In what is fast becoming a pre-New Year tradition as eagerly anticipated as ‘the biggest ever DFS sale’, Lib Dem Voice is publishing its list of 10 key questions, the answers to which we think might well help shape 2011 for the party. You can read last year’s list here; and our answers to those questions here (Part I) and here (Part II).
Here below, then, are my top 10 questions for the coming year in Lib Demmery:
1. The biggest question of all: will the Lib Dem / Conservative Coalition Government last the year?
Plenty have predicted its demise since the moment it was formed, but it’s hard to see why it will fall unless and until one of the two parties thinks they’ve got more to gain by leaving it. I don’t see it happening in the next year. But then I didn’t forsee it being formed either. Perhaps of greater interest and long-term significance will be what, if anything, emerges from Centre Forum’s ‘Coalition 2.0’ discussions.
2. The second biggest question (and closely related to the first): will the economic recovery be sustained?
Talk of a double-dip recession has receded, but with the public sector cuts and the VAT rise yet to kick in any signs of the economy weakening will be seized on by Labour. And as Mark Pack points out here, for most voters their perception of the state of the economy will be determined by real wages growth, which is projected to fall.
3. Can the AV referendum in May be won?
The prospect of electoral reform — albeit not a proportional voting system — was key to the Lib Dems signing up to the Coalition Agreement. A loss would undoubtedly be a blow to Nick Clegg and the party, and the latest polling suggests the result will be tight.
4. Will legislation to create an elected House of Lords be passed?
A century after the Liberal Government’s 1911 Parliament Act, Nick Clegg will attempt to introduce democracy into the second chamber. The speculation is that a compromise of 80% elected members voted in via the proportional STV system has been agreed, but that Tory MPs will do their best to drag their Parliamentary feet. Combine this with possible confirmatory ballots on elected mayors in the top 12 cities, along with elected police commissioners, and 2011 could be an unusally significant constitutional year.
5. What will happen to the Lib Dem vote in the English local elections and the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election?
In 2007, the Lib Dems under Ming Campbell secured a projected 26% of the national vote but lost control of net four councils and 246 councillors. The pressure on Nick Clegg and the party will be even more acute in 2011 now the party’s in government. An early indication of quite how the Coalition has affected the party’s vote will be seen on 13th January, with the result of the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, a seat the Lib Dems narrowly lost out on by just 103 votes last May.
6. What will happen to the Lib Dem vote in elections to the national parliament in Scotland and assembly in Wales?
In 2007, the Lib Dems saw 16 MSPs elected to Holyrood on 16% in the constituency vote; and six AMs elected in Wales on 15%. If the polls are to be believed, the party faces an uphill battle in both, and especially in Wales.
7. Who will be selected as the Lib Dem candidate to be Mayor of London in 2012?
The party contest to select our hopeful to take on Boris and Ken was postponed in October owing to “an insufficient number of approved applicants”. Lembit remains a declared candidate, with the ‘Anyone But Lembit’ members in the party yet to unite behind a single challenger. The party has selected its 12 candidates for the Greater London Assembly.
8. Will the party’s poll ratings be above the 13% recorded by ICM in December 2010?
The last six months of the year has seen the party’s poll ratings plunge from the 23% recorded in the general election, let alone since the dizzy heights of ‘Cleggmania’, with YouGov — usually the harshest polling company on the Lib Dems outside election time — showing us in single digits. The leadership is phlegmatic, with some justification: the extraordinary flux in the opinion polls in the past year shows just what a snapshot of public opinion they are. But they are watched avidly and nervously by party activists, and in particular by candidates in forthcoming elections who are looking at polling deadlines a lot closer than 2015.
9. How will Tim Farron fare as Lib Dem president, and will party membership continue to rise?
The new party president is a campaigner to his fingertips — it’s no coincidence he’s converted a Tory marginal into one of the party’s safest seats — firmly identified with the party’s social liberal wing on economic issues. Unencumbered by ministerial collective responsibility, Tim will be semi-licensed to put forward the party’s pure, unvarnished position, becoming the authentic voice of the grassroots — a la John Prescott. Will there be genuine clashes with Nick Clegg as a result, or will their ying-yang dual roles enhance the Lib Dems’ standing? Party membership has soared by 10% in the past year to over 65,000 thanks to the successful election campaign, and the historic decision to form a Coalition — but the turmoil over tuition fees has sparked resignations, and it will be tough to maintain that growth in 2011.
10. Will Ed Miliband park his policy tanks on the Lib Dem lawn?
On his election as Labour leader, Miliband Jnr seemed keen to pitch to disaffected Lib Dems, distancing himself from the reactionary inertia of the Blair/Brown years, and seeming to embrace a progressive left-liberal stance on civil liberties, the environment and political reform. Yet there has been scant follow-up, with the Labour leader seemingly much happier taking pot-shots at the Lib Dems than advancing Labour policy in areas where the two parties could agree — though it’s perhaps possible the Byrne-Grayson review might achieve something positive. The next year will help to define Mili-E’s public image: will it be as a lightweight oppositionist, or as a genuine progressive?
Have I missed any out? And how do you anticipate we might be answering these 10 questions in a year’s time?
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14 Comments
I hate to say it, but number 8 to my mind is rather more important. If Chope and the 1922 Committee have not already had their polling and calculators out, looking at if there is a majority to cash in with a snap election, then they likely soon will. Put yourself in the position of a 1922 Committee member for a moment – it might look suspiciously like the Conservatives are being weighed down by an unpopular partner and a very unpopular Clegg. It is not at all implausible that Vince Cable will be on the bac kbenches by the end of 2011 and post HE fees Clegg looks tarnished. It is not at all beyond the bounds of possibility that there will be something of a protest vote in the locals.
Some people in that party seem to think. that sub 15% polling is not a problem. Maybe not in the short term, but the corollary to low Lib Dem polling might easily become agitation in the Conservative Party. A lost AV referendum would likely be a very serious blow, not least because some Conservative MPs could see it as all obligations fulfilled.
Of course, as with any government, events will still have a big say in the course of things. What if the economy does not get better? I can see the Conservative analysis being that more cuts are needed – Lib Dems will have fun with that one.
That being said – I suspect that there will likely be a small-ish number of losses in the various local/regional elections, AV will be lost, but aside from that the end of 2011 will look more or less the same as the start of it.
Will the party’s poll ratings be above the 13% recorded by ICM in December 2010?
A better question would be:
Will the party’s poll ratings drop lower than 8 or 9 % as recorded in recent polls ?
It’s more a broad opinion that the numbers given by the national pollsters don’t mean very much outside of campaign season. Polling numbers with no election happening have never been a meaningful or useful predictor of the result of the following election. They aren’t even all that accurate during the campaign season. The essential lesson to learn from “Cleggmania” is that polls before an election are wrong and when it comes to actually marking a ballot paper, people don’t vote the way they said they would two weeks before.
Andrew Suffield (with respect, and I do mean that) –
Ordinarily, I’d agree with you, but in a Coalition I don’t think it can be dismissed as easily as that. As I said, Conservative MPs (not, it has to be said, without point) will be asking what exactly the Lib Dems bring to the table if, a big if, they feel that they have a majority to cash in or feel they are being weighed down. We can not treat reality with contempt – sub 15% can’t go on forever because it is Coalition partners as much as the voters the party needs to think about.
What I do worry about is just how vulnerable the party is to a media firestorm. What the DT did in a constituency surgery was outrageous, but what it did show is that the party, rather than the Coalition is the one taking the media hits. I dread to think what the media could do with, for example, a non-detained asylum seeker going AWOL to an already unpopular leadership. And this is before we mention the possibility that Milliband – a man I’ve always liked – might start to produce the goods. Certainly I imagine Labour will make gains in the local/regionals and might even take Holyrood so they are likely to get some momentum.
I agree polls are not a useful predictor of the result all the time, but at the moment they just need to indicate the mood music to our colleagues in the Conservative Party. I can very easily see pressure coming from the Tory benches to go it alone, especially if they start to want more cuts. Unless Nick and Danny Alexander (and probably David Laws) agree to more cuts – but I think that is remote.
The other, slightly wider issue is how much the idea of a ‘new politics’ has been damaged. I might like the idea, but I can’t pretend this Coalition has been a great advert. But that is likely for the future.
That looks like a list of nine quite important questions for the party and one which is pretty unimportant – number 7. Why does it matter much who the party selects for a contest we will come a poor third in? In terms of party morale I should think the Mayoral result in Bedford this May will have more impact than who we select as our candidate for Mayor of London. In London the result of the Assembly elections in 2012 will be much more important than the Mayoral.
The big questions for me are:
Will the leadership and the wider party agree what it’s message is about the party’s position in the coalition? So far we have seen Clegg and co. trying to ‘own’ the coalition while Farron and others have brodcast a more distinctive Lib Dem position. Personally I favour the latter, but we certainly won’t improve our public standing if we don’t agree what our approach to coaltiion is.
How will the party’s internal structures adapt to the party being in Government? No easy answers but the way we currently operate simply isn’t fit for purpose. In particular we need to work out how to deal with policy development, on the one hand contributing to the Government’s policy process and on the other preapring the process for producing a manifesto for the next election.
Liberal Neil. The problem though is that, as popular as this, ‘distinctive Lib Dem approach,’ might be on here I do have real reservations about how it would play out.
By joining this Coalition, the party has accepted the idea that the deficit is the be-all-and-end-all. Whatever I think about that position, the Party has to take that imperative. The moment anyone starts to articulate distinctive spending priorities, they are saying that they disagree with the Coalition’s imperatives. The opposition and media would tear the party down on that alone. As a matter of interest, what are these areas where you would like to see something more, ‘distinctive?’
I suspect that the reason Nick wants agreement in public, rather than disagreement is not to give the idea of, ‘owning,’ the Coalition but to minimise the opportunity for the Tory right to whip up the environment for a snap election. Never forget, the Lib Dems finished the 2010 election in a quite weak position, and the polls suggest it has got worse.
The other issue is that you seem to be assuming that these distinctive positions would be popular. Maybe, but at sub 15% I don’t think that the party is in much of a position to be flying kites? Immigration amnesty anyone?
Will the party distance itself from the idea of a merger and how will it respond to soft-peddling by tories in the Oldham bye-election and beyond?
Does the party want to remain independent or become the left wing of the Conservative church.
How will the party prevent the leadership from taking it in directions it does not want to go in?
(and this one is unfair but…) Is there any Lib Dem policy the party will not u-turn on?
For me the most important question is: how will a predominantly left of centre party, whose most important members are local council activists, respond to heavy election losses caused by a right of centre parliamentary party? Will they revolt?
What are you talking about? It’s always been massively distant from that.
@ Andrew Suffield
perhaps in your opinion, but from this side of the fence there are some noises being made by Conservatives who want the coalition to continue – it clearly hasn’t filtered through yet but Mark Pritchard MP was attacking this notion at the weekend so it should be relevant yo you guys. Also it must be clear that the tories are not campaigning properly in Oldham at the moment what are your thoughts on that?
I am in favour of the Tories surrendering seats and think that they should do it more often.
And there you have the leading lights of your party neatly encapsulated.
ONE question on an issue that affect people’s lives and NINE questions on psephology!
No wonder Cameron and Clegg can shove a battering ram through your manifesto. Too many of you just like playing at politics.
There is one massive question you have missed;
Will there be radical banking reform?
Both Vince and Nick have outlined precisely what is needed in the past. The need to separate retail banking from casino banking. The need for smaller banks which will no longer be bailed out if they fail, protecting the taxpayer from the fallout if this happens.
The question is will the Tory party, financed by City institutions go along with this?
This is absolutely key in judging whether this coalition is worth the effort.