They could have, but only if they abandoned their stance of proportional representation. It wouldn't be very consistent to have the main focus of your platform be that the number of votes each party gets is very important, and then form a coalition with the party with fewer votes just because they are more closely aligned with you ideologically, would it?

For most of my adult life they've been left of Labour.

It wouldn't be very consistent to claim to be a centre-left party that gives a **** about people and then get into bed with the Tories. Forming a government with Labour would in no way have meant abandoning their stance on PR, which is and was never going to happen anyway, but forming a government with the Tories meant abandoning their pretence on everything else.

And they fitted in rather well with their friends in the Tories in that coalition. As they do in Scotland where they parrot the same old Unionist tropes shoulder to shoulder with their Tory mates.

ETA: It would be a strange claim to suggest that PR means that you have to support the policies of the party that gets the most votes anyway. That's not how PR works. Stranger still to claim that the principles of PR have any relevance to a FPTP election.

To have a majority, yes. Not to form a government they wouldn't have, though. They would have had the support of the SNP, Plaid, Green etc anyway so they would have got their 10 if they needed them.

That's a truly bizarre statement. Why for example do you think that Lib Dem are the 2nd party in areas where I live with huge Tory majorities? Because they are to the left of Labour?

I've always seen LD as being the non-gammon wing of the Tory Party. They've always had a few progressive policies and generally been pro-Europe and pro-immigration but to say they are left-wing is odd. Although it also reflects how much of a basket case of ideology Labour has been where you can certainly find policies where the LD have been to the left of them.

Politics is all about creating compromises with people you don't agree with.

It would absolutely have gone against the stance that the power a party has should be proportional to the number of votes a party gets to have ignored the fact that the Tories got the most votes and for the major party with the fewest votes to unilaterally decide the winner of the election.

I think a case can be made that the LibDems were to the left of Labour during the Blair/Brown new-Labour years.

However, IMO that's comparing apples with oranges to a certain degree. New Labour had to deal with the realpolitik whereas the LibDems could promote policies which likely had little or no chance of becoming law.

IMO the coalition government of 2010 shows what happens when LibDem policy runs slap-bang into the reality of British politics :(

Well, put it this way, ISideWith.com aligns people's political views with UK political parties, by analysing voting records, policy, issues discussed in speeches, how frequently they're discussed, etc. and you can see the analysis for yourself.

Yes, the fact that Labour swung so far to the right is definitely a huge factor.

The Daily Mail has actually got "better" since PD left. Granted that wouldn't have been difficult considering where it was.

No they haven't, they have been liberal. Which is way the coalition worked so well, Cameron in most aspects was a liberal conservative, there was very little difference between Clegg and Cameron I regards to policies.

Which is exactly what May thrashed out with the unionists.

You've heard of the Orange Book?

Which is a good part of why Clegg and Co jumped at coalition with the Tories and would never have countenanced jooining with Labour...It also explains why they all voted in favour of Lansley's 2012 bill and much of what else they did in coalition.

As a retired NHS worker, who had voted LD a couple of times, including 2010, I am never doing so again until there is a full apology from the party for what they did in government. (There was ceretainly an element of deception from Clegg - at the time I cast my postal vote, 'cos were were on hols for election day, there was not hint that they would join the Tories. If there had been...)

And then they elected weasel word Farron as leader...And didn't publicly execute Norman Lying Get Lamb...

PR means that parties should be represented in proportion with the votes they gather. That's nothing to do with who forms a government. The LDs unilaterally decided that the Tories should have a majority in government even though the public didn't. They were the kingmakers. They could have let them continue with a minority government had they really felt it was wrong to allow Labour to form a government (which is stupid anyway)

I don't agree on your first paragraph but remember how this began - with the idea that the LDs can't be blamed for the Tories. They put them in power. They carry the can.

Yes, I understand what proportional representation is. You cannot have as your core policy that power should be determined by votes and then pass over the party with the largest number of votes in favour of one with fewer votes, based on which ideology you prefer. Not and be consistent.

Why the hell not? If two smaller parties in a PR system are close enough in ideology that they can combine to form a coalition that commands a majority, then they've formed a government that has the support of the majority rather than there having to be one that represents the largest minority. That's the whole point of PR; it gets away from a system where the largest single party automatically gets to form the government, and replaces it with a system that favours coalitions with compromise positions that have broad support.

Dave

Because it's ignoring what people actually voted for in favour of unilaterally deciding for yourself.

What is the point of the Lib Dems if they just back up which ever of the other two parties is the biggest? If they do well, they drain support from the party that is perceived as being closest to them and then support the other. If they do badly, then a government more closely aligned to their beliefs has a better chance of getting in, but doesn't need them.

Yes, actually can. And many countries do just that. A coalition with a majority of seats does not have to include the party with the most votes, that's nonsense.

An example.
Party A gets 40% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 40% of the seats)
Party B gets 35% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 35% of the seats)
Party C gets 20% of the votes (and in a decent PR system 20% of the seats)
What is the problem with parties C and B forming a governing coalition?

That wasn't the situation.

Yes, which just emphasises how much of it's decline was down to him and what an inappropriate choice he is.

Probably not, private companies with public contracts tend to shave at both ends, by cutting wages and then using the previous public servant wages plus a percentage as the base for their contract price.

Look at BT's privatisation. The UK was the world leader in the development and manufacture of broadband capable fibre optic networks and looking to be the first to get to high speed broadband in the late '80s & early '90s until Maggie the Milk Thief sold off the section responsible for developing and making fibre optic (because some USians were eyeing it suggestively) and then the Grey Man decided to go full hog on privatisation in the mid '90s. Now the UK has broadband that's good enough to rival some countries in Africa and dear with it to boot.

Plus vast majority of the people who voted for them in 2010 wanted them in coalition with Labour. I believe the polling shortly after election showed a 72-28 split of Lib Dem voters wanting a Labour coalition over a tory one. Plus the polling for the Lib Dems went from c35% to 23% in the last two weeks of the election, largely due to Clegg (the idiot) categorically ruling out a Labour coalition.

But hey, like with the proposed national unity government in 2019 when the Lib Dems eff up, it's all Labour's fault in the media.

Of course you can. I'm pretty sure it must happen all the time in countries that have actual PR. It's a ridiculous justification of a ridiculous decision by Clegg.

Are you trying to tell me that in PRistan in the case of the following result

1. Kill all Greens Party 31%
2. Be nice to Greens Party 30%
3. The Green Party 20%

That the Green Party is morally obligated to form a government with the Kill All Greens Party because they got the most votes?

Not only that but we aren't in a PR system. The LDs had no obligation to make a pact with ANYONE!

It wasn't much of a kick in the stones away from it. Actual result

Tory 36%
Labour 29%
LD 23%

A Labour/LD coalition would have represented 52% of voters. Stick the SNP and Plaid in there and you are at 55ish.

I'd understood at the time that the reasoning was that:
1. A Lib/Lab/SNP/Plaid coalition would have been so weak that it would hardly have been able to govern.
2. The assumption had always been that the Lib Dems would side with Labour, so why not just vote for Labour? If they'd formed a coalition with Labour they would have confirmed this view.

1. Then don't make a coalition. Form a minority government. Or let the Tories form a minority government. That's not a justification for siding with the Tories.

2. I'm confused by this logic. Labour and Lib Dem policy was not the same at that point and I still don't see how you get from there to 'so we need to make a coalition with the Tories'

The LDs didn't prop up May's minority government so obviously they know that they don't HAVE to. It was Clegg's choice to get into bed with Cameron because, at the end of the day, they were basically the same.

That's because Clegg was a true blue tory. Remember the orange book of which he was one of the primary movers, it was tory policy from the front cover to the last page of the appendix.

Which exactly the opposite of what happened in 2010. About 80% of Lib Dem voters, all Labour and most smaller party voters (SNP, Greens, Plaid) voters were voting to keep the tories out, which would consist of an absolute majority of voters.

A minority government at a time of financial instability was considered a bit dangerous to the economy.

The was pretty much the reasoning.

I mean, look at how strong and stable May's government was, and that only required the 10 members of the DUP.

Right, which is why the examples you keep coming back to are different to the actual situation that existed at the time.

As it is, I've explained my position three times now, and you keep addressing something else, so I'm not really convinced that anything productive will come out of reiterating it a fourth time.

Your position appears to be that, in a PR system, the largest single party must be allowed to form a government. If that were true, it would negate one of the most important features of PR, which is that a coalition can be formed with broad support from whichever parties are prepared to work together to form a majority, whether the single largest party agrees with them or not. What worries me is that Clegg's LDs may have understood the possibilities of PR no better than you do.

Dave

You could well be right, certainly if you keep explaining it as you have done.
If your position is not what Dave Rogers, Catsmate and Archie Gemmell Goal have been arguing against, then I don't know what it is either.

As I say, there doesn't seem to be much point. I have been clear, and I don't think there's much else I can do at this stage.

Whether you try again is entirely up to you, however as it seems that nobody participating in the thread except you understands what your point is, then I do not think the highlighted part is accurate.

If you say so.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54330880

"New" revolutionary adult training system to be created. So those aged say 70 can be retrained as brickies rather than getting a state pension.

Johnson wants us to get away with this idea of always valuing degrees above vocational qualifications. Presumably he is fed up with people who didn't go to the right public school and the right college acting as if they are qualified for Johnson's mates' jobs!

I thought that might help me for a second, as I'm in the process of signing up for a course, but then spotted that I'd not be eligible as I've got A level (and higher) qualifications already.

Actually I've realised something this is because they are **** scared that they will have to start paying a true living wage for their housekeepers, gardeners, drivers and the like once they can't employ cheap eastern EU staff!

Indeed. Let us examine the 2020 General Election results in Ireland, based on PR/STV.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com...47f676d081.jpg
Sinn Féin displayed the same sense of entitlement and demanded to be part of any government, but made no real effort to form a coalition with the necessary majority of seats.
Hence the government is based on a Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael/Green Party coalition which have a majority of the seats, and also (but by no means necessarily) a majority of the first preference votes.

I genuinely don't understand what your point is then either. If it isn't that a party supporting PR should act in a way consistent with PR then I'm lost.

So, as far as I can see, the government are currently considering transportation and prison hulks for asylum seekers. I wonder whether they've considered debtors' prison or sending them up chimneys?

Dave

Me, from 2017.....

I think in retrospect, I was being overly optimistic :o

That’s why Brexit needs to be “no deal”. There’s nothing like a nice big pool of unemployed for keeping wages down. They actually admitted back in the 90s that mass unemployment was “a price worth paying”, remember.

Wasn't it John Major who called for a return to Victorian values?

I've been expecting the opening of the first Rees-Mogg branded workhouse for some time.

But then my theory is that his shell is animated by the unquiet spirit of a Victorian workhouse master tied like Marley to this Earth by the chains of avarice he forged in life.

"Home Secretary Priti Patel has launched an attack on human rights “do-gooders” and “lefty lawyers” who she claimed were united with people-traffickers in wanting to prevent reform of the UK’s “broken” asylum system.

“And yet they seem to care little about the rights of the most vulnerable who are fleeing persecution, oppression and tyranny.

“What about their right to live their lives securely and free from fear? That is the most fundamental right.”

She said: “Under Conservative leadership, the United Kingdom has and always will provide sanctuary when the lights are being switched off on people's liberties.

“As for those defending the broken system – the traffickers, the do-gooders, the lefty lawyers, the Labour Party – they are defending the indefensible."

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...?ocid=msedgdhp

The UK’s asylum system is “fundamentally broken” is it?

Ten years they’ve been in charge. Ten ******* years.

Comments I have seen would seem to suggests it's the fault of the EU that our system is 'broken' but now they can fix it.

Have they managed to actually, you know, say what is broken about it?
Rather than simply saying it's broken, of course.

You know, a bit like actually saying what EU laws are problematic rather than simply stating there are some problematic ones...

It's broken because the wrong sort of people are allowed to claim asylum.

The wrong sort being any group other than a small, media friendly, group fleeing a high profile problem - Iraqi Christians spring to mind. It's also nice if they ****-off back at the first opportunity.

The Conservatives are unhappy with the concept of asylum because it allows brown people into the UK.