{"id":3834,"date":"2011-05-09T23:09:58","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T22:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.widmann.org.uk\/?p=3834"},"modified":"2011-05-09T23:09:58","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T22:09:58","slug":"the-libdems-suffered-because-of-incompetence-in-scotland-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/the-libdems-suffered-because-of-incompetence-in-scotland-too\/","title":{"rendered":"The LibDems suffered because of incompetence in Scotland, too"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n
\ntavish speech 07<\/a>
\nOriginally uploaded by Liberal Democrats<\/a>
\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

The English media have to a large extent described the LibDem collapse in Scotland in terms of dissatisfaction with the CoLD coalition.<\/p>\n

However, although this is bound to be part of the explanation, I don’t think one should underestimate the part played by their own sheer incompetence in the Scottish Parliament.<\/p>\n

As I blogged exactly four years ago<\/a>, the LibDems behaved very strangely in refusing to even sit down with the SNP.<\/p>\n

Back then, the obvious interpretation was that they only wanted to form a coalition with Labour, but now that they’re in a coalition with the Tories in Westminster, insisting on a Labour coalition up here seems a bit odd.<\/p>\n

I think many voters asked themselves who would govern efficiently and stand up to Westminster in a constructive manner, and almost nobody thought that the LibDems were the answer to that question.<\/p>\n

They need to redefine themselves. Perhaps, as suggested by Liberal Vision<\/a>, there is a gap “on the pro-independence centre-right” that they could fill. I’m sure that would work better than whatever it was they tried over the past four years.<\/p>\n

Let’s see what the new leader decides to do!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

tavish speech 07 Originally uploaded by Liberal Democrats The English media have to a large extent described the LibDem collapse in Scotland in terms of dissatisfaction with the CoLD coalition. However, although this is bound to be part of the explanation, I don’t think one should underestimate the part played by their own sheer incompetence in the Scottish Parliament. As I blogged exactly four years ago, the LibDems behaved very strangely in refusing to even sit down with the SNP. Back then, the obvious interpretation was that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,130,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-en","category-politics","category-scotland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}