The wages of public treachery are electoral death.

Hmm, I both agree and disagree, but the reality is going to depend on communication of the realities of the alternatives that would have been on offer with Labour.

The realities are looking very much like no matter who got in to power, we’d be staring down the same barrel of the gun. Some policy would be different here and there, but spending plans (money terms) under the coalition have been very similar to what Labour pledged. There is an easy argument to be made that this situation would be ongoing whether it was Labour in charge, or the Coalition. Given most people are inclined to currently blame the Eurozone for our current problems this isn’t exactly an argument without some traction.

Of course that does mean the Lib Dems having to take a different stance on the EU, not negative or anti but certainly much less concessionary and passive (arguably the last manifesto did make some moves in this area).

But they will have lost their strongest tactical card, I agree completely the main tactic was to be part of the government that “solved” our “debt crisis” by the next election. That is almost certainly out of the window on it’s own merits BUT….relativity is important. If the UK is doing worse than our neighbours, things could be even worse in that regard. On the flipside if we’re demonstrably out performing our neighbours then the argument of keeping us “afloat” while others flounder is also a potentially compelling argument.

You yourself posted a link the Paul Mason’s thoughts on the last few days, and I agree with his views on the inevitability of our direction (at least without a wholesale change of who our politicians are). Lib Dems setting out a commitment to cuts in their next manifesto sounds shocking, it’s interesting spin to talk about them having a complimentary manifesto with the Tories, though in reality this is an over-simplification as it would only be on economic terms if it were to happen that way. And as Mr Mason alludes to, it’s not like Labour would be able to escape making pretty similar economic promises in their manifesto, though I’m sure you wouldn’t describe that as an inability to come up with an independent manifesto.

I wouldn’t say they have no escape route, though if there is a lack of escape route from this coalition partnership I imagine it’ll more be down to Labour getting in an immature strop about not wanting to work with them should margins of support change while remaining in hung parliament territory. The reality is that the Lib Dems can very much argue a case as being an independent moderator in government, and that’s something that can be argued regardless of which partner they were to potentially end up in bed with. If they can maintain the way they’re making decisions right now, and keep the most right wing of Tories moaning about how they’re having too much of a say, then there may be much more of a story to tell than you are making out.

In short…Lib Dems have a much tougher ride on their hands than they thought they had, but they also have had a lot of wins against the Tories that they can call upon, and there is plenty of time for things to become globally relatively better for the UK which could provide some relief.

PoliticalBetting.com asks ‘Are the Lib Dems bound to Tory cuts beyond the election?’ http://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2011/12/02/are-the-lds-bound-to-tory-cuts-beyond-the-election/

Good article.

I would argue that in view of the current government stance on Europe, immigration and the like that the Lib Dem’s have killed the Tories…

It’s hard to predict this sort of thing, but I thought the Lib Dems were sunk when they lost the AV referendum. Winning it would have let them claim to be playing the long game, which might have mollified the anti-Tory parts of their base.

“In fact, Danny Alexander on Tuesday night’s Newsnight signed up the Libdems to this nightmare scenario.”

Given that the Lib Dems are trying hard to shed their wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing image, I have no idea why they let Alexander on TV. His image fits right into the “secret right-winger” mould, plus he seems genuinely unembarrassed to parrot Tory principles as if they were his own.

I thought the lib dem manifesto was determined democratically at conference?

I know these details are easy for followers of other parties to forget, as all their policies are agreed by technocrats in the party, but it is quite important. Danny Alexander can think further cuts are the best thing to do, but that doesn’t make it policy until it’s agreed.

@ 4

Cameron was pro-EU before the election, and his anti-immigration rhetoric was probably just bluster. The Tories get votes from the anti-EU, anti-immigration crowd even without doing anything concrete to follow these policies.

“The Tories get votes from the anti-EU, anti-immigration crowd even without doing anything concrete to follow these policies.”

TBH we could withdraw from the EU entirely, and in 10 years time some of that crowd would still be claiming we were run by the EU and should withdraw.

@ 8 – That’s like Norway at the moment. They are not in the EU but have a lot of laws to follow from the EU that they do not have a say in.
I think a lot of of anti EU people would gladly join the USA if given the chance.

The lie dems killed themselves. There was never any need to form a coalition after the election. Despite huge financial and media backing, the tories failed to win an out right majority. The right wing was furious with Cameron, and the tory party was about to go into civil war, and along come the idotic., blundering fools the lib dems and bailed the tories out. And for what?

A measly referendum on a voting system the lib dems did not even want. A few tax changes which will easily be overturned if the tories win the next election. And a few cabinet positions that have no real power.

Clegg sold his party for a sixpence, when if he had not been so desperate for power he could have let the tories go it alone, and let themselves reveal their agenda which his party could have veto power.

He had the cards, and he played the wrong hand. Naively thiking the tories would play nice. What a plonker.

@7 – Chaise Guevara

That’s my problem with the whole Europe thing. To see the Tories being whipped in that last vote was shameful.

The Euro is going to collapse or be put into a two speed system. Closer political integration is almost a given and whilst the government could use it to give the people the choice they are too gutless and weak.

Currently Italy and Greece are run by unelected fiscal wonks and yet pro Europeans like Dennis McShane still claim that is an acceptable situation. It’s madness.

Despite the anti-European sentiment in the UK I think that this country would vote YES to the EU personally.

As for joining the United States and having been there three times in the last couple of years I feel we already have. Our kids eat at McDonalds and watch Mickey Mouse. We watch American TV and movies, wear baseball caps, jeans and tee shirts, drink coffee at Starbucks and I type this on an Apple Mac.

We have way more in common with the United States than we do with the French or Germans irrespective of what the Lib Dems say and if they are obliterated at the next election who cares?

I supported Clegg for a while but can see now he just doesn’t get it…..

@10 Don’t forget their rather loose interpretation of what a “personal pledge” is either. Apparently meaning that when one promises to vote one way and never the other, they really mean they’ll be voting the other with gusto.
Lie Dems indeed.

It isn’t how badly or well the coalition have faired but the fact they will have unfinished business which will effectively to make them a single option in the electors mind Coalition V Labour (SNP , PC)

This means the 12% of Left Wing / Tactical Labour voters who deserted tme will not return because they are Anti-Tory.

This will mean the Lib Dems will be wiped out in Scotland – DA will be back looking for work in the Public Sector which has some natural justice! With the SNP the main beneficary.

The Lib Dems will lose most of their Urban Northern seats to Labour.

The only thing stopping a rout will be if the Tories go soft on them in the SW / Rural areas and even then short of not standing against them (which will make it worse in other areas) the lack of Tactical labour voters will mean they lose out to the Tories.

Add on to this the chnage in boundaries where many Lib Dem MPs will lose their boost from being a direct incumbant

2015 will be a very bleak year for the Lib Dems from boom to bust in 5 years!

I voted LibDem at the last election as an alternative to the tory candidate. Where I live labour has no chance of being elected. Now that they are in power I can see no difference between the two. They cocked up the economy, Osbourn and Alexander are dumb and dumber of the Treasury. Together they’re selling off the schools and giving away the NHS to their doners
Clegg seems to have vanished, Cable seems like a doddery old fool, Burstowe is actively privatising the NHS. Simon Hughs who I thought the only one with integrity seems to ashamed to show his face.
A vote for labour in my area was described by the LibDem candidate as a wasted vote and I was encouraged to “lend” him my vote. I don’t know who I’m more angry with myself for being an idiot or the LibDems for lying to me.
All I do know is the I will not loose sight of how nasty the tories are, but I’ll never trust the LibDems again and never lend them my vote and will encourage everyone I know not to vote for them.
Rant over.

“The only thing stopping a rout will be if the Tories go soft on them in the SW / Rural areas and even then short of not standing against them (which will make it worse in other areas) the lack of Tactical labour voters will mean they lose out to the Tories.”

Polling suggests this is complete nonsense. Thankfully casual electors (those that don’t froth at the mouth of the idea of the Lib Dems not becoming a proxy for Labour and wedded to them in coalition partnership no matter what) still recognise that the better of two evils for them is still the Lib Dems, and the Lib Dem vote appears to be holding up in areas of Tory/Lib Dem marginals. The only explanation for this is that those who would normally vote Labour, but voted Lib Dem in the last election to keep the Tories out, would appear to do the same again in that scenario.

13 and 14 Very good analysis.

Simon Huges is still looking for his conscience. Clegg has reached the point of clown status. I turn the tv sound down when he comes on. Cable has lost all credibility, and Alexander is Osbornes little elf helper.

Their naivety about power and the tribal nature of the tories is breathtaking. And it is no good lib dem activists saying “we had no choice”…………..You held the key to the door of the tories drug of choice,…….namely, POWER. And you sold it very, very cheaply.

“Now that they are in power I can see no difference between the two”

Then you are not looking hard enough, and the Lib Dems are not stating it loud enough (which they are unlikely to do until election time anyway).

Sshhh….. Dont wake Labour when they are having such a lovely dream.
Dont mention the mess theyve made of their finances or the falling membership or the Polls on Economic Policy. Shhh…

The Lib Dems are finished, hopefully forever, and good riddance.

I voted for the Liberal Democrats at the last election and I still think it was the right decision at the time.

However, they have now gone completely bonkers and I will not be able to do so again. Their claim to have achieved a delay in the ‘Main Gate’ decision on Trident would be very worthwhile were it not for the fact that it is not really true.

The premise of your article is wrong. The LibDems will have killed themselves.
They do not have to agree to any of this.

I think there is some opportunity for the Green Party to benefit from the appalling betrayals of the Liberal Democrats. I thought they would have been better off not forming a coalition with the Conservative Party. I am very confident that that judgement was right. Certain policies such as the abolition of ID cards could have been achieved without a coalition.

@20 Heh, ID cards, seems like a lifetime ago that they were of the slightest importance whatsoever.

Good article and a question well worth asking.

Though I felt and said right from the start that this was the end of the Lib Dems – the run-on for the deficit plan beyond the next election is a desperate position for Lib Dems.

They can’t very easilly communicate that they signed up to resolve a major naitonal crisis in the only way it could be resolved – and campaign against finishing that job.

That means they have to go into the next election with much the same policy position as the Tories – which will be just too open a goal for even Labour’s shockingly poor leadership to score in.

It may not win Labour an election – but it will see the Lib Dems shrink dramatically (as most of us already expected) and tied inextricably to the Tory party for any saving grace by means of inclusion in a post-2025 coalition.

Even the widely expected “rebel against the leadership and put alternative leaders in place with different views” will be a tough trick to pull off since the new leadership will of course have voted with the tories on exactly this plan for several years by then.

If Labour gets its act together Tony Blair’s dream of a single party of the left able to relegate tories to occasional one-term of power status may be a reality.

ex-labour-voter

as you note, id cards were opposed by tories – so lib dems didn’t need to do anything to make that happen.

And I think the Greens have a real long term opportunity now to capitalise and offer an alternative at local council level to lib dems as the “none-of-the-above” party.

Many Lib Dems would never vote Green, obviously – as they are the least liberal party of the modern left – but the old social democrat leaning lib dems would – and many “not-sure-about-labour” voters would too.

Of course at a general election it will be almost exclusively a choice between labour or tory – as always.

Well, I for one feel that it would be a sad day for British democracy if the Lib Dems really were to be wiped out at the next election. The only possible results would be either a return to a confrontational, left/right, yah-boo, sort of politics which has not served us well in the past, and/or the further rise of other, existing, third parties, as has already happened in Scotland where the nationalist SNP has outflanked both Conservative and Labour. A similar rise in English nationalism on the same basis would be good news for an English (or British) national party.

There is an alternative scenario here. If Labour continue there present track of trying to combine unpopular economic policies (which do not seem to be winning support) and metropolitan ‘liberalism’, and if the economy starts to pick up under the coalition, the Liberal Democrats will be in a position to start picking off Labour support, perhaps not from the urban ‘liberals’ (really social democrats I’d suggest) but from the traditional Labour voters who may question whether Labour stands for them. If their time in government is successful, the Liberal Democrats have something more to offer, and it will be Labour that suffers.

There are a lot of ifs in there, but equally there are ifs from Sunny’s analysis as well – and it is easy to get stuck in our own little internet bubble where the ‘betrayals’ of student fees and not supporting a referendum (to pick two opposing hobby horses) are considered important. I doubt the mass of the electorate actually think like that, so success in government and policies might well be the deciding factors.

“If Labour gets its act together Tony Blair’s dream of a single party of the left able to relegate tories to occasional one-term of power status may be a reality.”

This thread if full to the brim with astounding fantasy.

When are the new constituency boundaries due to come in? It would be in Labour’s interest for the next election to happen without them. If things start getting electorally bad for the Lib Dems, Miliband could make them an offer: stab the Tories in the back, and Labour won’t stand candidates against sitting Lib Dem MPs.

@24: Well, I for one feel that it would be a sad day for British democracy if the Lib Dems really were to be wiped out at the next election.

I agree. It would reduce the choice to two parties, when most voters don’t like either of them. What we need is PR, which would give real choice to the voters.

I voted for the libdems in the last couple of elections, mainly because i couldn’t stand new labour and i could not bring myself to vote conservative. Previously i had always voted for the labour party. I have been very disappointed with the performance of the libdems as part of the coalition, particually in reguards to the changes to the NHS and the austerity cuts as they affect the most vulnerable people rather than the better off. I’m afraid i won’t be voting for them again.

What might complicate matters is what Labour commit themselves to in terms of handling the economy. Will they stand on a manifesto that accepts the fiscal plans put in place by the Coalition prior to the election or will they say that they will radically change those planned budgets.

If they go for radical change that could mark a real gap between themselves and the coalition parties but might be difficult to do convincingly without access to Civil Service and Treasurey resources.

If they say that they will need to adhere to the Coalitions plans for the first two years then we could have the position where all three parties are agreeing on the managment of the economy.

In which case presumably the decisive factor for people choosing who to vote for will be the social and other policies the parties are advocating rather than the economic ones.

@5: It’s hard to predict this sort of thing, but I thought the Lib Dems were sunk when they lost the AV referendum.

I think, in retrospect, that they were sunk when they agreed to the Coalition on the terms they did. They should have held out for STV (at least in local elections) and insisted that if there was a referendum for the electoral changes the Lib Dems wanted, there would also have to be one for the changes the Tories wanted to make too.

Here’s an amusing counterfactual: imagine if the Tories had done slightly better in 2010 and were now ruling alone with a wafer-thin majority. With the economy going down the tubes, Eurosceptics threatening to revolt (and making the Tories look divided) and Labour sailing to excite and still getting the blame for the economic woes, Clegg would be riding on 30% in the polls.

Whatever problems Osborne’s staement made for the Lib Dems it makes as many problems for Labour. The tactic of not acknowledging any specifgc cuts, and now not mentioning any additional borrowing for Plan B, makes Labour seem the good guys but not trusted on the economy. They have imagined a general election win is possible with promisies of new spending in a deficit free economy and by picking up Lib dem defectors. If the deficit is still in place (and made even worse than predicted if Eurozone implodes) they will need a credible deficit reduction plan going forward. If not, the Lib Dems might come over as seasoned realists with a more highly developed social conscience than the tories and do a lot better than currenly imagined. s

Lee

Are you saying that Labour under a relatively good leader couldn’t win the next election under the circumstances set out above?

That seems like fantasy to me. A good opposition to an unpopular government can always win elections.

@25 watchman

“the Liberal Democrats will be in a position to start picking off Labour support … from the traditional Labour voters”

I don’t really see this, considering the scale of the cuts and who will bear the brunt of them.

Lee: still recognise that the better of two evils for them is still the Lib Dems, and the Lib Dem vote appears to be holding up in areas of Tory/Lib Dem marginals.

It may be now, but Libdems have three more years of agreeing to *increased* cuts, and signed up to cuts to two years after.

I’m not clear how exactly you’ll protect that brand identity after echoing each other for so long.

I just don’t see it.

The lib dems only need mimimal support though. Their power comes from hung parliaments, not the number of MPs. There is a minimum number of MPs they need (probably about 20) to be able to extract concessions and make agreements with either of the other 2. After that it becomes irrelevant how many they have until they enter contention for winning pluralties – which most of them would agree is not likely in the next couple of decades at least.

33. But that’s not what was said, was it. It’s one thing for Labour to be able to capitalise on the situation (while, I would imagine, keeping quiet both how much it actually would have done the same in the past, and how much it’ll have to do the same in the future), it’s quite another to make a “unified party of the left” who will as an ongoing reality relegate the Tories to no more than one term.

Unfortunately, at the very least, Labour’s opposition to AV helped to ensure the Tory “one-term” nature of that particular fantasy to be harder to achieve with upcoming boundary changes (assuming no-one throws a spanner in the works).

@ 31 Phil

“Here’s an amusing counterfactual: imagine if the Tories had done slightly better in 2010 and were now ruling alone with a wafer-thin majority. With the economy going down the tubes, Eurosceptics threatening to revolt (and making the Tories look divided) and Labour sailing to excite and still getting the blame for the economic woes, Clegg would be riding on 30% in the polls.”

True – although that still wouldn’t have done them much good in terms of votes, considering the race to the familiar we saw in 2010.

I suppose theoretically it could have resulted in a Lib Dem/Labour coalition after the next election, which would probably have raised the LDs to major-player status in the public eye without destroying their image like this term has done.

“the Libdems would get one of their key prizes: tax cuts for the lowest paid.”

Ah, the Spin That Would Not Die.

The Lib Dems have not proposed tax cuts for the lowest paid – people in *that* bracket, working part-time in low-paid jobs, won’t benefit from the proposed rise in the Personal Allowance (because they already pay no income tax).

What the Lib Dems have proposed is tax cuts for basic rate taxpayers. Some of those people are indeed towards the bottom of the income distribution (e.g. a single parent on £10,000 a year), some are towards the top (e.g. someone on £40,000 a year whose partner also earns £40,000 and who has no dependent children), and most are somewhere in the middle.

The point being: better-off households will generally contain two basic rate taxpayers, both earning more than £10,000, and so will get the maximum £1,400 tax cut. But many worse-off households will only see a fraction of that – e.g. £700 if one adult earns £10,000 and one earns £6,000. So while the Lib Dem policy does mean some low-paid people getting some sort of tax cut, it’s certainly not *targeted* at low-paid people; the main beneficiaries are households on mid-to-high incomes.

And seen in the context of the overall tax system, the policy looks even uglier: VAT raised by £13 billion (hitting the poorest hardest) so that income taxes can be cut by £15 billion (benefitting the poorest least).

Let’s see how they do in the Feltham and Heston by-election.

Last November a People Before Profit candiate in a Lewisham Council by-election got 8 percent. The Conservative vote slumped from a previously consistant 10 percent to 5 percent.

Perhaps the same thing will happen in Feltham and Heston.

Lee

My comment on Tony Blair’s dream was of course deliberately hyperbolic – and it completelly overlooks the gains I think the Greens should be making from the death of the lib dems.

But the scenario by which Labour appear to be a strong party of the left with the tories no longer the natural party of power is hardly fantasy.

Planeshift

Of course for a hung parliament to become a common situation requires for their to be a third party of significant size so as to increase the % win that either of the two parties need over eachother to win a majority.

Before the Liberals were revived by the SDP – either Labour or the Tories could win an election fairly comfortably with a three or four percent victory in the polls.

So the Lib Dems with only 20 seats are nothing – since the chances of a hung parliament recedes so badly. Also – with a smaller gap between each main party in seats – the prospects of a different party being able to do the deal instead becomes very real.

OK, so Sunny says the Libdems have committed suicide by signing up to cuts that have kept our heads above water as the rest of indebted Europe sinks under the weight of debt.

I’m one of the poor being shafted by the Con wing of the coalition. I’m one of the hated disabled that do not fit in with the Eugenics leaning outlook of IDS. Perhaps, if I can’t stem the tide of the recessing economy I will be one of the totally screwed poor who are marginalised to complete poverty through the cuts to welfare… May be… Yet I’ll be running against the Tories next year for the Lib Dems.

You see that France, Italy and the other major economies (barring Germany) are going down with the ship. Why? They over extended on debt and when the Eurozone economy went into retreat were left high and dry. Too many metaphors, sorry.

We’d be in the same mess as the rest of them. It doesn’t take a donut to realise that Labour’s economic policy was wrong. We’d be complete goners – Greek levels of shite.

Labour crow that the world is more uncomfortable for us, the poor. Yet Labour taxed and spent and the poor became poorer and the rich got richer. From my very partisan point of view, you believing your own lies are a complete Godsend.

Richard: Labour crow that the world is more uncomfortable for us, the poor. Yet Labour taxed and spent and the poor became poorer and the rich got richer.

Let me get this straight. You’ll support a govt that is slashing spending in a way to hurt the poor most, while saying Labour wasted money but DID NOT redistribute ENOUGH – while supporting a govt that is redistributing to the rich? Odd.

@ Richard Shrubb

“Yet Labour taxed and spent and the poor became poorer”

I’m not going to claim that no poor people got poorer under Labour, but as someone whose family was lifted out of poverty by tax credits I can’t let this sweeping generalisation stand. Tax credits continue to put £24 billion into the pockets of low and middle income families every year, many of which see their incomes boosted by several thousand pounds. Pension credits have made a big difference to many older people too. I think it’s probably fair to say that poor working age adults tended to get overlooked, with poor families and poor pensioners being seen as higher priorities.

No one in their right mind will vote for the lib dems at the next election. If you support this govt then you will vote tory. If you hate this govt you will not vote tory or lib dem.

Oh, and anything thr lie dems promise at the election will be laughed at after their pledges last time. Everyone now knows that a lib dem pledge is ” An opening of negotiations”.

The Labour detectors will have certainly gone. But they can still pick up centrist Tory/New Labour floating votes. Surely has to be their strategy now?

Lee (15): “The only explanation for this is that those who would normally vote Labour, but voted Lib Dem in the last election to keep the Tories out, would appear to do the same again in that scenario.”

However, does that take into account likely turnout? I would have thought those voting reluctantly for members of a Coalition they hate (because they hate the other half of the Coalition slightly more) would be much less likely to bother voting than average. Whereas Tories will be unaffected.

My suspicion is that the seat I live in will be a Tory landslide with an abysmal turnout, but likely with a much increased proportion of the vote for the smaller parties (which includes Labour, around here). However, the situation is fairly unprecedented and could get a lot more unprecedented, if some new catastrophe happens in the world economy. We could yet end up with some random minor party swept to power on a tidal wave of popular rage at whatever unfortunate group (be that bankers, benefit claimants, capitalists, foreigners, the EU) takes the main blame for the economic situation.

@17 – The cabinet is collectively responsible for it’s decisions. There is no difference.

@31 – Or if the LibDems had NOT joined a coalition, but had backed the Tories selectively.

@42 – Floating? No, we’re in a tin-can submarine, diving for the bottom. See that VERY low growth? See our unemployment rising 500% faster than the EU? See consumer confidence that amazingly low?

And yet, you’re voting for a party which is entirely responsible for this. Collective responsibility in the cabinet – you’re signing right up to the institutionalised hatred of…well…you.

While there’s a part of me that sees the Libdems finished and thinks “good riddance, serves them right” that’s really not much consolation, thinking how long it’s going to take to fix the country after Osborne has mucked it up. If it can be done at all.

The LibLabCON are as one when it comes to hating England and the English. Clegg and the Lib Dems are quick to say toll roads, tuition fees, prescription charges, lack of cancer drugs, 40-100% hikes in council tax over 5 years (while frozen in Scotland), huge water bills from privatised water companies (not private in Scotland and included in frozen council taxes), elderly selling their homes to pay for care etc etc etc are some of the many benefits England experiences from devolution.

Ask any Lib Dem about even a referendum on an English parliament and he/she will spend hours showing just how illiberal and undemocratic he/she is by denying one because far more important matters like an AV referendum and 80mph speed limits require attention.

Of course this is true for all but a handful of the British LibLabCON MPs who oppose an English parliament for the sole reason that if one is established it would put each and every one of them out of a job, just as they are now pointless in the rest of the UK because of the devolved chambers..

If campaign groups like students stop-tuition fees and public sector workers would actually grasp this and use it as a tool to threaten MPs’ cosy positions, they might actually achieve what they want. They prefer useless demonstrations and strikes though.

I sent this article to my local LibDem MP Dr Vince Cable. His response is below. Seems to be saying that he was contemplating a drastic reduction in Public Spending all along – kept it quiet mind.

“Thank you. I never bought into the theory you describe. You may be aware that I wrote a book about the financial crisis which explains why the downturn is not just a cyclical, short term problem.

The Lib Dems will not be “wiped out”. But none of us have any idea what the political landscape will look like in 2015.

Yours sincerely

The Rt Hon DR VINCENT CABLE MP
MP for Twickenham, Teddington, Whitton & The Hamptons
2a Lion Road
Twickenham TW1 4JQ”