Only Clegg has the power to rid us of the mess in Cameron's mind!

On 5th September 2010, I wondered on the apparent absence of any moral compass in the make-up of Prime Minister, David Cameron, over his appointment of Andy Coulson, to Downing street, read here. That posting concluded with the following stark truths for Liberal Democrats:

Liberal Democrats not wishing to now become tarred by the same brush of sleaze, half-truths and downright untruths which the Downing Street media manipulation machine has become over recent years should quickly re-examine the backgrounds and lack of integrity and judgement that seems to be the rule among the leadership of their coalition partners as Parliament re-convenes after its long break during the past crisis ridden summer. Does the country really wish the connotation of 10 Downing Street to be set by former News of the World editor Andy Coulson? If so many former Tory Prime Ministers must now be turning in their graves.

In May this year a wake-up call to Paddy Ashdown on the Blog Orphans of Liberty, to which I at least received the courtesy of a reply, that cannot be linked at present as the site is down, but the repeat of the posting on this blog is linked here. It began as follows:

In the fraught days of two years ago, when the general election delivered a hung parliament to Britain, the crucial role played by former Liberal Democrat Party Leader, Lord Paddy Ashdown, became evident through his frquent media appearences and statements. An even more critical turning point now presents itself to this senior party grandée, and self-appointed representative of decency within Britain's system of governance.

Can Lord Ashdown still shrug off my concerns so readily today as he felt able so to do last May?

Last evening on Sky News we watched Business Secretary of State, Vince Cable, squirm on the Jeff Randall Live interview, whilst trying to defend the completely odious Lord Green whom it appears was content to oversee activities while in charge at HSBC  rightly condemned last week in the US Congress.

Nick Clegg must be woken up to realise that the connotations of linking names such as Osborne/Oleg Deripaska and Coulson/Wade will hardly sit well with voters seeking a change from the present corrupt methods of contemporary politics and an escape from being governed according to the priorities and perogatives of the messy mind inside the head of David Cameron.

All this takes on an even greater urgency when the extent of the disaster in the Euro Group is taken on board, Britain will need some right thinking individuals looking out for the nation's interests as these events unfold, as it appears ever more doubtful that this crisis is going to permit Europe's leaders and coddled fonctionaires their usual two month summer break, while matters fester and deteriorate ever further, they can hardly surely now hardly get any worse?

The Constitution of Greece seems to put Britain's to shame!

Greece is in a mess but so is every other European nation state locked within the Eurozone and to an only slighty lesser extent those outside the euro but within the strait-jacket of the anti-democratic EU Treaties.

Consider the events of the last week since the Greek hung election results were first announced. The baton to try and form a working coalition has passed from the party with the largest vote, on to that with the second largest share and thereafter that coming in third in votes.

Each party leader had three days to try and cobble together a working majority, they did not need that amount of time and so the constitutional authority then reverted to the President of the country who became charged with the task of forming a government of national unity. This attempt seems likely to fail this morning, when a new election will be called with authority in the country then in the interim apparently resting with the judges of the supreme court.

What has happened in Greece, with an angry electorate turning against the two main parties that have feathered their own nest by handing national democracy and wealth to the EU and in turn tothe banks and multinational corporations who feather the nests of these cuckoos appointed to be in charge. All this now seems likely to be repeated right across the EU as the inevitable contagion of bankruptcy and poverty spreads.

How will Britain's own constitutional arrangements stand-up if the anger against the established main parties inevitably crosses the Channel? Looking at recent similar situations in our post-war past the answer would seem to be less than encouraging.

The almost minority government of Harold Wilson from 1964 to 66, weakened as it was by the Patrick Gordon-Walker fiasco was not made to appear in a more favourable light by Edward Heath's clinging to Downing Street in February 1974, (almost imitated by Gordon Brown in 2010,) and the manipulations of the minority government that followed under Wilson with another election in October 1974 and eventually the ill-fated Lab-Lib Pact under Jim Callaghan and David Steel.  All of that a somewhat chilling forerunner of the  distasteful mess we behold today in the basically opposing views contained within the expediency only Coalition Government.

(My warning of the dangers of continuing this farce, directed at Paddy Ashdown this past weekend, while ignored, did at least receive the courtesy of a reply to Orphans of Liberty, which may be read here.) So the Liberal Democrats as yet seem unready to confront their longstanding policy errors over the EU and thus avoid the electoral consequences about to be meted out to Britain's two main and Leveson-revealed thoroughly corrupted parties.

Well may we watch events unfold in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and no doubt eventually Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium and France with some detachment as we are outside the euro area, we may not do so, however, secure in any knowledge that our constitutional arrangements (nor either our economy) are anywhere like sufficiently resilient to see us through this now rapidly unfolding disaster!

Only hope is now the Liberal Democrats!

This post was first published on "Orphans of Liberty" yesterday, under the title "A telling moment of truth for Lord Paddy Ashdown," it is repeated here today, because of what its author considers is its relative importance for the restoration of some standards in public life in Britain!

   In the fraught days of two years ago, when the general election delivered a hung parliament to Britain, the crucial role played by former Liberal Democrat Party Leader, Lord Paddy Ashdown, became evident through his frquent media appearences and statements. An even more critical turning point now presents itself to this senior party grandée, and self-appointed representative of decency within Britain's system of governance.

   To understand why this blogger believes that such is the case it would be helpful to reflect on a cermony that took place at Pointe de Grave in France just over one year ago on 31st March 2011, when a memorial was unveiled in honour of a WWII commando raid, at which Lord Ashdown undertook to represent our country, read here. Only two of the commandoes survived, many of their comrades were shot, upon the direct orders of Hitler, but with the connivance, processing, transportation and full reponsibility of the supposedly once honourable German armed forces. Ordinary combatants they were, shot in cold blood for pursuing the very hostilities that the German Army had itself instigated and was in the process of perpetrating while occupying the sovereign soil of France by armed brute force. Paddy Ashdown has thus accepted a leading role in representing the moral beliefs of our nation, beliefs that have rarely been so comprehensively challenged as they were in the five hours of evidence provided by Rebekah Brooks at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday.

   Every Prime Minister since Thatcher, and it would appear almost the entire cabinet members of all administrations since Tony Blair, seem to be potentially implicated in this seeming subversion. The Liberal Democrats have so far emerged largely unscathed from the sordid details of political power plays and manipulations of our main party politicians by the tawdry journals that are/were The Sun and the News of the World and those who controlled them. We have yet to even arrive at the part played by Trevor Kavanagh - clearly Coulson and Brooks were but cockily conceited mere pawns in this dark game. Nick Clegg, as was warned on my blog Ironies Too several times, made himself a party to this scandal by accepting Coulson as the Coalition's press spokesman.

   There are of course others in the Liberal Democrat hierarchy to be looked to, along with Ashdown, to now do the right thing, namely withdraw their support from the coalition with the Conservative Party and possibly in the process of the probable resulting general election, regain an opportunity of re-establishing some credentials for decency, as extolled by Lord Ashdown and exemplified by all the marine commandos involved in Operation Frankton, not least the fortitude in the escape as shown by Hessler and Sparks, which seems hardly comprehensible to those of us so pampered to live in 2012, not seventy years earlier!

   Other Liberal Democrats whom might also be scrupulousy examing their consciences this weekend among senior Lib/Dem figures are (in no particular order) Simon Hughes, Charles Kennedy, David Laws, Menzies Campbell, David Owen and David Steel