Maybe he should have stopped at “there is no future for the libdems”

Ah, so what he actually said was:

“The Lib Dems never were and aren’t a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party.”

And he’s quite right. We’re a third way not Labour minus the bits you don’t like.

@George

Sadly the Lib Dems did pick up a fair bit of support from disgruntled Labour supporters in recent years, although stats show they did also get anti-Labour Tory voters too.

I should hope that British politics (apart from the infantile Labour “we’re against all this stuff the government is doing, even though we proposed doing it first, purely because we’re one gang and they’re the other *thumbs nose*” Party) is mature enough to allow a party of the authoritarian left, the radical centre, and the centre right.

Er, so he’s repeated what they’ve been saying consistently for at least the last ten years?

Yup, totally agree with Nick here. We’re a separate party, not Labour lite.

@Jason

Say what now?

“Sunny adds: Good thing I joined the Labour party then, and thanks to Nick Clegg for making that clear for us lefties.”

Skilful slight of hand there, Sunny. You must have been hoping that everyone had forgotten about your endorsement of the ‘left wing’ Lib Dems:

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/05/01/the-guardian-endorses-the-libdems-and-im-with-them/

Mr S Pill; that article doesn’t even contain the word “left”.

There never was anything coherent about the LibDems.
A coalition of nanny-knows-best Shirley Williams type ex-Labourites joined to classical(ish) liberals of the Orange Book persuasion plus a handful of anti-Semites (cf. Jenny Tonge) on the side.
That incoherence allowed voters to see what they wanted to see.

Now they have been forced into actually doing something some of their voters are not happy.
Well quelle f***ing surprise.

Of course in the parallel universe in which they had gone in with Labour the cuts which were in Darling’s budget – not that far off Osborne’s budget, a fact which Balls and MiliEd seem to have forgotten – would presumably be going ahead.
So these pissed off voters are clearly as thick as shit.

@Jason

No, but in it Clegg does say: “There is a gulf in values between myself and David Cameron“; “I think [...] there is just a gulf between what David Cameron stands for and what I stand for“; “I have always accepted the first part of Roy Jenkins’s analysis which says that historically Labour and Liberal Democrats are two wings of a progressive tradition in British politics.“; and this classic “I don’t think the choice is between Conservative and Labour – the choice is now between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats” – all of which would lead the reader to assume that Clegg was positioning his Party to the Left of the Cons and replacing Labour. This is not ancient history – all of those quotes are from 30th April. Clegg was blatently trying to get the leftish anti-Labour vote by selling his party on a pink ticket.
I just feel sorry for the LD councillors up and down the country who have been fighting the Tories since way back when who must be now having an existential crisis.

(FWIW I voted Labour at the last election (my now former MP not being tainted by New Labour’s excesses) but have voted LD when necessary to keep the Tories out… be hard to in the future assuming FPTP stays).

The only surprise is that anyone should be surprised by this (oh, and the fact that Sunny thinks we all have such short memories about his Damascene conversion of course)!

The major issue that the holier-than-thou brigade in the LD’s might want to think about as they stare into the abyss of electoral oblivion, is why they sold themselves so cheaply after the election. They have singularly failed to act as an effective brake on the Tories.

They have failed even more spectacularly to convince the British people that they are a radical, progressive force capable of bringing about the changes needed in our society. It remains to be seen if the Labour party (under whichever of the political pygmies it choses as leader) will be able to do much better of course.

Perhaps Sunny’s flip-flopping merely reflects the miserable state of the left in the country generally? Those who have joined, or are contemplating joining, the Labour party might want to wait and see how effectively they stake out a new position on the left before crowing too much about LD betrayal.

It wasn’t that long ago many of them were bemoaning the fact that New Labour were to the right of the LD’s on many issues, and many of us are yet to be convinced the New Labour vampire has been effectively staked in the heart.

@12

…many of us are yet to be convinced the New Labour vampire has been effectively staked in the heart

Some of us new members are standing by with a crucifix in one hand and garlic in t’other

Does this mean the Lib Dems will just become the Liberal Party? This idea mustn’t have just occurred to Clegg it must be what he has always believed in but somehow conned the voters into thinking the Lib Dems under his leadership was something else. No wonder many in Labour didn’t want to join up with them.

What’s all the nonsense about referring to nulab as left, and it strikes me that pre-election there was little difference between all three main parties, so in some sense Clegg is right,.
And it also shows that the term ‘left’ and ‘right’ are totally relative and meaningless
in fact just use your own definitions. And I doubt if these so-called labour lefties, who switched to libdems were nothing more than disgruntled tories who had originally switched to nulab.
Before Blair got hold of the LP, left-wing meant socialist or someone who believed in the move towards socialism (Fabianism) They would never have supported the libdems. In fact I see so many posters on LC who don’t have a clue about the original LP, and less so about why their membership and voters have abandoned them.
Clegg can also make his mouth say anything as they say in my part of the world.

@13 Mr. S. Pill

Habeus corpus!

The current leadership are less like Buffy than her hapless entourage I fear: you’re going to need a lot more than an exorcism, trust me.

@steveb

Errm isn’t the point that New Lab weren’t “left” in any meaningful sense, and thus people dissatisfied with their approach to foreign policy & civil liberties went to the Lib Dems, who – as my link proved – repositioned themselves as the alternative to (New) Labour? Now Clegg has let the (rather obvious, meowing loudly) cat out of the bag I doubt many voters would make the same mistake again.

@14 steve

“No wonder many in Labour didn’t want to join up with them.”

Some in the Labour party no doubt distrusted the LD’s for the reasons you allude to: they are simply classical Liberals, and not “of the left” at all, and therefore “true” leftists should be wary of getting into bed with them.

However, the big problem with your analysis is that it totally disregards what New Labour had become. It was much more the case that those in control of New Labour didn’t want to join up with the LD’s because they knew that in many areas of policy prior to the recent election the LD’s (and even the Tories FFS!) were significantly to the left of, and more progressive than New Labour.

17
What’s your point? nulabs rejection of socialism occured in 1993 some 10 years before the Iraq war, when the term ‘left’ lost its’ original meaning, It took a few years before the membership and its’ voters realized Blair’s real agenda.
I have little doubt that the Iraq war and civil liberties issues lost nulab some votes but very few in comparison to its’ core vote, and very few of those would move to libdem. And potential new LP voters from the working-classes aren’t voting because there is little difference between the three main parties, and none appear to address their interests.
I’m afraid if your views of LP/nulab prevail, all we’ll get will be more of the same.

@steveb

So what do you suggest, then? We sit back and acquiesce with the Con-Lib consensus and idly sit back as they chop up public services and put people out of work?

18
I have no problem with your analysis, and I don’t think I disregarded it, just put more emphsis on other areas. But one the problems that I (and many others have) is the term ‘left’, it’s quite meaningless and became so after 1993. So when you say that one party is more left than the other, I could not agree/disagree.
20 Come on, this is supposed to be a sensible debate.

S Pill (#10); You, like so many others, seem to assume that political beliefs can be completely characterised by drawing a line between “extreme left” and “extreme right” and picking how far along it you want to be.

All this talk of parties being ‘right’ or ‘left’ is based on an outdated paradigm.

In economic terms, socialism died, capitalism won and that argument is over.

In social terms Labour have actually vaulted over the Tories to become the party of intolerance. According to the old paradigm that would make them the right wing party, which seems a bit nonsensical.

So we should abandon talk of left and right and concentrate on the 21st century divide which is between authoritarianism and freedom. This leaves the Tories in the centre and Labour and the Libdems at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Which is why I’m surprised that Sunny has decided to team up with the likes of Phil Woolas and Andy Burnham.

Shome mishtake surely?

@21 steveb

All I’m asking is where do you think we should go from here? I get that you don’t think any mainstream party can be “left” in the old sense of the word (ie: advocating common ownership of the means of production, etc) so who do you support, what do you advocate? TUSC? SWP? I’m not trying to be disingenous I’m genuinally curious as to what your alternative solutions are. For my part I think (or hope) that Labour can become a force for good once again and set out a decent, economically literate, alternative to the Con-LD agenda as well as at the same time reconnecting with its “core vote” … the arguments are still out there to be won, after all no single party got even a parliamentory majority (let alone a popular one) at the most recent election.

“So these pissed off voters are clearly as thick as shit.”

True. The Lib Dems have spent years and millions of pounds trying to distinguish themselves from either of the large parties, so it’s not their fault if voters then vote for them because they’d rather vote Labour but for some reason they cannot bring themselves to it.

What do you call a person who fucks someone when secretly they desire someone else? Downright dishonest.

@22 Jason

Nuh-uh – I see politics on the political compass axis of left/right/authoritarian/liberal. And if Clegg wasn’t trying to replace Labour as the party of the soft/centre-left* in that interview then god knows what he was attempting.

*Left being used here as a shorthand for anti-Conservative…

@23 PDF

Wrong on so many levels. NHS, welfare state, tax credits, minimum wage, sure start centres – all are left(ish) solutions to problems thrown up by capitalism, and all the problems are caused by capitalisms economic failures. Capitalism has not “won” – it is constantly being changed and indeed its a feature of capitalism that is has always evolved and adapted to changing social needs/wants. Hence why we have an NHS and a private healthcare system that run alongside eachother without too much crossover.

@25 blanco

Now now, as you well know FPTP doesn’t give one much of a choice, does it. Hence some people may have voted LD cos Lab didn’t have a chance, or indeed the other way around. hence the need for electoral reform (and I disagree with plenty of Labour MPs on that issue).

23
Well thanks for pointing-out the direction of my thinking, when I’m unemployed and have no electricity or food I can muse about whether I prefer freedom or authoritarianism, I
24
You are mistaken, I get fed-up of going-on about the new models of socialism – you are right about capitalism though, it keeps having to change, but this is because it is inherently an inefficient system.
The LP made the mistake of dropping Fabianism it also made the mistake of not going forward towards socialism at a quicker pace. Because however you look at it, we cannot keep the system together, as Yeats stated, the centre cannot hold,and at some stage economic growth will have to be reversed. But this doesn’t mean that we have to give-up much of our current lifestyles or that we cannot address the millions of people who live in poverty and cannot access new technology. Needing economic growth is one myth of captialism.
Just a quick example of the system you seem to want to hold on to – the UK disposes of 27tonnes of waste into landfills each year – this includes a great deal of wrapping, BA spent over £1million on one advert, none of this added any value to the products.

“The Lib Dems never were and aren’t a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party.”

Actually – they were. And there are plenty of Libdems who always said that their party stood more for left-wing values than the Labour party did.

The idea that Libdems aren’t about “left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party” – ignores the fundamental point about voters – that they increasingly move between parties that reflect their values and are more driven by that than party tribalism.

Nick Clegg can of course say he doesn’t want lefty voters any more, but any politician who says ‘fuck off’ to a significant portion of the electorate is quite dim in my view.

Kevin – sleight of hand eh? Only if you think I’ve not talked about why I moved from the Libdems to Labour enough. Perhaps you’re desperate to read more posts on it?

I’m one of those voters – who saw himself on the left at the last election and felt Labour didn’t care for people like me. After the election I lost much respect for the Libdems and moved to the party that had the potential to appeal to lefties.

I’ve explained both decisions in detail – why some people still don’t bother reading shit but love making snide comments about it is beyond me. But it’s easy sitting on the sidelines and cursing everyone isn’t it?

@28

“Well thanks for pointing-out the direction of my thinking, when I’m unemployed and have no electricity or food I can muse about whether I prefer freedom or authoritarianism”

Come off it, Steve.

All the parties were going to have to make the cuts. If Labour had won, they would be doing the same as the coalition.

@34

“NHS, welfare state, tax credits, minimum wage, sure start centres – all are left(ish) solutions to problems thrown up by capitalism, and all the problems are caused by capitalisms economic failures.”

Yes they are, and that proves my point.

Capitalism won, so now the state concerns itself with managing the fall out.

If socialism had won we would be facing a completely different set of problems. There wouldn’t be much point in sure start or the minimum wage (to use your examples) if we lived in a state where workers owned the means of production!

BTW, I’m surprised you bought up the minimum wage.

Both Labour and the Conservatives have agreed that £6.50 an hour is more than enough for a prole to earn, even in London.

More proof that the economic argument is over.

30
I don’t doubt that what you say is correct, but then I’m not a supporter of nulab/LP, well not in it’s current state, in fact, nulab can take a lot of the blame for the current economic situation.
I don’t agree with your freedon versus authoritarianism comment though.

“After the election I lost much respect for the Libdems and moved to the party that had the potential to appeal to lefties.”

Bet you felt like a right mug when you realised that your new comrades were people Woolas and Burnham.

The LDs might not be left wing enough for your liking, but they’re a hell of a lot better than BNPlite!

Bet you felt like a right mug when you realised that your new comrades were people Woolas and Burnham.

I’ve known about Woolas for a long time. Burnham is largely irrelevant

@PDF

It’s actually the princple of the NMW that I find important – I think it’s set far too low (having “lived” off it a couple of years ago) at present but it’s a hard sell to the right-wing arseholes at the CBI et al.

We have a different definition of “won”, I think. If capitalism had won there wouldn’t be any social welfare of any sort, no free libraries, no free healthcare – the market would provide it all. It doesn’t and it shouldn’t. The tussle between the two systems is still going on but people like yourself and tbh most of the mainstream politicos/media like to ignore the economic side of things and pretend that tinkering at the edges is all we can do now. I don’t think it is all we can do, but until something else happens we may as well soften the edges.
Neither capitalism nor socialism – in any real sense of either word – has “won”. IMO, obvs.

The next general election is going to be… interesting.

Can I object to the title? I don’t see what “no longer” has to do with it. They were never a party of the left. There was a lot of anti-tory sentiment by the 90s and so everything other than tory was seen somewhat as a left wing alternative. But they never were left wing and some of us dispair at this pretence that they were.

Also – most worrying part of that article – he espouse a truly liberal agenda for the NHS, education and welfare.

Can’t help but think that liberal thought is largely built around private property, a small state, and market choice…

@36

I would argue that things like the NHS and the welfare state (which was actually invented by Bismark) are no more than products of a capitalist state, and that they exist now for the same reasons they did when Bismark invented them.

Without them society would become dangerously unstable, and any savings you might make in tax would be ofset by skyrocketing security costs and general disruption.

Socialism, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of fish. The problems it creates are more intractable than those created by its rival – that’s why it has been abandoned pretty much everywhere.

@36

Oh yeah

Condem V BNPlite.

The political landscape has certainly shifted!

Hi Sunny, what exactly changed between the election and July, when you joined New Labour, that gave the party the potential to attract lefties?

Nick Clegg really is a lying cunt, still its been a good past couple of weeks phone canvassing – talking to lots of former LibDems both tactical voters and actual believers.

blanco

I suspect a big part of the decision was to vote for particular leadership contestants – though I would imagine the realisation that he’d been duped into backing a party of the right at the election probably made him realise that only Labour can deliver anything that the left really cares about.

“I would imagine the realisation that he’d been duped into backing a party of the right at the election probably made him realise that only Labour can deliver anything that the left really cares about.”

Like protecting white folk from all those evil muslims. Apparently they hate Phil Woolas because he’s too fair.

Seriously, how anybody can support BNPlite’s gaggle of warmongering control freaks is beyond me.

@44

Yawn, your snotty little rants bare no relation to reality. Trying to smear Labour as a racist party, the same Labour party that passed numerous equality laws; is laughable.

Parties change.

First there was Labour. Then there was new Labour. Now there is BNPlite.

1 – Look at Labour attempts to create racial tension in places like Burnley.

2 – Consider Burnhams endless whining about how foreignors are to blame for everything from unemployment to England losing the World Cup.

3 – Reflect upon Balls crackpot scheme to stop foreign workers from sending their moneyout of the country.

They’re basically a bunch of Alf Garnetts.

@PDF

Yawn, go back under the bridge you moronic little troll.

“1 – Look at Labour attempts to create racial tension in places like Burnley.”

Where is the evidence for this? Did you read it in a focus leaflet?

“2 – Consider Burnhams endless whining about how foreignors are to blame for everything from unemployment to England losing the World Cup.”

Actually, I’d agree with him about the state of English football; the majority of Premier League players are foreign. You really are deluded if you think that is a “racist” viewpoint!

“3 – Reflect upon Balls crackpot scheme to stop foreign workers from sending their moneyout of the country.”

Where is the evidence for this? Have you been reading the focus leaflets again? Balls, rightly, stated that Labour should have introduced restrictions on citizens of the new EU countries as other European countries did.

First the was the Liberals and the SDP, then the was the Liberal Democrats and then finally the Tories…

They’re basically a bunch of Thatcherites!!!