If you had political fights with the Tories for 20 years how would you feel. Many would feel and react the same as Nich. Frackly its not easy to swallow and I'm not looking forward to getting our hands dirty. Nich reasons to not sit with the tories are all reasons I agree with and all reasons why I find it difficult.
I have already argued why I was not concerned about a hung parliament or a coalition with the party with the most votes. I also think that no matter which way the Liberal Democrats went we would of been lambasted and people would of left the party or stopped voting for us. I'm not going to try an persuade Nich Starling. He a much more articulate debater and writer than I am and I do not believe I could change his mind anyway. He has made his mind up and I can fully understand why hes not happy.
I can't disagree with Nich on some of the points he raised. for example AV is not proportional and the right wing press will do its damnist to ensure AV itself does not come in let alone a fully proportional system. The Tory party will campaign against it. Although I would be very interested in seeing how Labour handle this referendum. However AV I believe is better than FPTP as at least an MP can claim to have 50% of the vote. Then again we have to win this referendum first.
I still also believe that we have to prove to the Tories that coalitions can work and to the public which would support our argument for a PR system if the Tories and the Lib Dems can hold together a coalition government.
I also agree that we do not have the most powerful cabinet positions althought I would argue that Home Secretary is a dead end job (always leads to tears). I do wish Paddy Ashdown received the Defence minister post. I think if we had more MP's we would of received one of the more powerful ministerial positions. I also agree with Nich that education should of been a Lib Dem position.
Nich does mention that the Lib Dem MP's were tempted by ministerial cars. Well I'm not so sure about that, Liberal Democrats don't become MP's for power if they did they would join one of the other two big parties. Liberal Democrats genuinely believe in the values of the party and it's so much harder for Lib Dems to win a seat because people believe that we can't have any power. Surely if Lib Dems are to be more than a pressure group at national level we need to get our hands on power. Yesterday the Labour MP for Bolton East Yasmin Qureshi on BBC Five Live accused Lib Dems of wanting power. OK I admit it we do want power. Did labour not want power? Surely Lib Dems should want power to get some Lib Dem policies life in the real world.
As I see it all of our options would of lend to Lib Dems being lambasted
1.Not a full coalition: Lib Dems would still be seen as 'supporting the devil' and to of wimped out. Lib Dems could still be blamed for Conservative policy.
2.No deal with anyone - Right Wing press would of claimed that we wimped out and others would say what's the point of a party that bottled power. We would lose credibility as a party that is scared of power.
3.Rainbow Coalition: The SNP would of loved this more power to them then anyone, holding parties to ransom on any Scotland cuts, this would not of lasted. Labour just think the Lib dems are a political arm of Labour with some crazy Liberals to boot. Labour were not prepared to give us anything.
I also believe that under FPTP (which is designed for a two party system) There will always come a time when the 3rd party gets to a critical mass where it takes votes away from the other two main parties. When this happens it has too make a decision to move it forward. This could of happened during the leaders debates, but it was not to be. That moment won't happen again. So this is it, this is the only way. In a Hung parliament is the only chance the Liberal Democrats are going to get. I would support the Liberal Democrats in a coalition with Labour or the Conservative party because this is the only chance. Liberal Democrats can't seem to increase their support beyond the current percentages until they can be seen to govern.
I don't want to be in a protest party. I don't want to be in a party where people only vote for us because we are not Labour and they want Labour out or we are not Tory and they want the Tories out. I want people to vote Liberal Democrat because we have values that they believe in that they want to see in power. I also want people to vote for their party and to not have to vote tactically. Its time Liberal Democrats stopped trying to get the tactical vote and started to get a genuine built up support for its ideas. I want people to vote positively not negatively. In Bracknell the Liberal Democrats came from 3rd to 2nd using arguments not bar charts.
Lets take a risk because this is the only way Liberal Democrats will get to change through crisis management and risk taking. I just hope the Liberal Democrats come out the otherside. It's certainly too late now. I also hope the Norfolk Blogger can stomach the decision for a full coalition.
