I’ve read some of the discussion on Lib Dem Voice about how Liberal Democrats should use their second preferences in the race for London Mayor with some interest. It should be stated up front that much of this speculation is fantastically irrelevant to how Liberal Democrat voters will actually choose. It will only permeate to the wider London electorate if Nick Clegg or another senior media spokesperson endorses Boris or Ken as number two, and even then, like the Green-pact it would be more likely to harm our candidate than influence the final outcome.

Articles like this then are directed at Liberal Democrat activists.

In that respect I don’t propose to dwell much on policy preference or people’s desire to express their personal problems when it comes to our political rivals. Bluntly it will not be a disaster if any of the mainstream candidates are elected. There will be winners and losers, but neither Boris nor Ken is a dangerous incompetent or extremist liable to make decisions so awful that the Capital will be beset by the ten plagues of Egypt in the next four years. At worst London’s voters will be embarrassed by gaffes or irritated by higher taxes and control freakery, while special interests wail and gnash their teeth as their funding is cut

The issue for Liberal Democrat activists then is what result will most likely benefit our future prospects in the unlikely event that our own candidate, Brian Paddick, doesn’t win.

On those criteria I have heard two schools of thought.

The first is that any win for the Conservatives would be the worst outcome. It is always better for the third party when the second party is performing dismally and a win in the race for London would be the start of momentum for Cameron that would improve his chances of a clean sweep in the 2010 General Election. A strong optimistic Conservative party is far more damaging to our prospects of holding or advancing in Parliament than a damaged but ‘popular-enough’ Labour party. Best for us if the Tories look like they’ve snatched a narrow defeat from the jaws of victory (with double-digit poll leads for most of the campaign), while Labour look weak having seen the majority of one of their few popular politicians collapse while losing seats to everyone in the GLA.

Liberal Democrats under those circumstances could claim the Tories can never win London, we are the only party that holds the Mayor to account, and the only party that can seriously challenge Labour in their Borough fiefdoms where Tories fear to tread.

The second is that the combination of an unpopular Labour government and error-prone Conservative Mayor represents a perfect storm. The case for putting Liberal Democrats on your Council, whether against Labour or the Conservatives ‘to keep them honest’, would be irresistible. The opportunities for the kind of anti-establishment campaigns in which the party specialises would be manifold. The Cameron momentum would not be enhanced by such a win, it would be derailed. People would get an unprecedented 18 month foretaste of what a Conservative administration might be like, represented by a Conservative who most people consider entertaining rather than competent, and panders to many of the stereotypes of elitism that Cameron is attempting to expunge from the Conservative image. Ken would blame his defeat on Brown, vocally, and after a short period of brooding would return to his traditional role of fermenting dissent and division within his own party, increasing the perception of Brown and Labour as inward-looking and out of touch.

Liberal Democrats under those circumstances could lead strongly as the face of change people really want. It would be an Obama narrative being neither the establishment nor the established alternative, and sold right, equally devastating.

There are merits to both points of view. In my own case I find the second more convincing in part because I agree with the analysis of the first. Labour are currently the leading party in name only. In every other respect they are already looking defeated with poll ratings akin to the early 1980s and an aura of despair that suggests they want a break, rather than five more years of government. I further don’t think narrow defeat for Boris will hurt Cameron’s momentum. An election result that leaves the political landscape unchanged is unlikely to alter perceptions that it’s time for a change, or that the Conservatives should be given a chance. And Cameron will simply point out that no serious commentator thought Ken would even come close to losing when the race started.

Oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. For the Liberal Democrats to advance people need clear reasons not to vote for the other two. That is as true today as it has always been. Our positive vision is important, it’s why people choose us not the Greens or UKIP and why we’re often in second place. But stardust and good vibes alone are not an election-winning formula.

At the moment then all negative attention is on Labour. Only the London Mayoralty represents an opportunity to spread the pain before the general election. There is a risk I suppose that a Johnson regime during an economic downturn, in the build up to the Olympics, would in fact represent a new golden age for London’s reputation, and herald an era of effective low-cost administration that sees world leaders sending their staff on secondment to the GLA to learn how it’s done… you may decide for yourself how plausible that risk is against the regular prospect of David Cameron refusing to comment on the decisions or performance of the most high-profile Conservative in the country.

So, if you are a Liberal Democrat, you should not be thinking of ‘holding your nose’ and voting for ‘x’ number two, or taking the coward’s way out by wasting your vote on the Greens or other minor party with no hope of being in the run-off.

Whichever way you decide… you should be thinking… I’m making my second preference for the Liberal Democrats. Brian Paddick 1, our next best hope for our future 2. That is the best way to think about your second preference, not who do I disagree with least. Tribalism is not always helpful, but in respect of making difficult choices it can at least be comforting that you made a choice for a reason that advances something you believe in rather than against something you don’t.

* Andy Mayer is a London community campaigner and blogs here.

I know, I know, it’s shooting at Bambi, but I confess I just don’t get the Lib Dems’ Post Office Campaigns.

I don’t mean by this that I have a rabid desire to close every post office in the country, or even that I don’t accept the case that, in some locations, like remote rural communities, they are useful, loved and necessary. It’s more that I can’t think of many campaigns I’m less likely to get out of bed for than this one.

The problem I have is that, while I accept petitions to save local public services, rather like campaigns in favour of orphans and chocolate, are effective short-term publicity, I didn’t really get into politics simply to aggregate target data for our EARS database.

I have the inconvenient belief that campaigning should be for either some meaningful positive change or to stop something bad happening. I can’t fit most post office campaigns into either of those boxes. My contention is that often these campaigns are trivial, and make us in the long-run look trivial and parochial by association.

As an example, a recent urban Liberal Democrat ‘Save our Post Office’ petition amounted to little more than opposition to the hypothetical chance of the service moving from a physical post office building to the counters at WH Smith. A campaign that implied the burning political issue was that customer service in one of the UK’s more successful retailers might not be as good as that provided by the commercially unviable alternative. Evidence for this dull fear-mongering was notable only for its absence.

Another issue is that, bar a handful of delays and reverses, the campaign clearly isn’t working. Governments have been closing post offices at a rate of 300 a year for two decades despite opposition by Liberal Democrats, Sun readers and viral campaign songs.

And while anti-post office closure campaigners may be able to produce the occasional 4-million signature petition, it is not evidently top of mind as a criteria for voting outside local elections - although even here we are somewhat short of actual evidence as to where PO campaigns rank amongst the main drivers of local voting preference.

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