12/mai/2010 „Premieră istorică” în Marea Britanie: conservatorii şi liberal-democraţii la guvernare

New government: Reaction in quotes by BBC News

As the new UK Prime Minister David Cameron begins to shape his government – with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg as his deputy – here are some of the first reactions to the historic Tory-Lib Dem coalition.   Nick Clegg şi David Cameron (foto: Reuters) FORMER LIB DEM LEADER PADDY ASHDOWN „Hooray! Listen – you’ve heard my comment, which is one word. It’s the first time you’ve had a one word statement and it is, hooray. And I’ll repeat it.” LIB DEM MP DAVID HEATH „The important thing is not that we are going to have Liberal Democrat ministers, it’s we are going to have a policies on which we stood in the election actually put into action by a new government, and that is something that is very, very precious – to not just those who have campaigned for the Liberal Democrats, but those who have listened to the things we’ve said and have supported us. „They’re going to see their votes translated into action, and that’s the important thing.” FORMER LIB DEM MP EVAN HARRIS „You’ve got a socially conservative wing of the Conservative Party, which is quite significant, and there’s no socially conservative wing of the Liberal Democrats. They’re of course socially liberal, and so there will be tensions when those emerge, and of course issues to do with Europe and immigration, where it will be difficult for the Liberal Democrats – on immigration, for example – to accept some of the rhetoric. I mean the policies might be nuanced, but the rhetoric is going to have to be modified of these sorts of things as well”. SCOTLAND’S FIRST MINISTER ALEX SALMOND „Well I thought the idea of a progressive alliance was an extremely good one. The parliamentary majority was there to usher it in. I thought it would be welcomed not just in Scotland and Wales, but across these islands. I thought there was a lot of enthusiasm for it. But at the end of the day the political will wasn’t there. „The Liberals have gone in with the Tories. I think they’ll rue the day. The Labour Party of course had the prospect of leading that progressive alliance, but instead have chosen the safety of opposition. And I think their role in not grasping that opportunity, the opportunity which the prime minister, the past Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, seemed to open the door to yesterday. Instead of grasping the opportunity, with a lot of semi-retired Labour grandees out to say it was a ridiculous idea. They seem to want to go into opposition. Well that will be remembered as well. „So it’s a great pity not just for Scotland but for people across these islands. That the idea to change politics fundamentally wasn’t grasped. It was a failure of political will.” ALISTAIR CAMPBELL, FORMER LABOUR DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS „The Liberal Democrats have fought for so long to be the balance of power in a hung parliament. Now it’s happened. They’ve had to make this fundamental choice, they’ve chosen to go with the Tories. I think they’ll regret it. „I think this will not necessarily be a terribly good relationship. But we’ll have to wait and see and I think a lot of Liberal Democrats tonight will actually be thinking well maybe the progressive party in this country is the Labour Party and they didn’t vote for David Cameron”. FORMER BUSINESS SECRETARY LORD MANDELSON I led our team in talks with the Liberal Democrats because that’s what they said they wanted to do. In the final analysis, I’m wondering though, whether that’s what they actually intended. „When I think about it , I think they were creating so many difficulties and barriers and obstacles, that perhaps they thought their interests lay on the Conservative side rather than the progressive side.” FORMER LABOUR EDUCATION MINISTER KIM HOWELLS „There’s visceral loathing between the parties in constituencies, no question about it, you know – and the Lib Dems especially. „I tell you why it’s been rejected by most Labour MPs. Because they know that they’re [the Lib Dems] a bunch of opportunistic toe-rags, who’ll say anything to anybody in order to get power. And they’ve done it this time, they’ve got power. Good luck to them. „But it’s going to take some holding, I’ll tell you now. How can anybody take them seriously? I mean they… look, they were talking about cleaning up politics and the new politics, and all these sordid negotiations going on behind closed doors. It’s the antithesis of new, open clean politics.” RICHARD HUNTER, HEAD OF UK EQUITIES AT INVESTMENT FIRM HARGREAVES LANDSDOWNE „The question, of course, still remains as to the fiscal deficit and the national debt. „We’ve effectively wasted the last six months in the run-up to the election, because we didn’t know exactly where we were going – and of course there were then the worries about the hung parliament, but the absolute number one priority will now be to start putting some meat on the bone, in terms of how this new government plans to reduce what is quite a yawning deficit in the UK”. RICHARD LAMBERT, DIRECTOR OF THE CONFEDERATION OF BRITISH INDUSTRY „It’s a good morning in the sense that business will welcome the fact that we have a government with a majority of, depending on how you do it, probably more than 70 seats, and a shared commitment to getting the country to live within its means. I think there’s quite a lot of detail we need to find out about, but in big picture terms I think people will welcome this outcome”.

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