Oddbean

@4c04d469 @43d7c4ea the libdems were kingmakers and chose to go with the conservatives. Once there, they could have collapsed the coalition at any time over any of the most vicious of Tory policies, but chose not to. Yes, blame the tories. But the libdems chose to enable them.

@5a78798a @4c04d469 @43d7c4ea Agreed It was impossible for them to support Labour after the GE, but their full-throated support of Tory policies for the full five years was a massive strategic and tactical mistake. One can't help but notice that the primary decision-maker promptly left politics for a very well paid job at Facebook. Was his priority ever the nation, or even his party? But let's not tar today's LibDems for Clegg's mistakes.

@419623b4 @5a78798a @4c04d469 @43d7c4ea Personally I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the LibDem's complicity with the 'austerity' programme a 'mistake'. Actually the Brown government had reacted to the crash in exactly the right way to minimise its impact, then along came the Tory/LibDem 'austerity', which many economists pointed out at the time was precisely the opposite of what should have been done. You can't call that 'a mistake' - it wasn't a little slip-up, but deliberately, disastrously, completely wrong-headed. A better interpretation of events, I'm afraid, is that Osborne and co didn't care, because they were ideologically fixated on shrinking the state anyway, and that the LibDems simply didn't understand.

@64af5594 @419623b4 @5a78798a @4c04d469 @43d7c4ea More than Austerity, I hold the Lib-Dems (New SDP) responsible for the Health and Social Care Act, allowing for fast track selling off of our NHS. I'll NEVER forgive them for that.