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It's hard to say what will happen. Milliband will whip his MPs to vote in favour of it, so it can pass without Lib Dem support. That would risk collapsing the c

It's hard to say what will happen. Milliband will whip his MPs to vote in favour of it, so it can pass without Lib Dem support. That would risk collapsing the coalition though. Fixed terms mean that the Tories would probably limp on as a minority government till 2015, but without much ability to get anything through (and they have little chance of getting reelected in 2015) so they would have to be really committed to this issue to do that. Lib Dems know they are going to get a hammering in 2015 and they need to start differentiating themselves from the Tories to have any hope at all, but it seems too soon for that at the moment. Thus-far they have proven incapable of taking a stand on anything of significance. Sadly polling probably indicates that this isn't something the public care enough about to make it worth them bringing down the government over, so I can easily see them rolling over in exchange for a few more years sucking on the teat of power. Or perhaps the most cowardly thing of all: making it a free-vote so that enough Lib Dem MPs will vote for it while Lib Dem HQ can claim to oppose it without any risk to the coalition. It may be decided by UKIP and backbench Tories. If they are against it I can't see Cameron pushing it. Unfortunately a lot of the Tory backbench rebels are also staunch Atlanticists and heavily involved in the defence/security industry (think Liam Fox). Whatever happens this will be on the books by ~2016 unless there is a significant public backlash.

nly 13y ago
You seem to know your shit. What resources do you follow to stay current with UK politics?
- corin_ 13y ago
  Without wanting to be rude about anon1385 (who I'm sure does know his shit), I'm not sure he said anything particularly insightful. I'd have had pretty much the same ideas that he had (though wouldn't have articulated them so well), and while I do have a general interest in politics, I really don't do a good job staying up-to-date on current affairs, so for the most part my knowledge is reasonable but not at all detailed. Perhaps if you yourself are not in the UK then that's why you ask, as I guess foreigners would need to more specifically try harder to keep up to date with our politics than we do here (even with my loose following of current afairs, the papers I read are written with a UK focus, the topical news quizzes I watch on TV are UK focused, etc.)
  - anon1385 13y ago
    Yeah, I've nothing particularly insightful to say here beyond things that become apparent if you follow UK politics. To those who don't I'm sure it gets fairly confusing; there are a lot of byzantine things about the process of UK politics. I was mostly trying to provide a bit of context for the non-uk readers. Having said that, if people are interested in the day to day then the Guardian do a live politics blog most days which will have coverage of speeches, important votes and links to articles and comment pieces in the other papers. Also if you are a UK citizen and care about politics I think it really is worth your time to actually sit and watch parliament at some point. Preferably try and work out when they will be talking about an issue you care about or have an interest in (I'd advise against Prime Ministers Questions, it's mostly a lot of pre-prepared soundbites and weak jokes with very little answering of questions). It will probably reveal quite a bit about the real positions of backbenchers, the main parties etc beyond what you see in the papers or the soundbites on the TV news. You may find it surprising who you are agreeing with or not. Also there is a lot of theatre and protocol to it which is kind of entertaining at times.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      I'm a big fan of the Guardian, but I'd also suggest that for anyone who has trouble keeping up-to-date, you're probably best off trying out difference sources and finding the one that suits you. Whether that's a source that's extremely left- or right-wing, or somewhere in the middle, if it works for you, chances are you'll read it more. Of course, the next improvement up from this is to read multiple sources to get the fuller, more objective picture. Also, I've found comedic sources can be great. My two are Have I Got News For You (Friday night comedy panel show based around current afairs - doesn't run all year round though) and Private Eye (satirical current afairs weekly magazine - coincidentally edited by one of the permanent team captains on HIGNFY, Ian Hislop). They can be great fun if you know what they are going to cover already, and they can be a great way for people who are less interested, or just less up-to-date, to get a snapshot of news without having to try too hard to get into it.
      - daywalker 13y ago
Silhouette 13y ago
I think the Lib Dems have collectively played their hand poorly since entering the government. Objectively, they have achieved some huge wins from their own election pledges, which is no mean feat in a coalition. Probably their biggest success has been raising the tax thresholds in a way that benefits many of the less well-off but working people in the country. And for all the current mess about mass surveillance, you have to remember that compulsory ID cards for everyone were being pushed strongly by the previous administration and have been scrapped since. The trouble is, the Lib Dems have terrible PR people who haven't played up their strengths to any significant extent at all, so they've just got lost in all the negative stories. They totally mishandled the tuition fees issue (at least, those of their MPs who didn't rebel did) and that cost them dearly, because they lost the credibility they so desperately needed to get things done in government and they've been playing defence ever since. Add in a couple of scandals costing Cabinet-level people their jobs, throw in this Lord Carlile guy that no-one had ever heard of until he became the Lib Dems' chief apologist for anything not really very liberal at all and Vince Cable as possibly the most overtly business-hostile Business Secretary in recorded history, and their top brass is looking more like a bunch of school kids playing at government than senior members of an actual national government. This in turn just plays into probably the Lib Dems' biggest PR problem coming into government, which was convincing people that all those nice-sounding policies they were free to advocate when they had no chance of winning the election could actually work for real. As a point of interest, we were within a few metaphorical steps of "Papers please" on ID cards and it really was popular revolt that forced the political class to roll it back, so I'm not ruling out that significant public backlash you mentioned against the on-line surveillance. Almost everyone uses Facebook and Google, but a lot of people don't really like them very much, particularly the constant invasions of privacy, and I suspect a lot of people are getting fed up with the US overtly throwing its weight around one way or another too. It's not hard to imagine that this could become an issue with significant weight by election time unless it's all water under the bridge by then, and I don't see any chance of that happening if anyone in government really does try to force through the snooper's charter. Surely international relations are going to have a much higher profile next time than in the past, particularly with the EU debate and the rising profile of UKIP.
- anon1385 13y ago

nly 13y ago

You seem to know your shit. What resources do you follow to stay current with UK politics?

corin_ 13y ago
Without wanting to be rude about anon1385 (who I'm sure does know his shit), I'm not sure he said anything particularly insightful. I'd have had pretty much the same ideas that he had (though wouldn't have articulated them so well), and while I do have a general interest in politics, I really don't do a good job staying up-to-date on current affairs, so for the most part my knowledge is reasonable but not at all detailed. Perhaps if you yourself are not in the UK then that's why you ask, as I guess foreigners would need to more specifically try harder to keep up to date with our politics than we do here (even with my loose following of current afairs, the papers I read are written with a UK focus, the topical news quizzes I watch on TV are UK focused, etc.)
- anon1385 13y ago
  Yeah, I've nothing particularly insightful to say here beyond things that become apparent if you follow UK politics. To those who don't I'm sure it gets fairly confusing; there are a lot of byzantine things about the process of UK politics. I was mostly trying to provide a bit of context for the non-uk readers. Having said that, if people are interested in the day to day then the Guardian do a live politics blog most days which will have coverage of speeches, important votes and links to articles and comment pieces in the other papers. Also if you are a UK citizen and care about politics I think it really is worth your time to actually sit and watch parliament at some point. Preferably try and work out when they will be talking about an issue you care about or have an interest in (I'd advise against Prime Ministers Questions, it's mostly a lot of pre-prepared soundbites and weak jokes with very little answering of questions). It will probably reveal quite a bit about the real positions of backbenchers, the main parties etc beyond what you see in the papers or the soundbites on the TV news. You may find it surprising who you are agreeing with or not. Also there is a lot of theatre and protocol to it which is kind of entertaining at times.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    I'm a big fan of the Guardian, but I'd also suggest that for anyone who has trouble keeping up-to-date, you're probably best off trying out difference sources and finding the one that suits you. Whether that's a source that's extremely left- or right-wing, or somewhere in the middle, if it works for you, chances are you'll read it more. Of course, the next improvement up from this is to read multiple sources to get the fuller, more objective picture. Also, I've found comedic sources can be great. My two are Have I Got News For You (Friday night comedy panel show based around current afairs - doesn't run all year round though) and Private Eye (satirical current afairs weekly magazine - coincidentally edited by one of the permanent team captains on HIGNFY, Ian Hislop). They can be great fun if you know what they are going to cover already, and they can be a great way for people who are less interested, or just less up-to-date, to get a snapshot of news without having to try too hard to get into it.
    - daywalker 13y ago

Silhouette 13y ago

I think the Lib Dems have collectively played their hand poorly since entering the government. Objectively, they have achieved some huge wins from their own election pledges, which is no mean feat in a coalition. Probably their biggest success has been raising the tax thresholds in a way that benefits many of the less well-off but working people in the country. And for all the current mess about mass surveillance, you have to remember that compulsory ID cards for everyone were being pushed strongly by the previous administration and have been scrapped since. The trouble is, the Lib Dems have terrible PR people who haven't played up their strengths to any significant extent at all, so they've just got lost in all the negative stories. They totally mishandled the tuition fees issue (at least, those of their MPs who didn't rebel did) and that cost them dearly, because they lost the credibility they so desperately needed to get things done in government and they've been playing defence ever since. Add in a couple of scandals costing Cabinet-level people their jobs, throw in this Lord Carlile guy that no-one had ever heard of until he became the Lib Dems' chief apologist for anything not really very liberal at all and Vince Cable as possibly the most overtly business-hostile Business Secretary in recorded history, and their top brass is looking more like a bunch of school kids playing at government than senior members of an actual national government. This in turn just plays into probably the Lib Dems' biggest PR problem coming into government, which was convincing people that all those nice-sounding policies they were free to advocate when they had no chance of winning the election could actually work for real. As a point of interest, we were within a few metaphorical steps of "Papers please" on ID cards and it really was popular revolt that forced the political class to roll it back, so I'm not ruling out that significant public backlash you mentioned against the on-line surveillance. Almost everyone uses Facebook and Google, but a lot of people don't really like them very much, particularly the constant invasions of privacy, and I suspect a lot of people are getting fed up with the US overtly throwing its weight around one way or another too. It's not hard to imagine that this could become an issue with significant weight by election time unless it's all water under the bridge by then, and I don't see any chance of that happening if anyone in government really does try to force through the snooper's charter. Surely international relations are going to have a much higher profile next time than in the past, particularly with the EU debate and the rising profile of UKIP.

anon1385 13y ago