Letter in The Guardian:
I was amused to read Charlie Brooker’s article on Nick Clegg, “perhaps the most useful tool in the government’s shed”, shuffling on to explain the inevitability and fairness of every coalition decision.
Norman Lamb, Lib Dem MP and coalition health spokesperson, provided a further insight into the Lib Dem view of the world when speaking to the Norwich Diocesan Synod recently. He should not have signed his party’s pledge to vote against any increase in university fees, he said, as this was “a legitimate position for an opposition party to take”, but a “very different position for a party with responsibility” (quote from the Eastern Daily Press, 18 October).
So now we know: you can promise anything you like to get elected as long as you don’t have to implement it!
Doris Piper
Sensible folk these Pipers you know, although to my knowledge Doris is no relation.
‘Nick Clegg, “perhaps the most useful tool in the government’s shed”, ‘
Or, as one might put it: “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.” – the job of creating a poor, cowed working-class by making their children, their old, the weak and ill pay for the gross incompetence of the private sector banks. None of which could happen if the verdict of the electorate – a Conservative government without the majority they need to implement their more extreme and damaging policies – had not been overturned by the LibDems joining in a coalition with them.
Pete
*mutters something about abolishing boom and bust, the abolition of the 10p tax rate, and the promise to repeal Thatchers vile anti-union laws*
You’re right, it’s just the Lib Dems who can’t deliver on all their promises when they get into government…
I’m not sure what you muttered about ‘repealing Thatcher’s anti-union laws‘, but if Labour did… it certainly slipped past me. Nor did they ‘promise’ to abolish the 10p tax rate, actually. And Brown never promised to abolish boom and bust either.
Apart from those 3 mistakes, I think you muttered the rest of it just about right John.