Sir Robert Walpole (Whig 1721-1742) was the first prime minister in the modern sense. Ever since major UK parties have always had one leader. But Walpole and his successors, whether prime ministers or opposition leaders, were not subject to the relentless pressure of 24/365 broadcast news until the mid-1990s. Perhaps John Major (1990-97) was the first to suffer. Since Major’s day media outlets have multiplied, coverage has become shallower, more sensationalised, more knee-jerk. Meanwhile social media abounds, analysing what’s been said (and sometimes, what’s not been) syllable by syllable. Today, the media demands on any party leader are immense and even, perhaps, inhumane.
Does this matter to the Liberal Democrats? It does. We’re looking for a new leader. Tim Farron was eviscerated by the media for his personal and religious beliefs, diverting him from electoral themes to the detriment of us all. And it’s not only a matter of inquisitional pressure, it’s time pressure too. Being ready to respond at – almost – any hour of the day or night to the media’s agenda and external events strains family relationships and even health It also deprives a leader of time to manage the party, to think and to recharge.
We are now choosing a new leader who will be under the same pressures. We have to accept that within the parliamentary party we don’t have a superstar capable of resisting these pressures and conveying our appeal to the full-spectrum electorate. We must consider if it is reasonable to subject our choice to such demands. If not, how we can ameliorate the problem while still being well led. We should think outside the box that has existed since Walpole. We should ask whether a single leader is appropriate in today’s environment. We should consider if two heads are better than one.
I visualise joint leaders, splitting the role either by time (a week on, a week off?) or by speciality (one foreign, one domestic?). A duopoly would allow leaders to spend more time with their families, to be out of the limelight a little, to think, to listen to colleagues, to rest and relax.
Would the electorate buy it? I believe they would. It’s self-evident that the existing system puts enormous strain on party leaders and senior politicians. Liberal Democrats should not slavishly follow the path beaten over the last two centuries by right and left parties but should offer a sensible alternative. One way of signalling that would be with joint leaders; especially if there is a gender split. One woman and one man would appeal to different constituencies and could deliver nuanced messages more effectively than a single leader. Now’s the time show the British public that the Liberal Democrats are not like other parties. We are better than them.
* Ken Mumm is a passionate pro-European, loves cosmopolitan life and was politicised by the Brexit question. He joined the Lib Dems as the only sensible place to fight those bent on destroying the future for ourselves and our children.
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14 Comments
The Greens have tried this, name me Caroline Lucas’s co leader; difficult one that is I had to use Google to find his name.
The Party Leader will become PM if we do well – they would then have all the pressures you mention and much much more.
We would effectively be saying we cant find someone who can be PM
Hopefully, having a Deputy Leader in place (Jo Swinson) will help workload-sharing. I’m very sympathetic to a genuine leadership team being visibly operational, but I suspect that formal ‘job-sharing’ confuses, internally and externally.
I’ll suggest why I think the public won’t buy it with one simple question: “who would be Prime Minister?”
Even if the public were initially open to the idea, several months of that same 24 hour media asking that question will change opinions. Then there will be the follow-up question, which our opponents will enjoy asking: “if no Lib Dem is strong enough to lead their party on their own, how can they hope to lead the country?”
I’m old enough to remember the Aliance when we effectively had two leaders. It was problematic when we were two parties. It won’t be any better now we are one.
Not sure about multiple leaders, but maybe a greater emphasis on a leadership ‘team’, with some of the media workload being shared out.
This is a thoughtful article and I don’t disagree with its analysis of how hard it is to be a party leader today. But 2 leaders? No.
Mark Marsh beat me to it, but I too remember the Alliance years. In fact one of the things that attracted me then was the concept of dual leadership. But the 1983 election exposed the problem: one our leaders had cabinet experience and gravitas but was a dreadful campaigner, the other was seen as a lightweight in policy terms but was popular with voters. The resulting ‘Ettrickbridge summit,’ right in the middle of the election campaign, was an ugly business and didn’t even resolve the problem.
In 1987 the issue was that the two leaders simply didn’t like each other, and clearly disagreed on key issues. That was my first election as a member, and I recall the universal view in the post-mortem afterwards: ‘Never, ever again must we go to the public with 2 leaders’. Sure it had been an interesting experiment, but voters want clarity.
Would it be different 30 years on? I don’t think so. Unless the pair were absolutely 100% in lock-step agreement on every single issue. If not, the media game would be ‘spot the difference,’ and every tiny nuance would be hammered to death and exploited by the very media environment you talk about Ken.
There seems to be an obvious drawback to me. If the split role is driven by the ‘great demands of the media’ aren’t people going to ask “well how to the Tories, Labour and SNP manage with one Leader?” Their deputies are all but non existent.
The media are more likely to mock the LibDems, a party with a handful of MP’s after all, for having to split the job. They will play one off against the other and relentlessly infer that the LibDems are covering themselves as they have reservations about Vince Cable.
frankie
Jonathan Bartley – extremely good on TV from what I have seen. He was probably the best of the party leaders on that medium – and clearly Caroline herself and Nicola Sturgeon are pretty good too (Tim, I thought was not bad at all). Nuttall was possibly even worse than Theresa!
The challenge here would be that the media will be looking very carefully for any differences between the 2 leaders real or imagined and that will be what they will be trying to exploit, to the distraction of everything else.
Job share seems to work very well when the job doesn’t require too much high level decision making. My daughter has a line manager(s) split in a job share role. She has already worked out which of the two managers is easier to get the most favorable decisions made. So if she wants to get something done she waits for a week in order to ask the more amenable manager to make the decision. Just imagine a Cable/Brake leadership and Andrew Neil pushes Tom Brake on national TV into agreeing to an LD position that Vince really doesn’t agree with? Suppose a major cock-up occurs, do you ask for one resignation or two? And don’t get me started as to who should get the nuclear launch codes and on which day of the week!
I take all the comments aboard happily, but must ask if anyone really thinks the leader or leaders chosen this time around are ever going to end up in No 10, excepts as guests at a reception. I’d suggest an LD PM is some way away.
Ken, in practice, yes, this is how we need to do it. Team leadership is the way.
In name, no, we are too weak in terms of public image to hand our detractors more mud to throw at us.
I’m more concerned about not limiting our leadership pool to MPs only.
Re MPs only, agreed. Although we may have leaders in the making in the Commons cohort, none seem ready to stand now. The only MP’s name in the frame is Vince Cable. I don’t believe his coalition record and his post-brexit utterances will prove bullet-proof against fierce media attention. Questioning of Tim Farron on gay and abortion issues took the focus off our election story for a week or more. We don’t want to see Vince Cable suffer in the same sort of way, at our cost.
So, do we have a rousing leader capable of inspiring voters new to LD elsewhere in the party?
How about a leader of the English Lib Dems? This would
– give us another high profile speaker
– clarify the federal nature of the party
– and reinforce the federal structure we’re proposing for the UK.
I work in a large car company, and often when someone pops up on the media, it’ll be a [senior sounding job description] of [brand] [geographical area – optional] who I’ve never heard of. It’s an effective strategy.