Interestingly, Ming pointed out that the then-elections chief Lord Razzall was in constant talks with Labour regarding our targeting strategy and how we might both target the Conservatives. Although I’m not surprised, I have to say it is the first I’ve heard of this. It feels a little uncomfortable to learn that we were in strategic discussions with the war-mongers, but then the Tories were wannabe war-mongers and were running under the most rightwing manifesto in recent memory (written by David Cameron, lest we forget). Either way, if our strategy was to work with Labour to maximise the marginal Lib-Con seats that we won, it was a pretty poor one. Most of our significant gains were against Labour. I’m sure Labour supporters in places such as, say, Manchester Withington, will be delighted to learn that their defeat was pre-arranged with their own party).So there we have it. Many of us had suspected this was happening, but until now we had no proof. And don't fool yourselves into thinking it won't happen this time. Ming will do all he can to prove his worth to Gordon Brown in the hope of some sort of power sharing deal afterwards. Nick Clegg and the other Ornage Bookers may not like it, but the truth is, they may not even know about it.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Official: LibDems & Labour in Seats Carve-Up
Someone emailed me this morning asking why I wasn't in Brighton covering the LibDems. Hmmmm. Lake Como or Brighton. Difficult choice to make, eh? I'm typing this in a break at a political communications seminar I am speaking at for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. They have a villa in Cadenabbia, overlooking Lake Como and the beautiful village of Bellagio. This really is one of the most heavenly places on earth. Anyway, I have indeed been following the LibDem conference from afar and have noted the interview Ming Campbell gave to several bloggers. You can read the full story on James Graham's blog, but this paragraph leapt out at me...
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16 comments:
Ming Cameron??? Bad typo.
There you have it Iain . A vote yellow is vote Brown and Liberals who are unable to accept it had better think hard about whether they are better off in the Conservative fold trying to get their ideas into real politics .
There is great scope for them to achieve just that , those of them , at least , who are not perpetually wedded to a silly idea of themselves as quirky off beat and all that rubbish.
I have actually begun to notice that a lot of good new thinking does indeed come from the Liberals but they are far too untrustworthy alone for it to matter. On crime they are good , on tax I `m dubious but the proposal to reduce the basic rate cannot be all bad. On housing there have been some initiatives that bear thinking about and on the environment both the Conservatives and the Liberals are street ahead of New Labour.
In the Liberal Party are some who think of themselves as Socialist Democrats and might just as easily be part of the Labour Party`s Guardianista side. Others are socially progressive but Libertarian and they , for example , will be more nervous about the pro EU stonewalling of Ming and his alliance with Obergrupenfuehrer Brown even more so.
David Cameron is trying hard to say to such people there is a place for them in the Conservative debate if they are ready to listen to other views as well.. Liberals have to ask themselves if they really are the Party that is in favour of the endless extension of the state and micro controlling government or not . Currently the socialist and the Liberal side are in direct contradiction and those who are not simply statist high tax law multiplying national socialists must either take back their Party or leave it
BTW I thought Mr. Greer made a bit of a meal of explaining why Ming suggested a referendum on the whole EU. Its to look democratic and honest when his EU position means he has to lie. Also for the same reason some wanted a vote for Scotland on Independence (which they would lose ) but no vote on devolution which they would win. We slithered in but he wants us to have to jump out in one mighty leap ie a ratchet effect . If the question of whether we should be in the sort of EU it has turned out to be had ever been honestly put then he might have some faint point . This EU issue is important for Liberals. Can they really in any sense be Liberals if they continue to approve of a multinational dictatorship.
They say “ Ask people what the EU has done that has actually harmed them”. Well I can think of plenty actually but its not as bad as being ruled by China true. France is nice country. Why don`t we just accept what they say about our lives they could just enact their laws and adapt them to fit us . It would save us a lot of fuss and they would probably be quite reasonable about it , we would save a fortune and be able to stop concentrating on government and get quietly on with our lives . How about it ....just sub out the ruling bit to the French ? Who would it actually harm ....?
Same thing !!!!
The quote reads "how we MIGHT both target the Conservatives" not how we DO..
Mr Dale's choice of sensational headline for this entry seems a little economical with the actualité.
Is this perhaps what passes for 'truth' on a blog - a quote taken from another blog and twisted to suit the second blogger's prejudices?
'It must true - I read it on the internet'
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I think there are probably more bi-lateral discussions, though not that many, going on between Labour and Tories than between either party and the completely unreliable, apolitical and utterly shifty Lib Dems.
The Man Wit joke from James is hilarious. I cannot think of a case where Labour could have gone easy to let Lib Dems in. It just doesn't make sense.
Ming is a Lib Dem and though he is generally rather honest by Lib Dem standards there is always a chance that he will be fibbing if his lips are moving.
Perhaps a Cruise-Clegg double act can replace the Hubbard-Campbell one which is half dead already.
Oh PS ... The Lib Dems would have been war mongers too in my opinion. Had they been in a coalition government. The guy who stood against me in what should have been a safe Labour ward in 2003 was absolutely delighted when the war started. He danced a little war dance and stopped coming to the anti-war vigils.
Of course, the Tories and the LibDems would never do anything like that.
Except that they did in Birmingham - the LDs promised to keep a low profile in Edgbaston in return for a useless Tory candidate in Yardley. The LD in Edgbaston broke the deal and actually did some campaigning.
Across the city, the parties have united in a brazen plot to unite the anti-Labour votes and stitch up the council wards for one or other of them.
Iain,
I had similar thoughts last week
http://dailyreferendum.blogspot.com/2007/09/have-brown-and-campbell-formed-pact-to.html
Ming and Brown are old chums and there is an old solcilaist elite still guiding the Libs . Chris Paul wants to maintain the illusion that their Party is not just a Brown`s pet poodle to dissuade new Liberals from voting for the Liberal Conservative concensus ranged against the big government statist controlling Brownite clamp down. There must be many who detest this National Socialist pig in recently aquired lipstick with his Warsaw Pact view of Green issues and Liberty....and all their work will only be to support such a fiend ?
What a betrayal. Many of the vital 800,000 who decide the election will be excatly such voters and to mislead them about their own Parties intentions will be nothing new to the Labour lie machine but a new low for Liberals many of whom value honesty alsmost as much as Conservatives do.
Hot news: Queen Anne is dead!
Have a look at the political map of the UK. It's been happening in real life since the Labour Representation League, and was even regularised between Herbert Gladstone and Ramsay Mac back in 1903.
The reality is that [cliché-alert!] "decent working folk" can still identify a traditional Tory as a class-enemy. Margaret Thatcher (and, to lesser extents, Ted Heath and John Major) broke that mould. An Old Etonian on a stick lacks that traction.
Not surprised in the least.Here in Wales,last minute orders from useless Ming in London scuppered a Libdem/Plaid/Tory coalition (and destroyed the credibility of the Welsh Libdems for the foreseeable future)simply to curry favour with Brown.
Iain, it's not just Tories who are angry about this.
P.S. Chris Paul, what utter rubbish when you say "The Lib Dems would have been war mongers too in my opinion. Had they been in a coalition government."
Its like saying had you been a fish you might swim !
The fact is the Lib Dem were NOT warmongers, voted against it and were consistent.
There was no shortage of "wannabe warmongers" on the Lib Dem benches, Ming included. And doubtless, the Lib Dems were doing the same thing with the Tories "against" Labour in the South, not to mention Labour doing ot with the Tories in places like the West Country.
Is there anyone who still doubts that Britain is now a one-party state? If so, then they should be committed. Newmania, that might mean you.
Is this news? I thought Charles Kennedy had made a similar confession way back when.
David Lindsay should note that Hansard proves otherwise.
Of course for warmongers look no firther than the Tory benches ...
It's a matter of record that Ming wanted to support the war, but Kennedy stopped him. Ashdown supported it, and the Lib Dems had of course pioneered support for neocon wars under him, enthusiastically cheering on the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.
Along with the neoliberal economics that leads to it and which provides its only rationale, neconservative geopolitics is the coming force among the Lib Dems, along with Euroscepticism (jolly good, though incompatible with neoliberal economics and neoconseravtive geopolitics) and, I confidently predict, opposition to the former Holy Grail of STV for multimember constituencies (again, jolly good), as the penny drops about just how ill-served the Lib Dem heartlands of the West Country, the North and South of Scotland, and Mid-Wales would be by such a system.
It is also possible that Highland, Island, Border and Mid-Welsh disaffection with the Central Scottish Parliament and the South Welsh Assembly, as well as the Alliance Party's disaffection with the DUP-Sinn Fein carve-up at Stormont, might also turn the Lib Dems into (jolly good) hardline Unionists.
All in all, the Lib Dems as we have known them are finished.
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