A great many people are asking me why I am not leaving the Lib Dems. Well, I am a party member because of John Bright and John Stuart Mill. I am not leaving it because of a nonentity like Nick Clegg.
I am hugely angry over tuition fees. The policy itself, with the effective withdrawal of the state from university teaching and the reinforcement of social division, is a terrible disaster. The blatant display of political opportunism and bad faith by Cless and his ilk will poison politics for a generation.
But not only am I staying in the Lib Dems, I am seeking actively to recruit students. A very high proportion of the student vote went to the Lib Dems at the last election. Those genuine Lib Dem voters are absolutely entitled to join the party. They voted Lib Dem – this is not entryism from outside.
Every Lib Dem MP must win a majority of a vote of his local party members to be reselected.
Under clause 11.7 of the Federal Constitution if a sitting MP wishes to be reselected they have to either:
win a majority vote of the members present at a local party general meeting (conducted by secret ballot)
or
If that resolution is defeated then the MP can request a ballot of all members of the local party.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-time-to-end-the-special-treatment-for-sitting-mps-22319.html
I want to see many, many students join the party, in places like, oh, Sheffield Hallam, for example. The answer to the disillusion of students with our democratic system is for them to join the party and actively participate in, oh, Nick Clegg’s reselection vote, for example.
I would have thought students have now found out all they need to know about the Lib Dem Party and won’t be touching it with a barge-pole. If I were a student today I would be looking toward the Labour Party. Only the Labour Party voted against these cuts after all.
MJ
Only if you were a very stupid student. It was New Labour who ended free tuition and maintenance grants.
“Only the Labour Party voted against these cuts after all.”
Huh? They had the oportunity to form an anti-Tory coalition with Nats and others and refused. They also installed tuition fees in Scotland, and will restore them at the first opportunity.
Admire your optimism Craig.
Yes, I admire your optimism too. I just can’t imagine how one would canvass for them. I suppose one could make no promises, that might be a refreshing new start to politics.
Not a chance. Cloud cuckoo land etc. Clegg’s there for the duration – or at least until he joins the Lords in 2015. You were Tango’d in May.
Look, I know New Labour are ultimately responsible for the education fiasco. It may be a sign of the bankruptcy of the politial landscape but a reinvigorated Labour Party also happens to be the best chance of positive reform in the future.
I feel the Lib Dems as a political entity has now shot its bolt. True liberals – the heirs of Bright and Mill – should abandon it and regroup as the Liberal Party. Clegg is the product not of Liberalism but of the SDP, that dimly-remembered PR stunt that hijacked Liberalism, the party and its name.
I liked one comment (think it was CiF) that when people called it “New” Labour, they were putting the wrong word in inverted commas.
Enjoy footage of Craig and the rest being Orange Book’d.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jywlZG74o
@ MJ – if you read the 2010 Labour manifesto, they planned to use Browne to raise fees. They’re also the party that is “proud” of tuition fees (eg Alan Johnson this year).
There’s also a million-and-one reasons not to back the Labour party, eg Iraq, MPs expenses (look at the MPs being charged), economy cock-up, secret rendition, cluster bomb treaty avoiding, etc etc.
Alan
That could also explain lack of priority on Lords reform.
Grammar: I spoke of a “reinvigorated” Labour Party and that’s what I meant. With the main architects of New Labour gone and with an election lost, Labour has the opportunity to rediscover itself. A big influx of students would assist enormously in this regard.
Counter-intuitive, isn’t it? If a party lets you down, you feel like leaving it, certainly not like joining it, but really you should join and recruit people to change it.
It’s really not good enough. Our votes for MPs should deliver the people’s will. We shouldn’t have to chase after democracy into its deeper levels like this.
Hey everybody, forget the meltdown of St. Julian Assange. Time now to join the Lib-Dems in support of another proven liar.
But if you’re really interested in an education, why do you need years of socializing at uni at public expense? No reason to distrust the printed word. Just use the resources of your local library. That way you’ll save yourself tens of thousands in student fees, get into the workforce without delay and learn what it means to be a grown-up person.
No you won’t get that diploma in multiple choice, but there’s absolutely no evidence that a higher education obtained today will add a penny to your life-time earnings. Chances are it will be seriously harmful to your financial health.
Conservative, Labour, Lib-Dems – they are just different factions of the Neoliberal Establishment Elite Party. Democracy is effectively dead in this country.
@MJ, The “reinvigorated” Labour Party? Just like the “reinvigorated” Tories? Whichever Establishment Party gains power it is always the establishment agenda that is followed regardless of promises to the contrary.
Agree Chezzy unless leopards change their spots which seems unlikely.
The higher education bubble:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/12/16/education-college-bubble-opinions-contributors-jerry-bowyer.html?feed=patrick.net
Bubbles arise in nature when some sort of film, bolstered by surface tension, contains a pocket of air under greater pressure than the general atmosphere. Bubbles arise in markets when some factor external to the market (usually tax engineering or a regulatory mandate) creates a pocket of concentrated capital in which asset prices rise well above levels that can be justified by the assets’ underlying value.
So, the recipe for an asset bubble is one part social engineering, one part easy money. In recent years we’ve seen a tech bubble form and burst, a housing bubble form and burst, and a higher education bubble form but not yet burst. But just because it didn’t burst yet, doesn’t mean it’s not a bubble.
Higher education shows every reasonable sign of having a completely unrealistic, astronomical price tag. Beyond that, the sacred cow psychology that commonly accompanies other mania is clearly present. …
I see that the party line has changed & that even the EU has now acknowledged the unambiguous fact that your NATO police, formerly the KLA, have been engaged in the dissection of living people, Serbian “Untermensch”, to provide organs for western hospitals.
Of course the EU have naturally downplayed the fact that it was the NATO powers who deliberately broke their occupation agreement, to disarm the KLA; run a non-racist regime; & respect Yugoslav sovereignty by instead appointing the KLA as our police, under our command authority & sending them out to commit these atrocities. They have also downplayed the facts that the drug lords, gangsters, pimps, Nazi escapees, al Quaeda & baby dissectors the NATO governments hired, organised, trained & armed were known at the time to be drug lords, gangsters, pimps, Nazi escapees, al Quaeda & baby dissectors & could thus be relied on to carry out NATO’s policy of racial genocide. Both those facts make the politicians involved personally guilty of war crimes, genocide & worse & it becomes the duty of all law officers, or in the event of them all failing that duty, all decent people to bring you murderers to justice.
As you know the “LIberal Democrats” were & still are the single UK party most enthusiastically in favour of war crimes, genocide, child rape & cannibalistic organlegging. Indeed so enthusiastic was the leader, Perjurer Ashdown that he gave up his position as party leader for several months so that he could use his experience in the SBS & SIS to teach our Nazi hirelings how to commit genocide more effectively. Fortunately for him he could rely on his obscene deputy Menzies Campbell & the rest of the racist Nazi filth serving as MPs to maintain the Nazi policy.
Legally since the war against Yugoslavia was blatant aggression it was a war crime & all those legislators who supported it are war criminals. Since it was done for the purpose of promoting racial genocide they are also guilty of crimes against humanity. That obviously includes all “LIBDEM” MPs & since almost all LD bloggers have deliberately censored to promote genocide they are also criminals. The same applies to most Labour & Conservative MPs, though since only the LDs unanimously supported the war & have made it a requirement of membership that one support Nazism & racial murder it is only of them of whom it can certainly be said that every single member is personally a lying, obscene, parasitic, racist, murdering, genocidal, child raping, cannibalistic, Nazi with less integrity & human decency than a cleg.
Paradoxically the only UK party to have publicly spoken against cannibalistic organlegging is the BNP & clearly it is impossible for any member of parties or any UK journalist who has refused to do so to ever credibly deny being thousands of times more supportive of Nazism & Fascism than any member of that party.
It is in the British national interest that British leaders & diplomats (or indeed the entire British media) not be considered wholly corrupt lying Nazi scum whose word on no subject can ever be given the remotest respect. There are obviously no circumstances under which that is possible until the Nazi murderers, such as yourselves & the lying Nazi propagandists, such as every single BBC employee, every single newspaper editor & the overwhelming majority of their journalists have been removed from any position of influence & in the more serious cases, brought to Nuremburg style justice.
Until then there are no circumstances under which any complaints about the human rights record of Russia, China, Sudan etc. can be treated seriously (though it is possible that in the case of former western ally the Khmer Rouge there may be some members who are not hundreds of times more humane than racist Nazi whores like Shirley Williams).
It is therefore now time for the LD party to dissolve itself, for every member to publicly apologise for being obscene subhuman filth & those Nazis in any position of authority to resign.
There should also be a public posthumous apology to Slobodan Milosevic & a full investigation of his poisoning. His murder was clearly because in 4 1/2 years of show trial the Nazis had been unable to produce any actual evidence at all against him. The evidence clearly points to British intelligence operatives attached to the ICTY & such a high profile assassination could not have been carried out except on the specific orders of then Prime Minister Blair.
I am also clearly due an apology from all those party members who have ever suggested I was being anything less than truthful unles any single member of the illiberal, obscene racist & murdering “LibDems” can point to anything I have said that is factually untrue or even illiberal. I would certainly be willing to retract it any such staterment if that were done. Experience shows that none of you obscene genocidal organlegging Nazis can & almost all of you know that you can’t.
Obviously this would only happen if such members wished to rehabilitate yourselves to membership of the human race at least to the extent of being worthy to lick the boots of the people who ran the ovens at Auschwitz, who, unlike you, would have been endangered by not participating in genocide. I think it unlikely you will do so but you are entitled to the opportunity. On the other hand even if you cannot aspire to human decency it is important that you & others at least know the difference.
“We discovered that these things were known by intelligence services from the different countries,” the report’s compiler said. “It was known by police services. It was known by numerous people who, in private, would say ‘Yes we know, but for political reasons we made the choice or we have the duty to remain silent.'”
That includes every “LibDem” MP, every one of the party’s bloggers & indeed ordinary members who decided you had a “duty” to lie & censor to promote atrocities morally worse than Hitler’s.
I don’t expect an apology from many “LibDems” only from every last one of those who would like to think that there is the remotest possibility that they could aspire to some trace of honesty & humanity.
No. It’s not just Nick Clegg. The entire complement of Lib Dem cabinet ministers supported him. If I weren’t already disillusioned, the timing of the Oldham and Saddleworth by-election would be the final straw. It’s been timed to ensure that more than 1,000 students on the register will be away from the constituency and during a winter set to be so harsh that people without 4x4s will find it hard to reach polling stations. I was delighted to see Phil Woolas properly punished for the racism of his campaign but the Lib Dems’ cynical display of cunning opportunism stinks.
I shan’t support New Labour either – their dishonesty sickened me as did their support for war and torture – but I wonder whether I should vote for a minority part in the hope it retains integrity or simply join the protesters on the streets.
“but I wonder whether I should vote for a minority part[y] in the hope it retains integrity”
You mean should you vote for the BNP?
They promise full student scholarships, but only for those studying “real” subjects.
Funny, innit. Everything the lib-lefties promise to do or not do they don’t do or do do, as the case maybe, once in power. Then they howl with venomous hatred at the BNP who say they really will do or not do what the lib-lefties promised they would or wouldn’t do but actually haven’t, or have, done, as the case may be.
Although I do like the idea of a long term infiltratinon of the Lib dems, machiavellian style, I think that this will not be an issue for students, they are more likely to join any other party but the Conservatives and Lib dems.
And why should they waste their time with longwinded dogmatic rigmarole, when they can support a candidate of their own choice with a local standing in Sheffield Hallam, if I had my wish that would be an Independent candidate.
How much more regurgitated lies can we stand from politicians, of all parties?
As for the monies involved, puny compared to what is avoided in taxes by those in the know, the issue has been blown out of all proportions.
far from wasting time on establishment parties, they should support canddiates that are able to organise and are interested in a long term political campaign, not just the occaisional spurt, something cobbled together at the last minute.
Independent politics, like all politics, is not a quick step routine that will just happen when the music starts, its a hard slog, it takes a decade, but worth working for.
If anybody is interested in fooling themselves, hoping that they can join one single constituency party, without any measures being put in place to fight such an invasion of students by the party, they should follow Craigs advice.
I for one had enough of people who lie to those who feed them, who keep them in good fettle and make them famous, gits.
–
Thing is, “LOL” (above at 18:06), while the BNP may stand for some positions I can readily agree with, it also stands for things which give me a bit of a problem. These would include their blatantly racist policies and the reintroduction of the death penalty, not to mention that it’s comprised chiefly of thugs, criminals, nazis and morons. And that’s just the candidates themselves, let’s not get started on their supporters.
‘allo ‘allo ‘allo. ‘ere we go again.
The alternative to fundo capitalism is not the BNP! If you vote for the BNP, you’re voting for Oswald Moseley and the Blackshirts – for idiot opportunists. Advocating the BNP is a nonsense argument. Well put, Glenn.
Problem is, where are the parties of the Alternative?
The Lib Dems have lost all credibility. They could have made a stand on the banking control. They didn’t. They’re just another Atlanticist front company. But then, the SDP was founded and run by precisely such people. They split the anti-Thatcher vote for a decade. ‘Labour’ (I agree, technicolour) transformed itself into the SDP. So, the situation is that we have multiple parties of the Right.
12! candidates in the Oldham E and Saddleworth by election on January 13 2011 –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldham_East_and_Saddleworth_by-election,_2011
“‘allo ‘allo ‘allo. ‘ere we go again. ”
Yeah, the smear machine up and running already.
“If you vote for the BNP, you’re voting for Oswald Moseley and the Blackshirts – for idiot opportunists. Advocating the BNP is a nonsense argument.”
No one advocated the BNP. Someone asked a question. But it’s too much to expect, I suppose, that a professional writer be able to read.
Oswald Mosely, incidentally, has long been dead. But any bullshit goes here.
“while the BNP may stand for some positions I can readily agree with, it also stands for things which give me a bit of a problem. These would include their blatantly racist policies”
They are court approved non-racist now.
“not to mention that it’s comprised chiefly of thugs, criminals, nazis and morons.”
Yes, that’s the whole point of the BNP. They work in collaboration with the lib-left to discredit those who stand for the rights of ordinary folks.
More specifically, the BNP functions to discredit all populist policies. Thus although the Lib-Dums reneged on their promise to abolish student fees, we all know that abolishing student fees is more or less a Nazi policy since the BNP support it. So you see the Lib-Dums were right after all.
The BNP’s support for all things popular accounts for their position on capital punishment, which most people support in the mistaken belief that only people like Bradey and Hindley will pay the ultimate penalty. What folks don’t realize is that in most cases the police get the wrong person.
You would advocate voting for the BNP, would you, Alfred? A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer would be much appreciated. Please feel free to be frank about this. Thank you.
I don’t think anyone rejects a policy on the sole grounds that the BNP is for it. Can you name an example? Sure, the three main parties all primarily support the interests of the investor class. But most of the rest (Plaid Cymru, greens etc.) do not. There are plenty in the Labour party and I daresay the nationalists and some Lid Dems too who genuinely support the interests of working people.
But I think you have it the wrong way around – the BNP took of populist positions to get their more odious policies some credibility. You think they are primarily populist, but slip in a bit of nazism just to discredit those populist positions. But when decent, ordinary (but not particularly well informed politically) people are asked what the BNP is about, they’ll say racism and know little else about them. They won’t say they stand for a lot of things they’d thought were good ideas, but all those things are now discredited because of the BNPs racist policies, so now no party can stand for any of them, even the good bits!
Actually, I suspect that the majority of the population don’t even bother to check what BNP policies might, or might not be, in relation to specific issues other than, perhaps, immigration, etc. Thus, their effect on support for anti-establishment policies is likely to be zero. You assign far too much importance and centrality to the BNP in this regard. Your central thesis in all this is full of holes, Alfred. Is it simply a subtle way of insinuating that people support them? Your attitude to their central raison d’etre seems well-aligned with that of the BNP.
Would you vote for the BNP, Alfred, if you were still in Britain?
Glenn – my thoughts exactly!
Now, let’s move away from Oswald Moseley and Diana Mitford and get back to criticism of the Lib Dems…
The party of Nick ‘Hitler went a bit too far/black people walk like monkeys’ Griffin, eh. But whoever’s in charge, everyone knows its history. Jackboots & violence in a small, unoriginal way: the rank and file were much better off as football hooligans. No wonder you’re posting under a pseudonym, Alfred/LOL. What does that stand for, by the way?