I mean if you disagree with your party line on everything and seem to spend most of your time when meeting other party members arguing violently with them... um... had it occurred to you that, perhaps...
Ehrendorf's Second Law:
'The human situation, in general or in particular, is slightly worse (ignoring an occasional hiccup in the graph) at any given moment than at any preceding moment.'
It's like that man who turns up to every Scottish Green conference to speak about nothing other than reducing the population of Africa and Asia. He's been at it for decades and there's an audible groan every time he speaks.
You've got it all wrong.. as usual... I don't engage with these people... I just watch them do it to others... I know its useless talking policy at a LibDem gathering! Indeed most LibDems know that... that is why its always campaigning, campaigning, campaigning....
Indeed it's the ideal place for Leavers as you can have a decent argument and win because the Remainer arguments are so exceptionally weak when members are pushed to defend their stance..
They revert back to the bogus statistics that were used in the campaign (frequently quoting George Osborne or the comments that Mark Carney has now disowned) or quote some discredited (usually threatening) EU politician like Juncker or start going on about the "young people" before veering into a defense of unskilled labour from FoM sources and then reveal they are actually talking about their own problems getting cheap domestic staff or nannies. When pushed on housing they are really afraid of their property values going down with Brexit rather than the issue of affordability for the upcoming generation.. If you carry the argument far enough you will get a certain notorious LibDem interloper (of the canine persuasion) start railing against the shiftless "underclasses".
It's really like taking candy from babies...
Ok. Perhaps spending less time tearing into your own side and a bit more time fighting the forces of conformity, ignorance and poverty. You're not in the Labour Party you know...
I'm really not at all sure who these Lib Dem members are who you so enjoy beating in an argument but they don't sound like any that I know. Indeed, going back to the housing point earlier, it's generally regarded in the party that house prices are far too high and that part of the point of encouraging more sustainable housebuilding is to increase demand and subsequently bring down prices to being more affordable.
I do genuinely wonder if the conbativity part of it is you having grown up/being used to a binary political culture both in your homeland and the States (where I believe you lived for some time). In parties in both Oz and the US, internal internecine conflict is so par for the course as to be endemic.
Describe a 'sustainable' house please.
And while you are at it. What is sustainable building? Only using wood?
I mean if you disagree with your party line on everything and seem to spend most of your time when meeting other party members arguing violently with them... um... had it occurred to you that, perhaps...
..........................he should do the obvious and morph into one of the many fractious wings of Labour................Where there is more diversity and a better quality of hatred.
I don't think your characterisation of Tim is a) fair or b) true.
If anything he's not even our 'face' of the anti-Brexit/pro-referendum on the deal campaign, Clegg is. It is not exactly his fault that the good work being done by him and the rest of the party on a whole host of issues is being ignored by the media because they only want to hear from us re. Brexit because that is where we have a distinctive line. Our housing or benefits etc hasn't changed and we are fighting those corners in both local and national government but it quite simply isn't going to be heard about apart from internally (as a parliamentary candidate I get an update everyday from the work the party is doing and believe me it's varied) and on the Daily Politics/Today in Westminster. The work that is being done also has an aim, that of building a core vote which in the situation we find ourselves in.
As for the structure of the party since Tim has taken over, it has improved exponentially with far less duplication and a concentration on bottom up campaigning and, most importantly, support for that campaigning. Having Tim effective be a peripatetic leader, campaigning as much as possible out and about is a really galvanising aspect as well. So many of our issues in 2015 came from mistakes and misconceptions from the centre and a party that was divorced from its activists, that simply couldn't happen now.
As a parliamentary candidate (current) I find your comments about this apparently controlling cabal at the centre of the party and candidates in particular rather bizarre.
PPCs knowing that the party has more than one policy is not much good to anyone dare i say it... And what's more the way things are going anyone who puts in the effort as PPC and then finds that they are in by-election contention may find what happened in Richmond Park happens to them. Though they may let a "token male" through for Liverpool Walton where we scored 2.3% in 2015 in the interests of diversity..
I had thought of doing the PPC selection but thought why waste 50 pounds and a trip to London just to ultimately be out of serious contention because the sexing (sorry, selection) committee groped me and found more than they hoped for.
Not sure that would be the only issue actually.
EUsceptic Liberal Democrat. Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative. Semi-retired hack.
I've just voted and it's 12-12-12! (See Crimson King comment above). Though I must say that with the wording of the question, I can't see a clear distinction between 'No' and 'no noticeable difference'.
I've just voted and it's 12-12-12! (See Crimson King comment above). Though I must say that with the wording of the question, I can't see a clear distinction between 'No' and 'no noticeable difference'.
My apologies. "No" is supposed to mean you think Lamb would have been a worse leader than Farron.
Message or tag me to get your party colour set and access your party's forum!
They revert back to the bogus statistics that were used in the campaign (frequently quoting George Osborne or the comments that Mark Carney has now disowned) or quote some discredited (usually threatening) EU politician like Juncker or start going on about the "young people" before veering into a defense of unskilled labour from FoM sources and then reveal they are actually talking about their own problems getting cheap domestic staff or nannies. When pushed on housing they are really afraid of their property values going down with Brexit rather than the issue of affordability for the upcoming generation.. If you carry the argument far enough you will get a certain notorious LibDem interloper (of the canine persuasion) start railing against the shiftless "underclasses".
It's really like taking candy from babies...
This really is a nasty little diatribe (more because of what you think about your 'colleagues' than the insults you're heaping).
Edit: but seriously, and perhaps a little more politely on my part, of course there are people in the party that hold inconsistent or ostensibly silly views. You get that in most reasonably sizable gatherings. But your characterisation is pretty cheap/shared by the sillier end of the hard left.
Contradict yourself there, Anthony... Those LibDems citing out of date arguments/statistics for Remain are not an isolated few but a startlingly large number and they definitely have control of the party megaphones (for the moment). Doesn't bother me particularly as they just end up hoist on their own petard.
The 25-30% of the membership/supporters that are not of the Remain camp are just awaiting the day when reality hits that Brexit is happening and once again we have missed the opportunity to guide the process by making like ostriches and burying our collective heads in the sand.
Its interesting that the most offensive abuser of the "lower downs" in the LibDem Voice forums gets away with it with impunity over there and yet when he pops his head up in here he gets a rightly deserved "punishment beating" from those of other parties, or no party, who don't feel the same LibDem qualms at calling out such a pompous self-serving elitist..
Not really wanting to intrude on the internals of another party - but from a big picture perspective I can totally understand the approach that Tim / the Lib Dems are taking with Brexit - it is by far the easiest way to show distinctive positioning on a currently 'hot' topic.
On the other hand it is a shame in some ways that the party is becoming perceived in the public eye as the party of Europeanism, rather than the party of Liberalism.
Its interesting that the most offensive abuser of the "lower downs" in the LibDem Voice forums gets away with it with impunity over there and yet when he pops his head up in here he gets a rightly deserved "punishment beating" from those of other parties, or no party, who don't feel the same LibDem qualms at calling out such a pompous self-serving elitist..
Contradict yourself there, Anthony... Those LibDems citing out of date arguments/statistics for Remain are not an isolated few but a startlingly large number and they definitely have control of the party megaphones (for the moment). Doesn't bother me particularly as they just end up hoist on their own petard.
There's no contradiction, you just don't agree what a silly person is.
The 25-30% of the membership/supporters that are not of the Remain camp are just awaiting the day when reality hits that Brexit is happening and once again we have missed the opportunity to guide the process by making like ostriches and burying our collective heads in the sand.
Actually I think Clegg's been pretty good on our future relationship with the EU, and campaigns on EU nationals' rights and Single Market membership seem pretty much spot on to me. I'm intrigued as to where your 25-30% of the membership figure comes from (and if it's from where I think it is, it's not evidence for what you claim it is)?
Its interesting that the most offensive abuser of the "lower downs" in the LibDem Voice forums gets away with it with impunity over there and yet when he pops his head up in here he gets a rightly deserved "punishment beating" from those of other parties, or no party, who don't feel the same LibDem qualms at calling out such a pompous self-serving elitist..
I don't read LDV much (and not the internal forums) so I don't know who you mean.
Its interesting that the most offensive abuser of the "lower downs" in the LibDem Voice forums gets away with it with impunity over there and yet when he pops his head up in here he gets a rightly deserved "punishment beating" from those of other parties, or no party, who don't feel the same LibDem qualms at calling out such a pompous self-serving elitist..
I don't feel the need to directly respond to Antiimmigrant's baseless personal attacks upon me, which bear zero resemblance to reality. I will merely point out that folk on LDV are as bemused as to why he is a member of the Lib Dems as folk are here.
"You kill the people who did it, you kill the people who planned it, then you kill everyone who is happy about it" - Josh Lyman
I said at the time of the Lib Dem leadership election that Farron was the right leader for the Lib Dems at this time and I stand by that. What the party needs is a few years out of the limelight to quietly rebuild at a local level while once again embracing the politics that it is comfortable with and allowing their members to feel good about what the party is doing. After a succession of extremely savage electoral kickings the party desperately needed, and still needs, time to heal.
I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Lamb struck me as very provincial solicitor and obsessed with mental health issues
Yes, I could never quite understand why he stood for the leadership unless out of a determination to avoid an unopposed election. During the contest he was practically "Mr Noun Verb Mental Health". If the parliamentary party were bigger then I could have understood if he were really after the Health portfolio (like Huhne chasing Environment in 2006), but in a parliamentary part of 8 with only four ex-ministers, two of whom would be problematic to have on the front bench at first, surely the post would have been clearly his for the asking?
Lamb struck me as very provincial solicitor and obsessed with mental health issues
Yes, I could never quite understand why he stood for the leadership unless out of a determination to avoid an unopposed election. During the contest he was practically "Mr Noun Verb Mental Health". If the parliamentary party were bigger then I could have understood if he were really after the Health portfolio (like Huhne chasing Environment in 2006), but in a parliamentary part of 8 with only four ex-ministers, two of whom would be problematic to have on the front bench at first, surely the post would have been clearly his for the asking?
Three reasons. 1) it's something that he cares deeply about and has taken real steps to address in government, 2) It goes down very well with our membership, 3) it goes down very well with our voters and target voters.
He did go on about it too much though and it was not until I saw him at a hustings late on in the race that he came across as a rounded politician rather than a one trick pony (I knew he wasn't anyway but he was giving that impression).
Yes, I could never quite understand why he stood for the leadership unless out of a determination to avoid an unopposed election. During the contest he was practically "Mr Noun Verb Mental Health". If the parliamentary party were bigger then I could have understood if he were really after the Health portfolio (like Huhne chasing Environment in 2006), but in a parliamentary part of 8 with only four ex-ministers, two of whom would be problematic to have on the front bench at first, surely the post would have been clearly his for the asking?
Three reasons. 1) it's something that he cares deeply about and has taken real steps to address in government, 2) It goes down very well with our membership, 3) it goes down very well with our voters and target voters.
He did go on about it too much though and it was not until I saw him at a hustings late on in the race that he came across as a rounded politician rather than a one trick pony (I knew he wasn't anyway but he was giving that impression).
I'd agree. Mental health is a very worthy cause. Both candidates grabbed one policy and stuck to it.. Not ideal.. I thought housing more important than mental health and appealing to a bigger demographic than just the faithful (and I'm still not mistaken).
What was not apparent was that Tim could only channel one idea at at a time. When he dropped housing for Brexit he was like an actor who'd done Macbeth and was now moving over to play King Lear and erased the old role from his brain (and moreover all the dialogue).
The party are now all so enamoured of Tim's Brexit role (for which he is getting airtime, let's give him his due) that if we had a by-election with a really super leadership candidate elected, that person would not get a look in for a very long time. (Though back to the old theme that SWMBO's favorite PPCs are not really fit for purpose for ministerial roles let alone leadership ones so a "super" by-election winner is not likely).
Any other party in any other country would have chosen a leader from the much more varied talent pool of our Lords contingent and wound things back to the 1800s where leaders came out of the Lords as much as out of the Commons.. but, no, the orthodoxy of the party says that our Lords are just there to bide their time till Gabriel blows his trumpet and they all drink the Kool Aid and lead us into the promised land of an elected upper house (in which most of them wouldn't get elected).. sigh...
The party are now all so enamoured of Tim's Brexit role (for which he is getting airtime, let's give him his due) that if we had a by-election with a really super leadership candidate elected, that person would not get a look in for a very long time. (Though back to the old theme that SWMBO's favorite PPCs are not really fit for purpose for ministerial roles let alone leadership ones so a "super" by-election winner is not likely).
Any other party in any other country would have chosen a leader from the much more varied talent pool of our Lords contingent and wound things back to the 1800s where leaders came out of the Lords as much as out of the Commons.. but, no, the orthodoxy of the party says that our Lords are just there to bide their time till Gabriel blows his trumpet and they all drink the Kool Aid and lead us into the promised land of an elected upper house (in which most of them wouldn't get elected).. sigh...
I'm not sure which of these is the weirder.
On the first, if the "really super leadership candidate" was a retread (i.e. a Steve Webb or similar) then the fact that they had lost in '15 would surely count against them; if a new person then their lack of experience would. Anyone who arrives in the Commons during this parliament will clearly be relevant post-2020.
On the second, the idea that a serious 21st C British political party can be led from outside its elected parliamentarians is ... interesting.
EUsceptic Liberal Democrat. Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative. Semi-retired hack.
