Why I'm not accepting Ed Miliband's offer of joining the Labour Party

I was planning to blog this a few days ago but have been beaten to the punch by Caron's Musings who wrote an excellent critique for why Ed Miliband's latest invitation for Lib Dems to join the Labour Party should be rebuffed.

To follow Caron's lead on this, what would I rather do than join the Labour Party?

1. Become a Tottenham Hotspur fan (I loathe them);
2. Walk along a mountain face precipice, Italian Job style (I suffer from a mixture of vertigo and claustrophobia);
3. Wind the clock back and go to school naked as happened far too often in those bizzare dreams we all have as children;
4. Sit in a room with David Coulthard for more than 10 minutes (those who know me well know that I have little time for that pompous prat of a lacklustre, talentless ex-Formula One driver);
5. Appear on an Iceland advert (probably the worst made adverts in the history of TV advertising).

So yeah, I ain't joining the Labour Party anytime soon.

Why?
Well, I can't better Caron's observations which are spot on.

• Iraq - an illegal war, enough said;
• Implicating this country in complicity with torture;
• Letting down the poorest by increasing the gap between rich and poor;
• Failing to fix the roof when the sun was shining - meaning we all suffer as a result of their economic incompetence;
• Failing to regulate the banks, either before or after the crash;
• Wasting a fortune on illiberal ID cards;
• Their dissembling over the cuts in spending they would have made if they had won the election;
• The appalling mess they made of the Tax Credit system, and their treatment of thousands of poor families, forced to repay thousands they couldn't afford;
• Imposing control orders on people without telling them even what they were being accused of;
• Centralising public services to the detriment of people using them;
• Taking kids' DNA without parents' permission;
• Storing the DNA of innocent people;
• Running an inhumane and often brutal immigration system;
• Making a hash job of House of Lords reform;
• Refusing to carry out their election promise of brining in electoral reform.

Don't tell me that the Labour Party is a progressive party Mr Miliband. Don't insult my intelligence.

I am not illiberal, I am not an authoritarian, I do not want to be ruled by the unions and I am not obsessed with centralisation. I therefore do not want to join the Labour Party.

A Lib Dem through and through
I am a coalitionist in as far as I believe that we need to be grown up enough to work with others to put the country back on the right track.

That doesn't mean that I agree with every policy that this government comes up with. Why should I? This government is mainly made-up of a Conservative Party that I have little time for. But we must accept that compromise is necessary to move the country forward.

I will disagree with the coalition when I feel it right to do so but that will not hide my pride in the fact that we as Lib Dems are putting our policies into government for the well-being of the people we represent for the first time at a UK-wide level for generations.

Labour had their chance and they blew it and you Mr Miliband sat around the Cabinet table when a number of those decisions were made.

I'd rather jump off a pier into the sea than join the Labour Party (I can't swim).