Category Archives: Op-eds

The leadership campaign must have begun: all party members have just received our first e-mails from the candidates, Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne.

I remain a floating voter in this election: genuinely (because I can see the good qualities in each candidate) and deliberately (‘cos I can imagine the flak LDV would get if it were seen to be promoting any one individual). What I’ve got to say should be read in that spirit.

Let’s take Chris’s statement first. (It happened to arrive in my inbox first.) In some senses, Chris should start the favourite: he was runner-up last time, attracting 42% of the final vote – which means over 20,000 members chose to make him their first or second preference candidate back in 2006. This gives him name recognition, at least among activists, perhaps exceeding that which Nick has. It also means he has a campaign infrastructure: a nascent team, extant database, loyal supporters primed and ready-to-go.

Yet it’s clear that Chris wishes – whether by design or default – to pitch his candidacy as still very much the outsider he was until almost two years ago. His opening statement is a call to arms: “Britain needs nothing less than a Liberal Revolution: a revolution in democracy, a revolution for social justice, and a revolution in global change.”

It’s a brave declaration: brave in its ambition, but also brave in its pitch. “A revolution in democracy” is a line which Chris knows will be applauded by party activists the length and breadth of the country. It is a measure which we know would transform the way in which politics in this country is done. And yet… isn’t it too easy? Will the revolution in democracy really grab potential voters? Is it really the slogan to highlight in your leadership pitch?

However, social justice is clearly the gauntlet which Chris’s campaign wishes to lay down to Team Clegg: “we’re against school vouchers and American-style health insurance. How about you?” It’s a fair question, and one to which Nick should give due regard. In his Vision statement Nick left it (deliberately) opaque: “our universal public services must be free to use and accessible to all. But beyond that, I want us to think afresh about how they should be funded and delivered.” Thinking afresh is all well and good – after all, if you can’t do that during a leadership campaign, when can you do it? But he can hardly be surprised if his rivals read into it what they will.

Yet there is a challenge here, too, for Chris: Nick has summarised his approach to public services (free to use, accessible to all, the delivery’s up for grabs) – is Chris suggesting that delivery of services in health and education must always be through government, whether at local or national level? Does he really think council officers in the Town Hall (as opposed to civil servants in Whitehall) will be better placed than the individual patient, parent or pupil to know what individual services they require? We can all agree that public services should be devolved from the centre. The question is: how far do you go? Nick has dodged the question; Chris appears to prefer not to ask it.

Those with long political memories (ie, longer than a week) may recall the kerfuffle prior to the Lib Dem conference prompted by Ming Campbell’s statement that he would oppose Tory attempts to hold a referendum on the proposed new EU reform treaty. It was, he argued, “not necessary”, as the treaty bears scant resemblance to the constitution it replaced.

A number of bloggers (and I was one of them) criticised Ming for seeming to side too readily with those who run away from a healthy debate on Europe. Ming swiftly strengthened his statement, and called instead for an early referendum on the much bigger question: does Britain want in or out?

That went a long way to placing the Lib Dems on the right side of the debate: in favour of giving the public their say on the future direction of the European Union, 32 years after the UK voted to join the Common Market. But there was always one loose end.

Some time soon, the Tories will call vote in the House of Commons on whether Britain should hold a referendum, at which point 63 Lib Dem MPs will have to make a decision – to march through the ‘no’ lobbies with Labour against a referendum; or through the ‘aye’ lobbies with the Tories in favour of one. I doubt I’m alone in feeling queasy at the former prospect.

However, that is what will happen regardless of the result of the leadership contest. Both Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg gave their full support to Ming’s statement during the Brighton conference; and have re-stated their opposition to a referendum on the treaty since the start of the leadership election.

By chance, I came across an article Nick Clegg wrote for The Guardian just over four years ago entitled, ‘We need an EU referendum: nothing will damage the pro-European movement more than appearing to have something to hide’. Now Nick was talking about the EU constitution, and his words should be read in that context, but it’s still worthy of note: