What the Two Davids have in Common

On the face of it, perhaps it would be easier to list what David Milliband and David Cameron don’t have in common.  Both are of a similar age, both Oxford-educated and they both followed the now well-worn path of the political professional after leaving university.  So is it any wonder that the two Davids have similar ideas about the path to power?

During the battle for the Labour leadership, it has become clear that D. Milliband favours the New Labour approach: appealing to all sectors of society while his brother Ed wants a return to core Labour supporter of old.  I remember when Tony Blair came to power.  It was while I was a mature student at the University of Wales Aberystwyth.  I used to have socialist friends (I still have a few but nowadays it is hard to find a real socialist) and I actually felt sorry for them.  Even before 1997, socialists have been effectively disenfranchised in this country.  In the 1970s, the voter had a real choice between the right and the left of politics.  Nowadays that is no longer the case and I think that is to the detriment of this country.

It was actually for my degree essay on evolutionary theory that I found myself reading one of Professor Ian Stewart’s popular books on mathematics.  I can’t remember which one but it contains the scenario of the two ice-cream sellers on a crowded beach.   The sellers sets up at opposite ends but this means that the people occupying the middle can go to either of them, while the individual trader has no chance of attracting customers from the other end of the strand.  In order to maximise their share of the market, both sellers start moving towards the middle with the eventual result that they are side-by-side.

So it is now with politics.  New Labour was effectively a post-modern response to politics, agreeing with the likes of Francis Fukuyama who had proclaimed the End of History, the victory of capitalism and the never-ending reign of globalisation.  Blair and Brown modelled themselves rulers of this Brave New World, post-modernisers to the core.  History was reduced to a series of rival dialogues, each of equal or no value and therefore tradition meant nothing.  The unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom, built up for 300 years after the Glorious Revolution, based upon earlier civil wars and the Magna Carta, were worthless in the 21^st. Century.  Civil rights were meaningless and the power of the Courts eroded.  Hence New Labour’s love of identity cards and the super-databases behind them; they agreed with Sir Humphrey that in order to decide what the government needed to know, they needed to know everything.   The process of government suffered likewise, with Cabinet meetings reduced to listening to the Word of the Dear Leader and real policy being decided on the sofa with an inner cabal.  Senior civil servants were replaced with political appointments, advisors ensuring that the civil service remained “on message”.  While Paris glittered after its spring clean, London got the Millennium Dome.  Gold, that old-fashioned economic mainstay was sold off at under $400 an ounce.  Social mobility actually decreased during the thirteen years of Labour.  But worst of all was the Labour leadership’s willingness to follow the USA into bloody and illegal wars.  Labour became like Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, who after drinking the troll’s brew grew to be like an onion: all layers and no heart; a being so empty of morality that not even the Devil wanted his worthless soul.

That’s my verdict on New Labour and anybody who still wishes to continue that project but how does David Cameron fit into this?  Well, it seems to me that he has attempted a similar trick with the Conservative party and has marched his ice-cream stall to the centre of the beach.   After the defeat of the Major government in 1997, the Conservatives veered to the Right under the successive leaderships of Hague, Duncan-Smith and then Howard.   With New Labour straddling the Centre-Centre Right, it may have been principled but it simply didn’t work in electoral terms.  In order to gain power, the Tories had to march back to the Left, or at least the leadership had too.  I’m not so sure that the bulk of the Conservatives have decamped from their grounds on the Right.   If the Coalition has shown anything about stresses within the parties of the partnership, it is that the Conservatives that are more ill-at-ease than the Liberal Democrats.  Cameron came very close to failure in the last election, an unforgivable sin considering the open goal that Labour had left them.

This situation of both the largest parties fighting over the same electorate means that the democratic process is Britain is in real danger.  After all, if the arguments are reduced to a narrow part of the field, in reality what is point of the political process?  No matter which party is in power, the country is left under a dictatorship of the Centre.   Views outside a narrow strip of opinion have no chance of real political power.

So like any good Liberal Democrat, I come to electoral reform.  It is necessary in order to avoid the dictatorship of the Centre.  Both the left of the Labour party and those on the right of the Conservatives would benefit from a change because under coalitions, the views towards the ends of the political spectrum have some chance of representation.  People usually use this as an argument against electoral reform but in reality it is far more democratic than the system we currently have.    The Centre will be dominant as this is where the opinion of most people lie but at least those on the edges can have some say as coalitions wax and wane.   Given my opinion of New Labour, I am not surprised that they have failed to even support the modest Alternative Vote system that they advocated during the general election.  The Tories are being, well, typically conservative in their unthinking opposition.  But it is vital that all those actually believe in representative democracy campaign our hearts out come the referendum next May.  Britain needs this reform in order to have any chance of principled government in the future.

Otherwise, we will be left with the two largest parties in their role as amoral ice-cream sellers competing on a beach.

Complaint - Any Questions 20th of August, 2010

Dear Any Answers,

I decided to sleep on it before writing but come the morning I still find myself angry at remarks made by two of the panellists on Any Questions last night.

In turning a question about the Megrahi release into an anti-Scottish rant, Ruth Deech and Douglas Murray showed their true ignorance about the United Kingdom, their base assumption being that Scots are over-subsidised and holier-than-thou.  Well thanks a bundle for assuming that we all support Alex Salmond and the dreadful SNP.  As for the money, aren’t they forgetting the oil and gas industry that has been keeping the whole of the UK afloat for the past thirty years?  The reason why there is an apparent subsidy per head of population is that outside the Central Belt, Scotland is a sparsely-populated country so we cannot have the economies of scale available to the South East of England.  Or are we to assume that Deech and Murray begrudge the Highlands luxuries such as roads, hospitals and electricity?  And as for the Scottish parliament, I think the panel demonstrated very well this evening why Scotland cannot solely rely upon London to represent our best interests.

Honestly, when picking a panel in future the producers should broaden their reach beyond the Home Counties chatterarti and invite members more representative of the United Kingdom as a whole.

Yours sincerely

Martin Veart

Edinburgh.

Distraction

It is easy to be blinded by suffering. In the latest misadventure off the coast of Israel / Gaza, the latest reports available list sixteen dead at the hands of the Israeli commandos. Why did they people have to die?

Of course, the easy answer is that they didn’t have too. This morning on the Today Programme the beautifully-voiced Mark Regev defend the Israeli actions that led to the deaths of these unfortunates, along with injuries to many more; both flotilla crew and Israeli personnel. Naturally he claimed the Israelis were attacked first. I must have missed the event that led to members of the flotilla trying to board the Israeli warships. He also reminded the world that the Israelis had offered to take all allowed goods through the Israel-Gaza border. Since the central purpose of the flotilla was protest against the joint blockade by Israel and Egypt and to remind the world of the very real suffering of the Palestinian people, that is hardly the point.

It is easy to become hardened by suffering. Fear does that and fear is the state that the Israeli people are encouraged to live in. The world is against them, misunderstands their plight and that is why their forces, of which they all must play their part, must be aggressive because that is the only language that their barbarous and less sophisticated neighbours understand.

The rest of us, onlookers of various degrees, are asked to take sides by the competing and extremely sophisticated propaganda machines of all sides. For instance, this morning the BBC website initially reported the source of this morning’s tragedy as a Hamas report, despite the live streams coming from various Arabic news organisations onboard. Hamas = terrorists therefore their word is not to be trusted. As a quoted source, the link to Hamas has now been dropped and for the moment it is still reporting only ten deaths, as reported by the IDF.


Why does this matter and why should we onlookers care? I’ve been to Israel several times over the years and it is my opinion that all populations are being misled. Despite being a democracy, Israel in my opinion is also a police state. The population are under the heaviest possible surveillance from the internal security forces. One waitress I met in Haifa was an Arab Christian and formally worked as a receptionist at the hotel where I was staying. Her story was that she made a bad joke concerning the conflict to a guest. Next day, she gets a phone call.

"Hey Girlfriend, how are you?"
"Who is this?"
"You can call me David and I work for the Misrad Habitahon [internal security].  I hear that you have been saying things that you shouldn't have."
"What is it to you?"
"Next time that I hear such things, it won't be a friendly chat over the phone.  We will want to know more about you.  A visit to our offices.  Am I clear?"
The girl laughed at David.  "You are afraid of little me?  Some silly girl?  This country is weaker than I thought."

She kept her dignity but not the job.

The hotel where she used to work was often full.  On the last occasion the visitors were athletes and sports people from all over the world for the the Jewish games held last year.  Before that, I overheard many snatches of conversations.  The arms dealers were the ones that frequently drew my attention though.  On one flight across I was lucky enough to be upgraded.  My companion was a banker and the file he was perusing was for pilotless light aircraft, used for reconnaissance and attack roles.  It was his business to provide the money.  I remember reading Robert Fisk's accounts in his book The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East ; of how he traced the history of one missile used by the Israelis in Lebanon back to the US Marine Corps and thus how the US tax pater is secretly being used to subsidise Israel's conflict with their neighbours.

So to my mind, this is why there is never peace in the Middle East: too many people are making too much money out of war.  It is not just the arms dealers, it is their financiers also.

The deaths this morning were totally unnecessary unless their purpose is to keep the fires of hatred burning brightly.  The secret fuel for this hatred is money and until the profit is cut, the war will continue.  I say this to both sides and of none.  Look up and see who among you are getting richer from this conflict.  To protestors for peace: research the companies who are making the profit.  Now most people don't tend to pop down to our local friendly arms manufacturer for a couple of SAM missiles, so look into the companies that they are dowing business with and the banks that are providing them with the finance and expertise.  Target these companies and people for protest, boycott and blockade, not normal people who are just as much victims as anybody else.  Governments who want peace, cut the flow of weapons to all sides and refuse entry to the warmongers.  If you won't then it up to your populations to hold you to account.

Protests like the flotilla are just a distraction from what is really happening.  In fact, by providing opportunities for needless death, they help to prolong the war.

Just received my pay slip and seen my tax go out....you’re welcome Britian

The title of this blog is actually a tweet by chrisjw133 and I am grateful for the inspiration because he just reminded me why we pay our taxes.

As some of you may know already, I work in the oil industry.  Okay, I can hear to booing from here but somebody has to do it as it: at least for the time being it is the basis of our global trade and economy. I look forward to the day when this is no longer the case but I digress.  One of the benefits of working in this industry is the travel.  It is a fact that people like me see places that only come into wider focus in times of disaster or political unrest.  For that reason, I am glad that places like Angola has fallen out of the headlines and when I mention Mauritania, most people have to ask where it is.  What such places have in common however, is either low taxation or a tax system that is easy to evade.

For instance, when I worked in Egypt, it reminded me of nothing more than a giant building site.  Why were the houses unfinished?  At the top of many residences the steel that reinforces the concrete is clearly visible but the buildings are obviously occupied.  The answer lay in tax avoidance.  Apparently property tax is not payable until the building is deemed complete.  The tax is not based upon occupancy.  The outcome is that roofs remain unfinished.  Don’t tell me that the Egyptians are stupid; of course they are not.  It is just that the government has colluded with the population to reduce taxation.  It is their decision whether they want their country to look like a tip or not.  Or is it?

 In many such places the general population are not encouraged to engage in politics beyond attending the often mandatory rallies.  One such instance I personally witnessed was Equatorial Guinea.  EG, as it is usually abbreviated to, is a popular destination within west Africa for immigrants and this is despite being a dictatorship and having higher tax levels than its neighbours.   I asked some people why they had settled in EG and they told me that compared to the countries they had come from, EG was better run and that ordinary people had some chance of seeing the benefits from the nation’s wealth.  Certainly while I was in Port Harcourt there was a lot of infrastructure building going on.

It is easy to forget the benefits of taxation.  In Uganda for example, education has to be paid for; denying vast numbers of the population anything beyond the most basic levels of literacy.  There is an alternative for them however.  If the poor were to join one of the many different religious groups that are flourishing in the nation, they have  chance of getting their children educated for free.  It doesn’t matter whether it is the one of the Christian or Muslim traditions: most have representation in the country.  I was very impressed by both the grand (and recently built) Sunni and Shi’ah  mosques that are to be found in the capital Kampala.  Liberals like us are then up in arms when the Ugandan parliament, with popular support, propose to introduce the death sentence for homosexuality or when in Malawi sentences the unfortunate men Steven Monjeza  and Tiwonge Chimbalanga to fourteen years hard labour for wishing to marry each other.  After all, who do you think are teaching the bulk of these populations?  It is for such reasons that I welcome the Liberal Democrat and Conservative policy of raising international aid to 0.75% of GPD, despite the straitened circumstances we all find ourselves in and would encourage other rich nations to uphold promises that they have already made. 

Of course it is not just places like Africa I see these things.  The problems are the same across the developing world whether in Central America or parts of Asia.  Colleagues of mine live in low-tax regimes, residing in beautiful houses behind their walled compounds and armed security.  I’m not casting blame; they are merely taking advantage of the opportunities that life has presented them with.  For me though, I prefer to pay my taxes and live in north-west Europe.  Here we have the schools, the hospitals, clean water and food, the houses, roads fit to drive modern cars upon, train and air travel, relatively low levels of crime, and cheap communications.  Not all of these are paid for out of taxation but far greater numbers of people can enjoy the benefits of such things because most people do pay their taxes and that the Inland Revenue is free from corruption.  That is why fair taxation is vital to a nation’s wellbeing and the fairer the taxation, the greater the general benefit.  I welcome the Liberal Democrat input on capital gains tax for example.  Buying a flat to rent is a form of speculation and thus it is only fair that a person who starts a business up from scratch and sells it upon retirement, who has risked much and employed others, has a better deal than somebody who just hopes to benefit from the next property boom.

There is a flip side to high taxation though.  The government is responsible to me and you, dear reader, for spending our money.  Hopefully this new parliament is acutely aware of this on an individual level but, more importantly, on the grand scale too.  The past ten years has seen billions of pounds wasted on invading other countries.  Trident should be included in the latest Strategic Defence Review and, in my opinion, scrapped altogether.  Hospitals have thankfully seen cases of superbug infections fall but this was only after misplaced privatisation of cleaning services in the NHS was re-examined.  Thousands of deaths should have been prevented by ensuring basic standards of cleanliness that were laid down over one hundred years ago.   Many PFI schemes are not getting the scrutiny that they deserve.  Despite all the subsidies being paid out, how many of us are really satisfied with the state of our railways?  I could go on and on.   

The point is though I just got my tax bill and you really are welcome to part of my earnings Britain.  Spend our money wisely though, because the British people are looking to see where the money, our money, is going.

How did we get here again?

Recovered from election night yet?  I don’t think I have.  Sitting through that evening as the results were coming in returned me to every other disappointing election night.  The grim analysis is that the people of Britain were faced with the possibility of real change, retreated to the safety of the familiar.  Overall it was a good night to be an incumbent.  What was also clear is that the Conservatives failed to engage the voters with either their vision or policies.  Cameron’s strategy of being elected through the simple expedient of not being Labour nearly led to his undoing.  Labour on the other hand must have been much satisfied with the result.  The normal sequences of affairs would have surely led them to be slaughtered on election night. 

As we all know however, these are not normal times.

Much has been made of the Liberal Democrat failure to break through.  I reckon such an event was not likely to happen, although in the heady days after the first leaders’ debate it felt like anything was possible.  The reality is that the Liberal Democrats did well not to be squeezed further.  Overall our proportion of the vote was slightly up, even if that was translated into five less seats under the current disreputable voting system.  This success, such as it was, is due in large part to Nick Clegg.    As libdems, we all love Sir Menzies Campbell but I shudder to think of the result  if Ming the Merciless had been still our leader and front-man on the debates.

Once the counting was over and the shock had settled on the country that there really was no clear winner, things started to get interesting.  In my last blog I warned of the dangers of coalition should these circumstances arise.  As Nick had said himself, he was honour-bound to talk first to the largest party if they were interested in coalition.  In terms of both popular UK vote and number of Commons seats, that is the Conservative Party.  I never believed that a coalition with Labour would have been a safe course for the Liberal Democrats to follow so it was with some relief that the quickest of glances at the parliamentary numbers showed that it was a near-impossibility.   It was my greatest fear for the Liberal Democrats that we would be swallowed and slowly digested into the Labour party.

It is a failure of character I know but when it comes to politics I am in my heart very tribal.  I despise Labour’s cynical abandonment of socialist principles in pursuit of power just as much as Conservatives’ pessimistic outlook on human nature which gives rise to their relentless championing of profit over people.  Both are negative reinforcements to my choosing to be a Liberal Democrat. It is therefore no great delight to me that the Tories are now our coalition partners.  Currently I am in a state of sadness that feels like it may have an enduring quality to it.  That is my heart speaking but what of my head?

Much surprise has been made on just how generous the terms of the coalition have been to the Liberal Democrats.  Really?  I don’t think they are that great.  The position of deputy Prime Minister is to my mind an unenviable one.  Apart from a great-sounding title and standing in at Prime Minister’s Question Time, what else does the post actually offer?  Nick Clegg is not leading any ministry nor are our other Libdem ministers in charge of any of the great offices of State: the Exchequer, the Home or the Foreign Offices.  I am glad that both Vince Cable and Chris Huhne are in good offices but of course I would have wished to have seen at least one of them in the position they were actually shadowing while in opposition.  Of course though, congratulations to all our people who have positions in the new government.

What is perhaps more important though is that many Liberal Democrat policies are now in prominent positions.  What is the use of impotent politics?  The best reason for entering politics is seeing that something is wrong with society and wanting to change it for the better.  And here we are, doing it for real.  Besides, it would have been hypocritical of the party to talk about doing things differently, to say that it doesn’t have to be this way with the two old parties and then, faced with the opportunity of making a real difference, slink back fearfully to our old corner of protest.

What is another interesting question is why so many of our policies made it through?  Certainly the right-wing of the Conservatives are furious with the level of concessions made to the Liberal Democrats.  If that is indeed the case it gives me a degree of grim satisfaction: certainly it is due payback for the vicious mauling we suffered at the hands of the right-wing press.  That aside, I think the reason why Cameron was so generous was because he had to be for his own survival.  He came very, very close to snatching defeat from the jaws of certain victory in the last election.  No political party, no matter what colour, tolerates abject failure from their leader.  In a minority Conservative government, Cameron would have been at the mercy of his party’s right wing who would have pointed out the failure of a central message and is only too ready to steer the party back into deep blue waters.  Instead, Cameron’s Conservative ship is now being trimmed with Libdems sails, allowing the government to keep close to the popular havens of the centre.  Cameron must hope that this will push the Labour Party out to towards the reefs on the Left come their leadership elections later this summer.

Where does that leave us Liberal Democrats?  First of all, on the receiving end of some understandable but unjustified accusations.  The policies that we campaigned upon are still our parties’ policies.  It is just that instead of being in opposition and not being able to implement any of them, we are now junior partners in a coalition with the ability to implement some of them.  It doesn’t mean that we are reneging on things like the abolition of tuition fees in higher education.  It does mean that we have agreed not to bring down the government about this issue by voting against them in the Commons.  I still want to see Britain give up it’s nuclear deterrent and will be actively campaigning for the party to get rid of Trident.  Coalitions do not last forever: it is important that good, sound policies are still in place once the parties do go their separate ways as they surely will in the end.

Labour backed out of serious coalition talks with us, calculating that come the next elections, the Liberal Democrats with be severely punished by the electorate, especially those who voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats.  What Labour never really understood is that in advocating the changes to the voting systems that we do, it was never really about given an advantage to just the Libdems.  If this country had a practical form of proportional  representation, then the people of Britain would be free to vote for the views that they really support and not just be shoe-horned into giving their mandate to either Labour, Conservatives or even ourselves.  It is about fairness, real democracy; not cynical control of the levers of power.  Tactical voting should not be necessary in a functioning democracy and it is a sad indictment of the current system that so many people had to resort to it in the last election and that Labour are relying on people to use it again come the next one.  In fact, a proportion voting system will probably lead to the wholesale reformation of all three major Westminster parties.  This may not be a bad thing either.

At the moment though, proportional representation is not on the agenda but rather the Alternative Vote system.  As Simon Hughes commented, it is a start; a move away from First Past the Post and should be welcomed as such.  It will be interesting to see though whether Labour will keep to their pledges on AV or whether their old regressive instincts will win out in the end.  

So here we all are.  Good luck to all the delegates at tomorrow’s special conference in Birmingham .  Tell the country that we are still who we said we are.  As for me, I feel like Coleridge’s wedding guest “a sadder and a wiser man, he woke the morrow morn.”

Coalition? Er, no thanks.

According to Conservative blogger Iain Dale, Nick Clegg is getting a bit uppity about his coalition demands.  After all,  Westminister is not Eton and as for the membership, well!  Libdems are certainly no more than a bunch of monochromed middle-class oiks.

All good-natured joshing aside, just why are us Liberal Democrats demanding equal billing (and that means equal numbers of cabinet ministers) in any coalition?  Aren't we just fresh off the political boat; rubes ripe to be turned over.

Not quite.  Although the Liberal Democrats have the potential to break through on May 6^th (and that dear Reader, is still very much up to the people of Britain), as a party we have experience of coalitions around the country.  Many councils are coalitions and -  note Mr Cameron, still function well.  The Welsh party were in coalition with Labour from 2000 to 2003.  Likewise the Scottish Libdems were part of the Scottish Executive with Labour as the senior partner from 2000 to 2008.

When Labour lost to the Scottish Nationalist Party, it was widely expected that the Liberal Democrats would retain our coalition position.  Certainly this was what the SNP wanted, expecting the then Libdem leader in Scotland, Nicol Stephen, to retain a fond attachment for the ministerial limo.  To the shock of all, that did not happen.  Scottish Liberal Democrats preferred to oppose and to this day the SNP is a minority government, supported by a deal cut with the Scottish Conservatives.

Why did the Libdems not enter into another coalition?  After all, we achieved many things while in power: free eye tests and care for the elderly are excellent examples.  We were in position to do real good and did so.  The rub though was that come polling day; the Liberal Democrats got all the blame and none of the credit.  Labour were only too happy to lay claim to popular policies.  The SNP were successful in pouring scorn onto what they called “the Lib-Lab government”.  The electoral results were not good for us. 

There is more though.  Let me make it clear that I am just a foot-slogger and not privy to talk above the salt.  A few titbits did make it down to bottom-feeders such as myself though.  I had heard that a senior member of the SNP later regretted that the coalition did not take place.  Apparently it threw all their plans into disarray.  During the campaign the SNP were making ludicrous claims about how they would put more police on the beat, cut class sizes, build more schools etc. while everybody knew there was absolutely no money available for these pipe dreams.  For all their shortcomings, the people who make up the SNP are not stupid.  They too knew that such promises could not be met.  The plan was however was to put the blame on their would-be coalition partners for blocking all these wonderful aspirations when budget time arrived.  Instead, they had to squeeze through a shambolic excuse of a plan with the help from the Tories.

“There comes a time to talk of many things.”  If not cabbages then at least king-making has returned to the Westminster agenda.   Two problems with that as far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned: the first being Labour.  As I have blogged several times in the past week, the attempts at heavy-petting from Brown’s party has been rejected with scorn as there is baggage in the relationship.  Labour has never forgiven the Gang of Four (Jenkins, Owen, Rodgers, and Williams) for splitting the party in the 1980s.  In their eyes, the Liberal Democrats remains an aberration; a coalition would the end-game towards final re-absorption of the Social Democrat Party.  In other words, Labour would attempt to swallow us whole.   Is this not merely paranoia on my part?  Not at all: on BBC’s Today Programme, Nick Robinson confirmed as much when reporting an unattributed  comment from a senior member of government “the unification of the centre-left would be the realisation of the New Labour dream.” [Quotation from memory].

On Sunday, Nick Clegg slammed the kissing gate on Labour fingers and coyly turned towards the Conservatives.  He had to: both to distance us from Brown and to keep all options open come 7^th of May.  While preferring an outright win for ourselves, we Liberal Democrats certainly do not want to see a Cameron majority on the ruling benches and thus there is all to play for.  Certainly there will be no danger of the Tories claiming the Libdems as their prodigal son so in that regard a Conservative-LibDem coalition will be less of a danger.  Though now we return to the perils of being the junior partner as illustrated above with our experience of the SNP.   Just how are the Conservatives going to pay for their civil-national service and tax-breaks for the rich?   As part of power, the Liberal Democrats would do some good only to be stiffed by both parties at the next election and a return to third-party obscurity.  That is why if any coalition is going to be entered into; the price is going to be very high indeed.

Otherwise, the opposition benches might start to look very comfortable, at least for another few years.  Liberal Democrats are a patient bunch.  We can wait.

A reply to Polly Toynbee's appeal to vote Labour

Polly, you never change.  People want more than realpolitik; the only thing left in the Labour larder.  What you in Labour have never recognised is that there are real and deep differences between the you and the Liberal Democrats.  Labour thinking still sees us as the errant children of the SDP and since the Red Menace has now been seen off, you cannot understand why Labour and the Liberal Democrats cannot be one again.

We cannot.  Labour is delving into areas of private life that is no business of any state.  It was Brown's love affair with unregulated markets and lending that help get Britain into this mess to begin with.  Labour still loves the boys' toys of strategic nuclear weapons and, worst of all, are only too willing to follow the USA into whatever madcap death-spree they want to pursue.

The British people want more that being sold to the highest bidder that is the Conservative vision but they also deserve more than the desperate clinging to power that Labour is asking for.  We deserve vision, ideas, involvement and real democracy.  We deserve to be treated like adults.   Britain needs new hope, backed up with new policies. 

That is why I am backing the Liberal Democrats.


(One can read Ms. Toybee's original article by clicking on the title)