What follows is all, I admit, very self-indulgent. It is just that when I was delivering leaflets the other day – from one of our councillors protesting against the potential closure of local rail stations – my thoughts went back to my first time out on the stump. This was well over fifty years ago and for a council election in Esher, Surrey. To my shame, I cannot remember who was standing or the result (perhaps someone out there will be able to tell me?). I have a suspicion we took the seat – if so, that was no mean feat with only six Liberal MPs at the time – but, whether or not, what really impressed me was that our candidate seemed to be acquainted with almost everyone we met. This personal touch was one I tried to emulate (not always successfully, having a fickle memory for names) in my own later political activity.
That took me through student days in Dundee and on to electioneering in my home base of Glasgow Maryhill, with the occasional foray to by-elections around the UK. Two of these were successful (Liverpool, Edgehill and Kincardine & Deeside) unlike personal attempts to get elected at any and every available level. One of the worst moments was forgetting the imprint on a handout and spending hours stamping it with a John Bull Printing Kit. One of the best was when the Labour Party got rattled enough to put out an eve of poll attacking us. Then, of course, there was that first saved deposit!
Meantime, we weathered the Alliance and the merger and, despite initial scepticism about the latter, in Glasgow, Liberals and Social Democrats blended seamlessly together. There were stints on the Party Executiveas well, a role in redrafting the Federal Constitution and in chairing our local Party from time to time. I’ve just stood down from another go at the last of these and am currently relishing my status an ordinary member.
Of course, in between, I did finally manage to get elected and to the European Parliament no less. That was a fascinating and highly fulfilling ten years – even if specialising in fisheries did not seem the obvious choice for someone whose previous day job had been teaching legal theory and comparative law.
It was not, however, the Liberal commitment to engaging with Europe that took me into the Party in the first place – although I rapidly became committed to that cause. Home Rule for Scotland, proportional representation and co-operatives were the key. Things have moved on considerably in relation to the first two – though not without some hitches en route! And a recent pronouncement from the Deputy Prime Minister suggests that the last has not been quite as forgotten as I had thought.
Like many others of a social liberal persuasion, though, I have concerns that we have begun to lose touch with some of the principles underlying these policies. So, foot soldiering from now on shall be confined to delivering my own leafleting walk. The question is whether I can recall enough of my old philosophical training to start putting useful words on paper rather than just through people’s doors.
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5 Comments
“Like many others of a social liberal persuasion, though, I have concerns that we have begun to lose touch with some of the principles underlying these policies.”
Never understated!
Beveridge, Lloyd George, Keynes, Asquith, Thorpe – all of them would be appalled by the shape of current Government policy, and the direction it is leading the country.
Liberals in the UK, one of the most social of all liberal parties, by tradition, have totally lost touch with the parts of their tradition which overlap social democracy in favour of a perceived Conservative consensus that they don’t even need to be part off.
They are willing to take a far worse election result than those offered under Charles Kennedy or Ming to do this.
The result in terms of outcomes looks something close to the opposite of the desired outcomes of the social liberal tradition, too. So what’s the gain, and to whom?
For those outside, this logic is completely inexplicable. This is not just something you hear from Labour members or media lefties. It’s a doorstep fact, that is still treated with a stubborn ignorance rather than acceptance or accommodation.
The Lib Dems need to recognise this severe and multifaceted problem urgently – or they will be left without any capacity to develop a constructive solution. Sooner is better than later.
@ Tom Miller,
I always find it amusing when people invoke Lloyd George as a great progressive hero. Did he not go into coalition with the Conservatives and presided over harsh cuts in public expenditure?
I agree with a lot of this, Elspeth, though my first doorstep campaigning was not quite as long ago – 1962 at the Orpington by-election, fifty years ago next month! It’s interesting that one of the continuing Liberal voices in the Lords (and an occasional rebel) is Eric Avebury, né Lubbock.
I don’t think our party has begun to work out how it’s going to explain the coalition to people – nor how it is going to work in the latter stages of this parliament when it will be vital to set a proper swocial Liberal agenda again. The 3 weeks of the election will be far too late.
But not Lloyd George whose beliefs, though probably genuine, were easily locked up for years at a time. And Jeremy Thorpe? Now, when he is very frail and, I understand, in long-term hospital care, is not the best time to discuss his leadership, but Grimond would be a better reference for the years of post-war Liberal survival (though even Jo went a bit off the rails in his old age).
What worries me most is the way the party is being asked to churn out straight government propaganda which inevitably is more Tory than Liberal. How many of our members will start to believe this stuff?
Tony Greaves
No. They simply realise that there were two or three awful options available and no good ones, and with much complaint and dissatisfaction, selected the one which appears to be the least destructive in the long run.
There was no prospect of a net gain in this parliament. There are a few gains to specific sectors, but that’s all. Overall, “harm minimisation” is the most you can hope for when the economy has taken such a massive hit.
I have similar memories to much of this, Elspeth. I joined at Cambridge just before Jo Grimond resigned as leader (post hoc ergo propter hoc – google it) and first hit just a few doorsteps in Cambridge.
What concerns me is not so much having to accept many unpalatable policies in the coalition (some made necessary by the financial and economic position, others by the Tories forming most of the government) nor even my belief that we’ve gone along with some bad decisions (along with some good ones) uncomplaining. It’s something about a narrowing and shortening of vision reflected in the fact that nearly all the discussions about deficit reduction on this site are about speed and amount, not about priorities – and something more fundamental, a loss of interest at national level in community; and by the extent to which the discussions here are REACTIONS to the current leading news in Westminster and the national media’s political bits. I find people arguing for or against a large state and public services without bothering to mention the importance of fostering community activism and active citizenship. Of course Cameron stole some of our clothes with the “Big Society”, and I actually believe he meant it but hadn’t thought it through; but when it ran on to economic rocks and was subverted by civil servants into an outsourcing agenda, there have been few Liberal voices restating a Liberal communitarian agenda. In fact, in a debate at an activists’ gathering in London just after Nick Clegg was elected leader, during a debate between David Howarth and Jeremy Browne, when I tried to make a case for individual flourishing in community rather than “an atomistic individualism”, the audience clearly understood what I was trying to say but Jeremy Browne clearly just couldn’t think that way. When I joined the Liberal Party, our ideas about community and citizenship were a key factor