[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by joeysteele

I would think it obvious how the NHS is a separate issue because not one of the main parties,or in fact any other party in the UK claimed to have any plan to reform across the board the NHS in their manifestos so therefore never presented same to the electorate.

Unlike other policies such as cuts being made in the first year, Labour and Lib Dems against,Conservatives for.
Tuition fees, Labour leaving them as they were, Lib Dems wanting to abolish them, Conservatives planning to at least double them.
VAT increase, Libe Dems against, Labour mo plans to raise it, Conservaives likely to raise it.

Even the welfare and benefit reforms have gone much further than is acceptable in my view as to all I am learning about them, they lack compassion, undersatnding and fairness in many areas.
Another back step on fairness especially to the bedroom tax from the Lib Dems again.

How any reform, not in any part's manifesto, as the NHS reforms were not, can then become part of a coalition agreement when having been never presented to the voters at the election is beyond me but for the Lib Dems then to have supported those NHS reforms in spite of that is utterly beyond belief.

I raised the NHS because it is one other thing on a long list of policies they have supported in Parliament that they will be judged massively wrong for doing so and that they should also be apologising for.
It is the message that the Parliamentary Lib Dems are getting even from their own Councillors now,up and down the Nation, that has prompted this apology from Clegg, for over a year he has arrogantly stated it is time for them and the voters to move on from the tuition fees issue.

Now he claims to be apologising for it near 2 years on.
Clegg is worried,not sorry,he is likely to go down as the worst Liberal,(whatever), leader since before the war and he knows that, his party has known it for well over 18 months now.

I do agree that it is the coalition agreement that was wrong, this was the best chance ever since long before the war for the Lib Dems to get much more say and ring moderation and compassion to policies.
The Conservatives failed badly to get an overall majority in an election they should have walked in from, a discredited Labour Govt and a PM who made gaffe after gaffe.
They didn't walk in though they fell well short,the Lib Dems had enormous power there for their taking.
However,in order to get Lords reform and at least an AV voting system via referendum,they moved right back from their bargaining position and agreed to some unbelievable aspects of Conservative policy that were a world away from what they themselves believed in.

I keep saying it but tuition fees is the greatest example of that, how they can call a compromise of wanting to abolish tuition fees as opposed to the other party wanting to at least double them and then agree to support to treble them is unbelievable and has no sensible reasoning to it whatsoever.
Even to get some people taken out of paying tax altogether,they had to agree to a 10% cut in the 50p tax rate,also something they bitterly opposed.

Unbelievable from a party that was,by the voters, put into a position where no other party could have governed securely without their support.
Failing to deliver their principles and right and fair policies in such a scenario is failure in the highest degree.

Back to the NHS,which I believe is now an issue that will lead to even the Lib Dems not being seen as being able to be trusted with it either.
The NHS reforms will bring massive problems to the NHS, they were wrong to be planned without another election and the Lib Dems were 100% out of order to even entertain the idea of them, never mind support them. That's my view anyway.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/elec...l#conservative
QUOTE:
'' Opening up the NHS to new independent and voluntary sector providers''

Well we can't say we were not warned at least.

It is unfair to suggest that the Libdems are a pushover, I think they are anything but. They do seem to have a hard time however defending the country against the political steamroller that is the tory party.
The Labour party have stuck the knife in following his apology, as it is like you say too little too late.
With an initial 19% 0f the cabinet ministers you would have thought he could do more...
God knows we all collectively willed it haha.