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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Chris Huhne discusses the prospects for a Labour-Lib Dem co
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Chris Huhne discusses the prospects for a Labour-Lib Dem coalition in 2015.
Now that he is free from being a Member of Parliament, and not constrained by having to toe the party line, Chris Huhne has been offering his thoughts on a variety of subjects.
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So now we have to act on those Spaniards, Italians, Portugese and Greeks who are coming over and.................
However, our expats are having a lovely time basking in the sun
Gawd. Did you have to? I was feeling quite cheery and festive, then you go and put this thought out there.
Strange thing to say. Gordon Brown was completely unsuited to be leader of our country, on a number of levels and exhibiting degrees of incompetence and lack of character completely off the scale, even when compared with other people I disagree with, such as Tony Blair.
Surely in these circumstances you would expect other party leaders to speak out?
Also, where Labour had clearly "lost" the election (even if no-one else had clearly won), you would expect prospective opposition parties to demand changes before they would consider cooperating with them.
And er... surely it is the DNA of the LibDems to be liberal and democratic and prepared to cooperate with anyone who will help them achieve their aims, not to be anti- anyone or anything in particular?
And don't get me on the sudden invasion of Black Friday into the British calendar.
@DailyPostNews reports 'Hundreds of new homes to be built on Merseyside after developer signs £200m North West deal' http://t.co/NGi9QMCHwI
As a Party member, but only as that, I'm doutful whether a reduced (or even much reduced as some on here seem to hope) Liberal Democrat presence after the next General Election would find being in Government desirable.
Winning 57 seats having started from 62 was in many respects a slap in the face for Nick Clegg though I suspect there were many other factors at work in 2010 - an overarching desire to get rid of Labour with the Conservatives seen as the most effctive method.
To go down to 30 seats (or less) and still claim a mandate for having a presence in Government and at the Cabinet table seems very hard to argue. That's not to say that the Party cannot and should not support measures put in place by the next Government which it feels able to support while robustly opposing those with which it does not but that function can perhaps more effectively occur outside Government.
The Party needs time to redefine its programme and re-articulate some of the core beliefs which many members, I suspect, feel have been compromised in the Coalition years. That's not to say the Conservatives haven't also had to support legislation with which they weren't comfortable either.
For what little it's worth, I suspect the next Parliament will either have one party with a majority or as close to a majority as makes no difference
Second point, totally disagree. Apple does some excellent deals on Black Friday.
For us Apple Whores it is awesome.
The same applies in reverse, of course. Suggestions that the LibDems would find it difficult to work with Miliband are for the birds.
Because they are overcharging the rest of the year...?
Something beyond my work phone, a Galaxy S4
As soon as Cameron made the offer on the Friday afternoon, some kind of deal was always going to happen and it was merely a question of how much the LDs could get from the Conservatives in the negotiations.
Do I think Labour and the LDs COULD do a deal ? Yes, of course. Do I think the LDs SHOULD go into a Coalition-type deal with Labour ? No, because there are options other than the 2010 arrangement with the Conservatives which might be more viable to both sides.
It's easy for Clegg to promise this since he knows he will have to drop it in any future coalition.
In other words, Nick Clegg has good chances of being deputy Prime Minister until 2020.
' maybe PR without a referendum and an agreed reform of the HoL'
Why would Labour agree to PR when the current system works so well for them?
You really believe they would offer it without a referendum after insisting on one for the recent attempt at HoL reform?
On the Christmas spirit....I'm still chuckling at the Harvey Nics ad.....
http://www.harveynichols.com/sorry
I suspect that Nick will find Ed a lot more slippery and difficult to deal with than Dave but that is the nature of the beast and there is nothing Nick can or should do about it. The position with Brown was a little different. Firstly, he was the worst PM ever. Secondly, he had clearly lost an election and keeping him PM would have been to defy the British people. The latter might apply to Cameron as well.
He still retains an agile political mind.
His analyses remain worth looking at.
Plus some of us, including OGH, hold betting slips with Chris Huhne as next Lib Dem Leader.
Liverpool is still a bit too 'White British' relative to the rest of the UK.
Why not:
* Jim Devine
* Elliot Morley
* David Chaytor
* Eric Illsley
* Margaret Moran
* Dennis McShane
* Phil Woolas
They're all Labour after all!
If Mercedes have the best car next year it'll be fascinating to see how the Hamilton-Rosberg relationship is managed. They get along very well, but fighting for a title can change that sort of thing.
As a fellow LD, I'd be more interested in your take on Chris Huhne's article. I worry about the degree to which the Party has compromised its liberal instaincts in Government and some of Nick's recent language on immigration has troubled me.
There has to be a recognition that immigration is a matter of real concern in the electorate and the economic conditions of the past five years has exacerbated that tension. I see it up close and personal in lowland East London.
The big problem for me is the provision of infrastructure (health, transport, education etc) to support increasing and diverse urban and suburban populations. London desperately needs more housing to be built but simply building hourses and flats without providing the supporting public infrastructure will be disastrous.
Surely, given that they have expressed so clear a view on the topic, they should at least be consulted in future?
http://www.harveynichols.com/womens-1/e-boutiques/sorry-i-spent-it-on-myself/for-them.html
The gravel is a bit pricey, mind....
http://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/heineken-cup/2013/1128/489759-heineken-cup/
Lab -4%
Con +1%
LD +1%
UKIP +2%
Its ashame there is no betting market on it making it, I could virtually guarantee it if I was to back it to be a dud !
You can never trust the bloody French.
Why should anyone listen to Huhne..Liar ,ex con ,philanderer.
What have the LD's actually done to improve the life of anyone in the UK.
They are a total waste of time and have been ever since the party was created by four well past it Politico's ..It is the party for inadequates .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-25133851
"Explaining his decision not to give Du a whole life order, Mr Justice Flaux cited a European Court of Human Rights ruling that such tariffs breach a prisoner's human rights."
I have no idea what Prozac is..you obviously do..
LD's think Huhne is a spokesman for them..an ex con ,liar philanderer..yeh, they got that right.
I am basing this analysis on the facts as presented by the Daily Mail, a UK-based news organization that seems more guided by reality and good journalistic judgment, and less biased by racial and political considerations, than is typical of the US media.
I'm not sure what that says about the Mail vs the US media.
It's a bonus Dan Hodges column
http://www.totalpolitics.com/opinion/427922/is-ed-miliband-lost.thtml
Is Dan Hodges right.......
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2013/11/27/the-real-reason-why-the-co-op-saga-is-bad-news-for-labour/
Nasty to immigrants = not giving them free money
"Peaches Geldof could be probed"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25145096
*shudders*
Discuss.
We no longer have a representative democracy: we have an elective dictatorship.
(More philosphically, delegated power does not comprise the right to change the nature of that power)
As I understood it, the case was entirely related to a false accusation of paedophillia. Appalling, but not to do with immigration.
And they are by far the most liberal party when it comes to civil liberties (although David Davis has probably been a rather more effective advocate). They seem to have lose their guts when it came to terrorist legislation.
Option a) Focus on Labour's supposed shortcomings alongside the Tories and hope that people vote 'coalition' and anti-Labour in enough numbers to make up for the inevitable deserters in Lab-Lib marginals.
Option b) Focus on their achievements as being what they've stopped the Tories doing and have got them to do against their will and the horrible things the Tories will do without them in the next 5 years without them hoping that it stems the flow in Lib-Tory marginals and the odd Lab one too.
They will of course do a bit of both, but there will have to be an overriding message. Part of why people got so angry after the last election was the sense that they'd campaigned on a fluffier version of Labour's prospectus with a dose of 'aren'tcha just fed up of Gordon?' then happily ditched it for power.
Option a) means they'll struggle to form a Lab coalition, it's not too much of a problem though because if Lab win enough seats to be the largest party it will likely form a majority as if Ed comes through both other parties trying to batter him he'll probably be compelling enough to win over the DKs and Lab-Lib waverers. It also poses the risk of getting tied to Dave's 'austerity forever' notion, which touches Tory erogenous zones but no one else's.
Option b) They'll have no problem forming a coalition with Lab, but it poses the risk of a savaging from both sides as traitors who'll say absolutely anything they think is popular.
What Clegg will struggle to do without looking like an idiot is float above everything like he did last time. I just don't think the nuanced message will cut through the inevitable sound and fury.
Mr Salmond brandished a sheet of paper at First Minister’s Questions that he said was a letter from the European Commission showing that Scotland could negotiate its terms of entry while remaining within the EU.
But he did not read out the next sentence, which said this could only be done with the backing of all member states. Mr Rajoy stated on Wednesday that his government’s stance was that a separate Scotland would be “left outside the EU”.
It later emerged the correspondence Mr Salmond was holding up had not been sent to the Scottish Government and had instead been lifted from a nationalist website.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10482112/Alex-Salmond-rejects-Spanish-PMs-Europe-warning.html
Former EU judge boosts Alex Salmond's case by saying ejecting Scotland from union would cause unacceptable damage
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/28/independent-scotland-eu-judicial-expert-alex-salmond?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter