Liberal Democrats: the party of hypocrites 2

On September 1st Steve Gilbert, Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate for St Austell, was incensed by the fact that SITA is appealing the decision to reject its incinerator planned for St Dennis. He tweeted that ‘Conservative-led Cornwall Council gave permission!!’ Actually, Steve, the right to appeal was written into the original contract. And the original contract was drawn up by the previous County Council. Which was controlled by none other than the .... errr .... Lib Dems.

Lib Dems have a long and dishonourable record of saying one thing and doing the opposite. In 2002 Sheffield City Council, controlled by the Lib Dems, was pushing through an incinerator in the face of fierce local opposition. At the same time Liberal Democrats at parliamentary level were calling for a moratorium.

This led an exasperated Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace, to say "The Liberal Democrats don't seem to have any principles when it comes to waste management and will say anything they think gains them electoral advantage. Their call for a moratorium on incineration is a hollow sham. It's simply unacceptable for the Lib Dems to lecture other political parties on the environment and then fail to apply those principles in places which they actually control."

Sometimes, of course, Lib Dems say one thing in opposition and then do nothing. Vociferous in their support for a Cornish Assembly when looking for votes Lib Dem councillors have a track record of doing extremely little to demand practical devolution of powers when in power. Indeed, they’ve pushed through a unitary local government structure in Cornwall despite very little visible support from voters. In this way the Lib Dems have effectively both seriously damaged representative local democracy in Cornwall and made the likelihood of an Assembly a more remote possibility.

Let’s hope the Cornish electorate aren’t quite the idiots the Lib Dems treat them as and can remember these and other examples when they cast their vote.