RedCelt69 wrote:Now. Justifying post-election promise-breaking based upon changed circumstances does, in this situation, lead us to ask just how much of the known situation was actually unknown. I've heard from various sources that the state of the economy (and all that entails) was readily discernible. If it wasn't, why wasn't it? But if it was... we aren't facing changed circumstances. We're facing known circumstances, which the coalition didn't fully address prior to the election. Because being truthful costs votes.
[b]Ideally, the election should be re-run with all of the parties giving *factual* manifestos[b] - manifestos which they must abide to. Arguing that the Tories are the only party that can afford to run another election campaign does little (to put it mildly) to strengthen the argument for democracy. Unless it's power of the wealthy people, instead of power of the people. Again - that isn't democracy.
I've cut out all except what I take to be the most significant paragraphs cause I hate repeating myself, responding to unfounded character assassination etc and I don't want to be here all day.
You're correct about the
economic situation being known at the time of the election. But the political situation wasn't. The economic situation plus the changed political situation have important consequences for budgetary constraints. Let me explain; we agree on the need for 'factual manifestos' which is why the manifesto the LibDems produced was more thoroughly costed than that produced by the other parties. It also included more details about what cuts to the deficit we would make than the other parties (if you root around in the IFS website they have a report which confirms this to a point though they say we underestimated... I'm saying 'we' as if I wrote it... they say the LibDems underestimated the amount of cutting needed doing though to a lesser degree than the other parties, and so there was still something like 40% of necessary cuts unnominated. The significant difference is that both Labour and ourselves laid out plans for limited cuts in the short term and deficit reduction funded in part by tax increases and (what were felt to be realistic) growth predictions.
The trouble with this was two-fold a) the Tories, who are the majority partner in the coalition felt otherwise and b) the economic situation
did change in a few significant ways. As far as the first point again we have the problem that large scale changes to the agenda cannot be made without bringing down the government - we can't not vote the budget through, that really does automatically trigger fresh elections in Britain. Do the cuts have to include the education budget? I'm obviously not convinced they do, but what I am convinced is that Vince especially will have done everything he can to talk the Tories out of it. There are hopes that protests and so on might change the government's collective mind on it so you'll notice I'm not condemning the protests above though I do think they might well be futile. The major change to the economic situation was Greece and the EU bailout. The former meant the case for immediate cuts was majorly strengthened. As I think I've said before on here Adonis reports that the LibDems had changed their minds about early cuts by the coalition negotiations - Vince when accused of 'flip flopping' on Newsnight said it was Greece which had changed his mind, I believe him. If you don't then believe Lord Adonis and input a plausible explanation... Greece. The concern was that our government bonds would be devalued because of the size of the government deficit compared to other countries so immediate cutting had to take place. This meant the LibDem budget plan thereby was no longer valid. Furthermore the EU bailout (and disagreement over whether it was a good, bad or catastrophic idea) and further problems with Ireland meant that the European economy and therefore British Economic growth because much harder to predict meaning that the LibDem growth estimates were no longer valid either. Even if we had been a majority government this meant that we would have to have changed from what we had planned out in the manifesto. As it was though we were the minority partner in a coalition in which the majority were already in support of an instant cuts agenda and had a plan mapped out (however gappy it might have been - again see the IFS report). If do wonder whether we'd be in the situation we are in at the moment (having to justify and unwanted policy on the grounds of some improvements we made to it, which is necessitated by cuts to the education budget we didn't want to make) if David Laws hadn't been pressured to resign, but then I guess the public just wasn't able to parse 'minister claiming less on expenses than he could do in order to cover up homosexual relationship' so soon after the expenses scandal.
As for the last points (a) manifestos being binding and (b) it being a sad thing that the Tories are the only ones who can afford and election campaign. I agree with (b) but you have to remember it's not just as issue of very wealthy tax dodgers from overseas funding them, most of their money comes from ordinary people making donations just like ours it just so happens that very rich people tend to favour the Conservative party for some reason. That part, though regrettable, is at least more honest that what Labour was doing as regards Unite (giving the Union taxpayer money for 'educational purposes' and receiving back slightly less money in the form of campaign contributions). There have been proposals made by... er... the LibDems to publicly fund election campaigns so the best thing you can do to solve both problems is donate to the LibDems but I gather that's not top of your agenda right now? At least we're not as messed up when it comes to campaign finance as the states and unlike France, Canada, Australia and so on we manage to have something which looks plausibly like a multi-party democracy. I think we're doing okay but the fact of the matter is that we have no cash, Labour has massive debts and the Tories are the only party who could afford an immediate election.
As for binding promises... "events, dear boy"... I can see the theoretical appeal but look at a situation the above re:Greece. Are you honestly saying you would prefer a government (any government) to stick to it's commitment to cut nothing for a year say if it would have forseeably caused the devaluing of Britain's government bonds to the point of major economic meltdown. That just seems a bit silly. Election promises are binding within reason and the point I'm trying to make is as an intelligent individual you ought to judge these things based on whether the decisions the people you're morally evaluating are in a position to make are consistent with their stated political values. As for your defibrillator point, you could be right. I know you could be right. Nick Clegg certainly knows you could be right. Imagine how he feels, having gone from topping opinion polls during the campaign and been feted as a hero by the party he's now receiving hate mail on a daily basis and everyone and their dog are predicting the decision to go into the coalition is going to cost us considerably at the next election, despite the fact that at every stage he appears to have acted (subject to what is politically feasible) in a manner consistent with his political principles. Saying he's evil and the like because he's not going to vote against the tuition fees bill is a bit like holding him accountable for not flying because he wrote a manifesto which said 'in the event I grow wings, I shall fly') despite the fact he's got no wings and therefore flying simply isn't possible.
Edit
RedCelt69 wrote:As for the cuts themselves - they can be made at a slightly slower pace, taking much less from so many so quickly. It would mean a slightly lengthier* climb back to prosperity, but with a chance of actually having a society worth bringing back to prosperity. Or we can cleave the axe in any and every direction. Because quick fiscal prosperity in the money markets is worth so much more than anything else a society can provide, isn't it?
* Assuming that the huge loss of employment and spending power (and the opportunity for new business growth that relies on people having money to buy their products) doesn't cause us to nosedive into a deeper recession.
Actually I think I'm right in saying it's generally believed that overly-aggressive early cutting would be more likely to trigger a second recession (unless of course government deficit/debt gets to the point that the bonds are heavily devalued which would probably do so as well) as it takes money out of the economy (in the form of jobs and government-as-a-purchaser). This is why any strategy has to run between the Charybdis of taking too much money out the economy and the Scylla of not doing enough about the deficit (the deficit obviously turns into debt which then has to be serviced, increasing the deficit). Doesn't help is to have fantasists like Macgamer (tax increase reduce revenue, cut the deficit now!) or Ed Balls (the way out of the recession is to spend more!) sticking their oar in. I'm a bit biased as I obviously prefer the Darling-Cable consensus on slow cuts but a) as I said I'm not sure how viable that is/was after Greece (Vince doesn't seem to think it was) and b) the Tories think early cuts can be done in a way to promote growth and so far they seem to be right (the argument would have something to do with restoring faith in the markets. I don't know, I'm not an economist).