Coalitions, negotiations and party democracy

[matgb]

I'm running out of popcorn, wonder how good the final deal will be? Anyway, for those worried that the Lib Dems might "sell out" or whatever, a brief guide to internal party democracy:
Liberal Conspiracy » Liberal Democrats: the clue is in the name

Not sure why so many reformers seem to think that the membership would let Clegg take his pieces of silver, he sure as hell knows he couldn't get away with it.

Note to any Tory inclined readers; your manifesto includes a desire to improve democracy, extend referenda on issues, etc. So what's wrong with the idea of asking the voters how they want to elect Parliament? If you think reform would be so bad, surely you can win the argument in a referendum? What are you scared of?

Anyway, normal service may or may not resume ar some point, but, y'know, most interesting part of an election is always the aftermath, and we might end up getting exactly what I joined the party to campaign for, so I'm talking about that.

Comments

[fearmeforiampink]

There's two reasons.

One, a fair proportion of the reformers won't know that.

Two, people want to push their own particular bits – if the Tories offered Clegg a deal that was solid gold from a Lib Dem policy point of view, on everything except electoral reform, he might well take it. And certainly people would think he might well take it. Thus, people are wanting to say "This is what is important to us."

[matgb]

Re two, fiar enough, but on one?

The leadership of Vote For a Change sure as hell know it, and have been told repeatedly. Their attempt to persuade supporters to swamp the undermanned and underresoured Cowley St phone lines today was despicable; they either know it was the wrong thing to do, or are completely incompetent.

Either way, they're tilting at the wrong targets; the stumbling blocks are anti-reformers in both bigger parties.

[missedith01]

Reads article plus comments ...

You don't mean to say Twitter isn't helping the political process? Are you allowed to say that? :-o

[matgb]

Possibly. It's more the campaigning groups that are organising that should know better. First protest helped, showed support. But keeping going against the ally? That's counterproductive.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

When I try to go to that link to Liberal Conspiracy I get a Malware warning from Safari.

Any ideas why?

[matgb]

No, you're the second person that's said similar, but I couldn't replicate; not my site, reported to admins.

It's a Wordpress install, may've got a security flaw, they sometimes do.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Ah Wordpress... I had a blog hosted on my own install of that until it sank under some kind of attack. I've been using wordpress hosting since.