LibDem Conundrum

LD campaigners who have spent years fighting the Conservative party in their constituencies said activists had been left "disorientated and deflated" and that some said they had already left the party.

This 'focus' is from a Lib Dem blog.

Today many Lib Dems are in agony, 65 years waiting to be in government, but the price being they had to join the Tories!

So what ate LD activists saying about the coalition?
On the Tuition Fee Pledge:
Hedley Mccarthy "This lot look like setting the record for breaking manifesto commitments."
Kirsty Hall "i voted lib dem so i could go to uni i hope they dont back out on me now!!!!"
Ed Fraser "The deal Clegg struck is an absolute joke, he's selling the party down the river"

The NHS - "In leaflets distributed by the Lib Dems in the general election, we were apparently to be very afraid of the Tories gettinh their hands on the NHS as they would wreck it. Not my words, but those of the Lib Dems".

Matthew Huntbach "We get a poor election result thanks to Nick Clegg and the right-wingers who surround him running a poor general election campaign, then Nick Clegg and the right-wingers who surround him get us a poor deal from the Tories – silenced for a few scraps, then Nick Clegg and the right-wingers who surround him get all the government posts going. Then it’ll be the rest of us who suffer the hammering in the polls."

"I feel this will be nothing short of a disaster," said Jane Watkinson on her blog myliberaldemocratpoliticalramblings. "LibDem’s have jumped into bed with the Tories. Oh dear." "I can never support a LibDem/Tory coalition. I genuinely think this is the start of a serious destruction of the Lib Dems … we are going to be seriously squeezed in the next election. Labour will replace us in the north – we have already lost control of councils such as Sheffield – and the Tories will replace us in the south. We are going to be the soft face of a nasty government." "And where are the women? Out of 29 cabinet posts, how many of those do you think are women? The answer is 4." "And Clegg, to say that he is supposedly in a party who pride themselves on equality, it is very disappointing that none of the LibDem cabinet posts went to a woman."

"Two privately educated white male millionaires stepped through the door of Downing Street this morning to usher in an era of new politics" said one LD bloger before resigning.

The shape of their cabinet indicates that apart from token Teresa, they are fairly uniformly white, male, and public-school educated. Worse still, of the Liberal Democrats included, two have made their money in the financial markets and the third - apparent darling of the chattering classes Vince Cable - is a former Chief Economist at Shell.

There are going to be massive, "shock doctrine" style cuts to the public sector, starting almost immediately. The deadline appears to be the emergency budget, which has been declared to be 50 days away. At least £6 billion will go immediately, with a lot more to follow over the next year. That's massive cuts in public sector pay, benefits, public services - and no cuts to Trident, and no withdrawal from the £4 billion occupation of Afghanistan.

C'llr. Read: "I fear that the new alliance between the Conservatives and LibDems will take us in the wrong direction. I don't think these cuts are what people in the voted for last week. Many voters who voted LibDem last week have already told us that they are now regretting having done so, and will instead look to the Greens next time."

C'llr Ramsay: "Nick Clegg has also failed to use this situation to secure a fair voting system where every vote counts equally. LibDems have been campaigning for this for decades and this was their chance to make it happen. I think many LibDem activists and voters will be feeling betrayed."

Patrick Harvie MSP said:"This is an extraordinary decision by the Lib Dem leadership, and thousands of their activists and voters will feel heavily betrayed today. Many explicitly campaigned as the best way to keep the Tories out of power, as a party of radical change and a party of principle, and they have now been completely let down by Nick Clegg and his top team. These members and supporters did not work hard over the last weeks and months to see their party become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Tories."

The Greens issued a "big, open, and comprehensive offer" to Liberal Democrat members and voters to come and join the Greens and campaign for real democratic change, real action to tackle poverty, and real action on climate change. The offer was made jointly by the Green Party of England and Wales and the Scottish Green Party.

Caroline Lucas MP, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, said:
"The Lib Dems have shown themselves to be not so much a party of change as a party of changing its mind.

"The Lib Dems have made themselves known as a party of dirty tricks in election campaigns. But now, Nick Clegg has carried out the biggest Lib Dem dirty trick so far, betraying all those people who voted Lib Dem because they honestly thought it would bring about electoral reform."

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