Beastrabban, over on his weblog, thinks the Lib Dems are leading their supporters right up the garden path to a “no deal” Brexit.
In response to my article earlier this week in which a Scottish Liberal Democrat MP admitted he would prefer “no deal” to putting Jeremy Corbyn in 10 Downing Street, the Beast wrote:
“I don’t see the Lib Dems as a genuine party of ‘remain’. Their stance on this is a fraud, as is their entire party.
“Apparently, the proportion of Lib Dem members supporting Remain is only 2% higher than the Labour Party. Swinson herself did precious little to back the ‘Remain’ campaign during the referendum. While Corbyn crisscrossed the country, Swinson issued one, lukewarm tweet.
“I very, very much doubt that she personally backs ‘Remain’ at all.
“But she does back the Tories. She consistently voted for all of the Tory government’s policies, including its attacks on the NHS, welfare state, education, the whole lot. She’s a ‘progressive’ who wants to put up a statue to Maggie Thatcher. Who was a friend of the Chilean Fascist General Pinochet.”
He adds that in his opinion “she’s a liar and a fraud. Her party are also lying to you. They want another right-wing government with them in it, which will privatise the NHS and cut welfare benefits even further. They also want a ‘no deal’ Brexit, but realise that to get support they have to pretend to be the party of Remain. And hence all the lying about how Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t have the numbers, isn’t the right man, etc.
“Behind the yellow facade, they’re just Tories. Treat them like it, and don’t listen or give them your precious votes.”
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I’m going to keep using this image because it clearly labels the Liberal Democrats.
Scottish Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone was caught on TV admitting that he would prefer a “no deal” Brexit to Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister, “every time”.
He has since backtracked – spectacularly unconvincingly – on his statement, claiming that the Liberal Democrats are hoping to find a prime ministerial candidate who can muster a majority in the House of Commons that Mr Corbyn can’t manage.
Of course, he neglected to mention that the only reason Mr Corbyn hasn’t secured such a majority is the fact that the LDs are set against him – possibly because they have the bizarre belief that they can foist Jo Swinson on the public as a prime ministerial alternative.
Mr Stone made his comments on the BBC’s Politics Scotland.
The presenter asked: “If no-one else does emerge and the choice that you face is between Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister or a no-deal Brexit, then your position is – you’re a pro-European party, you’re anti no-deal, where do you stand? Is it Jeremy Corbyn or is it no-deal?”
Mr Stone replied: “It is ‘no deal’ every time.”
That seems perfectly clear.
However, he later said: “I was quite clear in the whole interview that I oppose no-deal and oppose putting Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10.
So, “it is ‘no deal’ every time” means “I oppose ‘no deal'”? I don’t believe that.
“I is no use Labour deliberately misquoting me so as to twist the truth.”
It’s not a misquote; it’s what he said.
“People across the UK do not have to choose between no-deal and Corbyn. That is why the Liberal Democrats are working across parties to stop Brexit and want a new Prime Minister who can get the numbers to do that.”
That won’t be Jo Swinson, then. It would be Mr Corbyn. All the Liberal Democrats have to do is swallow their pride and put their weight behind him.
Otherwise, it’s clear they’d rather have “no deal”, as Ray Ellis asserts:
So there you have it: all the other opposition parties will unite behind the Leader of the Opposition to stop No Deal, but the "Bollocks to Brexit" party actually prefers No Deal to 2 weeks of Corbyn in Number 10. https://t.co/FS1sxW4WSU
You’ll have noticed I suggested that the Liberal Democrats actually believe they can get Tory enabler Jo Swinson installed as prime minister, in a weird rejection of reality. This is based on the revelation that they have a plan to win a future general election: “Team 320”.
It seems clear, then, that they are waiting for Boris Johnson to fail in his bid to achieve Brexit by October 31, in the hope that a general election will then win the support of Parliament and that they can win it.
This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so dangerous.
— Gracie Samuels 🌹#NotMyRacistPM #ToriesOutIn2Years (@GracieSamuels) October 2, 2019
Don’t they realise this means they are supporting the Tories’ bid to achieve “no deal”?
There won’t be a majority for a general election until they swing behind Mr Corbyn, so all they are doing is offering Boris Johnson more time to get the Brexit he wants.
And haven’t they worked out that they’re looking for support from the very people they shafted, in Coalition with those “no deal” Tories up until four short years ago?
#JoSwinsonFacts is asking people to donate £100 per month to the .@LibDems these are the very same people she voted with the Tories to axe their benefits! Including cutting benefits to disabled people and confiscating their cars leaving them suicidal and housebound.
— Gracie Samuels 🌹#NotMyRacistPM #ToriesOutIn2Years (@GracieSamuels) October 2, 2019
Jo Swinson is an embarrassment to politics. So is Jamie Stone.
But a worse embarassment would be letting them screw up our chance to get rid of our festering Boris Johnson-infested Tory government.
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This is nothing but sheer cheek from Jo Swinson and her Liberal Democrat upstarts.
They have said they are keen to consider electoral pacts with other pro-Remain political parties – but not Labour.
What make them think Labour would ever give them the option?
Liberal Democrats are liars.
They are right-wingers – Tory-lite, one might say – who will allow anyone into their party if it boosts their representation in the House of Commons.
They are not democrats – they have just voted to unilaterally revoke Brexit, if elected into government (fortunately that will never happen).
They mislead the public whenever possible – consider Jo Swinson’s claim that an electoral pact worked in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election. The Guardian reported her as saying:
There was obviously success for that kind of arrangement in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election. Plaid Cymru and the Green party stood aside, stood shoulder to shoulder if you like, with the Liberal Democrats and Jane Dodds was elected to be a very unequivocal voice in parliament for remain. So, that happened already and it’s successful.
In fact the boost to the Liberal Democrats was negligible and a convicted criminal – Chris Davies, the Conservative candidate – would have been elected again if the Brexit Party had not been standing.
Jo Swinson is a habitual liar; she just can’t seem to stop.
And if her party has been anything different since 2010, she is certainly modelling it in her own lying image now.
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This bird is dead – as dead as any reputation for honesty the Liberal Democrats may have once had.
This investigation by Koser Saeed of Spotlight Newspaper UK on Facebook speaks for itself.
But just in case you need the result of the evidence spelt out for you: The Liberal Democrats spent months promising to act on Female Genital Mutilation, then voted against a law to do just that.
You can be sure they’ll treat their resolutions at this year’s party conference with the same cavalier insincerity.
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Hypocrisy: Vince Cable, who was a minister in the Coalition government and oversaw the disastrous privatisation of the Royal Mail as well as voting for the increase in tuition fees, is set to announce the new policy at the Liberal Democrat conference.
The Liberal Democrats are saying they want to give people £9,000 to fund learning, nine years after they reneged on their promise to end university tuition fees and increased them to £9,000 instead.
Does Jo Swinson think we have forgotten?
It was the fundamental betrayal that set the tone of the so-called ConDem coalition for the next five years.
Here’s the Mirror to explain the idea:
A motion at this weekend’s party conference will see Vince Cable push a £1.5 billion plan for a universal Education and Skills Account which would see the Government hand every person £3,000 when they turn 25, 40 and 55.
The amounts would be designed to “encourage workers to retrain into shortage occupations”.
It is hugely hypocritical of Swinson’s party.
This is the party that took away people’s ability to get the qualifications they needed for the career they wanted.
Now it says it would use the money from that policy to shoe-horn the same people into jobs a Liberal Democrat government would say are needed.
This is a policy to deny people the ability to choose their own careers; their own paths in life.
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Number 10: What strategy will put Jeremy Corbyn in the prime minister’s house?
Simon Wren-Lewis on his Mainly Macro blog raises an interesting question: with the Brexit Party making overtures to the Tories about an electoral pact, should Labour and the Liberal Democrats do the same?
He makes some good points in favour of it – there are many seats where it would make sense for either party to stand aside, allowing the other a greater opportunity for victory, and it makes no sense for the Liberal Democrats to try to block Labour, only to let the “no deal Brexit” parties have a majority in the House of Commons. Every Liberal Democrat attacking Labour is supporting a Johnson/Cummings administration.
But if the Liberal Democrats have any kind of reputation at the moment, it is for treachery. They cannot be trusted. That position will only have been strengthened – against Labour – with the defections to that party of former Labour and Conservative MPs. That will push Labour away.
And the Liberal Democrats themselves may fear that Tory propaganda painting Jeremy Corbyn as the Devil himself will put marginal Tory voters off switching to them, if they go into a pact with Labour.
So Professor Wren-Lewis is supporting tactical voting – supporting the LDs where they have a more realistic chance of winning, and Labour where that party would fare better.
But his logic isn’t perfect. He says voting for a Labour MP who supports leaving the EU will not help as such a person would not support a second referendum with remaining in the EU on the paper – but this fails to take into account the fact that such a referendum is Labour policy and it is better to have a government with such a policy, if you are a remainer, than a government former by a Johnson/Cummings/Farage “no deal Brexit” alliance.
He also says the Tories can expect around 350 seats according to current polling, but he is out of date. Current polling, it seems, suggests the Tories could only muster around 285 seats unless they win constituencies that would be far from their grip usually.
He also suggests that Labour cannot hope to enjoy the huge surge it had in 2017 because Dominic Cummings will use all the social media expertise he learned during the EU referendum campaign to undermine it. This ignores the fact that the media will have to ditch their anti-Labour bias by law, that hundreds of thousands of young people are signing up to vote just so they can support Labour, and that Labour has a thriving social media presence of its own that has made mincemeat of the Tories on that platform for years.
I mean, you’re reading This Site – right?
Professor Wren-Lewis is right to sound a note of caution – but I wonder if he is going too far.
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Jo Swinson: It’s an old pic but we don’t have any actual images of her negotations with Rory Stewart and his pals.
If this is true (and it’s a Sunday Times report, so that’s debatable), then it confirms the Liberal Democrats’ rightward drift since Jo Swinson took over as leader.
Remember last week, when former Tory Phillip Lee crossed the floor of the House of Commons to sit with the Liberal Democrats – prompted the party’s LGBT representative, Jenny Rigg, to quit?
She tweeted her anger at what she saw as her party’s capitulation to Toryism.
And it seems she was right:
Rebel Tories expelled from the party are in talks with the Liberal Democrats about a non-aggression pact.
The former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron is helping to broker a deal between Rory Stewart, an expelled Conservative and neighbouring Cumbrian MP, and the new leader, Jo Swinson, insiders say.
Under the proposal, Stewart would stand as an independent MP at the next general election but agree to accept a soft Lib Dem whip in exchange for the party not fielding a candidate against him. It is understood that the Green Party would also stand aside in Stewart’s Penrith seat.
[Other expelled Tory rebels including Sam Gyimah and Margot James are implicated in the deal.]
Make no mistake: a deal would only be possible if the Liberal Democrat leadership and the expelled Conservatives were able to see eye-to-eye politically.
And Ms Swinson’s behaviour makes it clear that it is her party that has moved into conjunction with the Tories, not the other way round.
This must be heartbreaking for all the traditional Liberals who have supported their party through nightmares like the Coalition government and beyond – not to mention those who voted LD because they want to remain in the EU. What a bare-faced betrayal.
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Mrs Mike would like to put Jane Dodds on notice that if another piece of electioneering drivel comes through our letterbox, she’ll happily shove it as far down the Liberal Democrat’s throat as she can reach.
“I’m just sick and tired of it,” she’s telling me right now. “It’s constant. Why waste so much money on this when it doesn’t say anything [I’m paraphrasing here; the actual language was much less diplomatic] about helping people who need it – the sick, the disabled, people who’ve had everything taken from them by the dratted [more paraphrasing] Tories.”
The correspondence that caused so much ire was another leaflet – this time disguised as a personal and handwritten letter, delivered direct to the recipient. In fact it is another Fib Dem leaflet, printed by a company in Bristol (another snub against this constituency, which has perfectly decent printers of its own).
“Dear Neighbour,” the leaflet says – another giveaway that it isn’t personal at all, and another lie; Ms Dodds lives in Welshpool, which isn’t even in the constituency.
There’s a bit of flannel about the “wonderfully warm reception” she’s had across “our” community. “Our” community? You have to live in it first!
Then she tells us “Westminster politics has failed people across Powys” – showing she doesn’t recognise the difference between Brecon and Radnorshire constituency and the county that contains it. And if Westminster politics has failed us, aren’t the Liberal Democrats partly to blame – they let the Tories into power and propped them up for five years, enthusiastically supporting every bit of legislation that stole from ordinary people and gave to the super-rich.
The Liberal Democrats’ supreme achievement during those five years, it seems, was to apply a 5p tax to plastic bags – bought at the cost of inflicting deep cuts in benefits for the sick and disabled. You see, Mrs Mike was right to be angry.
“We shouldn’t suffer in silence while essential local services like buses, shops and cashpoints disappear from our communities,” she writes, even though – if she becomes MP – she won’t be suffering at all; she’ll have £70,000 a year of our money to cushion the impact.
“We shouldn’t settle for patients having to endure long waiting times and journeys to get essential health treatment.” As I grow tired of continually pointing out, health is a devolved matter – on which I am told the incumbent Liberal Democrat AM has not fared well (see today’s article about Chris Davies). In any case, the Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government is already pouring nearly £2 million extra cash into Powys teaching Health Board, so there will be little for an elected Jane Dodds to do about it but sit back and count the zeroes on the paycheque that she hasn’t earned.
“We shouldn’t stay quiet while our farming industry is under threat or when working parents have to rely on foodbanks to feed their children. The hypocrisy here really is unbearable. The only reason anybody here has to rely on foodbanks is that the Liberal Democrats joined forces with the Tories to force them.
That’s the point you need to remember. Never mind the rest – it’s a waste of time reading it.
Mrs Mike is still talking: “These Lib Dems were in coalition with the Conservatives – that’s when they caused all the problems.
“They screwed everybody over.
“People are starving, losing their homes because they can’t pay their rent.
“School kids are going hungry – and that’s not on. All down to what the Liberal Democats did with the Conservatives.”
And she said: “They’re on our doorsteps now but they never come round after they’ve been elected. They don’t want to know you then.
“If Jane bloody Dodds gets elected we won’t hear from her again until the next election. That’s not representation.”
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What a pleasure to have something good to say about one of the by-election leaflets pouring through my letterbox!
It comes from Labour candidate Tom Davies; it’s down-to-Earth, makes no promises it can’t keep, and it addresses issues that are affecting us all – now.
He rejects ‘no deal’ Brexit and backs a final say referendum, in which he will be campaigning in support of remaining in the EU.
He supports Welsh Labour’s commitment to achieve a carbon-neutral public sector by 2030, and a shift away from fossil fuels across Wales – to combat the climate crisis.
He supports the Labour Assembly Government’s policies to provide 100,000 all-age apprenticeships, 20,000 more affordable homes and the best childcare for working parents in the whole of the UK.
And he says a Labour government in Westminster would end austerity, invest in public services, introduce a Real Living Wage (in other words it would be enough to ensure no working person would have to claim benefits), and a cap on energy prices. He doesn’t say he would bring this in immediately, because we don’t have a Labour government now – but adding him to Labour’s ranks would make it more likely in the future.
Compare this with the leaflet from UKIP’s Liz Phillips. If elected, she would be that party’s sole MP in Westminster, yet she claims she would:
End the TV licence
Control immigration
Make Brexit happen
Save the countryside and
Scrap the Welsh Assembly
That’s quite a tall order for 1/650th of the MPs in Parliament. How’s she going to get everyone else to go along with that wish-list?
Oh, and she’d oppose windfarms, too. Apparently she doesn’t feel quite as sure she’ll get support on that one.
Most risible of all is the letter from Nigel Farage of the Brexit Party.
If his candidate – Des Parkinson – is elected, he would be the Brexit Party’s sole MP in Westminster – so he’s in the same position as Ms Phillips.
The letter states that if elected, this solitary MP would “refuse to pay the £39 billion ransom” – Mr Farage’s word. My understanding is that this is money the UK committed to pay into the EU before the 2016 referendum – “… scrap the multi-billion pound HS2 vanity project. And… cut the bloated, wasteful Foreign Aid budget”. How, exactly, does he intend to get at least 326 other MPs on board for that? This letter doesn’t say.
“Then we’ll take £200 billion and invest it in transport and digital infrastructure projects around Britain… That’s more than twice as much as they spent rebuilding post-war Europe.” And once inflation is taken into account, how much is it then? And there’s still no information on how Mr Parkinson intends to sway all of Parliament to his massive Brexiteering will.
“It will be areas such as Wales that will reap the benefits.” This is the bribe. Mr Farage wants you to think his party would get money spent here – and directly after the election on Thursday. Impossible.
The rest of the letter is an attack – not on the so-called “bookies’ favourite”, Jane Dodds of the Liberal Democrats, or even on former incumbent Chris Davies of the Conservatives – but on the Labour Party which is currently considered to be behind in public opinion (despite the clear worthiness of Tom Davies’ position and policies).
How bizarre. Does Mr Farage think stealing Labour’s votes will leap-frog his candidate beyond Mr Davies or Ms Dodds?
Well… it’s possible, I suppose.
Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds has built her campaign on stealing votes from other parties. Her local policy platform is non-existent – she might as well have come out and said, “I won’t do a single damned thing for the people of Brecon and Radnorshire.” But she thinks she can win tactical votes from Labour supporters by claiming to be the only candidate who can beat Chris Davies, and from Remain supporters by claiming to represent the only party that supports staying in the European Union.
Mr Davies has been relatively quiet – unless his leafletters have simply been avoiding Vox Political Towers. His attitude is that he belongs to the party that is currently in government, so if you want Brexit, you should vote for him, despite the fact that he has been convicted of falsifying his Parliamentary expenses. He seems to be relying on the rump of 7,000+ voters who’ll put their tick in the Tory box, no matter what.
Mr Parkinson may take some of the right-wing vote from Mr Davies, and is certainly likely to take pro-Brexit voters away from the Tory. He may also take pro-Brexit voters away from Ms Dodds. But Ms Phillips is likely to do the same – and who knows what harm UKIP and the Brexit Party will do each other?
And then there’s Tom Davies. He has made it clear that he supports remaining in the EU, and is in a party that has far more chance of ensuring that happens – if another vote takes place – than the Liberal Democrats will ever have. A remain-supporting vote for Jane Dodds is a useless protest, nothing more. But will his offer lure Remain supporters away from her? Or has she fooled too many Labour supporters into wasting their vote on her? Remember: her canvassers have been telling voters that Labour doesn’t even have a candidate in this by-election – a flat-out lie.
So these are the choices for voters in Brecon and Radnorshire on Thursday (August 1):
Two candidates who’ll be able to do nothing if elected; a convict; a liar; and Labour.
I’ll be voting Labour – because democracy is about choosing the right representative, not about trying to work out who’s most likely to beat whoever you think is the bad guy.
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This bird is dead: The Liberal Democrats have shot down their own chances in Brecon and Radnorshire by annoying residents with false claims.
The latest stunt from attention-seeking Liberal Democrat spammer Jane Dodds is – surprise, surprise – yet another leaflet to clog up letterboxes in Brecon and Radnorshire, this time masquerading as a newspaper.
This is a common tactic by political parties in the run-up to an election; as long as they make it clear that it is an election communication on behalf of their organisation, it is permitted and perusal of the (very) small print on the front page does indicate this, if you get your magnifying glass out.
The propaganda starts at the very top of page one, with a claim that the Yellow Tories are “The winning team for Brecon and Radnorshire”. It’s a classic brainwashing/programming technique to make you think the LDs are going to win and encourage you to vote for what you’ve been told will be the winning side. Peer pressure – nothing more than that. But then the sub-headline says, “Your vote can make the difference this Thursday.” Why should it? This rag has already told us the LDs are “the winning team”. What a contradiction.
The headline itself, “Time for change,” is misleading. We’ve had either Liberal Democrats or Conservatives as MP here in Brecon and Radnorshire since 1979 and they have contributed nothing to improve lives here. Average wages are 25 per cent lower than nationally and the standard of living is similarly depressed. That is a failure by our representatives and the LDs must take their share of responsibility for that.
“Both opinion polls and bookmakers odds show a surge in support for hardworking candidate Jane Dodds as the best person to deliver the change Brecon and Radnorshire needs,” the text states. But it does not provide evidence to support these claims. And we already know Ms Dodds won’t be “hardworking” – her local policies depend on decisions made by other organisations like the Labour-run Welsh Assembly Government.
It goes on to say she has been “fighting for improvement in local healthcare” (nothing to do with her – it’s a devolved responsibility, handled by the Welsh Assembly Government) and “standing up for Welsh farmers” (the claim – elsewhere in the leaflet – that the Tories are planning to put a 40 per cent tariff on farming is not accurate, and of course with only two per cent of MPs in Parliament – or fewer – the LDs, with or without Ms Dodds, will have no effect at all on what happens).
A strapline running across the bottom of pages two and three states: “POLL LATEST: Labour are 150/1 outsiders – they can’t win on Thursday”. Again, the implication is that you should be voting for the candidate you have been told is most likely to win. This is completely at odds with democracy. The point of any election is for the electorate to vote for the candidate you think will do the best job.
Clearly, Ms Dodds won’t do the best job for Brecon and Radnorshire. This Writer doesn’t expect her to do any work at all.
On page four, we get rent-a-quotes from people we’re supposed to believe are members of the public who’ve been persuaded to vote Liberal Democrat. But at least one of them is known to This Writer as a card-carrying member of the Liberal Democrats. Are they all party members? The fact that just one of them belongs to that party shows that this is an attempt to hoodwink us.
Flip back to page two and there’s a quote from Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price AM, stating: “Putting party politics aside and delivering a pro-Remain MP for Brecon and Radnorshire is what is most important.” If you agree, vote for Labour’s Tom Davies. He supports another referendum, in which he will campaign for remaining in the EU. New Lib Dem leader Jo “let’s build a monument to Maggie” Swinson is on the record as saying that she would ignore democracy in order to push her own agenda.
No wonder a friend on Facebook said they had seen three new notices asking for no more “Jane Dodds spam”, while passing through Newbridge-on-Wye recently.
Ms Dodds is not telling you the truth, and neither is her party. She is spamming you with leaflet after leaflet in a bid to brainwash voters into supporting her in spite of the facts.
If This Writer had any influence, I would be saying that she is right in just one respect: You should send a message to the political establishment…
And the best way to do that is by voting for Labour’s Tom Davies.
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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