I voted for them (although it didn't count as Labour won the seat in my constituency), and I wasn't happy with the ConLib coalition. The Liberal Democrats have lost a lot of credibility by choosing short-term (limited) power over many of the policies they campaigned with.

I think that by joining the Con-Dem coalition, Liberal leader Nick "Mini-Dave" Clegg has made a serious mistake which will harm his party for years to come.

Ooh, some people replied while I was following up my initial post - hang on and I'll comment on your comments.

@ Ghostmaker: "Why is it that the left always calls anyone who opposes their view "evil"?"

I was mostly trolling, Ghost. Don't sweat it. Thatcher genuinely was/is a fucking nasty piece of work of course, but I wouldn't tar all Tories with that brush by any means.


@ Kartheiser: I agree, I think it was a very short term, power-hungry decision by Clegg. The party will regret it in the long run.

Does it count if I'm a U.S. Republican, but would love to be a Lib-Dem if I lived across the pond?

I think they were damned whichever way they went. Support the Tories (the right choice, reardless of your politics - most votes, most seats, therefore should have the first shot) and get the best deal you can; or prop up a Labour government the country rejected.

Assuming the coalition lasts 5 years, then things will look very different.

For the record, I live in a safe Tory seat. I voted LD for two main reasons - firstly, they were not Con (whom I could never vote for) or Lab (who I couldn't vote for then); and secondly, I'm strongly in favour of a revised voting system - AV is a start

@ FOB: "Does it count if I'm a U.S. Republican, but would love to be a Lib-Dem if I lived across the pond?"

You're certainly entitled to comment. What's your view of the situation?

@ Pete U: "I think they were damned whichever way they went. Support the Tories (the right choice, reardless of your politics - most votes, most seats, therefore should have the first shot) and get the best deal you can; or prop up a Labour government the country rejected."

You make the error of assuming there were only two choices. What about option 3 - don't ally with either party?

I'm a labour supporter and welcome the LibDems making headway on the political scene. They appear to have some talented people and some interesting policies. I think they had to support the Tories as much as it pains me to admit it. Propping up a labour government that had failed to win a majority wouldn't have been right and they owed it to the country to try and get a stable government. Also I think if they hadn't of formed an alliance the voters would have been right to reject any voting change that would make coalition governments more likely.

That said, they have made mistakes in my eyes. They have conseded to much to the tories and their about face on raising VAT distroys their reputation for wanting to change politics. I admire Vince Cable, but his recent admission that he had changed his mind on the defecit before the election but hadn't bothered to tell anyone has dented his credibilty. If you stand for election you should present your programme and stick to it - we were told before the election that 'we are the boss'. When they ignore the programme that they presented to us they risk damageing themselves for decades to come.

@Jamie - refusal to do a deal = minority Tory Gov, new election after a couple of months, LD vote down because having held the balance of power they didn't use it, and can be painted as Labour-lite by the Cons = Cons majority

@ Pete U: Alternative scenario:

Refusal to do a deal = minority Tory Gov, new election after a couple of months, LD vote up because people respect them for standing by their principles, Con vote down because their attempts to govern as a minority were a failure = Coalition government, but with Lib Dems in a much stronger position.

so.... it's ok to work with the "evil Tories" after the Lib Dems are in a stronger position? That seems a tad hypocritical...

@Jamie - sorry, but not doing a deal would allow the LD=Labour line, and the 'strong' government argument to be trotted out, and that would (IMHO) shift enough floaters over to get the Tories over the line. I just don't see the LD position improving if they don't do a deal.

Their challenge will come in the run up to 2015, where they will need to point to the things that wouldn't have happened (or would have) if they hadn't been in the government.

The problem is that I can't remember which LD policies (apart from AV) became part of the coalition programme, and not many people can.

Hmmm...actually we have a similar situation going on in Canada at the moment. A conservative minority, and the NDP, (a left of centre party) is in very much the same situation as your Lib Dems, and they did take Jamiet's third option of refusing to do a deal. And essentially the New Democrats and the Liberals (a centre, slightly left of centre party, and for the sake of this analogy, essentially the same as Labour) have just been taking turns supporting the government on issues so as to avoid an election. The truth is no party wants an election at the moment, because the Tories still won't get a majority, the Liberals won't form the government (and they've gotten pretty used to winning) and the NDP is unlikely to increase it's seat count any either. So all you really get is a ton of political grandstanding and publicity stunts all for the sake of nothing. It's like we're constantly having a extended but incredibly low key election for several years running. (The Canadian situation is slightly complicated by the fact that we also have a large, regionally based, 4th party, but they're weird and crazy, and for the sake of making my point I'm going to pretend they don't exist.)
I'm not a conservative supporter here, and I strongly doubt I'd support the conservatives in the UK either, but I feel like maybe the Lib Dems made the right choice, if only because their decision might actually allow for some actual governance, rather than just silly showmanship, even if you don't always agree with the decisions made. And if I'm not mistaken the Lib Dems are a third party and have never formed the government, correct? Perhaps this will help change the perception of them to a party that might not be so bad after all?

"Thatcher genuinely was/is a fucking nasty piece of work of course, but I wouldn't tar all Tories with that brush by any means."

I will grant you the right to say that you think that her ideology was immoral (I prefer to avoid phrases such as "fucking nasty") because she did propose an individualism which you can fundamentally disagree with. Nevertheless, one can take the option of respectfully disagreeing with people, again, you seem uniformly unable to do that (though you get very touchy when people are disrespectful of your beliefs, I've noted)

Nasty. She believed that society didn't exist. She waged a calculated and deliberate war on the working classes which knowingly and willingly abandoned communities - indeed entire towns - to years of hardship.

I defy you to come to places like Easington Colliery or Peterlee in County Durham and see how many people share your view of Thatcher's legacy.

I'm all for reasoned debate and respectful disagreement, but when it comes to Margaret Fucking Thatcher, all I've got is hate.

Ah Maggie. You either love her or hate her, and there seems to be very little in between.

FWIW, I think we are still reaping the results of the me, me, me 'society' she encouraged, but those on the right seem blind to the fact that it might be somewhat to blame. I understand how others lionise her for breaking the unions (for which I hold Scargill equally responsible), and she stuck to her guns, but for everyone that mourns her when she dies, there will be someone lining up to dance on her grave

Jamiet99uk, I'm assuming you're talking about the Miners' Strikes? As an American student of history, I only learned about this in class, but aren't those now considered to have been a significant blunder on the part of the miners' unions? I mean, it seemed to me that they played right into Thatcher's hands the whole time.

On the other hand, I would believe anything about Thatcher.

'She waged a calculated and deliberate war on the working classes which knowingly and willingly abandoned communities - indeed entire towns - to years of hardship.'

is it just me, or do communities come and go. Sure politicians destroying them may seem like a terrible thing but there is nothing sacred about a community that means it must be kept alive. (no particular reason i can think of anyway)

If faced with a choice of watching as my community was destroyed or leaving for better economic opportunities i think i might choose the later.

And if this is a consequence of some government's economic policies then so be it.

You can disagree with those policies, but there is no point in holding onto the past. Old systems break and change is inevitable.

"She waged a calculated and deliberate war on the working classes"

No, on the unions. The unions wielded great power and were destroying the British economy, and doing so to the detriment of the workers in the unions. If you wanted to see division and hardship, it was created by the Arthur Scargills of this world. It is thanks to Maggie that workers are generally able to work without loosing pay day in day out on strikes, and that is why the union members voted for her.

On Maggie, love or hate her, you have to respect her. She wasn't called the Iron Lady for nothing. I wonder if the residents of the Falklands "fucking hate" her.

With regards to the OP, I don't think there was a huge amount of choice for the LDs. Joining with Labour wasn't really an option (and would have needed the small parties for a majority coalition - not an option with the SNP, who IMHO shouldn't even be able to vote on things that solely affect England). This left forcing a re-election or getting the best they could from a deal with the Tories. I think forcing a re-election would have harmed the LD position, and probably helped the Tory position, leaving them worse off. Basically they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. A re-election would have adversly affected the economy as well - it was bad enough with a HP. I would hope that most hard-core Lib Dems would recognise the fact that it was the best choice all round, and not turn their back on them for that.

Either way, it depends what happens over the next few years. If they (LD & Tory) do a good job, in extremely tough times, then it will have a positive affect on them both.

Interesting that a lot of recent elections have needed coalitions.

I have always had the impression that while Thatcher may have been a bitter pill in the beginning, she did the right thing by the long term. I believe it was a Labour MP who said "we're all Thatcherites now".
One thing though, I have never really understood what she meant by "there's no such thing as society".

@ FriedOkra: "Jamiet99uk, I'm assuming you're talking about the Miners' Strikes? As an American student of history, I only learned about this in class, but aren't those now considered to have been a significant blunder on the part of the miners' unions? I mean, it seemed to me that they played right into Thatcher's hands the whole time."

I'm only partially talking about that. On a more general note MARGARET THATCHER SOLEMNLY BELIEVED THAT THE CONCEPT OF SOCIETY WAS BULLSHIT AND THAT "SOCIETY" DID. NOT. EXIST.

Can you imagine a more fucked up stance from the person elected to be your society's leader?


@Orthaic: I SAID: "'She waged a calculated and deliberate war on the working classes which knowingly and willingly abandoned communities - indeed entire towns - to years of hardship."

YOU SAID "is it just me, or do communities come and go. Sure politicians destroying them may seem like a terrible thing but there is nothing sacred about a community that means it must be kept alive. (no particular reason i can think of anyway)

"If faced with a choice of watching as my community was destroyed or leaving for better economic opportunities i think i might choose the later.

"And if this is a consequence of some government's economic policies then so be it.

"You can disagree with those policies, but there is no point in holding onto the past. Old systems break and change is inevitable."


What if you CANNOT "leave for better economic opportunities".... what then?

Thatcher left thousands unemployed, and without the chance of employment. She knew this would happen. What did she do about it? NOTHING. Why? Because she DIDN'T FUCKING CARE. SHE DID NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ORDINARY PEOPLE, THE FUCKING BITCH. I CANNOT WAIT TO STAND IN LINE TO SPIT ON HER FUCKING GRAVE.


@ Ghostmaker: "I SAID: "She waged a calculated and deliberate war on the working classes"

YOU SAID: "No, on the unions. The unions wielded great power and were destroying the British economy, and doing so to the detriment of the workers in the unions. If you wanted to see division and hardship, it was created by the Arthur Scargills of this world. It is thanks to Maggie that workers are generally able to work without loosing pay day in day out on strikes, and that is why the union members voted for her."

Can you prove that Thatcher's rise to power was significantly borne on the back of trade unionists turning their back on Labour and voting Tory? Can you? If you can't, then you need to take back the above statement.

In any case, Thatcher's calculated entrapment of the NUM was cold-bloodedly despicable, because no provision whatsoever was made, by the government, for the people who would be left out of work as a result. What do you say to them?

@ Spyman: "One thing though, I have never really understood what she meant by "there's no such thing as society". "

What she meant was simple. It went like this:

"If my policies destroy your livelihood and leave you unemployed, fuck you. No-one gives a shit about you, you fucking peasant, and I don't either."

If anyone has a better definition of Thatcher's contempt for ordinary people, please post it here.

@ Ashen_sugar: "On Maggie, love or hate her, you have to respect her."

Nope. All I've got for her is hate. No respect. She was, and remains, the enemy of the people.

I always thought "there is no such thing as society" meant that there were only individuals, not some inherent "person" called society. And is that wrong? Aren't we all just people running around on this rock for a couple of decades? Surely it must be more fair for the government to deal with people as individuals than as part of some faceless, corporate construct called society (corporate in the sense of a united group, not a company).

Here's her quote in context, in the interest of fairness.

"They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. "

I really don't understand all the venom against her. I can't stand what Obama's doing to the country, but I'd never say I HATE him.

I find that point of view incredibly reductionist, and problematic. If you say "All we have are a collection of individuals" you ignore the fact that societies behave differently than just a collection of people would. Societies behave as more than simply the sum of their parts, and you can't ignore that. I see the point she is trying to illustrate by saying that, but I think she is misguided in saying that, and I think that way of thinking would have the effect of glossing over structural inequalities or what she glibly terms "casting their problem on society". I think Jamie might be going a little overboard with the venom, but I think I agree about the misguidedness of Thatcher's approach.

I'm not saying it's a perfect way of looking at the world by any means, but for a government I think that the individual ought to have more importance than the group. As I see it, that's the crux of what she's saying.

To be honest, I think we may have just hit on the one key, most basic essential difference between liberalism and conservativism (conservatism?). A conservative would argue that on the whole the individual should come first and a liberal would argue that looking at society as a collective should come first. I doubt we'll resolve this argument here. So let's save time and just agree to disagree.

And for all you incredibly pedantic people out there, I realize that that is the complete opposite of what the word liberal used to mean, but I'm using the term to refer to how political spectra tend to be organized in modern society. If it makes you feel better you can pretend I said left wing and right wing. I also realize there is more political opinion than just that one axis, but modern liberalism and conservatism are the two dominant positions.

@ Invictus: "I really don't understand all the venom against her."

I can only presume that's becuase you haven't seen the damage her policies did to people's lives. I have. The effects are still felt in some parts of the UK today.

It is a red herring to blame Thatcher for the loss of jobs in industry during her time in charge. The unions were guaranteeing that the industries were unable to function. Thatcher at least saved my generation from being ruled by the likes of Scargill

From what I understand, she just ended state support for inefficient industries. If nationalized coal mines don't make money anymore, why should they be kept open? I can understand the argument for keeping unprofitable public goods like roads, railroads, garbage collection, and perhaps even health care under state control so that they can be provided to people and everyone can benefit, but keeping steel mills and coal mines open just so union workers keep their jobs is a flawed idea. Why not give that support to every sector of the economy while you're at it?

Invictus - you mean like the US motor industry and banks?

The argument for coal is that is (and was) a vital part of our power generating capability. There are some that would argue that having control of your own coal supply is no bad thing. You only have to see the panic about gas supplies a couple of years ago to realise that.

The fact is the Scargill is just as much to blame. Wrong timing, no vote, all played into Maggie's hands. Of course the (now-admitted) nobbling of the BBC probably helped as well. Rule by either would be bad.

@Ghost - It's pretty clear to me that the me-first, greed culture that pervades our society is a direct result of Thatcher. But the right who laud her seem unable to grasp that there just might have been some negative impact of her policies.

@ Ghost: "It is a red herring to blame Thatcher for the loss of jobs in industry during her time in charge."

She deliberately made whole communities unemployed without making any provision for the people who lived there. She wanted the miners to strike. The whole thing was a plot to smash the NUM. Stupidly Scargill fell for her trap. But there was no need for the mining industry to be demolished so quickly, and it was immoral of Thatcher to close productive, efficient mines without making any reasonable effort to help provide new jobs for the miners losing their jobs down the pit.

I'm someone who has very little time for Thatcher and her policies and when I was younger she was a hate figure of mine too. I live close to mining communities and saw at first hand the devestation that was caused.

I think Thatcher was misguided in breaking up the mining industry in the way that she did. The ghost is right in that the industries were ineffecient and dying, but how ineffecient is it to pay people to stay at home do nothing? A planned slow down over many years would have been better for the economy IMHO. The NUM's problem was they took on a campaign they couldn't win. No government can back down to the action they took, even if the miners were right in their arguements, they didn't and could never run the country - only the government can do that until we vote them out.

I think that the coalition should learn the mistakes of Thatcher and not cut people's jobs if you only have to pay them redundancy and then unemployment benefit thereafter.

It is true that Thatcher's policy created an immediate group of unemployed people, and I'm sure that this is very painful. However, in my opinion, it was the pain she created that saved the country's economy. Was it humane? No. Was it fair? No. Was it effective? Yes.

If she had allowed the mines to wind down slowly, there would be a costly struggle on which mine / which employee should go or should stay. Now, she threw thousands of people on the street jobless. The jobless were forced to immerse themselves into more productive industries. I know this was very difficult from a people's point of view, but the overall economy was taking maximum advantage of people's will to survive.

I am indeed not a British. I live in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's economy suffered the longest depression during the Asian financial crisis from 1998 to 2003. Nobody knows the way out. Then it came the SARS plague in 2003, which nearly halted the economy. Many struggling businesses closed down. Interestingly, after the plague, both people and businesses , now with nothing to live on, were more ready to embrace the changed economy mode, and overall economy recovered.

I think Thatcher is, in some ways, like the plague. It is horrible. It is painful. But the bottomline is, probably the country is better off with Thatcher than without.

@Jamie...

You ascribe to Thatcher thoughts and beliefs in terms of profanities and CAPITAL letters. In fact, I challenge you to find a single instance of her actually using this kind of language or screaming aloud while in office.

If you can be so wrong on details like this, it does tend to suggest that in order to support your own thesis you have needed to remake your target until it fits into your sights.

Exactly. I doubt even I'd like everything about her if I really bothered to look.

Just because you really disagree with her politics and actions as Prime Minister doesn't make her some sort of devil-woman. Like I said before, Obama is really driving me up the wall right now with much of what he's doing in office (the Israel-Palestine talks debacle is freshest in my mind right now), but I still believe he's doing what he sincerely thinks is right and I'm sure he's basically a good man. What sort of evidence is there that Thatcher really was the heartless witch you say and not just someone doing what they sincerely think is the right thing to do for Britain?

Not to mention your fellow citizens elected her three times so she can't have been doing too much wrong.