A new Centre party?

Peterborough City Council has been Conservative for some time. Labour actually gained seats in the last local election. That area is prime Ukip territory, but so far they've failed to make inroads. It could be because Peterborough itself has changed in character and has people who commute to London every day.

My husband did that for six months, daphne.

Lucas is calling for a coalition of centre left parties. What else can 2/3rds and probably more like 3/4 of the country do at present - given the tumultuous events? Democracy calls for a general election for the population to give its verdict on what has taken place.
Tory vanities has brought us to this.

Yesterday Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats addressed a peacefil demonstration of 50,000 people in Parliament Square but that was barely mentioned in the media.,

Tim was democratically elected by the party members last year and gave strong leadership during the Remain campaign. The LibDems are the party most united for Remain and if we are to be dragged out of the EU by the 37% of the electorate who voted leave, will campaign to rejoin,

The Libs will gain from the mess the Tory and Labour Party are in .

Wonder who Lucas thinks should lead a coalition

Yes but we need something more than that which is why I think Lucas's idea should be given some traction. How can it be right that the vast majority of the population aren't represented?

Before we even get to the leader we need to explore whether it is a runner.

The point is, that time for personal ambition, and vanity is over. We know where that gets us - chaos. A shadow cabinet of the centre left. With a vote on the leader. A vote on all the proposed policies. A vote on Brexit. By that the vote by MPs I mean, we've had enough of referendums, because until we can be clear that people know exactly what they are voting for it is proven a recipe for chaos.

A vote on Brexit by a centre left cabinet isn't needed, we all know what the result would be.

No I mean as negotiations start, they need a plan for the future.

I wouldn't join or support a new party whitewave. The country is so divided now, the last time we had a coalition there were three parties in the country and one parliment . How many parties are there now

The most important issue at this stage is to ensure that those with low incomes aren't hit by inflation, freezing of benefits and state pensions, higher rents and weakening of social and employment protection and (of course) to challenge the increase in racism/xenophobia. We need a government to do that, but I'm not holding my breath, because all of the current contenders for Conservative leadership are further to the right than Cameron.

One way or the other, it's the 'little people' who will pay the price for BREXIT through inflation, cuts to public services, fewer jobs and a devalued pound.

Inflation is almost certain and the Bank of England's standard monetary policy response will be to raise interest rates. That's good news to anybody with savings, but extremely bad news for anybody with nothing. The real winners will be those with mega assets, because they will make the most. They will also be scouring the bargain basement of bankrupted companies and property.

We are in desperate need of a government to protect us from what lies ahead or at least a strong opposition to scrutinise and challenge every move the government makes.

PS. I don't know much about internal Scottish politics, but is there any chance that Labour or LibDems could regain some of their lost seats at Westminster?

What we need is for the police to hurry up looking at election expenses at the last election.
That could put enough Tories out of parliament for the government to lose its majority. I doubt whether all those in the south west would vote in other Tories in byelections, knowing what has happened.

ab, I respect your decision and, having followed many of your posts, I can understand why. However, I would join a new party. I have always wavered between LibDems and Greens anyway, especially as my vote has never counted. In the last election I voted Labour (even though my vote still didn't count), but I didn't agree with everything Labour wanted and still don't. I was prepared to compromise.

I have friends in the local LibDem party. There aren't many of them left after seeing the sell-out to the Conservatives, but they would be much more prepared to work with Labour. They would certainly work with the Greens, because the Greens aren't that different from the old Liberals.

The important thing is to have an effective opposition, which I don't believe we have at the moment.

dj, It could also mean a Ukip win in Thanet.

I too understand Daphne. So a coalition party of Libs. Welsh Libs. SDP. Sin Fein . Labour, Welsh labour. Greens. UKIP. possibly Tories. Plaid Cymru.

So I think you want a coalition between Greens and Libs ? Nothing stopping them but it would mean the Greens would vanish as a party I. It's own right.

A coalition worked in the war , there was a common enemy , there is no common enemy now

Jen, the Tories are going to get stronger with May as leader

I think we should be careful about the effect of loaded cliches when we talk about politics. To use expressions like "sell out to the conservatives" or "getting into bed with the tories" implies the sort of condemmnation of co-operation which is favoured by the tabloid press. The media are only interested in confrontation. The difficult decision to enter coalition damaged the party but did seem to be in the interests of the country. I think that co-operation between parties will be more than ever needed from now on,

Not necessarily, ab. Germany has a CDU/CSU/SPD coalition government with a healthy number of Greens in parliament. The CDU is the main Conservative party. The CSU is the Bavarian branch of the CDU, but has its own agenda. The SPD is the socialist party. Somehow it works. There is another party, the FDP, which is a centre party most like the LibDems and sometimes makes up the balance of power. Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who was post-war Germany's longest serving politician and very influential, was a member of the FDP, although the party has never been in power as anything other than a minority in a coalition.

The point is that how are the Tories going to be stopped? How can this country be seen as a democracy, when lying to the electorate is accepted as part of the realism of political life, when there is no credible opposition to represent 3/4 of the population, and when the media think and probably do run the shop.

Yes, I know, Annie. That's why we need the police to hurry up with this, while the Tory party are still split, and while the general population are still angry at being lied to.

varian, I apologise for my use of language. I did some canvassing for the LibDems in a local election before the general election and this was the argument I encountered on the doorstep.

We have a particularly high number of people who go on to higher education, so people did feel 'sold out'. I told them about LibDems trading student loans for pupil premium, but it went over most people's heads.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/07/03/a-progressive-alliance-an-encouraging-sign/

www.facebook.com/events/490212424505800/

On Tuesday.