Nadine Dorries just asked a question in Prime Ministers Questions. Everyone inched forward on their benches. What would everyone’s favourite punching bag ask? Well she lamented the fact that the Lib Dems have too much influence on government policy and that the Prime Minister needs to tell the Deputy Prime Minister who is boss.
The house erupted with laughter. The Prime Minister tried to answer but was too busy laughing before stumbling with a short reply of ‘I think I’ll give up on that one’ and the house erupted again.
If the Lib Dems are pissing off the likes of Nadine Dorries then I think we as Lib Dems should rejoice. A lot of Lib Dems are extremely unhappy with what we are doing in parliament but when you take a step back you can see that without us then the government would be one of the most right-wing ones that we have seen in the last half a century. Our influence might not be getting this that we want but we are stopping the right-wing part of the Conservative party getting what they want and that is at this juncture just as important.
When Dorries asked the question Nick Clegg raised a smile. He looks so tired but for a brief moment he knew that he was doing something worthwhile. Of course whether or not the electorate will ever forgive him or his party (well when I say ever I mean in the next few years) is very much up for debate but stopping the right-wing nut jobs doing too much damage is something worth raising a toast for.
I know this isn’t an ideal situation for the Lib Dems but our influence is clearly being felt by the politicians within the Conservative party. All we need now is to show the electorate this but that might be a much taller order.
Edit: YouTube video uploaded and attached.
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“when you take a step back you can see that without us then the government would be one of the most right-wing ones that we have seen in the last half a century”
You must be delusional. With the support of the Lib Dems this government already is the most right wing one in the last 60 years at least. Not even on her most vindictive day did Maggie actually have the audacity to try and dismantle the NHS, but lo and behold, in this progressive coalition of equals, where the Lib Dems are clearly clipping the Tory wings, we are on the brink of destroying the NHS. Bravo.
This is of course to say nothing of presiding over a brutal program of cuts that is near certain to ensure a long recovery in a stagnant economy, the almighty shafting of the educational hopes of an entire generation, and a severe lack of political nous in the AV campaign that may very well have pushed voting reform off the agenda for decades to come.
Hopefully the electorate won’t forget what the Lib Dems brought to the table, and won’t vote for the spineless bastards again.
I think that is one of the things Lib Dems who are unhappy need to grasp and give a big bear hug too.
This isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot but Tories having a clean run compared to Tories having their wings clipped by us. I know which is better.
We were naive in the start but Clegg and his team are starting to find their feet. They got shafted and played their hand on AV badly so now it seems as though their viewpoint is ‘sod it – we’re screwed if we don’t stand up to them so let’s do our worst’ and the Tories can’t do anything.
Darn! You got there first:-).
It was brilliant, though.
Liberal Democrats should shout about this one to anyone who will listen. There are a fair few areas where we can show that we have taken the sting out of the Tories.
I am not happy about some of the things the Coalition is doing, but I know that it’s better than anything the Tories, or Labour for that matter, could do instead.