Are the Lib Dems broken.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Cable is abusing his power??? How so? By telling some truths?

[Brendan]

Hoorray for uncle Vinnie. Did he put a horse's head in his bed too?

[silverfox]

Correction: abused. Past tense. He's now removed from real decision making.

Says a lot about the fagility of the coalition that they're so worried about the grumbling of Liberal backbenchers they were too frightened to kick him out with the imprint of a good old size nine on his backside.

[SeanMacGabhann]

So are you saying that what cable said is wrong?

[silverfox]

Yep.

Unless what he said was deliberately designed to embarass the coalition and/or to help Murdoch's cause (which may be his ulterior motive) then he has shown extreme naivety for such a seasoned politician as well as showing himself to be incapable of impartial judgement and being in cahoots with others in this anti-Murdoch conspiracy.

And I'm only talking about his decision to appear on Come Dancing!

[SeanMacGabhann]

Another way of looking at it is that people claim to want more honest and human politicians. And yet when they get one...

[silverfox]

It's well known he doesn't feel comfortable in this coalition.

On the other hand power seems to have gone to his head and befuddled his judgment eg, the nuclear option of resignation that will bring down the coalition. An old man caught in a honey trap of two giggling lovelies boasting of going to war ... The empire is under attack ...

Maybe the pressure of governing has led him to think he's Jabba the Hutt

[DJKillaQueen]

Yes, it's the 'bring down the coalition' comment that has done the damage more than anything he said about Murdoch I think.

[Hill Dweller]

If I hear one Lib Dem say once more that 'now we know what we know'

or 'yes but things are different when in Govt' I really think I will thcweam.

Re the former they belong in my tools draw along with the newspaper lining it .... it's the Letters column of a paper dated Jan '93 and begins "We've got used to a Conservative govt blaming the current ills on the shortcomings of the [Labour] govt but now we've got Clement Freud ... blaming an even earlier Labour govt for the hardships of .......".

So ...... things were ever thus.

Re the latter if one of these previously-seemingly honest injuns had the grace, now, to add " ... and all those times we thcweamed at what the Labour govt was doing we had no nouse of what we spake'.

At least Labour are staying mostly quiet at the moment, they kney know what will happen will and like most of us can't be hoping for 'bring it on'.

.

[Hill Dweller]

Wannabe-butch Clegg has just announced (or anninced as Cam would pronounce it) that it's all sorted and the populace should move on and do so now ..... he wishes.

When he had the cyncism, just-post election, to describe the loan (and a short-term one at that) to Forgemasters as cynical vote-buying in a marginal seat, all he exposed was his own cynicism.

Forgemasters were to become one of only two makers in the whole world of a component that will have a huge market for years to come which, if they don't ever succeed in receiving the loan they need means we will have to buy from the remaining one.

Balance of trade?

[DJKillaQueen]

Yep the decision on Rorgemasters made no economic sense to me, especially at a time when we need to create other sectors as strong as finance and the service sector for protection from single sector crashes in the future.

[Huguenot]

Except that Forgemasters was a cynical vote-buy.

There's no reason why this common sense business proposition shouldn't be funded by private enterprise.

BTW, what is it with Forgemasters that gets all this attention? It was 80m to fund just 180 new jobs. Not exactly efficient use of taxpayers money?

[Hill Dweller]

That (the small number of jobs) is exactly why it was not vote-buying.

Drink some milk, it might reduce your acidity (the only explanation possible for you ignoring the commercial/economic reasons for the short-term loan).

What's with the apparent incapacity to understand the difference between a short-term loan and 'funding'?

What's with the apparent incapacity to understand the country will need to buy, repeatedly, this expensive component for ever more but from overseas?

Like I said ..... balance of trade. Did I need to add the 'anyone?' bit?

[Hill Dweller]

It was just pallid features doing his butch act :))

........ Oooops, that was to DJKQ, using 'Reply to' I expected it to slot in there!

[James Barber]

I think Forge Masters need for ?80M could be found from a commercial loan, advance staged payments from customers, selling equity. But governments spending ?80M to fund 180 jobs to make nuclear power station parts from a coalition government where one of the parties doesn't want nuclear power. And I know Chris Huhne has announced more nuclear power stations (tory requirement) and huge increase in insulation along with more wind etc power (Lib Dem requirement). I know the state aid is now rearing its head via new regional development devolved bodies.

Saint Vince's halo has slipped with being naive enough for a Torygraph honey trap. What a prat.

BUT we should all be more worried by New Corporation wanting to totally control BSkyB along with its newspaper empire. An ex.Aussie now naturalised US citizen deciding how UK elections are fought and won.

Then we have the deeply reclusive Barclays brothers and their newspaper empire.

[DJKillaQueen]

LOL HD.....

What's with the apparent incapacity to understand the country will need to buy, repeatedly, this expensive component for ever more but from overseas?

This is exactly the point and given the expected expansion into nuclear power by emerging economies and indeed those more closer to home (with a future decline of oil) the scope for expansion of those jobs is open ended, along with the company profits and taxes they bring.

It's also a misconception that the grant actually pays for jobs...it doesn't.....it buys the technology needed to enable employees to make the components (so a capital investment). Profits from the sale of those cpomponents are what actually create and maintain those jobs.

One of the problems with our economy is the ever shrinking manufacting and high tech base. This was an excellent opportunity to do what we should be doing by manufacturing high value hi-tech products that we can then export. More importantly it is a sector that can tap into the resources of many skilled and unemployed workers who will never be pen pushers or bankers.

It's all very well saying the banks should stump up the money...but they aren't lending at the moment....and certainly not to industry at that level. Another fault with our economy and way of doing things perhaps.

The reality is that we are never going to get away from our economic reliance on the financial sector and even there little has changed.....Will Hutton predicts that is the way things are going to be for a while yet as no government seems to have the will or balls to invest in a different way of doing things. A crash and recession every generation....that what we've had for the last 30 years....is that the best we can hope for?

[DJKillaQueen]

So James, are you saying that governments should never invest in industry? I think that has been half the problem of the last 30 years tbh. Germany on the other hand has shown what such investment can achieve. The payback to the economy would have more than exceeded the grant.....sounds like a good invesment to me......or do you think that should all go to shareholders then?

It always amazes me when politicians complain about global corporations or monopolies when it is they that create the breeding grounds for such. You can't have it both ways. Deregulate and then complain when the free market produces powerful monsters that might stop you winning a election?....how typically hypocritical.

[Hill Dweller]

oooooooh brill!!! Does a hyperlink get changed by some genie in to an embedding?

swooon :-)

[Hill Dweller]

Oooops, /\ that was supposed to be in response to this \/,

which I seem to have edited instead of following up!

............

Re: Are the Lib Dems broken.

Posted by: Hill Dweller

Date: 22/12/2010 18:39

Re yours at 4.34 DJKQ smileys with beer

It was never going to be a grant, I'm pretty sure that the terms were for the loan to be repaid in 3yrs ...... but I could be wrong.

However, this :-

........ Regardless of the truth of the matter,

which with all politically popular arguments is

nearly impossible to prove either way,

both sides are now sure to increase their rhetoric. ..........

from this :-

http://politicalpromise.co.uk/2010/06/20/was-the-sheffield-forgemaster-loan-a-labour-trap/

[politicalpromise.co.uk]

just about nails things eh? angry smiley

['bout now]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/lib-dem-support-hits-alltime-low-2176158.html

Not looking good, even if it is only a poll.

[DJKillaQueen]

It's no suprise. Time for Lib Dems to stop burying their heads in the sand and admit that Clegg has put his own political ambition before the good of his party. The Lib Dems are finished for the time being. But the real trouble will come after the voting reform election in April. The predictions are that the vote will fail. If that defeat comes then the lib Dems may well ask what is the point of the coalition beyond it.

[Odyssey]

Hear Hear KillaQueen! They sold off their true values (assuming they had any in the first place). All Clegg was interested in was power and I am very glad that they didn't form a pact with the Labour Party. They sold out to the Conservative Party for 20 pieces of silver.

[DJKillaQueen]

The by election on Jan 13th in Saddleworth may be an indicator of what's to come for the Lib Dems (we'll see how that pans out). And even Simon Hughes for whom I previously had huge respect and who regained some of my respect when he opposed the tuition fee rises has now blown it by accepting a position where he has to sell the new tuition rises to students...WHAT is he thinking? 'Hole' and 'digging deeper' comes to mind.

[Loz]

Odyssey Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hear Hear KillaQueen! They sold off their true

> values (assuming they had any in the first place).

So you mean the sold off your 'true values' then.

Clegg is an Orange Book LibDem. Not a Labour type wearing a new colour. Granted he dug a huge hole for himself over the student fees fiasco, but that was more a lesson is not signing stupid pledges. Personally I'd have cut university places to save money, but that doesn't seem to be allowed up for discussion.

[DJKillaQueen]

I would agree that cutting University places was the answer, while reverting some courses back to two year HNDs and BTECS.

I personally think Clegg is a Conservative Liberal. He's from an extremely privileged background and lacks experience in constituency politics. So his niaivity is understandable. Those I find more difficult to explain are the likes of Simon Hughes and Vince Cable....who have vast amounts of experience but seemed to also have tossed common sense aside in their excitement at getting a sniff of government.

Not that any of that matters of course...nor do I think it would have made very much difference to policy if there had been a majority Conservative government. But in a majority governement you can only blame the government for policy that you don't like. In a coalition, the Lib Dems have become the whipping boys for a good deal of public frustration. They can not win either way.