Author Archives: Patrick Streeter

We need to champion radical and avant-garde policies

The Lib Dems are bumbling along at the lower end of the polls at about 12% of the vote. Reform UK and the Greens are lapping at their heels, and if the Libs Dems are not careful, they will be eclipsed by one or both of them. Both Tories and Labour are in disarray, but in spite of this, the Lib Dems are making no headway. All they are doing is just scooping up the protest vote. Why is this? It is because they have no imaginative policies.

I have studied the policy paper, For a Fair Deal. It is fine as far as it goes, but a bit limp. It is full of targets, without any explanation on how they are to be achieved. In its core is a contradiction. As large an elephant in the room as anyone might find. On page ten we state that, with the exception of emergencies, we will balance the budget, but on twenty-one other occasions we commit ourselves to investments, without showing how they will be funded. It would be fine if we are applying Keynesian economics, the jewel in the crown of the Liberal armoury, but we do not.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 52 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Mick Taylor
    @DavidRaw. To be strictly accurate, the Church in Wales and the Church in Scotland play no state role since they were disestablished by the 1906-14 Liberal Gove...
  • Jonah Weisz
    Hi Paul, I thought you might be interested to know that we have an ME/LC Lib Dems group where we discuss and coordinate our advocacy efforts - just drop me a li...
  • Judy Abel
    @Geoff thank you for your comments. Unfortunately those experiences sound familiar. Because the NHS is free at the point of use we maybe don’t think we can ex...
  • David Evans
    Mick I'm not at all sure that the Lib Dems sold out in 2010 over student fees. The leadership did, and carried on in that vein whenever it deemed it necessary ...
  • Tristan Ward
    @ David Raw "I’m glad to see you say that the opposition to abolishing slavery was bought off" One interpretation is that majority opinion in 19th cen...