LibDems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Liberal_Democrats_leadership_election
I see that the LibDems have elected a new leader. Not hard to find one better than Jo Swinson was, even in the LibDems’ restricted gene pool. Ed Davey is part of the old LibLabCon Westminster stitch-up, tied-in with finance-capitalism and political lobbying, but is and is perceived as more solid than crazed lesbian (she prefers “pansexual”) Layla Moran [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Liberal_Democrats_leadership_election]. [Note: some unflattering facts seem to have been expunged from Layla Moran’s Wikipedia entry].
Ed Davey got about two-thirds of the leadership vote.
Davey [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Davey] will not rock the LibDem boat much; neither will he get more people to join or vote for the LibDems.
The scamming of, and later betrayal of, the voters in 2010 led to the debacle of 2015, when the LibDems went from having 57 MPs to having 8. In fact, the high point of LibDemmery in terms of MP numbers was under the egregious drunk, multikulti fanatic and Jewish lobby tool, Charles Kennedy, who increased the LibDem MP contingent from 52 to 62 in 2005.
Charles Kennedy’s predecessor, Paddy Ashdown, was rather liked by the public, I think, despite the farce of the “Paddy Pantsdown” episode. Ashdown, a former Royal Marine and SBS officer, had increased the LibDem bloc of MPs from 20 (1992) to 46 (1997).
Kennedy was replaced by Nick Clegg in 2005, lost his seat in 2015 and finally drank himself to death a few weeks later. Nihil nisi bonum mortuis, but I never liked him. The sort of person who is all in favour of the UK being invaded by black and brown hordes and “I’m all right, Jack” because sitting comfortably in the more affluent parts of London, the suburbs, the country or, in Kennedy’s case, Fort William, in the Highlands of Scotland. I also disliked the fact that Kennedy was so firmly in the pocket of the Jewish lobby. Having said that, Kennedy did oppose the NWO invasion of Iraq in 2003; credit where due.
I think that the LibDem party and also msm commentators have underestimated the sense of betrayal among voters in respect of what happened 2010-2015. It still resonates. It resonates even with me, and I have never been a LibDem member, supporter, or voter! The sheer conscienceless lying cheek of it! The broken LibDem promises, the selling-out of the voters just so that LibDem careerists like Nick Clegg, little Danny Alexander [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Alexander] etc could get ministerial portfolios in the Con Coalition.
Both Jo Swinson and Ed Davey were given government preferment during the Con Coalition, Davey at Cabinet level (Jo Swinson was merely a PUS).
During the Con Coalition of 2010-2015, the Conservative Party leaders played the LibDem leadership like a balalaika. Example: the LibDems withdrew opposition to the Bedroom Tax after being offered a law (now in place) prohibiting free plastic bags in supermarkets.
Now, Clegg is the main European gopher for the Facebook Jew, Zuckerberg, while Alexander now works for something called AIIB [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Infrastructure_Investment_Bank] and lives in Beijing (or, as I stubbornly call it, Peking). Both received knighthoods, for what that is now worth.
What now for the LibDems?
The LibDem representation in the Scottish Parliament has more than halved since 1999 (when that parliament was established). Now only 5 MSPs out of 129, a situation unchanged since 2011. A similar position to the LibDems in the National Assembly for Wales (1 AM out of 40, again unchanged since 2011). The next elections will be in 2021.
In the London Assembly, the LibDems have 1 member out of 25, while in the Lords, they have 89 peers out of (soon) over 800.
At Westminster, the LibDems now have 11 seats out of a potential 650. That is one down from 2017 but four up compared to 2015. The British electoral system is of course bizarre. In 2019, the LibDems got 11.6% of the national vote, but in 2017 had only 7.4% (yet one more MP!).
I have said since 2010 that the LibDems are living on borrowed time. I still think that, though the “cockroach” quality of the LibDems has just managed to keep them in play. There are several reasons for that. First, the LibDem support for the EU. That may not be hugely popular nationally, but is not hugely unpopular either. Then there is the fact that LibDem voters tend to be concentrated in particular constituencies. Most of the “Celtic Fringe” LibDem areas of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall may be lost, probably forever, but there are leafy suburban seats in England that will be forever LibDem…or will they?
LibDem MPs tend to represent, in England, affluent suburban/rural seats: Twickenham, Richmond Park, Bath, St. Albans, Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), Westmorland. The other four are in Scottish seats, all but one rural and rather remote.
The 2019 LibDem vote-share of 11.6% was below that of UKIP in 2015 (when UKIP, with 12.6%, got only 1 MP elected). The difference lies in the Schwerpunkt or concentration of forces in those particular constituencies. Several are marginal seats. UKIP failed in 2015 because its 12.6% was only half of what would have been required to win at least some seats. Had UKIP got a national vote of 25% in 2015, it would have got, undoubtedly, 30% or 40% in a few seats and so won those seats. 12.6% is not enough; neither is 11.6%, but though the LibDems get 2%, 5%, 7% in most seats, they achieve higher votes in the favoured few constituencies. For example, Ed Davey’s vote in 2019 was over 51%; Layla Moran’s was over 53%.
One unexpected (to me) fact is that the actual membership of the LibDems is now around 120,000, its highest ever as “Liberal Democrat Party”, though the old Liberal Party had a membership, albeit very long ago (pre-WW1), in the hundreds of thousands, as well as hundreds of MPs, peaking in 1906 with 398 MPs out of 670.
Membership is a secondary factor. Labour had nearly 600,000 members last year (2019) when it lost to the Conservative Party, which had only 140,000. The Labour pressure group, Momentum, has about 40,000; UKIP still has 26,000 (supposedly), despite being a “dead parrot”.
The LibDems will probably limp on, eventually to die “not with a bang but a whimper” in the words of Nevile Shute in On the Beach.
In a binary system, the in-out of the two parties contending tends to alternate,on the national level. The LibDems have MPs because, in their now-few core areas of the country, the LibDems are the alternative to the Conservatives. However, the Con Coalition of 2010-2015 destroyed the (if never credible to me personally) LibDem trump cards, supposed integrity, honesty, idealism etc. I really do not think that the LibDems can climb out of the hole, but they may just gently decline to a few MPs before actually expiring.
Mike Stuchbery
I blogged about “antifa” cheerleader Mike Stuchbery last year: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/10/23/a-few-words-about-mike-stuchbery/.
He has now (again) tweeted about me. In fact, he (or someone using his name, and an email account obviously set up for the purpose) sent my blog a silly and hostile message fairly recently. I suppose that it might have been someone else using his name, but the message was tracked to an ISP number in the Stuttgart area (Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany), which is where Stuchbery now lives.
Obviously, I did not approve (what I take to be) his comment for publication, but the details are still on file. I do not threaten people. Not threaten.
When I started blogging, nearly 4 years ago, I thought that I would almost inevitably get hostile messages, but in fact have so far only had about half a dozen or so, over the 4 years. I suppose that most people who might send such messages cannot be bothered to set up email accounts just for that purpose, when all that happens is that the messages are seen only by me, not my readers; also, the senders are usually blocked.
Alternatively, maybe most people who read my blog posts enjoy them, support what I say, support me. Now there’s a thought…
Stuchbery’s outbursts today:
I suppose that I should thank Stuchbery for publicizing my blog. After all, I myself cannot do so via Twitter; the Jew-Zionist lobby had me expelled in 2018, and I am not on the other well-known platforms (Facebook, Telegram, YouTube etc).
I noticed that a few people replied to Stuchbery’s post(s). Here’s one:
The tweeter @RedFiddler is an Australian, a Ph.D.-holder using the actual title “Dr”…I have blogged before about this quite recent affectation (recent in the Anglophone countries; it is more accepted in, particularly, Germanophone lands, where at one time not many people had higher degrees), though I suppose that it is just about possible that the tweeter is in an academic teaching post.
Reverting to the main topic, you see the problem. These people hate Europeans and European culture to such an extent that they actually question whether European race and culture even exists! If anyone said the like about, say, African race and culture, or Chinese race and culture, the mob would either laugh or, more likely, lay down the “racist!” card immediately. Sick world.
Musical interlude
Tweets seen
This appalling government is totally beyond the pale. Migration-invasion continuing, no serious attempt to make Brexit work, ridiculous impositions such as the facemask nonsense, HS2 continuing…it just goes on. It is a “government of clowns”; there again, clowns are or can be rather sinister.
Unexpected, but welcome if it really reflects what was said…
Well, there it is. Owen Jones, the standard-bearer for the fake or pseudo-socialists completely in the pocket of the Jew-Zionist lobby, wants to censor and ban free speech. Quelle surprise…Here is my assessment of Jones, written 18 months or so ago: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/a-brief-word-about-owen-jones/
Final word today
BBC Radio 4 News at 1900 hrs (paraphased): “there has been a big increase in persons testing positive for Coronavirus. However, hospital admissions in respect of the virus continue to fall.” No mention at all of deaths from (or with) “the virus”. Because there are none now, or virtually none.
How long do you think that it will be before the BBC and the Government (and the pathetic scared rabbits all wearing their facemask muzzles) put two and two together? Perhaps they need a famous TV face to say to them: “yes, many many people are still getting Coronavirus. Few have symptoms. A few have sore throats etc. Almost none need any medical attention, let alone hospital admission. None are dying.”
Followed by “Citizens! It is safe to walk, talk, shop, drink and even return to work or school. Burn your facemasks!” (well, one can dream, but a proclamation like that would be too honest).
Goodnight, world, until tomorrow
Ian Robert Millard 
Hello Ian: God you made me laugh with “crazed lesbian Layla Moran” LOL. Incidentally, I read her biography weeks ago and it was very funny, it mentions that she hit/slap her then-boyfriend over a ridiculous issue such as a missing computer cable; no wonder “the relationship subsequently ended”. How trashy can you be?
Regarding that imbecile of Mike Such-berry, he is just a waste of space like almost all lefties. Stalin would had a field day with them!
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Claudius:
Yes, that Moran person is very odd. It must have been more than a slap she gave her boyfriend. Apparently the police were called and she was close to being arrested. Unstable.
The problem that the LibDems have is that, with only 11 MPs now, the pool of candidates is so limited in size.
As to that Stuchbery person, my few blog posts about him probably convince some careless readers that I must therefore be in favour of “Tommy Robinson”! Not so.
I am genuinely curious as to where went the nearly £12,000 that he and his collaborator, “Roanna” aka “antifashwitch” had donated from nearly 700 “mugs”. If I say that I believe that he has just kept at least some of it, he will probably issue more empty and pathetic threats about suing me in libel! He is mentally abnormal, and not in a good way.
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About Such-Berry, just forget about him, he is obviously unbalanced like all his friends.
Regarding the Lib-Dems, they never did anything and never will. They are just an accessory.
Thanks for Vivaldi, I can’t have enough of him. BTW, here is another great Baroque composer who deserves to be better known: Georg Philip Telemann:
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Claudius:
Thank you. I was just in the mood for some “pure” classical music, though I tend to prefer 20thC and 21stC orchestral/symphonic, which many find too challenging.
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Layla has a few good points going for her. She appears to have a bubbly, outgoing and friendly personality and is seemingly permanently smiling (she must be Britain’s if not the world’s happiest politician!) but she appeared to want the Lib Dems to go too far down the direction of Wokeness. The Liberal Democrats need to avoid that. This is best left to Champagne Globalist idiots like Sir Keir Starmer and undemocratic Labour. The Lib Dems role is to be the sensible and moderate centre-left/centrist alternative to the Tories in those parts of the country the Labour Party can never hope to reach like more be in Brentwood and Ongar.
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I see little evidence that Charles Kennedy was in the grip of the Zionist Lobby for two main reasons:1) even when he was the leader the party still had relatively few MPs so why would that Lobby bother trying to infiltrate or exercise any significant influence over his party? 2.) he and the party rightfully opposed the Iraq War which is a sure fire sign of NOT being influence in that way.
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M’Lord of Essex, Charles Kennedy was very pro-Jew, but was not a complete agent of Israel, unlike so many of “our” MPs.
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The Lib Dems are in a lot of electoral difficulty at the moment but they have been here before ie in 1988 until just before they won the 1990 by election in Eastbourne. They have been a governing party before and are one of the main UK wide parties and this counts for a lot still.
There IS a liberal tradition in this country on the ‘centre-left’ of politics which has never died out completely not even in the 1950’s when the party had even less national vote share and MPs.
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There etc few ‘natural’ Lib Dem seats and as you say they tend to be in prosperous middle class areas like Richmond Upon Thames, Kingston and Surbiton or isolated rural areas but they exist and will provide the Lib Dems with a base to build upon.
To my mind, the Liberal Democrats have made the right choice in choosing Ed Davey to be their new leader. He isn’t going to set the world alight and isn’t as good a leader as Jo Grimond, Jeremy Thorpe one Paddy Ashdown were but, on the other hand, he is unlikely to frighten middle class Tory leaners in places like Richmond Upon Thames as the very inexperienced Layla Moran was likely to do.
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M’Lord of Essex:
For me, the only really good leader the old Liberal Party had was Jo Grimond. I reviewed his autobiography on Amazon (where, until the Jews —it’s ALWAYS the Jews, nicht wahr?— had my reviews hidden and many just deleted) I was a “Top 50” reviewer. Grimond would have been a suitable candidate for Prime Minister had the chips fallen differently.
Paddy Ashdown, I think, was a decent fellow, though with a tendency to self-importance.
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Only on the question of tuition fees did the Liberal Democrats ‘scam’ those who had voted for them and that was an unwise promise to make in the first place though the party made it to gain support under our irrational electoral system in university dominated seats with lots of potential LIb Dem voters. Idiots in this country seem to think that the Lib Dems had enough support to force the Tories to adopt more policies of their own. Even under PR the Lib Dems would have been unable to do this and rightly so since even under a truly democratic electoral system like PR the tail shouldn’t wag the dog.
The Lib Dems were the JUNIOR partner NOT the senior one!
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Also, before the general election of 2010 Nick Clegg said that in the event of a hung parliament he would seek to work with the party that had the largest number of seats and votes. It would have been quite wrong of him even under our archaic and undemocratic crap electoral system of FPTP to have broken that aim and put back into office a party that had clearly LOST the election ie Labour.
It is high time Labour inclined people who condemn Nick Clegg remembered those facts before they condemn the Lib Dems too much for forming that coalition.
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Not sure that I agree, m’Lord of Essex.
For one thing, and as you know, the system is broken anyway. The other main point is that it is the job of a minority party leader to pursue his and its political aims and also, hopefully, the welfare of the people as a whole.
On those bases, Nick Clegg and the LibDems would have been entirely correct had they decided to cut a deal with Gordon Brown and Labour.
Brown, sadly, was the cartoon parsimonious Scotsman: he offered immediate AV, not just a referendum on it.Yes, I accept that AV is not PR, but it might have started the PR ball rolling.
Had Brown offered PR, history might have been very different.
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I think that even though I opposed a lot of what that coalition government did it did show that coalition government in peacetime CAN work. Most people were stupid, ignorant and ill informed by Tory anti Proportional Representation rags like the Daily Tory Moron to think that the Tory/Lib Dem government would collapse after a year or two at most and that such a government would be ‘unstable’. Well, it WAS NOT and lasted the entire five years and that was under an undemocratic electoral system which isn’t naturally suited to forming coalitions in peacetime under.
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Re HS2 work continuing that is an absolute disgrace. Yes, the Tories don’t care about the environment and never really have done though they did set-up the National Parks envisaged by Labour but that was in the 1950’s when they WERE real Tories and not the globalist libertarian idiots they are now so this environmental vandalism stance has got worse.
The Liberal Democrats can be the greener alternative to the Tories and Ed Davey appears to recognise this but this is also to do with trying to win back some support for his party from the Greens.
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Claudius, the Liberal Democrats have many faults but at least they are a party that supports genuine democracy ie by backing a fair electoral system of proportional representation which Britain still disgracefully doesn’t have in the year 2020!🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄😡😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬. Keir Starmer’s woke party of Britain hating extremist nutters STILL DOESN’T back PR so that makes them infinitely worse than the Lib Dems.
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