Not a comment on your words as such, but the constantly peddled ‘no one gets the Lib Dems’ argument. 20 to 25% of the population get the Lib Dems and consistently vote for them.

So this ‘nobody gets them’ argument is wearing a bit thin. It just sounds lazy and a bit stupid - and like a poor attempt to smear without addressing actual issues. Dogmatic adherence to ‘right versus left’ is the last thing to get an ever more pragmatic electorate interested in politics, that’s for sure.

PS In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Lib Dem supporter.

Katherine:

I think the problem with the Lib-Dems is the rather schizophrenic nature of liberalism itself.

To be a ’social liberal’ would be seen by many to put you on the political left; however to be an economic liberal who supports laissez-faire economics and the free market would be seen to put you on the political right, leaving the Lib Dems looking like they are straddling the fence and trying to be all things to everyone at the same time.

This is one of the major political problems with the idea of introducing PR in the UK - in most countries what you tend to have is two main main parties, one centre-left the other centre-right, with minor parties arrayed outward to one either side to either the left or right of those two centerist parties. The system is, therefore, relatively stable - a swing to the right and the centre-right party takes power in a coalition of the right, a swing to the left and the centre-left party takes power in a coalition of the left. Although its a multi-party system on paper, in practice its still a two-party system as only one of the two big centerist parties will end up as the major player in government.

Germany is a prime example of such a system.

In Britain, the Lib Dems straddle the centre and, in theory, could align with either Labour or Tories depending on whether the greater emphasis within the party at any one time is on either social or economic liberalism. Contrary to the views of some, like Polly Toynbee, there is not really a ‘natural centre-left coalition’ the Lib-Dems could quite easily swing either way, especially if the Tories now move back to the centre and one-nation Toryism after their next change of leader.

In practice this means that supporters of neither of two main parties are likely to trust the Lib-Dems as, were there to be a hung parliament, each would suspect the L-D’s of being likely to cut a deal with the other side based on nothing more than which party offers the better deal.

A hung parliament in which the LD’s are the third party would actually put them in a very difficult position - how would they decide who to ally with to form a government? Would the go on policies or on which main party offered the better deal on seats at the top table, given that at the very least the LD’s would want one of the ‘big three’ cabinet posts - Chancellor, Home Secretary or Foreign Secretary, in return for their support in such a situation.

Any way you look at it, the LD’s would come out looking like mercenaries in such a situation.

I know you mentioned the origins of spin, but I don’t think you emphasised that it is Labour that has caught up with the Tories here, rather than taken the lead.

“I would argue that within the New Labour Project, the whole public profile of ’spin’ has increased markedly and its use (and abuse) has become very much more obvious and visible”.

Yes, it is more visible because the Tory press drives the agenda, highlighting Labour spin that a Tory government would have got away with!

“I think its a mistake to simply put the decline in turnout down to a generational thing”.

Just look at the stats! Turnout amongst the over 40s has hardly changed. The drop is mostly down to the 600,000 voters who die every year not being replaced by young voters.

“I think you may be over-estimating the influence of the unreconstructed Tory press - the Mail, Express and Telegraph in particular. I don’t see them as being so important as they are so obviously biased that all they can do these days is preach to the already converted”

I don’t agree! These papers not only influence their readership, but drive the agenda. Look at opposition to casinos and the new pub opening hours and many other issues they have campigned on. Rightly or wrongly, these papers drove the agenda not just in public discussion but have a knock-on effect in the agenda of the broadcast media as well. I won’t even mention their virulent campaign against asylum seekers! Without these papers the Tories would have disappeared by now!

I agree ‘middle class liberals’ voting Lib Dem lost us 30 odd seats to the Tories, and the Independent and Guardian may have cost us some of these votes! But isn’t this just another reason why we should change the absurd electoral system?

“Lets also remember that the Murdoch press has given its endorsement to New Labour at the last three elections as well.”

The Murdoch press denounced Labour virulently for over 3 years then gave its nominal backing in the last 2 weeks. Can we really call this endorsement? The Murdoch press campaigned just as hard as the rest of the Tory press, for a Tory government. This is why we cannot outline an honest long term agenda to the public without it being massively distorted.

“But what arguments did we actually put forward on road pricing?

We started the debate (tentatively I must admit). We mentioned it would be revenue neutral and how it would benefit off-peak, occasional and rural drivers. This was totally ignored by the media who just concentrated on ’sensationalist’ headlines about the high cost of a long distance journey along the most expensive route at peak times. They never mentioned how people who drive less or outside peak hours or on rural roads would save money! This is typical of why we need to regulate the press, as we do the broadcast media, to ensure balanced coverage of all sides of the argument.

Without the BBC and the broadcast media regulation, I have no doubt we would not have a Labour government. Media that is funded by advertising always support the big business backers who fund them, and this means they tend to support right wing views!

With the growing power of Murdoch and other media barons, my fear is that the BBC will be slowly scrapped and the present regulation removed rather than strengthened. It is in the public interest to protect them against big business propaganda, and it should be top of any left-leaning government’s agenda!

“That’s the danger of constantly playing to the crowd and courting the popular vote - there are times that government’s have to take tough decisions and do what its right even if, at first, it may not be particularly popular and its on those occasions that you need to work hardest to win the public over by puting forward real solid, rigorous arguments”.

There’s the good example of how to take the press head on and the bad example. I fear we may end up with the bad example.

Livingstone had to virtually be labelled the anti-christ to win his arguments on gay rights, negotiation with the IRA, and congestion charging. He is considerably media savvy and used resources for intensive advertising and to launch his own newspaper to get his message across in what is a heavily liberal and articulate electorate in London, a huge urban Labour voting area. Despite this he still had to work very hard to win the arguments.

My fear is that nationally we will get crucified, like we did under Michael Foot, if we try to get complex arguments over with the current media, they will have a field day!

“But there’s no guarantee that PR would make much difference at the moment, precisely because the public has not just lost confidence in the electoral system but in politics and politicians”.

Despite the massive drop in turnout in local and general elections, turnout in European, Scottish and Welsh elections has either held steady or increased over the same period. Why do you think that is?

“but if the economy stays strong and with Blair out of way… - then our chances are pretty good”.

With oil prices heading towards $100 and our massive consumer debt starting to bite, do you really think we are not going to have a recession? It was mainly the strong economy that helped us win last time. Even with the electoral bias, we are probably heading for a ‘hung parliament. Remember Governments usually lose votes as they carry on. We already got less votes than the Tories in England, with David Davies at the helm they could do much better. Howard’s image cost them a lot of votes last time. The Tory media will make a lot of Davies’ working class upbringing, and paint him as a modernising reformer and man of the people (Even though it isn’t true!). Davies looks the part and has the statesmanlike qualities of toughness because of his SAS past. We should be very afraid! This guy would be worse than Thatcher and under this electoral system they might only need 20% of the electorate to win. We must prevent this from happening. PR will have more credibility if we devise a fair system now rather than horse trading with the Lib Dems and ending up with something inferior that will still discriminate against the left!

I think if your view is that the Lib Dems ’straddle the centre’ then you are rather out of date. Many, and I count myself among them, would consider the Lib Dems mossying along to the left of ‘New’ Labour.

It is also, I think, inaccurate to line up most Lib Dems with economic liberalism, if by that you mean the kind of right-wing neo-liberalism of, say, the US Republicans.

As to whether the Lib Dems would team up with the Tories or ‘New’ Labour, should the situation arise, I think you’d find that most Lib Dems wouldn’t touch a Lib Dem/Tory coalition with a barge poll, and if the leadership tried they’d be in deep trouble with those, like me, who align themselves with the left of the party.

But that is not to address the original point that I made - which is that it is lazy sloganeering to pretend that the Lib Dems don’t know what they themselves stand for. Take a look at the manifesto and you’ll find out. Or even just ask. To say such things, to pretend that the Lib Dems don’t exist (thus dismissing the views of 1/5 to 1/4 of the British electorate) is the kind of badly done, lazy spin that is being criticised.

As you yourself said, most of the lost votes of the last election went to the Lib Dems. To continually denigrate whilst pretending the Lib Dems don’t matter has all the hallmarks of defensive denial.

Katherine, I WAS being lazy because the Lib Dems were a side point to my main argument and I didn’t want to sidetrack that. The point I make about them is still true though (as Unity’s response explains).

Where Unity gets it wrong about PR, is in thinking that the Lib Dems will exist for very long after PR is implemented. They are such a fractious lot, made up of a combination of ideologies and protest voters that they will soon dissipate into other parties. It is the present unfair electoral system that holds them together. This is also why they can attract the 20% of the vote who are totally disillusioned with Labour and Tory, because they have little other effective option to vote for under FPTP!

It might take 2 elections for a new electoral system to bed down, in which time there will be teething problems. This is why we have to make sure we get the change right. Like in Germany we will end up with several left of centre parties and several right of centre. The split in the Tories will become more pronounced with more defections to UKIP and the Greens and Socialists will add their much needed presence to Parliament, enriching its diversity and giving voice to more radical views.

PR will also remove the nonsense of geography dictating how effective your vote is by removing the limit on who you can vote for to make a difference to the result.

This will mean that the disgraceful turnout of urban voters will improve. Most of these new voters will give their vote to left of centre parties including Labour. Under PR systems, the centre left party is usually the largest party, as demonstrated in Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands and now New Zealand! In fact research has shown that PR helps the left by helping turnout and making it easier for the majority to express their true choice of party!

Katherine, how can you say that a party that calls the present level of the minimum wage ‘dangerous’, is to the left of Labour?

Neil, picking out one policy of a party does not define it, or its membership, entirely. Otherwise, one would get the impression that the Labour Party is a right wing supporting, war mongering, lying, and propagandist, wouldn’t you?

Why do the Lib Dems oppose the level of the minimum wage? It is a pretty damning indictment of their left wing credentials isn’t it?

The Lib Dems supported the war as well once it started. What is principled about that?

Name me some policies the Lib Dems have that are to the left of Labour?

I can name you plenty of policies Labour has to the left of the Lib Dems!

In answer to what you are saying about supporting the war - although I strongly disagreed with that (I thought it was cravenly giving in to media pressure) - I believe the point was to ’support the troops’ rather than the war.

And I was not trying to get into a Labour/LibDem slanging match, so please dismount from your high horse.

My point was to call you on the dismissal of the Liberal Democrats. And, if I may say so, assuming/hoping that bringing in PR would somehow melt away all the Lib Dem vote is in the realms of, to coin a phrase, cloud cuckoo land. It is also rather patronising towards voters. Liberalism as a political philosophies have as much place in the political spectrum as socialism and conservatism. I also wish to state again my personal feeling that simple left/right definitions are unsophisticated and increasingly useless to discribe the complexities of modern political thought.

I would also refute the idea that ‘they’/the Lib Dems are a fractious lot, since I happen to know quite a few of them. There are many who disagree with one another on matters, but a look at the first sentence in the constitution will show you that debate and dissent is part of the political process embraced by them. Political parties do not have to have unanimity to be able to group together, and I think it is an error to think that the electorate cannot see that. In fact, the syncophantic ‘New’ Labout back benchers are one of the biggest turn offs for many people that I have spoken to.

I would personally like to see more parties - a strong Green parliamentary presence would be very welcome, although the Greens are always in danger of being a single issue party. Although there is always the danger, from a lefty point of view, of right wing splinter groups getting a foothold, as the BNP are already worringly doing on a local level.

Having said all of that my view is, unfortunately, that thinking of PR as the panacea to the problem of voter turnout is wrong. I wish it were not so, having long been a supporter of PR on principle. But most people involved in party politics and political debate really don’t get how much the uninvolved have turned off from this. I speak as someone now on the fringes who used to be very much involved, and I know how difficult it can be to imagine things outside of the political debate. But believe it - there is a deep malaise, so much so that I start to wonder whether our style of democracy is reaching the beginning of the end.

As Michael Moore has said in the last two US presidential elections, the biggest vote was not for either candidate, but for nothing. It might not be quite there here, but it as voter turnout goes inexorably down it is difficult to see how it can ever be brought back up. People feel individually powerless you see, and even more so in the face of political spin, media manipulation, party ‘unity’, business lobbying. The war in Iraq was the ultimate expression of political contempt for the people, and I don’t think that will be forgotten.

Katherine,

“As to whether the Lib Dems would team up with the Tories or ‘New’ Labour, should the situation arise, I think you’d find that most Lib Dems wouldn’t touch a Lib Dem/Tory coalition with a barge poll, and if the leadership tried they’d be in deep trouble with those, like me, who align themselves with the left of the party.”

Perhaps you should talk to John Hemming and his colleagues in Birmingham who appear to have got within a gnat’s whisker of the Tories in their coalition, never mind a barge pole.

To talk only in terms of a place on a left-right spectrum is a piece of unthinking terminological laziness. It may make it easier for labour supporters to justify their continued support for New Labour, even though the Labour Party in actuality is nothing like the Labour Party in their heads that they have been voting for. It completely ignores the (IMO) more important authoritarian/libetarian axis.

I would not especially characterise New Labour as left of centre. It is however extremely authoritarian - and at every opportunity new laws are proposed increasing the powers of ministers and decreasing the freedoms or ordinary citizens. That’s not what the Labour Party is supposed to be for, but it seems to be New Labour’s principal ambition.

FWIW, I am an ex-labour voter, but I’m afraid New Labour disgusts me. Contempt for the truth, contempt for standards in public life, contempt for the electorate. Yes, they’ve got the lot.

Katherine, PR is not a panacea but it will help increase turnout. We also need subsidiarity and media reform.

The situation on turnout has been as bad over here (as in the US) for a long time now. On the Michael Moore test, the apathy party get 39% compared to Labour’s 22% of the electorate. Similar to the States where apathy is at 43%. This is of course, of those registered to vote so you can add a couple of points to the non-voting plurality over here and maybe as much as 10% in the US, where loads of people are barred from voting!

Pete, Left and Right are still important in a four way axis including Liberty and Authority, that is where it gets complicated.

Labour does have authoritarian aspects but also libertarian ones as well (licensing liberalisation). You are probably referring to terrorism laws and ID cards etc. I’m against ID cards because of the cost rather than the supposed liberty aspects everyone moans about.

We already live in a surveillance society that I can’t see ID cards making any worse. Why has no-one made a hoo-ha about our medical records being computerised or CCTV on every street, or supermarkets and banks knowing exactly where we shop and everything we buy? Or for that matter, that mobile phone companies can track our movements to within a few hundred yards in urban areas, ISPs know exactly what we look at on the internet and our boss can legally read our emails?

How is ID cards gonna make this any worse? This is all technology that would have happened whoever was in government! To blame ‘New Labour’ is just using a convenient target for all our woes.

You have got to be a pragmatist, you may only like a minority of what Labour does, but it is much better than the Tories and even the Lib Dems and that is what counts until we can get the electoral system changed. Those progressive people (like you) who have left the Labour party have weakened the Left’s chances of reforming the party for the better and that serves no-one.

Katherine, I also meant to say. The Lib Dems with no hope of ever winning under this system, receive the majority of the protest votes. Their 20% will easily fall away to around 10% under PR, especially when parts of their membership leave.

You may deny that they straddle the middle and could form a coalition with either Labour or Tory, but there are plenty of examples at local level of Lib Dem/Tory coalitions. The local Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in Hove was even an ex-Tory! There are loads of ex-Tories in the Lib Dems!

It happened in NZ when PR came in, the middle party there formed a coalition with the centre right when everyone including their own membership expected them to form a coalition with Labour. They did however pay for this act of treachery when their vote dropped from 18% to 1% at the following election, and Labour won comfortably and formed a coalition government with the Greens! Labour has remained by far the biggest party there increasing its vote by 10% to 43% since PR came in. NZ is a good example as it had an identical Westminster like electoral system and nobody expected it to move to PR, until a Labour government gave the people a referendum and they voted overwhelmingly for the change. Despite a few teething problems, people would laugh at the suggestion of returning to the old Westminster style system. Turnout in their elections has also risen significantly!

Actually I was referring to ID cards, terrorism laws, road pricing, CCTV on every street corner, the changes New Labour introduced to force ISPs to retain records to enable government spying. There’s a whole raft of illiberal legislation that New Labour has been introducing since 1997, often justified on the most spurious grounds.

To accept the current existence of a kind of proto-surveillance society does not excuse New Labour’s liking for a centralising authoritarian approach to every problem. Indeed thay have played a major part in helping to bring it about. New Labour are not a ‘convenient target’. Rather they are enthusistic proponents (and in many of the cases the instigators) of this encroaching authoritarian surveillance state. They need to be opposed, not supported. To quote Leon Rosselson (how old does that make me?): ‘That’s not the way it’s got to be’.

I keep hearing the voice of Neil Kinnock in my head (though he was referring to Militant in Liverpool): ‘The grotesque spectacle of a Labour Government - a Labour Government - passing legislation that would have shamed a nineteenth century reactionary.’

I see no evidence in the Labour Party of any real opposition to Bliar’s authoritarianism - far too much acceptance and opportunism. The good that Labour has done has been largely incidental and peripheral, and the harm to our traditions of freedom and accountability has been immense. I want my children to grow up in a free society. TB and his New Labour party don’t seem to have any feeling for what a free society is.

BTW your boss can read your letters too, but as with emails, only ones you send from work. I could also point out that banks and shops only know about you if you tell them (for instance by using a loyalty card), there’s no compulsion on you to cough up the information. I have to say that an acceptance of this situation seems to me to be rather equivalent to ‘You’re short sighted, so it won’t matter if we blind you’. And people have been making a fuss about other aspects of the surveillance society.

The licensing changes have nothing at all to do with libertarianism - extending the hours is not a liberal (small ‘l’) measure - the licensing regime still exists and has not been relaxed. In fact the scheme involves even more bureaucracy than it did before. In a sense it extends the power of the state rather than otherwise.

I don’t (yet anyway) suspect that New Labour wants to do all these things far any bad reason (just stupid nonsensical reasons). And authoritarian answers always seem quick and simple (”For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. HL Mencken”). But once done, it will be hard (or even impossible) to undo. Would you want this power, knowledge, authority in the hands of a right-wing, authoritarian government? System all nicely set up by New Labour, they can start making their little lists straight away.

So it wasn’t the Tories that set up most of the CCTV cameras?

These things are just the inevitable consequence of the advances of technology. They are happening all over the world not just in the UK. You can’t just load it all on ‘New Labour’s’ shoulders.

Tell me a bank or credit company or ISP or other private organisation anywhere in the world that hasn’t got lists of where you shop and what you buy. You say we choose to have to loyalty cards, but what choice have we with banks etc?

As for criticising road pricing, you are being overly paranoid now. Like I said the mobile phone in your pocket tells the authorities where you are. This is true all over the world! I mean surely you agree something has to be done about road congestion, what do you suggest?

Labour is overly bureaucratic in some of its legislation. But where it is, it is generally doing a good deed, such as ‘data protection act’, ‘minimum wage’, ‘guaranteed holiday pay’, ‘freedom of information’, etc etc.

You write off Labour’s achievements far too easily. Would it have been better to have had a Tory government these past 8 years and saw even more dismantling of public services?

I know its the same old chestnut, but its true!

There is a lot I don’t agree with ‘New Labour’ about. But having a Tory government is not going to solve anything, the state they are in. I am campaigning for electoral reform because I believe this will return power to the people and also encourage more democracy within the party as well. It would be a disaster if we have another Tory government elected under this system with such a small percentage of the vote.

Labour have governed reasonably consensually, I would not trust the Tories to do the same.

Neil:

I hate to say this but I wouldn’t count FOIA among the successes yet - not with 23 separate classes of exemption many of which even defy legal discovery processes.

To give but one example, I know kids club that’s been in dispute with its landlord - a charity-run community centre, as it happens - over a lease, as a result which they started to find themselves on the wrong end of series of false and slanderous complaints made to Ofsted by a member of the centre’s staff - none of which has even been found to have a shred of truth.

They know who has been making these complaints, what they can’t obtain is the proof of the complainants actions as information obtained in the course of an investigation is exempt from FOIA in order to protect confidential ’sources’ even where that source can be shown not onyl to have got it wrong but to be acting maliciously.

I did contact the information commissioners office and talk them through a legla argument which I felt might get them this information which would enable them to get the idiot reponsible off their back once and for all, only having talked the guy on the helpline through it and asked whether he thought it maight fly, the answer I got amounted to ‘fuck knows’.

OK the FOIA is floored, but better than not having it at all, I would suspect.

Neil, you are in denial. Labour has been stolen. The actions of ‘New’ Labour recently have been shocking, and defending ID cards on the basis that we already have a surveillance society is a poor excuse. If you see oil being poured onto a fire, do you defend that by saying the fire was already there? And defending New Labour by holding up the bogey man of a Tory government instead is even weaker - how long can you keep on going as just the ‘better than them’ option?

As for PR and the Lib Dems under it - you seem to have all the answers so clearly you have access to a crystal ball that can accurately predict the future of all elections.

No one really knows what will happen if PR were to be introduced - your assumption that half of the Lib Dem vote is protest vote is based on guess work, not solid research, and ignores at least one pre-election poll which found that more people would have voted Lib Dem if they thought they had a chance of winning, not less.

And yes, it might be true that PR would improve voter turnout, but that fails to address the fundamental problem. People have lost faith in politics. We can debate, argue and harangue in this forum as much as we like, but we are talking to ourselves.

I am against ID cards, and I do think Labour are making a mistake following that course but you are in denial if you can’t see the surveillance society is a worldwide phenomenon. It is not some ‘New Labour’ invention that wouldn’t have otherwise happened. It is not even something any government could stop even if it wanted to. Well not without international agreements anyway!

The ‘better than them’ argument may be a tired argument BUT it is STILL TRUE. Just because it is an old argument doesn’t make it any less relevant.

Under our electoral system you should vote for the best option and that is Labour, even though it might do a lot of things we don’t agree with, it still does a hell of a lot of good things as well.

Yes, Labour party democracy has been eroded and yes, government on 35.2% of the vote is a disgrace! This is why I want electoral reform and the best way to get it, is to campaign within the Labour party, not outside it! There are over a 100 Labour MPs that already agree with me on PR.

The Lib Dems would be a disaster in government, people vote for them safe in the knowledge that they won’t form a government. If you want to play the opinion poll game, you might know about the one which asked; ‘which party would you prefer to form a government?’ Lib Dem or Labour, it was overwhelmingly Labour that people chose. In fact people actually preferred a Tory government to a Lib Dem one!!

I look to New Zealand and other countries that have PR to see what might happen here. That seems a reasonable guess. Yes, I admit it is guesswork. But by looking at these countries it gives you an idea what will happen to centre parties and fringe parties and the main parties. Indeed depending on the electoral system they seem to follow quite set patterns all over the world.

Basically the centre party vote is gradually eroded as people start to mistrust its ‘playmaker role’ and have experience of it in government and fringe parties become established which form coalitions with their respective larger left or right partners. Its simple, there is absolutely no reason to believe this wouldn’t happen here if PR ws introduced.

Finally yes, we are talking to ourselves. People have become alienated from party politics for a number of reasons. They certainly have little interest in the workings of the electoral system, but that does not mean it isn’t of absolute importance in redressing this problem.

Well, like I said, I don’t want to get into party political battles, but perhaps the Labout grass roots should look at whether they are really in a left wing party at all, if you are of the opinion that a centre party will get hammered post PR.

As for a surveillance society - I’m certainly not in denial and is one of the reasons why I campaign and argue so much against ID cards. It is the reason why I do not use store cards or loyalty schemes and it is the reason why I continue to be horrified by London bus adverts declaring that we are ’safe beneath the watching eyes’ of CCTV.

And one government may not be able to stop world wide surveillance, but New Labour is not even being neutral - they are furthering it by proposing to introduce ID cards, thus funadmentally reversing the relationship between the state and the individual in this country.

It will be a cold day in hell when I carry an ID card and consequently it will be a cold day in hell when I vote Labour. That and the war in Iraq have killed off any illusion that might have existed that New Labour cares about the little man over the interests of the state, the States, big business (with their fat PFI and PPP contracts) and big oil. New Labour has betrayed its roots and it has betrayed those who ever voted for it.

No matter how much Labour has moved to the right and the Lib Dems have inched to the left, there are still so many policy areas where Labour are to the Left of the Lib Dems.

Examples are the minimum wage, Working Families Tax Credits tuition fees (yes, and I can explain why), local income tax (wait for our new proposals to replace Council tax), market reforms of NHS (PFI is not opposed by Lib Dems, they would expand private influence!). Look at the Orange Book to see how your party is veering towards unashamed Thatcherism!

In fact the only policy I can see of the Lib Dems to the left of us was its proposal to increase taxes for those earning over £100,000 and they are going to dump that before the next election.

The Lib Dems are the ultimate centrist, middle class party and that is their constituency, not trade unionism and the working class! Those who vote for the Lib Dems thinking them more left wing are being conned. You are in the wrong party, Katherine! Come and help us reclaim the only major left wing party (or join the Greens, who are at least honest about their policies)!

But more than all this is the duplicity of the Lib Dems, saying one thing in one part of the country and the opposite elsewhere. A good example are wind farms, something they proudly claim they would increase the number of, to produce 10% of our energy needs. But every single MP they have opposes them in their constituency, this despite the fact that some of the prime places to locate them are situated in their North West Scottish and South West Cornish rural constituencies!

This unaccountability is the advantage they have over Labour of never having to face the scrutiny of their policies in government. They have the luxury of permanent opposition where they can just snipe from the sidelines and say anything they like to win votes without ever being brought to account. Being in government doesn’t afford that luxury and sometimes some very difficult compromises have to happen. This is something you should consider when you compare Lib Dem and Labour policies.

Charles Kennedy said he ‘agonised’ over his decision not to back the Iraq War, and this from the safety of a leader of a third party who knew his policy would have no effect. How much harder must the decision have been for Blair?

Well, my comment was never intended to start a Labour vs Lib Dem debate, but I fear that when the pronouncements of Charles Clarke regularly make me want to vomit, when I see the Attorney General making veiled threats against the judiciary, when I see the BBC strung up for mistakes that dwarf the lies and half truths of Tony Blair, when I see New Labour cosying up with the kind of US president that they shouldn’t want to have anything to do with - I fear that these things will always overshadow anything else. There doesn’t seem to be much reclamation going on. In fact, most of the Labour grass roots seem to be so afraid of finding themselves back in the electoral wilderness of the 80’s that they will take it all, and still try to make excuses.

And much as you would like to write of middle class centrists, you’d be surprised how much they never go away, seeing as how they are people with as much right to exist, vote and have opinions as everyone else.

Katherine, I’ve obviously touched a raw nerve, but I had to point out how you are wrong to think you are in a more left wing party than Labour.

Like I’ve said, go and join the Greens if you want policies to the left of Labour, you are being conned by the Lib Dems!

I never said there was anything wrong in being a middle class centrist, far from it! Just don’t expect left wing policies from a party like the Lib Dems that looks after that constituency!