Here lies the deceased. The Conservative Party, 1834-2025.
Or, to borrow from a certain former Prime Minister who encouraged the use of a handbag in less than diplomatic negotiations,
This is an ex-parrot. It is not merely stunned. It has ceased to be, expired, and gone to meet its maker. It is a parrot no more. It has run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is a late parrot.
That of course was Margaret Thatcher speaking to the Tory Party conference, about the Lib Dems and our then new party symbol, “a bird of some kind” as she described it, in 1990.
Of course ironically it would in fact be herself who was (politically) defenestrated just a few weeks later when her own Cabinet turned on her and she stood down as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. Be careful what you wish for, some might say.
If any party knows about coming very close to its own political death it is the Lib Dems and our predecessor parties, sometimes reduced to just a handful of MPs. But, as our former leader Tim Farron likes to say, we Lib Dems are like cockroaches… almost impossible to kill us off.
It’s taken a decade since we were given a right royal kick in 2015 after our first time in UK-wide government since Liberal leader Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair served as the Secretary of State for Air in Churchill’s war time national Cabinet, but under Ed Davey’s steady leadership, punctuated by the occasional cringeworthy stunt to garner attention from a Westminster press pack who seem to have permanently forgotten that we even exist, we are back in a strong position on which we can and must build.
But what of the Tories? They really do seem to be in their death throes. Last week they came behind us in a national poll and, in others, we are pretty much neck and neck with them. Kemi Badenoch is failing to make any kind of impression at all, outflanked on her political right by Reform and their leader who, whatever else we may think of Farage, certainly knows how to garner himself and his party publicity… even if he did miss the UK/EU reset statement in the Commons and was deputised at PMQs by gob-on-a-stick Lee Anderson. Back off your holi-bops yet, Nigel?
Sometimes it’s now easy to forget that the Conservatives even exist. As much as we may like that, what a sorry state that is for-and we have to acknowledge this – one of the Western democratic world’s most electorally successful political parties. I like to claim that the Canadian Liberals are the most successful political party ever, but we can have that particular debate on another day.
But whilst, rather like Prime Minister Starmer, Badenoch seems to think her biggest threat is from Reform, so we get a race to the rhetorical bottom of the barrel on immigration, I gently suggest that she should be at least as worried about we Lib Dems. We have the opportunity to finish the Tories off at the next election. Or, at the very least, to overtake them in the number of Commons seats won.
Remember we’re not that far behind them now, we on seventy two MPs (we never tire of restating that that is the largest third party force in the Commons in a Century) and the Conservatives on just 120 (their worst result since the party was founded). In politics it’s all about momentum and we have it. That was shown again at the recent local elections where we overtook the Tories in number of councils run.
For all the talk of and attention given to Reform, I’d argue strongly and proudly that this is the Liberal moment. As I said last week, people like that we get things done and are true to our values. So, let’s get to it. Let’s campaign like never before. Put those Focus’s through every letterbox, knock on every door. Because, in 2029, we can rid Britain of the Tories as a credible political force.
And, let’s face it, after all the damage they’ve done to the social fabric of our nation, no party deserves it more. Let’s make sure the Tory parrot squawks its last.
Cleggmania is so last decade
There I was last week, doom-scrolling through Twitter as you do, when an old, somewhat familiar face stared back at me, making the pro-European case in a speech at a think tank. “It can’t be.”, I thought. But it was. Clegg is back.
Or, at least, he’d like to be. Sir Nick, as we must now call him, we’re told, wants to wield an influence again on British politics. Hasn’t he done enough, some might say (take that whichever way you will, by the way). Some might think that… I couldn’t possibly comment.
Back from America and his years as a Meta tech-Bro, the former deputy Prime Minister is keen to make his presence felt back in good old Blighty. And the points he made in his address to the Institute for Government were Liberal and sensible, as you’d expect, calling on the Prime Minister to make a choice between the UK being a “satellite state of the United States” or “a leading member of our own Continent.”.
But I couldn’t help thinking that, for us as a party, his every public utterance now just re-reminds voters of the Coalition and whilst, for sure, that Government did some good things, introducing Same Sex marriage being just one example, it was despised by its end and we were left with just eight MPs. Voters are just beginning to forget about it, when up pops Clegg to remind them. And it wasn’t just one speech. He’s now writing a book, which will no doubt mean another round of media appearances upon its publication.
Cleggmania (if it ever really existed) is no more. I gently suggest it’d be wise, for him and for us, if he made as few public interventions as possible.
Enjoy your Bank Holiday!
As we’re always reminded on social media on days like today, and quite right too, we have Bank Holidays thanks to the Bank Holidays Act 1871, introduced by Liberal MP Sir John Lubbock.
After a fantastic but exhausting weekend at Birmingham Pride, I intend to chill and go and watch a certain Mr Cruise strut his stuff for the last time in the Mission Impossible franchise at the flicks.
However you’re spending yours, don’t forget to raise a glass to Sir John.
Cheers!
* Mathew Hulbert is a former Councillor, is a regular commentator on TV and Radio, and is Co-Host of the Political Frenemies podcast.
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21 Comments
I watched Sir Nick’s interview and thought it pretty impressive despite the fact that I opposed most of the Coalition agenda as it unrolled at the time. It seems pretty mean and ungracious now to tell him to make as few interventions as possible. We ought to be better than that, and anyway, censoring and hiding historical facts isn’t exactly the liberalism of free speech as I understand it…. although I do recognise it as one form of journalism.
What might be the practical and theoretical similarities and differences between Liberal Democracy and Neoliberalism/Austerity?
If ‘we’ were to drive that nail into the Tory coffin, then the groundwork had better start happening in those 229 seats where the deposits were lost, 36%. No party can declare itself a national force based on the support of the lanyard brigade in leafy shires.
All parties have very weak areas, Greg, we’re not alone in that.
We will not win the election by advancing from 4% to 14% in those 229 seats.
Where we do need to advance is increasing the number of sests where we aee competing seriously. At the last election, it was about 80.
I agree with David. Nick Clegg is perfectly entitled to make contributions to the national discussion and to hit out like this is pretty unpleasant
Chris. Looking at the GE results in 2019, it would be difficult for any party to win without having significant support across the midlands, north, northwest/east etc. There’s only so many Shire seats to go round.
Well, Greg, if your idea is that we will win an overall majority (!!) we still will not be doing that by winning in our weakest 229 seats, irrespective if their geographical distribution.
If what we are aiming for is a significant advance – more realistic – this will happen in our new tranche
of target seats. Apart from holding our current seats, we need to increase the current number of plausible targets. None of those will fall into the 229 you mention.
Might it be relevant that before Nick Clegg led the L. D,s into the Austerity Coalition in 2010, Tressell Trust foodbanks gave out a little over 61,000 food parcels and in the financial year 2022-2023 nearly three million food parcels were handed out by the Trussell food banks alone.
In the latter year, just shy of 11,000 people were in hospital with malnutrition in England; 312 of those were children. 482 people were treated for rickets, of whom 405 were children. 171 people were treated for scurvy.
Might Austerity/Neo-liberalism be incompatible with Liberal Democrat aims and values?
https://centralbylines.co.uk/news/world/humaninterest/the-shocking-rise-of-foodbanks-and-poverty-in-the-uk/
I totally agree with David Raw about the ungraciousness towards Nick Clegg. You have to remember that (a) Nick Clegg is the only LibDem leader in living memory who managed to take the LibDems into Government, and (b) Government is ALWAYS messy. When you’re the 3rd party in Parliament, it’s easy to make utopian demands for all the things you’d love the Government to do “End poverty!“, “Make everyone better off!” , “Proportional representation now!“, “Solve climate change” and so on. When you’re in Government, trying to balance all the competing demands on the nation’s resources, you discover it’s not so easy – and that’s even without the severe restriction of being the junior partner in a coalition at a time when a recent financial meltdown in the USA has just screwed up the UK’s finances. We could be a bit more generous towards Nick Clegg’s achievements.
As for the coalition being unpopular: It wasn’t. The 2015 election result showed that the coalition was pretty popular. Unfortunately for us, for various reasons the voters decided they preferred the senior coalition partner 🙁
Regarding Nick Clegg; I agree with David Law and Callum Robertson, but for different reasons…
Listening to Mr. Clegg I think of the person (slave) standing behind the all powerful Roman emperor and reminding him, “Respice post te! hominem te esse memento!.. a phrase which I ‘prefer’ to translate as, “Look back and remember you can make mistakes”..
Nick Clegg’s earliest slogan as Lib Dem leader was “Big Permanent Tax Cuts”. That was when he first revealed his true ambition – to change the Lib Dems into a right-wing Party and ally with the Tories. It became the “Clegg Coup”.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Clegg-Coup-Britains-Coalition-Government/dp/1908096098#detailBullets_feature_div
Of course one can’t tell politicians to shut up. What Matthew is pointing out is, simply, that whenever Clegg speaks, the Lib Dems lose.
” “Big Permanent Tax Cuts”.
Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where he was tasked with a project to produce “Big Benefits for Free”. Whan he asked what the budget for this project was , pointy haired boss just said “You’re missing the point”
David Allen – you mean when Clegg called for lower taxes for lower paid people. That we achieved in the coalition by raising the tax threshold ?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/nov/11/nickclegg-taxcuts
Hi Jennie – If Clegg had merely been the kind of charlatan who makes promises they know they can’t afford, it wouldn’t have been quite so bad. But, back in 2008, the “flat tax” was the big new idea on the American right, and, the point of the flat tax wasn’t solely to bribe the rich with tax cuts. It was also to shrink the State, get rid of welfare budgets, kill off socialism, and importantly, also defuse the parallel threat from social liberalism.
What better way to meet that last objective, but to take over the Lib Dems on a false prospectus, then reveal Clegg’s true-blue colours, and sign up to the Osborne-Cameron “austerity” project?
I think Nick Clegg was one of the earliest, if not the first, to use the phrase “savage cuts.” This prompted me to write to the Guardian (21/09/09, before we entered the coalition) that “If even the Liberal Democrats, heirs to the party of Keynes and Beveridge, are speaking of public sending cuts . . in the middle of a recession, my 40 yeas of teaching economics have been a waste of time.” But, in fairness to Clegg, “fiscal austerity to balance the books” was flavour of the month, along with the mistaken belief that if the UK didn’t form a government within days after an election the financial sky would fall in. Clegg, though naive in believing this, and outsmarted by Cameron, was, and presumably remains, a great communicator, as well as a thorough-going Liberal. We should be delighted that he wants to rejoin us in preservation of Liberalism against growing international odds.
No, Simon.
The standard Tory budget is generally “two steps towards inequality, one step back towards equality, publicise the latter, hide the former”. The Coalition modification was “two steps towards inequality, one step back towards equality, and let the Lib Dems claim credit for the latter”.
To be fair, Labour can do this too. Witness the disability benefits changes – £5bn cuts to benefits, £1bn generously to be spent on “helping the disabled into work”, no doubt with an expensive fanfare to celebrate Labour’s generosity….
A flat tax can that combines income tax and employee national insurance can actually be more progressive than exising higher rate tax levels if implemented with a high enough personal tax allowance or tax credit and applied equally to all forms of income including capital gains and unearned income.
The flat rate of the tax is set to generate existing levels of income tax and employee NI for the treasury and the high allowance threshold increases the effective tax rate on higher incomes while reducing the effective tax rate on the lower paid (to Nil for those earning below the threshold).
Applying the flat tax rate to imputed rental income from owner-occupied residential property makes the system yet more progressive while generating needed additional sources of taxation for financing of public services when no fiscal space exists for increasing government borrowing.
I share Mathew’s feeling about the ‘return’ of Nick Clegg, especially his effect on our image. We need to be very strong in our public comments if and when he says things we disagree with, making it a matter of ideas and policies not personal. There are certain aspects of Liberalism that he did not show when leader, in spite of achieving some good things in government.
The current system manages to be neither progressive nor flat. It starts with the highest rate at the bottom (withdrawal of Universal Credit) falls to the lowest level (28%) rises to 42%, another high rate while Child Benefit is withdrawn, down to 42% again, up again when personal allowance is withdrawn, back down to 42% and finally up to 45%. You could certainly flatten it a bit while making it more redistributive.
@ Nigel Jones Sir Nicholas hasn’t ‘returned’, Nigel – he’s just had an interview – for what I would describe as his version of the historical record (much of which I opposed at the time).
We can’t just ‘disappear’ people in a ‘liberal society’, although I do agree with one point Mr Hulbert made about certain antics in more modern times as being ‘cringeworthy’. Even comedians can’t keep telling the same old jokes time and time again.
@Simon R: Nick Clegg was “the only LibDem leader in living memory who managed to take the LibDems into Government” only because of an accident of Parliamentary arithmetic that made Lib Dem participation in government practically inevitable. Unless you’re suggesting that the party was playing some sort of 4-dimensional chess in the 2010 GE campaign to engineer a hung Parliament (and perhaps didn’t mind too much if that meant losing a few seats on the way) you can’t really give him that much credit for it. What matters is how the party performed in government, and unfortunately the answer is “not very well”.
Yes, voters who liked the Coalition mainly voted Tory in 2015. They saw no reason to vote for us instead of the senior party, principally because we did nowhere near enough to differentiate us from them.