Can someone explain to me why the Liberal Party in England sided

NJmaverick

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:00 AM
Original message

Can someone explain to me why the Liberal Party in England sided

Edited on Wed May-12-10 08:22 AM by NJmaverick

with the Conservatives against Labour? Do the labels of Liberal and Conservative mean something different over there?:shrug:

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Tesha

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:06 AM
Response to Original message

1. Why does your DLC so frequently side against Democrats?

Sane reason.

Tesha

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

NJmaverick

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:10 AM
Response to Reply #1

2. You question makes as much sense as asking why is the sky always purple with pink poka dots

Edited on Wed May-12-10 08:10 AM by NJmaverick

:shrug:

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Recursion

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:15 AM
Response to Reply #1

7. But New Labour is the DLC

Edited on Wed May-12-10 08:16 AM by Recursion

Like, explicitly acknowledged by both sides of the pond, they deliberately copied each other's movements.

The difference is that the Tories are not remotely like the US GOP.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Peacetrain

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:12 AM
Response to Original message

3. I was wondering that myself...

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

brendan120678

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:12 AM
Response to Original message

4. Because the Tories promised more to...

the Liberals than Labour did.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Turbineguy

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:14 AM
Response to Original message

5. Probably for the same reason

that at one time the republican party was the party of Lincoln and the Democratic party was the party of George Wallace.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Recursion

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:14 AM
Response to Original message

6. A) it's a long story and B) yes

Yes, "liberal democrat" means something very different over there than it does over here.

First off, "liberal" and "conservative" alone don't translate well across the pond. Think more "liberal" like Woodrow Wilson or the Economist. They are socially libertarian (both Tories and Labour are not socially statist; one of Blair's big domestic initiatives was to curb "antisocial behavior"), and they're deficit hawks, which in the context of British obligations means they are for raising taxes and service fees (more the former than the latter).

To your first question, they sided with the Tories because Labour doesn't have much of the people's trust. Also, the Tories and the Lib Dems are at least fundamentally aligned on a lot of foreign policy questions: British conservatives are generally doves, as are the Lib Dems. And both are skeptical about the EU and about being the US's lap dog. The Tories had a series of ads urging people to drink locally-brewed beers at locally-owned pubs; there's a (refreshing) anti-corporate and anti-globalization feeling in both parties.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

BurtWorm

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 09:05 AM
Response to Reply #6

10. One of your points stopped me dead in my tracks.

I don't understand what you meant by this:

"both Tories and Labour are not socially statist"

Is that a typo? Labour is definitely rooted in state socialism, isn't it? The Tories aren't though, are they? What are you saying? Please clarify.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Recursion

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 09:31 AM
Response to Reply #10

12. Gah. Yes. Typo. Ignore the "not"

Tories and Labour are both socially statist: they beleive the government can make more decisions about people's private behavior than most Americans on any point of our political spectrum would find tolerable.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

BurtWorm

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 09:47 AM
Response to Reply #12

13. Thank you!

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Recursion

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 10:07 AM
Response to Reply #13

16. WTF is up with my keyboard? "believe"

Sigh. One of those days.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

muriel_volestrangler

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 10:12 AM
Response to Reply #6

19. To expand on you 2nd point: a coalition with Labour would have been unstable

The part of Labour that people in particular didn't trust was Gordon Brown. It would have been very difficult to form a coalition with him in charge; and he recognised that when he said on Monday night Labour would elect a new leader in the next few months. But that then meant negotiating a deal with a party of whom the next leader is still unknown. And with the 2 parties still not having enough MPs between them, they needed Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish nationalist parties to get a majority. It could have easily have fallen apart not long after being formed, and, if it had done so, either the Tories would take over as a minority government, or, more likely, there'd be a new election in which the Tories would get enough people saying "it's time the Tories were given a try" that they'd end up with an overall majority.

So Clegg was, in a way, playing safe. He gets something from this, and can try to claim he's being 'repsonsible' at a time of economic uncertainty.

FWIW, here's the coalition agreement: http://www.libdems.org.uk/latest_news_detail.aspx?title=Conservative_Liberal_Democrat_coalition_agreements&pPK=2697bcdc-7483-47a7-a517-7778979458ff

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

zipplewrath

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:22 AM
Response to Original message

8. Very key issues for the liberals

Yes, they mean different things, but furthermore, changes in the representation schemes over there seem to be very important to the liberals. It would give them more seats if they got the changes they want. The conservatives seemed more willing to address the issues than Labor (who would probably be the primary victims of a change). Between that and foreign policy issues, they found SOME common ground. I don't expect it to last long though.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

KharmaTrain

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 08:29 AM
Response to Original message

9. Keeps The Tories On A Short Leash...

While not conclusive enough to give the Conservatives a majority to be able to rule by themselves, last week's vote was a definite repudiation against 17 years of Labour rule...especially the later Blair years and Brown's lackluster leadership. While the trend was to the right, it wasn't enough to let the Tories take full power. The Lib Dems gave Labour the chance to form a coalition government first...but even if the two had agreed, they still didn't have enough seats to create a government and it appears none of the other "third" parties were interested in signing on. Thus it was the Conservatives turn and this made Clegg a deal maker.

The game here is that Clegg is in the position to call for a no confidence vote should the Tories go "Thatcher" and we could see new elections in the UK in a couple years.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

havocmom

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 09:09 AM
Response to Original message

11. Because not everyone claiming to be liberal is

It's global

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Recursion

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 11:39 AM
Response to Reply #11

22. But these guys are to the left of New Labour

They're mostly old Labourites who got sick of Blair's triangulating. The difference is that the Tories are nothing like the GOP here, and seem to actually live in the fact-based world, albeit from a conservative perspective.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

depakid

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 09:59 AM
Response to Original message

14. One major reason is that Tory MP's agreed to a referendum on what Americans call IRV

Edited on Wed May-12-10 10:39 AM by depakid

which means that Labour may well lose it's persuasive ability to say to people (as Democrats in America do when they march to the right and disregard their base) "don't throw your vote away on the Liberal Dems or else the Tories will get in and bring back Thatcherism."

If the referendum passes, Britain will have preferential voting like Aussies do- one can vote Green, for example, with Labor as their second preference and if no candidate on the 1st ballot gets 50%, then the second preferences are added in and so on down the ballot until some party's candidate does.

(The Lib Dems also landed cabinet positions- and Nick Clegg will be Deputy PM -curious, because he will actually be leading the government when Cameron is out of the country or on holiday).

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

NNN0LHI

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 10:01 AM
Response to Original message

15. I think its because the UK liberals are a lot like our Larouchies

A little bit off their rockers. Thats my take anyway.

Don

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

depakid

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 10:15 AM
Response to Reply #15

20. You'd think otherwise if you'd seen any of the debates

Nick Clegg was the only one making good sense, with command of the facts and details of policies that offered actual solutions to the problems.

Gordon Brown looked besieged, and offered the same lackluster policies and platitudes, and Cameron (the new PM) offered the usual fear, loathing, authoritarianism and spending cuts that you'd expect from conservatives anywhere.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

Jennicut

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 12:24 PM
Response to Reply #20

25. Clegg does seem like the only one that knew what he was talking about.

Edited on Wed May-12-10 12:24 PM by Jennicut

And the UK surveillance society was pushed by Labour. The Lib-Dems seemed be the best on that.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

muriel_volestrangler

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 10:16 AM
Response to Reply #15

21. Nothing like them

Edited on Wed May-12-10 10:16 AM by muriel_volestrangler

Some of them are somewhat like Dennis Kuchinich, perhaps, but not the ones in charge. Howard Dean is perhaps the closest American political equivalent; he supported them and offered advice.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

grantcart

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 10:08 AM
Response to Original message

17. In a parlimentary democracy there is an understanding that when

no party receives a majority the political parties should make an effort to compromise and form a coalition government.

Neither party wants to but it reflects the outcome of the election.

In this case even if the Liberals had sided with Labor they would not have had a majority and would have had to have further negotiations with other parties creating an even more fragile coalition.

Another alternative, which I would personally had pursued if I were Clegg, would have been to given the Conservatives the votes to establish a minority government but stay out and let them rule as a minority.

This is going to be a period of budget cuts and bad news. Let the conservatives take the blame for it and come back in a year with another election.

This however may be seen as bad form in the UK and explain why they joined the government.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

BolivarianHero

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 10:10 AM
Response to Original message

18. Liberal means so many different things...

So yes, of course it does. The LibDems are centre-left socially liberal party though; they tend to do well among working-class voters who are disaffected with Labour and with LGBT Britons (who honestly are treated like shit by every party except the LibDems, the Greens, and the regionalist parties...Even RESPECT doesn't show them as much to keep Muslim socon nuts happy), professionals, and upper-class Britons who dislike the Tories.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

muriel_volestrangler

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 11:39 AM
Response to Original message

23. This is fairly informative, from The Guardian

which advocated for the Lib Dems, so it's as likely as anything to put forward their point of view on the negotiations.

On Monday night, Lib Dem MPs and activists were aghast as Labour MPs took turns on television to denounce the idea of a pact between their two parties as a "coalition of losers" even as the two teams of negotiators were in talks.
...
Every one of the Lib Dem negotiators gave an individual report back of their meeting with Harriet Harman, Lord Mandelson, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Lord Adonis, and they each reached the same conclusion: that the Labour team were uninterested, with no movement on ID cards, the third runway at Heathrow, or increasing the proportion of renewable energy from 15% to 40%.
...
Had those MPs voted against the motion it would have been enough to prevent the Lib Dem leadership getting the three-quarters endorsement it needed. By afternoon the Labour team appeared to have shifted further towards the Lib Dems � they did come up with an offer on the third runway "in principle" and they seemed to come up with a better offer on increasing money for renewables "in principle" � but they irritated the Lib Dems by talking like government ministers taking solicitations from visitors, rather than equals, and saying they were not sure various demands would get past Alistair Darling, the chancellor.

In particular, there was no movement on the Lib Dems' cherished policy that no one should pay tax on the first �10,000 of income. By the second meeting they said they had an agreement in "principle", but again, they would have to go back to Darling.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/11/liberal-democrat-mps-coalition

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

ZombieHorde

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 12:11 PM
Response to Original message

24. With some possible exceptions, UK liberals = US libertarians. nt

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

JCMach1

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed May-12-10 12:29 PM
Response to Original message

26. Labour REFUSED to budge in negotiations and the Lib Dems

decided to take their chances with the New Tories...

Printer Friendly | Permalink | | Top

DU AdBot (1000+ posts)

Sun May 05th 2024, 06:26 AM
Response to Original message

Advertisements [?]

Top

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators

Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.