(October 21, 2010 at 6:16 am)orogenicman Wrote: " right-wing "Liberal Democrat" collaborators"Not really.
I know politics in Britain are a lot different from here in the states, but man that is a wierd combination!
Over here all the 3 main parties are "to the right".
Labour is traditionally an "enemy" of the Conservatives; they used to be a socialist party but during the New Labour reform in the 90's they realised that nobody wanted socialism, and they would get more votes by moving more to the right.
The Lib Dems are right-wing in some respects, but are far more about social issues (equality, etc) than anything else. The reason they went into a coalition with the Conservatives is because they wanted to get rid of the Labour government we'd had for 13 years (which has been a disaster), and because during negotiations for a possible coalition government, the Conservative party were making many many concessions, whilst the Labour party were seen as too stubborn to work with.
As David Cameron (leader of the Conservatives) said after the coalition was formed, he has described himself multiple times in the past as a "liberal Conservative". He isn't a hard right-winger, set in traditionalism; he's a progressive in many areas (as seen by the number of reforms we've had to the current systems).