Those in the
Conservative party who seem to think that they can sign up to an agreement with
another party and then pick and choose which elements of the agreement they
support have displayed a certain amount of arrogance as well. I even saw one of them suggesting that the
response by Nick Clegg was immature. It
didn’t look to me as though the immaturity was entirely one-sided.
Then we have the
Labour Party, who claim to support reform of the House of Lords but decided to
vote against it largely to put the Liberal Democrats on the spot. And then we have the Lib Dems themselves
who've responded to an act of bad faith with what looks like petty petulance.
Clearly, Clegg
found himself in a position where simply rolling over and accepting that the
Conservatives were not going to deliver on one of their coalition pledges would
have left him looking weak - or perhaps that should be ‘even weaker’. However, given his commitment to the
continuation of the coalition, he needed to find a form of retaliation which
was nonlethal.
Protecting MPs from
a cull may achieve that aim, but it isn't exactly the most populist issue he
could have chosen to start drawing lines in the sand. Worse still from his perspective, it might
even secretly please more Tories than it upsets, given the worries many were
facing over their own seats. Heads they
win, tails the Lib Dems lose.
Posts
4 comments:
John
Two/three issues in a single blog inevitably clouds the issues and responses
Reform of the House of Lords is an English issue The need if any for a second chamber for governance of Wales by the Welsh is another matter and was rightly not mentioned
Boundary change for MPs is an attempt at an English solution for an English problem. Wales has no need for Mps or Lords. We are capable of running our own country
Coalitions can work but may not If recent history tells us anything smaller Political parties are the losers when coalitions fall apart
Tory MPs cynical, immature and arrogant? Surely not?
There are too many MPs in Wales,a reduction of about forty would suite us fine.As for Lords they should have been abolished by Lloyd George in 1910.
To be fair to Lloyd George, he tried, by making the HoL the corrupt venal bunch they are today, thinking it would self destruct with all the peerages he was sshamelessly selling. Alas, the English aristocracy saw nothing wrong with that, (it was after all the traditional method - al;though it was usually the King selling them) and continued as though nothing had occurred.
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