Tuesday 13 December 2011

Steady in the Ranks: Astonishing Discipline in the LibDems

The LibDems have got it right. In circumstances where one could readily imagine them running amok, they are taking the utmost care not to break ranks. Even the knee-jerk Friday / Saturday / Sunday a.m. sound-bite stuff was restrained; and come Monday the orchestrated TV performances (Ming, Ashdown) were calm and measured. Even Cable is onside.

And quite right, too. These are awesome events, and people are properly scared - including grown men and women sitting on the green leather seats. The correct self-preservation imperative is to hold steady: to break ranks now is to guarantee rout - which is when massacres happen. (They're still to be shot if they treat with the foe.)

In these circumstances we can forgive Clegg his Parliamentary absence yesterday. The Labour benches would have been howling derision and flicking him with wet towels; so there was no point in showing up anyway.

Miliband is going to have to work very hard to make decisive political capital out of this. (And who sold all the gold, eh ?)

The Salmond-monster is stirring, but it's not inspiring stuff. He'll find his people are pretty scared, too.

ND

7 comments:

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Wee Eck, preening himself like a Cock on a Midden. "Scottish independence and a real voice in Europe" - aye, like Malta. Grrr. Where the hell is the sense in extracting Scotland from a Union that demonstrably has worked to the benefit of all concerned for over 300 years, and entering one that manifestly does not?

I'll say this for him though - he's got more cunning than a sewer rat. He knows Scots won't vote for independence so he hopes he can provoke the English into ending the Union.

Nick Drew said...

... which is kinda ironic !

Sarko can give him some tips

Electro-Kevin said...

There are more Scots here than there are English there.

Nick Drew said...

and Irish, and ...

Anonymous said...

Isn't Salmond planning a referendum along the lines of:

a] Do you want full independence from England?

or

b] Do you want nearly full independence from England?

But I have some sympathy for the Scots. We should really have a referendum like this:

a] Do you want independence?

or

b] Do you want a full union where the terms England, Scotland are banned, English history is removed from all school text books and replaced with British history, the political capital is moved to somewhere more central like Sheffield, the English football team becomes the British football team etc.

As somebody once said, it isn't really Scotland versus England. It is really London vs the rest of the country.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

An independent Scotland will give him a seat at the top table?

Delusional, insane, or both?

(Not that he is actually proposing an independent Scotland, of course - what he's proposing is vassaldom to the Merkozy, but let that one pass for now)

Scotland as a separate entity in the EU would rank somewhere near Estonia in terms of population, GDP, and clout. They would just be ignored by the big boys and told what to do.

Salmond would be funny if he weren't so cunning and capable of doing so much damage.

dearieme said...

"the political capital is moved to somewhere more central like Sheffield": bollocks. Berwick.