WHYS at Party Conferences
| 19:20 UK time, Monday, 20 September 2010
When I worked covering British politics three years ago I went to the political party conferences but back then Labour was in power so this year it will all be very different, now that there is a . On Tuesday we will be broadcasting from Liverpool where the Liberal Democrats are hosting their party conference.
This year the are expecting to have the largest conference they have ever had in their 22 year political
The Lib Dems, as they are known here are celebrating the fact that for the first time in over half a century they are in government. This is a party which was seen as unelectable and as this article says .
Now they are in government and their leader Nick Clegg, is the Deputy Prime Minister, he has also led his party out of the wilderness, but to be part of the coalition Nick Clegg has said he had to and doesn't think compromise is betrayal.
"If you want Lib Dem policies to be implemented 100% in full, you need to vote for a 100% Lib Dem government. That is self-evidently not what happened at the last elections This is a compromise ... We've all had to make compromises about things we care about."
Many Liberal Democrats supporters like the band the feel that Nick Clegg, has sold his soul, because by doing the coalition deal with the Conservatives this forced him to abandon many promises from the party's election manifesto. But others feel that these compromises are worth it:
dandan 26 Get over it!! Clegg has had to compromise but he has managed to enact many Liberal policies and long may it continue. Unfortunately the Libs aren't the bigger of the two parties so he can't have all his own way. God, why won't people grow up over this. It's not really rocket science to understand what coalition means is it???
Opinion polls say that the party may have lost three million supporters in the four months since it entered government, and as in this article suggest:
Nick Clegg needs to make the party feel good about itself by addressing, head-on, the central charge it faces: that in deciding to join the Coalition, the Lib Dems put their own interests before those of the country
Zoe Dixon a Liberal Democrat blogger says
Isn't it refreshing though, to see people who disagree holding their tongues and getting down to the business of running the country? I also believe that our response to the coalition should be positive. I am not saying that we should not challenge institutions or political powers; on the contrary, we should get involved and challenge from the inside.
In countries where coalitions are the norm, people are used to their politicians having to make compromises on a regular basis like in and but here it's all still very new . So how far do you think a politician should compromise to gain power?
