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Where did it all go wrong for The Liberal Democrats ?

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wireforever

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Ed Davey is he not Sir Ed honour awarded for services to the coalition government of dodgy David Cameron and George 'xhit on the north'Osborne
 
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Butts

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There was a very likely chance that they would form part of the government as going into the election, neither Labour or the Tories were polling high enough to win a majority. This was well before the SNP hegemony as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2010_United_Kingdom_general_election#2010

And after the election they had talks with both parties, ending up with 5 Cabinet positions, so they could easily have insisted on the tuition fees promise as their dealbreaker for a coalition agreement. It would have been more effective than the AV referendum.

I have read Nick Cleggs Biography and I can't remember the exact nuances of the Tuition Fee / PR Referendum dalliances.

It could be the prospect of power for the first time in eons clouded their judgement or they ditched it in the race for Ministerial Kudos and Limousines.

I've just had a thought....

Clegg, Cameron and Blair are cut from the same hew - are they part of the "London centric bourgeoisie ........." ?

All three are interchangeable between their relative Parties....Liberal, Left Wing Conservative and Right Wing Labour hardly a fag paper between them.
 

peters

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Media reports this morning is the Conservatives will announce a lifetime learning loan for adults who want to retrain. Sounds very similar to what the Lib Dems had in their manifesto prior to the last general election, except for the bit about the Tories expecting it to be paid back.

I think this highlights their one of their problems, other parties steal their good ideas and make out that they invented them but unlike when the Labour and Conservative policies get stolen, there's less of a fuss and the public don't realise.
 

WelshBluebird

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Clegg, Cameron and Blair are cut from the same hew - are they part of the "London centric bourgeoisie ........." ?
This is what I don't get about the complaints at Labour about that. All the parties are. If anyone believes Boris isn't either then they need to wake up a bit.
 

Typhoon

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Media reports this morning is the Conservatives will announce a lifetime learning loan for adults who want to retrain.
Detail will be everything. If the comparison is with the Skills Wallets, these were staggered but with the opportunity to top them up (including, interestingly, by employers who might be wanting to fill a skills gap). It would be interesting to see if there is any reference to employers in the Tory version.

Interest rate - same as student loan? Nice little earner.

Will it be written off at a certain time like the student loan? (If not, will it lead to the conditions of student loans being revised?)

Will the unemployed be 'encouraged' to take one out (with veiled threats if they don't)? One less off the unemployment figures.

It will give Angela Rayner something to do, maybe.
 

Butts

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Will there be a Liberal Democrat Government in any of our lifetimes ?

Certainly not mine I would have thought, but for some of our younger members.....who knows !!!
 

deltic

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Will there be a Liberal Democrat Government in any of our lifetimes ?

Certainly not mine I would have thought, but for some of our younger members.....who knows !!!
Highly unlikely. Will there be a Labour Government again in our lifetimes?
 

hst43102

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Will there be a Liberal Democrat Government in any of our lifetimes ?

Certainly not mine I would have thought, but for some of our younger members.....who knows !!!
I very much doubt it in my lifetime - and I'm only just able to vote!
 

peters

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Well it seems The Queen's Speech mentions the government will scrap The Fixed Term Parliament Act, something the Lib Dems were proud of achieving in the coalition. Perhaps not surprising it's been scrapped given we've had 3 terms since 2015 but it will mean a government can call a general election without support from the opposition benches.

Yep, Nick Clegg. You really can't go into an election on promise of no rise in student tuition fees and then vote to treble them.

I thought they actually proposed scrapping fees, rather than freezing them. Worth remembering Nick Clegg actually told the Lib Dems they had a free vote on the Conservative's proposals to increase fees, which had some Lib Dem influenced modifications regarding repayment thresholds and how and when they'll be wiped. Some like Clegg and Swinson voted in favour, others abstained and some like Farron and Kennedy voted against.

Where Clegg was different from Boris is he decided to publicly apologise, rather than going on and on about the modifications they achieved. The reality is the Conservatives got a majority in 2015 so anything the Lib Dems blocked could have just been postponed by the Tories.
 

kermit

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Where did it all go wrong for The Liberal Democrats ?

David Cameron

Where did it all go wrong for The European Union ?

David Cameron

Where did it all go wrong for accountability to The Seven Principles of Public Life ?

David Cameron

For such a pink, blobby chinless wonder, he sure did a lot of damage. And it seems he hasn't finished yet.
 

AshBod

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I think the Lib Dems should have stuck to their guns on having a referendum on PR (well something like STV potentially) as opposed to AV. Okay would have given parties they fully opposed like UKIP more seats but as already mentioned they would still be getting around 60odd seats with 11% of the vote.
 

Butts

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Where did it all go wrong for The Liberal Democrats ?

David Cameron

Where did it all go wrong for The European Union ?

David Cameron

Where did it all go wrong for accountability to The Seven Principles of Public Life ?

David Cameron

For such a pink, blobby chinless wonder, he sure did a lot of damage. And it seems he hasn't finished yet.

Where did it all go wrong for the Pig (allegedly)?
 
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Busaholic

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I have read Nick Cleggs Biography and I can't remember the exact nuances of the Tuition Fee / PR Referendum dalliances.

It could be the prospect of power for the first time in eons clouded their judgement or they ditched it in the race for Ministerial Kudos and Limousines.

I've just had a thought....

Clegg, Cameron and Blair are cut from the same hew - are they part of the "London centric bourgeoisie ........." ?

All three are interchangeable between their relative Parties....Liberal, Left Wing Conservative and Right Wing Labour hardly a fag paper between them.
Westminster School, Eton and Fettes - I've known three different people, each educated at one of those schools (one female) and they had in common their sense of entitlement. Funnily enough, the only one who didn't look down his nose at 'ordinary' people was the Eton-educated one, but he was damaged by his experience of that grotesque place. The female, the youngest of the three, is even now climbing the greasy pole of the Conservative Party and is expected (by some) to achieve quite a height.
 

3141

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Thinking about the question in the thread title, I agree, as others have already said, that the Lib Dem decline was a result of having been in coalition with the Conservatives during 2010 - 2015. There was an interesting precedent. In the London Borough of Hillingdon, the result of the council elections in 1986 was Labour 34, Conservatives 28, Lib Dems 7. Over the next four years the Lib Dems, though not in coalition with the Conservatives, supported their polices far more often than not. In the 1990 elections they were wiped out (Conservatives 35, Labour 34). I think a significant number of voters decided they did not want to sit on the fence and came down on one side or the other, leaving no place for the Lib Dems. A similar outcome was always a high risk for the Lib Dems in coalition nationally, though there were other important factors in 2015 like the SNP and the prospect of a Brexit referendum.

But Nick Clegg faced a difficult choice. One of the arguments the Lib Dems put forward for voting for them was that if they held the balance in Parliament they could hold both the major parties back from more extreme policies. In 2010 they found themselves holding the balance, if they supported the Conservatives. Could a party which campaigned as a viable alternative to the two big ones turn down the chance to be in government when the opportunity came along? Not to join a coalition, and instead provide informal support to a minority Conservative government on an issue by issue basis, would have seemed like chickening out. Perhaps Nick Clegg's failure was in agreeing to a coalition on the wrong terms - accepting much more of what the Conservatives proposed and not insisting on a greater proportion of Lib Dem policies. Perhaps he, or maybe other Lib Dem figures, attached too much importance to a referendum on proportional representation and not enough to economic policies.

I recall reading an article in which William Hague, who led the Conservative delegation that negotiated with the Lib Dems about taking part in a coalition, was reported to have gone home one evening and told his wife: "I think I have just destroyed the Liberal Party". It seems that he had a much better understanding of the ultimate political effect of the coalition than Nick Clegg had.
 

tbtc

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I think a significant number of voters decided they did not want to sit on the fence and came down on one side or the other, leaving no place for the Lib Dems

I suppose there's a lot less fence-sitting elsewhere too - just as the UUP and SDLP were pretty much wiped out by the DUP and Sinn Fein - the "moderate" parties find it harder to compete for votes in an era where people want simplistic "solutions" - the era of Twitter is an era of short snappy concise arguments rather than the "it's more complicated than that, you have to understand both sides" kind of LibDem argument - people don't have the attention spans to listen to both sides of an argument, they want instant validation!

Plus, as some people migrate to "far left" parties, that encourages others to migrate to "far right" parties to counterbalance, which encourages more to migrate to "far left" which... (e.g. the more popular Corbyn seemed, the more people it pushed into the arms of UKIP, which pushed more people into the arms of Corbyn...)

(I'm being slightly tongue in cheek, but you know what I mean...)

But Nick Clegg faced a difficult choice. One of the arguments the Lib Dems put forward for voting for them was that if they held the balance in Parliament they could hold both the major parties back from more extreme policies. In 2010 they found themselves holding the balance, if they supported the Conservatives. Could a party which campaigned as a viable alternative to the two big ones turn down the chance to be in government when the opportunity came along? Not to join a coalition, and instead provide informal support to a minority Conservative government on an issue by issue basis, would have seemed like chickening out. Perhaps Nick Clegg's failure was in agreeing to a coalition on the wrong terms - accepting much more of what the Conservatives proposed and not insisting on a greater proportion of Lib Dem policies. Perhaps he, or maybe other Lib Dem figures, attached too much importance to a referendum on proportional representation and not enough to economic policies.

I recall reading an article in which William Hague, who led the Conservative delegation that negotiated with the Lib Dems about taking part in a coalition, was reported to have gone home one evening and told his wife: "I think I have just destroyed the Liberal Party". It seems that he had a much better understanding of the ultimate political effect of the coalition than Nick Clegg had.

Very good points

If the LibDems sat on the sidelines in 2010 then you'd have to ask what the point of them was - if they aren't interested in actually being in Government then why are you even bothering to get elected? It's like being a substitute goalkeeper, never expecting to get onto the pitch but you can't then refuse to come on if the actual keeper gets injured

The Tories were used to all of the backstabbing and trade offs that Government required, the LibDems had no experience, so it was always going to be hard for them. Look at how efficient the Tories are at clinging to power - it's like something from an Atternborough documentary - they fight each other ruthlessly and then unite to show a united front to the public (something that Labour never flipping well understand!) - look at how the likes of Soames were ruthlessly discarded by Johnson post-Brexit and now queue up to praise him for being so amazing - it's brutal but effective - these people are used to the cut and thrust of boardrooms - good luck entering into negotiations with such sharks, but the "beards and sandals" brigade were always going to struggle.

Maybe it'd have been a lot better for the LibDems if Blair failed to win quite so many seats in the past; they'd have had a taste of Government with Charles Kennedy in charge, would probably have found a lot more common ground with Blair, and would probably have allowed Blair to keep the backbench "rabble"in check (less scope for the likes of Corbyn to rebel hundreds of times if Labour didn't have the luxury of a hundred seat majority)

I've seen LibDems claim that a significant proportion of their manifesto became legislation, and complain that they didn't get enough credit for things like significantly increasing the income tax threshold (which will have removed a lot of low paid people out of paying income tax and therefore is probably one of the biggest benefits to the working poor of my lifetime). Shame for them in a way that they won't be remembered for this - the history books will be Tuition Fees, Tuition Fees, Tuition Fees.

One other problem that the LibDems had in 2010 is that the narrative was that this was a period of economic crisis where Something Must Be Done and there was an apparent urgency to balance the books and bring in austerity (though Brown/ Darling left a growing economy with triple-A credit rating) - so it would have been tougher for the LibDems to take their time striking a complicated confidence/supply arrangement - they were effectively "bounced" into signing on the dotted line, because the Tories controlled the narrative that Britain was only ten minutes away from bankruptcy, so any "deal" was fairly hastily arranged (to the long term cost of the LibDems)
 

Busaholic

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I suppose there's a lot less fence-sitting elsewhere too - just as the UUP and SDLP were pretty much wiped out by the DUP and Sinn Fein - the "moderate" parties find it harder to compete for votes in an era where people want simplistic "solutions" - the era of Twitter is an era of short snappy concise arguments rather than the "it's more complicated than that, you have to understand both sides" kind of LibDem argument - people don't have the attention spans to listen to both sides of an argument, they want instant validation!

Plus, as some people migrate to "far left" parties, that encourages others to migrate to "far right" parties to counterbalance, which encourages more to migrate to "far left" which... (e.g. the more popular Corbyn seemed, the more people it pushed into the arms of UKIP, which pushed more people into the arms of Corbyn...)

(I'm being slightly tongue in cheek, but you know what I mean...)



Very good points

If the LibDems sat on the sidelines in 2010 then you'd have to ask what the point of them was - if they aren't interested in actually being in Government then why are you even bothering to get elected? It's like being a substitute goalkeeper, never expecting to get onto the pitch but you can't then refuse to come on if the actual keeper gets injured

The Tories were used to all of the backstabbing and trade offs that Government required, the LibDems had no experience, so it was always going to be hard for them. Look at how efficient the Tories are at clinging to power - it's like something from an Atternborough documentary - they fight each other ruthlessly and then unite to show a united front to the public (something that Labour never flipping well understand!) - look at how the likes of Soames were ruthlessly discarded by Johnson post-Brexit and now queue up to praise him for being so amazing - it's brutal but effective - these people are used to the cut and thrust of boardrooms - good luck entering into negotiations with such sharks, but the "beards and sandals" brigade were always going to struggle.

Maybe it'd have been a lot better for the LibDems if Blair failed to win quite so many seats in the past; they'd have had a taste of Government with Charles Kennedy in charge, would probably have found a lot more common ground with Blair, and would probably have allowed Blair to keep the backbench "rabble"in check (less scope for the likes of Corbyn to rebel hundreds of times if Labour didn't have the luxury of a hundred seat majority)

I've seen LibDems claim that a significant proportion of their manifesto became legislation, and complain that they didn't get enough credit for things like significantly increasing the income tax threshold (which will have removed a lot of low paid people out of paying income tax and therefore is probably one of the biggest benefits to the working poor of my lifetime). Shame for them in a way that they won't be remembered for this - the history books will be Tuition Fees, Tuition Fees, Tuition Fees.

One other problem that the LibDems had in 2010 is that the narrative was that this was a period of economic crisis where Something Must Be Done and there was an apparent urgency to balance the books and bring in austerity (though Brown/ Darling left a growing economy with triple-A credit rating) - so it would have been tougher for the LibDems to take their time striking a complicated confidence/supply arrangement - they were effectively "bounced" into signing on the dotted line, because the Tories controlled the narrative that Britain was only ten minutes away from bankruptcy, so any "deal" was fairly hastily arranged (to the long term cost of the LibDems)
The selling off of the Post Office, destroying such benefits as Disability Living Allowance and helping to make the new old age pension payment arrangements disproportionately adverse for some groups of people also happened with their connivance, if not under their 'watch'. If each of these measures had to go through Parliament under a minority Conservative government some might have been amended or even withdrawn. If truth be told, Nick Clegg probably had more in common personality wise with David Cameron than was acknowledged at the time, with future personal nest feathering to the fore.
 

Typhoon

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The selling off of the Post Office, destroying such benefits as Disability Living Allowance and helping to make the new old age pension payment arrangements disproportionately adverse for some groups of people also happened with their connivance, if not under their 'watch'. If each of these measures had to go through Parliament under a minority Conservative government some might have been amended or even withdrawn. If truth be told, Nick Clegg probably had more in common personality wise with David Cameron than was acknowledged at the time, with future personal nest feathering to the fore.
Do you mean Royal Mail? I seem to remember that being advocated very strongly by Vince Cable.
 

Journeyman

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Do you mean Royal Mail? I seem to remember that being advocated very strongly by Vince Cable.
Yeah, it was Royal Mail. That and the Post Office are, of course, two different things.

As someone who writes a lot of letters (around 200 a year), I was particularly unhappy with the way the Lib Dems just waved that one through. Prices have gone through the roof since then.
 

43021HST

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This is what I don't get about the complaints at Labour about that. All the parties are. If anyone believes Boris isn't either then they need to wake up a bit.
Agreed, lets not forget Johnson was the mayor of London for some time, aka the metropolitan liberal epicentre of Britain.

The lib dems, all part of a spent moderate, third-way political force that came about from the ending of the cold war but couldn't deal with the more polarised internet age.

I suppose there's a lot less fence-sitting elsewhere too - just as the UUP and SDLP were pretty much wiped out by the DUP and Sinn Fein - the "moderate" parties find it harder to compete for votes in an era where people want simplistic "solutions" - the era of Twitter is an era of short snappy concise arguments rather than the "it's more complicated than that, you have to understand both sides" kind of LibDem argument - people don't have the attention spans to listen to both sides of an argument, they want instant validation!

Agree, What I think's interesting are the rise of various right wingers, being so called 'free speech advocates' and how they want to promote rational, free and frank debate. So with all these free speech advocates, will we see a return to a moderate, more nuanced public political discourse? Probably not as they seem to be thinly veiled vehicles for those who think that free speech is entirely about being as borish and tactless as possible.

What's interesting though is how a centrist party like the US democrats have done so successfully recently. Although I wonder if because the US doesn't have a proper left wing mainstream party; the dems, win the votes purely because 'At least they're not the Republicans' .
 
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Typhoon

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Yeah, it was Royal Mail. That and the Post Office are, of course, two different things.

As someone who writes a lot of letters (around 200 a year), I was particularly unhappy with the way the Lib Dems just waved that one through. Prices have gone through the roof since then.
Another 'own goal'; Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee reckon HMG lost up to a potential £1 billion on the sale of shares.
Lazard & Co was paid £1.5m for advising the government. Lazard Asset Management (LAM), which was selected as one of the preferred bidders, made £8.4m for clients by selling shares shortly after the flotation. LAM itself made a profit of around £40,000 from the share sale.

Every time you post a letter, you are putting money into the hands of the likes of Lazards, Goldman-Sachs and USB - and, possibly, your postie (the only good part of it). What particularly annoyed me was that previously I think they had offered Christmas stamps at a discount so that those who were struggling could still send cards. I e-mailed them after privatisation about whether they would do the same - no! They have also been sneaky about the price rises. They moved it forward this year - 1st Jan, I think. I don't know whether there is any control on the price rises. Vince Cable lost a lot of respect from me over that deal!

(Source https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28250963
 

Journeyman

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Another 'own goal'; Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee reckon HMG lost up to a potential £1 billion on the sale of shares.


Every time you post a letter, you are putting money into the hands of the likes of Lazards, Goldman-Sachs and USB - and, possibly, your postie (the only good part of it). What particularly annoyed me was that previously I think they had offered Christmas stamps at a discount so that those who were struggling could still send cards. I e-mailed them after privatisation about whether they would do the same - no! They have also been sneaky about the price rises. They moved it forward this year - 1st Jan, I think. I don't know whether there is any control on the price rises. Vince Cable lost a lot of respect from me over that deal!

(Source https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28250963
Supposedly Ofcom regulates prices, but they seem toothless to say the least. There's also plans to end Saturday letter deliveries, which I'm very annoyed about.
 

Busaholic

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Do you mean Royal Mail? I seem to remember that being advocated very strongly by Vince Cable.
You're quite right - the scandal of closure of post offices and the treatment of sub-postmasters started under Labour and was continued under the Con/Lib mob. I have to admit I still fondly fantasise about it all coming under the G.P.O. again, although I'm prepared to concede that the telephone system shouldn't return to state control. which is rather big of me I think. :)
 

Typhoon

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Supposedly Ofcom regulates prices, but they seem toothless to say the least. There's also plans to end Saturday letter deliveries, which I'm very annoyed about.
That would surely have an impact on Monday's deliveries in terms of volume. And collections? We already have an issue with responding to incoming mail as our collection time is 4 to 5 hours before delivery times so for anything delivered on a Friday a response will not get picked up until a Monday and so delivered on a Tuesday at the earliest, almost a week from the latest sending time.

Apparently, Ofcom research found that customers would be largely indifferent to a reduction in service. Clearly, they didn't ask you! Doubtless, changes to the universal service obligation will be nodded through by HMG.

They might lose parcels business if they cut delivery of these on a Saturday to other providers - and that is not part of the Universal service obligation. Vince, you've got a lot to answer for!
 

Busaholic

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That would surely have an impact on Monday's deliveries in terms of volume. And collections? We already have an issue with responding to incoming mail as our collection time is 4 to 5 hours before delivery times so for anything delivered on a Friday a response will not get picked up until a Monday and so delivered on a Tuesday at the earliest, almost a week from the latest sending time.

Apparently, Ofcom research found that customers would be largely indifferent to a reduction in service. Clearly, they didn't ask you! Doubtless, changes to the universal service obligation will be nodded through by HMG.

They might lose parcels business if they cut delivery of these on a Saturday to other providers - and that is not part of the Universal service obligation. Vince, you've got a lot to answer for!
Sir John Vincent Cable, please. What that lot were prepared to do for baubles! I believe in Proportional Representation, but the Lib Dems had so turned me off it I voted against it in that referendum.
 

Typhoon

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Sir John Vincent Cable, please. What that lot were prepared to do for baubles! I believe in Proportional Representation, but the Lib Dems had so turned me off it I voted against it in that referendum.
I don't think we have had a vote for PR. I thought it was single transferable vote, which the LibDems didn't want (but I quite like - so voted for it). All those concessions for a vote on a voting system they didn't want and a mention that they wanted Pupil Premium which, in the beginning at least, schools could spend on anything they liked! And, as you say, a load of knighthoods. I suppose it was the party of Lloyd George!
 

Mcr Warrior

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Might the problem date back a full 100 years to the early 1920's when David Lloyd George's tenure as Prime Minister came to an inglorious end after he had become embroiled in the cash for honours scandal?

Sir John Vincent Cable, please. What that lot were prepared to do for baubles!

And, as you say, a load of knighthoods. I suppose it was the party of Lloyd George!

And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges?! :rolleyes:
 

Busaholic

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I don't think we have had a vote for PR. I thought it was single transferable vote, which the LibDems didn't want (but I quite like - so voted for it). All those concessions for a vote on a voting system they didn't want and a mention that they wanted Pupil Premium which, in the beginning at least, schools could spend on anything they liked! And, as you say, a load of knighthoods. I suppose it was the party of Lloyd George!
One of the demands the LibDems made before agreeing to enter a coalition with the Tories was for a referendum on P.R. to replace first-past-the-post in Westminster elections for MPs; in the end, they had to settle for the A.V. system being proposed, which is not P.R. in the strictest sense, but it was for public consumption and in the catch-all sense. Now, the Conservative Party will, and do, say that P.R. was rejected by the electorate, rather than A.V. being rejected. In the scheme of government untruths, this is small beer.
 

DynamicSpirit

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I don't think we have had a vote for PR. I thought it was single transferable vote, which the LibDems didn't want (but I quite like - so voted for it). All those concessions for a vote on a voting system they didn't want and a mention that they wanted Pupil Premium which, in the beginning at least, schools could spend on anything they liked! And, as you say, a load of knighthoods. I suppose it was the party of Lloyd George!

The referendum was for alternative vote. STV is the system they have in Ireland, which is the one the LibDems have tended to most favour.

Maybe the LibDems did compromise too much - especially on manifesto promises - but it is worth remembering that they were the junior partner in the coalition purely by dint of having massively fewer MPs than the Conservatives - so any reasonable coalition was always going to be based on the Tories getting more of what they wanted than the LibDems.
 

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As a former a Lib-Dem voter, they were always really good in the local community where I live. And to be fair voting for the Liberals was also a great way to keep Labour out of power in our area, who seemed to take our tax money and blow it all on the city centre, whilst shutting down our local amenities and services (a process that had been ongoing since the 1974 restructure, regardless of the party in government).

But then came Brexit and the Liberals went all in on trying to overturn the referendum result. As a solid Leave voter, I couldn't accept that. So I have never voted Lib-Dem since and won't ever again.
 
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