| Topic: | Re:Re:hopefully this is right... | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 26/11/10 10:58:00 |
| Well, as I'm not a Lib Dem and am uninvolved in both the national and now the local race for political power I guess I can offer an opinion without having to feel any sense of embarrassment or shame. What is not being grasped, in some cases I would suggest wilfully not being grasped, is the fact that we do not have a Lib Dem government, we have a coalition. If we had a Lib Dem government that had changed its mind on tuition fees then the charge of selling out would be a valid one. But we don't, so it isn't. In a coalition no party gets everything it wants. Whether this particular policy was the right one to compromise over is, of course, another matter. For what it's worth I share John Connelly's view that we should be looking instead to the defence budget, and in particular to the obscene amounts of money that we are committing to completely unjustified and unjustifiable military adventures in other parts of the world. But the hard fact that coalition means compromise remains, and it needs to be noted that much of the vitriol that is being aimed at the Lib Dems is coming from people with a party political perspective who oppose the coalition on the grounds that it has consigned their party of choice to opposition rather than with the interests of society as a whole in mind. This fact does not negate the right of such people to an opinion, but it does require that opinion to placed firmly into context. Yes I would like to see the Lib Dems think again over education but what concerns me more is whether they will get a fair crack of the whip in exchange, because my own personal experience teaches me that the party they are in coalition with is far better at taking than giving. |