[JoshBB]

How different would politics be if liberal democrats had formed a coalition with Labour instead of the Conservatives back in 2010 do you think?

[Kizzy]

I don't know... Mind you it couldn't be much worse for many could it?
Best to try be as forward thinking as possible

[MTVN]

Sorry but that was next to impossible

[MTVN]

Well not impossible but Lib-Lab wouldn't have been a majority. They'd have needed a real motley coalition to even have the slightest majority government in which case I think it would have been chaotic and plagued by acrimony and confusion

Say what you like about Lib-Con but they delivered 5 years of stable government which was remarkable considering that the two parties have big differences and that it was Britain's first coalition since WWII

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by JoshBB

How different would politics be if liberal democrats had formed a coalition with Labour instead of the Conservatives back in 2010 do you think?

It would have been harder road mathematically but it would have been a fairer, more just and far more compassionate govt overall I my view.

As the coalition could have been, had the Lib Dems insisted on far more just policies.

[joeysteele]

It wasn't impossible the Lib Dems and Labour would have had 8 seats more than the Conservatives.
The SNP and PC said they would support a govt that nurtured the recovery in place, looked at electoral reform and made no austerity cuts in the first year.

The SDLP in N Ireland would have also supported the Lib Dems and Labour in govt.
In fact mathematically Labour and the Lib Dems could have relied on the votes of around 330 MPs.
Much as what this govt has now in fact.

On an agreed programme over 4 years, we may never have lost the 1.1% growth that was in place and the cuts would have been less and easier.
The plan to halve the deficit over 4 years would have likely been achieved, since even the coalition managed that although they promised to clear it completely in 5,which the didn't.

It actually could have been a coalition govt that would have governed with far more consent and support of near all the parties in the Commons.
Mathematically challenging yes, impossible no.

[DemolitionRed]

I had always been a LD supporter but during the coalition the LD's made too many compromises and pulled their party so far away from centre left it became unrecognisable. When the atavists formed the Liberal Left it just became one big internal cluster-feck.

Conservatives were the ones who spilt blood on the floor and the Lib Dems are the sawdust that soaked it up.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by joeysteele

It wasn't impossible the Lib Dems and Labour would have had 8 seats more than the Conservatives.
The SNP and PC said they would support a govt that nurtured the recovery in place, looked at electoral reform and made no austerity cuts in the first year.

The SDLP in N Ireland would have also supported the Lib Dems and Labour in govt.
In fact mathematically Labour and the Lib Dems could have relied on the votes of around 330 MPs.
Much as what this govt has now in fact.

On an agreed programme over 4 years, we may never have lost the 1.1% growth that was in place and the cuts would have been less and easier.
The plan to halve the deficit over 4 years would have likely been achieved, since even the coalition managed that although they promised to clear it completely in 5,which the didn't.

It actually could have been a coalition govt that would have governed with far more consent and support of near all the parties in the Commons.
Mathematically challenging yes, impossible no.

More than the Tories yes but the Tories couldn't have governed on their own hence the coalition. And more than the government's majority right now, yes, but that is a slim majority for one party never mind a coalition of five different parties all with competing interests.

I still hold that view that it would have been completely untenable and that a Con-Lib government made easily the most sense after that election.