Author Archives: Jamie Dwan

British Politics is in a constant battle with the youth and the Lib Dems should be on the frontline

By Jamie Dwan | Mon 10th August 2015 - 4:11 pm

 

As a party we have, despite recent results, a lot going for us. We have thousands of enthusiastic members, a huge amount of dedication and heaps of potential. Potential is the key word. The key values that the Liberal Democrats stand for are: liberalism, freedom and equality for all. These match very closely with what today’s young believe. So why in the last election did UKIP (10%) and the Greens (9%) perform better with the youth vote than the Lib Dems (8%)?

We are living in a liberal age. People have internationalist, democratic and progressive views. Yet the Lib Dems achieved only eight MPs in May. This is clear evidence that we have failed to spread the message of progressive liberalism to young voters. We need to accept as a party that we are no longer the campaigning powerhouse that we once were. The policies are there, the framework is there, the people are there but the clear concise message to young people is not.

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 61 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • David Allen
    England fans would have been crazy to have carried Union Jacks to the World Cup. Scotland were also competing!...
  • Kevin Hawkins
    @Jana - Our vote decline in almost all of these elections is down to there being far more candidates standing. In some cases there were three or four extra part...
  • paul barker
    Unusually, there were 3 contests where Reform had stood before; in 2 of those their Vote fell. In both cases there seem to have been the same number of candidat...
  • Kevin Hawkins
    Here is my usual monthly summary of the last fifty local by-elections. Percentage Vote Share: Reform 24.24%, Labour 18.12%, Conservatives 17.52%, Liberal De...
  • Jana
    In summary, 12 contests and our vote has declined in 9 of them. Excellent result in Cirencester Park with our vote up more that 6% - the other two contests we c...