New government

[watervole]

As a Lib Dem voter, I can see some gains.  I'm not getting everything I would have wanted, but I probably wouldn't have got even this much under any other arrangement.

I'm very much in favour of scrapping the increased threshold for inheritance tax.

Working on the budget deficit makes sense.

I'm happy with scrapping Labour's planned rise in National Insurance and with raising income tax thresholds for lower earner.

A referendum on Alternative vote is good (I'd much have preferred PR, but realistically, the Conservatives were never going to agree to a system that would cost them a large number of seats)

Also, some Lib Dem MPs will be getting experience of high level posts.  That's a long term asset to the party.

Chris Huhne as Environment and Climate Change Secretary may be the best part of all.  I totally support his views on green taxation.  I hope he gets to put some of them into practice.

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Chris Huhne getting climate change will please you even more

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I'm hopeful this may lead to some progress on green taxes. Plus the third runway at Heathrow should now be dead as both Con and Lib were opposed to it.

[jon-a-five.livejournal.com]

But it's a nail in the coffin of PR as it helps to prove FPtP is a 'good' and workable system. If they'd forced the Tories into a minority government the ensuing cattle trading over new laws would be exactly the sort of thing that happens under PR.

"Working on the budget deficit makes sense." yes, being an accomplice to mass slashing of public services will do wonders :-(

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

And your alternative? Do you think that Labour wouldn't have done the same if they had won a majority? Why do you think they tried (illegally, according to the High Court) to cut Civil Service (and other public sector) redundancy terms but to prepare for swinging cuts?

[jon-a-five.livejournal.com]

Oh, all three would have had cuts. But the Conservatives will be the most brutal while still pissing away billions on things like Trident Mk 2.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Just as Labour has been pissing away millions on ID cards and upgraded biometric passports.

I'm more worried about the Tories welfare policies...

[nojay.livejournal.com]

The smart thing for the Conservatives would have been to simply say that they're not interested in forming a minority government by themselves and let Gordon Brown swing in the breeze -- he was Prime Minister and would still be in that case, unable to resign without knowing there's someone ready to step in to replace him. There's no constitutional law that says the minority party with the most seats has to run the Government in a hung Parliament. They could sit back, abstain in the confidence vote after the Queen's Speech and force Gordon to try and run things with the wafer-thin majority he might manage to cobble up and watch the fighting and knifing that would go on in the Labour ranks while passing the popcorn.

The inevitable rerun of the election in the autumn after Gordy jumps in front of a train with several pieces of Smith Square cutlery wedged in his back would result in a solid majority for the Conservatives and Labour's reputation as a serious contender for Government in tatters for a decade or more.

[rockwell-666.livejournal.com]

IMO this is possibly the best option and the best opportunity to improve matters.

Had the LibDems sided with Labour, you'd have had a lame-duck Government with a lame-duck leader relying on the support of the smallest groups.

Instead what we have is a Tory government with the Lib Dems there to restrain them from driving way over to the right, but with enough clout that they don't go with the LibDem plans to dive right into the heart of Europe (let alone join the Euro which is looking increasingly shaky right now!)

I'm not entirely happy with the idea of a referendum on ATV+, I'd have preferred STV, but that was, to be honest, always somewhat unlikely.

The good thing, however, is that we should see a roll-back of much of Labour's anti-civil liberties legislation with the ditching of ID cards and, hopefully, anyone not charged with a crime having their DNA removed from the national database to start with.