what they are going to do about it. If you ask someone who isn’t being ‘bolshy’, “do you really want to deport these people to a country where they face a real risk of torture” they reply “er…no”. So what then do they want to do?

That’s aside from the fact that we’re bound in exactly the same way by the European Convention on Human Rights. We can’t derogate from this particular Article, if I understand correctly, so we would have to withdraw from the Convention.

The really silly thing is that the HRA makes the whole process more efficient and keeps such cases in the hands of British judges. Anyone would think a Briton would support that.

Later in the document,

We believe that Britain should be able to deport foreign nationals who threaten our security to countries where there are verifiable guarantees that they will not be tortured. We will seek to extend these guarantees to more countries.

My guess is that’s a continuation of the Labour government’s attempts to seek memorandums of understanding

As an aside, Blair once wrote of attempts to seek assurances from Egypt that deportees “shall receive no ill treatment whilst in detention” and “they shall receive a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial judiciary”, “This is a bit much. Why do we need all these things?”

If this document had been released by Labour, it would be hailed by all the “progressives” here as a massive step forward in the “progressive mission”

Ball. Not man.

@8

Indeed. There’s also a bit about allowing any petition with over 100,000 signitures to be debated in parliament with potential to become a bill, which would obviously come into conflict with EU and Int law if it ran up against them (ie: say a facebook camapign starts to bring back hanging/ban the burkha/legalise heroin; they get 100,000 signers… what then?)

Some of this stuff is a joke, which begs the question what are they actually serious about.

@9

Utter bullshit; LC and other left-leaning critics were immensely critical of the NuLab regime as well you know. Unless you’ve got such a selective memory/were born literally yesterday (we have always been at war with Oceania, Clegg & Cameron have always been best chums…)

In theory what looks good is this (whether they’ll do it is a totally different thing):

scrapping the ID scheme; bank levy; alcohol loss leader ban; cap on credit card and bank charges; new regulation on store cards; civili liberties; better recording of hate crimes against disabled and LGBT people; no third runway at Heathrow; 24-hour urgent care across England; referendum on AV (better than nowt).

So basically, primarily in the areas of consumer rights, civil liberties (though also see below) and banking. Again. I’ll believe it when I see it, but at least those bits look promising.

Bad or very bad things:

Welfare-to-work schemes; reviewing the Hunting Ban (talk about priorities) ; nuclear deterrent Trident; in spite of all the hollow anti-Labour rhetoric, loads of new targets introduced (i.e. on Sure Start); cuts of £6bn; Royal Mail plans; lots of waffling on cilvil liberties; energy and the building of new nuclear power stations; referendum on AV to be fought by the Conservatives (while also no other electoral system is to be discussed or studied at all); “Crackdown on irresponsible advertising” (this may actually be good, but weren’t they going on about “the nanny state” for 13 years?); National Citizens Service for 16-year-olds.

@11

Sunny: “Why Ed Balls would be a good candidate for Labour leader”

I rest my case.

Joking aside, there is a difference between “left-leaning” and “pro-Labour”.

It would be nice if in your blinkered partisan rage you could contemplate for a split second the possibility that there are “left-leaning” people in government that you could actually work with, you might be able to achieve something in the next few months outside of jerking off over the corpses of Diane Abbott or John McDonnell or Ed Miliband’s political careers.

There’s also a bit about allowing any petition with over 100,000 signitures to be debated in parliament with potential to become a bill, which would obviously come into conflict with EU and Int law if it ran up against them (ie: say a facebook camapign starts to bring back hanging/ban the burkha/legalise heroin; they get 100,000 signers… what then?)

Presumably the majority of MPs would vote against such things.

The petition idea is supposed about giving an opportunity for popular causes to be heard properly (rather than just mentioned and forgotten, as is the case at present), not a guarantee that they will become law.

@13

David Cameron is PM, George Osborne is Chancellor, IDS is in charge of benefits policy, Hague is Foreign Secretary and Theresa “Homophobe” May is Home Secretary. I, erm, rest my case.

And you expect left-leaning people to work with these fundamentalists? With more mental and less fun…

“No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin” – Nye Bevan.

Oh yeah, because they’re the only ones in government and the 5 cabinet ministers and 20 junior ministers from the Lib Dems are completely imaginary

From p. 22:

“We will support innovative and effective
smaller British non-governmental
organisations that are committed to tackling
poverty.”

Methinks that one or two large international charities may have got too much into bed with the last government. Will be interesting to see how this carries through.

Mr S. Pill,

You quote Nye Bevan: “No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.”

All this is evidence for is that Nye Bevan was an intolerant and illiberal man (at least when it came to Conservatives, but I tend to find these things apply more generally, don’t you?). But fear not, for the present coalition has just produced a nice document which was clearly not written by Tories but by Whigs, with its emphasis on freedom and liberty.

blanco @16
“Oh yeah, because they’re the only ones in government and the 5 cabinet ministers and 20 junior ministers from the Lib Dems are completely imaginary”

Good god…
proper world upside down material this is.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Justice Secretary, the Work & Pensions Secretary, Health, Education, Transport, Culture, Environment, Communities and Local Government etc etc etc…

All of that doesn’t count as much as the 4 minor departments that were handed to the LibDems and the junior secretaries.

How do you do it, blanco? Can you tell me the secret?

@16

If the LDs had been given anything other than Minister for Paper Clips and Silly Walks then you’d have a point.

@18

The point is that Nye Bevan wouldn’t've worked with the Tories because he knew exactly what sort of party they are, the LDs have sold their soul for a bite of the civil liberty pill.
As for the Whig comment – it remains to be seen. Like I said before I’ll wait until the Queen’s Speech/emergancy budget before I say anything, this doc is merely a PR stunt as far as I can see. But a cabinet stuffed full of Thatcherites doesn’t bode well, despite what Cameron says they are the same Conservative Party as always – he nearly admitted as much in his interview with Paxman saying that the fact that some people suffered in the ’80s was a price to pay for getting the economy under control.

This is a huge amount better than most of us were fearing from a Conservative PM and while the proof of the pudding is in the Queen’s Speech and the Budget, it’s as well to support the things that are good and concentrate on constructive criticism of the rest. I fear that Labour (and the media) will simply pick at this coalition like a scab and I’m really not sure that’s to anyone’s benefit. Instability hurts everyone, an early election will give the Tories a majority and – importantly – there is some good stuff in there that Labour wouldn’t have done had they remained in power…

In short: swallow this (it’s not *so* distasteful), elect a decent new leader and concentrate on presenting a compelling argument in 2015.

They got 57 seats. The Tories got 306! WTF do you expect?

This is all much more than we ever got from New Labour. But no, you’re too busy wanking over pictures of Diane Abbott and dreaming that Labour will be anything other than an immigration-baiting rump at the next election

When the LibDem membership go apeshit when the Browne Review recommendation to raise tuition fees gets passed, the fact the LibDems managed to reach an agreement to *abstain* on the vote isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference.

S. Pill (if I may be informal),

Nye Bevan had decided the Conservatives were a certain sort of party, and stuck to that point of view, regardless of evidence to support or oppose it. Hardly tolerant. And if you can happily harbour blind hatred of one group just because they are identifiably different to you, its easier to do the same with others…

I agree the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but the recipe looks good. Personally I think there’s too many centralised initatives, but the general impression is positive and liberal. Certainly I fail to see anything distinctively Thatcherite about this programme (or about David Cameron, other than the fact the more sensible bits of Thatcherite ideology became mainstream by 1993), but feel free to enlighten me where one finds the evidence for Thatcherism (which I am taking, since you seem to think it is a negative, to mean slashing public services, severe monaterianism (sic?) and union baiting, with the option of silly taxes thrown in).

@22

You can hardly on one hand say “The LDs are in a position of power” and on the other say “The LDs shouldn’t be in a position of power as they only got 57 seats”. Make your mind up.

@24

Au contraire, it’s perfectly reasonable to hate Tories for being Tories. Would you say that someone who loathes all fascists is being “intolerant”? I think not.

Of course they’ve not outlined what unpopular things they will do. That’s why I’m on the “wait and see” side – but as it happens, yup I see public sector slashing, VAT to rise and from the Con manifesto (page 20) this “We are proud of the last Conservative government’s industrial relations reforms, [...] and we will always be prepared to build on them if necessary” doesn’t sound too healthy…

@25

Happy to oblige you: they are in a position of power, albeit relative to the power of the major partner in their coalition. The distribution of cabinet seats reflect this – not that cabinet ministers can do whatever they want, the key drivers in this are Cameron and Clegg. The LD ministers will do what Clegg tells them to do, and the Tory ministers will do what Cameron tells them to do. And Clegg has (informal) influence over Cameron.

Why not wait and see? Neither of us knows how this will end. The signs are promising. It’s moot: people seem to be drawing very different conclusions about who got the worse deal in this agreement.

Oh and comparing Tories to fascists: where does that leave New “ID Cards” Labour then?

@26

Oh and comparing Tories to fascists: where does that leave New “ID Cards” Labour then?

Stalinist, of course

I dont know if this the right place for this, couldnt see a better one.
It seems to me the 1st thing Labour members need to acknowledge is that there will probably never be another single Party Goverment. The knowledge that the next administration involving Labour will be a coalition with either LibDems or Conservatives should affect everything you think, say & do, including who you choose as your next Leader.
Its that or join the SWP.

It all comes across as very waffly and convoluted, vey populist telling people things they want to hear, very little of substance or dare I say it policy. To me feels very much like a document to humour and keep the lib dems in their place as the mino part of the coalition. The stand out thing for me – in the supposed post spin era is the picture of Cameron and Clegg. With Clegg looking very much the submissive partner in the relationship, staring lovingly into his hard at work masters eyes.

I know it’s a minor point, but I wonder how they intend to “bring Northern Ireland back into the mainstream of UK politics”. (Has Northern Ireland ever been in the mainstream of UK politics?) They say they’ll look at changing Northern Ireland’s corporation tax rate, but that seems to be a move in the opposite direction if it means having a different rate from Britain. And the policy of trying to merge with Northern Irish political parties hasn’t worked out great for them so far.

It seems to me the 1st thing Labour members need to acknowledge is that there will probably never be another single Party Goverment. The knowledge that the next administration involving Labour will be a coalition with either LibDems or Conservatives should affect everything you think, say & do, including who you choose as your next Leader.

I am very much inclined to agree with this: Labour members should definitely consider the likelihood of the next few general elections resulting in hung parliaments.

Given that Andy Burnham was the main voice against the Lib Dem-Labour pact in the Cabinet, I hardly think he represents the right kind of leader who could work with the Lib Dems. Ed Miliband failed in the negotiations, as did Dave (tbh I don’t quite remember which of them was on the negotiations team). Balls is too tribal and even if he becomes leader he will only countenance another landslide Labour majority.

In the end it will all be about the economy and how well / bad it does over the next few years. All the other policies are pet projects that will be ignored and forgotten if the economy spirals more out of control.

Blanco. We don’t really know what went on in the negotiations but you are stating you know exactly what went on, not unless you were there? It’s all tittle tattle because there is far to many different stories being banded around.

@ blanco

I think the negotiating team was Milliband (D), Balls and Milords Mandelson and Adonis. If you sent that lot next door for a cup of sugar, they’d start a nuclear war. And you wouldn’t get the sugar.

@Steven

I said whichever one of the Milibands was on the negotiating team, turns out it was D (thanks Roger), failed. Given that the deal fell through, all other things being equal and not prejudging anything else that may have happened, it is objectively true that Labour’s negotiating team failed. You might also say that the LD team failed to find a compromise. Both failed, clearly.

Andy Burnham being the first Cabinet minister to openly savage the coalition talks is a matter of record.

@Roger

Too true!

22. blanco

‘ They got 57 seats. The Tories got 306! WTF do you expect? ‘

I thought the Lib Dems believed in fair votes? Surely the Lib Dems, if they believed in fair votes should have insisted on the distribution of cabinet ministers being based on share of the popular vote rather than seats won.

@Richard

I suppose it is convenient that Labour does not believe in fair votes – there is no other way to explain the fact that they got barely 6% more of the vote than the Lib Dems but 201 extra seats, without giving some to the Lib Dems!

You’ve obviously never negotiated anything, ever, or even compromised on anything. Seats are seats, fair or not – you don’t like it, you had 13 years to change it – and so the Tories outnumber the Lib Dems on any front.

Oh wait, you’re not making anything near approaching a serious point or valuable contribution are you? You’re just trying to be as childish as possible. It’s not FAIR, why did we lose the election, why are Lib Dems reversing all the things we did in government that made us unpopular, boo hoo

Blanco, I have told you before I am not aligned to any political party. If the coalition achieve good things I will praise them, but also reserve the right to criticise at will. Talking about reversals an amnesty to an immigration cap is quite a reversal.

@blanco

I think students are entitled to feel that the Lib Dems lied to them to get their vote, regardless of whether you think the policy was actually good or workable (it wasn’t, as it happens). Parties that deliberately mislead a section of the electorate to get their votes are not widely trusted.

Tell us, why should students vote LibDem, considering it now turns out that the party misled them on tuition fees? And how can those students trust assurances given to them by the party? Seats for LibDem MPs – including Clegg himself – may depend on you getting that answer very convincingly right.

S. Pill,

“Au contraire, it’s perfectly reasonable to hate Tories for being Tories. Would you say that someone who loathes all fascists is being “intolerant”? I think not. ”

Yes I would. I loathe fascism, but those who hold those principles are still humans, still individuals you can interact with and still have the same rights not to be discriminated against as you or I. If you cannot see the danger in hating the person rather than the policy, may I remind you that it is the difference between exectuing opponents and arguing with them. And how it is acceptable to say hate Tories and not to hate Muslims (both please note voluntary associations) is somewhat beyond me. Is hating for the sake of a label acceptable or not (feel free to hate for actions committed, because that is different – but most of the current Conservatives were not there in the 1980s)?

And also, since when were Conservatives fascist? I’ve read through the attached document and, bluntly, it is not fascist in any way. Total lack of state-socialism (the forgetten bit of fascism) or any notable nationalism, and surprising emphasis on liberalisation and freedom. So even if you can hate fascists, there is no fascism here to hate.

The campaign for a fairer voting system must continue in spite of this cosy coalition.
I suggest that all Lib Dems get involved with the TAKE BACK PARLIAMENT campaign:- http://www.takebackparliament.com/
Support from Lib Dem members and others, for the campaign, will help Clegg and other Lib Dem M.P’s with negotiations they have with Cameron and co.
A PR system is not only fairer it can help put a stop to the ‘jobs for life’ culture that now exists for a large number of M.P.’s

Try this assessment of the challenging energy supply issues facing the coalition and the agreement to avoid facing reality:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7728909/Chris-Huhne-will-ensure-the-coalition-is-soon-out-of-power.html

Btw it’d no use dumping on the Telegraph because other media commentators have a similiar analysis even if that is put rather more tactfully.

We will establish an independent NHS board to allocate resources and provide commissioning guidelines.

Considering that the NHS Board will have a budget of £120bn and will be a quango appointed by Cameron, it is scandalous that they have given such a blithe announcement. What are these commissioning guidelines, and can local commissioners choose to ignore them? (If not, then that is simply control from the centre.)

We are committed to the continuous improvement of the quality of services to patients, and to achieving this through much greater involvement of independent and voluntary providers.

Well I have posted on this site before an article challenging the idea that “independent providers” (ie the private sector) is as cost effective as NHS providers. But here we have the statement that regardless, the private sector will; be brought in to take over services from NHS providers (ie your local hospital will find its services will be taken away and handed to a private hospital). I suggest that the “commissioning guidelines” mentioned above will be “prefer private providers over NHS providers”.

We will give every patient the power to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards, within NHS prices. This includes independent, voluntary and community sector providers.

We will have to see how this works. at the moment private providers are inspected by the care Quality Commission like NHS hospitals. However, although all details of the inspections of NHS hospitals are made public, they are not made public for private hospitals. And there are no publicly available documents about the costs and productivity of the private healthcare sector either. Until all this information is made public then such a policy cannot work. But, of course, it will be made to work. The reason is that the Conservative health policy documents say that they want to create a “healthcare market” where “hospitals compete for patients” (they even seriously suggest that NHS hospitals advertise in the local press).

The ultimate aim, as far as I can tell, is to turn the NHS from a provider/commissioner into a commissioner-only organisation and all healthcare provision being from private providers.

I have to say, I was quite optimistic about the coalition government – but after seeing Liam Fox completely balls-up our foreign relations today with his patronising “13th century” comment, I’ve realised there is a much greater chance it will all end in bloody tears.

The Lib Dems had no other option, really, so there’s no point waving leftie fingers at them. They’re taking a massive risk, though, being associated with the fucking Tories. I just hope Dave is, as I type, preparing a rack for Fox, so he can instill into the far-right fucker the simple mantra STAY ON MESSAGE YOU TURNIP TALIBAN FUCKWIT.

I also hope IDS and May get with the programme, and at least pretend not to be far-right Tory scum. All we need is Cameron’s brand of liberal conservatism, and the government might not balls up its way to an early election.

@Gould

I have felt for some time that our own Lib Dem societal approach is actually very similar to the “big society” concept, and I think that Cameron has perhaps had to accept that we have a much more in depth experience of how democracy works from the ground up, as evidenced from our quiet but hard work at council level, up to the structure of our party itself.

While I am not happy to have the Conservatives fully in charge of foreign policy (though admittedly as far as Europe is concerned I do not see anything that isn’t really in accord with our own manifesto anyway?) and so on, but I think especially the fact that Nick Clegg is chairing the Home Affairs Committee is encouraging.

What people seem to have been worried about in a Tory government was how the people as a whole, especially those at the lower end of the payscale, would be looked after, and having that firmly in Lib Dem hands – and no matter what you say about Theresa May, she seems to have gelled with Clegg and Cable, which can only be a good thing – is a step in the right direction IMHO.

Its a centrist document in the main – clearly towards the right on economics, some liberal-leftish ideas on odd issues, but it does emphasise that despite the rhetoric, the LibDems are in its Orange Book guise, pretty much indistinguishable from centrist Tories

What it is clearly not is social democratic, and it is that which labour should be if they are to be an effective and constructive opposition

“it is that which labour should be if they are to be an effective and constructive opposition”

Dream on, Labour loser. It’s been a long time since they even tried to pretend they were social democratic

“Orange book disguise”? The Liberal Democrats are led by “Orange Bookers” as is our cabinet representation – bar Danny Alexander.

And we as members largely stand behind them, not least for the sheer achievement of turning a potentially catastrophic right wing Tory government into a centrist one. Oh, and for managing to actually carry many of our policies – both liberal and social democratic – into government.

There’s nothing wrong with a pragmatic approach to liberalism, and considering we are actually in government now, anything else – in particular badly thought through idealistic dreams without pragmatic solutions to tackling difficult issues – could be downright dangerous.

I’m not saying it is perfect, and a case last week shows that we have to be careful not to let halfway thought through ideas – no matter how noble the thought – run wild without balancing it with more pragmatic plans.

The case I am referring to is that of a young Pakistani woman with a year-old daughter, whose fast track asylum claim was rejected in January even though she is at risk back in Pakistan due to having left a violent abusive husband in the UK and being disowned by her family back in Pakistan, was arrested in Scotland on Monday, then transferred to Yarl’s Wood since families and children can’t be detained in Dungavel any more. They were both deported to Pakistan yesterday – with as yet no indication as to why, having been allowed to stay for months after her asylum claim was rejected (presumably to allow a review?), she was suddenly deported even though a single mother with domestic abuse issues is exactly the sort of person the Coalition agreement was meant to protect.

It sounds almost as if a local authority had decided to rebel and make the Coalition look silly for daring to have progressive ideas like not locking up children (but as yet not actually come up with alternatives!), and we have to be very careful to come up with more realistic and practical solutions to these issues, and fast.

Could I ask what would be different if this document was written by a majority Tory government led by say David Davis

Also Blanco
I did say right from the start that Iran and foreign policy would be the stumbling point.

Watchman is right not all Tories fascists, some are but in a Franco / Pinochet mould certainly not Nazis.
As social democracy is now defunct ideology, I am still one but I am too old to change.
As for the modern left was based on the 3 principles of the french revolution equality, fraternity and liberty.
As the first two are now non starters and many Tories are libertarians. One has o ask what is the function of the left. Solely to act as a permanant opposition. A little depressing.
Lets be honest the right is a mixed bag and is only kept together by the hatred of the left.
I have feeling that the world will become a giant neo liberal world where it will be about the survival of the fittest. Trickle down economics with right wing p****ks like Cohen telling us we hav to accept the status quo and the intellectual elite
What will be the future ?
I fear a never ending argument between social, neo, gay, christian and paleo conservatives.

“What it is clearly not is social democratic”

The £10K tax threshold is a wonderfully encouraging inclusion in this document, and that alone should make it worthwhile from that angle. We’ve had 13 years of so called social democratic – one may well disagree with that description as far as New Labour is concerned – rule and it’s not working.

You never know, maybe Labour will get their act together and come back refreshed and with a proper center left approach in 5 years’ time, however from what we’re hearing there’s likely to be more of a BNP light feel about it with the constant focus on immigration as being what lost them the election etc.

Andrea, no right wing sites talking about immigration.
It was constantly mentioned by right of centre papers and blogs before the election.
as for the 10K you will find that it is fits into the Tax is theft view run by neoThatcherites.A Davis government would have had the same policy.
You still haven’t answered the question.
“Could I ask what would be different if this document was written by a majority Tory government led by say David Davis”

I’m utterly disgusted that they’re keeping e-borders. So much for paying lip-service to rolling back Labour’s surveillance state. They’ve cast the most obnoxious bit of surveillance in stone.

You can’t have a decent country unless you can pass freely out of it, without having to get permission from the state first.

@Nick Cohen is a Tory: It’s Labour esp Labour leader contestants who have been going on about Immigration which would be a worrying move for Labour IMHO.

As for David Davis, I don’t know but I feel the current programme is more pragmatic and more positive than each manifesto on its own. The Big Society stuff that was a bit vague in the Conservative manifesto has always had a lot of overlap with the more pragmatic and hands-on ideas in the Lib Dem manifesto, and the Coalition programme stands more of a chance of working because IMHO Lib Dems have, from the party structure to council level involvement, more hands-on experience of bottom-up structures than the Conservatives.

@Chris – Both Conservatives and Lib Dems have said they’d tighten border controls and reinforce exit checks so we know who leaves not just who comes in, so keeping e-borders is hardly surprising?

Andrea
Thre manifesto is the same manifesto with are without the lib dems.
I do agree the rhetoric will change but the policies are exactly the same

@Nick Cohen is a Tory – The Conservative Manifesto is but the Coalition Agreement is not.

What are differences ?

No mention of giving anonymity to rape suspects?

For that alone, this document needs to be utterly despised.

@Nick Cohen is a Tory – You have eyes don’t you?

@Danivon – Why?

Why?

1. It seems to be giving protection to suspected rapists that other criminal suspects do not get.
2. Rape by its very nature is hard to prove, and so conviction rates are still low, although they have recently improved.
3. For serial rape, which is an all-too-common problem, it’s quite likely that some victims will not come forwards until they see someone else pressing charges. cf: John Worboys. Anonymity, and measures to make sure it is upheld, will make it less likely that other victims come forward, and that in itself makes it less likely that rapists are found guilty.
4. This seems to be validating the meme that loads of rape accusations are simply the result of vindictive women lying. While that does happen on occasion, it can happen for any criminal allegations. People who make false allegations should be (and are being) prosecuted. What this does, however, is spread the cloud of suspicion to everyone who makes an allegation of rape.

I know that the Tories liked to speak about ‘sending messages’ through legislation, such as tax breaks for marriage. Is there a message here?

Maybe instead of granting rape suspects anonymity, they should abolish it for rape accusants?

Why should either enjoy anonymity that suspects and accusants of other crimes do not?

Well, children often get anonymity as well, and for good reason – particularly if they are victims of crimes. And similarly for other witnesses (although that’s public anonymity, the defence will be able to know who is accusing them) and even some defendants, but this is on a case-by-case basis and judges tend to have pretty good reasons for it (even if the media don’t like not being able to name people).

We have anonymity in rape cases largely because it was seen as a massive stigma to be a victim of rape, and it discouraged people from bringing forward complaints out of shame. Maybe it should be reviewed, although it does seem to be standard practice in many other Western countries, but surely if you think it’s wrong to make rape victims a special case it would be adding more ‘wrongness’ to make accused rapists another special case?

Yes – either anonymity for both or for none.