Category Archives: Liberal Democrats

Who’d look worse in coalition – Keir Starmer or the Liberal Democrats?

“It’s all hypothetical”: but Keir Starmer and Ed Davey aren’t ruling out a coalition. But if their political positions are now compatible, how badly will the public suffer?

Keir Starmer has refused to rule out a coalition with the Liberal Democrats if his right-wing Labour Party can’t win an election on its own.

Who would look worse, in the eyes of the public, if that happened?

The Liberal Democrats, who lost dozens of Parliamentary seats after they went into coalition with the Conservatives for five years (2010-15)?

Or Starmer and his Labour Party, which would be admitting that it has drifted so far to the political right that it doesn’t deserve the attention, let alone the support, of traditional Labour supporters?

It’s Starmer, isn’t it?

Ironically, a coalition with the Lib Dems might make Labour more acceptable to the general public, considering the terrible policies it has adopted.

The BBC article about it is revealing about both Starmer and Ed Davey of the Lib Dems:

It all adds up to what looks like symmetrical flirting from Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

They each answer the question in exactly the same way, despite being able to be categoric about equally hypothetical situations of deals with the Conservatives and the SNP respectively.

Expect to see Tory MPs and ministers talk up what they see as the dangers of a hung parliament, with Labour reliant on other parties for support.

Good. Let the three Establishment parties mutter among themselves as though Westminster is their own little closed shop.

Meanwhile, the Greens, and former Labour representatives now standing as Independents, can actually talk with the voting public.

We are the ones who really matter.


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Ed Davey elected leader of the Party of Mischief

Irrelevant: Ed Davey (right) with former Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, who led the party to a crashing defeat including the loss of her own Parliamentary seat in the 2019 general election.

It doesn’t really matter who the new leader of the Liberal Democrats is; as an electoral force, that party is over.

Nowadays it has proved more useful to the Conservatives, as a way of ensuring Labour cannot get the seats the main Opposition party needs to win an election.

No doubt you’ve seen the literature that spews forth from the Lib Dems at every election saying “Labour can’t win here!” illustrated with the infamous Liberal Democrat block graph that has been doctored to make Labour’s share of the most recent vote look less than it actually was.

Most recently, both newly-elected party leader Sir Ed Davey and his rival Layla Moran outflanked Keir Starmer’s newly-centrist Labour Party by advocating left-wing policies including higher taxes for the rich and a Universal Basic Income – Corbynite policies that Starmer dropped like hot coals.

Davey will never be in government to enact those policies – but his party’s support of them shows up Starmer’s Labour as having abandoned its core support base.

The result is likely to be a drain of support from Labour to the Liberal Democrats, ensuring further victories for the Conservatives.

And that’s despite the fact that the current Conservative government under Boris Johnson gives incompetence a bad name.

Source: Sir Ed Davey wins Liberal Democrat leadership race – BBC News

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Fake news: Lib Dems condemned for campaign leaflets ‘imitating local papers’

You may be getting tired of this image, but it adequately describes the Liberal Democrat offer to the electorate.

This is awkward:

The Liberal Democrats are facing criticism over election campaign leaflets that look like local newspapers.

The party, led by Jo Swinson, has distributed material that mimics local papers as part of its election campaign leading to complaints from newspaper editors.

The Society of Editors has condemned the party for what it says “appears to be a concerted effort by the Liberal Democrats to mislead readers and voters”.

Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, suggested the move showed the party was taking a hypocritical stance on ‘fake news’.

He said: “It is ironic how it is often politicians who complain about fake news but then set out to at least blur the lines for readers – and in this case voters – by packaging their partial messages to ape independent newspapers.

“If political parties were genuine in their desire, often expressed, to both remove the effects of fake news and disinformation as well as support existing regional and local media they would take steps to ensure their political freesheets look markedly different to real newspapers.”

Indeed. This Writer received one through the door yesterday morning.

News from Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats, it thunders. When did Jo Swinson take ownership of the party as well as leadership?

And I wonder why Ms Swinson is being pushed as the bright beacon of the future, after her disastrous performances on the campaign trail and her disintegration in front of the BBC Question Time audience.

There’s a headline article about building a brighter future and a load of quotes from more and more people who are apparently backing the Liberal Democrats.

I’m willing to bet if I compared the quotes and the images with other Lib Dem election communications, I’d find the same things attributed to different images with different names. After all, they’ve done it before…

It’s all extremely propagandish and fake.

Still, at least it wasn’t a local leaflet ordering me to vote for them tactically, using a cleverly-inaccurate bar chart to convince me.

What a nauseating, patronising mob. Every time I receive one of their creepy leaflets I become even more determined to vote for someone else.

Source: Liberal Democrats condemned for campaign leaflets ‘imitating local newspapers’ – Manchester Evening News

Don’t believe Boris Johnson on benefits – he is only offering more poverty, misery and death

Boris Johnson: He can clap his hand over his mouth but he won’t stop the cruelty. That can only come with a government headed by somebody else.

Boris Johnson has finally published the Conservative manifesto amid a stink of embarrassment – and, for benefit claimants, a hard slap of insult.

Mr Johnson offers just one promise to benefit claimants – to reduce the frequency of Personal Independence Payment reassessments –  and I don’t believe it.

If Tories target a disabled person to lose their benefit, they will find an excuse to do so. Scheduled reassessments may be cut – but Mrs Mike has been threatened with random reassessments on many occasions, triggered by any reason the DWP could cook up.

The end to the freeze on working-age benefits is not a new policy; it has been set to happen in 2020 since it was introduced.

Universal Credit goes untouched, despite being possibly the biggest catastrophe to hit vulnerable people in the UK since the welfare state was introduced in the 1940s.

Mr Johnson has promised to continue impoverishing people from the moment they are forced to claim the benefit, with a five-week wait that we know pushes people towards starvation and homelessness as they struggle to pay the bills and stay out of the food bank.

(Tories think food banks are fantastic, by the way – except when they want to pretend Labour is responsible for their proliferation.)

Beyond that, the Tory manifesto offers nothing else but a vague promise to “do more to make sure” UC works.

Hang on! I’ve heard that before, somewhere! Isn’t it what the DWP says, every time the news reports a Universal Credit-related death?

Bang! Someone dies. The Tory-run DWP says, “We promise to learn the lesson.”

Boom! Another one bites the dust. The Tory-run DWP says, “We will do more to make sure UC works.”

There is only one conclusion to be had:

Universal Credit will never work for its claimants.

And as far as the Conservatives are concerned, it works best when it is killing people.

But what of other aspects of the benefit system? Here’s a quick rundown:

The Conservatives with NOT end the cruelty of the Bedroom Tax, nor do they have any intention of increasing the Local Housing Allowance to protect people against the threat of eviction.

The Conservatives will NOT end the so-called “digital barrier” that obstructs people who have trouble coping with computers and the internet from claiming benefits. They like putting obstacles before the poor.

The Conservatives will NOT end the five-week wait for Universal Credit payments.

The Conservatives will NOT end Work Capability Assessments, or PIP assessments.

The Conservatives will NOT end their cruel sanction regime.

The Conservatives will NOT scrap the benefit cap.

The Conservatives will NOT end the two-child limit on benefits and scrap the so-called ‘rape clause’. They like humiliating women who have already been violated.

The Conservatives will NOT try to ensure that women are no longer forced to stay in abusive relationships by the system by paying the child element of benefits to the primary carer.

Still, the Liberal Democrat offer is little better.

Jo Swinson is quite happy to keep Universal Credit. She thinks reducing the wait from five weeks to five days might help – apart from that, she offers nothing to anybody apart from the self-employed, to whom a Lib Dem government (that will not happen, of course) would be “more supportive” – whatever that means.

Other Liberal Democrat offers are just plain vague. What do they mean when they say they’ll abolish Work Capability Assessments (WCAs) and replace them with “a new system that is run by local authorities and based on real-world tests”? Does anybody know?

How will Ms Swinson “enshrine in law the government’s responsibility to ensure that existing and new public policy is audited for its impact on food security”?

These are brutal times. People need hard promises, not meaningless mummery.

In fairness, the Liberal Democrats do make a few good, hard promises. But another party has made the same promises and does have a realistic chance of forming a government and making them real: Labour.

Yes, it’s great that the Lib Dems would like to end the two-child limit on benefits, end the benefit cap, abolish the Bedroom Tax and increase local housing allowance, reverse cuts to Employment and Support Allowance for people in the Work-Related Activity Group, and reinstate the Independent Living Fund.

But you can be sure that the only way the Liberal Democrats will get into government in December is in coalition with another party; having already ruled out allying with Labour, that means Ms Swinson’s only option is the Conservatives, and the Tories will never allow any measures to relieve the pressure on the poor.

A Labour government would actually do those things.

And Labour would cancel Universal Credit and replace it with a system that is a genuine benefit for people claiming it.

Labour would dissolve the DWP and replace it with a revamped Department for Social Security, ending the environment of suspicion and persecution that was instilled by Iain Duncan Smith and replacing it with support for those in need.

(This Writer worked in the old DSS, before it was rolled into the DWP. The automatic assumption there was that claimants were telling the truth about their situation, about their disabilities, and about their needs – not that they are lying, as is the claim now. It was a better place to work, and it was better for the claimants too.)

But you know Labour’s offer – it’s all right here.

Boris Johnson’s manifesto shows an intention to continue the cruel Conservatism we’ve endured for nearly 10 years.

Let’s take this opportunity to tell him where he can stuff it.

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Election 2019: Tories (and Lib Dems) have offered nothing but empty promises about poverty

Need a miracle: but people in poverty won’t get it from the Tories or their little yellow helpers, the Liberal Democrats.

These are the facts:

Wages are still £20 per week below pre-financial crash levels; take the top 10 per cent of earners out of the calculation and they fall far below.

Household debt is at its highest.

The so-called “jobs miracle” doesn’t mean more people are in work; it means poor people are being driven to take on extra jobs.

Half of non-home owners now doubt they will ever be able to afford a house.

Food bank use has increased by the highest amount in five years.

Four in 10 people do not believe they’ll have a decent standard of living in 10 years’ time.

Debt and anxiety are on the rise – and those living below the poverty line have fallen a massive 30 per cent below the threshold (which, at 60 per cent of median income, has also dropped to a lower level of income than in 2010)

Those are important. But perhaps the personal story in Polly Toynbee’s article gets the point across in a better way.

She refers to Thiara Sanchez, who was the daughter of a cleaner at the Treasury during the 2010 election campaign.

Days before that poll, she made an important speech highlighting the effect of poverty pay on her mother and grandmother (also a Treasury cleaner) and the knock-on effect on the family.

She needed a laptop to do her homework but couldn’t afford it; sometimes her family spent a week eating lentils because that was all they could afford; she hardly saw her mother because that woman could not afford to use the tube and the three buses she used took a long time.

Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg (remember them?) made promises about poverty, and they slithered into government together as a coalition. And what happened to Ms Sanchez and her family?

The spent several months living rough after being evicted from a flat – sleeping on buses and park benches and missing school – until they were rescued by Catholic nuns.

Her mother died of pancreatic cancer at the painfully young age of 49. So much for NHS England’s record of cancer detection and treatment. Her grandmother has severe dementia and returned to Spain – because care in the UK has been run down so badly by the Tories and Lib Dems?

Ms Sanchez herself managed to get through university and has a first-class degree in human resource management – and an enormous student debt thanks to the Lib Dems, who reneged on their promise to end student tuition fees, the instant they got into government.

She cannot get a job; employers want experience. She hopes a Masters degree might help, but this means another £10,000 of student debt.

She shares a flat with three men she does not know, at a cost of £500 a month. It’s the cheapest she can find; so much for Tory/Lib Dem housing policies.

Her story is a nine-year saga that is an indictment against the Tories (and Lib Dems) – who haven’t failed, by the way.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats achieved exactly what they set out to do, which was to shrink state spending, make the rich richer and crush the poor beneath the weight of their own poverty.

And now they are carrying out a new election campaign with an air of triumphalism – completely ignoring the fact that they have harmed – or killed – millions of people for good of their own petty ambitions.

And there are still people who will vote for them. Why?

Source: Poverty is at crisis levels, but Boris Johnson doesn’t care | Polly Toynbee | Opinion | The Guardian

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Thinking of voting Liberal Democrat? Think again – for all our sakes

You may be getting tired of this image, but it adequately describes the Liberal Democrat offer to the electorate.

The Liberal Democrats are apparently enjoying a surge in support in marginal London constituencies – why? In office, they were a disaster for the UK.

Do people really have such short memories that they have forgotten the legacy of the Coalition government? Liberal Democrats helped ruin the UK – especially for young voters such as those who are being targeted by the party now.

As Rhiannon Lucy Coslett points out in The Guardian, the very first thing the Liberal Democrats did in government was renege on their election promises.

Where they had promised to abolish tuition fees, they tripled those fees instead. Current Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson gleefully supported this policy.

The Liberal Democrats also supported the Tory imposition of austerity on people whose income fell below a certain level. Young people most of all.

For further details of Ms Swinson’s “record of shame”, see:

Result: “Now, there are homeless people everywhere, food bank use has skyrocketed, the housing crisis has worsened, the right is now the far right, zero-hours contracts are common, and just over half the country [actually just over half those who voted] has voted to take away its citizens’ ability to live and work in 27 European countries.

“Racism has become normalised. An MP has been murdered, many others threatened and harassed. Disabled people, migrants and black British citizens face a hostile environment.”

These are consequences of Liberal Democrats in government, made possible by people voting for the Liberal Democrats.

Now, the Lib Dems are promising to revoke Article 50 and put a stop to Brexit. They know they will never take enough Parliamentary seats to make this possible.

But they also know that it will take votes away from Labour – online tactical voting tools are advising people to vote Lib Dem in marginals where Labour has the only candidate that could beat the Conservative, according to the 2017 results.

This means that, in many constituencies, a vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for a Conservative government.

And we can see that the Lib Dems would support the Tories more than Labour. Jo Swinson loathes Jeremy Corbyn, even though – as Ms Coslett notes – Labour is offering what the Liberal Democrats said they wanted: a second referendum. She adds:

“Her party is not focused on reversing generational injustice; on the contrary, it has enabled it. The Lib Dems – with Swinson as a coalition government minister – were happy to work with the Conservatives to slash benefits, cut social care and play havoc with the health service. Their political conscience only seemed to return when Brexit threatened their world view and their interests. Ideologically, they largely overlap with the vanishing “moderate” wing of the Tories – whose MPs are now defecting to the Lib Dem party.”

The message is clear: If you vote Liberal Democrat, you will get Tory. For young people, that is tantamount to self-harm.

Also: what’s this about new evidence which confirms that the Liberal Democrats sold voter data to the Remain campaign in 2016 for almost £100,000 being withheld from public scrutiny by the Information Commissioner’s Office?

And what’s this about the Liberal Democrats spamming voters with junk mail?

As I write this, the infamous Liberal Democrat policy – of putting bar charts on election literature claiming that their candidate is the only one who can beat the incumbents – is being ridiculed on the BBC’s Politics Live.

It seems they have been printing bar charts showing them as the biggest party in particular constituencies – by omitting the parties that had a higher vote share than them. The example quoted is notable for failing to show the Labour and Brexit Party vote.

So: take the evidence as a whole, rather than just Lib Dem literature, and the accurate picture of the Liberal Democrats is of a party that will promise anything to get into power and then break all those promises without compunction; a party that will lie to the electorate in order to secure votes; a party that will enable the Conservatives to get back into power, even though the majority of its supporters hate the Tories; and a party that will sell all our young people down the river once again – if it gets the opportunity.

You’d have to be crazy to vote Liberal Democrat.

Spread the word.

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Terrible Liberal Democrat policy blunders: they’d impose permanent austerity

Evolve Politics has called this one right, I’d say.

Starting from the terrible position into which the Tories have plunged us – huge and increasing national debt, with profitable public services privatised – it would be impossible for them to provide the investment we need and meet their “budget surplus” rule.

It’s playground economics – and may be worse even than the Tory economic plan revealed by Sajid Javid a few days ago.

The Liberal Democrats have slammed Labour’s plans to invest in public services and promised to put Britain into a state of permanent austerity if they win power in the upcoming General Election on December 12th.

Announcing the party’s economic vision at a speech in Leeds yesterday, the Lib Dem’s Deputy Leader, Ed Davey, hit out at Labour’s promise to pump investment into the NHS and other public services by labelling the plans as “fantasies” which would wreck the country’s finances.

Davey also promised that, if they attained power, the Lib Dems would implement a fiscal rule which would compel them to run a permanent 1% budget surplus at minimum.

Davey’s fiscal rule pledge would mean that, under the Lib Dems, spending on public services would remain permanently lower than the amount brought in through tax reciepts.

The Lib Dems’ plans would effectively prohibit the party from providing any extra investment into public services, such as the NHS or schools, unless the government were able to raise more money through tax rises or spending cuts elsewhere – even if the services were in desperate need of extra funds.

Source: Liberal Democrats pledge to implement PERMANENT AUSTERITY if they get into government | Evolve Politics

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Lib Dem rift as local members refuse to help replace candidate who stood down to stop a Tory win

Too close to Johnson: Jo Swinson (left) has made it seem she is supporting Tory Brexit after announcing her determination to stand a candidate in Canterbury, possibly splitting the vote to allow a hard-Brexiteer Tory to take the seat.

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson was facing a swingeing attack today – from her own party, as she moved to replace an election candidate who has withdrawn in order to allow a ‘Remain’-supporting Labour representative a stronger chance to beat a Brexiteer Tory.

The decision to replace Tim Walker with another candidate has opened Ms Swinson to accusations that she wants Tory Anna Firth, a former “Vote Leave stalwart” to take the seat from incumbent Rosie Duffield, in a move that would support Boris Johnson’s plan for a ‘hard’ Brexit.

Mr Walker made his feelings clear in a comment piece for The Guardian. He wrote: “In the last election, she [Ms Duffield] won the traditionally Tory seat on the slimmest of margins – fewer than 200 votes – and, while I was confident I could substantially increase the Lib Dem vote on the back of my party’s national resurgence, it was clear there was a danger I’d divide the remainers. That would allow in our common enemy, Anna Firth, the Tory candidate and an avowed hard Brexiter and former Vote Leave stalwart.

“I share with many members of my party locally a visceral dread of the Commons being filled with people like Firth. Trying to stop that happening is now more important than ever given Nigel Farage’s unholy alliance with Johnson.

“I’ve therefore asked that my local party withdraw my nomination papers to stand for Canterbury… The nightmare that kept me awake was posing awkwardly at the count beside a vanquished Duffield as the Tory Brexiter raised her hands in triumph. I wanted no part in that.”

How sad that it seems his party leader does want a part in that.

Almost immediately after Mr Walker made his announcement, the Liberal Democrat leadership announced that Mr Walker would be replaced with another candidate – indicating a willingness to create exactly the situation he wanted to avoid.

Now, local party sources have said all four members approved to stand as MPs have said they will not. And if a candidate is parachuted in by Ms Swinson, they are unlikely to receive any support – and may even be met with negativity.

The decision to replace Mr Walker has created an opportunity for Ms Swinson’s political opponents – and they have seized it:

And this is not the only problem the Liberal Democrats are facing.

Kevin McNamara has withdrawn as candidate for Thurrock after a series of images emerged purporting to show tweets posted by him that included racial and homophobic slurs.

It seems the Liberal Democrat campaign is falling apart, before it has properly got started.

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Former Tory triggers row by trying to blame Labour for the Grenfell Tower inferno

Accusation: Sam Gyimah shows us the kind of man he is.

As ‘Third Sector Workhouse’ suggested on Twitter: “There is no sewer the Lib Dems will not crawl through.”

And what could we expect, after Yellow Tory Jo Swinson allowed so many Conservatives into her party?

Tories thrive on lies, perversity and falsehood.

So we have already seen the London Fire Brigade burdened with the blame for the deaths of 72 people in Grenfell Tower, after its officers followed safety procedures ordered by the Conservative-run local authority.

Meanwhile we know the main cause of the deaths was the flammable cladding that the Tory-controlled council allowed to be used on the building.

Now Sam Gyimah – a former Conservative who is now squatting with the Liberal Democrats – is claiming that current Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad must bear some responsibility because she was formerly a member of the council.

She was in opposition and had no power to stop the Tories in charge from doing any stupid thing they liked.

Former Tory minister Sam Gyimah has claimed his Labour election rival was partially responsible for the decisions that led to the Grenfell Tower fire.

Mr Gyimah, now the Liberal Democrat candidate for Kensington, refused to be drawn on suggestions his former party’s policies on austerity and the neglect of social housing played a role in the blaze that killed 72 people.

But he suggested current Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad, who won the marginal constituency from the Tories by just 20 votes in 2017, could have stopped some of the decisions that led to the tragedy in her previous role as a Labour councillor on the Tory-dominated local authority.

The claim drew a furious response from Ms Dent Coad, who called the claim “absolutely sickening”.

She did indeed. And she said: “Labour councillors, working with the community, repeatedly raised concerns about cost-cutting by Kensington Tories, and residents were ignored when they said this was a tragedy waiting to happen.

“It is absolutely sickening that Sam Gyimah is trying to shift the blame for the horror of Grenfell away from austerity, which was imposed by his former party the Conservatives and supported in coalition by his current party the Lib Dems.

“Sam Gyimah trying to mislead the people of Kensington proves that you cannot trust either the Tories or the Liberal Democrats, and if you vote Lib Dem, you get Boris Johnson.”

Quite right.

I think you can tell who was talking sense – and it wasn’t Mr Gyimah!

Vote Labour, people of Kensington and Chelsea!

Source: Lib Dem Sam Gyimah triggers row after suggesting Labour election rival partially responsible for Grenfell fire | The Independent

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Weekend Vox Pop: which party has made the stupidest mistake of the election so far, and what was it?

What do you think? I want to hear from you!

Which UK political party has made the biggest fool of itself in the 2019 general election campaign so far?

Was it the Conservative Party? Labour? The Liberal Democrats? Plaid Cymru? The SNP? The Greens? The DUP? Sinn Fein, even?

And what was their error?

Already you have a huge number of cringeworthy gaffes from which to choose.

Please respond using the comment column and I’ll publish some results over the weekend.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
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