OSimon Continue the air strikes and provide support for the Kurds on the ground and if need be bring Iran and Turkey in too, RIP Alan Henning a decent man brutally murdered, but I think we should also now put in a blanket ban on all travel to Syria and Iraq
I can see what you would be trying to achieve by banning travel - but those determined to get there would still find a way.
It is such a difficult situation with no clear way of seeing a route to victory.
Will you be voting LD in 2015, or have you switched too?
Possibly. At the moment I think the best result will be the most likely one: a Labour-LibDem coalition. Perhaps this will be a better coalition arrangement since the main problem I had with New Labour governments was their unchecked spending, and the LibDems, especially after their training under the Tories, might rein them in. Also there's a chance that we'll get PR and Britain will finally become a modern democracy.
If Labour are getting a larger percentage of the seats than they do vote share as is likely I do not believe for one minute they are going to agree to PR especially when currently the party that benefits the most is UKIP. Think about it. On 5% UKIP get 32 MPs on 10% of the vote they'd get 65 MP's on 20% 130 MPs. Labour and the Libdems are not going to do it.
Similarly given Labour dominate the House Of Lords I suspect reform in that area is unlikely to
While I agree that Labour would bitterly oppose PR, I think the LibDems would support it. Don't forget, they're likely to have 3% or so of the seats after the next election, on 10-12% of the votes. Their desire for more MPs, and the chance to be in government from time to time will more than outweigh their dislike of UKIP.
We've been supporting electoral reform to a more proportional basis for close to a century, since before Labour had ever formed a government and we were one of the 'big two'. We'd support it, and you couldn't just put it down to short term political calculations.
They voted against fairer boundaries as recommended by the electoral commission, probably because it would have meant they lost some MPs.
Seems more obvious to me that their love of PR is purely for their own personal gain.
Recommended by the electoral commission? Such weasel words. You mean the boundary changes that Cameron and the Tories designed.
Then you lack any knowledge of the history on the subject.
The electoral commission didn't recommend equalising the boundaries?
Mr. Simon, choke off the funds, kill them on the battlefield. A caliphate with no land is no caliphate at all.
Of course, bloody easy to write that sat at a desk tapping away at a keyboard.
But they aren't on a battlefield in any conventional sense which makes their defeat even harder to engineer. We certainly can't defeat them via a battle of ideas.
IS are a conventional army, from unconventional origins.
The reason that they are dangerous is that they have moved on from being guerillas. The war against them needs to be intelligence and drone led.
What do you mean 'intelligence' -these guys are funded by the Saudis, trained and let over the border by Turkey, connected with America, often come off the streets of the UK (aparently abetted by MI5 according to C4 news), are all over twitter, all over facebook -they are informationally incontinent! We don't need *more* data about what is supposedly going on in their fiendishly intelligent brains. What we need to do is destroy them.
Only if they are going to increase general taxation to cover the cost of the public communications infrastructure necessary to maintain national security. There has to be a mandatory charge of some sort.
We need to track them down, and not let them move a single vehicle without a hellfire missile decending on them. Intelligence is vital for accurate targetting of drone and air strikes.
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
Goodness, you do talk a lot of tosh, don't you.
On that basis, if you went from 600 seats in the House of Commons to 400, because you'd lost a significant percentage you wouldn't have a mandate to govern.
If you did go from 600 seats to 400, then your mandate would have shrunk - that is obvious. You would have lost a significant percentage of support in the country.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
We don't elect mandates, we elect MPs.
If the Liberal Democrats enter coalition again in 2015 then they will negotiate to get the best deal possible for themselves.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
Will you be voting LD in 2015, or have you switched too?
Possibly. At the moment I think the best result will be the most likely one: a Labour-LibDem coalition. Perhaps this will be a better coalition arrangement since the main problem I had with New Labour governments was their unchecked spending, and the LibDems, especially after their training under the Tories, might rein them in. Also there's a chance that we'll get PR and Britain will finally become a modern democracy.
If Labour are getting a larger percentage of the seats than they do vote share as is likely I do not believe for one minute they are going to agree to PR especially when currently the party that benefits the most is UKIP. Think about it. On 5% UKIP get 32 MPs on 10% of the vote they'd get 65 MP's on 20% 130 MPs. Labour and the Libdems are not going to do it.
Similarly given Labour dominate the House Of Lords I suspect reform in that area is unlikely to
While I agree that Labour would bitterly oppose PR, I think the LibDems would support it. Don't forget, they're likely to have 3% or so of the seats after the next election, on 10-12% of the votes. Their desire for more MPs, and the chance to be in government from time to time will more than outweigh their dislike of UKIP.
We've been supporting electoral reform to a more proportional basis for close to a century, since before Labour had ever formed a government and we were one of the 'big two'. We'd support it, and you couldn't just put it down to short term political calculations.
They voted against fairer boundaries as recommended by the electoral commission, probably because it would have meant they lost some MPs.
Seems more obvious to me that their love of PR is purely for their own personal gain.
Recommended by the electoral commission? Such weasel words. You mean the boundary changes that Cameron and the Tories designed.
Then you lack any knowledge of the history on the subject.
The electoral commission didn't recommend equalising the boundaries?
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
Will you be voting LD in 2015, or have you switched too?
Possibly. At the moment I think the best result will be the most likely one: a Labour-LibDem coalition. Perhaps this will be a better coalition arrangement since the main problem I had with New Labour governments was their unchecked spending, and the LibDems, especially after their training under the Tories, might rein them in. Also there's a chance that we'll get PR and Britain will finally become a modern democracy.
If Labour are getting a larger percentage of the seats than they do vote share as is likely I do not believe for one minute they are going to agree to PR especially when currently the party that benefits the most is UKIP. Think about it. On 5% UKIP get 32 MPs on 10% of the vote they'd get 65 MP's on 20% 130 MPs. Labour and the Libdems are not going to do it.
Similarly given Labour dominate the House Of Lords I suspect reform in that area is unlikely to
While I agree that Labour would bitterly oppose PR, I think the LibDems would support it. Don't forget, they're likely to have 3% or so of the seats after the next election, on 10-12% of the votes. Their desire for more MPs, and the chance to be in government from time to time will more than outweigh their dislike of UKIP.
Perhaps but there is another consideration. They've already had one referendum on voting systems and been told in no uncertain terms NO. I really don't see that they will do themselves any good banging on about it
I voted no to AV. I would vote yes to STV.
As the political landscape fragments, FPTP gets more and more disproportional. I don't believe you should get to form a majority in the HoC with a third of the votes, and when there are three parties to your right. I think it is wrong that UKIP could get 15% of the vote, and fewer than 10 seats (and quite possibly fewer than 5).
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
Goodness, you do talk a lot of tosh, don't you.
On that basis, if you went from 600 seats in the House of Commons to 400, because you'd lost a significant percentage you wouldn't have a mandate to govern.
To be honest Robert given Clegg's terminal reputation amongst voters, I think it would be quite hard for him to play kingmaker after the next election. Not to say it won't happen but it will only enhance the anti-politics feeling out there. It's remarkable to think that in 2010 voters were happy to embrace coalition government/politicians working together in spite of so many politicians having told them before then that hung parliaments were a disaster and yet now after 4 years of 'successful' coalition, voters are sick to death of the idea. Clegg's central strategy was to make coalition government look a success, don't forget. Well he's ruined its reputation. When you add in the AV shambes he really has been a human wrecking ball for political reform, which was his own personal pet project within the coalition in 2010, when most people were concerned about an economic slump and Tory overeagerness for cuts.
I suspect that the LibDems will have fewer than 20 seats post the election, so their opportunity to play kingmaker will be much diminished.
The question is: will the Tories veer right post 2015, and Labour veer left? If so, the Libs will probably have a decent recovery in 2020.
Will you be voting LD in 2015, or have you switched too?
If Labour are getting a larger percentage of the seats than they do vote share as is likely I do not believe for one minute they are going to agree to PR especially when currently the party that benefits the most is UKIP. Think about it. On 5% UKIP get 32 MPs on 10% of the vote they'd get 65 MP's on 20% 130 MPs. Labour and the Libdems are not going to do it.
Similarly given Labour dominate the House Of Lords I suspect reform in that area is unlikely to
While I agree that Labour would bitterly oppose PR, I think the LibDems would support it. Don't forget, they're likely to have 3% or so of the seats after the next election, on 10-12% of the votes. Their desire for more MPs, and the chance to be in government from time to time will more than outweigh their dislike of UKIP.
We've been supporting electoral reform to a more proportional basis for close to a century, since before Labour had ever formed a government and we were one of the 'big two'. We'd support it, and you couldn't just put it down to short term political calculations.
They voted against fairer boundaries as recommended by the electoral commission, probably because it would have meant they lost some MPs.
Seems more obvious to me that their love of PR is purely for their own personal gain.
Recommended by the electoral commission? Such weasel words. You mean the boundary changes that Cameron and the Tories designed.
Then you lack any knowledge of the history on the subject.
The electoral commission didn't recommend equalising the boundaries?
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
The Lib Dems committed to reducing the number of MPs too unless I'm mistaken, so I'm not sure how they had a problem with that.
Were they prepared to compromise on a bill that just implemented the boundary changes? I seem to remember the rhetoric that they wouldn't because of lack of HoL reform.
We need to track them down, and not let them move a single vehicle without a hellfire missile decending on them. Intelligence is vital for accurate targetting of drone and air strikes.
These people are trying to hold territory. They need to be driven out of Syria (by Assad) and destroyed in Iraq. The problem is, our leaders prefer the success of ISIS to the survival of Assad. No drone strike can alter that fact.
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
Goodness, you do talk a lot of tosh, don't you.
On that basis, if you went from 600 seats in the House of Commons to 400, because you'd lost a significant percentage you wouldn't have a mandate to govern.
If you did go from 600 seats to 400, then your mandate would have shrunk - that is obvious. You would have lost a significant percentage of support in the country.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
We don't elect mandates, we elect MPs.
If the Liberal Democrats enter coalition again in 2015 then they will negotiate to get the best deal possible for themselves.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
But they should negotiate a deal consistent with how they fought the election campaign. That is what was so egregious with Clegg's behaviour in 2010. He seemed to think the coalition was an excuse to abandon the centre-left election campaign he fought. Rather than continue to fight for social democratic ambitions - inevitably likely to be stymied in a coalition with the Tories - he gladly embraced a centre right agenda and then tried to pretend it was really centrist. Only a handful of fools have fallen for it.
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
I'll get shouted at if we get into what "bring forward" means in the coalition agreement.
How did it improve the democracy precisely?
I believe that constituencies should be of a far more equal size - with the voters having a more equal say. I appreciate that we cannot have a completely equal system. But it is wrong to have the current disparity in voter numbers between constituencies. Surely you can see that?
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
I can see why they'd oppose reducing the number of constituencies: because the fewer consituencies there are, the lower the chances of third of fourth parties getting seats.
Will you be voting LD in 2015, or have you switched too?
On 5% UKIP get 32 MPs on 10% of the vote they'd get 65 MP's on 20% 130 MPs. Labour and the Libdems are not going to do it.
given Labour dominate the House Of Lords I suspect reform in that area is unlikely to
While I agree that Labour would bitterly oppose PR, I think the LibDems would support it. Don't forget, they're likely to have 3% or so of the seats after the next election, on 10-12% of the votes. Their desire for more MPs, and the chance to be in government from time to time will more than outweigh their dislike of UKIP.
We've been supporting electoral reform to a more proportional basis for close to a century, since before Labour had ever formed a government and we were one of the 'big two'. We'd support it, and you couldn't just put it down to short term political calculations.
They voted against fairer boundaries as recommended by the electoral commission, probably because it would have meant they lost some MPs.
Seems more obvious to me that their love of PR is purely for their own personal gain.
Recommended by the electoral commission? Such weasel words. You mean the boundary changes that Cameron and the Tories designed.
Then you lack any knowledge of the history on the subject.
The electoral commission didn't recommend equalising the boundaries?
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
The Lib Dems committed to reducing the number of MPs too unless I'm mistaken, so I'm not sure how they had a problem with that.
Were they prepared to compromise on a bill that just implemented the boundary changes? I seem to remember the rhetoric that they wouldn't because of lack of HoL reform.
IIRC Cameron wanted to reduce it by around 60. Clegg wanted to slash it by 150.
Without further devolved representation such a reduction would have been a gross act of centralism and anti-democratic in a nation with a growing population
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
Goodness, you do talk a lot of tosh, don't you.
On that basis, if you went from 600 seats in the House of Commons to 400, because you'd lost a significant percentage you wouldn't have a mandate to govern.
If you did go from 600 seats to 400, then your mandate would have shrunk - that is obvious. You would have lost a significant percentage of support in the country.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
We don't elect mandates, we elect MPs.
If the Liberal Democrats enter coalition again in 2015 then they will negotiate to get the best deal possible for themselves.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
But they should negotiate a deal consistent with how they fought the election campaign. That is what was so egregious with Clegg's behaviour in 2010. He seemed to think the coalition was an excuse to abandon the centre-left election campaign he fought. Rather than continue to fight for social democratic ambitions - inevitably likely to be stymied in a coalition with the Tories - he gladly embraced a centre right agenda and then tried to pretend it was really centrist. Only a handful of fools have fallen for it.
To be fair, the LibDems were going to be f*cked, no matter who they got into coalition with, because they had attempted to be all things to all people. If they'd got into bed with Labour, they would have lost their right leaning voters to the Conservatives. And if they'd ended up in power by themselves, people would have quickly realised that their policies were inherently contradictory.
All that being said... 40% of the LibDems have always been 'Orange Bookers', and anyone who read the book would have been under no illusion that the LibDems were Labour-lite.
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
It would have helped the Tories and hurt Labour. In other words it was bad regardless of whether it was actually more democratic or not.
They really are Labour lite.
IIRC Once the dust had settled on the proposals I believe it was the Libdems who would have been penalised disproportionately. They made a big fuss about other matters but I suspect self-interest was at the bottom of it
IIRC Cameron wanted to reduce it by around 60. Clegg wanted to slash it by 150.
Without further devolved representation such a reduction would have been a gross act of centralism and anti-democratic in a nation with a growing population
Why is reducing the number of MPs inherently centrist? Or for that matter, anti-democratic?
Do you believe in a fixed ratio between citizens and MPs? (Just as enshrined in the 1st paragraph of the US Bill of Rights / constitution, IIRC)
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
But they should negotiate a deal consistent with how they fought the election campaign. That is what was so egregious with Clegg's behaviour in 2010. He seemed to think the coalition was an excuse to abandon the centre-left election campaign he fought. Rather than continue to fight for social democratic ambitions - inevitably likely to be stymied in a coalition with the Tories - he gladly embraced a centre right agenda and then tried to pretend it was really centrist. Only a handful of fools have fallen for it.
To be fair, the LibDems were going to be f*cked, no matter who they got into coalition with, because they had attempted to be all things to all people. If they'd got into bed with Labour, they would have lost their right leaning voters to the Conservatives. And if they'd ended up in power by themselves, people would have quickly realised that their policies were inherently contradictory.
All that being said... 40% of the LibDems have always been 'Orange Bookers', and anyone who read the book would have been under no illusion that the LibDems were Labour-lite.
How many people read the book? Not many I'd have thought. The election debate got 10m+ viewers. That is all that matters. And in those debates Clegg behaved like a social democrat. I don't often agree with Tony Blair but he is right on the Lib Dem predicament. I couldn't care less whether 40% of LDs are orange bookers, they were too cowardly to show they're true colours in the campaign (pun intended) and therefore had no mandate to enforce it.
OSimon Continue the air strikes and provide support for the Kurds on the ground and if need be bring Iran and Turkey in too, RIP Alan Henning a decent man brutally murdered, but I think we should also now put in a blanket ban on all travel to Syria and Iraq
I can see what you would be trying to achieve by banning travel - but those determined to get there would still find a way.
It is such a difficult situation with no clear way of seeing a route to victory.
This probably controversial, but stop all travel to Saudi and back, freeze all assets, divert all oil tankers to other pickups, stop all replacement parts and training for Saudi forces and literally turn the thumb screws on the testicles of the Saudi Royal Family.
One of the main reasons the Sunni/Wahhabi IS success is the backing given by the Saudis. Now they have decided to use their military to "destroy" IS. Believe that, and you'll believe David Cameron will win the next GE
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
I'll get shouted at if we get into what "bring forward" means in the coalition agreement.
How did it improve the democracy precisely?
I believe that constituencies should be of a far more equal size - with the voters having a more equal say. I appreciate that we cannot have a completely equal system. But it is wrong to have the current disparity in voter numbers between constituencies. Surely you can see that?
I believe in genuine proportionality.
The Conservatives are the ones advocating an electoral system based around geographic communities. That's the selling point of FPTP.
Then (using extreme examples like the Isle of Wight, which with a population of ~100,000 gives you either one over-large seat or two undersized ones) they complain specifically about the disparity between them and Labour in votes to seats ratio.
Having gained a higher % of seats than votes, they complain that the system while obviously being skewed in their favour, isn't skewed enough towards them because it favours Labour even more so (it being skewed against everyone else of course).
So their argument of it being fairer falls apart as soon as you don't define that purely on being equally skewed towards Conservatives and Labour, and it would only be achievable by making seats that crossed geographical and community boundaries.
It was farcical in how purely focussed it was on improving Conservative prospects (having come out of ConHome as a barely camouflaged tactic for increasing the change of Conservative majorities).
PS MA upgrades at Oxford are only a tenner as far as I remember, are Cambridge ones more?
I always reckoned the MA upgrades to be (at least in modern times, now their centuries-old traditional function is defunct) nothing but a form of fraud - plenty of people out there don't realise it isn't a "real" MA so get taken in by it. If absolutely everybody realised they were what they were, I wouldn't mind people appending it to their names so much, as no unfair advantage would accrue.
I have since come to view the Oxbridge MA as a way of identifying prats - particularly the vintage pompous self-important type, but it also works on the flashy wideboys confidence tricksters. It is not, however, a foolproof means of identifying prats, as on principle, I never claimed mine. (Though I did tag along to the ceremony for social purposes.)
Since I already had an MSc by the time I was offered the MA by Cambridge, I did not really see the point. I think it might get me dinner once in a while if I'm in Cambridge, but I don't think it's good for much else.
I reckon the Oxbridge folk who insist on styling themselve as "MA MSc" look particularly silly - if you've earned a proper Masters, why dilute it with the one that's only a Masters on paper? No idea if the dinner rumours are true, though if the food is cheap it can only be because a little "generosity" is expected of you, at least in legacy. Every so often the college "alumni officers" (i.e. fundraisers i.e. guilt-inducing turdspawn moneygrabbing scum) manage to track me down again. Seems to coincide with "friends" being helpful to enquiries about how "we've lost touch with MBE, he must have forgotten to let us know his new address". Every time that happens, it takes years of concerted effort - diligently RTSing every circular, newsletter, invitation, outright beg, and guide on How To Leave Money Tax Efficiently In Your Will, with "Not Known At This Address" prominently displayed on the envelope - before they lose the scent again. Of the five higher ed institutions who could be hounding me for my pennies, they've been the most relentless bastards.
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
But they should negotiate a deal consistent with how they fought the election campaign. That is what was so egregious with Clegg's behaviour in 2010. He seemed to think the coalition was an excuse to abandon the centre-left election campaign he fought. Rather than continue to fight for social democratic ambitions - inevitably likely to be stymied in a coalition with the Tories - he gladly embraced a centre right agenda and then tried to pretend it was really centrist. Only a handful of fools have fallen for it.
To be fair, the LibDems were going to be f*cked, no matter who they got into coalition with, because they had attempted to be all things to all people. If they'd got into bed with Labour, they would have lost their right leaning voters to the Conservatives. And if they'd ended up in power by themselves, people would have quickly realised that their policies were inherently contradictory.
All that being said... 40% of the LibDems have always been 'Orange Bookers', and anyone who read the book would have been under no illusion that the LibDems were Labour-lite.
How many people read the book? Not many I'd have thought. The election debate got 10m+ viewers. That is all that matters. And in those debates Clegg behaved like a social democrat. I don't often agree with Tony Blair but he is right on the Lib Dem predicament. I couldn't care less whether 40% of LDs are orange bookers, they were too cowardly to show they're true colours in the campaign (pun intended) and therefore had no mandate to enforce it.
This is the campaign where we talked of the need for cuts and made a tax cutting policy one of our central talking points? That 'centre-left' campaign?
IIRC Cameron wanted to reduce it by around 60. Clegg wanted to slash it by 150.
Without further devolved representation such a reduction would have been a gross act of centralism and anti-democratic in a nation with a growing population
Why is reducing the number of MPs inherently centrist? Or for that matter, anti-democratic?
Do you believe in a fixed ratio between citizens and MPs? (Just as enshrined in the 1st paragraph of the US Bill of Rights / constitution, IIRC)
If you reduce the number of representatives you are reducing the number of people involved in wielding power. That is the very definition of centralism because if you take it to its fullest extent you end up with just 1 person. In other words a dictator. Not only that by reducing the number of representatives wielding power you are making it easier for party leaders to control their party. Fewer people fewer problems and so forth.
Now from the other side. if you have 100 representatives for 100,000 voters each voters ballot is 1 in 1000 in deciding that representative. Now if you halve the representatives and the population/ electorate remains the same then that vote is now just 1 vote in 2000. Inherently reducing the number of representatives dilutes the voters power because their influence is smaller. Now ideally what you want as a voter is to have as much influence as possible therefore anything which reduces your influence is anti-democratic.
Given how the population has been growing persistently over many decades we should have a larger number of representatives but of course we (in England) haven't. Now the fact that the number of representatives has not kept up with the population I suspect is one of the unseen drivers for greater devolution (because our representatives no longer have adequate time for their voters).
Pretty straightforward really when you think about it.
In fact one of the reasons why politicians are thought of so badly is also probably because the size of their constituencies is growing and the demands on them are greater. Arguably as the population has grown but the number of representatives hasn't it could be considered centralist and anti-democratic so by reducing the numbers you would actually be exacerbating the situation.
PS To answer your second question Yes. I believe the French have something in place to accommodate population growth as well.
PS MA upgrades at Oxford are only a tenner as far as I remember, are Cambridge ones more?
I always reckoned the MA upgrades to be (at least in modern times, now their centuries-old traditional function is defunct) nothing but a form of fraud - plenty of people out there don't realise it isn't a "real" MA so get taken in by it. If absolutely everybody realised they were what they were, I wouldn't mind people appending it to their names so much, as no unfair advantage would accrue.
I have since come to view the Oxbridge MA as a way of identifying prats - particularly the vintage pompous self-important type, but it also works on the flashy wideboys confidence tricksters. It is not, however, a foolproof means of identifying prats, as on principle, I never claimed mine. (Though I did tag along to the ceremony for social purposes.)
Since I already had an MSc by the time I was offered the MA by Cambridge, I did not really see the point. I think it might get me dinner once in a while if I'm in Cambridge, but I don't think it's good for much else.
I reckon the Oxbridge folk who insist on styling themselve as "MA MSc" look particularly silly - if you've earned a proper Masters, why dilute it with the one that's only a Masters on paper? No idea if the dinner rumours are true, though if the food is cheap it can only be because a little "generosity" is expected of you, at least in legacy. Every so often the college "alumni officers" (i.e. fundraisers i.e. guilt-inducing turdspawn moneygrabbing scum) manage to track me down again. Seems to coincide with "friends" being helpful to enquiries about how "we've lost touch with MBE, he must have forgotten to let us know his new address". Every time that happens, it takes years of concerted effort - diligently RTSing every circular, newsletter, invitation, outright beg, and guide on How To Leave Money Tax Efficiently In Your Will, with "Not Known At This Address" prominently displayed on the envelope - before they lose the scent again. Of the five higher ed institutions who could be hounding me for my pennies, they've been the most relentless bastards.
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
All that being said... 40% of the LibDems have always been 'Orange Bookers', and anyone who read the book would have been under no illusion that the LibDems were Labour-lite.
How many people read the book? Not many I'd have thought. The election debate got 10m+ viewers. That is all that matters. And in those debates Clegg behaved like a social democrat. I don't often agree with Tony Blair but he is right on the Lib Dem predicament. I couldn't care less whether 40% of LDs are orange bookers, they were too cowardly to show they're true colours in the campaign (pun intended) and therefore had no mandate to enforce it.
This is the campaign where we talked of the need for cuts and made a tax cutting policy one of our central talking points? That 'centre-left' campaign?
Tax cuts targeting the lowest earners. My understanding was that would be complemented by tax rises on higher earners - mansion tax, capital gains tax etc. Sounds left wing to me. As for cuts you'd have to be very left wing not to accept the need for cuts in the medium term when you have a £160bn deficit. What I really can't forgive though is happily going along with Osborne's bastard anti-keynesian policies. You allowed yourself to be pulled along by people who ridiculed the ideas of one of your party's greatest ever figures. Ideas, that as Adam Posen former member of the MPC has said, have been proven entirely correct by the financial crisis.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
My College sent me a form asking me whether I had remembered them in my will. I replied, quite truthfully, that I had.
(That is, it reads "Under no circumstances should any money be given to Wasters College, Cambridge").
Ever since then, the College has been so respectful.
I have been repeatedly invited to honoured dinners with captains of industry and governors of banks, and all the raucous effluvia of capitalism.
Once the College has established that a big donation awaits on your death, there are no more pesky phone calls from the Development Office. They have done their job.
Rather, they concentrate on killing you off by suppers of rich duckling and wine.
Tax cuts targeting the lowest earners. My understanding was that would be complemented by tax rises on higher earners - mansion tax, capital gains tax etc. Sounds left wing to me. As for cuts you'd have to be very left wing not to accept the need for cuts in the medium term when you have a £160bn deficit. What I really can't forgive though is happily going along with Osborne's bastard anti-keynesian policies. You allowed yourself to be pulled along by people who ridiculed the ideas of one of your party's greatest ever figures. Ideas, that as Adam Posen former member of the MPC has said, have been proven entirely correct by the financial crisis.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the UK economy is doing rather well. Unemployment is falling, output is rising: sure there are problems, but we're doing a lot better than most of our continental peers.
Furthermore, we've continued to see private sector deleveraging in the UK - that is companies and individuals owe less money (as a percentage of GDP) now than in 2007. This is in stark contrast to the US, where initial deleveraging is been followed by another debt boom.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
But they should negotiate a deal consistent with how they fought the election campaign. That is what was so egregious with Clegg's behaviour in 2010. He seemed to think the coalition was an excuse to abandon the centre-left election campaign he fought. Rather than continue to fight for social democratic ambitions - inevitably likely to be stymied in a coalition with the Tories - he gladly embraced a centre right agenda and then tried to pretend it was really centrist. Only a handful of fools have fallen for it.
To be fair, the LibDems were going to be f*cked, no matter who they got into coalition with, because they had attempted to be all things to all people. If they'd got into bed with Labour, they would have lost their right leaning voters to the Conservatives. And if they'd ended up in power by themselves, people would have quickly realised that their policies were inherently contradictory.
All that being said... 40% of the LibDems have always been 'Orange Bookers', and anyone who read the book would have been under no illusion that the LibDems were Labour-lite.
How many people read the book? Not many I'd have thought. The election debate got 10m+ viewers. That is all that matters. And in those debates Clegg behaved like a social democrat. I don't often agree with Tony Blair but he is right on the Lib Dem predicament. I couldn't care less whether 40% of LDs are orange bookers, they were too cowardly to show they're true colours in the campaign (pun intended) and therefore had no mandate to enforce it.
Clegg also said quite clearly that the Lib Dems would look to deal first with the party that had the strongest mandate, which was without question the Tories. As Cameron and team were clearly interested in a deal and the Labour negotiators were interested in their upcoming leadership election, there was only ever going to be one outcome.
Why is reducing the number of MPs inherently centrist? Or for that matter, anti-democratic?
Do you believe in a fixed ratio between citizens and MPs? (Just as enshrined in the 1st paragraph of the US Bill of Rights / constitution, IIRC)
I've just realised you confused centrism (positioning oneself in the centre of the political spectrum) with centralism (increasingly dividing power between fewer and fewer people). I was talking about centralism
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
I'll get shouted at if we get into what "bring forward" means in the coalition agreement.
How did it improve the democracy precisely?
I believe that constituencies should be of a far more equal size - with the voters having a more equal say. I appreciate that we cannot have a completely equal system. But it is wrong to have the current disparity in voter numbers between constituencies. Surely you can see that?
I believe in genuine proportionality.
The Conservatives are the ones advocating an electoral system based around geographic communities. That's the selling point of FPTP.
Then (using extreme examples like the Isle of Wight, which with a population of ~100,000 gives you either one over-large seat or two undersized ones) they complain specifically about the disparity between them and Labour in votes to seats ratio.
Having gained a higher % of seats than votes, they complain that the system while obviously being skewed in their favour, isn't skewed enough towards them because it favours Labour even more so (it being skewed against everyone else of course).
So their argument of it being fairer falls apart as soon as you don't define that purely on being equally skewed towards Conservatives and Labour, and it would only be achievable by making seats that crossed geographical and community boundaries.
It was farcical in how purely focussed it was on improving Conservative prospects (having come out of ConHome as a barely camouflaged tactic for increasing the change of Conservative majorities).
So having more equal boundaries isn't worthwhile because FPTP isn't a fair system. What a load of nonsense.
With logic like this it's no wonder the Lib Dems are gradually disappearing.
I reckon the Oxbridge folk who insist on styling themselve as "MA MSc" look particularly silly - if you've earned a proper Masters, why dilute it with the one that's only a Masters on paper? No idea if the dinner rumours are true, though if the food is cheap it can only be because a little "generosity" is expected of you, at least in legacy. Every so often the college "alumni officers" (i.e. fundraisers i.e. guilt-inducing turdspawn moneygrabbing scum) manage to track me down again. Seems to coincide with "friends" being helpful to enquiries about how "we've lost touch with MBE, he must have forgotten to let us know his new address". Every time that happens, it takes years of concerted effort - diligently RTSing every circular, newsletter, invitation, outright beg, and guide on How To Leave Money Tax Efficiently In Your Will, with "Not Known At This Address" prominently displayed on the envelope - before they lose the scent again. Of the five higher ed institutions who could be hounding me for my pennies, they've been the most relentless bastards.
I'll exempt your dad from the turdspawn bastard comment. If anyone as sharp as OGH had been on my case, they might have stopped to ask why my "new" address was so often the same as my old one, before casting their avaricious little missives...
I never did work out, if you stick "Return to sender" on a chunky great newsletter, whether Royal Mail actually send it back or not. Or who picks up the tab. It sometimes took a good number of attempts at "Not Known At This Address" for the bombardment to cease, which suggests either they didn't get sent back at all, or that the cash-strapped undergrads employed to process all the alumni admin were disappointingly dim. I'm just glad I've guarded my number carefully, would hate to be on the receiving end of their bleeding-heart telephone appeals. "Oh hullo MBE, my name is Persephone, I just wondered if you could spare 5 minutes to talk about ..." Think I'd have to swallow my pride and sink to the confused-talking-in-a-foreign-accent technique. I'd be too lily-livered for my usual brusque push-off to nuisance callers.
On 5% UKIP get 32 MPs on 10% of the vote they'd get 65 MP's on 20% 130 MPs. Labour and the Libdems are not going to do it.
given Labour dominate the House Of Lords I suspect reform in that area is unlikely to
While I agree that Labour would bitterly oppose PR, I think the LibDems would support it. Don't forget, they're likely to have 3% or so of the seats after the next election, on 10-12% of the votes. Their desire for more MPs, and the chance to be in government from time to time will more than outweigh their dislike of UKIP.
We've been supporting electoral reform to a more proportional basis for close to a century, since before Labour had ever formed a government and we were one of the 'big two'. We'd support it, and you couldn't just put it down to short term political calculations.
They voted against fairer boundaries as recommended by the electoral commission, probably because it would have meant they lost some MPs.
Seems more obvious to me that their love of PR is purely for their own personal gain.
Recommended by the electoral commission? Such weasel words. You mean the boundary changes that Cameron and the Tories designed.
Then you lack any knowledge of the history on the subject.
The electoral commission didn't recommend equalising the boundaries?
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
The Lib Dems committed to reducing the number of MPs too unless I'm mistaken, so I'm not sure how they had a problem with that.
Were they prepared to compromise on a bill that just implemented the boundary changes? I seem to remember the rhetoric that they wouldn't because of lack of HoL reform.
IIRC Cameron wanted to reduce it by around 60. Clegg wanted to slash it by 150.
Without further devolved representation such a reduction would have been a gross act of centralism and anti-democratic in a nation with a growing population
The greatest problem in reducing the number of MPs is not the lack of regional governments to offset the reduction in representation (though it's part of it); it's that the size of the government isn't reduced in proportion, meaning the ratio of front-benchers to back-benchers grows, as does patronage.
Tax cuts targeting the lowest earners. My understanding was that would be complemented by tax rises on higher earners - mansion tax, capital gains tax etc. Sounds left wing to me. As for cuts you'd have to be very left wing not to accept the need for cuts in the medium term when you have a £160bn deficit. What I really can't forgive though is happily going along with Osborne's bastard anti-keynesian policies. You allowed yourself to be pulled along by people who ridiculed the ideas of one of your party's greatest ever figures. Ideas, that as Adam Posen former member of the MPC has said, have been proven entirely correct by the financial crisis.
Without going through the entire Lib Dem manifesto, with Clegg, Laws, Alexander, etc near the top of the party it had shifted significantly to the right, certainly not Labour-lite in the campaign. You can certainly debate the rights and wrongs of it, as many within the party have. But they certainly had taken control of the party and pushed it to the centre right.
The mansion tax for example didn't get floated until a couple of years after the election.
We need to track them down, and not let them move a single vehicle without a hellfire missile decending on them. Intelligence is vital for accurate targetting of drone and air strikes.
That might not be enough to rid us of the LibDem menace.
I reckon the Oxbridge folk who insist on styling themselve as "MA MSc" look particularly silly - if you've earned a proper Masters, why dilute it with the one that's only a Masters on paper? No idea if the dinner rumours are true, though if the food is cheap it can only be because a little "generosity" is expected of you, at least in legacy. Every so often the college "alumni officers" (i.e. fundraisers i.e. guilt-inducing turdspawn moneygrabbing scum) manage to track me down again. Seems to coincide with "friends" being helpful to enquiries about how "we've lost touch with MBE, he must have forgotten to let us know his new address". Every time that happens, it takes years of concerted effort - diligently RTSing every circular, newsletter, invitation, outright beg, and guide on How To Leave Money Tax Efficiently In Your Will, with "Not Known At This Address" prominently displayed on the envelope - before they lose the scent again. Of the five higher ed institutions who could be hounding me for my pennies, they've been the most relentless bastards.
I'll exempt your dad from the turdspawn bastard comment. If anyone as sharp as OGH had been on my case, they might have stopped to ask why my "new" address was so often the same as my old one, before casting their avaricious little missives...
I never did work out, if you stick "Return to sender" on a chunky great newsletter, whether Royal Mail actually send it back or not. Or who picks up the tab. It sometimes took a good number of attempts at "Not Known At This Address" for the bombardment to cease, which suggests either they didn't get sent back at all, or that the cash-strapped undergrads employed to process all the alumni admin were disappointingly dim. I'm just glad I've guarded my number carefully, would hate to be on the receiving end of their bleeding-heart telephone appeals. "Oh hullo MBE, my name is Persephone, I just wondered if you could spare 5 minutes to talk about ..." Think I'd have to swallow my pride and sink to the confused-talking-in-a-foreign-accent technique. I'd be too lily-livered for my usual brusque push-off to nuisance callers.
If you put not known at this address the information that it's happened does at least does get sent back to the sender.
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
I'll get shouted at if we get into what "bring forward" means in the coalition agreement.
How did it improve the democracy precisely?
I believe that constituencies should be of a far more equal size - with the voters having a more equal say. I appreciate that we cannot have a completely equal system. But it is wrong to have the current disparity in voter numbers between constituencies. Surely you can see that?
I believe in genuine proportionality.
The Conservatives are the ones advocating an electoral system based around geographic communities. That's the selling point of FPTP.
Then (using extreme examples like the Isle of Wight, which with a population of ~100,000 gives you either one over-large seat or two undersized ones) they complain specifically about the disparity between them and Labour in votes to seats ratio.
Having gained a higher % of seats than votes, they complain that the system while obviously being skewed in their favour, isn't skewed enough towards them because it favours Labour even more so (it being skewed against everyone else of course).
So their argument of it being fairer falls apart as soon as you don't define that purely on being equally skewed towards Conservatives and Labour, and it would only be achievable by making seats that crossed geographical and community boundaries.
It was farcical in how purely focussed it was on improving Conservative prospects (having come out of ConHome as a barely camouflaged tactic for increasing the change of Conservative majorities).
So having more equal boundaries isn't worthwhile because FPTP isn't a fair system. What a load of nonsense.
With logic like this it's no wonder the Lib Dems are gradually disappearing.
Speaking as a non-LibDem, if we're going to have FPTP, we should clearly have constituencies that are as equal sized as possible. However, if we are going to retain FPTP then we should not cut the number of representatives, as - if we do - then the system will become even less proportional.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Tax cuts targeting the lowest earners. My understanding was that would be complemented by tax rises on higher earners - mansion tax, capital gains tax etc. Sounds left wing to me. As for cuts you'd have to be very left wing not to accept the need for cuts in the medium term when you have a £160bn deficit. What I really can't forgive though is happily going along with Osborne's bastard anti-keynesian policies. You allowed yourself to be pulled along by people who ridiculed the ideas of one of your party's greatest ever figures. Ideas, that as Adam Posen former member of the MPC has said, have been proven entirely correct by the financial crisis.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the UK economy is doing rather well. Unemployment is falling, output is rising: sure there are problems, but we're doing a lot better than most of our continental peers.
Furthermore, we've continued to see private sector deleveraging in the UK - that is companies and individuals owe less money (as a percentage of GDP) now than in 2007. This is in stark contrast to the US, where initial deleveraging is been followed by another debt boom.
No it isn't doing well actually. The trade figures are awful, the only answer being that we just sell any assets we have left to finance it, turning most of the population into serfs. The deficit isn't coming down very fast and I'm not showing gratitude towards Osborne because we don't happen to be lumbered with the ECB. Levels of savings and investment remain typically woeful, we do however have a house price revival taking place and consumer spending is up - a think we all know where that mixture of figures tends to lead us. Can it all hold until the election?
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Which is why you go down the devolution route (using subsidiarity) because arguably if responsibilities are properly devolved then you shouldn't have highly paid people doing work that is perhaps below them and conversely people lower down the tree don't get paid as highly.
For example one of the selling points of an English Parliament in a Federal UK would be the significant cuts in Westminster politicians particularly in the House of Lords. You could probably make a 30% cut and still have sufficient representatives for two Federal Houses and the English Parliament.
Regarding the aside effectively MP's will have performance pay (although your suggestion is more defined) from the start of the next Parliament because their salary will be linked to average earnings which in many ways makes sense.. Its just a pity it was decided to give them that unwarranted hike to start with!
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
I'll get shouted at if we get into what "bring forward" means in the coalition agreement.
How did it improve the democracy precisely?
I believe that constituencies should be of a far more equal size - with the voters having a more equal say. I appreciate that we cannot have a completely equal system. But it is wrong to have the current disparity in voter numbers between constituencies. Surely you can see that?
I believe in genuine proportionality.
The Conservatives are the ones advocating an electoral system based around geographic communities. That's the selling point of FPTP.
So their argument of it being fairer falls apart as soon as you don't define that purely on being equally skewed towards Conservatives and Labour, and it would only be achievable by making seats that crossed geographical and community boundaries.
It was farcical in how purely focussed it was on improving Conservative prospects (having come out of ConHome as a barely camouflaged tactic for increasing the change of Conservative majorities).
So having more equal boundaries isn't worthwhile because FPTP isn't a fair system. What a load of nonsense.
With logic like this it's no wonder the Lib Dems are gradually disappearing.
Speaking as a non-LibDem, if we're going to have FPTP, we should clearly have constituencies that are as equal sized as possible. However, if we are going to retain FPTP then we should not cut the number of representatives, as - if we do - then the system will become even less proportional.
Completely agree. I can't see any argument for not having constituencies as equal as possible.
I'm sure if the Lib Dems were interested in a compromise that involved equal boundaries but keeping the same number of seats it would have happened.
But it seems that they weren't going to agree to anything as payback for losing the AV referendum. Their attempts to connect it with HoL reform were particularly laughable.
Tax cuts targeting the lowest earners. My understanding was that would be complemented by tax rises on higher earners - mansion tax, capital gains tax etc. Sounds left wing to me. As for cuts you'd have to be very left wing not to accept the need for cuts in the medium term when you have a £160bn deficit. What I really can't forgive though is happily going along with Osborne's bastard anti-keynesian policies. You allowed yourself to be pulled along by people who ridiculed the ideas of one of your party's greatest ever figures. Ideas, that as Adam Posen former member of the MPC has said, have been proven entirely correct by the financial crisis.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the UK economy is doing rather well. Unemployment is falling, output is rising: sure there are problems, but we're doing a lot better than most of our continental peers.
Furthermore, we've continued to see private sector deleveraging in the UK - that is companies and individuals owe less money (as a percentage of GDP) now than in 2007. This is in stark contrast to the US, where initial deleveraging is been followed by another debt boom.
No it isn't doing well actually. The trade figures are awful, the only answer being that we just sell any assets we have left to finance it, turning most of the population into serfs. The deficit isn't coming down very fast and I'm not showing gratitude towards Osborne because we don't happen to be lumbered with the ECB. Levels of savings and investment remain typically woeful, we do however have a house price revival taking place and consumer spending is up - a think we all know where that mixture of figures tends to lead us. Can it all hold until the election?
Ahhhh... yes, better to have a trade surplus and 25% unemployment (like Spain).
If you look at countries in the OECD with trade surpluses, they all (except Germany) have high unemployment. That's no accident. In developed economies, over long periods, there is a very clear correlation between unemployment rates and trade deficits.
Regarding the deficit, yes it would be nice if it came down quicker. But here's the thing: cutting government spending to reduce the deficit (see Portugal, Greece, etc.) is not very good for economic growth in the short-term.
I'm not saying things are perfect, obviously, but the track record of the Coalition government on the economy has been pretty good.
So having more equal boundaries isn't worthwhile because FPTP isn't a fair system. What a load of nonsense.
With logic like this it's no wonder the Lib Dems are gradually disappearing.
More equal for whom? The only way the Tory proposals contributed to fairness was if you cared about the system being equally skewed towards the Conservatives and Labour.
They trotted out arguments of X,000 votes on average to elect a Labour MP while it has to be Y,000 votes on average to elect a Tory (and cut that off before noting the much larger totals for other parties).
If you believed in the principles that lead you to FPTP then making the change didn't make sense. If you believed in the principles that lead you to that change then you should want to get rid of FPTP.
The only way you could think the change make sense is if you chopped off any principle or logic the second it went beyond the narrow boundary of what would benefit the Conservatives most.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Which is why you go down the devolution route (using subsidiarity) because arguably if responsibilities are properly devolved then you shouldn't have highly paid people doing work that is perhaps below them and conversely peole lower down the tree don't get paid as highly.
For example one of the selling points of an English Parliament in a Federal UK would be the significant cuts in Westminster politicians particularly in the House of Lords. You could probably make a 30% cut and still have sufficient representatives for two Federal Houses and the English Parliament.
Regarding the aside effectively MP's will have performance pay (although your suggestion is more defined) from the start of the next Parliament because their salary will be linked to average earnings which in many ways makes sense.. Its just a pity it was decided to give them that unwarranted hike to start with!
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
The other point to consider regarding numbers of politicians is that as the size and number of functions of Government increase (as has done in the UK) there is logically a requirement for more people to oversee it because if not you end up once again with your representatives having to cover an ever larger scope of work. Combine that with a growing population as well and you have the sorts of problem our political class seem to be attracting.
So arguably another way to cut back on politicians is to work toward a smaller government
My College sent me a form asking me whether I had remembered them in my will. I replied, quite truthfully, that I had.
(That is, it reads "Under no circumstances should any money be given to Wasters College, Cambridge").
Ever since then, the College has been so respectful.
I have been repeatedly invited to honoured dinners with captains of industry and governors of banks, and all the raucous effluvia of capitalism.
Once the College has established that a big donation awaits on your death, there are no more pesky phone calls from the Development Office. They have done their job.
Rather, they concentrate on killing you off by suppers of rich duckling and wine.
What a glorious idea.
Though I've never seen the pleasure in hobnobbing (perhaps I'm not a man who makes my own luck) and I have at any rate kept in touch with anyone I wanted to keep in touch with - everyone else I've either been indifferent to, or have been deliberately intending to avoid.
And the food holds no particular attraction either. Being vegetarian seems to limit the imaginative possibilites of posh meals - in general higher status food seem to involve increasingly novel or unusual meat (serving swan and sturgeon if you're somewhere really swanky) but the vegetarian equivalent offers no equivalent opportunity for an upgrade. (Anybody for a gold-leaf quorn nut cutlet containing fragments of a true toebone of the Blessed Linda McCartney?) And as my health has declined, the dietary range that the hospital has ordered me not to stray from has become increasingly narrow, and utterly bland. All dining out is effectively proscribed; if anybody offers to cook for me it has to be under such close supervision that I may as well do it myself. I don't miss restaurants, fortunately, and while I can see the money-saving virtue in an upper-crust meal at a knock-down cost, laid on with compliments by an expectant bursar, the food would simply be too rich for me.
The only remaining purpose I can see in an alumni bash is the nostalgic tour, but I'm a profoundly unnostalgic sort of chap. Come to think of it, that's probably the underlying reason for my immunity to the whole beg-and-beseech act.
Tax cuts targeting the lowest earners. My understanding was that would be complemented by tax rises on higher earners - mansion tax, capital gains tax etc. Sounds left wing to me. As for cuts you'd have to be very left wing not to accept the need for cuts in the medium term when you have a £160bn deficit. What I really can't forgive though is happily going along with Osborne's bastard anti-keynesian policies. You allowed yourself to be pulled along by people who ridiculed the ideas of one of your party's greatest ever figures. Ideas, that as Adam Posen former member of the MPC has said, have been proven entirely correct by the financial crisis.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the UK economy is doing rather well. Unemployment is falling, output is rising: sure there are problems, but we're doing a lot better than most of our continental peers.
Furthermore, we've continued to see private sector deleveraging in the UK - that is companies and individuals owe less money (as a percentage of GDP) now than in 2007. This is in stark contrast to the US, where initial deleveraging is been followed by another debt boom.
Ahhhh... yes, better to have a trade surplus and 25% unemployment (like Spain).
If you look at countries in the OECD with trade surpluses, they all (except Germany) have high unemployment. That's no accident. In developed economies, over long periods, there is a very clear correlation between unemployment rates and trade deficits.
Regarding the deficit, yes it would be nice if it came down quicker. But here's the thing: cutting government spending to reduce the deficit (see Portugal, Greece, etc.) is not very good for economic growth in the short-term.
I'm not saying things are perfect, obviously, but the track record of the Coalition government on the economy has been pretty good.
So the government has succeeded on the economy (ie growth) because it has failed in its central mission (their words) of deficit reduction? That's one way of defining success I suppose.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
Will you be voting LD in 2015, or have you switched too?
If Labour are getting a larger percentage of the seats than they do vote share as is likely I do not believe for one minute they are going to agree to PR especially when currently the party that benefits the most is UKIP. Think about it. On 5% UKIP get 32 MPs on 10% of the vote they'd get 65 MP's on 20% 130 MPs. Labour and the Libdems are not going to do it.
Similarly given Labour dominate the House Of Lords I suspect reform in that area is unlikely to
While I agree that Labour would bitterly oppose PR, I think the LibDems would support it. Don't forget, they're likely to have 3% or so of the seats after the next election, on 10-12% of the votes. Their desire for more MPs, and the chance to be in government from time to time will more than outweigh their dislike of UKIP.
We've been supporting electoral reform to a more proportional basis for close to a century, since before Labour had ever formed a government and we were one of the 'big two'. We'd support it, and you couldn't just put it down to short term political calculations.
They voted against fairer boundaries as recommended by the electoral commission, probably because it would have meant they lost some MPs.
Seems more obvious to me that their love of PR is purely for their own personal gain.
Recommended by the electoral commission? Such weasel words. You mean the boundary changes that Cameron and the Tories designed.
Then you lack any knowledge of the history on the subject.
The electoral commission didn't recommend equalising the boundaries?
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
The Lib Dems committed to reducing the number of MPs too unless I'm mistaken, so I'm not sure how they had a problem with that.
Were they prepared to compromise on a bill that just implemented the boundary changes? I seem to remember the rhetoric that they wouldn't because of lack of HoL reform.
The logic behind the LD reduction in MPs was an elected Lords.
No rhetoric, just implementing boundary changes wasn't possible, since all the time and work had gone into the changes.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Wouldn't that just lead the government to encourage more private-sector debt junkyism? (There's also a hell of an incentive to redefine all sorts of figures inherent in that kind of scheme).
The reduction in the number of MPs, changing of the generally permitted variability etc? That was all out of Tory HQ.
And a plan that your party initially agreed to - remember that bit.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
I'll get shouted at if we get into what "bring forward" means in the coalition agreement.
How did it improve the democracy precisely?
I believe that constituencies should be of a far more equal size - with the voters having a more equal say. I appreciate that we cannot have a completely equal system. But it is wrong to have the current disparity in voter numbers between constituencies. Surely you can see that?
I believe in genuine proportionality.
The Conservatives are the ones advocating an electoral system based around geographic communities. That's the selling point of FPTP.
So their argument of it being fairer falls apart as soon as you don't define that purely on being equally skewed towards Conservatives and Labour, and it would only be achievable by making seats that crossed geographical and community boundaries.
It was farcical in how purely focussed it was on improving Conservative prospects (having come out of ConHome as a barely camouflaged tactic for increasing the change of Conservative majorities).
So having more equal boundaries isn't worthwhile because FPTP isn't a fair system. What a load of nonsense.
With logic like this it's no wonder the Lib Dems are gradually disappearing.
Speaking as a non-LibDem, if we're going to have FPTP, we should clearly have constituencies that are as equal sized as possible. However, if we are going to retain FPTP then we should not cut the number of representatives, as - if we do - then the system will become even less proportional.
Completely agree. I can't see any argument for not having constituencies as equal as possible.
I'm sure if the Lib Dems were interested in a compromise that involved equal boundaries but keeping the same number of seats it would have happened.
But it seems that they weren't going to agree to anything as payback for losing the AV referendum. Their attempts to connect it with HoL reform were particularly laughable.
You can be sure. You'd be utterly wrong, but by all means be sure.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Wouldn't that just lead the government to encourage more private-sector debt junkyism? (There's also a hell of an incentive to redefine all sorts of figures inherent in that kind of scheme).
Sure, we could argue about what the right measures are, but it seems absurd that we do not attempt to correlate the pay of the governors with the success of their governing.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Wouldn't that just lead the government to encourage more private-sector debt junkyism? (There's also a hell of an incentive to redefine all sorts of figures inherent in that kind of scheme).
Sure, we could argue about what the right measures are, but it seems absurd that we do not attempt to correlate the pay of the governors with the success of their governing.
A decent democratic system should do that job by itself: parties that screw up the economy in office lose ministerial jobs and MPs posts.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
Everyone accepts that cutting government spending will - in the near term - reduce GDP. However, if you take this as your sole guiding principle, then government spending as a percentage of GDP will always be rising. And there is plenty of empirical evidence that, in the medium term, that government spending above 40-45% (depending on the study) retards economic growth.
Personally, I would aim for government spending of around 6% of GDP - the same level achieved on the eve of the First World War, and which - I would point out - was sufficient to pay for the world's best navy.
I reckon the Oxbridge folk who insist on styling themselve as "MA MSc" look particularly silly - if you've earned a proper Masters, why dilute it with the one that's only a Masters on paper? No idea if the dinner rumours are true, though if the food is cheap it can only be because a little "generosity" is expected of you, at least in legacy. Every so often the college "alumni officers" (i.e. fundraisers i.e. guilt-inducing turdspawn moneygrabbing scum) manage to track me down again. Seems to coincide with "friends" being helpful to enquiries about how "we've lost touch with MBE, he must have forgotten to let us know his new address". Every time that happens, it takes years of concerted effort - diligently RTSing every circular, newsletter, invitation, outright beg, and guide on How To Leave Money Tax Efficiently In Your Will, with "Not Known At This Address" prominently displayed on the envelope - before they lose the scent again. Of the five higher ed institutions who could be hounding me for my pennies, they've been the most relentless bastards.
I'll exempt your dad from the turdspawn bastard comment. If anyone as sharp as OGH had been on my case, they might have stopped to ask why my "new" address was so often the same as my old one, before casting their avaricious little missives...
I never did work out, if you stick "Return to sender" on a chunky great newsletter, whether Royal Mail actually send it back or not. Or who picks up the tab. It sometimes took a good number of attempts at "Not Known At This Address" for the bombardment to cease, which suggests either they didn't get sent back at all, or that the cash-strapped undergrads employed to process all the alumni admin were disappointingly dim. I'm just glad I've guarded my number carefully, would hate to be on the receiving end of their bleeding-heart telephone appeals. "Oh hullo MBE, my name is Persephone, I just wondered if you could spare 5 minutes to talk about ..." Think I'd have to swallow my pride and sink to the confused-talking-in-a-foreign-accent technique. I'd be too lily-livered for my usual brusque push-off to nuisance callers.
If you put not known at this address the information that it's happened does at least does get sent back to the sender.
Wonder what happens with the costs. Probably shouldn't wonder too hard or I might get guilt pangs...
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Wouldn't that just lead the government to encourage more private-sector debt junkyism? (There's also a hell of an incentive to redefine all sorts of figures inherent in that kind of scheme).
Sure, we could argue about what the right measures are, but it seems absurd that we do not attempt to correlate the pay of the governors with the success of their governing.
It gets recursive. Who decides what the appropriate targets are, and how to measure them?
Higher GDP per capita, or lower crime rates for example. And so on. Part of what the political arguments are about is what the priorities of government should be.
To set such incentives would be to interfere with a government's priorities, so the only people with the mandate to do so would be said government.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
Everyone accepts that cutting government spending will - in the near term - reduce GDP. However, if you take this as your sole guiding principle, then government spending as a percentage of GDP will always be rising. And there is plenty of empirical evidence that, in the medium term, that government spending above 40-45% (depending on the study) retards economic growth.
Personally, I would aim for government spending of around 6% of GDP - the same level achieved on the eve of the First World War, and which - I would point out - was sufficient to pay for the world's best navy.
I think you might just qualify as a full-blown extremist...
Having said that there is a useful distinction to be drawn between government departmental spending (e.g. navy!) and transfer payments. It's feasible, albeit rare, to argue for minimal direct government interference in the economy, with government spending in the public name to be strictly limited, while also arguing for a more generous welfare system (or to be fair to those on higher incomes, it might be better to describe it as "more redistributive"). You're not going to afford a modern welfare state with 6% of GDP, but you might strike a more feasible case for the departmental spending aspect.
My College sent me a form asking me whether I had remembered them in my will. I replied, quite truthfully, that I had.
(That is, it reads "Under no circumstances should any money be given to Wasters College, Cambridge").
Ever since then, the College has been so respectful.
I have been repeatedly invited to honoured dinners with captains of industry and governors of banks, and all the raucous effluvia of capitalism.
Once the College has established that a big donation awaits on your death, there are no more pesky phone calls from the Development Office. They have done their job.
Rather, they concentrate on killing you off by suppers of rich duckling and wine.
What a glorious idea.
Though I've never seen the pleasure in hobnobbing (perhaps I'm not a man who makes my own luck) and I have at any rate kept in touch with anyone I wanted to keep in touch with - everyone else I've either been indifferent to, or have been deliberately intending to avoid.
And the food holds no particular attraction either. Being vegetarian seems to limit the imaginative possibilites of posh meals - in general higher status food seem to involve increasingly novel or unusual meat (serving swan and sturgeon if you're somewhere really swanky) but the vegetarian equivalent offers no equivalent opportunity for an upgrade. (Anybody for a gold-leaf quorn nut cutlet containing fragments of a true toebone of the Blessed Linda McCartney?) And as my health has declined, the dietary range that the hospital has ordered me not to stray from has become increasingly narrow, and utterly bland. All dining out is effectively proscribed; if anybody offers to cook for me it has to be under such close supervision that I may as well do it myself. I don't miss restaurants, fortunately, and while I can see the money-saving virtue in an upper-crust meal at a knock-down cost, laid on with compliments by an expectant bursar, the food would simply be too rich for me.
The only remaining purpose I can see in an alumni bash is the nostalgic tour, but I'm a profoundly unnostalgic sort of chap. Come to think of it, that's probably the underlying reason for my immunity to the whole beg-and-beseech act.
I went to a medical school reunion a couple of years ago. The first hour or so was fun (not least having more hair than my class mates and showing off to some exgirlfriends what they missed out on) but soon it was boring. The people that I liked I had kept in contact with. The remainder reminded me of why I had moved on.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Wouldn't that just lead the government to encourage more private-sector debt junkyism? (There's also a hell of an incentive to redefine all sorts of figures inherent in that kind of scheme).
Sure, we could argue about what the right measures are, but it seems absurd that we do not attempt to correlate the pay of the governors with the success of their governing.
A decent democratic system should do that job by itself: parties that screw up the economy in office lose ministerial jobs and MPs posts.
That would be true of the CEOs of companies as well (fail to make profits and get fired): yet the empirical evidence is clear, well designed compensation structures improve business performance.
There's another issue at play too: the difference between local and system optima. The current system encourages you to focus on the latter (what is good for your reselection, reelection prospects), while paying all MPs based on the performance of the economy/country would encourage focussing on the latter.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
Everyone accepts that cutting government spending will - in the near term - reduce GDP. However, if you take this as your sole guiding principle, then government spending as a percentage of GDP will always be rising. And there is plenty of empirical evidence that, in the medium term, that government spending above 40-45% (depending on the study) retards economic growth.
Personally, I would aim for government spending of around 6% of GDP - the same level achieved on the eve of the First World War, and which - I would point out - was sufficient to pay for the world's best navy.
Back then the only thing governments did was have a surplus in peacetime in order to pay for the military during a war. There was no national education, no health service, no pensions, almost nothing except the military. That's why it was just 6%.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
Everyone accepts that cutting government spending will - in the near term - reduce GDP. However, if you take this as your sole guiding principle, then government spending as a percentage of GDP will always be rising. And there is plenty of empirical evidence that, in the medium term, that government spending above 40-45% (depending on the study) retards economic growth.
Personally, I would aim for government spending of around 6% of GDP - the same level achieved on the eve of the First World War, and which - I would point out - was sufficient to pay for the world's best navy.
No concerns about the limitations of welfare cover provided? Notably unemployment insurance?
Though I've never seen the pleasure in hobnobbing (perhaps I'm not a man who makes my own luck) and I have at any rate kept in touch with anyone I wanted to keep in touch with - everyone else I've either been indifferent to, or have been deliberately intending to avoid.
And the food holds no particular attraction either. Being vegetarian seems to limit the imaginative possibilites of posh meals - in general higher status food seem to involve increasingly novel or unusual meat (serving swan and sturgeon if you're somewhere really swanky) but the vegetarian equivalent offers no equivalent opportunity for an upgrade. (Anybody for a gold-leaf quorn nut cutlet containing fragments of a true toebone of the Blessed Linda McCartney?) And as my health has declined, the dietary range that the hospital has ordered me not to stray from has become increasingly narrow, and utterly bland. All dining out is effectively proscribed; if anybody offers to cook for me it has to be under such close supervision that I may as well do it myself. I don't miss restaurants, fortunately, and while I can see the money-saving virtue in an upper-crust meal at a knock-down cost, laid on with compliments by an expectant bursar, the food would simply be too rich for me.
The only remaining purpose I can see in an alumni bash is the nostalgic tour, but I'm a profoundly unnostalgic sort of chap. Come to think of it, that's probably the underlying reason for my immunity to the whole beg-and-beseech act.
I went to a medical school reunion a couple of years ago. The first hour or so was fun (not least having more hair than my class mates and showing off to some exgirlfriends what they missed out on) but soon it was boring. The people that I liked I had kept in contact with. The remainder reminded me of why I had moved on.
Nothing for the med school in my will either.
I went to a school reunion once. Once you get beyond swapping a few memories, summarizing your life and career and family, it starts to flag. Other than shared school memories you have nothing in common with any of them.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
Everyone accepts that cutting government spending will - in the near term - reduce GDP. However, if you take this as your sole guiding principle, then government spending as a percentage of GDP will always be rising. And there is plenty of empirical evidence that, in the medium term, that government spending above 40-45% (depending on the study) retards economic growth.
Personally, I would aim for government spending of around 6% of GDP - the same level achieved on the eve of the First World War, and which - I would point out - was sufficient to pay for the world's best navy.
I think you might just qualify as a full-blown extremist...
Having said that there is a useful distinction to be drawn between government departmental spending (e.g. navy!) and transfer payments. It's feasible, albeit rare, to argue for minimal direct government interference in the economy, with government spending in the public name to be strictly limited, while also arguing for a more generous welfare system (or to be fair to those on higher incomes, it might be better to describe it as "more redistributive"). You're not going to afford a modern welfare state with 6% of GDP, but you might strike a more feasible case for the departmental spending aspect.
The Robert Smithson long-term plan for getting to 6% government spending:
1. Close down the air force, the army, the navy and our intelligence services. No-one's going to invade us, we don't need them.
2. Move to a pension system like Australia's with compulsory saving, so that there is no need (in the longer term) for any public pension provision.
3. Strip the NHS back to its absolute basics, and encourage smoking and dangerous sports for the over 60s (you want people to die cheaply and quickly ideally).
4. Totally privatise education. Move to a £3,000/year voucher scheme for primary/secondary education and let the private sector supply the schools.
5. Abolish housing benefit, and privatise unemployment insurance (so people earn their unemployment insurance by paying premiums).
6. End all government foreign aid, leave the EU.
7. Sell of the road network, and allow road owners to charge people for usage. (You'll need some kind of regulation here, but I like the idea of the M1 and the A1 competing for your business).
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Wouldn't that just lead the government to encourage more private-sector debt junkyism? (There's also a hell of an incentive to redefine all sorts of figures inherent in that kind of scheme).
Sure, we could argue about what the right measures are, but it seems absurd that we do not attempt to correlate the pay of the governors with the success of their governing.
A decent democratic system should do that job by itself: parties that screw up the economy in office lose ministerial jobs and MPs posts.
That would be true of the CEOs of companies as well (fail to make profits and get fired): yet the empirical evidence is clear, well designed compensation structures improve business performance.
There's another issue at play too: the difference between local and system optima. The current system encourages you to focus on the latter (what is good for your reselection, reelection prospects), while paying all MPs based on the performance of the economy/country would encourage focussing on the latter.
I still fear that it would encourage debt-fuelled consumption spending rather than useful long-term investment.
I agree that well-designed reward structures improve performance. I'm just not sure that it's possible to build such a system which has the short- to medium-term feedback that democracy does between government and electorate.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
Everyone accepts that cutting government spending will - in the near term - reduce GDP. However, if you take this as your sole guiding principle, then government spending as a percentage of GDP will always be rising. And there is plenty of empirical evidence that, in the medium term, that government spending above 40-45% (depending on the study) retards economic growth.
Personally, I would aim for government spending of around 6% of GDP - the same level achieved on the eve of the First World War, and which - I would point out - was sufficient to pay for the world's best navy.
Back then the only thing governments did was have a surplus in peacetime in order to pay for the military during a war. There was no national education, no health service, no pensions, almost nothing except the military. That's why it was just 6%.
There was state provision of education, at least to the age of 13 (the Forster Act). And there were pensions (albeit with an average life expectancy much lower than today, which meant that it only paid out modestly and for a few years.)
I'm off for the night. Apologies if I've been rather shorter with people than usual, I'm tired and things aren't going all that well. Not an excuse but an explanation.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit) - Lower unemployment - Generate higher GDP per capita
Wouldn't that just lead the government to encourage more private-sector debt junkyism? (There's also a hell of an incentive to redefine all sorts of figures inherent in that kind of scheme).
Sure, we could argue about what the right measures are, but it seems absurd that we do not attempt to correlate the pay of the governors with the success of their governing.
It gets recursive. Who decides what the appropriate targets are, and how to measure them?
Higher GDP per capita, or lower crime rates for example. And so on. Part of what the political arguments are about is what the priorities of government should be.
To set such incentives would be to interfere with a government's priorities, so the only people with the mandate to do so would be said government.
Well you had better start worrying about IPSA then because they have linked MP's pay to average earnings. MPs get a pay rise if we get paid more.
I have since come to view the Oxbridge MA as a way of identifying prats - particularly the vintage pompous self-important type, but it also works on the flashy wideboys confidence tricksters. It is not, however, a foolproof means of identifying prats, as on principle, I never claimed mine. (Though I did tag along to the ceremony for social purposes.)
Agreed in spades.
MA Oxon/Cantab has an exceIIent use in identifying pretentious oafs to be winnowed out of job appIications at the pre-interview stage before wasting any more time on them.
Demeaning to both the Univerities and the individuaIs.
I went to a medical school reunion a couple of years ago. The first hour or so was fun (not least having more hair than my class mates and showing off to some exgirlfriends what they missed out on) but soon it was boring. The people that I liked I had kept in contact with. The remainder reminded me of why I had moved on.
Nothing for the med school in my will either.
Thanks for that, I'll let it reconfirm my prejudices so I don't feel like I'll have missed out on anything!
I partially recant about hobnobbing. Social intercourse has its pros as well as its cons - though I do wish that in British culture it didn't revolve so much around grub and alcohol, as that's a combination I'm finding ever more excluding. But I do struggle with hobnobbing above one's station. In part because of the lack of common reference points - hard to have a worthwhile conversation with someone you have so little in common with. But also because it negates much of the supposed "serendipity value" of chance social encounters.
It really wouldn't do me any good to fall into conversation with the CEO of a middle-weight technology business. There's nothing we'd have to offer each other. He'd be far better off talking to a heavy-hitting banker. I'd be far better off talking to a bunch of whizzy, peanut-paid codemonkeys. I could do with hiring a couple for some freelance stuff, they might do with the work. Knowing a variety of people is good, particularly outside one's own little corners of expertise, but just because someone's "important" doesn't necessarily make them useful.
I have since come to view the Oxbridge MA as a way of identifying prats - particularly the vintage pompous self-important type, but it also works on the flashy wideboys confidence tricksters. It is not, however, a foolproof means of identifying prats, as on principle, I never claimed mine. (Though I did tag along to the ceremony for social purposes.)
Agreed in spades.
MA Oxon/Cantab has an exceIIent use in identifying pretentious oafs to be winnowed out of job appIications at the pre-interview stage before wasting any more time on them.
Demeaning to both the Univerities and the individuaIs.
I take an underserved extra extra ounce of pride in my BA for exactly that reason.
Working in education, there never seemed to be a shortage of hectoring headteachers with their MA proudly on display on the sign at the school gates. It marks out bosses to avoid, as much as candidates.
And I do run across these sharp, thrusting youngsters with overinflated CVs, and all the charm and integrity of a contestant on The Apprentice. Not even all youngsters actually, though little can beat the fresh-faced graduates who stick down "MA pending" for sheer nerve and pretension. Someone of my cohort is a heavy-duty investment banker and yet, not content with marking herself out with the MA, persists on putting down every school prize she ever won on her LinkedIn account. Taking care not to put the year or institution down, as that would be just too obvious. A whole array of "[Some-long-deceased public school benefactor with a posh name]'s Prize in Mathematics" for any prospective recruiter to leaf through. It's a good thing for her I'm not a recruiter, because I know what I'd do with a CV like that... much more amusing when you reinsert the missing "For Year 9"s.
On topic. Having been through this twice up here in the run up to Holyrood elections when we had a Labour/Libdem coalition, I recognise the early signs of what you might call a well planned 'conscious uncoupling' of the current Conservative/Libdem Coalition in preparation for upcoming GE campaign.
Looks like something might be happening in North Korea. The news networks are saying there are signs that Kim thing may no longer be in charge
Given how the Kim family have been portrayed under the system for all these decades, quite how they would portray a Kim not being in charge is hard to imagine.
There's another issue at play too: the difference between local and system optima. The current system encourages you to focus on the latter (what is good for your reselection, reelection prospects), while paying all MPs based on the performance of the economy/country would encourage focussing on the latter.
There's also an issue about degree of influence. In my old company (Novartis), the pay structure was linked to departmental and beyond that corporate performance, but to an increasing extent in the higher frades - you could expect a section manager to influence the performance of the department much more than a cleaner, so a much higher proportion of the manager's pay was dependent on performance. Backbench MPs are roughly like junior managers, expected to pull their weight in committee work and come up with some ideas, but not expected to transform the country. Perhaps MPs' pay should be a bit dependent on national performance (GDP? Average earnings? Average income, so pensions etc. are included? GINI index? Standards of public services?), Ministers more - but what about opposition shadow Ministers, who might profoundly disagree with how the country is being run? Should they be rewarded if the Government does well, punished if it does badly?
Wasn't there a story a day or two ago about Kim having broken both of his ankles? A strange injury to have without someone having done it to you...
Those accidents used to happen in West Belfast all the time. Still do occasionally.
Stories about Kim interesting. Theres also another rumour that ye oldie Saudi King has died too. This is probably the 3rd time that one has done the rounds. Only has to be true once I suppose.
Nick Palmer - I'm suspicious of performance related pay, but in the case of MPs it just sounds ridiculous. You suggest various measures it could be based on. Well if it's GINI I presume you'd ll start focussing on inequality to the exclusion of all else, GDP, average earnings etc likewise. Include a whole series of measures for the sake of balance and you'll just end up in a mess. Call me old fashioned but I don't actually have a problem with MPs setting their own pay. Hardly outrageous since we allow you to make the laws we live under. If you each want to pay yourselves a cool £1m a year that's up to you, just so long as you are transparent about it (expenses included). Of course we'd need to know which MPs voted for what and the voters might take a dim view of it at the subsequent election, but that's democracy.
Performance based pay bothers me because it encourages people to think about their bonuses and lose sight of any bigger goals or picture. Reward schemes tend to demotivate people for that very reason.
We also have to consider the case that the LDs are heading towards losing a significant percentage of their current constituencies. They have to consider whether they, in a situation where they have lost say 40-50% of their MPs, have any mandate for seeking to contribute to a future government.
We are heading into uncharted territory in many, many ways.
Goodness, you do talk a lot of tosh, don't you.
On that basis, if you went from 600 seats in the House of Commons to 400, because you'd lost a significant percentage you wouldn't have a mandate to govern.
If you did go from 600 seats to 400, then your mandate would have shrunk - that is obvious. You would have lost a significant percentage of support in the country.
Just as it is perfectly clear that if and when the LDs see their number of MPs shrink, so will their mandate to demand anything.
We don't elect mandates, we elect MPs.
If the Liberal Democrats enter coalition again in 2015 then they will negotiate to get the best deal possible for themselves.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
But they should negotiate a deal consistent with how they fought the election campaign. That is what was so egregious with Clegg's behaviour in 2010. He seemed to think the coalition was an excuse to abandon the centre-left election campaign he fought. Rather than continue to fight for social democratic ambitions - inevitably likely to be stymied in a coalition with the Tories - he gladly embraced a centre right agenda and then tried to pretend it was really centrist. Only a handful of fools have fallen for it.
Liberals and now Lib Dems have traditionally been free market on the economy and promoters of the welfare system. So right wing on the economy and left wing on social issues. Not sure that makes them a centre party.
A ten part mystery series called Gracepoint started on Fox last night, starring former Dr. Who David Tennant with a not very convincing American accent.
Liberals and now Lib Dems have traditionally been free market on the economy and promoters of the welfare system. So right wing on the economy and left wing on social issues. Not sure that makes them a centre party.
I think there is a trend on the Left to think that LibDem voters are just Labour voters temporarily led astray, and there is a trend on the Right to think that Kippers are just Conservatives flirting with Farage. In both cases, there is much head scratching and "can't they see they're just letting Ed Milliband / David Cameron [Delete as appropriate] in".
The issue for the LibDems is that the social causes they have traditionally championed (gay marriage, etc etc) have been taken over by David Cameron's Conservatives. (And this shift has of course opened up space for UKIP.) If the Conservative Party tacks right to deal with UKIP then it may recreate a space for the LibDems. On the other hand, if they do not, and especially if Ed Milliband is replaced by someone more centrist, then it is not clear there is much space 'in the centre' for them.
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It is such a difficult situation with no clear way of seeing a route to victory.
On 50p tax I don't disagree
If the Liberal Democrats enter coalition again in 2015 then they will negotiate to get the best deal possible for themselves.
Just as UKIP would, just as the Conservative would, just as Labour would.
Obviously, the more MPs you have, the more leverage in negotiations you have.
Should the Conservative party fall 10 short of a majority, and UKIP and the LibDems both have 20 MPs, then both the LibDems and UKIP are at complete liberty to attempt to form a coalition on whatever terms are best for them.
I couldn't see why the LDs would oppose a plan to improve our democracy in a straightforward way, in a fair way, in a liberal way.
Otherwise what would be the point? It was just a trap to make the Tories look bad and it worked. There was no solid economics reason for it.
As the political landscape fragments, FPTP gets more and more disproportional. I don't believe you should get to form a majority in the HoC with a third of the votes, and when there are three parties to your right. I think it is wrong that UKIP could get 15% of the vote, and fewer than 10 seats (and quite possibly fewer than 5).
The question is: will the Tories veer right post 2015, and Labour veer left? If so, the Libs will probably have a decent recovery in 2020.
How did it improve the democracy precisely?
Were they prepared to compromise on a bill that just implemented the boundary changes? I seem to remember the rhetoric that they wouldn't because of lack of HoL reform.
They really are Labour lite.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/a-fair-and-fast-economic-recovery-42700.html
Without further devolved representation such a reduction would have been a gross act of centralism and anti-democratic in a nation with a growing population
All that being said... 40% of the LibDems have always been 'Orange Bookers', and anyone who read the book would have been under no illusion that the LibDems were Labour-lite.
Do you believe in a fixed ratio between citizens and MPs? (Just as enshrined in the 1st paragraph of the US Bill of Rights / constitution, IIRC)
One of the main reasons the Sunni/Wahhabi IS success is the backing given by the Saudis. Now they have decided to use their military to "destroy" IS. Believe that, and you'll believe David Cameron will win the next GE
The Conservatives are the ones advocating an electoral system based around geographic communities. That's the selling point of FPTP.
Then (using extreme examples like the Isle of Wight, which with a population of ~100,000 gives you either one over-large seat or two undersized ones) they complain specifically about the disparity between them and Labour in votes to seats ratio.
Having gained a higher % of seats than votes, they complain that the system while obviously being skewed in their favour, isn't skewed enough towards them because it favours Labour even more so (it being skewed against everyone else of course).
So their argument of it being fairer falls apart as soon as you don't define that purely on being equally skewed towards Conservatives and Labour, and it would only be achievable by making seats that crossed geographical and community boundaries.
It was farcical in how purely focussed it was on improving Conservative prospects (having come out of ConHome as a barely camouflaged tactic for increasing the change of Conservative majorities).
http://electionsetc.com/2014/10/03/forecast-update-3-october-2014/
Now from the other side. if you have 100 representatives for 100,000 voters each voters ballot is 1 in 1000 in deciding that representative. Now if you halve the representatives and the population/ electorate remains the same then that vote is now just 1 vote in 2000. Inherently reducing the number of representatives dilutes the voters power because their influence is smaller. Now ideally what you want as a voter is to have as much influence as possible therefore anything which reduces your influence is anti-democratic.
Given how the population has been growing persistently over many decades we should have a larger number of representatives but of course we (in England) haven't. Now the fact that the number of representatives has not kept up with the population I suspect is one of the unseen drivers for greater devolution (because our representatives no longer have adequate time for their voters).
Pretty straightforward really when you think about it.
In fact one of the reasons why politicians are thought of so badly is also probably because the size of their constituencies is growing and the demands on them are greater. Arguably as the population has grown but the number of representatives hasn't it could be considered centralist and anti-democratic so by reducing the numbers you would actually be exacerbating the situation.
PS To answer your second question Yes. I believe the French have something in place to accommodate population growth as well.
You make a compelling argument. However, there are already a lot of politicians earning a lot of money: I'd like to see less money spent on them.
As an aside: how about cutting MPs base salaries to £20,000 per annum, and then awarding an annual bonus of up to £250,000 based upon their ability to:
- Balance the budget (and reduce the current account deficit)
- Lower unemployment
- Generate higher GDP per capita
My College sent me a form asking me whether I had remembered them in my will. I replied, quite truthfully, that I had.
(That is, it reads "Under no circumstances should any money be given to Wasters College, Cambridge").
Ever since then, the College has been so respectful.
I have been repeatedly invited to honoured dinners with captains of industry and governors of banks, and all the raucous effluvia of capitalism.
Once the College has established that a big donation awaits on your death, there are no more pesky phone calls from the Development Office. They have done their job.
Rather, they concentrate on killing you off by suppers of rich duckling and wine.
Furthermore, we've continued to see private sector deleveraging in the UK - that is companies and individuals owe less money (as a percentage of GDP) now than in 2007. This is in stark contrast to the US, where initial deleveraging is been followed by another debt boom.
I've just realised you confused centrism (positioning oneself in the centre of the political spectrum) with centralism (increasingly dividing power between fewer and fewer people). I was talking about centralism
With logic like this it's no wonder the Lib Dems are gradually disappearing.
I never did work out, if you stick "Return to sender" on a chunky great newsletter, whether Royal Mail actually send it back or not. Or who picks up the tab. It sometimes took a good number of attempts at "Not Known At This Address" for the bombardment to cease, which suggests either they didn't get sent back at all, or that the cash-strapped undergrads employed to process all the alumni admin were disappointingly dim. I'm just glad I've guarded my number carefully, would hate to be on the receiving end of their bleeding-heart telephone appeals. "Oh hullo MBE, my name is Persephone, I just wondered if you could spare 5 minutes to talk about ..." Think I'd have to swallow my pride and sink to the confused-talking-in-a-foreign-accent technique. I'd be too lily-livered for my usual brusque push-off to nuisance callers.
The mansion tax for example didn't get floated until a couple of years after the election.
For example one of the selling points of an English Parliament in a Federal UK would be the significant cuts in Westminster politicians particularly in the House of Lords. You could probably make a 30% cut and still have sufficient representatives for two Federal Houses and the English Parliament.
Regarding the aside effectively MP's will have performance pay (although your suggestion is more defined) from the start of the next Parliament because their salary will be linked to average earnings which in many ways makes sense.. Its just a pity it was decided to give them that unwarranted hike to start with!
I'm sure if the Lib Dems were interested in a compromise that involved equal boundaries but keeping the same number of seats it would have happened.
But it seems that they weren't going to agree to anything as payback for losing the AV referendum. Their attempts to connect it with HoL reform were particularly laughable.
If you look at countries in the OECD with trade surpluses, they all (except Germany) have high unemployment. That's no accident. In developed economies, over long periods, there is a very clear correlation between unemployment rates and trade deficits.
Regarding the deficit, yes it would be nice if it came down quicker. But here's the thing: cutting government spending to reduce the deficit (see Portugal, Greece, etc.) is not very good for economic growth in the short-term.
I'm not saying things are perfect, obviously, but the track record of the Coalition government on the economy has been pretty good.
They trotted out arguments of X,000 votes on average to elect a Labour MP while it has to be Y,000 votes on average to elect a Tory (and cut that off before noting the much larger totals for other parties).
If you believed in the principles that lead you to FPTP then making the change didn't make sense. If you believed in the principles that lead you to that change then you should want to get rid of FPTP.
The only way you could think the change make sense is if you chopped off any principle or logic the second it went beyond the narrow boundary of what would benefit the Conservatives most.
So arguably another way to cut back on politicians is to work toward a smaller government
Though I've never seen the pleasure in hobnobbing (perhaps I'm not a man who makes my own luck) and I have at any rate kept in touch with anyone I wanted to keep in touch with - everyone else I've either been indifferent to, or have been deliberately intending to avoid.
And the food holds no particular attraction either. Being vegetarian seems to limit the imaginative possibilites of posh meals - in general higher status food seem to involve increasingly novel or unusual meat (serving swan and sturgeon if you're somewhere really swanky) but the vegetarian equivalent offers no equivalent opportunity for an upgrade. (Anybody for a gold-leaf quorn nut cutlet containing fragments of a true toebone of the Blessed Linda McCartney?) And as my health has declined, the dietary range that the hospital has ordered me not to stray from has become increasingly narrow, and utterly bland. All dining out is effectively proscribed; if anybody offers to cook for me it has to be under such close supervision that I may as well do it myself. I don't miss restaurants, fortunately, and while I can see the money-saving virtue in an upper-crust meal at a knock-down cost, laid on with compliments by an expectant bursar, the food would simply be too rich for me.
The only remaining purpose I can see in an alumni bash is the nostalgic tour, but I'm a profoundly unnostalgic sort of chap. Come to think of it, that's probably the underlying reason for my immunity to the whole beg-and-beseech act.
It's nice to hear someone in the city accept the Keynesian argument (ignored by the 'expansionary fiscal contraction' flat-earthers) that fiscal consolidation is a drag on growth. Gives me faith that you aren't all completely mad.
No rhetoric, just implementing boundary changes wasn't possible, since all the time and work had gone into the changes.
Personally, I would aim for government spending of around 6% of GDP - the same level achieved on the eve of the First World War, and which - I would point out - was sufficient to pay for the world's best navy.
Higher GDP per capita, or lower crime rates for example. And so on. Part of what the political arguments are about is what the priorities of government should be.
To set such incentives would be to interfere with a government's priorities, so the only people with the mandate to do so would be said government.
Joshua Landis @joshua_landis 55m55 minutes ago
Turkish PM: Syrian Kurds paying the price for siding with Assad http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/10/02/pm-syrian-kurds-paying-price-for-siding-with-assad …
Having said that there is a useful distinction to be drawn between government departmental spending (e.g. navy!) and transfer payments. It's feasible, albeit rare, to argue for minimal direct government interference in the economy, with government spending in the public name to be strictly limited, while also arguing for a more generous welfare system (or to be fair to those on higher incomes, it might be better to describe it as "more redistributive"). You're not going to afford a modern welfare state with 6% of GDP, but you might strike a more feasible case for the departmental spending aspect.
Nothing for the med school in my will either.
There's another issue at play too: the difference between local and system optima. The current system encourages you to focus on the latter (what is good for your reselection, reelection prospects), while paying all MPs based on the performance of the economy/country would encourage focussing on the latter.
There was no national education, no health service, no pensions, almost nothing except the military.
That's why it was just 6%.
1. Close down the air force, the army, the navy and our intelligence services. No-one's going to invade us, we don't need them.
2. Move to a pension system like Australia's with compulsory saving, so that there is no need (in the longer term) for any public pension provision.
3. Strip the NHS back to its absolute basics, and encourage smoking and dangerous sports for the over 60s (you want people to die cheaply and quickly ideally).
4. Totally privatise education. Move to a £3,000/year voucher scheme for primary/secondary education and let the private sector supply the schools.
5. Abolish housing benefit, and privatise unemployment insurance (so people earn their unemployment insurance by paying premiums).
6. End all government foreign aid, leave the EU.
7. Sell of the road network, and allow road owners to charge people for usage. (You'll need some kind of regulation here, but I like the idea of the M1 and the A1 competing for your business).
OK: that should do for now :-)4
I agree that well-designed reward structures improve performance. I'm just not sure that it's possible to build such a system which has the short- to medium-term feedback that democracy does between government and electorate.
Night all.
Agreed in spades.
MA Oxon/Cantab has an exceIIent use in identifying pretentious oafs to be winnowed out of job appIications at the pre-interview stage before wasting any more time on them.
Demeaning to both the Univerities and the individuaIs.
I partially recant about hobnobbing. Social intercourse has its pros as well as its cons - though I do wish that in British culture it didn't revolve so much around grub and alcohol, as that's a combination I'm finding ever more excluding. But I do struggle with hobnobbing above one's station. In part because of the lack of common reference points - hard to have a worthwhile conversation with someone you have so little in common with. But also because it negates much of the supposed "serendipity value" of chance social encounters.
It really wouldn't do me any good to fall into conversation with the CEO of a middle-weight technology business. There's nothing we'd have to offer each other. He'd be far better off talking to a heavy-hitting banker. I'd be far better off talking to a bunch of whizzy, peanut-paid codemonkeys. I could do with hiring a couple for some freelance stuff, they might do with the work. Knowing a variety of people is good, particularly outside one's own little corners of expertise, but just because someone's "important" doesn't necessarily make them useful.
Working in education, there never seemed to be a shortage of hectoring headteachers with their MA proudly on display on the sign at the school gates. It marks out bosses to avoid, as much as candidates.
And I do run across these sharp, thrusting youngsters with overinflated CVs, and all the charm and integrity of a contestant on The Apprentice. Not even all youngsters actually, though little can beat the fresh-faced graduates who stick down "MA pending" for sheer nerve and pretension. Someone of my cohort is a heavy-duty investment banker and yet, not content with marking herself out with the MA, persists on putting down every school prize she ever won on her LinkedIn account. Taking care not to put the year or institution down, as that would be just too obvious. A whole array of "[Some-long-deceased public school benefactor with a posh name]'s Prize in Mathematics" for any prospective recruiter to leaf through. It's a good thing for her I'm not a recruiter, because I know what I'd do with a CV like that... much more amusing when you reinsert the missing "For Year 9"s.
Night all
A business jet. Tesco Everyday Value? Every Little Helps......
Stories about Kim interesting. Theres also another rumour that ye oldie Saudi King has died too. This is probably the 3rd time that one has done the rounds. Only has to be true once I suppose.
Performance based pay bothers me because it encourages people to think about their bonuses and lose sight of any bigger goals or picture. Reward schemes tend to demotivate people for that very reason.
Liberals and now Lib Dems have traditionally been free market on the economy and promoters of the welfare system. So right wing on the economy and left wing on social issues. Not sure that makes them a centre party.
The issue for the LibDems is that the social causes they have traditionally championed (gay marriage, etc etc) have been taken over by David Cameron's Conservatives. (And this shift has of course opened up space for UKIP.) If the Conservative Party tacks right to deal with UKIP then it may recreate a space for the LibDems. On the other hand, if they do not, and especially if Ed Milliband is replaced by someone more centrist, then it is not clear there is much space 'in the centre' for them.