Today’s Guardian carries an interview with comedian/actor Eddie Izzard: interesting for those of us who are fans (especially of his classic mid-90s’ shows), but also interesting for the problem it poses for those of us who are Lib Dems.
Asked about his politics, and his long-standing support for Labour (‘he describes himself as more Blair-ite than Brown-ite’), Eddie sweepingly sums up Labour and the Tories thus:
I just believe in the goodwill of people, the power of people to do something positive. And that’s why I’m in the Labour party. The Labour party believes in fairness, and the Conservative party is more about getting the country working well and rewarding high-flyers”
It’s an unremarkable distinction – variations of it are used by voters up and down the country, whether consciously or not, to define their tribal voting patterns. Labour = Fairness, Tories = Wealth-creation: this is pretty much the brand that assures the two larger parties of a core vote.
Which brings us to the age-old question: if you had to sum up the purpose of the Lib Dems in a sentence, what would you say?
In a sense, even to ask the question points to the problem of marketing liberalism: it’s a philosophy, a way of thinking, as much as it is a call to arms. Part of what makes people liberals is their refusal to believe that all questions do have a simple, binary answer. After all, we’re about Fairness AND Wealth-creation, and we’d argue you can’t have one without the other.
And that’s been a traditional problem for the party, when it tries to distil the pure essence of the party’s philosophy into a bite-size catechism. It’s why, in an attempt to be all-inclusive and tick every box, we end up with unwieldy policy paper titles like Trust in People: Make Britain Free, Fair and Green. Or why, at the other extreme, we end up with vacuous, philosophy-free policy paper titles like Make it Happen.
Ever since the 2005 general election – and the failure of the Lib Dems to make the electoral breakthrough that the unique circumstances of the 2001-05 Parliament afforded the party – there has been a quest to find the Lib Dem Holy Grail: ‘a narrative’.
So here’s a piece of homework for LDV readers. Find that Holy Grail. Sum up the party’s purpose in a phrase, a sentence at most, which encapsulates the Lib Dem approach to politics in a way which will resonate with voters.
My suggestion? “Liberalism: letting everyone be free to come together”. But I’m sure you can do better.
Incidentally, he may not be a Lib Dem, but Eddie Izzard did come up with his own definition of a liberal, which I could sign up to:
Politically, I am a radical liberal, that is my position. I would be a liberal, but the image of a liberal is sort of – because left and right have been in power for a long time in Britain, the image of a liberal is one of, “Oh… I’m not sure, and you’re…? Oh, really? And you…? Oh, really? I’m on the fence here…” But not for me, I am passionate about free health service for all, that’s a world idea, I think that’s very groovy, but also, if you have an idea, in small businesses or businesses don’t have to be sort of rape and pillaging things; that can be groovy. “Revolutionary liberal,” that sounds better to me, I think, storm the House of Parliament, kick the fucking doors in, get in there and say, “Look, we’ll pay for the damage.” Have a revolution, just budget for it, yeah? You know…
“Have a revolution, just budget for it.” Perhaps we’ve found our Holy Grail?
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107 Comments
For fence-sitters everywhere – it’s about balance.
My old favourite:
What do we want? Gradual Change! When do we want it? In due course!
I’ve been told by an activist in the North London borough in which Mr Izzard lives that he requested one of our ‘Save Our Post Office!’ posters for his front window, so he can’t be too ill disposed towards us!
“Fairness v wealth-creation” is of course too charitable. The other parties exist to pitch the vested interests of one section of society against those of another.
We, on the other hand, refuse to prejudge people on the basis of whether they are rich or poor, black or white, parent or childless, etc.
There is so much politics that could be done without this kind of prejudice colouring it, but the other parties just aren’t interested. Yes, of course, class interests do come into direct conflict sometimes, but if you treat politics as a whole like this, you will approach 90% of issues with dogmatic blinkers on.
I once went through months of consulting people about what they thought the answer to this was. But your “Liberalism: letting everyone be free to come together” captured my attention – a couple of years ago I suggested “Liberal Democrats: the party that says sex is all right,” has the same sort of ring to it 😉
(http://loveandliberty.blogspot.com/2006/06/why-john-prescott-shouldnt-be-sacked.html)
You’re making a fundamental mistake by using their own words to describe the other parties when in reality they are:
Labour – reactionary, authoritarian, statist (my way or the highway)
Tories – reactionary, authoritarian, laissez-faire (who cares?)
Lib Dems – A thoughtful and passionate approach that protects our fundamental freedoms and promotes a fair, prosperous economy.
‘Prosperity for all through shared responsibility and respect.’
We need to start taking ourselves more seriously. We have accepted too much of the narrative created by the other parties for too long. Vince Cable is gaining a lot of respect at the moment and it’s time we used that to make the other parties define themselves against us instead of us constantly having to redefine ourselves against them.
There is an incredibly easy story to tell of decades of Labour and Tory incompetence that has alternately led us from the Poll Tax through Black Wednesday to the Dot Com bubble to the Credit Crunch.
We are the change this country needs and we should be shouting it from the rooftops.
It’s a bit of a strawman since the Tories would say they’re fairer than Labour and Labour would say they’re better at wealth creation than the Tories.
But if we’re going for simplistic answers that make us feel good about our own parties, the Lib Dems stand for the freedom of people to live their own lives in the way they want.
Tories = wealth
Labour = Fairness
Lib Dems = Freedom
Liberalism is all about the individual rather than the state. Individual rights, individual choices.
Heck, if you wanted to do it in one word, individualism would be a good start…
Much hilarity had at the dinner table over this.
Best anti-suggestion so far: ‘We want action, not slogans’.
I thought Freedom, Fairness, Trust was pretty good (yes, I know its not a sentence). I would like us to emphasise the Radical more. I don’t see myself or the party as left, right, centre or any other position. I see us as Radical. We trust the people. We’re about giving them the freedom to live their lives in the way they want to in a spirit of tolerance for others. i.e. we want to enable people to live their lives in the way they want to as long as in doing so they don’t impinge on other people’s right to live their lives in a different way.
Chris – I also like the idea of reclaiming radicalism. I liked Paddy’s idea of us occupying the “radical centre” of British politics.
As an aside, viewing this page in the US, the Google Ads are for Eddie Izzard ringtones!
A big bunch of hypocrites.
The very party that claims to want to be tough on crime yet has a most lackadaisical stance toward drugs including legalising cannabis and declassifying ecstasy, that promises to stand up for Britain in Europe yet has a policy of further integration, and that promises to be green and in favour of a moratorium on the building of new incinerators yet is trying to construct a massive waste burner against fierce local opposition in Nick Clegg’s own constituency of Sheffield?
Yeah, brilliantly on-topic, Geoffrey. I bet your great fun at parties.
Just to tackle one of your rantings, drugs prohibition the way it ‘works’ now is the criminals’ best friend. It gets ordinary, law-abiding people into contact with crooks, makes sure they get the most unsafe drugs, and international and local gangsters all laugh all the way to the bank. It’s the biggest boost for crime on the entire planet.
If you think the current law is tough on crime, you’ve never stepped outside your door in your life.
I’m no hypocrite. I can’t swear you’re not a complete idiot, though.
(D’oh! “You’re”. OK; I realise the irony of that sort of mistake when suggesting someone else is an idiot.)
How about:
Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty, preserve private interests justly by reconciling them with public right, rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference, exalts the individual not the rule, and attacks monopoly not capital.
[words of an old Tory]
🙂
Word “Liberalism” derives from latin word liber, free.
How about: “Liberal Democrats are for freedom of choice?”
Will have a proper think tomorrow. In the meantime, a conversational rather than slogan-on-a-backdrop suggestion:
“Liberal Democrats. For people and things the Daily Mail don’t like.”
or
“For government by the Daily Mail, vote for the other two. To tell the Daily Mail to f*** off, vote Lib Dem.”
“Free libraries for a pound”?
Liberalism is fairness, freedom and democracy. (Hackneyed, I know).
Hackneyed and wrong! Liberalism is inimical to democracy – there is always a tension between them that needs resolved.
How about “Liberal Democrats: The plane speaking party”….?
I’ll get my coat….
The drugs war between Geoffrey and Alex would be interesting but they are both wrong. The only way to beat the dealers, is to go back to an experiment run by the Thatcher government, between 87/88 – 92/3, in one of the towns on the periphery of Manchester, Bury I think. I realise using a Thatcherite idea is abhorrant to the vast majority but personally if it works I don’t care where it comes from. A licensed doctor registered every addict in said town and provided their drug of choice on prescription. The dealers went away because they couldn’t compete. In the final year crime dropped by an effective 55%. A £100 per day heroin user was supplied two days pure heroin and cutting agent and syringes etc for £4:00. As for the sentence to sum up the lib-dems I don’t have a clue.
I know – “Liberal Democrats – not a neo-conservative white-supremicist moonbat in sight”
“We’ll say whatever we think will keep our career politicians in a job”?
“We’re prepared to shoot ourselves in the foot if nobody else will”
Liberalism: because as long as you’re not hurting anyone else, you should be able to do whatever the Goddamn hell you like (including blaspheming in slogans)
One of the problems is that the Lib Dems have such a diverse range of views within the party particularly on economic issues, where they range from thatcherite to socialist.
Socially, lib dems tend to be libertarian but too extreme for anyone with ambition to want to advertise that (would you headline your local focus with a call to legalise porn? Didn’t think so!)
Political liberalism – supporting freedom of thought, expression, democratic rights, human rights, minority rights, the rule of law etc is probably the most consistent ideology and one that the public might want to identify with – particularly given the authoritarian slide of British government,
How about, paraphrasing and misattributing Voltaire:
“Liberals will defend your right to say what you think, even if we disagree”
Brian: I don’t think your idea necessarily contradicts the point Alex was making, though. The high mark up on street drugs is precisely because of the risks involved for the drug dealer, and the fact that it has to employ a whole network of criminals to supply the drugs. That the NHS could provide them for much cheaper is evidence for this fact. Legalising and regulating the sale of less harmful drugs like cannabis would remove a huge revenue stream from criminals. The only difference in your/Thatcher’s version is that the regulation is pretty heavy handed, in that you need a prescription from your doctor to get it, and therefore it would probably leave a significant market for criminals to supply.
I think Alex has a good line of thought 🙂
“Vote Liberal Democrat. Because Richard Littlejohn doesn’t.”
More seriously I think “It’s about Freedom” is as good as we’ve come up with in recent years.
As a rhetorical flourish Charles “there’s a simple difference between us and the other parties. We’re liberals. They aren’t” was good if slightly circular.
Freedom – anything more duplicates it – if you add fairness you are saying the same thing – ie freedom of opportunity in life.
to be a bit controversial, all parties are defined by the caricatures of their opposition. The Tories very name is an example. The Tories image as being for the greedy has informed an image of them being for people who believe in wealth creation. Labour is defined as for the working people after the tories try to scare richer people.
I would say that if we were a supermarket we’d be Waitrose, a niche product primarially aimed at the middle classes, gradually growing market share but pandering to a different market to Asda and Tesco (Labour and the Tories!)
The free democrats in germany once branded themselves the “Partei der Besserverdienenden” (“Party of the better-earning people”), this has defined them. Not necessarially a good example! I noticed Obama constantly championing the middle classes.
How about we market ourselves as the party for the middle classes and those aspiring to be one?
Oh, and here’s my stab:
“The Liberal Democrats are for the freedom of the individual.”
If you start unpacking that, or indeed the “fairness” and “wealth-creation” sentences about the other two main parties, you immediately come across a wealth of grey areas and points for debate.
Freedom: OK, but where does one person’s freedom infringe on another’s, and how do you deal with it? Can you be poor and meaningfully free?
Fairness: But how do you define fair? And what means are legitimate to achieve the stated ends of a fairer society?
Wealth-creation: But wealth for who? And what’s the better way to create it? (I’m also pretty sure a lot of Tories would object to us leaving out their wishes to ram their own morality down our throats…)
Doesn’t make the exercise in summing up the starting points any less useful.
Waitrose? My arse, surely we’re the Co-op?
Liberal Democrats: we can have an argument about ANYTHING!
Actually the charicterization of the Tories as “wealth-creating” is wrong. They are the party of “wealth concenrating”.
How about: ‘Can’t decide? Vote Lib-Dem!’
I think I’ve got it! How about this?
“The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”
“We will do unto you as you do unto us”
Erm..!
Alternatively, one of my favorites on the doorstep is: “I don’t care who you vote for, just make sure you do vote.”
If Eddie had mentioned us it would have been something like this:
I’m just waiting for it to sink in that the fact we have this inability to sum up our party in 10 words or less in a consistent and universally accepted way should be ringing massive, humongous alarm bells that screech, “Danger! Danger!”
Holy Grail is a pretty accurate tag, although I’ll raise you a Moby Dick if you like.
My dream…
The reality…
Yup, freedom, fairness, democracy, rule of law, human rights, green… all good stuff…
But to return to Stephen’s brief:
This exercise isn’t about nuances of political philosophy; or careful bundles of bravo words. It’s about (in my view) simple frames that voters reach for when trying to understand how the rag-bag of policies that each party espouses amount to a coherent whole. George Lakoff has lots to say on this.
I’d agree that the recurring dominant frames are “Labour=fairness” and “Conservative=wealth-creation”. And I’d suggest that the two default frames for the LibDems are: “What are they for anyway?” and “They won’t win anyway”.
(The “anyway” is important because it provides permission not to have to get mired in trying to understand reasonable-sounding but complex policies that don’t fit preconceived left-right categories.)
Because of these default frames I find myself particularly taken by two (what I took to be) tongue-in-cheek entries: Alex’s invocation of the Daily Mail and Oranjepan with “balance”.
Alex tells you what the LibDems are against. Not the detail, but the whole… you know… yuk, the Daily Mail…
Oranjepan tells you that it’s not only the state but also the individual; not only the economy but also the environment; regulation but not too much; a bit of this solution, a bit of that; allowing people do what they want, but within reason; diplomacy and compromise before shouting and guns…
Of course there are dangers with these. The Daily Mail sells papers because it’s values resonate with so many people. And “balance” can turn into “fence-sitting”, which was Orangepan’s dig.
And while we’re here… Sorry, I’ll shut up in a sec… But “radical” really doesn’t do it. For many people, “radical” means “wants to change lots of things”, revolutionary, extremist. Fine if it’s the right things being changed. But Thatcherism was “radical”. Tony Benn is a “radical”. Loved by people who agree with them. Hated by people who don’t. The word itself tells you nothing about whether you might want to agree or not. And yet every party trips over itself to be seen as “radical”.
Grr….
Voting Liberal Democrat: a way for the middle classes to feel comfortable about abstaining.
Liberalism: Balances power equally between the church, state, business, etc. so none is big enough to dominate people’s lives.
I’ve always been rather sad that Izzard isn’t a LibDem considering I agree with most of his views. I do think he is really a LibDem but just grew up with Labour as the only real left-wing party.
To be hounest I think that if we were actually the party in power or the main opposition we would be the ones taking Labour’s tag (which doesn’t really apply to them anymore anyway). We are about fairness and equality, freedom and democracy- much like the tiny scrap of old labour that still pretends they own their party.
The Tory ideology, to my mind is one of fundamental selfishness, but Labour (or rather true Labour) i have less of a problem with.
As for slogans:
‘The LibDems: The ones your racist next door neighbor warned you about’
Or
‘The LibDems: Like Jesus, right down to the sandals’
Or
‘The LibDems: Empower your brain cells’
The problem with slogans is that most of the effective ones have already been snapped up by the advertising agencies, leaving what’s left sound cliched and unoriginal.
If you look at the slogans that have actually worked – ‘Things can only get better’, the all-pervading ‘Yes we can’ and so on, they’re not about values at all, but rather about the process of implementing those values. If we are going for a value-based slogan, it’s best to frame it in this context. And a great source of value/process slogans are the dreadfully melodramatic sentences you get during movie trailers. Thus, my entry is:
Liberal Democrats: The fight for freedom has only just begun…
@ Charlotte – I’m not sure that’s quite right. Any party doing this would come up with a million-and-one different reasons – some contradictory. It reflects the fact that all our parties are broad churches because of the electoral system.
As a Lib Dem it doesn’t particularly shock me that there isn’t a catch-all slogan that will justify our party’s approach to every issue – but then again, I don’t think there’s one for any of the parties, with the exception of maybe UKIP – and that’s not a compliment!
Narratives aren’t just about slogans – they’re about the theme running through all our policies. A yardstick to measure policies against.
Most people don’t know much about parties’ policies. They may know a little about one or two policies – but for most people the policy details don’t matter, except so far as they outline/support the general approach of the party to issues [the number of times I get survey returns back: did/do you support the Iraq war? No. Do you support compulsory ID cards? No. Do you support the expansion of Heathrow? No. How will you vote? Labour – similarly lots of Tory voters want compulsory ID cards. I’m not saying these voters are wrong to vote the way they do – just that they don’t seem terribly influenced by some major policy decisions].
Rightly or wrongly people *think* they know how Lab or Con will approach an issue. Far fewer people have that instinctive grasp of our approach, and that’s why we need to work on explaining that narrative.
I think Clegg’s Candid Fan/Friend etc is probably quite right. And I think that the majority of members would agree that that’s our narrative – it’s about balance of competing interests. However, something that sounds a bit like Abe Lincoln has written it is probably not quite the right thing for the doorstep, or getting your Ds&Ps to join up.
Liberal Democrats – because you matter!
Liberal Democrats – the party of Vince Cable!
Liberal Democrats – it’s what you want that matters!
Liberal Democrats – standing up for communities!
Liberal Democrats – the local party for local people!
Liberal Democrats. Local. Energetic. Enthusiastic.
Liberal Democrats. ACTION speaks louder than words.
Liberal Democrats. Facing up to tomorrow’s problems today.
Liberal Democrats. Believe in us; because we believe in you.
Liberal Democrats. For a Free and Just Society.
Liberal Democrats. Community, Liberty, Security.
That’ll do for now.
I actually really like “believe in us because we believe in you”
Equality of opportunity
Thomas Hemsley said:
“Liberalism is fairness, freedom and democracy.”
Compared to what Eddie Izzard said (“The Labour party believes in fairness, and the Conservative party is more about getting the country working well and rewarding high-flyers”) said I can see too problems:
1) Labour is already perceived to represent fairness, and defining Liberal Democrats to also represent fairness doesn’t distinguish then from the Labour Party.
2) Labour and Conservatives were defined by one value each. If Liberal Democrats are defined by three, it seems they are indecisive. You should be able to decide, which value is the most important and defining. (And if it’s fairnes, you can as well merge with Labour, because in the public eyes you won’t differ from them, anyway.)
Liberalism: spreading freedom and opportunity to those that lack it.
Charlotte Gore’s “exist to Deliver Leaflets” is scalpel sharp as is the excellent Waitrose reference. I find the focus on Freedom/Liberty reassuring but is there room for some thing else?
1. what about Gaian thinking ? An Insertion of the word “Green” is lame but do we/can we assert ecological balance as a modern imperitive along side liberty as party of the partys core? or is that heresy ?
2. very little mention of localism. ‘m amazed there hasn’t been more coverage/comment on the recent BBC research on “lonliness indicators” and the most “lonley neighbourhoods.
We are very good on individual and state and all of the interactions /abuses between but does a slogan have to emcompass more of intermediating community ?
3. Globalism ? All this “Speaker Lenthall” stuff at the moment is great for union society types of liberty but how much of ur individual needs for fredom these days are from gobal non tate actors ?
4. Power. I think some time we focus too much on liberty as being a negative. I always feel the Labour/Conservative argement is about how the national cake is divided where as liberalism is a theory of power.
This is a brilliant thread! Slightly more alive this morning, it strikes me that what we’re really after is something that gets Lib Dems nodding, but also is likely to appeal to other people – and, ironically, that means it has to put some people off. That’s what I was getting at with the Daily Mail. Though I’d probably not model us on the FDP (our poll ratings only converge when we’re doing at our worst and they’re doing at their best); surely saying people should ignore us if they’re in the ‘wrong’ social group is daft. It should be about what they think, not what they earn. And it can’t just be slagging off the others: we know that Labour’s core message (they want it to be ‘fairness’, but after 11 years in power anyone who’s not voting for them for life knows that’s utter crap) is, ‘We’re s**t, and we know we are, but, ooohh! The Tories! Scary!’ – but that only works a bit for them because they’re positioned as the biggest alternative to the Tories, however rubbish. So, make it positive.
Hywel is right that ‘It’s about Freedom’ – but, though I think most Liberals know instinctively that our view of freedom depends on fairness, our ‘core message’ would have to tell people that, so it needs a way to mix the two. And it needs to sound like something you might actually say in conversation, rather than in a speech or a slogan. I suspect the one I came up with a decade ago now reads much like it was written by a committee, so rather than look it up, here’s this morning’s idea:
“We won’t boss you about. We want to give you a leg up and pull some barriers down so you can live your own life the way you choose.”
As far as slogans go, although I have some responsibility for the party’s ‘list’ of “Fair, Free and Green,” I don’t think the ‘list’ really works except as a crib sheet to remember not to leave a bit out when you’re expanding on it. To be memorable, rhyming or alliteration goes a long way, so my favourite’s “Equal Voices, Different Choices”.
Catching up on the thread this morning, as I saw Adam’s ‘dreadfully melodramatic sentence’ the Stargate theme came on in the background, where Richard’s curled up in a duvet with Lemsip (it suited the slogan). True fact.
always feel the Labour/Conservative argement is about how the national cake is divided where as liberalism is a theory of power.
Certainly anyone who thinks there is a national cake to divide does not belong in this party IMHO.
I like freedom as a core idea. How about a series of 1970s music-inspired slogans:
Want to break free? The Liberal Democrats.
Rebel, rebel? The Liberal Democrats.
Life on Mars. The Liberal Democrats. Ahem, sorry.
Re: Waitrose, isn’t their current slogan “Because you deserve Waitrose”? Could we nick it? 😀
Liberalism: probably the best political creed in the world.
Lib Dems should stand for Liberty in all forms. This includes respect for private property, free markets, balanced budgets, a non-intervenionist foreign policy, sound money and most of all individual liberty.
Lib Dems = Liberty
“Liberty is Popular!” Ron Paul (US Congressman – TX).
The best I’ve been able to do so far is: Fairness without bullying.
Alix: when we stood for tax rises to pay for our proposals and the others promised everything for free, I suggested ‘Liberal Democrats – reassuringly expensive’.
That’s a bit unfashionable now, but it’s a cautionary tale about why our ‘core’ shouldn’t be about economics (where we’ve always been much more pragmatic than ideological, and where our proposals change to fit what’s happening at the time).
You take me to me to the next point Alix. Is this slogan an attempt to promote a party narrative or a party Brand ? As was pointed out up thread most slogans actually don’t talk about values. ” Every little Helps” ” Everyone deserves Waitrose” ” Your M and S” ” Why pay more ?” all either are about aspiration/ feeling or whats in it for me? teritory.
It sems to be a slogan either needs to be about core values in which case we can’t escape a clasic “power of three” The Lib Dems are/will/do x,y,z. If you go down this route then we will end up with a derrivative of free,fair and green.
Or we can ditch that approach altogether and have the slogan as a brand.
Thats when 70’s songs and some of charlotte gores stuff becomes really, really fascinating.
Fairness: Voters have heard it a million times and regard it as mere platitude.
Freedom: Most are under the illusion that that battle has already been won.
Democracy: See ‘freedom’.
Many I know among the working classes don’t care for such ‘high falutin’ ideology. They want 6 cans in the fridge and paedophiles put through a mincer.
However… ‘Do what you want to do’ would probably resonate.
Alex Wilcock wrote: “Though I’d probably not model us on the FDP (our poll ratings only converge when we’re doing at our worst and they’re doing at their best)”
That might partly be because in Germany there’s proportional representation. Some of the people who in UK might vote for Lib Dems in Germany vote for the Greens, for instance.
Can I just throw my Lib Dem Philosophical Bingo into the mix ( Yes, Really..)
For one week a month I monitor all my media junkie imput. Every time a Lib Dem spokesperson on the news calls for extra state spending ( double points if its the primary solution to a problem) or more government action (double points for primary legislation) I chalk up a point.
The score is always high. This begs the question. does a slogan have to reflect what our core beliefs are or what we actually campaign on ?
Liberalism… because everything else has failed.
Something for Eddie Izzard (and prescient during a recession):
“smiles are better”
“Government for you instead of against you”
Dan’s is the best.
“Liberalism… because everything else has failed.”
We should run this. Seriously.
Izzard’s quotations are cringe-inducingly awful. In a world in which there are thousands of economists and other political experts / theorists, it’s bizarre that we give so much credence to the ego-driven yet ill-informed nonsense of comedians / popstars.
Different Duncan – why would the multitude of people who work in government (or even just the senior decision-makers) suddenly start working for others, instead of instinctively following self-interest?
Some kind of Lib Dem epiphany? Could we expect to see Whitehall staffers sacking themselves upon realising that money taken in tax is paying them to do sweet FA?
Alix:
Liberal Democrats – the party that reaches the parts other parties don’t reach….
Why did you set this task when we already have that well known statement of purpose in our constitution:
“No-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”
It is written on my party membership card, and does the job perfectly.
Freedom: Unless you want to smoke in a Pub or buy cheap lager from Tesco.
Fairness: We’ll use state power just as much as the other lot. But don’t worry its Guardian values not the Daily Mail.
Greener: Unless its about weekly bin collections in which case hammer you with Bin Tax messages.
On Your Side : Except for the bits where council officers advice is contrary of course.
Ok. I’m being negative for effect but my core point is that a sloagn has to address the orthodoxy/orthopraxis debate. It has to adres what we actually do as well as believe.
Seriously now:
Labour and Tories work for their elite paymasters – big, powerful vested interests in business, the unions, and government, and a few seriously rich and seriously dodgy individuals.
Liberal Democrats work for the people of Britain.
It’s there on your membership card:-
‘No-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity’.
Richard: you’re right of course but couldn’t Labour (and arguably even the Tories) largely claim they agree?
“LibDem and loving it”
Councillors’ allowances and the occasional MP’s salary plus staff allowances for family members … without the risk of serious power.
“Hackneyed and wrong! Liberalism is inimical to democracy – there is always a tension between them that needs resolved.”
Hackeneyed, yes. Wrong, no. You can’t have a liberal society without democracy.
How about: Liberalism – we moan, so you don’t have to. 😛
You can’t have a liberal society without democracy.
You can’t have a liberal state without democracy, perhaps.
But you can have a liberal society without a state.
Eddie Izzard was one of ours, wasn’t he?
“Liberal Demcrats – the real alternative”
It works, it makes short, sharp sense.
Labour – tired
Conservatives – failed
Liberal Democrats? We’re the real alternative to the mainstream.
The Liberal Democrats; high tax, high spend and in favour of handing as much power as possible to the EU.
This was the answer I gave when called by the party to ask why I had not renewed my membership. No argument against these points was forthcomming.
Jock wrote:
“But you can have a liberal society without a state.”
Somalia, perhaps?
David Morton, thanks for that crystallisation. I knew I was doing something more akin to sloganeering than proper messaging, like wot most people on this thread are doing. Except I was internally calling this “being lazy and trite”. I like your “brave new alternative to old-style political messaging” interpretation much better.
I’ve always been a great fan of Charlotte’s slogan-as-brand ideas. “Anyone can vote Lib Dem” was a good one, with appropriate imagery, and there was a great one of Gordon Brown in full-on Stalin speechifying mode saying (per Charlotte’s blog title, as was): “Do as you’re told. Don’t vote Lib Dem.”
Also recall something Chris Rennard said at a session in Liverpool back in the spring, about a good line on the doorstep being “I didn’t join the Liberal Democrats to be told what to do.” Handy if you disagree with a policy, and maybe has potential as a positive message as well.
David A:
Liberal Democrats – well, you wouldn’t want a Tory, would ya?
slogans don’t have to sum up our entire philosophy in a sentence – “change we need” and “yes we can” hardly did that. Ok, perhaps a slightly different political culture, but i’d still keep it simple:
“The Liberal Democrats – on your side”
or
“The Liberal Democrats – fighting for you”
alternatively, “let’s face it, we can hardly be worse than the other too”
*gah, obviously ‘two’
Somalia, perhaps?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Saying that there can be a liberal society without a state does not necessarily mean that without a state there is a liberal society.
“You can’t have a liberal society without democracy.
You can’t have a liberal state without democracy, perhaps.
But you can have a liberal society without a state.”
That society still needs democracy, even if it is not established parliamentary democracy.
Well if you want something vague but all-encompassing – “Liberal Democrats – real people for the real world”
As I recall, Paddy Ashdown used frequently to summarise our vision on Spitting Image all those years ago.
Liberal Democrats are NEITHER one thing, NOR the other, but SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN.
Labour and Tory may be able to agree with “No-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”, but with things like this it’s where you place the emphasis. We might all agree with “fairness” and “wealth creation”, but that doesn’t stop one being seen as Labour’s main purpose and the other as the Tories’ (whatever happened to “keeping things the same”? which surely ought to be what a “Conservative” Party is about).
I’m not sure of the history of the “poverty, ignorance and conformity” slogan, but it seems to have been designed deliberately to suggest a version of liberalism which isn’t what is now called “libertarianism”. The libertarian would say “no-one shall be enslaved by the state” and refuse to acknowledge the existence of any other form of slavery.
Our slogan, brand and ideals have to be built on a positive ideology. Sorry, but Centrism, reasonableness and so on won’t do!
I like the idea before, turned on it’s head:
“Freeing Britain from poverty, ignorance and conformity”
Political ideas are meaningless if no one would ever sensibly argue the opposite.
However, I think many conservatives and many socialists would actually disagree with “Freedom from conformity”. Conservatives traditionally see social pressures as a positive force that strengthens society and makes communities more cohensive. Non-conformity is bad and puts that all at risk. Liberals say non-conformism is good.
Soialists also see conformism as good – they see it in the context of solidarity, equality and fairness. Again, liberals want people to be able to have different treatment, in the way they want.
So here you have a slogan that does actually mean something, and does distinguish ourselves from our political opponents.
It’s also popular and timely, given the CCTV and Damien Green society we have ended up in!
Laurence,
I don’t think that was actually Paddy on SI all those years ago, but I see where you’re going…
It’s about getting the best of all worlds and the worst of none.
It’s about maximising our potential.
It’s about delivery.
Isn’t it?
I think you may be right. It was possibly a puppet of Paddy rather than the man himself. Had me fooled though.
Given that to succeed you need to displace Labour as the party of the left, just as they displaced the Liberals, perhaps you would be better served by emphasising that Labour work for the public sector trade unions rather than the public.
Lib-Dems: lefties that work for the public, not just the public sector trade unions.
Dave B
There may have been a time when Labour worked for the public sector trade unions, but that was a long time ago. Just as there may have been a time, long, long ago, when the Conservatives worked for old duffers who didn’t want the world to change rather than for smart City folk who’d smash anything up so long as there was a profit in it.
For myself I would simply say:
“Freedom and opportunity”
Freedom has to be central but if left as a stand-alone word it can too easily be misunderstood in any number or ways – for instance as narrowly political freedom which never sways a majority of votes.
Linking it explicitly with “opportunity” makes it clear that freedom is not some ivory tower ideal but is the necessary and intensely practical foundation for real-world aspirations – whether you are mainly motivated by the economic dimension or by art or sport or whatever.
As for the notion of the political party as a brand raised by several contributors to this thread, the best definition of what makes for a successful brand is:
“A compelling promise, consistently honoured.”
And therein lies much of the LibDems continued lack of electoral success at Westminster – we fail on both parts. Why this should be so and how to fix it is the Party’s most urgent problem.
‘No-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity’.
Andrew, you rightly point out that Labour and Tories would not have put in the “conformity” bit. However, I think they would both have been comfortable with the “poverty” and “ignorance” bits. So, when you say that it is a distinctive message for us, the distinctive bit does really rather boil down to “We like oddballs!” Which may be true, but, is that the best one-line slogan to maximise our support?
Mastthew, you rightly point out how well the whole piece is drafted to make it clear what we stand for. To me it has a beautifully old-fashioned moral tone – a bit Reithian BBC – which modern politics, to its detriment, has largely lost. It does still look good on the membership card, and it does still provide a vital reference as to what we stand for. But we do also need one-liner soundbites I’m afraid, and I don’t think it does for that.
Interesting:
“Fairness is not a word universally cherished within Labour, and one senior centre-left activist sighs if she hears it. She said: “I didn’t join the party for things to be ‘fair’. I joined to get nearer to utopia. That’s why I prefer the word ‘aspiration’.””
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/dec/04/queens-speech-fairness
“Freedom, fairness, and trust.”
Well, I like the first two. “Freedom” on its own is unbalanced. “Freedom and fairness” shows what we have successfully learnt from forming an alliance between freedom-loving Liberals and fairness-loving SDPers.
“Trust” seems wrong now, though. None of us politicians can reasonably expect the electorate to trust us these days. To suggest that we deserve trust, without giving a pretty good reason, just sounds arrogant and off-putting.
I like “Freedom, Fairness, and the Future”.
We care about the state of the planet in 50 years time, which is why we don’t want WW3 to be a Christian crusade against the Muslim world, and we don’t want to have burnt all the oil. This is our message for the young. And it alliterates, so it must be right!
The trouble with “fairness” is that it means, as Humpty Dumpty said, “Whatever I want it to mean”.
Liberals and Conservatives both believe in fairness but understand quite different things by it. “Fairness” was the Conservatives’ primary justification for the Poll Tax while to most Liberals it was one of the most unfair ever devised.
“I like “Freedom, Fairness, and the Future”.”
I still have to see a political party that is against future. Shouldn’t it be something which distinguish Liberal Democrats from other parties?
OK Anonymous, I would concede that “future” fails to set us apart from the Greens. But as for the Tories and Labour, they supported an illegal war for oil in Iraq, and they show every sign of burning it all up until it runs out, so what sort of future will they leave us with?
The great Enzo Ferrari was once asked what makes a beautiful car. He said, “the most beautiful car is the one that wins the most races.”
I can’t help but feel a similar rule applies to political slogans.
Most of these slogans have too many syllables for the average voter. Always pitch it at a reading age of 7, and you won’t go far wrong. Depressing but true, in my experience.
Some years ago I wrote this in Liberator:
“Liberalism is a hard creed to follow, and I still believe it is a creed or, if you prefer, an ideology. It combines an analysis of society with a set of aims and methods for achieving them. It has something to say about the role of governments and the role of individuals. It does not say, “Look after yourself and don’t expect anyone, especially the state, to help” – the guiding theme of Conservatism over the years. It does not say, “Don’t worry. The state will look after you” – the inspiration of socialism now transmuted into “Don’t worry. The state will tell you what to do and how and when to do it in precisely defined quantities”. Liberalism asks each of us to think for ourselves and to work for each other. It accepts the incommensurability of individual desires and the value of diversity to society. It is the practical working out of liberty. I leave you with William Hazlitt: “The love of liberty is the love of others, the love of power is the love of ourselves.”
Much too long of course but how about the phrase: “Liberalism asks each of us to think for ourselves and to work for each other.”
I also like “A Liberal is an anarchist who has compromised with reality”, but I must admit I was talking about Liberalism. There is a party called Liberal Democrats, there is a widespread system called liberal democracy but there is no ideology called “Liberal Democracy”.