Five years ago, in response to very different political currents, I wrote an article for this site called “What a Liberal Democrat PM’s Christmas message might say”. It was grounded in the idea that our ambition as a party shouldn’t just be to offer better policies, but to offer a grander and more purposeful political language to the electorate, conveying a vision for the country.
With the ongoing confluence of crises, and the Government’s inability not just to respond to them but to mobilise language to inspire us all to pull through, it seems to me worth a go hazarding a guess at what a Liberal Democrat PM’s New Year’s message in this year of years might say. Think of it not as a counterfactual but as food for thought, as for it to be relevant it assumes that almost all these crises are still facing our imagined PM.
So here it is:
In the years that have led us to this moment in history, it has been easy to forget those rare and sombre occasions in which our country has faced awful hardships like the ones we now face. In fact, it has been tempting to treat them as extremes of the past, troubles of a magnitude that modern life had confined to history.
As your Prime Minister I have learnt the same lesson as you in this terrible year; that challenges to our resolve as individuals, to the spirit of our communities, and to the courage of our nation, never lurk far beyond the horizon. The very sense of freedom and opportunity that this government has fixed as its north-star has been rocked by all our experiences of being isolated from the people and places that give meaning to our lives.
For many families, this government’s best early efforts have yet to reverse decades of neglect. Parents are still tonight sleeping with tears of anxiety, having done all they can to give their children the best possible festive period in spite of financial insecurity and uncertainty. Beyond our economic crises those who have found no solace in the home this year, who found not care but rather cruelty simply for asserting who they are, or for no reason at all, will be lying awake dreading, not dreaming of, the future.
But the festive period, of this strange sort or the normal, is about hope. The spirit of the season is rejoicing at the coming of a new year, a new life, imbued with the dream of a chance to overcome our hardship and embrace a fresh start.