My response to the General Election- What the Tories have already done

So, the Conservatives are in power, just as I warned. People have not heeded my advice and the Conservatives find themselves in Downing Street, in a pathetically insecure power-sharing agreement with Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. The major result of the General Election was that there really were no winners, hence the hung parliament. People want Labour out- always the way after a three term Government- but when this happened to John Major’s Tories, New Labour stormed to a majority victory. Considering that, on May 6th, Cameron couldn’t even muster up an overall majority; this shows that the public did not see them as a viable alternative. And Nick Clegg, once touted as the Lib Dem leader who would achieve the biggest gains in the party’s recent history, ended up hated by party members, remembered as the leader who sold out and did a deal, not with Labour, whose interests match theirs closely, but of the Tories. He will always be remembered as the Liberal Democrat leader who acted as Cameron’s stooge, propping up a Conservative government that the people really do not want.

However, this is not the worst occurrence since that fateful Friday night, when it was announced that Gordon Brown would be resigning from the post of Prime Minister. They have already shown themselves to be horrifically undemocratic, changing the law from the approval of 50% of MPs being required to trigger a general election, to 55%. Considering that 47% of MPs in the House of Commons are Conservatives, this means that, even if every single MP, from every other party, requested a General Election, this would only amount to 53%, not enough to result in an election. Forget the media’s hysteria about Brown’s supposed clinging on to power, within days of taking office, Cameron has already severely trumped it. William Hague might argue that this achieves ‘stability’, he might point to the 5% pay cut MPs have taken since Cameron took office, but the reality of the situation is that these actions are undemocratic and dictatorial. Add this to the fact that the new Equalities Minister, Theresa May, has an atrocious record on homosexual and transgender rights, and it is fair to suggest that, as in the Johnson Mayoralty of London, this Conservative administration has already made quite a controversial and unwanted splash, less than a week after taking office.

The aforementioned ‘selling out’ of the Liberal Democrats is illustrated perfectly by one particularly agreement they have made with the Conservatives. Traditionally a party against nuclear power and Britain’s nuclear ‘deterrent’ (a contradiction in terms in my opinion), the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, has agreed that nuclear power plants will still be built, so long as public money is not spent in doing it. Not only does this lessen the role of the state in controlling what goes on in this country, allowing private investors (i.e. the rich) a free rein to do what they like, but it also doesn’t address the primary issue. Whether or not it is public money that is used to build the nuclear plants, the fact remains that they will still be being built, something the Lib Dems are supposedly against. Why exactly have they got themselves into this alliance with the Tories, when the Tories are one of the parties it is hardest to equate Lib Dem policies and values with? The protests outside Lib Dem Headquarters illustrated just to what extent the party’s core support (in which I do not count myself) is against the current state of affairs. I would suggest that this is positive, because, the sooner this coalition falls apart, the sooner there will be another general election. Personally, I think that, when that day comes, Labour will win the most seats, but probably not an overall majority; they will then form a much more comfortable coalition with the Liberals, hopefully leading the Tories to another extended spell in the wilderness.