Author Archives: Theo Rodwell

We are being held hostage by the Tory voters who have lent us their vote

How many people reading this article have been sat at a house party in the north – and when the conversation gets onto politics (which it usually does), no other attendees know a single thing about the Liberal Democrats. Attendees aged eighteen, nineteen, twenty who have not got a clue about what we stand for, a single policy, except, maybe Davey’s stunts.

I tell them I support the Liberal Democrats, and a true response I once got was, “is that the orange one?”.

This is where we are standing with the youth, and hey, a lot of the older generations too.
I asked myself, ‘why is this?’ Why are we not cutting across while the Greens came from absolutely nowhere and are dominating the conversation? Sure, you may say the charisma of Zack Polanski, but to me, he is just a raving populist – unachievable goals matched with undeliverable promises. Love him or loathe him, it’s as Polanski stands for something distinct, that has led the Greens to craft an identity that has got them into the national conversation.

From this I then came to the conclusion – we have no identity. There is no attempt to create an identity. This is as we are being held hostage by the Tory voters who have lent us their vote – the leadership is too scared to announce a truly bold, a truly liberal policy, in fear of disappointing the southern Tory voters who have voted for us in the last big sets of elections. I may not have the same life experience you have, but I do know not to trust someone to stay with me who went against me for most of their lives.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Leekliberal
    Isn't it time to thank Ed Davey for all he has done for us, but to suggest that he retires in favour of a new leader who can engage in a cutting edge dialogue n...
  • Steve J Smith
    The worst part about this is those 13/14/15 year olds who were curious to learn and loved science and nature videos will now be stuck watching AI brainrot Nurse...
  • theakes
    1. Agree 100% 2. More in Common Poll today has Greens down to 9%, hopefully Polanski's mad views have resonated 3 Lib Dem performance at P M Q today much imp...
  • David Allen
    "Isn’t this (tax avoidance) justification for simplifying the tax system?" HMRC (or at any rate, my father at the old Estate Duty Office back in the sevent...
  • Chris Moore
    You ask a lot of great questions, but my feeling is one of your central ideas is slightly out of kilter. What we are trying to do in the South is persuade af...