Tuesday 11 May 2010

Principled politics

I know the Lib Dems are now my dearest and most trusted friends, and therefore beyond criticism, but I thought the Guardian's photograph and analysis of the major issues for Clegg (as shown by his notebook) during the negotiations was interesting. For someone caring about the country, they showed a surprising number of issues focused on his and his colleagues' position.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/may/11/election-2010-coalition-nick-clegg

In the meantime, given the election result, the coalition is the best outcome for Britain. I am pleasantly surprised the Lib Dems signed up to a deal with the Conservatives; I was wrong on thinking they'd only work with Labour so maybe I'll also be wrong in predicting it won't last long. There is one real worry: the appintment of Osborne and Cable to important posts dealing with the economy. Neither are capable and hopefully will be supported by people who are. And of course the bond market investors will be the main drivers of sorting out the economy as we need to borrow so much from them.

Conservative Home (an independent site) has a very good (and lengthy) analysis of "what went wrong" without naming too many names; a summary is here, the list of contents here.

1 comment:

Troy said...

I think the Conservatives dealt the hand they had very well.Given the negative socialist campaign they had to play down the austerity the country needs. I would have liked to have have seen William Hague as leader in those televised debates but his earlier misfortune (running for the office too early) meant that could never be. Hopefully his time will come again though.
Clegg had a one in a lifetime opportunity given the results, which was played out in a full media glare, and he had a very difficult sell to make to his CND/Green/weirdy-beardy grassroots support him. He therefore had to be seen to be getting significant roles and concessions in the coalition. And hopefully that awful Simon Hughes will now go off and join the socialists (and take Shirley Williams with him).