Brokeback Coaltion

[Gromit]

David Davis's extraordinary description of the Government as the 'Brokeback Coaltion', referring to the Gay Cowboy movie, is both offensive and revealling.

It is obvious many Tories are deeply unhappy about getting into bed with the Liberal Democrats. Is the Coalition starting to unravel?

http://www.independen...oalition-2034318.html

[jno]

many LibDems are too, as measures taken so far are often neither liberal nor democratic. However, it seems the dissidents in both parties are outnumbered by those who prefer being in government to being out of it, which is to be expected of politicians. Expect the strains to get worse as the economic pips begin to squeak, though.

[merciasounds]

This time round it's a case of everybody gets what nobody voted for. One person's compromise is another's broken promise. I know what I voted for, and I'm not happy.

[Aquagility]

Hands up those who would rather have a bankrupt country.

[dyslexiauntied]

Gromit, unravels implies it is already tightly bound together. are you serious??!!
Come next May you will be able to crochet a patchwork quilt with what will be left.

[modeller]

If we vote for the AV system coalitions will be the norm . The weakest party that the majority don't want will be part of government. As a result nobody gets what they voted for .
I don't think it will unravel yet but if the LibDems don't get the result they want next May I can't see them co-operating for a further 4 years.

[dyslexiauntied]

Mod 4 years, think 4 days would be pushing it!!

[Kromovaracun]

"I know what I voted for, and I'm not happy."

This will happen every election if we have PR. It's my main reason for disliking it.

"If we vote for the AV system coalitions will be the norm"

AV's quite the opposite actually - it's designed to engineer majorities, just more legitimately than FPTP. The philosophy of AV is that the winning candidate has a degree of support from everyone - it's most likely that over half of people would have ranked them at either first or second place.

[ludwig]

Splits between different factions often bring governments down, and here you have a government with a split built into it from day 1, so it seems inevitable that the coalition will break down at some point, it's just a question of when.

As the euphoria of having rid the country of Brown and his cronies settles down, there'll be more voices of dissent from the back benches of both sides of the coalition. David Davis is leading the way because he's an embittered has-been who once had hopes of being Prime Minister himself.

[dyslexiauntied]

Ludwig, do you think Davis has it in him to deliver the kind of withering speech as given by Geoffrey Howe that finished the Iron Lady, me thinks not.
And besides Davis now denies that the way his views were overheard has been totally misrepresented!! Or do we now think he is starting to back pedal?

[ludwig]

I don't either dyslexia, the brokeback references and other comments look pretty pathetic. I think Davis is a bit of a nutter - this was the guy who pulled that silly stunt where he resigned and stood for re-election in protest at the government's anti terrorism bill. I mean What The Funicular was all that about ? no-one knew then and no-one knows now.

It needs someone more serious like Simon Hughes of the Libdems to start causing real trouble.

[jake-the-peg]

Davis was positioning himself to snatch the leadership of the Tory party. Ousted by Cameron he bided his time made sure there was plenty of clear water between himself and the shadow cabinet.

He stood down to campaign on privacy matters and grab a huge slice of publicity for himself.

Then just when he thought Cameron had failed to win a majority and that his time had come Cameron gets the coalition together.

I can see why he's miffed - If he can't get the caolition to fail he won't get another chance for at least 10 years and he'll probably be too old then