Gordon Brown Stands Down As Labour Leader

[TheAnimus]

2 is kind of irrelevant, Lib dems will loose out no matter what happens if the coalition isn't very lucky. There best bet will be to blame it on the other party.....

1, well the Lib Dems and Labour don't see eye to eye on many things, Labour do quite well by the current political system, they don't want to change it. The tories might be able to come up with some rotten thing where by they and the lib dems re-define the boundaries in a way which can help them both..... I will hate it when this happens.

[directhex]

Funny thing is, I think the Lib Dems can get more of their manifesto enforced via a Tory hookup than Labour - other than electoral reform, anyway

[TooNice]

Have the bookies put up bets on the likely government?

[Saracen]

I think a coalition is likely. Which one it is will be likely to be more about back-room deals and the beliefs of a handful of MPs than it is about the will of the people.

Whichever coalition emerges, it MUST work with it's partner genuinely for the good of the country and right now, that means sorting the economy and dealing with the debt and deficit while doing all you can to protect jobs. Unfortunately, those two are somewhat mutually exclusive. It isn't going to be pretty, whoever does it.

And if whoever does it is seen to be squabbling over party self-interest, then I think they will get what they deserve at the next election .... which might well not be that far off.

The LibDems need to bear one thing in mind, They undoubtedly got a bit of a boost from Cleggomania and the TV debates, but if they screw around and put electoral reform over sorting the real issues, then they could well get a historic kicking next time from the electorate. Nobody knows, of course, but it is a very real risk.

If I had 30 seconds alone with Nick Clegg, I'd be tempted to (somewhat smugly) remind him of an apocryphal bit of conventional wisdom ... be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. He says he wants PR, and that virtually guarantees a hung Parliament. Right, well we have a hung Parliament. Let's see what you do with it, shall we? Let's see how long any flavour of coalition can last?

Put voting reform on the back burner Mr Clegg, and sort out the real problems.

If you can make this chance work, then the argument that FPTP is necessary for strong, decisive and effective government will have been demonstrated to be false for all to see. But if you can't, then why the hell would we want to change the voting system to something that gives us this permanently? The only reason left would be because it gives the LibDems more power. The hell with that. Parties are supposed to be representing us and doing the job for us, not jockeying for cabinet seats.

To all the parties .... for pities sake .... get on with it!

[kopite]

From what I can tell atm a coalition of all the losers is looking the most likely.

If that happens then its feasible that they labour would have to listen to what the welsh/scottish/irish want which seems to be no cuts for them. They seem to already have a pretty good deal with free prescriptions and other benefits and if they then get special favours whist the english have to take further cuts I can see some very angry ppl

[Saracen]

From what I can tell atm a coalition of all the losers is looking the most likely.

If that happens then its feasible that they labour would have to listen to what the welsh/scottish/irish want which seems to be no cuts for them. They seem to already have a pretty good deal with free prescriptions and other benefits and if they then get special favours whist the english have to take further cuts I can see some very angry ppl

That logic is precisely the argument advanced for why that coalition isn't most likely .... a lot of people say. Me? I'm confused as hell and have no idea where this'll end up.

My opinion .... if the LDs for for Labour, between them they don't have enough votes to have a majority without cooperation from one of the Nat groups, be it SNP, Plaid, the NI groups or some combination. They, and I mean both Labour and the LDs) will be setting themselves up fr exactly that type of blackmail, and they are likely to pay for it come the next election, which history suggests may only be 6 to 18 months off.

There are even some Labour ex Cabinet Ministers (John Reid and David Blunkett for a start) warning of exactly that. It seems that that alternative certainly doesn't have uniform Labour support. Some are wary of the long-term price for a short-term power grab.

[kalniel]

A little bit of Clegg will not help the medicine go down, regardless of whether it's Labour or Tory medicine. We should give the Tories their minority government for 18 months, take the medicine, assess how well it works and keep them honest in the chamber for things that aren't in the national interest.

[Saracen]

I think if I was Cameron, there'd be at least a part of me hoping that the Libs opt for Labour. It was said some time ago that winning this election would be a poison chalice because of what whoever wins it is going to have to do. Give it 12 to 18 months for the start of the coming pain to start to be felt and Cameron might find himself in a far stronger position than he is now, and he can't be blamed for it if he wasn't the one that had to do what has to be done.

And, he can still stay in post, because even though there was no overall majority, he hardly "lost" when he increased the vote significantly and took nearly 100 seats off Labour. He is certainly seen as having something of a Blair effect within the party, by which I mean that regardless of his actual policies, nothing is quite as popular as success.

[McMav]

From what I can tell atm a coalition of all the losers is looking the most likely.

If that happens then its feasible that they labour would have to listen to what the welsh/scottish/irish want which seems to be no cuts for them. They seem to already have a pretty good deal with free prescriptions and other benefits and if they then get special favours whist the english have to take further cuts I can see some very angry ppl

Actually what they say is If there are to be cuts they want the cuts to be the same if 10% cut to English budgets then 10 % to ours not 15 or 20% up here coz its Scotland/Wales/N.I. Dont believe what your English media would lead you to believe. I for one dont think it'd be fair for Scotland to have 0 cuts and England to face 10% cuts. Free prescritptions are not here yet. We pay less but that is because of how the Scottish parliment use the budget they get it means less money to other areas. Remember up here we paid higher council tax for years compaired to the rest of the UK it has only now levelled out with the rest of the UK as coucil tax has been frozen another thing I often head from people down south how thats unfair till my point has been made. The Tories and their media have had a very anti-Scottish/Welsh/NI propoganda down south.

[TheAnimus]

Actually what they say is If there are to be cuts they want the cuts to be the same if 10% cut to English budgets then 10 % to ours not 15 or 20% up here coz its Scotland/Wales/N.I. Dont believe what your English media would lead you to believe. I for one dont think it'd be fair for Scotland to have 0 cuts and England to face 10% cuts. Free prescritptions are not here yet. We pay less but that is because of how the Scottish parliment use the budget they get it means less money to other areas. Remember up here we paid higher council tax for years compaired to the rest of the UK it has only now levelled out with the rest of the UK as coucil tax has been frozen another thing I often head from people down south how thats unfair till my point has been made. The Tories and their media have had a very anti-Scottish/Welsh/NI propoganda down south.

The classic example of the West Lothian Question.

Labour, been in favour of elitism and only the rich going to uni, introduced top-up fees (they are DEFINITELY not tuition fees, can we make that clear, that top-up fees are money that tops up tuition at uni, tuition fees are monies that top-up the money received from the government... if they where the same thing then that would mean they broke a manifesto pledge!).

So all those Scottish labour MPs voted in favour of it, without them the bill would not have passed.

But in Scotland the they weren't brought in.

Ever since then all Scottish MPs can **** off out of our English parliament thanks.

And this is just the kind of massive democratic failure we came to expect from emergency powers labour.

[McMav]

The classic example of the West Lothian Question.

Labour, been in favour of elitism and only the rich going to uni, introduced top-up fees (they are DEFINITELY not tuition fees, can we make that clear, that top-up fees are money that tops up tuition at uni, tuition fees are monies that top-up the money received from the government... if they where the same thing then that would mean they broke a manifesto pledge!).

So all those Scottish labour MPs voted in favour of it, without them the bill would not have passed.

But in Scotland the they weren't brought in.

Ever since then all Scottish MPs can **** off out of our English parliament thanks.

And this is just the kind of massive democratic failure we came to expect from emergency powers labour.

I didnt know there was an English Parliament. Perhaps you should have a devolved government aswell which gets a budget from central government which it can use to set its health policy and the like.

[kalniel]

Labour, been in favour of elitism and only the rich going to uni, introduced top-up fees

Which you can get a loan to pay for and you don't have to pay it back unless you're earning above a certain level, so being rich has nothing to do with it. University is one of the factors that lifts people into higher skilled jobs, so should be open to more people, rather than less like some parties would prefer.

[TheAnimus]

Which you can get a loan to pay for and you don't have to pay it back unless you're earning above a certain level, so being rich has nothing to do with it. University is one of the factors that lifts people into higher skilled jobs, so should be open to more people, rather than less like some parties would prefer.

Wait what?

Your advocating charging people to have a higher education, promotes inclusiveness.

How about instead of having a loan, administered by the only lending body not regulated by the FSA, we could have some kind of tax, applied to only people who earn't above a certain threshold. We could call it income tax.

Or we could allow uni's to charge, and then rebate, that way the poor people will stay in portsmouth where they belong. Meanwhile we could have silly figures of 50% having degrees (which industry has no demand for) and as such uni's will churn out worthless courses which unless you have a family member or friend to tell you that media studies is bull****, will force people into debt, at 3rd rate institutes due to rebates making those the only affordable option, with a degree that is worthless.

Student loan repayment starts at 15k a year. You have to be either lazy, or mentally ill to fail to earn that much in england.

[GheeTsar]

There are even some Labour ex Cabinet Ministers (John Reid and David Blunkett for a start) warning of exactly that. It seems that that alternative certainly doesn't have uniform Labour support. Some are wary of the long-term price for a short-term power grab.

My respect for John Reid went up substantially after watching him say that.

[TheAnimus]

I didnt know there was an English Parliament. Perhaps you should have a devolved government aswell which gets a budget from central government which it can use to set its health policy and the like.

It was only an idea from a thosand years or so ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_England

But you can surely understand how the party whip system and the chronic nepotism of the Labour party over the last 13 years is far worse affair than the chronic corruption of the tories they replaced!

[oolon]

Prescott "Keep your mouth shut love for a moment", to a protector on parliament square.