Under the collective responsibility principle of cabinet government, I can't really see what options Lib Dem ministers have but to agree with and even argue in favour of government policy. As they're the junior partner, that inevitably means arguing in favour of Tory policy most of the time.
If you're arguing that collective responsibility is wrong, or that cabinet government is wrong, then you may have a point, but that's a much bigger thing to fix.
Obviously, back-benchers, councillors and random people aren't bound by that. I'm gratified that Julian Huppert has consistently publicly dissented from the government view on tuition fees.
I do expect that over the next few years the Lib Dems will continue to be damaged by coalition, and possibly seriously schism. They'll certainly lose the large general protest vote (probably to the Greens), Cameron has effectively detoxified the Tories sufficiently for the moderate right-of-centre. I really don't know what will happen to the left-liberals though, at the moment they're flailing. Some might go to the Greens, depending on how much they're willing to compromise their liberalism, but the rest are a fair sized constituency looking for a party, especially in England (the SNP and PC will probably gain some of that vote, both having moved much more centrist over the past couple of decades in response to reality).
Hmm - I think you're right that this is a problem with coalitions and cabinet government as currently construed; easier in countries where the executive is seperate from the legislature. But it's a flexible thing; under Blair, all the decisions were taken by the Blair/Mandelson axis and the rest of Cabinet made to go along with them. You might as well avoid the formality and save on biscuits if you're going to do that.
Agreed that things look very bad for the LDs if an election were to be held now. What happens in 5 years depends very much on how the economy is then and whether they got the AV vote through; if they do it might well increase the bleedoff of idealists to the Greens.
If you're arguing that collective responsibility is wrong, or that cabinet government is wrong, then you may have a point, but that's a much bigger thing to fix.
Obviously, back-benchers, councillors and random people aren't bound by that. I'm gratified that Julian Huppert has consistently publicly dissented from the government view on tuition fees.
I do expect that over the next few years the Lib Dems will continue to be damaged by coalition, and possibly seriously schism. They'll certainly lose the large general protest vote (probably to the Greens), Cameron has effectively detoxified the Tories sufficiently for the moderate right-of-centre. I really don't know what will happen to the left-liberals though, at the moment they're flailing. Some might go to the Greens, depending on how much they're willing to compromise their liberalism, but the rest are a fair sized constituency looking for a party, especially in England (the SNP and PC will probably gain some of that vote, both having moved much more centrist over the past couple of decades in response to reality).
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Agreed that things look very bad for the LDs if an election were to be held now. What happens in 5 years depends very much on how the economy is then and whether they got the AV vote through; if they do it might well increase the bleedoff of idealists to the Greens.
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