I have no doubt that a lot of Liberal Democrats are against the benefit cuts, and many other Tory policies.
And yet.
The NHS has been opened to private companies.
There has been an 80% cut to funding for undergraduate teaching and the Higher Education sector is now going to be organised according to private principles (I admit to being particularly bitter about this one, because I am half-way through a PhD where my funding only covers my tuition, James' salary means we are just living at the poverty line, I have a one-year old daughter, and I don't qualify for any assistance with childcare - and now thanks to the government, it will be next to impossible for me to get a job in academia).
The Conservative mayor of London has raised more objections to the cut in housing benefit than the Liberal-Democrat leadership
Vince Cable gave a speech threatening that if unions went on strike, the government would pass laws restricting the right to strike (thus managing to take both the Liberal and Democrat out of Liberal Democrat)
The government continues to put asylum-seeking children in detention.
A few days ago, as two asylum seeker activists in Manchester were threatened with deportation, I emailed Nick Clegg to ask for help. The email I got back basically said "Nick Clegg doesn't have the power to ask Teresa May not to deport people".
Yes, the party is in a coalition government - but that means that the leadership is therefore complicit with all Tory policies passed by the government. I understand there were concerns about political stability, but Canada has had several periods of minority government where the opposition parties supported the government on a bill-by-bill basis, and the political apocalypse has not occurred.
So what's the disconnect between the base and the leadership?
Two possibilities - 1) that actually, there is no disconnect. While many lib-dems oppose the above policies, more agree with them. I think this is a definite possibility, and is why I didn't vote Lib-Dem in the last election (though I had in previous elections). A party that can't decide whether or not to tax income over £150 000 is not a social democratic party.
or 2) that, as is the case in every other major party in the UK, many major parties throughout the West, and almost all governments throughout the west, the structures of democracy are there, but the political class still can and will ignore the masses. In support of this theory is the fact that, according to the Guardian "The Liberal Democrats will debate their stance on NHS reform next week at their conference but will not be allowed to consider or vote on any specific motion regarding the bill due before the Lords later this autumn"
I admit I am probably spoiled by being in the New Democratic Party of Canada, which is both internally democratic and actually left-wing.
no subject
And yet.
The NHS has been opened to private companies.
There has been an 80% cut to funding for undergraduate teaching and the Higher Education sector is now going to be organised according to private principles (I admit to being particularly bitter about this one, because I am half-way through a PhD where my funding only covers my tuition, James' salary means we are just living at the poverty line, I have a one-year old daughter, and I don't qualify for any assistance with childcare - and now thanks to the government, it will be next to impossible for me to get a job in academia).
The Conservative mayor of London has raised more objections to the cut in housing benefit than the Liberal-Democrat leadership
Vince Cable gave a speech threatening that if unions went on strike, the government would pass laws restricting the right to strike (thus managing to take both the Liberal and Democrat out of Liberal Democrat)
The government continues to put asylum-seeking children in detention.
A few days ago, as two asylum seeker activists in Manchester were threatened with deportation, I emailed Nick Clegg to ask for help. The email I got back basically said "Nick Clegg doesn't have the power to ask Teresa May not to deport people".
Yes, the party is in a coalition government - but that means that the leadership is therefore complicit with all Tory policies passed by the government. I understand there were concerns about political stability, but Canada has had several periods of minority government where the opposition parties supported the government on a bill-by-bill basis, and the political apocalypse has not occurred.
So what's the disconnect between the base and the leadership?
Two possibilities - 1) that actually, there is no disconnect. While many lib-dems oppose the above policies, more agree with them. I think this is a definite possibility, and is why I didn't vote Lib-Dem in the last election (though I had in previous elections). A party that can't decide whether or not to tax income over £150 000 is not a social democratic party.
or 2) that, as is the case in every other major party in the UK, many major parties throughout the West, and almost all governments throughout the west, the structures of democracy are there, but the political class still can and will ignore the masses. In support of this theory is the fact that, according to the Guardian "The Liberal Democrats will debate their stance on NHS reform next week at their conference but will not be allowed to consider or vote on any specific motion regarding the bill due before the Lords later this autumn"
I admit I am probably spoiled by being in the New Democratic Party of Canada, which is both internally democratic and actually left-wing.