Connections Puzzle #328 Sat 4 May
Quizzes & Puzzles29 mins ago
What Are The Lib Non Dems Celebrating?
26 Answers
Apparently their conference is "celebratory"! Ok they won a few by-elections but they are nearly always lost at the following GE.
Answers
"Delusions of grandeur."
11:38 Fri 22nd Sep 2023
"Delusions of grandeur."
Precisely. The Lib-nonDems have always suffered delusions of grandeur. It started in 1981 when the diminutive David Steel (now Baron Steel of Aikwood), the former leader of the then Liberal Party, roused the troops at the end of his conference speech, telling them to loud applause that they should “...go back to their constituencies and prepare for government.”
They need not have made too much preparation because the following General Election in 1983 saw them win just 23 seats, though it has to be said, with 25% of the popular vote, they came within 700,000 votes of outpolling Michael Foot’s Labour. Their one crack at government came in 2010 when they won 57 seats and formed a Coalition with the Conservatives.
The price of agreeing to the Coalition was high. There was to be a referendum on the “Alternative Vote” system which was proposed to replace first-past-the-post. This was held as agreed and lost by two to one. There was also an agreement to revise the average size of Parliamentary Constituencies but the Lib-nonDems reneged on that following their defeat in the voting referendum. There was also passed the “Fixed Term Parliament Act” which was primarily framed to guarantee Nick Clegg the spare keys to No.10 for a minimum term of five years. This proved not to be worth the paper it was written on and was repealed by the Johnson government.
The country soon realised what a disaster that allowing LibDems anywhere near power was and in 2015 their number of seats reduced to just eight. They have scarcely done any better since then with just 12 and 11 seats won in the two most recent GEs.
They are really what is known in the boxing world as a “nuisance”. That is used to describe an opponent that has no realistic prospect of success but who can cause problems for the favourite, who has to overcome them to secure victory before he can press on to the next opponent in his quest to become World Champion.
//Probably celebrating the distinct possibility they are again going to be the power brokers in a hung parliament.//
If that's what they're hoping for they've severely limited their field of potential supporters. I can't see any Brexiteer (and they did make up over 50% of those voting in the referendum) backing a party that clearly doesn't respect democracy and whose official mantra was '*** to Brexit'. I think they're whistling in the wind.
The factos that affected Lib Dem support in recent years: blame for the coalition's imposition of tuition fees (memory fades), and fatigue with the Brexit saga, now no longer apply.
So while they won't be forming a government, a third factor may also help: namely people may be better disposed to the idea of Labour in govt than before and so therefore if they feel disinclined to vote Labour they'll be less bothered about voting tactically to helping a few extra Lib Dems back to Westminster.
Actually I think I'd be celebrating just a little if I'd had some of those by-election results.
They have only 11 MPs. Very unlikely that they will be kingmakers this time. But they might just double their number in the Commons, so their conferences won't be quite as lonely in future.
Not sure the voting public will support them after they gave up all their principles to join the coalition Government.
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Is his physical appearance relevant here?////
Apparently to some folk (we saw a reference to Blair's Hair earlier - First response in https:/
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