Stephen Fisher, 25th April 2015
Nick Clegg yesterday ruled out the Liberal Democrats going into coalition with Labour if it depended on “life support” from the SNP. The FT article quotes Clegg as saying:
“I totally rule out any arrangements with the SNP — in the same way I rule out any arrangements with Ukip — because there is no meeting point for me with one party that basically wants to pull our country to bits and another party that wants us to pull out of the EU,” Mr Clegg said. “I would never recommend to the Liberal Democrats that we help establish a government which is basically on a life support system, where Alex Salmond could pull the plug any time he wants. No, no, no.” Continue reading Implications of Clegg ruling out arrangements with either the SNP or UKIP →
Our model now gives a 7% chance that the Conservatives will be the largest party but could only form a majority with the support of all of the Lib Dems, the DUP and UKIP. But the Lib Dems would also be able to form a majority with Labour and the SNP. In our central forecast, the Tory-led group would have 325 seats while the Labour-led group would have 338. Continue reading Which way would the Lib Dems go? →
by Stephen Fisher and Eilidh Macfarlane
At the 2010 election Liberal Democrat MPs, members and voters were all more social liberal than economic liberal (using both terms in their traditional British not American sense) i.e. left rather than right of centre. But their leaders, especially Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander and David Laws are further to the right than most of their party. In his book 5 Days in May, Andrew Adonis goes so far as to argue that the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition with the Conservatives rather than Labour not because of the parliamentary arithmetic was considerably better but instead because Nick Clegg and David Laws especially were ideologically closer and personally warmer to the Tories than to Labour. Continue reading Liberal Democrats after the election: a left of centre party which should be able to work more easily with Labour than the Conservatives →
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