Conservative-LibDem coalition

[TankRizzo]

Would it work? Ideologically they seem poles apart. I think they might give it a good go, but we'd see another election called before too long as the cracks started to show.

[ln1234]

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

[Twit]

In a word. no.

I can't see that happening at all, they are too far apart. Assuming the election does deliver a hung parliment I would expect a lab / lib pact with someone other than Brown as leader of the lab bit.

One thing that people seem to have forgotton is the prcoess for what happens in a hung parliment. Brown will get the first shout at forming an administration as the sitting PM, regardless of whether lab is 2nd or 3rd. Assuming he fails, and he will, then the Queen has the option to invite ANYONE that she thinks could form an adminstration, it doesnt have to be a party leader. I assume that in the event of the hung parliment the civil servants will be doing a lot of asking around and finding out who could lead the lib / lab pact; once that is established they will be invited to form the administration.

It'll be really interesting if it happens to see what trading goes off.

Edited by Twit on Friday 30th April 09:26

Edited by Twit on Friday 30th April 09:27

[Incredible Sulk]

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

[cs02rm0]

I'd take it over anything involving Brown.

[fido]

Incredible Sulk said:

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

+1. His ticket to fame has been his supposed prediction of the Credit Crunch. Based on that criteria, i think many people on PH would qualify as a suitable Chancellor.

[Pooh]

Incredible Sulk said:

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

I agree, the guy has managed to portray himself as some sort of economic guru when in reality he has not got a clue. All this stuff about him being the only one to spot the impending crash is utter cobblers, plenty of people where warning of it including Ken Clarke

[confused_buyer]

If you think the Cable might be a good chancellor find the Daily Politics "Chancellors Debate" whilst it is still on iplayer. He fell apart under some quite easy questions.

Let's face it whoever is the next chancellor will be the most unpopular and mocked person in the country in 6 months time anyway!

[ln1234]

Incredible Sulk said:

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

Give me an example of his policies that you don't agree with.

[AJS-]

The only thing they do have in common against Labour is a focus on civil liberties - the one thing Cameron has been acceptable on. Opposing ID cards etc. I don't see why they can't gang up on the Labour scum to stop this sort of thing going through.

[Bill Carr]

Twit said:

One thing that people seem to have forgotton is the prcoess for what happens in a hung parliment. Brown will get the first shout at forming an administration as the sitting PM, regardless of whether lab is 2nd or 3rd. Assuming he fails, and he will, then the Queen has the option to invite ANYONE that she thinks could form an adminstration, it doesnt have to be a party leader.

Oooh, how about that nice Mr. Blair? I've heard he's not doing much these days...

[Incredible Sulk]

ln1234 said:

Incredible Sulk said:

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

Give me an example of his policies that you don't agree with.

I fundamentally disagree with the basic re-distibutionist taxation policies, taxing the 'rich' more heavily to give back to the 'poor'. All the economic evidence suggests that as you raise taxes on the better off, the actual tax take goes down. High taxes on people who are capable of creating wealth mean that they end up creating less wealth, because they have no incentive to do so. Or they bugger off overseas. Other policies like a local income tax instead of a council tax will simply increase still further the tax burden on the well off, and the idea that you pay Capital Gains Tax at your highest marginal rate makes my piss boil. Whatever it is that you sold to give rise to a capital gain in the first place was bought out of already taxed disposable income. His ideas on breaking up the banks, unless very carefully implemented, will cause chaos in the economy.

The long and the short of it is I don't think the Lib Dims economic policies will sort out the economic mess that we are now in. What they have been designed to do is to pander to the less well off members of society, to gain votes from them by making them believe that everything can be paid for by 'squeezing' the better off. There is little in their manifesto as far as I can see which will deal with some of the real problems in the economy, leaving aside the deficit, like how to create sustainable growth, how we get the 8 million (need to check that figure) economically inactive people back into work.

I said in my OP that he's my MP. I see what this guy does on an almost daily basis. He makes much of being a politician who champions local issues. What he doesn't tell you is that lots of the local issues he champions have to do with dealing with the fall out from the fk ups and general mismanagement of the local economy by the local Council............. run by the Lib Dims. Like I said. Waste of space.

[OnTheOverrun]

ln1234 said:

Incredible Sulk said:

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

Give me an example of his policies that you don't agree with.

Immediate adoption of the euro and transfer of our central bank and fiscal control to Kaiser Strasse, Frankfurt.

[Incredible Sulk]

OnTheOverrun said:

ln1234 said:

Incredible Sulk said:

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

Give me an example of his policies that you don't agree with.

Immediate adoption of the euro and transfer of our central bank and fiscal control to Kaiser Strasse, Frankfurt.

To be fair, and I never thought I'd defend the LD's, it is stated as a longer term objective, not an immediate one. And Clegg last night when put on the spot, said that it would be when the time was right, when the economic conditions were right (have the five tests been resurrected?) and only after a referendum. Which pretty much rules it out for the next two parliaments.

[Bing o]

Incredible Sulk said:

when the economic conditions were right (have the five tests been resurrected?)

For us, or for the Euro? I only dread to think how FUBAR'd we would be if we were in the Euro now.

[jesusbuiltmycar]

ln1234 said:

Incredible Sulk said:

ln1234 said:

I vote Vince Cable for chancellor over that Osborne.

Vince Cable is a complete clown. The guy has a doctorate in Economics, but doesn't seem to understand the significance of the Laffer Curve. His economic policies are 1) far to the left of the Labour Party, and 2) Naive. No possibility of him being Chancellor, ever.

He's a complete waste of space. He's my MP.

Give me an example of his policies that you don't agree with.

Abolition of tax relief on pension contributions for high rate tax-payers (i.e. earnings over £35kapprox). Yet another lefty that thinks the only people that deserve a decent pension are MPs and public sector fat cats....

[JRM]

I'd hate the idea of Conservatives winning, but not by quite enough an the a Lib/Lab pact running the country, that's rediculously unfair, I'd expect riots.

Although if they did oversee the economy whilst it recovered and of course, didn't cock it up even worse then it might be good for Tories to get in after about 2 years and there would be no splitting teh vote 3 ways it would be eithe a Lib/Lab vote or a Tory vote