When will Britain's coalition government collapse? That is the question on many people's lips

Most likely the lips of the Labour party and their supporters!

Nothing even close to troubles yet boys. Sorry but we've a long way to go yet.

The question I'm asking is when will the labour party collapse into factuous squabbling cliques, completely unable to govern and unsure of even what the hell it is they stand for anymore..... oh wait!

I am in tune with sneakyboy's comment. The Labour party (or New-labour to be specific) need to be extinguished, wiped off the political map of Britain. Then let a completely new left wing party (but emphatically not a leftie party) rise from the ashes, instigated by the handful of pragmatic and common-sense remains of the disgrace that is still the Blairite/Brownite organisation which continues to call itself "Labour".

Labour are hoping that the coalition will fail, but I think it is far more likely that the Labour party which is already an irrelevance, will fragment . The Labour party and more importantly the electorate have no idea what Labour exist for any more. They have left the country in the most almighty mess, showing once again that Labour always leave the country's finances in a poor or on this case disastrous position. They clearly do not support the poor as shown by the increase in poverty numbers and the withdrawal of the 10% tax rate, penalising 5.6 million of the poorest.
If the coalition succeeds in dealing with the deficit and things are much improved by the end of the parliament , Labour could well become the 3rd party after the next election.

This is a bizarre article and at times makes little sense....

Do the Libdems support a regressive budget.... the answer yes...

do they support the poor being hit proportionally more than the wealthy... the answer yes...

do they support an attack on those about to retire... the answer yes...

are they supporting a budget that will cause more unemployment... the answer yes..

alll this idea that the gov should be smaller is ideological... they want to reduce the state to let free enterprise take its place...

NOW WILL THIS HAPPEN... THE ANSWER NO

@SNEKYBOY

the labour party has grown since the election... the number of people who agree with its policies have grown... think u might want to look at evidence before spouting carp... the party that has deminishing support are the libdems...

@regor1

look at IFS statement.. the labour budget would have been neutral for the poor... the Condems Condem the poor to greater poverty... aptly named..

What do the 'grass root' lib dems think?

Frankly, this Budget is ghastly. There are some consolations such as progress towards the 10k tax allowance, but overall it’s awful.

I don’t blame Labour for everything. While they made mistakes, they were right to bail out the banks. And it is true that most of the pain is due to the international economic crisis.

from http://www.libdemvoice.org/

What do the tories think of raising VAT?

Wrong, Mr Osborne, the VAT rise was completely avoidable

Yesterday I argued that a VAT rise was "unacceptable". Today George Osborne said it was "unavoidable". Over at Comment Central Danny Finkelstein argues that the Chancellor is right. I paste Danny's four key arguments below - and my responses.

DF: "Even using the 80:20 ratio (raising 80% from cuts in spending) - a very robust thing to do - more tax revenue is required. VAT is probably the most politically palatable way to raise the money."

No tax rises are politically palatable but VAT is one of the least palatable according to Angus Reid polling, published just yesterday. 20% of Britons had a preference for higher VAT. 52% suggested 'sin taxes'. Sin taxes could not raise as much as an extra 2.5% on VAT but £2bn or £3bn extra in such taxes (which Mr Osborne did not increase) plus my main recommendation - across-the-board spending restraint - would have meant VAT could have stayed at 17.5%.

from http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/06/wrong-mr-osborne-the-vat-rise-was-completely-avoidable.html

Bring back Jeremy Thorpe!!!..This party is now like a poor vaudeville act Cleggie and Dave the frolicking and comedy knock about act ..Dear Uncle Vince the Children’s favourite ventriloquist and Danny Alexander the sword swallower. The only trouble is the tent is leaking, the horses are lame and the Uncle Vince the children’s ventriloquist has lost his voice, the one he had before...The Jeremy Thorpe trial must seem like halcyon days the Libdems now!!

@PabloObscura

SNEKYBOY

the labour party has grown since the election... the number of people who agree with its policies have grown... think u might want to look at evidence before spouting carp... the party that has deminishing support are the libdems...

One whole month without leadership and no idea what they stand for anymore and they manage to improve???

Well that just goes to show they were up their own arses before the election then doesn't it!

I'd be willing to wager the uptake in support has more than a mite to do with Gordon Brown not being party leader anymore.

If the Labour party can come back and truly prove that they have answers to societies ills, and not just by making entirely new ills, then I would consider voting for them again.

At the moment I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where there is an infestation of Tree Lizards.

"The Tree Lizards are eating the Pidgeons, what happens when there are no more?"
Skinner - "Weve introduced south american snakes to eat the Tree Lizards"
"And when we are infested with snakes?"
Skinner - "Well we've shipped in african mountain gorrillas to eat the snakes"
"What about the gorrillas?"
Skinner - "Thats the beauty of it! We only have to wait for winter and the gorrillas will freeze to death"

The sad truth about the Lib dems and Tories is that it has already been documented, that, the leadership knew in advance of the election as to the state of the countries finances, and since have not produced further statistics that show anything that they did not know previously.

And to lie that the situation was worse than they had expected, proves their joint intention to use this fictitious lie to attack the public sector. The Gloating supporters of the coalition show their absolute ignorance of the facts and I hope they are the first to feel the benefit of the policies they are so keen to endorse.

I for one will be only to keen to remind them when the time comes.

The Lib Dems are the Tories' little helpers. Hugo Young RIP? How does Polly feel?

So is the Guardian for supporting the 'Liberal Moment'.

The Gloating supporters of the coalition show their absolute ignorance of the facts and I hope they are the first to feel the benefit of the policies they are so keen to endorse.

What, like the country not going bankrupt? We'll all benefit from that. A lot of us remember the 14% interest rates caused by the last failing Labour government. Have you any idea what rates like that mean?

Latest yougove poll puts Liberal Democrats on 17%, which would halve the number of seats they hold. From a purely objective point of view, they are just too indistinguishable from the Tories for their own good at the moment.

Economic fact: we cannot spend more because the more we do, not only would our annual deficit, and overall deficit, rise (meaning that we would eventually have to cut deeper later), but there is a danger that the markets soon won't trust us to pay back money, and would subsequently downgrade us. Especially with the Eurozone crisis, cutting needs to happen now.

Political fact. A liberal/left alignment never would have happened. Firstly because the Tories had the most seats, and would have cried foul, secondly because Labour were quite content to lose, to regroup, thirdly because Labour were discredited and tainted, and fourthly because most Labour MP's don't like the Liberals - they accuse them of splitting the left. I don't know why the Guardian were ever plugging it if I'm honest. The only way it would have been feasible would have been if Labour had the most seats really, and were prepared to ditch Brown straight away.

The Liberals therefore could either to loosely back the Tories on a supply and demand basis, and get no policies through, and probably be blamed for a weak government, forcing an election they would lose through lack of money and a media blaming the Liberals for the weak government, or attempt to build a coalition, get some policies through, try and prove that coalitions (the result of most PR systems) can work, and fervently hope that everything turns out well. Hard decision to take - I think they did the right one.

Drypoint

What, like the country not going bankrupt? We'll all benefit from that. A lot of us remember the 14% interest rates caused by the last failing Labour government. Have you any idea what rates like that mean?

And, pray tell us, what happened to interest rates under the Tory Lord Lamentable, black Wednesday, was it? And which current PM was giving the Treasury the benefit of his expertise?

Latest yougove poll puts Liberal Democrats on 17%, which would halve the number of seats they hold. From a purely objective point of view, they are just too indistinguishable from the Tories for their own good at the moment.

Yeah but if they manage to get AV through, the seats they will gain from that system (remember seeing as the Liberals tend to be Labour/Conservative supporters second choice), it will offset this loss. In all honestly they will probably gain seats. Also don't assume the coalition will fail in it's aims. And don't underestimate the contempt that people have towards Labour nowadays. People won't forget the war, the big state, the attack on civil liberties, and the financial crisis that started under them, especially if someone like Balls or Miliband are in charge - products of New Labour themselves.

Yeah but if they manage to get AV through...

Yeah but if...

PabloObscura

25 Jun 2010, 10:12PM

What do the 'grass root' lib dems think?

Frankly, this Budget is ghastly. There are some consolations such as progress towards the 10k tax allowance, but overall it’s awful.

I don’t blame Labour for everything. While they made mistakes, they were right to bail out the banks. And it is true that most of the pain is due to the international economic crisis.

from http://www.libdemvoice.org/

I can't HELP but NOTICE that you didn't post the REST OF THE ARTICLE.
Here it is:

But Labour did make this crisis worse. After a few years of financial restraint, they flooded public services with money. They should have increased the spending more gradually, and coupled it with reform to improve productivity. Instead, productivity fell. This isn’t hindsight, the point was made at the time: there was so much money going in that the departments didn’t know how to spend it.

Former NatWest chief executive Derek Wanless wrote a report in 2002 on the NHS. He said: “Money on its own is not enough and provides no guarantee of success – it is essential that resources are efficiently and effectively used. Resources and reform must go hand in hand – both are vital. Neither will deliver without the other.”

But reform didn’t happen.

The NHS has dodged the bullet of real-term cuts for now.

Instead, welfare provision to the poor will be hit. I hate this. But when we are borrowing one pound for every four that the state spends, excruciating pain is unavoidable.

If Labour had kept close to a balanced budget during the boom, that would have helped in three ways:

* If their deficit in the good years had been less than £10 billion, rather than £40 billion, that’d mean £30 billion less of cuts now.
* The private sector would have been larger, and would now be better placed to take on new employees at a time when the public sector has to be cut back.
* The financial markets would have had more confidence in our ability to handle our deficit, which would have reduced the need for drastic cuts to keep market confidence.

Some on the left seem to think that a budget deficit is a progressive policy. Far from it. It takes from future generations to pay the bills of today’s. Britain will be poorer over the next few years, which means that Labour’s deficits from 2003 were Robin Hood in reverse.

I’m also angry with Labour for their use of government policy to wrong-foot the opposition.

Were their authoritarian policies primarily driven by a desire to reduce crime or terrorism? In my opinion, they were not. Their main motivation was to paint the opposition as being soft of terrorism.

With similar opportunism, they refused to prepare the public for the budget pain that would be necessary. In an opposition political party, such reluctance would be understandable, in a government, it was irresponsible. A year ago, both the Lib Dems and Conservatives spoke of the seriousness of the budget crisis. The government did not do the same.

Labour claimed that it was economically necessary to delay a public spending review until well after the election. I don’t believe them. A review, even if it was describing projected cuts in a years time, would have reassured the markets that the government was serious about tackling the deficit. Such reassurance would have meant lower interest rates, and lower rates for government borrowing. Instead, they did no more than the opposition parties, and vaguely spoke about £44 billion of efficiency savings.

Labour claim that they would have waited until 2011 before cutting. Again, I do not believe them. Once the election was out of the way, they’d have claimed the international situation had changed and started cutting right away, and cutting savagely. Their calculation would have been, better to cut four years from the next election than three years.

So, no. I don’t blame Labour for the whole economic crisis. They didn’t create the catastrophe. They just made a terrible situation, somewhat worse. And now they are trying to make political capital out of a situation that they are, in some part, responsible for.

That’s enough reasons to be angry.

OOPS, an honest mistake on your part I'm sure.

I hate LibDems now. Honest to goodness.

A lot of people, including many in the Labour Party, are in denial. After 13 years when they nhad plenty of time to close the wealth gap, Labour completely failed to do so. To pose as "the party of the poor" is hypocrisy.

Personally, I don't see a significant Labour revival any time soon. With one exception - Diane Abbott - their leadership candidates are Blairfix clones. They are tainted by association with a government that made serious mistakes. After all the hopes of the 1997 landslide, New Labour carried on where the Old Tories left off.

The coalition won't collapse any time soon because the result of that would be a general election. No party wants that and given the hung parliament the voters gave them in May, coalition was the only alternative to another unwanted election later this year or early next.

And let's not forget that Labour were offered the chance to enter a coalition with the Lib Dems. It was very soon clear that Labour was divided and couldn't offer any sort of credible deal. Crucially, the parliamentary arithmetic barely added up.

Reducing the deficit is the only issue that matters. Timing was an issue at the election but events have meant that making an early start is probably the right decision. The REAL issue is where to cut, and where to raise taxes.

Labour's approach has been predictably tribal. They are rapidly retreating to their comfort zone. They have no answers only questions. Until they come up with answers they are not going to win many elections.

Simon Hughes is a very experienced and shrewd politician and Lib Dem MPs chose him as deputy leader to fulfil a role. he will be the Lib Dem conscience, and will rally the troops to make sure the Lib Dem position is heard within the coalition. Tory backbenchers are doing the same, and quite rightly.

A coalition involves subtle checks and balances, and constant negotiation behind the scenes. All parties, to an extent are coalitions anyway. Neither Nick Clegg nor David Cameron is particularly tribal and they'll keep the show on the road.

Those who expect the coalition to end any time soon, I predict, will be disappointed. Who wants another election? Not me, and not the voters. It would solve nothing. Meanwhile, the huge hole in the public finances must be fixed somehow.

If you disagree with the budget, where would YOU make changes to make the books balance? It's a question Labour can't answer at the moment, and anyway the yare responsible for a lot of the mess we're in. Until they come up with convincing answers and a compelling narrative why should the voters take them seriously?

When will Britain's coalition government collapse? That is the question on many people's lips after Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, raised the prospect of tabling rebel amendments to the finance bill.

Memo to Simon Hughes :

Posing for the camera like a page three poppet
Does not convince me that Poshboyzone is about to cop it.
Get real ,Simon! You're the deputy of a deputy PM
And you have the pulling power of a Tracey Emin!

The old chestnut as to what Labour should have done over the last 13 years is quite simple to understand if you have lived through the Thatcher period.

Most of us suffered the imperfections of Blair and Brown precisely because we did not want to go through another period like that but which we are now facing under this coalition. The core problem about modern politics is how do you fund the public services most of us want. Most want public services but want to cherry pick those that suit them. As can be demonstrated by when the general public are asked what they would choose to cut, its always something that they see as irrelevant but which of course is relevant to somebody else. The purpose of government is that they are elected to decide what is relevant to the needs of those that elected them.

Blair and Brown decide that if we were to get elected we should create an inclusive society which introduced opinion from outside normal socialist thinking. Hence the introduction into government from the likes of Sainsbury and Digby Jones which represented thinking from Commerce and Industry.
They also adopted Thatcherite means of financing public expenditure, Private Finance Initiative (PFI), the outsourcing of services to the private sector which have proved both more expensive and less efficient.

On the plus side of their policies at least we have the buildings and infrastructure in place which would not have been there had the Tories remained in office, You only have to pop down to your local schools or hospital to see the evidence which of course Tories will deny, in contrast I remember the leaking roofs in schools and lack of even the bare essentials such as being able to afford to even paint the schools. Britain became run down and needless to say needed investment to recover. Any fool can cut services and balance budgets but the Thatcher period proved to those with common sense that that was not the way to do it.

The dilemma facing those who support this coalition is, do we finance this world crisis by Thatcherite means as their leadership has seen fit to do or do we invest in the means to work our way out of debt?

The reason the CONDEM leadership are pursuing the policies they are, is because of hide bound Austrian School thinking which wants to remove all forms of Government from every day issues, which is called Libertarianism.
All being well if your a right wing crank, but for any government to adopt is economic suicide and dangerous.

We do not have to go back far in history to realise what the impact of these policies will have on the majority of us and so the choice is yours, a progressive outlook which will seek to protect you from the ravages of capitalist excesses or economic and financial decline with all that entails.

I work with a real true blue tory boy and he thinks its a disgrace that the tory party has sunk so low as to share power with another party. He thinks they should have taken power for themselves (don't know how that would've worked!) and I also work with a lib dem who thinks its a disgrace that the lib dems have got into bed with the tories and has vowed never to vote for them again. If these two are typical of their core voters then it won't be long before things fall apart.

However, I do wish posters would stop deluding themselves that Labour lost out big time. They didn't. The voters of this country did not want any government govening them, tories included, that is why it was a hung parliment. The fact that the lib dems went with the tories had much more to do with Cameron and Clegg not only looking alike, dressing alike and sounding alike alike but also having extremely similar upbringings and similar parents.

The balance of our present government relied upon Nick Clegg choosing a party that had nothing in common with his (and his voters) views but more in common with himself. What sort of man does that make him?

This coalition has a couple of years left to run at least. The Tories would be fools to agree to hold the AV referendum (their main leverage over Clegg) until it has implemented a large part of its agenda, and the libdems must know that they have lost the support of thousands of centre-left voters. Even if only a few hundred voters in each constituency are no longer willing to vote tactically for the libdems, they could quite easily see their number of MPs slashed. There is no longer any such thing as tactical voting between labour and Libdems in this country - the symbolism of the last month will have killed that stone dead. The sight of Clegg and Alexander sat on the government front bench while Osborne introduced the VAT rise will have been the last straw for many people. Cameron and Clegg seem virtually interchangeable.

Many libdem MPs seem unhappy (Vince Cable in particular looks like a man who has fallen into a dark hole and is desperately trying to fiind a way out), but a new election would spell disaster for their party.

The libdem's faith in the referendum confuses me. Am I missing something? They presumably think they will gain second preferences from both tories and labour. This ignores the fact that their role in the coalition will only act to strip them of their traditional role as the Everything-To-All-People Party. Labour voters have no desire to bring the tories to power by voting Tory--lite, so I would expect them to give their alternative vote to the Nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, and to the Greens, Independents, UKIP in England. Unfortunately I think the BNP could easily gain a protest vote as the effects of the latest budget hit the poor. Many Tory voters will consider it a no-brainer to give their second preference to UKIP. The libdems expect to be the beneficiaries of AV, but there is there not a good chance that AV will simply bring many more parties into Westminster?

The only way I can see of the Libdems keeping a large number of seats is by standing on a coalition ticket, but if they do this, they really will have become nothing more than a wing of the Tory Party..