Bitter some?

Are we going to put up with your Labour apologist drivel for another 4 long years Toynbee?

Conservatives and LibDems are in power, Labour is as much a dead duck as it was in 1979.

Live with it!

Before Labour rushes to make a fool of itself heaping scorn, take a deep breath and consider how many of their policies were not constructed out of conviction, but out of self-defeating calculation.

Yes, at the end of the day, triangulation strangulation cost the Labour Party many more votes than it won. Let's not make that mistake again.

I'm reminded of part of a speech I heard almost a quarter of century ago by someone shedding crocidile tears for the victims of Tory Thatcherite policies; who stood by and let others fight the battles he and his cabal did not have the stomach to fight and whose mindset lives on today in the Sectarian Tribalist Tendancy who would rather be losers, who would rather sit sniping on the sidelines than give up its self-proclaimed right to claim exclusive ownership of the terms "left"; "progressive" and "radical" by letting anyone else not part of the "tribe" into the enclosure they have set up as the paternalistic vanguard of ordinary working people.

Those over about the age of 40-45 may recognise it. I've updated it to reflect what is, sadly, the situation as it stands:

"I'll tell you what happens with authoritarian tribalists. You start with a far-fetched series of policies designed to placate the right wing media, the unelected money markets and neo-con interests.

And these are then pickled into a rigid micro-managerialist dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, misplaced, outdated, irrelevant to the real needs.

And you end in the grotesque spectacle of a Tory Government, a Tory Government, scuttling round Parliament and the Country committing themselves to scrapping ID cards and a National Identity register of its own people; outlawing the DNA fingerprinting of schoolchildren; stopping the retention of innocent peoples DNA; restoring the rights to non-violent protest; defending trial by jury; reviewing the libel laws to protect freedom of speech; ending the detention of children for immigration purposes; further regulating CCTV cameras; doing away with the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences; and restoring the state pension link to earnings.

Anti-civil rights policies and legislation all of which were introduced by a Labour Government, a Labour Government. I tell you - and you'll listen - you can't play politics with people's civil rights and people's pensions and people's lives.?

It is the tribalist majority within the Labour Party - the old right wing authoritarians and their blairite fellow travellers at all levels who are the ones who have put us in this position.

They are spinning like a top and lying like troopers to deflect the blame for their own cowardice and ego's onto others.

They have lost all credible claim to be progressive and of the "left". Until they have cleared out the dead wood, got rid of their control freak mindset, and learned how to work with others of like mind they deserve to be sidelined.

They have a great deal to answer for in spurning the opportunity to stop the damage of a Tory Administration.

Wow!! The Conservatives have only been in power one day and we have the highest unemployment since 95.

Will the last person to leave the country please put the lights out!

The Tory partner, five times the size, will trample the other like a rhino without noticing.

Good!

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link

I wonder who it is and when it will snap

They've even launched a New Britain, Clegg/Cameron civil partnership bouquet..

Lib Dems only survive by fierce protection of every paving stone in their constituencies: just wait for the first teachers, teaching assistants, dinner ladies and doctors to lose their jobs, the first A&E and cottage hospital closures, the loss of youth clubs, community centres and Sure Starts. What then?

Ahh, I see now.

If Labour had somehow held on to power, it wouldn't have cut Public Sector jobs.

Oh, except even they admitted, they would have had to.

But then, it's OK when Labour does it. After all, 'they're one of us, aren't they', not like those baby-eating, worker-crushing Tory/Lib Dem bastards?

Your article essentially praises the coalition and its agenda and then makes sweeping damnations based on what you imagine could happen.

There wouldn't be the need for budget cutting if Labour hadn't maxed out the credit card like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

Agree they have some progressive policies which we should applaud. I voted Labour but we should wish them well and be thoughtful in opposition.

I don't think the first 3 Cif'ers even read this article before shooting their mouths off.

It is as fair an assessment of the situation as I have seen anywhere.

Nice 1, Polly :-)

I have no great expectations but can't we shut up and wait and see what happens. Labour failed us even from before the time they were elected in 1997. This lot may, against the odds, deliver a pleasant surprise.

Hey, LibFans, remember the last Lib-Con coalition?

You know, the one with David Lloyd George, that split the liberal party clean in two and consigned them to obscurity for ninety years?

Remember how he irritated Liberal grassroots by betraying his policy promises, and jumping into bed with Curzon?

Remember how the Libs have spend the last decade targetting Labour defecters? Remember how the grassroots would sooner eat broken glass than vote Theresa May into power?

Remember how analysis suggests AV will utterly ruin the Liberal Democrats?

Remember how no peacetime minority government 'scenario' has outlived eighteen months?

Enjoy your political suicide.

Coalition government: Like a flat-pack with screws missing, this deal will wobble

Yep, that's the risk with coalition governments.

The problem is, Polly, you've spent the last 6 or so months advocating PR (which will ensure coalition governments in perpetuity) and a coalition between the Lib Dems and Labour - which by all accounts would have been exposed to exactly the same risks. That you won't acknowledge that fact shows just how blinkered you are.

I suspect you've learnt a valuable lesson about coalition politics in the last 24 hours - namely you can't predict the outcome, nor can you influence it regardless of how many desperate pleading articles you post on CIF. Perhaps you'll be a bit more careful what you wish for in future.

For my part, I'm delighted that the Lib Dems have shown that they're not in the pocket of Labour and instead are genuinely independent minded. Sure, it will lose them some voters, but the people it will lose are people who were voting for them not because they wanted the Lib Dems to gain power, but instead because they believed voting Lib Dem would keep the Conservatives out as the Lib Dems would always support Labour. That notion is now gone. Anybody who voted LD for that negative reason deserves the result we've seen.

Lib Dems will be easily huffed and miffed, bounced, forgotten and ignored. The Tory partner, five times the size, will trample the other like a rhino without noticing.

Sorry but in Parliament it is not the first five percent that counts, it is the last. The Lib-Dems would have to be massively incompetent to allow themselves to be bounced and ignored. Because their last few seats are the ones that keep the Tories in power. Should they walk, the Government falls.

We can hope they will be ignored, but they won't be.

Lib Dems only survive by fierce protection of every paving stone in their constituencies: just wait for the first teachers, teaching assistants, dinner ladies and doctors to lose their jobs, the first A&E and cottage hospital closures, the loss of youth clubs, community centres and Sure Starts. What then?

Well it looks as if we have half an answer - cutting in Scotland. These are two largely English parties. The Celtic fringe has had generous funding for a long time. Both parties seem determined to revisit that. Which is a good thing.

It depends on how sensible the Lib-Dems want to be. They, or their leaders, know what must be done. Let's hope they have the national good in mind and are willing to accept cuts across the board and not just in Labour-voting seats

no id cards, no third runway.

not a bad start to the day.

"The truth is the Labour cutting agenda was itself virtually as savage: halving the deficit in four years was needlessly fierce, done for Tory-hugging political reasons"

Polly, could you explain how halving the rate at which the UK is accumulating more debt across four years is 'needlessly' fierce?

For every year we put off cutting the deficit, we increase the already gigantic debt burden that has been placed on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren.

Coalition government: Like a flat-pack with screws missing, this deal will wobble

Well who'd have thought it...? Polly Toynbee doesn't approve.

At least this coalition actually got off the ground unlike the Lib-Lab one which was sunk before it began by Labour back benchers.

The Lib-Con freedom bill is looking pretty good right now too....

I wonder if Eric Pickles in Communities & Local Government might be the wobbly bit of the self-assembly of which Polly speaks. The Lib Dems are nothing if not a local government party with strong roots in city, town and county halls up and down the country. Their hearts will have sunk at the news of his appointment.

From what I've read of the plans so far there isn't a lot to object to and there's an awful lot to like and I am minded to speculate that is it was a Lab/LD coalition putting forward the same proposals you'd be heaping prasie upon them.

As regards the debt, I know you don't like talking about and assume that if we rack it up high enough and long enough our economy will suddenly burst into action and pay it all off with money to spare but in the real world that won't be happening.

There will be enormous cuts. We all know this and we all know why this is coming.

You are going to have a very hard time on these pages over the next 5 years trying to pin everything bad that happens on Cameron and Clegg.

I sometimes thing that the subs just choose their headlines to annoy those who don't read the articles. Because this:

Look hard at the agreement and the bitter truth Labour must swallow is that much here is more radical than their own manifesto.

Before they rush to pour scorn, a little sombre reflection would be in order. There are policies here that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling adamantly, and wrongly, refused to contemplate so wedded were they to New Labour's rigid caution, triangulating themselves to death. What better example that the raising of capital gains tax back towards 40%, where it was until Brown disastrously cut it to 10%, unleashing the private equity explosion? The Lib Dems' raising of the tax threshold to £10,000, starting next April with £5bn worth, will redress the losses of average and low earners who have not done well; it won't help the very poorest but that doesn't make it wrong. A big tax avoidance push is long overdue, as is splitting the banks. So is a green tax on planes ? and more. A Nixon in China moment, these are things Tories can do: where else does Outraged of the City turn? But the Tories would never have done these without the Lib Dems.

Makes more sense than most ATL comment recently.

THINK Grrrr!

So we now have a conservative dictatorship in the making....

# Fixed-term Parliaments - next election in May 2015

# 55% of MPs required to bring government down in confidence vote

Those 2 polices together mean that right after they are passed the Tories can drop the Lib Dems like a hot potato and retain power until 2015 with no chance of a no confidence vote kicking them out.

Dark Days

teachers, teaching assistants - Paid for on Credit
dinner ladies - Paid for on Credit
doctors - Paid for on Credit
the first A&E and cottage hospital closures - Paid for on Credit
youth clubs Paid for on Credit
community centres Paid for on Credit
Sure Starts Paid for on Credit

We have to pay back the money weve borrowed or go bankrupt as a nation, so decide which of the above we keep! And which you cut, You have to get rid of two (20%).

You decide, then! Because no one will lend us anymore money, Toynbee. Your beloved Labour has borrowed Triilions and wasted it.

why do I get the feeling that if labour ever by some quirk came to have as its leader Charlie Manson and Jim Jones as the second in charge and lets say fred and rose west as its other members that Polly would have an article in the gaurdian the next week starting

'Now I know this looks bad for Labour but the reason we MUST get behind them is because ......yaddda, yadda, yadda....'

Before Labour rushes to make a fool of itself heaping scorn, take a deep breath and consider how many of their policies were not constructed out of conviction, but out of self-defeating calculation.

Whilst Labour is about it they might want to consider how many of their policies were constructed out of a casual and cynical disregard for those who 'should' have been their core vote among the C2D's but who they took for granted for too long in favour of chasing noisy ephemera.

just wait for the first teachers, teaching assistants, dinner ladies and doctors to lose their jobs, the first A&E and cottage hospital closures, the loss of youth clubs, community centres and Sure Starts. What then?

As ever the disingenuous hiding of the real waste behind the non-wasteful areas. Are you seriously trying to tell us Polly that you and the rest of the left cannot find anything to cut BEFORE getting to teachers, doctors and the like? Do you genuinely believe that the whole public sector is so blindingly efficient that NOTHING can be cut before those front line staff?

Why not try a little honesty yourself and admit that actually there are many areas where services could be provided more cheaply with less waste, less centralised oversight long before the first teacher or doctor is cut. Are you still going to argue that absolutely nothing can come out of the costs of tax credit, including their administrative costs? That people on over £60k should potentially get tax credits, paid for out of the taxes of people earning a lot less?

Because frankly, Polly, if you really can't find lower hanging fruit in public sector spending of over 50% of GDP, then we'll just have to take the state out of great swathes of the economy altogether, no matter what the cost.

Maybe it's time to really get to grips with reversing Labour's redistribution of income away from lower paid, blue collar private sector workers to middle class, white collar public sector workers?

Wouldn't that be genuinely radical, eh, Polly?

if only they didn't have to deal with the "Labour legacy" the future would really be bright....£160billion per year overspend to sort out. Polly, the flat pack being without screws is the least of the problems - and LABOUR created it. Congrats to you all in opposition.

The right will hiss and spit from David Cameron's back row ? and with good cause.

I'm hoping they'll all defect to UKIP - the Daily Mail is all ready to go with them if they do....

Face it Polly. It's over. This article has all the grace and style of an embittered, jealous ex who wants his/her partner to suffer as much as possible.

The coalition will be far more progressive than Labour ever could be.

So what alternative are you suggesting would have worked , a minority Labour government?, a rainbow coalition? Sheesh.

If ever there was a rice bowl that needed breaking, its yours.

The coalition will be far more progressive than Labour ever could be.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No.

Stop beating the dead horse of Labour. They are history. The Blairites may have seized the name "Labour", but they and the Brownites are no more good , progressive Labour party members than a pet wombat would be. Less so, in fact.

Isn't it time, Ms. Toynbee, for you to stop fetishizing the word "Labour" and start looking at the policies and actions of those parading under that banner instead of the spin and lies their mouthpieces endlessly spew? All thinking adults have been repeatedly sickened by NuLabour's nanny state, Bolshevist, intrusive, destructive, lying practices. All you are doing in going on about a party now on the rubbish heap of history is to destroy what little credibility you have.

In point of fact, Labour's unceasing fanning of the flames of class war is so retrograde as to be risible. It's time for Britain's pols (and I don't mean the Pol Toynbees) to get on with pragmatic governance in the best interests of the country as a whole instead of trying to curry favor with this or that mythical "class".

Toynbee

"the truth is the Labour cutting agenda was itself virtually as savage"

Seriously - what the fuck? A week ago you were claiming there wouldn't be any Labour cuts.

Do you think we're idiots or blind or both?

Naysayer.

And I saw you on Newsnight yesterday, in a triumvirate of Labour peoples, in a ten minute segment seemingly devoted solely to naysaying.

Good luck with that.

one nosepeg for sale used only three times!

So bitter. So expected. So Labour.

Given how much I celebrated in May 97 and how crap it turned out, maybe my current bemused weary sadness heralds great things.

tbh I can't help thinking good luck to 'em.

"55% of MPs required to bring government down in confidence vote"

More Labour spin I'm afraid.

It's still 50% for a confidence vote, but now an election can be triggered if 55% of MPs request this.

Quite a bit different.

The flat-pack may well wobble. But the ConDem is at least Ikea. The LibLab+rabble would have been MFI.

AmberStar

I don't think the first 3 Cif'ers even read this article before shooting their mouths off.

Oh, but I did. Again, again and again Polly Toynbee preceded the election with columns insisting the choice was between Tory cuts and Labour investment. Even when Alastair Darling said future cuts would be deeper than Thatcher's, she kept on insisting only the Tories would be so cruel. Again, again and again she reeled out a list of people who would face the axe. She did it again today, in her penultimate paragraph.

I'm only afraid we've got four or five years of this to look forward to from PT. As the Tories and the LibDems have to make the tough decisions to deal with Brown's splurge, Polly will be here, insisting "This would never have happened under Labour."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No."

Uh, yes.

*Scrapping ID cards.
*Raising the inheritance tax threshold.
*A tax on bank profits before other countries do similar schemes, as well as breaking up investment and retail banking.

And countless others.

Too late now for Labour to repent its civil
liberties folly ? again done to triangulate Tories

Either I'm completely misunderstanding you here, in which case I apologise, or you're claiming that Labour are more concerned about Civil Liberties than the Tories, in which case you're either mad or deluded.

Lordy lord its like the daily mail of late on these boards

"Either I'm completely misunderstanding you here, in which case I apologise, or you're claiming that Labour are more concerned about Civil Liberties than the Tories, in which case you're either mad or deluded."

Or both. Or desperate.

We've got rid of the most intolerant, authoritarian and spendthrift government we've ever had in modern times.

That's got to be a good thing.

What a nasty, sinister bunch New Labour were. And Polly wants them back. But then being 'liberal' these days is all about intolerance, authoritarianism and thinking you can spend other peoples money more wisely than they'd spend it themselves.

I thought that Dave and Nick looked great, too. WHAT a breath of fresh air compared to watching politicians of the last three years or so.

The Lib Dems may well get trampled. But they do, after all, only hold 27 seats (or whatever it is) in parliament.

The fact is that they are responsible for a monumental reshaping of Tory and government policy - perhaps even the electoral system itself - that is out of all proportion to their share of the popular vote.

This they have already achieved. It is a momentous achievement regardless of what happens in the future. I'm actually warming up to David Cameron. Who knows, maybe they might even mean it when they say they want to work together.

Bringing together the left and the right in one government? The best thing that's happened to Britain in many years.

Bye bye new Labour and good riddance.

Those who remember the Two Davids of the 1987 SDP-Liberal Alliance will recall the exquisite agony only too well, cruelly captured by the Spitting Image puppet of little Steel perched in big Owen's pocket. I was responsible for the appalling daily press conferences during that election, when all the press sought was a wafer of difference between the two: they often found a crevasse, even between those similar parties.

And have you not noticed that in their joint statement actually allows for the differences and enables the LDs to abstain on some issues.

I really do wish you would stop engaging in mental gymnastics and conniptions about the political situation and the internal wranglings of the Labour Party.

A load of your writing, for instance about wages and poverty is terrific. Over the last couple of years the stuff on the labour party and politics in general has been inconsistent and weak.

The agreement reached by Cameron and Clegg has the potential to change a whole bunch of things. The significance of it all will become clear in time, my guess is that it will be as big a change as the Thatcher years.

A significant failure on your part (sorry to be so blunt) is that you are viewing the current situation and the future possibility through the distorting lens of what was clearly a really significant part of your past.

To be blunt again, this situation will play out in ways we are unable to predict in part tossed by stormy waters of unforeseeable events. Trying to develop understanding by shoehorning the situation into a paradigm defined by the SDP-Liberal alliance is a fruitless exercise and to be frank an egotistical one.

Step away and move ahead.

Lastly I invite you to join us below the line as some other columnists do and argue your points.