In short, the Lib Dem’s complete abandonment of their core policy of proportional representation, without any concession on the part of the Conservatives for a proportional system at a time of unprecedented power and opportunity for the Liberal Party, has set the Lib Dem cause back irrevocably.

I can see no coherent argument in voting for them in the future as they have cleared betrayed their values for political expediency.

There is little to no progressive element in any of the major parties, no real desire for reform just an endless appetite for lies, spin and manipulation to attain power at any cost.

There is no such thing as integrity in mainstream political parties in the UK.

It’s one thing to criticize a driver for turning left when he should have truned right, it’s another thing to criticize him for not flying through the air. Labour backbenchers scuppered the idea of a progressive coalition; blame Labour

As it was you had two options
a) A pure Tory government, without a majority but with easy means of getting one should life be made too difficult for them.
b) A mostly Tory government with Liberal ministers constrained by Liberal Democrat policies from being out-right Tory.

Please stop whining and spinning against the LibDems for the benefit of Labour and get on with what this blog is supposed to be; policy analysis from a progressive point of view. If we all get through this parliament more or less intact we’ll have a better voting system which can deliver the numbers we need for a Lib-Lab pact which was the first choice of every member of the parliamentary party with the possible exception of David Laws.

As I exposed on my blog last weekend, Norwich Greens have a habit of moaning about everyone else doing what they do themselves. Nobody likes the holier than thou attitude, and this is magnified when they moan about Lib Dem election leaflets actually predicting the result correctly.

The green package is promising as are some of the constitutional points of view. But there are other aspects which are extremely conservative which we will take a long hard look at.

We will also be providing a neutral space for progressives to discuss the future of the Labour party.

2) Nadine Dorries
No arguement there. She’s wierd. But there are nutters in the Labour party too.

3) Voting reform – AV is not PR. Can I repeat that, AV IS NOT PR!
Total agreement there.

4) Murdoch – I always see it as a good rule of thumb that if Murdoch supports it, we ought to be against it.
So the fact that Tony Blair was in bed with Murdoch means that you are against the Labour Party?

5) Iraq – Let’s not forget, the Tories were more supportive of the idea of invading Iraq than Labour were.
I got the feeling that Labour was more supportive since they were the ones making up the lies that the Tories believed were true.

6) The NHS – In leaflets distributed by the Lib Dems in the general election, we were apparently to be very afraid of the Tories gettinh their hands on the NHS as they would wreck it. Not my words, but those of the Lib Dems.
Election propaganda. Nothing to see. Move along.

7) Non Doms – MPs who are Non-Doms, multi millionaire backers who are Non-Doms. Should I go on?
And Labour has it’s own non-doms as well.

8) Flippers – Remember how many Tory MPs and Tory front benchers flipped their mortgages in order to gain the maximum amount from their expenses ? No Lib Dems did it. We were proud of that, but we’ll sit with those who do.
Labour were the most blatent flippers and fraudsters. Lib Dems might not have flipped but they still abused the expenses system. Maybe not personally as they generally fed it back into their party funds.

9) Cleaning up parliament – How many of Cameron’s front bench supported plans to reform parliamentary expenses before the expenses scandal broke? Would it surprise people that a majhority didn’t support reform?
No difference from the Labour Party.

10) Trident – Apparently we need a cold war weapons system?
Agreed on this point.

The new government has a large progressive contingent. How will LFF react?

1.Will LFF try and put the left-boot into the new government, because at heart LFF is just a Labour blog?

or

2. Or will LFF continue to be mainly supportive, and critical in extremis of fellow progressives?