Has Farage been telling us porkies? Surely not..

[dosxuk]

If it's telling people what they want to hear then maybe the other politicians should be taking note, after all, they're there to serve us.

 

The problem is the other politicians actually have to stand by what they say if they want to keep their job. Farage can say what he wants full well in the knowledge that either he can't do anything about it as an MEP, and that he has no chance of becoming Prime Minister.

 

I agree, I really don't understand why a Lib Dem voter would punish Clegg for becoming part of the coalition, as far as I can see he's not done a bad job.

 

Mainly because he promised, in writing, that regardless of what happened, he would fight for the scrapping of tuition fees. At the slightest sniff of power, that went out the window and the entire party apparently now supported the idea of tripling fees - a decision which the MPs are apparently now coming to the same conclusion as most of the analysts at the time - that will result in less people paying their fees, resulting in more debt to the country and it's students.

 

Clegg could have made it a free vote for the party, or stood his ground, as he did on other topics. Instead, he made a key issue for many of their supporters, did a complete U-turn, and then forced the entire party to vote for a plan many of them have directly campaigned against for decades. Everyone is aware that compromises have to be made, but Clegg managed to walk away having got it completely wrong.

[tzijlstra]

I agree, I really don't understand why a Lib Dem voter would punish Clegg for becoming part of the coalition, as far as I can see he's not done a bad job.

 

---------- Post added 16-05-2014 at 17:04 ----------

 

 

What did all the other MEP's do to serve us?

 

Yay! It is scary how often we seem to agree.

 

However, I am not going to list the enormous list of things that MEPs have delivered for the UK, you can easily find it yourself.

[Doom]

I agree, I really don't understand why a Lib Dem voter would punish Clegg for becoming part of the coalition, as far as I can see he's not done a bad job.

 

I thought I was the only person left in Sheffield that actually admired Clegg for joining the Conservatives in coalition.

 

I may not agree with his stance on Europe, but that doesn't mean I can't admire other things he's done.

 

Our country was in a financial mess when the election took place and the last thing we needed was weak Government. With the Liberals joining the Conservatives in coalition, we had strong Government capable of making unpleasant decisions that got us out of a financial hole.

 

Clegg could have joined with Labour, but he always suggested if he did form a coalition his first attempt would be with the party having the larger share of the vote....That was the Conservatives.

 

I guess he'll never live down his U-Turn on student fees, but it was a necessity to save a substantial amount of money. I feel for the students, because I was lucky enough to get a free further education, but unfortunately we're living in difficult financial times and tough decisions were/are needed.

 

Now can we get back to slagging off UKIP?

 

Regards

 

Doom

[ivanava]

 

 

 

Mainly because he promised, in writing, that regardless of what happened, he would fight for the scrapping of tuition fees. At the slightest sniff of power, that went out the window and the entire party apparently now supported the idea of tripling fees - a decision which the MPs are apparently now coming to the same conclusion as most of the analysts at the time - that will result in less people paying their fees, resulting in more debt to the country and it's students.

 

Clegg could have made it a free vote for the party, or stood his ground, as he did on other topics. Instead, he made a key issue for many of their supporters, did a complete U-turn, and then forced the entire party to vote for a plan many of them have directly campaigned against for decades. Everyone is aware that compromises have to be made, but Clegg managed to walk away having got it completely wrong.

 

Yes so Clegg wasn't wrong to support it, he got the best deal he could get, which turns out not to be a bad deal for students.

[anywebsite]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again in due course when it self-verifies, that Farage is using the exact same modus operandi as LePen (JM, with Marine having now taken the family business over and doing just more of the same) to keep himself in the far-far-faaar-less-scrutinised pay of the EU Parliament, and just peddle political influence ad hoc.

 

LePen has been an MEP for around 20 years, and whenever the FN has been in danger of getting a député (MP) or a few, never mind a bit "too high" a voting score in the first round of Presidential elections, he's come out in the nick of time with some self-torpedoing humdinger to reset the party's popularity clock. My prediction is that Farage will do exactly the same. You just watch.

 

There are no political or ethical convictions, and certainly no-one there who wants to get on the hotseat, pull sleeves up and muck in. Just a career politician who's opportunistically exploiting a populist bandwagon.

 

Spot on. Farage/UKIP (seems to be a one-man-band) have no intention of getting any MPs, he's happily sat on the EU gravy train. He wont contest by-elections & he'll go really quiet after the Euro elections in case anybody remembers them for next year's general election.

 

Worse than that, they don't really participate in EU politics, so the UK gets less say in Europe due to UKIP MEPs.

[dosxuk]

I guess he'll never live down his U-Turn on student fees, but it was a necessity to save a substantial amount of money.

 

Except it didn't. All it would achieve is moving some numbers on a balance book. The Government is still underwriting all the money that has been handed out.

 

Did you also buy the line about how only a few select institutions would be charging the full £9k fees, despite everyone with any idea saying they would all want to charge as much as possible.

 

Yes so Clegg wasn't wrong to support it, he got the best deal he could get, which turns out not to be a bad deal for students.

 

Except those students will be burdened with debt for the rest of their working lives. Nobody got a good deal out of this legislation, it's a bad deal all round. Something which probably would have been noticed if it hadn't been rushed through.

 

In fact the only real positive is the tory support percentage from those who abandoned the libs as a result and couldn't face voting for the Milliband bros. Not that I'm suggesting the whole thing was orchestrated to discredit Clegg. And certainly not just before the referendum which could seriously dent the Tories hopes of getting absolute power in the future.

[BoroB]

Clegg made a deal. Coalition in exchange for a referendum on getting the voting system changed. It went belly up. He was naive but his integrity is intact.

 

He's not lied at all. Its just that a lot of people can't figure out that a party in a coalition don't get to implement all of their policies.

 

Nevertheless the influence of the lib dems on this government has been strong. If the lib dems aim was to have some influence on the running of the country, then they've succeeded. PR wise though it has been a disaster for them.

 

You've got to expect deals and compromise in politics.

 

However, what Nick Clegg did on the student fees issue was pure capitulation

that has left many of his previous supporters unable to trust or support him again.

[Mr Clowning]

What's going to be a problem is if UKIP take seats of the others at the general election and we have another hung parliament, UKIP have said they would not join the Tories, Labour won't offer a referendum so that out of the question, the Tories have said that any future coalition with them will have the referendum forefront of any pact and the Lib Dem's won't want the referendum. So that will leave Labour and the Lib Dem's.

 

Lets see how the Euro elections go for UKIP and then we can talk about if they are likely to get any MP's or not.

[chalga]

What's going to be a problem is if UKIP take seats of the others at the general election and we have another hung parliament, UKIP have said they would not join the Tories, Labour won't offer a referendum so that out of the question, the Tories have said that any future coalition with them will have the referendum forefront of any pact and the Lib Dem's won't want the referendum. So that will leave Labour and the Lib Dem's.

 

 

You must have missed Farages U Turn this week then.

[ivanava]

Yay! It is scary how often we seem to agree.

 

However, I am not going to list the enormous list of things that MEPs have delivered for the UK, you can easily find it yourself.

 

I worded the question wrong, I should have said,

What have our MEP's delivered that our MP's couldn't have delivered if we was out of the EU.

 

---------- Post added 16-05-2014 at 17:57 ----------

 

I thought I was the only person left in Sheffield that actually admired Clegg for joining the Conservatives in coalition.

 

I may not agree with his stance on Europe, but that doesn't mean I can't admire other things he's done.

 

Our country was in a financial mess when the election took place and the last thing we needed was weak Government. With the Liberals joining the Conservatives in coalition, we had strong Government capable of making unpleasant decisions that got us out of a financial hole.

 

Clegg could have joined with Labour, but he always suggested if he did form a coalition his first attempt would be with the party having the larger share of the vote....That was the Conservatives.

 

I guess he'll never live down his U-Turn on student fees, but it was a necessity to save a substantial amount of money. I feel for the students, because I was lucky enough to get a free further education, but unfortunately we're living in difficult financial times and tough decisions were/are needed.

 

Now can we get back to slagging off UKIP?

 

Regards

 

Doom

 

Agreed and I thought we was defending UKIP.

 

---------- Post added 16-05-2014 at 18:00 ----------

 

 

Except those students will be burdened with debt for the rest of their working lives. Nobody got a good deal out of this legislation, it's a bad deal all round. Something which probably would have been noticed if it hadn't been rushed through.

 

In fact the only real positive is the tory support percentage from those who abandoned the libs as a result and couldn't face voting for the Milliband bros. Not that I'm suggesting the whole thing was orchestrated to discredit Clegg. And certainly not just before the referendum which could seriously dent the Tories hopes of getting absolute power in the future.

 

No they won't.

 

---------- Post added 16-05-2014 at 18:02 ----------

 

What's going to be a problem is if UKIP take seats of the others at the general election and we have another hung parliament, UKIP have said they would not join the Tories, Labour won't offer a referendum so that out of the question, the Tories have said that any future coalition with them will have the referendum forefront of any pact and the Lib Dem's won't want the referendum. So that will leave Labour and the Lib Dem's.

 

Lets see how the Euro elections go for UKIP and then we can talk about if they are likely to get any MP's or not.

I'm sure they have changed their mind on that one now Cameron as promised a referendum.