The English based parties have all been out there spinning and lying and promising the moon on a stick all day.Cameron looks a happy man. Working a room of workers in Cardiff, he was clearly enjoying what he was doing. Being an Eton and Oxford graduate tends to give you self confidence, and he’s got it. But he’s alone. His shadow cabinet are not assets. Not even Willie Hague since the Ashcroft peerage scandal.
On the other hand Brown was out with Sarah, who is his biggest asset, well, let’s face it, his ONLY asset. (His asset that he said he would never use! Remember “My family are not props, they’re people”?)
He stuttered and stammered his way through an interview with Nick Robertson trying desperately to avoid the question of how much he had insulted businessmen whom he said were being misled by the Tories. Ooooops. By the end he was starting to look angry and told Nick that he had misunderstood!
Nick Clegg appeared with Vince Cable, his biggest asset. And it is Nick Clegg who has most impressed today.
Normally of course, dealing with the politics of the Scottish scene when you say Liberals you are talking poor old Tavish Scott, and of course people say “Who?” But over the next few weeks we have to concentrate on London politics, and, compared to Cameron and Brown, Clegg in streets ahead in my book.
He said that voting either Labour or Conservative would be a "vote for corrupt politics". That seems about right to me.
Clegg has refused to say whether he would back Labour or the Conservatives in a hung parliament. On the Today programme this morning (when he could get a word in edgeways for Jim Naughtie) he said that in the event of a hung parliament the party that gained the most seats had "the moral right, the first right to seek to form a government".
He said that if the Lib Dems were involved in any future government, they would seek tax reform. Sensibly the Liberal’s tax policy is to have a tax free allowance of £10,000, which would take four million people out of the income tax bracket altogether.
He also wants to close tax loopholes that benefit the super rich. All of that seemed sensible to me.
He said his party was the only one committed to cleaning up politics. The Lib Dems have always been for PR, and he would push for that. Interestingly Gordon today promised referenda on PR and on the future of the Lords, which is another Liberal policy.
Another policy close to my heart is giving people the power to sack a corrupt MP.
Too often in this parliament members have been shown to be (in some cases criminally) defrauding the country and providing an incredibly poor service in return. Regardless of being deselected, or having the whip withdrawn
from them, these people can continue in their £66,000+ a year job, in some cases doing absolutely nothing for a few years. And despite paying them, the constituents can do nothing.Of course I’m not about to vote Lib Dem.... but the policies are much more to my taste that Posh Dave or Dodgy Gordon.
VOTE SNP TO FREE SCOTLAND
REMEMBER: MORE NATS LESS CUTS!
I agree Nick should get PR to the top of the agenda in England. The Lib Dems get a quarter of the votes in England but nothing like a quarter of the seats. It's an out and out disgrace.
ReplyDeleteMunguin, I never thought I'd say it, but I wsa impressed by them. They are also the most likely party to push the Independence agenda forward.
ReplyDeleteIt's not high on the list of things discussed by English radio stations at the moment, but the Liberals are for a federal set up in the UK.
That would give England its own parliament and far more powers to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliaments.
It's far from pefect but it's another step in the right direction for independence.
Additionally he wants to get rid of ID cards and scrap Son of Trident.
presumably when parliament is dissolved ! these MP,S are no longer employed as such, and therfore receive no renumeration. Since they then become PPC, they have no access to this public building and or any use of any of its facilities.
ReplyDeleteShould save us a few bob or are we being ripped off again. !!!!!
When parliament is dissolved they become just like the rest of us IE members of the public.
And by the way what the hell are MSP,s doing involved in UK general election, it has bugger all to do with them, If you are working for your political party for the general election do so at your parties expense not the publics
Yes. I agree with that. MSPs whould only be campaigning in their own time.
ReplyDeleteOf course the whole thing is being abused. Gordon Brown led his Cabinet out for a photo opportunity at No 10 yesterday. I thought that No 10 was ours, not the Labour Party's! Mind, I'm not complaining too much; they are such a bunch of losers, it can only have done him harm!!
I think though that the MPs go on receiving remuneration while parliament has risen Anon. I'm not sure wqhy...except of course that every possible thing is weighted in their favours, and always has been.
Taxi for Byers.... oh no, wait a moment, he IS a taxi for hire! Don't suppose anyone much wants a ride though, seeing as he's a gullible tube!
The politics o' the comin' century are no gaun tae be aboot class. Class disnae matter anymair (no that it's ever mattered tae me) an' when Broon says he's fae an ordinary middle-class faimly it meant nothin'. Jist devalued language.
ReplyDeleteThe future struggle will pit the forces o' authoritarianism against the wafty farts o' liberty. Ah ken whit side ah'll be oan when the fightin' starts.
Picture me wi' a long frock oan an' ma counterpane flung ower ma shooder, wi' a flamin' torch in ma haun gein' it laldy for the defense o' individual freedoms, bought wi' the flowin' blood o' oor grannies, an' their grannies, doon the ages...
But like you tris, ah'm no votin' for them.
Lord Sophia, you paint a glorious picture that would raise the blood of any true Scotsman. For Scotland and Liberty.... (and More Nats Less Cuts, of course!)
ReplyDeleteA counterpane.... wow...
It wis ma mothers.
ReplyDeleteAt least LibDem supporters, an' there are a few, can feel a mair honest conviction in their vote, as it has mair o' a political philosophy underpinnin' it. No like BlairBroonism, or neoToryism, baith management strategies.
ReplyDeleteSlogans lookin' for a cause.
Well said Sophia. A good analysis of the situation.
ReplyDeleteAll they are doing is spinning to get votes to get a job, to be important. How pathetic they seem to us.
The Liberals know that they are not going to get these jobs.... not yet a while anyway
Of course it could be said they can put forward policies that they know will never have to be put into practise... but frankly I'm impressed with the things I hear from Clegg and Cable. If I were English they'd get my vote.
Your mother's you say. Nice of her to let you have it for the cause!
Follow that counterpane...............