The departure of Ming Campbell gives a tremendous opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to be honest with themselves: an opportunity that only arises rarely in the middle of a Parliament.
The media will ignore it, but the leadership contest can and must be used by those who have been spelling out the obvious, critical issues of central organisation which are fundamental to the success of the Party, to do so quickly and publicly, before bandwagons get started for any candidate (and I haven’t been contacted by one and will want to see their answers first).
The point needs to be made that even Ming’s strongest critic would not pretend that the issue lay entirely with one personality. There are a number of questions that needs an answer by any candidate worth her or his salt, if we are truly serious about building on the platform of 2005 and going on the offensive from then on.
Questions such as:
1) If the party organisation has been ‘professionalised’, why, when referring to our national press operation, could one almost paraphrase Mike Hancock? And what are they going to do about it? It is unacceptable to complain about lack of resources, or bleat about the ‘unfair’ media.
2) How will a new leader remotivate activists to get stuck in against fierce attempts at a two-way squeeze? Can the righteous anger of activists be channeled?
3) Does the party have a strategy? If so, what is it? Is it the Richmond parlour game of waiting until a suitably convenient by-election and practicing so-called ‘masterly inactivity’ the rest of the time? Does the new leader see a point in capitalising on the ‘urban intellectual’ vote which arguably comprised our 2005 core and which is fundamental to us building on that position? Or is ‘incrementalism’ the only show in town?
4) How will they build the MPs into a disciplined body? There are clearly issues still, as today’s press make only too clear. While Ming undoubtedly improved relations with the Parliamentary Party, parts of the party see less evidence of this. (Parliamentary colleagues could reply on this thread for a start)
5) How will they attract and, more importantly, empower women, minority ethnic communities and others within the party? What do the putative leaders set out as the way to better, more balanced representation?
6) The time it was clear to me that the outgoing leader was doomed was when a good friend of mine didn’t even recognise his name in conversation (over the summer). What are the issues a leader will use in order to set out a vision and compete for airtime?
Colleagues who are Party members can, of course, answer these questions in the members-only forum…
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76 Comments
If your being honest with yourselves then you should ask what is the point of the Lib Dems. You have sacrificed your leader on Gordon Brown’s timetable for a party who’s only role is to ensure the south east of England continues to pay for wasteful public spending whilst receiving sub standard public services itself. ( That’s the effect of your existence – not what’s in your manifesto ).
Tell us what is the point of the Lib Dems – then chose a leader to back that decision.
And of course you can only vote if you are a Party member:
https://www.libdems.org.uk/support/join.html?ref=joinq
Very boring article.
Hughes, Evan Harris and David Laws all rule themselves out. The field gets just a bit smaller.
For Man in a Shed, I suggest my Tory friend you stay their. You Tories change your minds so often you may have to realise a few versions of a manifesto and see which sells best before deciding what you stand for.
I would sort out my “own house” before giving us tips. You may well be 40% in the polls this week but we all know as soon as you hit 32% panic will set in again.
The Party needs a compelling message first that everyone can repeat in one sentence. Once you work out your vision (‘Spreading opportunity to those that lack it’), then you can work out your strategy (target seats X, Y, and Z) and then your tactics (campaigns on theme of your vision). It all has to be linked up and every MP needs to be able to explain policies through that liberal prism.
1/ We like to think of ourselves in all political parties that we can be professional – and sometimes we acheive it – but it is not easy if you have limited time and funds. We should be grateful for the professionalism that currently exists, for example that great speech Ming gave at conference. And more generally we need to focus on getting more members and more financing.
2/ Remotivation. At conference I thought we had a good critique of Labour – it being cetralising and authoritarian, and a good critique of the Tories, unable to square the circle of “Green” Gummer and “Free Market” Redwood (previously I was worried that we may have that problem too), and their plans to dismantle the state.
The Liberal Democrats want to decentralise the state, which is the best alternative. Now of course we need to turn this into a popular language, which is not at all easy, but starting from a position where we are distinctive is a good place to start.
3/Strategy. The long term bedrock of growing Lib Dem support has been based around community politics. Unfortunately community politics often becomes corrupted by the prospect of power and becomes blame politics. The party needs to think carefully about what it is doing, and as far as the leader is concerned, I have not seen any leadership on this issue ever since I can remember when I joined in 1983.
4/ Disciplining MPs. In fact I think our MPs were very disciplined over the past 18 months. Maybe too much so. I was dismayed to see Simon Hughes support the Ming fudge on replacing Trident. If Ming had lost that vote, he would have resigned soon afterwards.
Ironically that has not stopped Simon from being baited by those who are playing the blame game today.
I am clear it was not the MPs who forced Ming to resign.
5/ Women, Ethnic Minorites. This is something the party has never been able to solve, but we must always revisit it. I can report in Hackney that muslims are on the receiving end of a lot of stop and search and this is causing a lot of resentment.
The LD committment to civil liberties will win a great deal of support.
6/ Airtime. A tough one as the media is losing interest in politics. It may help if we use more direct language. For example “torture” rather than “extraordinary rendition”.
Lets have the confidence to be honest with the electorate too.
Lets say YES we will raise some Taxes to spend more on the NHS. THe rich will pay more and so they should. Lets say YES we are more liberal than Labour on ctime and immigration because Labour authoritarian policies in these areas have failed.
Lets say YES to all troops out of Iraq NOW. Lets be a truly radical party in the tradition of Lloyd-George. Now is not the time to start abusing other Liberal Democrats but I have to say what is the point of us putting up a Cameron-lite candidate like Clegg? He has only been in the House five minutes and most of that time has been spent being courted by the Tories- tells you something about his Liberal credentials.
I think that Gareth’s questions are good, but that there are political questions which aren’t sufficiently addressed in the campaign-oriented questions.
What do we stand for as a party and how do we communiacte those values in an appropriate way? Geoff asks about whether community politics can be rejuvinated to its earlier idea – I think this can be something to unite those like myself irritated by our occasional nimby populism with others who at heart are motivated by the desire to help their local community.
Well, well, the true Nasty party has come riding to the rescue of a failing Labour administration once again!!!!!!
As a proud Conservative, can I reasonably say that I feel sorry for Ming, he always struck me as a principled man, in a deeply, ruthlessly unprincipled party.
Change leaders, but you will never square the circrle that the Lib dems say one thing in Tory Marinals and an entirely different (even opposing) message in Labour marginals.
Add to that your utterly gutless, weasely – yet ultimately philisophically empty – campaigning techniques, and you have a party that is long past its sell-by date.
The Lib Dems – A PARTY SO MUCH IN TWO MINDS, THEY COULDN’T EVEN PICK ONE NAME!!!!
Disband you group of grown-up class-sneaks and school nerds!!!!
Geordie-Tory, even in these heady days, one exclamation mark per sentence is generally considered enough
O Joy! The Party of opportunistic sanctimonious hypocrites are finally having the chickens home to roost. I shall pour another G&T and watch with amusement whilst you lot pick another loser to bring more shame and mirth onto your Party…make that shambles. Cheers!
Simon, it’s 11:30 in the morning – may I respectfully suggest you check out http://www.aa-uk.org.uk/
Geordie-Tory: HahaHahaHahaHahaHaha
Worried are you? ;o)
I notice that a number of bloggers have this morning declared themselves for Nick Clegg. None, as far as I am aware, has declared himself for any other possible candidate.
Would it be paranoid of me to suspect that the Clegg campaign actually kicked off BEFORE Ming resigned?
And why is it that media commentators have already decided that Clegg is going to win?
Some might be forgiven for thinking the decision has already been made by some means other than the ballot-box.
Some good points Gareth, realistically though the Leadership candidates probably shouldn’t talk in detail about what professionalising the party means as it might have profound implications for employed staff, who will be working throughout this election period. It should be sufficient for any candidate to note that a political party should be fit for purpose and then define what they think that purpose is.
Jeremy Hargreaves I think articulates the widely held counter-view here
“But whatever is proposed will need also to work with elements of the current system that need to be retained: most crucially, central elements of ensuring that the party at large retains the key say over crucial decisions. This is much of what makes our party our party”
http://www.jeremyhargreaves.org/blog/2007/ming-told-me-before-conference-he-was-going-to-resign/
I disagree what makes our party our party is that it is liberal and wants to support and form liberal governments at every level of UK and EU politics. It does not exist for the sake of a structure in itself. That’s usually a hallmark of an organisation looking inside not out.
Perish the thought!
Seriously though of course that is exactly whats been going on.
Young Nick has been touting himself around for months. He seems to be under the impression that he excercised great restraint in not running last time (even though he had only just become an MP!) and now thinks that the jobs his as of right.
I have yet to hear anything from him to suggest that he is actually a Liberal.
The arguament from some seems to be “Ah but he will play very well in the Southern marginals.” I live in the South and we didn’t win seats like Portsmouth South and Romsey by being like the Tories we won them beacuse we were diffrent from the Tories. Looked diffrent. Said different things. We might see some slip to the Tories in some of the Southern seats but realisticaly it was suprising that we won some of them them in the first place (i.e Romsey) and it should not be suprising if those sort of seats fall back. We can still hold others (like Portsmouth South) by presenting ourselves as different to the Tories. Clegg is Pepsi to Camerons Coke. If you want that sort of thing you might as well go for the real thing. We need to offer something different- when its on offer people choose it.
Concerned Observer -what complete b-l-x!
Nick’s ambitions have not been a secret and the wide assumption is that he has significant support within the party. So it is not surprising people have been willing to declare for him.
And it doesnt take a massive feat of organisation for people who blog their opinions regularly to decide to blog in support of a particular candidate.
Unless he is an amazing poker player, judging by what he said to me yesterday (in a chat which took place less than 2 hours before the announcement) he was as unaware of it as everyone else.
Assuming you are Ed Davey he’s not likely to tell you is plans is he?
The liberals need to become the party of the self employed and those working in small and medium enterprises. This will hopefully attract all those from ethnic minorities and also women who only want to stand on their own two feet and succeed due to their honest labours. Labour is largely the party of the government employee and therefore only wants more people employed or supported by the state. The Conservatives are largely concerned with the City of London and international finance.Much of the activity in the City only benefits those involved with it’s activities and tax payments are greatly minimised. People want competent, honest, open and reasonable Government which spends their money wisely and therefore obtains value for money.Much of Government expenditure has resulted in a bloated incompetent white collar managerial class who accept authority but not responsibility; be they employed by the State or private companies.The disaster at Maidstone NHS Trust typifies much of Government expenditure: bloated incompetent white collar employment: criminal lack of cleaners, nurses, doctors, medical technicians who have been disempowered by the system.
Ed, why has no blogger yet declared for Chris Huhne?
Is it because there is no Huhne campaign office coordinating endorsements?
Re: RF@11:41- Judging by the state of your Party/Rabble at the mo i would have thought you would have joined me!
John: Clicking though on the link from my sign in name would have shown that I am not Ed Davey.
Concerned Observer: Dunno, you will have to ask them. I speak only for myself not for Nick or Chris.
Andy (@15) – for the record although you quoted just one side of the balance that I said needs to be struck, I do think it does need to be a balance between the way we currently are as a party, and the need to change. As you say, we don’t exist just for our own benefit, but nevertheless the way we do things, and who we are, are important to us.
And someone please tell me I am not the only person entertained by Andy’s implication of Gareth Epps as the apostle of professionalisation and myself as the partisan of bearded sandal-wearing activists!
John (@18) – Ed (@17) is not Ed Davey but Ed Maxfield, as his link makes clear. I can also back up what he says: in the normal run of things I also had brief contact with Nick Clegg yesterday morning and it was very clear that he had no idea what was coming.
Ed & Jeremy my apologies.
I am just really angry at the way our democratically elected leader seems to have been stiched up and then knifed by some very ambitious young men out for themselves.
I am concerned that the media seem to be promoting Nick Clegg as a fait a complis and rubbishing the chances of Chris Huhne.
Is Nick Washington’s man, by any chance, as Mark Oaten clearly was before it became obvious that he had no support in the party nad was a liability into the bargain?
Concerned Observer – you’ve sussed it. The secret is out. Nick is also the stalking horse of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy, the leader of the P2 Masonic Lodge and a close friend of Adolf Hitler who as we all know has been living and working in a corner shop in Sheffield Hallam since the war.
“Now of course we need to turn this into a popular language, which is not at all easy, but starting from a position where we are distinctive is a good place to start.”
Geoffrey @ 6, I like your analysis and this ‘ere above is particularly wise. Someone the other day on another thread, forgotten where, suggested that we need to return to simple policies which could be easily put across, eg 1p for the NHS. I’m not sure I agree with that, partly because it results in the message-tail wagging the policy-dog, and partly because the grim reality is that a lot of people won’t understand anyway. Sorry, but they won’t. You can’t get more straightforward than a 4p cut in the basic rate but I’ve had real trouble getting across to perfectly intelligent laymen what that means in real terms. You don’t make something more comprehensible by just making it shorter (though I could probably do this with a fair few of my posts).
“Popular” is the word you use and I think you’re right. The danger as I see it is that turning something into popular language almost invariably results in it being bland, or even worse laden with exec-speak. A much simpler way of making something popular and easy to understand, to my way of thinking, is to make a narrative of it, so that one thing follows from another. This is what “easy-read” leaflets do, and what fables and parables and fairy-tales do. It’s the simplest, oldest mechanism there is for making people recall values. We don’t need slogans, we just need to put across the perfectly good narrative that we already do have, and the other parties don’t.
Rob F @ 10 – hoorah! An end to excessive punctuation in our times!
God bless the Dim Lebs!
I point out the sheer, utter pointlessness of their party, and what is the great philosophical comeback….Erm, they try to attack my grammar.
‘Nuff said really.
Get a real hobby people, go back to being trainspotters or whatever is what you did before you joined the Dim Lebs, and leave the grown up business of politics to us folks with clear, CONSISTENT political positions.
No doubt I will be attacked now for gratuitous CAPITALISATION!!!
C’est la vie.
“Let’s get honest with ourselves”. That sounds like a good idea. Then get honest about Ming’s departure.
Geordie Tory. CONSISTENT political positions. The Tories? Shurely Shome mistake. Get some policies that you’ve actually thought up yourself, as opposed to policies stolen from us or Blair, and then maybe we can discuss them.
Better still, try to win a single council seat in Newcastle or Gateshead – that should keep you out of trouble for a decade or so.
The Lib Dems certainly have a point in the North East. If it wasn’t for us the voters would have no opposition to Labour to choose from as you are so non existent in 90% of the region.
Thanks Neil Bradbury for your advice a la:
“Better still, try to win a single council seat in Newcastle or Gateshead – that should keep you out of trouble for a decade or so.”
Tell you what, lets speak after May 5th 2008, we’ll see how smug you are then.
“…we need to return to simple policies which could be easily put across, eg 1p for the NHS”.
Please – no! Better 1p OFF income tax for all those who work in the NHS. If we value the work they do, shouldn’t we tax them less?
It might help bring a few dentists back at least.
I was quoting someone else who was advocating that policy. My point was, it is genuinely difficult to put across what we think of as a simple policy, especially in tax. It’s not just us, either. Politicos of all stripes assume that phrases in common political or economic use mean more in the outside world than they really do – it isn’t surprising that the Daily Hate Mail can make up ridiculously twisted illustrations of “simple” policies in action.
Not a bad idea, though.
It always amuses me when Tories trot out the “Lib Dems say one thing in one place and one thing somewhere else” line like our Geordie friend. They never seem to back it up with any evidence – or else it’s “inconsistency” over things that, heaven forbid, can be explained by letting local parties have the freedom to choose what’s right for their area (mainly because we actually believe in localism).
Apologies Jeremy, not quite what I meant to imply. I’m simply noting that if you start from the position that there is something intrinsically special about the way we do business in the Liberal Democrats and then try and establish a strategy for winning and government then you’ll end up with what we have. A strategic approach would be the other way around.
John @ 24 – You’re clearly very angry about things, but I’d suggest that you’d do better to read more about the situation rather than throw out accusations as a way of blaming someone.
It’s quite clear that nobody in the party thinks that any “young Turk” was behind some kind of knifing – and I’m sure you’ll be able to hear that from Ming himself in the future.
I’m also slightly stunned that you’ve never seen “any sign that Nick Clegg is a liberal”. I’d suggest that you read some of what he’s written and done (as you should with the other candidates), as I can’t honestly believe that someone who spends so much of his time communicating liberalism to the masses could be so offensive to you if liberalism is what you’re after.
Ed at 26. So anyone who
Ed at 26. You are telling us that anyone concerned about the tactics of Nick Clegg’s supporters is Anti-Semitic. What an outrageous smear! You are a disgrace to the party.
Many of the people commenting here seem to be bona fide Lib Dem members, but others seem not to be. Obviously I don’t want to stop anyone discussing here, but I would urge anyone who is a real party member and wants interesting debate to use the private members forum – which seems to have taken off somewhat over the last few days.
Andy – I agree!
I would agree with Jeremy. Thanks to those of you who are commenting constructively.
9. Sorry to go back up the posts but have you ever heard of the Conservative and Unionist Party?
Idiot.
Please don’t feed the trolls! Let’s have a good tempered leadership contest, even when engaging with those deliberately trying to wind us up.
The only good Tory is a dead one.
@ charlie hedges
The liberals need to become the party of the self employed and those working in small and medium enterprises. This will hopefully attract all those from ethnic minorities and also women who only want to stand on their own two feet and succeed due to their honest labours.
I just sprayed my monitor with coffee laughing at the hilarious non-sequitur in that post.
Ethnic minorities and women don’t work in small to medium size enterprises, you silly man. A disproportionate number of the former live on benefits in what to them is unimaginable luxury compared to their former lives back in Bangladesh or Equatorial Guinea. They are housed, heated, fed, healed, and provided with free television and plenty of money for booze and fags. And it’s all courtesy of middle-class white taxpayers, against whom, to show their gratitude, they commit racist crimes at a hugely higher rate than the reverse.
Such people have no more desire to work – in any enterprise – than you do to have your face crapped on by a homosexual prostitu—
…hmm. Actually, as you’re a Liberal, maybe that’s not such a good comparison…
Women do not as a rule found small businesses either.
Until you bigoted idiots get your facts straight and deal with the world as it actually is, rather than the way you think it should be, you are going to continue to get wiped out at the polls by parties like the BNP, who despite their utter lunacy are a bit more in touch with the actual facts of diverse, multicultural Britain than you are. You irrelevant 11%-at-the-polls-getting mugs, you.
@ Crowthorne:
our democratically elected leader seems to have been stiched up and then knifed by some very ambitious young men
If they were ambitious they wouldn’t have joined the no-hoper party, would they?
44. See, I’m right, aren’t I. I’ll back any candidate who promises to cull Tories.
Bunnies, you don’t see the irony in calling us “bigoted” after your racist rant?
What the Lib Dems need to do is to try and reinvent the language of politics. Dreary, uninspiring tosh about ‘empowering local communities’ or whatever could come from any of the parties.
Try freedom of speech, liberty, enlightenment, progress and reason.
I do wonder about the Tory trolls who come here and mutter about the Lib Dems being “pointless”; there is something correspondingly pointless about a mindset that would wish to deny a large number of people their democratic representation.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that 5.9 million of the 27 million voters in 2005 had wanted to vote for a party other than Labour or Conservative, they could have voted Lib Dem if they agreed with those particular policies. Oh! They did! But hang on, I hear you say, that’s almost 22% of the votes! Indeed it is, but the system gives us Lib Dems just 9.6% of the seats. We get more than 1 in every 5 votes, yet receive less than 1 in every 10 parliamentary seats.
On a day when the papers are full of stories about a man judged insane for donating to the Conservatives, the Lib Dems would like to thank all the Tory trolls for coming here to reinforce the point.
We need a leader with some guts if we’re to sort out this electoral mess.
Chris Huhne showed plenty of guts when he ran for leadership 18 months ago; Nick Clegg missed his chance, showing as much courage as Mr Brown in front of a voter or Mr Cameron in front of a grammar school rebel… (And I wasn’t particularly impressed with the way Clegg knifed Ming with his “I’m going to run for leadership” comments at this year’s conference either.)
It has to be Chris Huhne.
Lynn Featherstone has just come out for Chris Huhne.
Whoever gets the job is going to have to have a skin like a rhinoceros.
Yeah – go for it, Chris.
All I want to know from each candidate is this:
How are you going to improve the party’s finances so that we can afford to run an effective and competent media and ‘rapid rebuttal’ unit?
Are you willing to take on the challenge of reforming the party so that the Leadership can actually lead? Will you be clear in advance so that you actually have a mandate from the party to reform?
Do you acknowledge that there are no magic combination of words that will bring the electorate to us without us having to change?
Social Liberalism and Economic Liberalism. A natural, logical fit that would allow us to appeal to the mainstream or an abomination whereby economic liberalism has nothing whatsoever to do with social freedoms?
Finally: What will the Lib Dems under your leadership offer that the others can’t steal or destroy?
Perhaps the Geordie Tory should peddle his message to Tory councillors in Newcastle.
oh, sorry, there aren’t any !
53. Rachel
a) The answer should be somewhere along the lines of – we will not deal with anyone unless we agree on a course of action that implements proportional representation. In addition we must have a more independent foreign policy, a recognition of the importance of global warming, civil liberties and redistribution of wealth and power.
Whoever measures up, we will do business with.
b) Our policies will be crucial. They will be our negotiating position in any coalition deal.
Oh dear Chris, Angus has just given you his backing…thats worse than Lembits kiss of death!
Big Mak, your obsession with me is beginning to look like STALKING.
As Karl Marx once said to Tariq Ali: “Kindly leave the stage.”
For the record, my endorsement of Clegg was spontaneous and certainly not coordinated with any “campaign”. Clegg’s a Liberal to the core who will help us carve out more political space.
I wish more people in the party would realise that successful politics is about building wider coalitions built around shared values and common goals not turning yourself into an ever purer and purer little sect/ mini fan club.
Chris is someone I respect highly but I fear that on occasion he’s come over a bit dry.
Geordie Tory could also try peddling his message to Tory Councillors in Durham but, oh there aren’t any there either!
52/ Charlotte. I am not standing myself, but I cannot resist!
<>
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” We all need to improve the party’s finances. Go out and recruit new members, organise fundraising events. That is what I will be doing. That is what we all should be doing.
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Ming has driven forward many excellent internal party reforms and I will build on his legacy. I am clear that if any more reforms are needed, I will have the mandate from the membership once I am elected to implement any such reforms
<>
Transforming the ideas of Liberal philosophy into everyday language that people can understand and support has always been a challenge, despite the fact that many Liberal values are in the ascendency, such as gay rights. We need to continue to be a step ahead, for example over global warming, where people need to come to terms that they will have to change their lifestyle in order to mitigate the effects of this.
There never has been a quick headline or a magic formula. It really comes down to hard work and engaging with people and putting Liberal principles into pracatice, like in Liverpool and Newcastle.
<>
There is a creative tension between the 2. We need to be effective in generating wealth, but then we need to make sure it is distributed fairly and we cannot rely on market forces alone to do that. We also need to be concerned about the “externalities” (ie hidden cost, for example pollution) that a market economy generates.
Finally: What will the Lib Dems under your leadership offer that the others can’t steal or destroy?
It is funny in an odd kind of way. Many Labour people would love their party to support civil liberties, as they have done before. But New Labour prefer the Thatcherism of the SUn than to their 1980′s style LIberalism.
Clegg Versus Huhne.. ding ding…
Thanks Geoffrey
I expected you to blast me but you actually came across as having open arms there!
I think I need to change my questions. Maybe to just this one single one..
Communicate the same message but do it better (and why do you feel you can succeed where the others have failed?), or communicate a different message?
Ok, let’s be honest here – this is our ‘Clause 4 moment’.
Not only are we a growing party, but we have grown to the level that we can make painful choices where serious decisions are required.
Not only are we loyal to our highest principles, but we increasingly recognise that there is a profound difference between bringing our ideas into action effectively from the opposition benches and from the office of government.
Not only have we shown our core resolve to be hardened under the strategic attacks as we felt the squeeze from all sides, but we have responded to the calls to give ‘em what they wanted.
We have survived in the wilderness and now we are tasting the serious fruits of the competition.
Now is the time to be clear-headed in our approach because we know politics is not meaningless entertainment for the simple gratification of players and audience – it far more serious than that: it is about real people, living real lives and it is about all of us, whether we like it or not.
This is news, because this is our opportunity to prove that we can build a constructive consensus through liberal democracy.
Excellent article Gareth!
Sorry Angus who are you??
59, Geoffrey: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
I can’t resist the temptation to offer two alternative quotes:
1) “A free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.” ― Milton Friedman
2) “Ask not what your government can do for you. Ask what your government is doing to you.” ― David Friedman
Rachel @ 53 – Such a question is exactly what we should not be asking.
Both Huhne and Clegg have experience internationally with PR systems and know that the only correct answer to coalition questions is “If we form a coalition at all, it will be with a party where we believe we can form a liberal coalition. If neither parties offer that prospect, we will not enter a coalition at all.”
Let’s ask our candidates to talk about what kind of liberal values they stand for and how they will communicate them to the country, rather than obsessing over political taboos like a Daily Mail reporter hoping to tear us apart.
New ideas, new identity and repositioning party achievements. Our party needs a complete overhaul and a strategic vision that will see us evolve into the “state of the art” fighting machine capable of destabilization or total wipeout of opponents.
Simply, we need to work out how we can get to a stage where we are the official opposition and then how long it will take for us to become contenders for the corridors of power. The swift departure of Ming and the realisation that Media politics is here to stay means that our strategy, leader and picture for Britain our vital for our growth.
We are at the tipping point, head into self destruct mode then switch off the lights or be honest with ourselves and take the knife to whoever or whatever stands in the way of change.
Our future is bright and promising but we must act now, be bold and unrelenting. Party HQ and organisations across the country will face the biggest test of their times. The way ahead is tough, uncompromising and down right dirty but absolutely necessary. If we dont, then we will be lost in the field of a rising star, David Cameron. Make no mistake Gordon Brown knows he cannot not beat little dave so now, we must the suck the wind from his sails and open the wounds of Europe for the Conservatives. Attack is the best form of defence.
Our Name : The Democrats
Our values : Community, enterprise and freedom
The approach : Politics in your neighbourhood
I do appreciate the rhetoric @ 66.
But I’ll say it again – stop thinking fewer words means more comprehensible politics. It doesn’t. It means one is more likely to sound bland. Just because you’ve thought very deeply about those words and chosen them over others, doesn’t mean the electorate will. Part of the “overhaul” you’re talking about should be evolving a less dull, predictable political language.
“The Times” this morning is telling us whom we have to elect as our leader.
Be under no illusion. If a “Times” editorial says X on an important issue, the editor has been told to say X by Mr Rupert Murdoch, who has been told by Irvine Steltzer, who has been told by Dick Cheney.
If anyone reading this thread doesn’t find that worrying in the extreme, then wake up fast.
Who has been told by Zanadoo
Will anyone take a bet on Dick Cheney not knowing the names of any of our candidates?
I think the media endorsements are interesting and need to be considered, but obviously we shouldn’t confuse what the newspapers think with what the country as a whole thinks (the kind of info we’d get from internal polling if we had the cash).
If No 69 could spell “Xanadoo” then he might be worth listening to.
Peter Bancroft: I bet Irvine Seltzer does.
Excuse me for not being that up on the latest theories of the party being run from washington, but who is Irvine Seltzer?
I’ve tried Google and Wikipedia, to no avail!!!
Help?
Steve Jolly at 72: the reason you’re having difficulties is that we are having a problem with people who complain about spelling (71), themselves not being able to spell…
If you try Irwin Stelzer, you should have more luck! In short, he is an influential neocon adviser to Murdoch, who also writes in the Times quite often.
I don’t think anyone has ever said that the party is run from Washington (at least I haven’t, but others might have done for all I know).
What I have said is that certain people in Washington have influenced the choice of political party leaders in recent years – Blair and Cameron being two notable examples (and possibly the only ones thus far).
I see that Mark Oaten has come out in support of a particular candidate – will that candidate want this known?
Thank you both!!
And it was Xanadu last time I visited the pleasure dome.
‘Alka’ Stelzer is portrayed in many quarters as Rupert Murdoch’s representative on earth.
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/3624 for more details.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_kettle/2007/10/playing_with_political_fire.html for one perspective in The Guardian this week.
Wonder what Americans would make of a foreigner playing a similar role in US politics?