Nick Clegg's Pledge

[espadrille]

I can understand your desire to defend Nick Clegg's position on this issue, but I am talking about Nick Clegg as a person, not the Lib Dems as a party.

 

I fully accept, and agree with, the concept of compromising on some matters to enable others to be achieved, but it was my understanding that the coalition agreement allegedly (and I only use that word because I haven't read the agreement) says something along the lines of the Lib Dems being able to abstain on fundamental policy disagreements.

 

Even if it doesn't, there has to be issues on which the only agreement is the freedom to disagree.

 

As I and others have said previously on other threads, Nick Clegg doesn't have to support this policy - he could easily have said "I accept that this policy has to be introduced, but, because I actively campaigned against it, and encouraged people to vote for me and my party on that basis, I cannot vote in favour, and will, therefore, abstain"

 

That position would not have prejudiced the coalition, and would, in my opinion, have been more honourable (leaving aside the right of anyone to change their mind)

 

We shall see what happens in December.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11837427

[Boblet]

I suspect that the Labour Party smells an early opportunity to defeat the Government

 

I also suspect that it will turn out to be less interesting than it currently appears!

[espadrille]

I suspect that the Labour Party smells an early opportunity to defeat the Government

 

I also suspect that it will turn out to be less interesting than it currently appears!

 

Well this is what can happen when one party doesnt have an overall majority.

[Tony]

He is actively campaigning on behalf of the coalition policy - he's hardly likely to vote against it is he?

 

Ahem;

Clegg refuses to say if he will abstain on tuition fees

 

Deputy PM Nick Clegg has declined to rule out Lib Dem ministers abstaining in the crucial Commons vote on university tuition fees.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11850194

[wednesday1]

Ahem;

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11850194

 

 

 

 

Don't worry, I expect he'll soon fall back into line Tone when the boss tells him to.

[sccsux]

markets would have gone in to freefall.

 

So we're told (incidentally, by the very same people who are in government - vested interests anyone).

 

It is much more important to have a scapegoat and someone to blame for the ess that the country is in.

 

Or maybe, just maybe, we're not blinkered (unlike the people with vested interests)?

[I1L2T3]

Ahem;

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11850194

 

Thanks for the link Tony. I guess this more overtly pragmatic approach is more what people expected to see.

[espadrille]

So we're told (incidentally, by the very same people who are in government - vested interests anyone).

 

 

 

Or maybe, just maybe, we're not blinkered (unlike the people with vested interests)?

 

But do you believe this to be true.??

Do you think that the markets have steadied and rallied as a result of the action that has been taken?

[sccsux]

But do you believe this to be true.?

 

No, I don't (I don't believe anything a government tells me until I've seen it with my own eyes:thumbsup:.

 

Do you think that the markets have steadied and rallied as a result of the action that has been taken?

 

I have no idea. What I do know is that the "markets" were recovering before the election, so we'll have no way of ever knowing the answer to that one:(.

[s24su]

The pledge is being used an an excuse for the inadadequate custodians of higher education to ask for a further extension