PoliticsEnglandUK: Lib Dems: Leader, Nick Clegg, recovers voice and soldiers the party onward

----------------------------------------------
Press Association UK (May11,2011)


England's Liberal Democrats, coalition partner with the Conservatives in running the British govt, said its leader Nick Clegg (date line is May11,2k11, a month ago), are "still formidible."  He continues: "... despite their humiliation in last week's elections".

The Deputy Prime Minister dismissed predictions that his party faces being marginalised as a result of its participation in coalition government, insisting that it will go into the 2015 general election with a "unique" offer of social fairness and economic credibility which will appeal to millions of voters.

Read more ... click the t+mstamp just below ...

And he signalled a new approach to the partnership with Conservatives as the coalition enters its second year, saying: "We will stand together, but not so closely that we stand in each other's shadow."

Mr Clegg will use a speech in London marking the first anniversary of the creation of the coalition to send a message to activists and supporters not to be disheartened by last week's drubbing in the polls.

He will accept that his party took "a hard knock" on Thursday, but will insist that the Lib Dems have been "punching well above our weight" within the coalition Government and will succeed in making Britain "a more liberal country" by 2015.

In the coming months and years, he and fellow ministers will be more assertive and more ready to blow their own trumpets on policy successes, in order to "make the Liberal Democrat imprint and influence more visible", he will say.

I have little comment to offer, as I'm still learning the coalition's internal and external party relations of importance to understand the United Kingdom a bit politically, first with their  present coalition partners, and second with the Official Opposition, the Labour Party.  In Canada, we have a new majority govt composed by the Conservative Party's all-party caucus of its members in the House of Commons and also the Senate, which the new Conservative majority in the Commons wants to reform in regard to the Senate's internal structure, either by Parliamentary vote of both Houses to approve or by Constitutional Amendment which never flies in Quebec where Quebecois voters elect a large chunk of parliamentarians to the Commons (again, now a Conservative majority), but most of all, the federal party, Bloc Québecois, went down into withering defeat in the recent continent-wide Canadian national election for Parliament and control of the Government.  The Bloc (BQ) lost, the Liberals lost, the NDP gained, and the Conservs gained an absolute majority and can rule with stability, unlike during its previous 2 minority-govt terms of office.

This state of affairs holds in such affairs of state.  Let's see what Harper does with his new stability of continuance in office for a full term, without him being constantly in fear of being thrown out abruptly by a sudden combination of the opposition parties, otherwise divided --

(lots of members in the Commons woud swallow Senate reform à la Prime Minister Stephen Harper, rather than outr+t abolition of the Senate proposed by the social democrats (with hardworking pure-socialist revolutionary party infiltration into the ranks of NDP activists, serving as New Democratic Party active supporters and internal critics under Jack Layton, in whose parliamentary riding I reside in Toronto East).

Across the Atlantic, it woud, Clegg nevertheless has a clear vision of where he wants to take his Lib Dems, while maintaining a clear distinction between the two parties of the coalition govt; Clegg is looking forward to future growth of the party and voting results.  If he can accomplish all that, he will go down in the annals as a man of great achievement, but let's see, as that may not be all the man garners on his record during the course of his steam-ahead political career..

-- Press Association UK materials posted by, with comment, Politicarp