Author Archives: Mark Blackburn

Editor’s Note: The party is currently running an essay competition for members of the Liberal Democrats, to submit 1000 words on the theme “What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today.” The deadline for contributions is 2nd November. If you would like us to publish your submission, send it to [email protected].

Completely by chance, I’m writing this in the very house David Lloyd George lived and died. I’m here on a retreat for a few days, but had no idea of the history of the house when I booked. Almost one hundred years ago he became leader of the Wartime Coalition. Yes, another coalition, and then as now, not good for the Liberal Party. More importantly for my purpose here, he was the one of the architects and founders of the modern welfare state, worked closely with Keynes to formulate economic policy, and in his final vote in the Commons in 1943, condemned the government for their failure to back the Beveridge report.

It wasn’t easy to be a Liberal then, and history shows the decline of the party during that period and subsequently, though Lloyd George maintains a reputation as one of our finest Prime Ministers. Certainly, it isn’t easy to be a Liberal Democrat now. Some write us off, only 8% of the vote, only eight seats in the House of Commons. Still, that represents over two million voters, more than the SNP, a considerable franchise.

Consider also that the 2014 British Social Attitudes Survey found more young people than ever have liberal attitudes. So the recovery of a Liberal Democrat party isn’t a hopeless case. But as what sort of party? As one standing for vague centrism, more economically competent and less scary than Labour, but kinder than the Conservatives? No, we’ve seen where ‘equidistance’ got us in May. We were so busy trying to straddle the middle ground our legs got further and further apart until the electorate kicked us firmly where it hurts. We must also avoid the revisionism which blames it all on nasty Lynton Crosby frightening our voters away at the last minute, complicit with the SNP threat to the Union. Doubtless this exacerbated our disastrous performance, but the situation was pretty dire already – 10 of our 11 MEPs lost in 2014 and thousands of councillors over the last five years.