Wednesday 11 May 2011

Can Nick Clegg teach a horse to sing?

Syniadau has posted on the 17 lost deposits in the Welsh general election last week after receiving less than 5% of the vote here

This also coincide with the collapse in the vote in seats that based on the UK General Election a year ago looked vulnerable to them, including  Newport East, Swansea West , Pontypridd ,Wrexham and even  Merthyr Tydfil.

 Indeed if you look at the figures although Plaid did badly the Libdem  vote  at the Assembly election collapsed  to such a extent that it will probably take them more than one election to recover if at all.

Ir also shows the problem with the current top up system that a Party so decisively  rejected by the electorate should only lose one seat and give the impression as Peter Black does that it's pnly Plaid who lost out.

Indeed Peter  has been crowing over the result for Plaid  and said that he would ......
"love to be a fly on the wall at their first group meeting".
 I tried to comment on this that saying that ...

"I would like to be a fly on the wall on the next Libdem group meeting as they discussed how to disassociate themselves from the Toxic effect of the Conlib coalition and jokingly suggested they should form a new party on the lines of the Alliance party pf Northern Ireland who are a sister party to the Libdems". 
For some technical reason Peter didn't publish this. I'm sure it wasn't because it maybe spoiled his argument.

But with local elections next year based on the assembly results the Libdems in particular are in for a particularly torrid time.

Nick Clegg has been trying to distance himself the Tories on NHS reform . I predicted that a NO vote on AV  could lead to Cameron ditching  these proposals in England in order to throw his coalition partners a victory and bolster Libdem nerves about the coalition .

But I doubt it will be enough so If I was a Libdem I would prepare for a period of  losses over the next 4 years.

It may be possible that Clegg can change this around after all as the old story goes.
The king had a favorite horse that he loved very much. It was a beautiful and very smart stallion, and the king had taught it all kinds of tricks. The king would ride the horse almost every day, and frequently parade it and show off its tricks to his guards.  A prisoner who was scheduled to be executed soon saw the king with his horse through his cell window and decided to send the king a message. The message said, "Your Royal Highness, if you will spare my life, and let me spend an hour each day with your favorite horse for a year, I will teach your horse to sing."
 The king was amused by the offer and granted the request. So, each day the prisoner would be taken from his cell to the horse's paddock, and he would sing to the horse "La-la-la-la" and would feed the horse sugar and carrots and oats, and the horse would neigh. And, all the guards would laugh at him for being so foolish.
 One day, one of the guards, who had become somewhat friendly with the prisoner, asked him, "Why do you do such a foolish thing every day singing to the horse, and letting everyone laugh at you? You know you can't teach a horse to sing. The year will pass, the horse will not sing, and the king will execute you."
 The prisoner replied, "A year is a long time. Anything can happen. In a year the king may die. Or I may die. Or the horse may die. Or ,
The horse may learn to sing

I'm sure Peter Black believes he can .

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