Category Archives: Op-eds

November started with a ministerial resignation as Norman Baker left the Home Office, saying that he wanted to release himself from “walking through mud” of working in a Department that thought it was run by the Conservative party, not the Coalition. In his first broadcast interview, with the BBC News Channel, he had praise for Theresa May and some advice for his successor:

Be firm, be fair, be courteous, make sure you promote Lib Dem policies but don’t give in.

For Remembrance Day, Anthony Hook reminded us what was at stake in the First World War:

The war had to be won to prove that a democratic government could protect the nation from existential danger. Defeat would have been used by liberal democracy’s opponents to argue for a less democratic future. Defeat might have strengthened Communism, or very likely have led to calls for more power for the military or monarchy – anyone but elected politicians who had lost the war. British and French defeat in 1918 might well have set back democracy’s progress in Western Europe by decades.

The War was utterly terrible and if it could have been avoided should have been. But the idea that it had no important outcomes is not right.

Those who died, did not die pointlessly. They saved freedom. The horror of the Western Front gives us motivation to prevent war and democracy, which the fallen secured, gives us the means to prevent it.

For the first time, courtesy of Alex Salmond’s timing of the independence referendum, it was the Liberal Democrats who brought the political conference season to a close. But before we all travelled to Glasgow, we had to sit through Ed Miliband forgetting the deficit which was fairly tame in comparison to the Tories salivating over removing people’s human rights. Ahead of the Conference, the party sent out a briefing to members on election strategy which I took a look at.

Let me put this bluntly. If we as a party don’t get our backsides into gear and fight the campaign of our lives over the next few months, the horror story that’s been unfolding in front of our eyes at the Tory Conference could be a reality. That could be our government. I don’t think any of us actually want that to happen, however annoyed we may be with various decisions taken by the Coalition Government. I certainly don’t want it to take a period of majority Tory Government for folk to realise that the Liberal Democrats actually did some good.

The party knows that it needs all its members engaged, inspired and committed and ready to ask unreasonable things of themselves in terms of commitment of both time and money in the months ahead. To that end, they have sent every member a 16 page Election Strategy Briefing in very official looking brown envelopes. The document explains the Dragon’s Den process which has been taking place with our strategic seats. I’ve been involved in that these past two years as a Scottish party state representative. It’s given me a good overview as to what has been going on in these important places. I have to say I was hugely impressed in the difference between this year and last year.  There has been a huge rise in activity on the ground. Don’t get me wrong, there needed to be, but it’s very heartening to see it. All those campaign teams that I and others put through their paces deserve huge amounts of applause, snuggles with labradors, chocolate, beer and appreciation.  The briefing goes on to explain what we are looking to achieve in the campaign and what we need to get our seats won. It looks at policy, the technology and how that all fits together with what we do on the ground. It’s a good read.

By April the European election campaign was in full swing. The second Nick v Nigel debate took place on the BBC. Nick’s performance wasn’t as strong as it had been in the LBC debate the week before. His big error, which he later acknowledged, was to say that the EU would be roughly the same in 10 years tome. That made us look far too wedded tot he status quo rather than the reformers we are.

Nick was never going to come out of these debates ahead, but that isn’t help. At least he had the nerve to take Farage on, though.  Stephen Tall told us not  to panic:

Recent polls show the British public pretty split on whether the UK should remain within the EU, but tilting towards staying in. The Lib Dems’ internal polling suggests that, among the one-quarter of the public who’ll consider voting for the party, pro-Europeanism plays pretty well. My main frustration of tonight’s debate was that Nick Clegg failed to advance the pro-reform case for staying within the EU as well as he’s done in the past – but there will be many more times and places for him to make that point in the next seven weeks. Overall, clear defining the party as being pro-European is more likely to win the Lib Dems the votes the party needs to win, both in 2014 as well as 2015.