subtitle

...a blog by Richard Flowers

Monday, June 11, 2012

Day 4173: Can You Forgive Her?

Monday:

Oh Pollyanna Toytown, what a poisonous wee troll you are.

Mr Matthew is much kinder to her, persevering to find praise for Mr Dr Vince in among all the bile she spouts. But I'm not that kind of elephant!

Replaying the Coalition negotiations with the benefit of two years' hindsight, Polly still can't get them right. The Lib Dems, she says, should have forced a Conservatory minority government. AND we should have struck a harder bargain with them from our position of outnumbered-six-to-one-by-the-gerry-rigged-electoral-system strength.

Well make your mind up. Either we agree to a Coalition and make them do some stuff, or we let them rule as a minority. We don't get to do BOTH.

We should, insists La Poll, have forced Mr Balloon to campaign for AV, and we should have prevented the austerity programme. In spite of it being HARD LABOUR'S programme too – Mr Alistair Dalek promised "cuts deeper than Thatcher's", and of course Mr Liam "Father Dick" Byrne's note "there's no money left".

Oh, it's so OBVIOUS now!

Of course, Pollyanna's HINDSIGHT is as QUESTIONABLE as her PROGNOSTICATION.

She describes Lord Adonis as "adept" in offering us an olive branch. This would be the same Lord Adonis whom she described a day earlier as being FURIOUS with us back when we were unable to negotiate a deal with Labour for the entirely inadequate reason that even if there had been enough MPs between our Parties to form a government – and there weren't – Ed Balls and Ed Milipede were too busy sizing each other up for a willy waving contest to even PRETEND to negotiate properly. I mean CLEARLY, it was the Lib Dems' fault that Labour in 2010 could neither win enough seats nor behave like adults.

She also says how Mr Milipede said from the start he would embrace us. This would be the same Mr Milipede who vowed to destroy the Lib Dems, would it? Or the one who promised he would demand Captain Clegg's head in any future coalition negotiations – an utterly RIDICULOUS position to take for a man contemplating having not managed to win an election and going cap in hand to a smaller party to ask for our support. First on the table: "F*** You" – interesting strategy, Mr Not-Going-To-Be-Prime-Monster-then. How are you going to look when you go back to your supporters and say, " Sorry guys, we're back in Opposition because I stupidly put petty vengeance on the leader of another party ahead of the good of the country".

When Cap'n Clegg said Mr Frown had to go he was only pointing out that the COUNTRY had made its JUDGEMENT. That's not UNREASONABLE after an election when someone's been decisively rejected by the voters; if the Liberal Democrats lose seats and votes as badly in 2015, I suspect the Cap'n may be telling people to negotiate with his successor because he'll do the HONOURABLE thing and step aside, just like Mr Frown should have done. By announcing his position nearly five years in advance, though, Mr Milipede reveals that he only wants Dork Lord of the Sith-esque revenge for the slaying of his Master.

Of course, Pollyanna wants to avoid this awkward moment, by having US knife Captain Clegg on their behalf.

Let me rephrase that: the Hard Labour Party would like us to get rid of the MOST SUCCESSFUL LIBERAL SINCE LLOYD GEORGE.

Hmm, is it POSSIBLE that there is an ULTERIOR motive in their suggestion there?

"If Cameron is voted out, building a moral alliance with the people who kept the Tories in power risks looking shoddy to a disillusioned electorate."

No, Pollyanna, it is YOUR POLITICS that is SHODDY, you and your vile Hard Labour toadies. YOU are the ones who scream and wail about "betrayal" when coalitions go against you, and suddenly have a change of mind when it looks like you might need our support yourselves.

On Mr Andy Marrrmight's sofa, Pollyanna makes big tearful eyes and remarks on Lords reform "we need it but it looks like we're not going to get it". Well, who's going to block it, Polly? YOUR HARD LABOUR PARTY that's who.

You utter, utter hypocrite.

You claim to WANT Lords reform, but you'd rather take cheap pops at the Deputy Prime Monster, who is ACTUALLY DOING LORDS REFORM, than make the mildest criticism of your own side when they prop up the Conservatory establishment and vested interest.

"Can you forgive the Liberal Democrats?" Polly asks.

To paraphrase You should get down on your knees and GROVEL for OUR forgiveness.

Your selfish, self-interested actions are those of a TORY. You betray the poor even as your sanctimonious columns use their plight for your own ends; you protect your own wealth and privilege, your position on the Guardian unearned except by inheritance; you are greedy for power. And your Part doesn't just support Tory policies when they have to; they go around actively coming up with Tory policies, or even more-Tory-than-the-Tories policies (ninety day detention without trial; I.D.iot cards; 18% capital gains tax; 75p for pensioners; light touch banking regulation; tuition fees; privatising the health service and all the rest).

Polly Toynbee, you ARE a TORY.

We can TALK to Tories. We can hold our fluffy noses and WORK with Tories. But we don't FORGIVE them.

Un peut cross? Oui!

1 comment:

Simon Fernandes said...

Gosh, she has got under your skin, hasn’t she? I agree that Polly’s hectoring self-righteousness can often be annoying, and I too find her blind faith in the Labour Party somewhat mystifying. But I have a few words in her defence.
Firstly, in the article you link to, she doesn’t state that the Lib Dems should have simultaneously driven a harder coalition bargain AND let the Tories govern as a minority. She has floated both hypotheses in the past, but then so have many commentators (myself included), as they were the only two other options.

To give her her due, even she recognises that a Lib/Lab pact was impossible - “David Cameron schmoozed them before the election, while Gordon Brown just scowled “ and states that the Lib Dems “would have faced similar charges of betrayal had they returned to power a party as unpopular as Labour in 2010, crashing out on 29%”. She may have altogether too rosy a view of the Labour Party, but she’s not completely delusional.

It’s hardly surprising that those unsatisfied with the compromises made in coalition have wanted to look at both other options. And the article you link to does say, “Inside or outside coalition, Clegg could have driven a harder bargain” – it doesn’t seem to me that she’s trying to have her cake and eat it.

She certainly does seem to be ignoring the ineffectual Miliband’s earlier comments about “driving the Lib Dems to extinction”, and that’s hard to forgive. But Miliband is ever fluid in his views (and principles, you might say), and has since shifted position to “not liking Clegg personally but willing to work with him if the Party wants it”. I’m paraphrasing, obviously. Still, even for a man as transparently hopeless as Miliband, that’s very similar to your own assertion that the Lib Dems “can hold our fluffy noses and WORK with Tories” – if that’s the right attitude for the Lib Dems, then surely it is for Labour too?

Half the problem is that everyone is currently judging the Labour Party on what they USED to be under Blair and then Brown, which even they recognise is not the way to be again if they want to be elected. But the other half of the problem is that they STILL haven’t worked out what to do instead. Still, while I’m no Labour supporter, it seems unfair to criticise a party aware of its need to change on the record of its former political stance (which I would in no way defend – you’re spot on about that).

And are Labour really the ONLY party opposing Lords reform? I know they’ve stuffed the House with peers who’ll vote in their favour, but last time I looked, most of the Tory Lords were pretty aghast at the idea of reform too. And (correct me if I’m wrong), but the Lib Dem peers aren’t exactly unanimous in their support for it either.

But to come back to Polly – yes, she can be sanctimonious and one-sidedly rose tinted in her unswerving devotion to “Labour, right or wrong”. But her antagonism towards the Conservatives often does yield some very interesting (and often valid) criticism of the current government. I’m intrigued by some of your criticism – can you confirm that she “inherited her position”? Certainly her family have a long history with papers like The Guardian, but having read her bio, it looks like she did a lot of other things before winding up there. I’m not saying it isn’t the case, but it looks like a rather circumstantial judgement.

I can tell that Polly’s really wound you up with this piece; she often winds me up too. But I try not to dismiss her out of hand on the basis of just some of her views, when so many seem to be on the ball. I guess if you think the piece is “trolling”, then it’s all right to respond in kind by calling her a Tory – for her, that’s got to be the ultimate insult. But for me, I tend to find the best approach is to hold your nose and take SOME of what she says on board.