Nick Clegg uses New Year message to say Coalition is making Britain fairer, greener and more liberal

Comments

[robert]

Nick Clegg wants to educate only the poor and disadvantaged rather than the bright children poor or otherwise who will mend the ecoonomy of the future.
He has no time for the squeezed middle and his idea of fairness is left wing dogma which if uncontrolled would ruin the country.
The Conservatives cannot govern in the National Interest with this man as DPM.

[We the People]

Clegg is very good at doing these TV addresses. He has a real talent for them IMO.

[Holly]

IMO Clegg is a patronising yellow belly who runs away when the going gets tough, or when Kinnock says owt.

If I were four years old, sat on the floor with my legs crossed, waiting in eager anticipation for
'sir' to tell us a story, I would be enthralled.
As a fiftysomething I find the bloke annoying.

The Lib Dems eh??
Country would have gone to the wall without 'em eh??

Credit where credit's due though, he hasn't completely bailed.....YET.

In 2012 some scarry stuff might happen that pushes Kinnock over the edge & Clegg WILL bail.

2013 is going to be the perfect year.

[Openurmindnsee]

The LibDems did the right thing over the popular thing by going into government. They've already shown they're more credible on the economy than Labour by recognising that cuts had to be made. Tories are disliked by many because they always have to come in and clean up after Labour. It's rarely popular, but then medicine doesn't always taste great and it DOES THE JOB. The LibDems are unpopular now, but they're getting their policies through for the first time in 100 years so their supporters should be pleased about that. We can all look at our parties and say "well, they've done this wrong and that wrong and they said they weren't going to do that" but they've also done some good things and that shouldn't be ignored. Labour were terrible in their later years, but I think they did some good in the early years. Basically, Clegg and the LibDems with us are 100 times better than if it'd been a LibLab pact. We'd already be going to the IMF by now because the left like to spend money they don't have.

[James]

More liberal? Locking up young people for 4 years should they write a stupid comment on Facebook is the most illiberal act from a UK government I have seen in my lifetime. If you thought Labour were bad this lot are much worse as far as civil liberties are concerned. I doubt that there is another western democracy that curtails free speech in this way and seeing Cameron at the funeral of Vaclev Havel really brought home the totalitarian nature of his actions. Vaclev Havel got 2 months in prison for writing a novel against the Communist dictatorship, people who write "Lets riot" in this country get 4 years. And people reckon the EU is a fascist organisation, they may save us from the likes of Cameron and Clegg yet.

[Paris Claims]

Code for......
Higher taxes
Less freedom
More EUSSR
More immigration
More "minority rights"

[Holly]

James.
People who write,'let's riot', while homes & businesses are being destroyed in riots already going on, should indeedy be jailed.

I have never known a majority of a generation who have so little respect for themselves, than the under 45's who we are meant to 'feel' for.

They do not care enough about themselves when it comes to what they eat, drink, say, do or how they are seen by others.
They have never had to do anything without mummy or the state holding their hand...Their lives have been shattered now Labour are no longer there to chuck more money at them.

An entire generation at a loss at what to do, or how to survive, WITHOUT turning to crime!

A rude awakenning I think it was called back in the day....I have no time or sympathy for anyone jailed who contributed or tried to encourage further to the riots...Those who do, still have a long journey to adulthood.

Britain has been here many times before and only the weak riot. The strong go out and change their lives for the better. Doing what they can to succeed
learning what they need to to get work.

Even in a country with 'freedom of speech', there are lines and boundaries. Encouraging others to break the law is one of them.

[James]

Holly,

If you think young people who write a stupid comment on Facebook which is subsequently read by about 20 people, none of whom turned up for the riot should be jailed then you'd have half the population in prison. Including Jeremy Clarkson, the Professor who encouraged the hanging of bankers from lamp posts, the journalist who said smokers should be shot by snipers and many others who say stupid things. The jailing of the Facebook youngsters was, however, particularly spiteful. Add to that the fact that these people are going to have a monster chip on their shoulders when they come out and will probably spend the next 50 years of their lives trying to settle the score with society nothing will have been achieved. Cameron is just carrying on with the Labour policy of criminalising virtually everything and everybody (except thieving, corrupt politicians of course). I doubt that even the nasty authoritarians in the Labour Party would have imposed such draconian punishments just for writing something.

[Holly]

Others you name did say 'stupid' stuff, but you completely miss the point James.

Those who wrote the 'stupid' stuff about rioting did so while riots were actually happening, it is neither here nor there whether anyone 'turned up' or not, they were asking others to break the law.

Would you be bleeting the same message if people had turned up?

You reckon their punishment was spiteful? That they will have a chip on their shoulders & a score to settle?
Why do you think that?
Because they broke the law and were properly punished?

Maybe they will grow a pair and come out much saner people than when they went in.

A decade of never being accountable for your own actions is what lead to 'stupid' stuff being put on facebook.....NOW that decade is over and people will be held responsible..Nothing to do with spite or unfairness to those who V O L U N T A R Y L Y
break the law or encourage others to do so, via facebook,twitter etc.

You may wake up one morning and find yourself left behind, while the ones jailed have turned their lives around for the better.
Don't wallow in 'pity' for those who should know better at their age.

They don't give a stuff about you now and will worry about you even less if they do turn their lives around.

What was spiteful was the burning down of businesses and family homes, deaths of people in the wrong place at the wrong time and the greed of those nicking material goods for the hell of it.

Save your 'pity' and preaching of 'spite'/'scores to settle', for the one's who did nothing, but paid a much higher cost.
Or is it only the guilty who get pity from you?

[John Parkes]

I was alarmed to hear that Clegg had told his Party faithful that he would bring pressure to bear to arrange for Liberal Democrats to be part of any government team that attends future talks/negotiations with the EU. Is he proposing that if this is allowed, they will take a different line from that taken simultaneously by government representatives? If not, what is the point in there being separate Liberal Democrat representation. But if so, what sort of message is supposed to be taken by the other EU member teams? Is Clegg proposing to encourage the other EU representatives to try to split the UK negotiators and thus manipulate an outcome more in their interests than in ours? Is he hoping somehow that a Liberal Democrat presence will cause the UK government line to be modified or diluted? Is he saying that had he himself been present during the latest meeting Cameron would have been told to change his mind about his use of the veto and that he would have complied?
This delusional fellow seems to have an over-inflated view not only of his own ability but of his claim to represent the national interest as well.
This needs to be watched very carefully and bids for power such as this one should be stamped on very hard, otherwise the outcome will be muddle and disarray when neither is needed nor desirable.

[James]

Holly,

Do you remember the time before we had a bloated state that interferes in everything we do? People used to turn a blind eye to the stupidity of youth and the world was a better place for it. Now your slightest utterance is up for scrutiny and punishment by the legions of useless bureaucrats who police our every action. Something Cameron said he would get rid of but has embraced with enthusiasm and made even worse. You seem to reckon it's OK for Jeremy Clarkson to incite murder on prime time TV (for that is what he did when judged by your criteria) but think some teenager should be locked up for doing something much less provocative from his bedroom.

Don't forget we welcomed Karl Marx to this country and gave him the run of the British Library to write books that encouraged the overthrow of the very society that gave him shelter from a less tolerant Europe. No doubt under Cameron's regime he'd be locked up for inciting terrorism or something equally stupid. I doubt that the people who wrote on Facebook would have received anything like such a sentence that they got here in the Europe which now exists. Perhaps they should have applied for political asylum in one of those countries as Marx did here. How times have changed for the worse in this country with its laws for every minute thing. As Tacitus said "The more corrupt the state, the more plentiful the laws". That certainly rings true for Cameron's state and that of New labour which preceded it.

[Holly]

James no matter how you try you can not justify people enciting riots.
They were sentenced by a British judge, in a British court.

Before the bloated state took away the individuals ability to THINK THINGS THROUGH, we had more gumption than to write ANYTHING down that would stand up in a British court of law!
Monkey see monkey do is no defence.

I don't know what kind of thoughts go through todays young Brits, but what I have seen over the years up to today leaves a lot to be desired.

I have voted Conservative all my adult life, because
the country ALWAYS, WITHOUT FAIL, ends up socially
and financially bankrupt whenever Labour get near the controls....Being made to act civil is a shock to many and realising that the law is no longer on the side of the lawbreaker will not take long to sink in.

Karl Marx was a pussycat compared to Blair, Brown & now Miliband...Unfit to govern & long may it remain so.

[James]

I am not justifying people inciting riots. If the law chooses to see the rantings of a teenager in his bedroom as such then something is seriously wrong with the law or it is being misused. I am all for equality for all under the law. For instance, most of the current cabinet and shadow cabinet plus a huge proportion of MP's in general wilfully and knowingly stole from the taxpayer whilst in a position of trust. Had the law been applied to them with the same degree of rigour as to the unfortunate teenagers then most of them would currently be languishing in prison and be banned from public office for life.

Had justice been seen to be done to them then perhaps the riots would not have happened at all. We could possibly have honourable people running the country rather than the current incumbents. I do not like seeing what amounts to a bunch of criminals who got off scot free using the law selectively on certain sections of the population in order to batter them into submission.

As for voting Conservative, perhaps it is an act of faith for you but you are wasting your time. You might as well vote Labour or LibDem, it simply doesn't make any difference, you'll just get more of the same tax hungry, authoritarian, corrupt, big state bullying from all of them. When you have a corrupt elite telling the rest of society how to behave and punishing them severely for acting in a very similar fashion to that corrupt elite the only thing that will transpire is more trouble.

[Steve Tierney]

They should be called the Illiberal Democrats, in my opinion.