Lib Dems and Civil Liberties

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's grand int it. It's been like political porn, these last four years, guiltily watching the LD's getting humiliated as they gave up one principle after another.

And so we come to today's capitulation. On civil liberties. The one thing that always marked the Lib Dems out from the others. Because they were always at pains to point out how much they felt that individual liberty was SO important. But when push came to shove today, there was Clegg at Cameron's shoulder, supporting yet another ramming through Parliament of legislation to let the spooks spy on all of us.

And  it rang some bells about a long-ago discussion on here about whether Clegg would REALLY support civil liberties when some spook spelled out the facts of life to him. And so I went searching:
http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=80183.msg80352#msg80352

What do I know? f**k all probably. But Clegg's support for this railroading through of legislation screams out to me that someone has had him in a back room and said: "Your call Nicky boy. Do you want to be the one who is to blame when a big bad bomb goes off somewhere?"

Of course he doesn't. But if he was a grown up politician, instead of a jumped up little no mark, he would have known that back in 2010. And he wouldn't have fluttered his eyes at the camera and told people how much he was on THEIR side against the big, bad politicians who do all these big, bad, nasty things, so vote for cute little Nicky and I'll stop them doing the baddie stuff.

f**k off Lib Dems. You've had 5 years playing at this. Now f**k off and figure out what you REALLY believe in before you dare ask anyone to vote for you again.

[IC1967]

Boring.

[LongbridgeMGRover]

Really insightful analysis and good to read BST.

I speak as a Liberal myself, who has never voted LibDem which is at best a chameleon but is more usually a two faced liar of a party. Historically this comes from the merger with the SDP, but Liberalism and Democracy, while not obvious opposites are oil and water. Democracy, the rule of the majority by definition will impinge on the individual.

[IC1967]

Boring.

[RedJ]

You are rather, aren't you Mick.

[IC1967]

Boring. As usual, nothing to add to the debate. So let me enlighten you.

I'd have much more time for all this prevention of terrorism if there was a bit more perspective. We are letting the terrorists win if we keep on bringing in draconian measures to combat the threat. Things are way out of proportion to the risk if you ask me. If we did nothing then deaths due to terrorism would probably be in the hundreds per year. If we spent this money instead on making our roads safer we would prevent thousands of deaths and serious injuries per year. Money far better spent. Currently 5 people a day die on our roads. Imagine the fuss if 5 people a day died from terrorism. Perspective. That's all I ask for.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Longbridge

The LDs have had two crucial problems.

One is long term. They set themselves up to be all things to everyone. They positioned themselves to be the protest party of choice whilst never really putting a vision of what they actually believed in. So they attracted support from disillusioned voters from the right and the left. Which is fine until 2010. And them the left-leaning LD voters wake up to find, to their horror, that their votes have put Cameron into No10. Those people will never vote LD again.

The second problem is more recent. It is the fact that they had a shallow, rootless showman as leader. He made a great play of being a principled, honest guy, who could be trusted on things that he promised.

But he's reneged on every one. Specifically, the LDs always made a big deal about the iniquity of tuition fees and on civil liberties. But their public pronouncements BEFORE 2010 were inevitably going to be reneged on if they were in coalition. A serious polician would have known that in 2010 and said things that gave him some wiggle room. But Clegg is not a serious politician. He is a school kid playing with mesters and he has been played at every step.

So. LDs. No overarching vision of what they want to achieve. No policies that they will not jettison to stay in power. No comprehension of the idiocy of their public stances which will inevitably crumble in reality.

No reason ever to vote for them again.

[IC1967]

Boring.

[Not Now Kato]

Boring.

You are indeed.  But why do you have to keep telling us so?