Comments on: The end of the world

By: NatWhokares

NatWhokares — Sat, 15 May 2010 10:48:52 +0000

It’s a very interesting post and you are right it’s not the end of the world. Nevertheless. If Gordon Brown saved England from a bigger economic crisis he has just begun the process and that shouldn’t be stopped. Because even if England is still with AAA marks from Standard and Poors it will be like that for how long ??? It’s a political choice to don’t afraid the finance system even more.
Unfortunately with a conservative parliament the english economic system will go down : this country doesn’t export a lot and the debt will grow… Let s face it… The bank system is the heart of the english economy and the way the conservatives wants to maintain it is just a nightmare for the future.
Being honest England with such a government is not far from the Greece situation in several years…

By: That LibDem dilemma in full | Donald's Archive 2.0

That LibDem dilemma in full | Donald's Archive 2.0 — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:24:16 +0000

[...] I suggest they accept no criticism that begins without unpicking the puzzle above – one that the election result set them. That [?] might include the implosion of the party. It might also include the [...]

By: DamianK

DamianK — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:53:47 +0000

Nice piece. In defence of the press they haven’t had much to go on with a discussion of policy.

Assuming that the big policy debate is how much do you cut spending and where, which taxes do you raise and how much of the deficit do you think is structural there has been little from the parties either in the campaign or the coalition talks, or the post coalition statements.

The devil of the ‘muddling through’ will come, i would argue, in the details of the balance between tax and spending and in how much, or how little, the government relies on and generates economic growth.

By: DonaldS

DonaldS — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:22:23 +0000

Nice considered piece. One more factor I’d throw in re LibDem performance that hasn’t been mentioned yet… This was supposed to be the election where their 2005 anti-Iraq War protest vote unwound bigtime. They were supposed to fall quite substantially in vote share. In fact they grew by a point or so. Though it wasn’t the nationwide breakthrough that polls suggested, I still think it’s a decent result. To sustain a third party under FPTP with around a quarter of the vote for a couple of decades is almost impossible. But they are still hanging in there. And while going into govt. with the Tories is far from ideal, they didn’t really have any other credible choices, I fear. (As I wrote a few days ago: http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/05/08/why-a-con-lib-coalition-might-be-good-for-the-left/)

By: Matt W

Matt W — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:13:03 +0000

Nice piece – thanks.

At the moment I’m enjoying being free of New Labour, and thinking the importance of cancelling much that was simply wrong.

There are quite a number of ultra-marginals, so I see many opportunities for local and grass roots politics, as well as possibly a greater responsiveness rather than “plough on regardless” of the last few years. Geoff Hoon’s seat now has a Lab majority of ~200 over the LD.

And – I hope – Lords Reform which *may* neatly exclude so many washed-up ex-MPs from an automatic entitlement to affect laws.

I am not looking forward to spending the rest of my life paying for Brown’s unnecessary mistakes.

But we shall see.