On Tuesday night I had a Lib Dem on twitter telling me that the pension facts in this Bella Caledonia piece weren't accurate because some people in the UK can afford to save large amounts for their old age. I tire of pointing out to Lib Dems what seems so simple to the rest of the population so I'll just say this; if you're a Lib Dem your party isn't taking the edge off the Tory excesses, it's facilitating them. If you wanted to curb the power of the Tory Government you would have left it to form a minority government where it would have had to negotiate the passage of every measure without the certainty of having Lib Dem MPs whipped in to support them.
So if you're a Lib Dem, you did this -
You're responsible for the economic and fiscal policies which see 1 in 6 Scottish children going to bed hungry and massive pressure piling on their parents.
You're responsible for policies which have created a massive increase in the number of people relying on foodbanks.
You've driven people to desperation, to the very ends of their tethers, to the point where they feel they have no options left, nowhere left to turn. You're responsible for disabled people being threatened with eviction.
It's your Government that's thinking about cutting benefits for people under 25.
You're spending billions of pounds on nuclear weapons.
In spite of all that you still have the cheek to tell Scotland that we can't govern ourselves, and using this Eeyore to do it.
Inequality, Dickensian poverty, crushing communities - the Lib Dem legacy. It isn't someone else doing this; it wasn't a big boy who did it and ran away. You aren't keeping Cameron and Osborne in check, you're part of what they're doing. It's not that someone else is doing this; you're doing this. When Osborne speaks he's your man, what he does is your doing. When Iain Duncan Smith is cutting benefits it's you that's doing it. Those xenophobic immigration policies are yours, that determination to roll back human rights is yours, those 'go home' vans were yours, those cuts in Scotland's budget are your cuts, all of the horror of the UK Government is yours - it's your doing.
Anybody else would feel a burning shame but I suspect that the average Lib Dem doesn't understand that feeling.
3 comments:
I thnk you may be being just a little unfair on the Lib-Dems. They believe in the principle of coalition governments so doing a deal with the Tories may be unpalatable but it's not a political sin in itself.
However what is a sin is to make such a pigs ear of the negotiations that you end up supporting policies which are not just unpalatable but which run contrary to your own oft-stated core values. That is what the Lib-Dems have achieved. All the blame for Tory policies - and rightly so for they have put themselves in the lobbies to back them - and none of the credit for the minor victories.
It's a badge of shame that professional believers in coalition should have emerged with such a rotten outcome. The punishments they have been suffering at the hands of the voters since have been both stinging and deserved.
In Scotland it's little wonder that the Lib-Dems have been reduced to a near laughing stock as they maneouvered themselves into a position where they were first campaigning against their own policy in order to prevent a 2nd question in the referendum and then stepped up as the most enthusiastic peddlers of Tory unionism.
It's a sorry, sad and depressing spectacle which has brought Liberal politics into disrepute.
The Lib Dems are part of the UK Government. They're responsible for what the UK Government is doing.
It is going to be interesting to see how many Lib Dems will be left after the next general election.
(Hopefully by then that will be of academic interest only.)
Post a Comment