The Liberal Democrats in north London have been asking people to sign a petition against Camden Council’s proposed library closures.
As a Camden resident I was particularly concerned to be contacted by a constituent. They informed me that last Saturday they had been approached outside the Tesco on England’s Lane, Belsize Park, by a member of the Lib Dems who had asked them to sign the petition.
Apparently a number of people were refusing to sign and pointing out (some quite angrily) to the activists that it was highly hypocritical given that the Liberal Democrats involvement in the Tory led coalition government that is responsible for the dramatic and far reaching cuts.
For years the Liberal Democrats have been able to act in opposition to any undesirable cuts at local and national level, safe in the knowledge that they were in no way responsible or answerable for the decision. It seems that some within the party have not woken up yet to their new political reality.
Some members of the Lib Dems are living in denial. If they believe, as I do, that these cuts are poorly thought out and go too far, that they are going to do lasting and irreparable damage to our communities, then it seems like they have one choice: leave the Liberal Democrats, join the Labour party, and start fighting for a fairer deal for our country.
despite what they say, LibDems have benefitted from the present system, in that by denied of proportionate powere they can be all things to all (wo)men…
I have always felt that once they are challenged with the power they are entitled to under electoral reform, they will be shown up as right-wing as their EU counterparts.
This is why in the long-term Labour has nothing to fear from electoral reform. This has already been shown in NZ, my home country.
It is not at all inconsistent for Lib Dems at a local level to oppose national coalition policies. There are numerous examples in all parties of people opposing national policy, Labour councils opposing the City Academy programme for example, or Tory ones opposing High Speed rail. This silly partisanship on the part of Labour is exactly the reason why Lib Dems will not join them. Lib Dems and Labour do not need to merge, just as the Lib Dems and Tories are not going to merge – on areas of agreement parties should work together, or compromise, and I hope that some in Labour will come to realise this.
This conflict between national policy and local policy has always been a source of amusement for me. Many years ago I was invited by a Labour activist to get myself as angry as him about an issue to do with a local hospital in a NW town (closing a ward I think – it was some time ago). His answers to my question ‘Who is to blame’? were not satisfactory and he adamantly refused to accept that they could be anything to do with the Labour Party. He continued in this vein, even when I pointed out that the Parish Council of the Parish where we were speaking was entirely Labour, that all the councillors of the ward were Labour, that the Borough Council was dominated by Labour, that Labour was well represented on the County Council and that they were the national government.