Fairness in Parliament and in Iceland (the shop).

"Frightening!”, “They are all doomed!", "The poor will die of starvation”, ”The poor are eating Caviar and Beef Wellington!”(Iceland, by the way), ” Not Progressive enough!”,” This is the new Radically Reactionary Progressiveness!"
Claims and counter claims based on how figures are read (and at times made up!)
By the way, the quotes above are all made up.

So when the Institute Of Fiscal Studies (supposedly non-partisan), get in on the act and begin to conduct analysis of Government figures and forecast, everyone takes the notice they want. But should we? (Another blog eventually…).

But none of it can take away from the fact, that any financial decision that makes a large number of the poorest in our society, suffer further poverty is regressive.
Whether, in the short term or indeed the long term, politicians and party activists in progressive politics, have made fairness the king pin of its policy development.
To fail in this most central of self-imposed beliefs is tantamount to incompetence at best and hypocrisy at its worse.
But you see, we are in a coalition and not in a Liberal Democrat Government and we have to compromise, including fairness.
The problem here is one of time scale, tactics and strategy.
The Liberal Democrats are hoping to be influencing politics and policy for many years to come and do believe that consensus and compromise can bring it about.
We are relying on AV getting through and then a final push for STV-the Holy Grail!
The problem with that is that the 2 big beast of politics don’t want to give up cosy your turn-my turn politics. Surprised?!
You shouldn’t be.

The Conservatives abhor change unless it means money and power is kept in their pocket. They’re supposed to be abstaining and their leader voting YES but some their more rabid right-wingers, are actively campaigning for a NO Vote.
Tories are not adverse to saying one thing and doing another.

Labour, supposedly progressives have come to see the LDs with contempt.
“We will erase them from political history!” and are now less likely to vote for anything that would help the LDs remains in power.
Bitter, twisted and vicious with it.
Their self-righteousness is frightening.
But there are reasonable voices in their party with enough influence.

Meanwhile, fairness is being bandied about as if it was something that one could simply wish into existence!

The Lib Dems leadership could and should, have meaningful talks with any party to guarantee a broad movement, which could achieve both economic fairness and voting reform. Our Coalition will one day expire. Some may join other parties and wear a different colour. We may go back in to 3rd party status with less influence.
But in order to succeed in this fairness mission we must drive the message forward, reasserting that we cannot do all that we want because our current partners and we are on the look out for others to join us in this important endeavour. When we have political and voting fairness, economic fairness will be the consequence.
We must defend our current record as something that we have to do in order to get where we need to be to implement the changes. Defend the present and lay out another, different future.

I want to see my party lead the country on The Campaign for Fairness in Parliament and in your Pockets(Iceland,of course)!