The ThunderDragon

Nick Clegg is a party-pooper. And a control-freak one at that.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader said it should be made illegal for shops to sell alcohol at a loss.

Branding big supermarkets “irresponsible” for aggressively promoting alcohol sales, Mr Clegg told the Sheffield Alcohol Conference that many big stores are selling drinks at a price that does not even cover their own costs for duty and VAT. (The Telegraph)

I have one thing to say to that: fuck off you authoritarian cunt*.

It is up the alcoholmarkets supermarkets how they price the alcohol they sell, whether it be cheap or not. The only people who have any right to object to this are their shareholders, because it matters to them how much money the company makes.

If they want to sell me alcohol at a lower price than they pay for it, and if I want to drink it, then that is our own decisions. They know that they are selling it at that price, and I know what drinking too much alcohol could do my body - and so we all make our own informed choices.

It certainly is nothing to do with politicans.

* I apologise if youy are offended by the language, but tough. But it’s how I feel - and it’s true.

Labour isn’t the only party to have lost a front bench spokesman in the last couple of days - the Lib Dems have as well. Ruth Kelly resigned from the Cabinet, and Lembit Opik has quit the Lib Dem front bench.

Opik, by far the most well-known Lib Dem, has quit to concentrate on trying to win the election to become the party’s president. This is widely seen to be a non-started, considering the seemingly unstoppable [in Lib Dem terms] lead that Ros Scott has built up. Just compare her website with Lembit’s, for example. And the fact that he is the least well regarded member of the Lib Dem “Shadow Cabinet” by the members.

What it seems to me, is like his resignation from the Lib Dem front bench is a bit of a challenge to Nick Clegg - saying “back me [or at least not campaign against me] or lose me, the best known Lib Dem, from your team”.

Despit the fact that he is quitting to campaign for an elected party position, I can’t help that think that it is a move not that dissimilar to Ruth Kelly’s - a resignation excuse.

Nick Clegg has had a “go back to your constituencies and prepare for government” moment in his Cameron-lite - no notes, wandering around the stage - conference speech today when he said:

I can tell you where we’re headed - government. (Full speech here)

Yeah. Right.

Somehow, I just can’t see the Lib Dems forming the next government. Or any government, come to that. At any point.

Especially considering the latest polls, which put the parties on the following figures:

• Conservatives: 52%
• Labour: 24%
• Lib Dems: 12%

Now that is a fantastic result for the Conservatives, and a devastating blow to the Lib Dems, especially just after their conference where one would normally expect a poll boost. However, one can’t help but almost feel sorry for the them as their entire conference has been almost entirely overshadowed by the City meltdown and the Labour MP revolution.

According to Electoral Calculus, a general election with this vote share would leave Parliament as follows:

• Conservative: 493 seats
• Labour: 121 seats
• Lib Dems: 8 seats

Of course, this isn’t likely to be the actual result of any election, as it ignores the impact of any SNP/Plaid Cymru vote in Scotland and Wales. And it relies on a uniform swing, without paying any attention to local issues.

However, what it does show is the Lib Dems are suffering. Seriously suffering. They simply cannot compete aginst Cameron at the moment, no matter what they say or do. Clegg is seen to be nothing more than Cameron-lite by the general public, and as they want to get rid of this failing Labour government, they are turning to the Opposition in their droves.

What it really comes down to is that as the Lib Dems are primarily a protest vote repository rather than a serious political party with a credible claim to being able to form a government. Which is why they are being shunned by the electorate at the moment.

When will the Lib Dems finally admit that they won’t ever form the government?

Vince Cable is griping because he wasn’t asked to come on Strictly Come Dancing. He claims that the BBC

were terrified that it would be used to score political points and that Labour and the Conservatives would want their MPs on the show to give it political balance.

Were Vince just another Lib Dem backbencher, no they wouldn’t. But as he is his parties Treasury spokesman and deputy leader, one would rather expect that the BBC are in the right here.

Even ignoring the “political balance” narrative, that Cable wants to go on a light entertainment show when his party is supposedly trying to make itself seem like more than just a repository for protest votes, speaks volumes in itself - even he doesn’t think the Lib Dems are a serious political party.

What is it about the Lib Dems that leads them to always believe that they are about to become the second party in British politics?

Not long ago, they were claiming to be the “real opposition” to Labour as the Tories were, apparently, dying. Well, that didn’t exactly come true now, did it?

But Clegg’s at it again. Claiming that the current revolt by Labour MPs against Brown shows that we are “watching the death throes of the Labour Party”. Unfortunately not.

Labour may be fighting like a bunch of ferrets in a sack about to be thrown overboard from the ship of state, but these ferrets can swim. Modern political parties just don’t die so easily, at least not in Britain where the ties to the populace can be very deep indeed.

The late nineties didn’t signal the death throes of the Conservative Party, as shown by their current revival, and we are not witnessing the death throes of the Labour Party at the moment. The worst that will happen is a massive collapse in their support for the next few years, but they will inevitably claw some support back over time as the political seesaw swings back the other way.

However, it is the Lib Dems opportunity to make their move. They don’t have a chance of becoming the opposition or government, but they do have the chance to push their support to encompass more than just protest votes - whether they can hold on to them when Labour recovers is a different matter, however. But the Lib Dems will come under fire themselves from the Greens, who are becoming politically mature with the election of their first actual leader.

The problems with the Lib Dems is that they don’t really know where they stand. And they must get splinters in their arse from sitting on the fence so much. They need to decide where they actually sit, politically - not just spinning around and around as the mood takes them.

Lib Dem Chief Whif Paul Burstow has spent our money sending politically partisan newsletters to his constituents attacking his rivals. That is completely inappropriate behaviour.

If Paul Burstow wants to send his newsletters by post, that’s not a problem - but he should pay for the postage and the stationery. If he’s too important to pound the pavement like the rest of us, that’s not a problem - but we shouldn’t be paying for his laziness.

His story that it was “a simple administrative error which shouldn’t have happened and won’t happen again” makes no sense considering the size of the cost to our pockets - £1,500. At the current price of 36p for a 1st class stamp, that makes it more than 4,100 letters, sent between January 2007 and June this year. Quite how that is a “simple administrative error”, I don’t know. In fact, that’s rather a large one.

Burstow has offered to repay the £1,500 postage costs, which is all well and good. However, had the matter not been complained about I have no doubt that he would have just carried on doing it.

Unless it is Lib Dem policy to send politically partisan newsletters to constituents payed for by the taxpayer, Burstow can hardly justify maintaining his position as Chief Whip.

Tax cutting appears to be the order of the day, with Cameron’s commitment to a “long-term tax reduction” swiftly followed by Clegg saying that he will fight against “excessive taxation”.

About bloody time!

It seems that Cameron is now satisfied that the Conservatives have been “decontaminated” enough to make any support for tax cutting in to a virtue, rather than the vice that a statist Labour have made it out to be over more than a decade.

The Lib Dems, on the other hand, appear to have finally realised that people want less tax - and so they decide to reverse all their previous tax policies and “principles” and jump on the tax-cutting bandwagon. Whoops, your poll-chasing is showing , Nick!

However, that two parties have now “come out” in favour of tax cuts cannot be anything but a good thing, as it puts pressure and the political emphasis on Labour to demonstrate why taxing and spending [and wasting] should be the way to go.

Just to be quire clear - we’re talking about cutting tax, not slashing it. State institutions will not be unfunded by a Conservative government. But useless iniatives and excessive money wasting will be curtailed - and the money left in the pockets of the people who earn it. Us, the taxpayers.

News that the Lib Dem candidate for London Mayor, Brian Paddick, received substantially more second-preference votes in the May 1 election than any of the other candidates is hardly ground breaking.

The Liberal Democrats are usually the second choice party of both Labour and Conservative voters. Why? Because they are considered somewhere between the two, and thus often “better” than the other main party. If the choice is between a Lib Dem and a candidate from the other main party, most will plump for the Lib Dem.

They are rather inoffensive to both sides in general discourse, and rather less affected by the tribal nature of British politics. A voter who would never even contemplate voting for Labour or the Conservatives would rather more happily vote for the Lib Dems than for the other party.

And that is where Lib Dems get these second preference votes from - because when it comes to crunch time, both sides would generally prefer a Lib Dem to the “other side”. Because the Lib Dems are pretty much pointless. They cannot hope to get a Commons majority within my lifetime, at least [if they do, I will eat my hat], if ever. They exist pretty much entirely as a repository of protest votes.

Lib Dems are second preference - and always will be - second preference. Since we have only one vote in pretty much our entire electroal system, this will never mean anything for them except in a few marginal constituencies, where it might enable them to win a seat.

Of course this isn’t always true. But it is more often than not.

The complete London Mayor results are here.

Liberal Democrat MPs walk out of the House of Commons…

…in a huff as part of a pre-arranged stunt after their ridiculous call for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU - rather than over the current Constitution “Treaty” being debated - was denied by the Speaker.

Are they now going to stay out of the Commons?

Please, please do.

At least for the rest of this debate.

Please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

It’s not as if they add anything to the discussion, anyway!