numonex said:
The Liberal Democrats betrayed their left leaning voter base by forming a Coalition with the Tories. Nick Clegg should have sided with Labour. Liberal Democrats voter base has plummeted since the May general election. Liberal Democrats will lose seats at the next GE in 2015. Labour's vote will increase, Tories vote should slightly fall or stabilise around the 42% mark. Ed Milibrand could be the right man for the job. A Trade Union heavy hitting man is what Labour needs as leader. Ed Milibrand is much younger than the aging Gordon Brown.
Labour needs a leader who will stand up and oppose the cuts and fight for the rights of the working class and the young people. The Opposition's role is to hold the government accountable. If you do not know, vote no and hold the government accountable. Make noise and play political attack dog to upset the government's momentum.
Cuts will hurt the UK economy. Public service will result in higher unemployment in UK and less services. There will be pain, anger and resentment by the public over the excessive government spending cuts. Pity the young fools who voted for Tories or Liberal Democrats hoping that the government would save them but shafted them.
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The Liberal Democrats betrayed nobody. This was their one chance at getting into government. They cancelled the plans to cut inheritance tax, increased the tax-free allowance for low-income earners, and managed to get a referendum for Alternative Vote (which they will lose, when they're up against Tory funding, but still).
This is, realistically, the most they could have done. It's certainly better for them than sitting in opposition with Mr. Trade Unions and Family. I see why Lib Dem support has dropped, but it's unjustified.
42% is more than enough for a majority for the Conservative Party. Indeed, another 15,000 strategically placed voted would have given them a majority with 37%. Britain hates the trade unions, and will not support any leader who is their bitch. Granted, Ed is young, but he's also inexperienced. He's only been an MP for five years (one session of Parliament) and the highest office he has held is energy secretary, an office now held by a Liberal Democrat.
Labour needs a leader who will give a massive middle finger to Brown, Miliband, Balls, the whole lot of them, who throws it all down the drain, acknowledges the need for a new type of socialism in which people really are equal, and is inspirational enough to drive people to believe in him. That could have been Andy Burnham. Labour might also succeed with a centre-right Blairite who pretends not to be a Blairite. That was David Miliband.
Cuts will hurt the economy, of course they will. And getting a filling hurts your gums. Getting an X-ray irradiates your leg. But if you leave it unchecked, it gets gradually worse and worse. More severe action will need to be taken, and if that action is not taken, it will never be fixed. Thirteen years of crap from Labour (okay, maybe ten or so years of crap from Labour - they didn't start off terrible) brought us into this mess, and we need something to bring us out.
The government has, for the most part, protected the people, at its own expense. The only tax rises have been a slight hike in large capital gains and a tiny hike in VAT. Both are temporary and will probably be undone before any restoration of government budgets. It's a ratio of 75% budget cuts to 25% tax rises. That's a better ratio for the people than that desired by any Labour leader.
I was a skeptic to begin with, but you only have to look at the alternative to see what would have happened under a broad left-wing coalition led by Ed Miliband, and you will be grateful that we have a reasonably competent Party in charge, and a small party that does what it's told and introduces socialism in small doses behind that leading party. Do I like David Cameron? No, I don't. Do I like the Liberal Democrats? Not at all. But this is really the best result from the general election that we could have realistically hoped for.
(Former) Lead Moderator
