"We didn't break a promise. We made a commitment in our manifesto, we didn't win the election. We then entered into a coalition agreement, and it's the coalition agreement that is binding upon us and which I'm trying to honour," Vince Cable, BBC1The National Union of Students said it was "insulting" for Lib Dems to deny they had made a promise, but they are missing the point. Cable didn't say the promise wasn't made he said that it was trumped by the promises made during the coalition negotiations.
I feel that politicians should be held to their manifesto commitments, which Vince Cable has explained is almost impossible in coalition governments.
Vote no to AV
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3 comments:
This would be a very clever comment except for the fact that AV is not a proportional system. In some circumstances it could be less proportional than FPTP.
I thought that ages ago when it became clear that Clegg and Cable et al never wanted to delay cuts despite saying so to voters- they knew they would only get in as part of a coalition and could use it as an excuse to dump party policy they didn't personally want without regard to the voters.
But that was under FPTP. Normalizing coalitions would sort the problem out pretty much- if, say, we could end up with loose but semi-permanent alliances between parties, say the Con-Libs and Lab-Greens or something, the problem goes away. It's only the uncertainty that allows parties to get away with it.
“I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative”
That's what every Lib Dem MP signed up to. Now they may have done the second part, but any that vote in favour of an increase in fees will clearly be breaking the pledge. This is not a manifesto commitment, which do have to change to take acocunt of changing times, but a personal pledge. I would hope that every Lib Dem MP who is not a member of the government votes against the rise in tuition fees. Those in government roles may well be able to claim collective responsibility and vote for their government proposals, but they should take no pride in the action.
But beyond the broken promises of the holier-than-thou Lib Dem MPs, this is not about AV versus FPTP. This happened under FPTP and will happen again under FPTP, AV, or any other form of representative democracy.
The big issue really is about fairness for voters versus convenience to a government of a simple majority. An all powerful government is fine when you agree with them, but we could have done without Gordon Brown as PM or the internal coup needed to get rid of Thatcher 20 years ago.
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