Obama and Clegg a compromise too far?

In the US the left, Liberals and indeed the Republican right are all unhappy with Obama over his compromise tax bill which averts tax rises for millions of Americans. This Bill also extends benefits payments for the unemployed.

 

But I think this shows a Clinton type of compromise (something he had to do as he also had a lack of power in the house).

 

There are some comparisons I can see between Obama and our very own Nick Clegg when considering compromise and hatred. As opposed to the differences like for example Obama not acting as quickly as the coalition to install their policies and reforms. Perhaps Obama needed a coalition agreement.

 

So both men are becoming a figure of hate when also being a believer and achiever in compromise. Resulting in hatred of the left because the compromise includes some non left wing policy.

 

However Obama is not that far away from the average American he has been successfully painted as a sell out by some and a far left raving liberal by others.

 

I think Obama has started too slowly and has not defended himself well, this has now forced him to compromise. Although I would argue that like Clegg he is doing a fair job of compromise.

 

It appears to me that when you compromise you will be seen as a sell out. Its a shame as I think this is a good attribute and one that the public have always wished for. Problem with compromise is that it makes you look weak when it is a very brave position.

 

So if this is a compromise too far, its only because in practice the public don't like compromise as much as we thought they did.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron coalition pants

I found these at the Earls Court CAMRA Great British beer festival yesterday I put this picture on twitter. It was Re-Tweeted many times yesterday.

This picture is from the back of the pants;

This pants can be brought at Twisted Twee here

Nick Clegg Q&A in Abingdon

Just got back from the Q&A with Nick Clegg. I'm told on Twitter by Mark Reckons that this was on Sky News unfortunately I didn't know this.

So I'm not going to blog all the Q&A like I normally do because I wanted to talk the whole event in without thinking about the event like a reporter.

First thing that struck me was that there was no registration as there was when I attended the Cameron Direct in Reading. I could just turn up, show my picture and walk in. I'm not even sure why photo ID was required.

It was amazing to me to see so much security around a Lib Dem leader, There wasn't really a chance to talk to Nick Clegg afterwards as far as I can tell.

There was a funny reference to David Davies who today was caught making some negative views on the "Brokeback Coalition".

I was impressed with the way Nick Clegg answered the questions although he was no better or worse than David Cameron in my view. I was also impressed at how packed the room was, some people had to stand.

Questions ranged from a quote from the Daily Mail, to unfair council tax, benefit cheats, pensions, Academies, local building planning. Nick Clegg try to answer all the points and could not answer only two questions. One a local question about a bridge build and one about an NHS memo on flexible hours as this was not due to the government but was a local NHS issue.

There were some funny moments, Nick Clegg does operate well infront of the British public. I was very impressed with the audience too who did not interupt or heckle and listened to Nick Cleggs answers even when they were clearly not happy about with Cleggs answer, such as when he answered a lady question asking why he did not sack Chris Huhne MP because of his mistress scandal.


My questions would of been on the timing of AV voting reform, IR35 and keeping the Liberal Democrat identity (I know thats 3 questions). Sadly I never got to ask any of them as 1 hour is never enough time at these events.

I hope the next Q&A event I get to attend is with the new leader of the Labour party so I can see all the leaders in operation.

Deputy Prime Minister, in Abingdon this Saturday

I will be attending the Open Question & Answer Session with the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. I will report back on any points of interest. I will be wearing a a green top with Living Colour written on the front and tour dates on hte back and blue jeans if you wish to chat.

It's being held on Saturday 24 July, at 14.00hrs. at the Abingdon Guildhall, Abbey Close, Abingdon, OX14 3JE

Seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis and a photo ID is required.

See you there

Cancelled my Sky Subscription‏

I have just cancelled my Sky subscription after watching the debate on Sky News. This is because I was horrified to see Adam Boulton point out the Telesgraphs Nick Clegg donation story during the debate. This is surely in breach of the rules of the debate as Adam Bolton should be impartial and its for the party leaders to bring this subject up during the debate. I also complain to ofcom about this which can be done here.

These attempts at smears on the Liberal Democrats or indeed smears on any political party are totally discussing. How is that type of reporting (if I can call it that) of incorrect infomation or half truths good for democracy. There are now a number of stories showing the growing right-wing press campaign in a bad light. Nick Robinson has details of Tory-backing papers being called in one by one to discuss how Team Cameron would deal with "Cleggmania".

A story in the Independent on 'The Sun' censoring a poll that showed support for Lib Dems' plus details of the truth and lies told in the recent articles.

I believe, unlike others, that this will lose the Liberal Democrats some points in the polls. There might be a backlash but this is smaller than the paper reports themselves and these stories stick in the mind. The papers are losing their power and influence but they do still have influence

Of course its not just the right-wing press. Perhaps one of the craziest stories other than the Daily Mails Nazi slur is this TV presenter Louis Theroux claimed he was the Lib Dem leader's "fag" at boarding school. What a load of rubbish.

Needless to say I won't be giving Rupert Murdoch any more of my money.

Todays link is to the Daily Mail-o-matic where you can get 'A new Daily Mail headline every time you click the button. For a limited time only, every headline is about Nick Clegg'. Enjoy.

Leaders Debate - Lets wait and see‏

The leaders debate has given the Liberal Democrats perhaps their best ever coverage in the press it has ever had.

I'm not going to bang on about who won here as the more important poll is the effect this has had on the marginals. I thought that Cameron was good against Brown but not so good against Clegg. I also thought Brown did not gain any voters due to the debate and im certain Cameron did not gain many voters for the Tories. After the good performance of Nick Clegg (which may help to answer the question 'who is Nick Clegg?') Liberal Democrats would be happy to gain a few percent and some more supporters. As an activist I can add that it has inspired me to work harder as I think it must of done others activists. I still believe the most important debate will be the last one on the BBC. This is because Sky will not have as many people tuning in and the BBC is the nearest to the election.

The Fabian Society blog has done an excellent analysis of the impact of the ITV debate called 'Will the Clegg factor make fear of a hung Parliament more difficult?'

I think it would be best if the Liberal Democrats don't over play the who won the debate point (even if its hard to resist) and just let the public decide. I also think Nick Clegg should get some trouser that fit him as that was the only complaint about Clegg I heard down the pub.

So in summary even though I really enjoyed this debate I think its best to wait and see what the effect is on the polls and not over react on the instant polls.I'm also expecting many more attacks on the Liberal Democrats. So lets let the debate sink into the minds of the voters first.

Betting on Clegg a non story‏

The sun has an exclusive story 'And it’s Kauto Star, Denman..and Nick Clegg’s fading ' But this is such a non story. The article states that 'Nick Clegg was left long-faced yesterday as bookies revealed a QUARTER of voters have never even heard of the Lib Dem leader.' But when you read on you discover that this was not a survey of the voting public but a Ladbrokes poll of 1,000 of their own punters. Not a surprised then that more know which horse is favourite to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Personally I have never heard of Kauto Star but then again I'm not a follower of horse racing.

So lets get this clear, this 'exclusive' story is not voters after all but Ladbrokes own punters who may vote. It's another example of a non story, which is spun and printed in one of Britain's biased newspapers.

Plenty of people don't know who many politicians are in general. Would every member of the public know who George Osborne is? I would be willing to bet that a significant percentage don't. A higher percentage of people didn't vote in the last general election 35.9% (of the people eligible to vote only 61.4% did). This was before the expenses scandal, so I would bet that many people who didn't vote have absolutely no interest in politics and therefore would not know or care who the Lib Dem leader is. How many of this 25% are the same people who didn't vote? I bet a high percentage. Do we really believe that everyone in the run up to the 2005 general election knew who Michael Howard was?

I expect this will be more and more the case at every general election unless we can get people switched on to politics. This seems unlikely because if you look at the democracies that don't have compulsory voting then we can see that interest (based on voting) has decreased. This is even the case when people were queuing to elect Barack Obama were the vote was less than even ours in the UK.

Lib Dems Become More Realistic

Nick Clegg today outlined the Liberal Democrat four priorities called 'Four steps to a Fairer Britain' which are ;

1.Fair taxes.

2. A new, fair start for all children at school.

3. A rebalanced, green economy.

4. And clean, open politics.

Nick Cleggs speech can be read here

My blog is not about this speech however its about the fact that he has delayed some of the key policies as they are too expensive and that no party is telly the truth when it comes to the required spending cuts to reduce the countries deficit.

The policies being removed from the manifesto are; extending free childcare, free personal care for the elderly, "citizen's pension" and delaying introducing free tuition fees too six years (It will now be rolled out over these 6 years - starting with final year students).

I actually agree with this as the Lib Dems do need to be more realistic on how much we can afford to spend. I also think that the Lib Dem activists should be more realistic about what is possible and therefore I agree with Nick Clegg and not with the probable back lash from Lib Dems. After all these policies have not been forgotten and will be added later when they can be afforded. But for the moment are removed so as not to cause any of the usual confusion.

I also think that the whole tax credit systems costs way too much in administration for both the government and the people requesting tax credits. Having a higher tax starting rate of £10,000 (as the Lib Dems propose) would be more simple and would infact cut administration costs.

I would also point out that no party, (Even the Conservatives) are being realistic on what we need to do to pay back Britains debt, which is why I was pleased to see that the Lib Dems are now moving in this direction.

Labour and the Tories have been going at great guns at each other recently over each partys funding gap in their policies. The holes the media and the parties have found in each others policies is all the proof you need that both parties plans do not go far enough. The parites are making promises they can't keep. This is why I'm please too see the Lib Dems getting real on their policies. Now all Parties and us (the public) need to get realistic on spending cuts.

Whats scary about this is, one of these parites will be in power this year and their plans don't appear to be ready to handle this counties money problems.

Of course we are not the only country which a deficit problem see Bracknell Blog World Debt Crisis.

In/Out EU Referendum is still Lib Dem policy

Further to our recent post here on Bracknell Blog regarding comments made by Ming Campbell about potentially abandoning the pledge, it is still Lib Dem policy, as Nick Clegg stated in an interview on Radio 5 live earlier this week to have an in/out referendum on membership of the EU.

As others have pointed out elsewhere, policy is decided by the membership and the Federal Policy Committee, not the leadership or senior party figures.

Afghanistan IN or Out Debate

Nick Clegg has recently published his plan for Afghanistan in the time see the link here.

I was having an email discussion with my brother (not a Lib Dem supporter) on this point.

He I think came up with some points that I think deserve a public airing. E-mail trail below;


Brothers Post

Nice article, but we've already had 8 years in which Mr Clegg's suggestions could have been implemented. If NATO hasn't got their Afghan strategy together by this point, you have to assume that they never will.

As long as Karzai is in power this war is a sham. Billions in aid will go into the wrong pockets.


My Reply

Yes but you have to give a strategy time to work and after the recent vote, it became more clear that we need a change of tack.

But your right, we all know the effort was on Iraq, which at the end of the day has given the Taliban more time etc,


Brothers Post

How long do you give it? Wars are expensive. In the past people have gone to war for profit, resources or to protect their homeland from invaders; There would be an ultimate benefit from going to war.

All those wars with dubious winning criteria (i.e. ideological wars) always fail. Prime examples are the crusades, Korean War, Russian Afghan campaign and Vietnam. All hugely expensive in money and casualties and provided no benefit to anyone.

The only viable argument for maintaining the Afghan war is to safeguard the UK from terrorist attacks. Though this argument is highly dubious it could be achieved but will take decades and far more money than we have available to change the culture and infrastructure of the place. You cannot remove corruption from the country - it is a cultural norm and haggling, bribery and gifts is a standard way of doing business.

So the government (whoever it is) should be honest and say:

1. It will cost a fortune.
2. It will take ages.
3. Lots of troops will die.
4. It may not be successful.

Unless the govt make an extraordinarily strong argument to justify the above points, public support will continue to slip away.

I would imagine it would be much cheaper to prevent terrorism using methods in the UK. Linked to the immigration policy perhaps? Lets remember there was no Islamic terror attacks on UK soil before the Iraq war.


My Reply;

Oh dear if even you are thinking about the war like this then the government (which ever one it is) has already lost the publics support. (I have always considered my brother to be pro the war)

It's a hard choice but at the end of the day your almost right, problem is Pakistan. What if the West pulled out then the Taliban could use more effort on Pakistan, that's the real danger.

Both sides are fighting an ideological war, but I for one can’t reconcile the British losses myself with the mission.


Brothers Reply;

Pakistan is not a problem. The Americans want you to think it is a problem. It suits them very nicely that Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

Do you really think the Taliban could get control of a nuclear missile?

If so, would they launch a nuclear missile against the west? They are not that stupid. They would know to do so would mean every last one would be hunted down by every country, sparing no expense or mercy.

They just want to manage their own affairs. Unfortunately that means repression for the people they rule...but that is not our problem, according to the war mission.


My Reply;

Well not so much that more they would have more people to fight Pakistan in the boarders making a prolonged war there. I cant see them getting hold of nuclear missiles myself, but it could turn into a civil war if the Taliban can throw more men and arms at the war.


Brothers Reply

The only reason the Taliban are so strong is because they can use foreign invaders as justification for drawing new young recruits to their cause. If there is no religious imperative for joining the Taliban, their oppressive methods of rule will soon make them obsolete as people rebel against them.


My Reply;

Hmmm you could be right.


Brothers Reply;

I would really like to know what the true reason for this conflict is.
It can't be to stop Islamic terrorism, because there was not any before the US invaded Iraq following the Kuwait incursion. So it is clear the 'war on terror' is the usual propaganda aimed at voting populations back home. The Americans learnt their PR lesson in Vietnam and have been extremely careful not to allow any blood or bodies to be seen on US television sets. Which suggests the media is also on a government leash, because there are plenty of videos and pictures on the web.

That leaves Oil I suppose. If it's not oil it would be very interesting what the reason is.

One thing is for sure; the 'war' is proving to be a lot harder than expected. Which, looking at history, should not be a surprise.


What do you think about the Afghanistan war; should we pull out?

Also to add more fuel to the fire as it were have a look at his article called How the US [Still] Funds the Taliban here on the Nation website.