North Shropshire Labour - Lest we forget

As we bask in the warm glow of the success of the North Shropshire by-election, let us not forget the Labour attempt to stop us winning (and to help the tory). It seemed to be mostly the local party (Starmer stayed away) but do they have control of the national facebook account?

There seemed to be some sort of informal pact in place:

Lib Dems and Labour should only target seats they can win, says Ed Davey

but this seems to break down as we approached the final 10 days as Labour put out a ridiculous "internal poll" which showed us on 11%!

LabourList: Tory lead in North Shropshire narrowed to seven points, internal polling suggests

They were now running a campaign, here is a wraparound on the local paper:

Then emails asking for help to Labour activists went out and phone banks were set up telling people we were in third.

Here is the facebook ad the main Labour account was running:

Amzingly this matched the message the Tories were putting out. Can't think why!

And here is one of the leaflets they were putting out saying not to believe our "fibs":

Then there was the shadow cabinet support:

Wes Streeting MP

 

Preet Kaur Gill MP

 

 

(Someone thought it might just be someone from her office but she confirmed it was her)

And visits from MPs Angela Raynor, Preet Kaur Gill and Lucy Powell.

An honourable mention for the Greens:

It's important to remember that a lot of Labour (& Green) voters themselves ignored this and made up their mind to vote tactically for which I am very grateful but we shouldn't forget that not everyone in the party was on board and what they put out and said about us!

Post-brexit snark

Now the deed has been done, some of this snark will still be relevant but here's an updtae for the new situation (NB: Use with care, only for hard brexiters, we welcome the ordinary person who voted brexit who are now realising the consequences)

Yeah but we've stopped EU citizens' freedom of movement!

At least we've cut red tape!

Ok let's talk about the coalition

So with the election of Jo and the upcoming election, the Corbynistas have gone into overdrive.
So here are a few arguments, graphics and links to help.

So with many a hat tip to Mark Pack:

You #YellowTories achieved nothing and just voted with the Tories.

Our achievements:

Yeah well you didn't stop the Tories from doing anything or restrain them in any way!

21 extreme Tory policies the Lib Dems blocked


Don't blame me, blame Clegg: 'There's so much I want to do, but can't', says Cameron as he reveals to the Mail how Lib Dems are holding him back




Well, you could have chosen Labour, you also chose Tories because you are Tories!
1) The maths didn't work
2) At a stretch something could have been cobbled together with the support of the SNP. Labour ruled out working with the SNP in anyway.
 3) Labour weren't serious, Ed Balls told us that they couldn't even get their own MPs to vote for AV (their own policy) even if it was part of an agreement.

Ah well, you could have done a confidence and support deal with the Tories or let them rule as a minority.

I think that's highly likely to have led to a snap election (in October 2010) and a Tory majority government. Tories would have said:
Give us a strong mandate for stable government
LibDems won't step up
(BTW Labour are still unelectable and we are the only ones with any money left to fight an election!)

Anyway, you bought in austerity which was a choice!

And what was this magic anti-austerity alternative that was available?

2009: Deepest budget cuts since 70s to fill '£45bn hole'
2010: Darling: I'll cut Deeper Than Thatcher

And here is Gordon Brown, after the 2010 election saying the first priority of any coalition should be an "agreed deficit reduction plan" (youtube)

Ah well that was the Blairites/Brownites, not the next leader!

2014: Labour will keep austerity, says Miliband

No not that leader!

2017: Labour manifesto ‘would keep £7bn of planned Tory welfare cuts’

Oh.

And we cut less than Labour would have.

Ah well, you introduced the bedroom tax!

No , Labour introduced the bedroom tax for social tennants of private landlords in 2008 in the form of the Local Housing Allowance. The coalition extended it to social housing as well.

Well anyway you are just Yellow Tories who jump into coalition with the Tories at the first opportunity.

Well except when we are in coalition with Labour you mean?

Ok the biggie, tuition fees.

That infamous pledge said:

"I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer system"

Clearly it was made for opposition but however we did not keep to the first part of the pledge however we over delivered on the second. We didn't just "pressure the government to introduce a fairer system" we DID introduce a fairer system!

90% of parliament was elected on a platform of raising fees (Labour had set in train an enquiry that was on course to recommend unlimited fees but were planning to settle on £6,000 (double)) but without plans to make the system fairer.

We had an opportunity to make the system fairer so we decided to use our leverage to effectively replace student debt with a time-limited graduate contribution based on the graduate's (not their parents) ability to pay. The monthly payments are actually less than under Labour as we raised the threshold where you started paying but kept the percentage of income the same.


In return we agreed to the increase in fees to £6,000 (although ironically in this new system, any increase in fees only makes it fairer!). We were naive to accept this £9,000 for elite universities that could prove they were using some of it to widen access as history shows all universities then did this but at least we got the widened access!

Anyway you said you wouldn't raise VAT and then you did!

No he didn't, we ran an attack ad on the Tory plans saying there was a black hole that would need to filled with a VAT rise but we also explicitly didn't rule out raising VAT ourselves and said we might have to depending on the financial situation we find.

But this is the kicker, you can't get out of this! Clegg advisor Polly Mackenzie said you agreed on the plastic bags tax in exchange for cutting benefits. Well no: 

Well well you enablers, you enabled the brexit referendum kin the first place!!!

Er..OK

CUKoo in the nest

So I'm sure everyone has now seen this Daily Mail story

Change UK group plots to destroy the Lib Dems

 

Some follow-ups that lend credence:



Heidi Allen refusing to answer a question about it from legend Steve Bray 

Change UK executing the strategy

From which I quote:

“none of the main parties are making a positive case for a People’s Vote and staying in the EU”

I expect the Greens, SNP and Plaid aren't too happy with that either.

Let us not forget that at the launch of TIG (as was), Angela Smith said the “Lib Dems lost the trust of voters years ago as we all know."

The signs were there.

"If we were to choose to stay in the EU"

My heart sank again as I saw that our European Election campaign was going to major on the fact that a vote for us was primarily a pro-EU, pro-PeoplesVote Vote. Again we will be conducting this as a proxy vote rather than for what it should be for.

However, a non-LibDem voter friend said to me he would vote LibDem for the first time in this election for precisely this reason, so the party are probably right.

However, we would be missing a trick if we didn't also constantly say "If we were to choose to stay in the EU, what kind of people do you want representing us in Europe?"

Not only would this plant the idea of choosing to remain in peoples' minds in preparation for any referendum but it would also allow us to talk about our positive record and contrast it with the reality of how Nigel Farage has performed (not turning up to fisheries committee, only turning up to make speeches so they can be disseminated by Russia Today, worst MEP voting record except for a quadriplegic)

Also with Change UK (as they are now called) saying "We are the party of the Peoples Vote" and "we’re the natural home of the remain alliance" we need other ways to distinguish ourselves from them. (apart from us wanting actual change in the UK in the form of electoral reform!).

Memes/links for (mostly) fighting the last war - full index

So I made an archive for general use of memes stolen without attribution over a period of arguing about brexit with people who are wrong on the internet

Full section index:


The 1975 Referendum

2016 Campaign - the single market

2016 Campaign -  other leave lies

2016 Campaign -  kick the establishment

2016 Campaign -  the vote

Trade - existing

Trade - Tariffs, deals and WTO 

Economics

Democracy

Corbyn's long game

A new vote?

Funnies

Snark

Brexit process and reasons

Tory politicians and their utterances

I say the last war because whilst it was all lies and cheating and foreign interference and despite how tempting it is, I don't think we should mention the previous campaign at all if we get a Peoples Vote as it would only serve to put us on the leave campaigns turf (rumoured slogan "Tell them again"). More on that anon.

 

Memes/links for (mostly) fighting the last war - Part 10 - Tory politicians and their utterances

Thatcher said a few things that were quite relevant to the situation now which show how far the tories have moved!

And now the current chancer: 

 

Here's unelected bureaucrat Lord Frost talking about the value of the single market in 2015.

 

And the rest:  

Full video of Raab not realising we were an island

Raab "bemused" in 2016 by the idea that we would have more bureaucracy after the leaving the EU

 

Goldsmith being helped by other brextremists

Digby-Jones counts as a Tory

Of course we were always going for no deal

And free movement is great

Here's Douglas Carswell saying a plan for leaving had been worked out in great details

Johnson saying there's no chance of a no deal or indeed any trade barriers 

Johnson saying we will remain a "fully paid up member" of the single market

And let us not forget the brexiters now getting EU citizenship for themselves:

Leading Brexiteer activist 'buys EU passport via Malta' 

'Get Brexit done': Wealthy Tory donors buying EU citizenship

A more appropriate Kipling poem

Cameron commemorated

Anyone noticed the similarities