Ming Campbell will use tomorrow’s conference speech at the Brighton conference to challenge the ‘cosy consensus’ established by Labour and the Tories. His chief of staff, Ed Davey, told the press this afternoon that “the Liberal Democrats are here to challenge the cosy consensus” and break up the “joint monopoly” held by the other two parties.
Ed described this “cosy consensus” sitting on the authoritarian centre-right, not addressing fairness, climate change and civil liberties issues. He promised the Lib Dems would fight on a liberal, progressive centre ground. Labour and the Tories were pandering to a few individuals in focus groups, representing their marginal constituencies, rather than addressing the whole of Britain.
Pushed on the implications of this opposition to the Tory-Labour consensus to a hung parliament, Ed refused to be drawn. A man who has never bought a lottery ticket, he insisted he’d leave it to the gamblers to guess at the next election’s results.
“They’re shadow-boxing on each other’s territory,” Davey insisted, as he read out a comically long list of policy areas on which the Lib Dems were the only opposition to Lab/Con agreement. There may be one problem to this narrative, however. The Herald’s reporters are already pressing party officials to explain how this attack on the ‘cosy consensus’ fits with the Scottish Lib Dems’ ongoing talks with other parties to work together in Holyrood. It will be interesting to see if Davey and Campbell can force the media to forget about coalitions for a second and pay attention to the dirth of debate between Britain’s two identikit parties.
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2 Comments
Hmm. Nice sound-bite, but rather reminiscent of “rattling the cage of British politics” – when’s it going to happen?
Hmmm surely he meant duopoly?Although the point he makes is nevertheless valid.
When it comes to some issues of national importance, the funding of political parties for example, both Labour and the Conservatives have shown a disregard for the public’s right to enter into the debate. Prefering a cosy chat about a settlement between the two organisations with the greatest vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
See the following from the terms of reference for the Phillips review
“Sir Hayden Phillips will work closely with stakeholders including, especially, the political parties and the Electoral Commission. He has been asked to aim to produce recommendations which are as much as possible agreed between the political parties with a view to legislation as soon as Parliamentary time allows.”
Recommendations should be agreed with political parties in advance?! With a view to a speedy rubber stamp by Parliamentarians (who whilst technically representing public opinion would here surely be conflicted by their party memberships). If these were two industry groups or companies that were being legislated for, such a requirement would never be acceptable to policy makers. It would restrict their ability to make an independent judegment about the best options. And whilst public engagement was part of the work, the Hansard Society (no doubt highly effectively) ran an online forum, this hardly constitutes a national conversation.
If you missed it and for an update see:
http://www.partyfundingreview.gov.uk/htms/news.htm