Chris Huhne’s weekly column for The Guardian is a must-read for me. Mainly because his writing is just as you’d expect: not afraid to put some stick about (yeah, yeah: he takes no prisoners) but there’s plenty of sharp intelligence too.
And there’s a pretty hefty dollop of optimism this week, too, as he looks at the polls for evidence of a Lib Dem revival:
There was also a straw in the wind pointing to happier times: YouGov just found more people saying they would vote Lib Dem in the European elections in May than in the general election. If true, that reverses the norm, whereby the Lib Dems poll lower in the European elections than in local or Westminster competitions.
Chris is right. We have reversed the norm. Though not, I think it’s fair to say, in quite the way the party might have intended. Still, liberalism is an essentially optimistic philosophy and it’s good to see Chris still sees the glass as being half-full.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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10 Comments
It’s a pity he isn’t still in government.
From that Huhne article linked to in the article.
‘In this sense, Ukip is the polar opposite of the Lib Dems. The well-educated can afford to embrace change, because those who learn can do so again. They are confident and capable. Globalisation is not a threat, but an opportunity. Immigration provides cleaners, not competition.
By contrast, Ukip’s supporters are old, fearful and anxious. The party’s appeal is laced with nostalgia for a past in which jobs were secure, teenagers were respectful and smokers never died of cancer. It’s a vision of a better yesterday.’
This only works if there is a vision of a better future. Now OK – there will always be technological advance that will bring, for example, improvements in health. And I’d take the point that too many people out there do have an over-romantic view of the past. However this rather overlooks the idea that those fears and anxieties might actually be well-founded. In an age of devalued labour, there are a lot of people out there who actually do find that immigration from inside the EU and elsewhere IS something of an issue for them. The vision for the future appears to be more corporatism. Great if you are a global-citizen banker, less great for those in what could be termed, ‘alarm-clock Britain,’ who don’t employ cleaners. And I stress here that this is not a partisan point – all of the major parties offer nothing different really.
Free movement is great for those that can reify it – for everyone else it is, at best, something that exists on paper only. If you are the one watching rents (forget the property-owning democracy) spiral, seeing large influxes putting pressure on services and seeing wage arbitrage then it really is difficult to feel confident in embracing this future. What is the message here – don’t worry, there are school places free in Bucharest? The truth is that if young British unemployed are not able to head in large numbers for work to Eastern Europe then globalisation isn’t serving them in any meaningful or reciprocal way.
Who’se interests are politicians (of all parties) serving? Those that are getting the rough end of economic dislocations, those with the means to head abroad, corporates – ever more those things aren’t reconciling and the public can make what they want to out of these political divides.
Yes – the good old days weren’t that good. But it does not follow from there that the future is bright either. Liberalism and liberal values can be as optimistic as they like. If the voters aren’t feeling that optimistic it doesn’t matter. None of this is to say that I personally think leaving the EU is the right answer. The point in context is not about liberalism, but who’se liberalism.
I am afraid to say it is not UKIP who love the cradle to grave welfare state, so this analogy of UKIP voters being scared of the future needs toning down a bit.
UKIP, fearlessly building a bridge to the 19th century.
Sesenco – I am sure that is what he is hoping many people are thinking! He obviously retains hopes that he “will do a Mandelson” and come back.
Tim13
Don’t you mean —- ‘do a Laws and come back’ ???
LJP – unemployed Brits CAN move to the rest of Europe! They did so in the 70s (Auf Wiedersehn Pet!) and could do so now. My uncle went and worked in shipyards in north Germany.
Chris Huhne has accepted that he is an ex-politician and is exercising his freedom. At present he is the only person that is really free from Coalition Government constraints, so there is always the interest of an insiders voice, a voice that was at the heart of government, but now unleashed on the outside.
Neither Laws nor Mandy went to prison. It’s more an Archer.
@Martin:
“Chris Huhne has accepted that he is an ex-politician. . . ”
I have a sneaking feeling you might be the only person on the planet who believes this.
I am afraid that even when Chris writes sense, there is going to still be a negative connotation on the contents of what he writes from considerable number of people. Rehabilitation of politicians is not like rehabilitation of offenders. It sometimes comes quicker . . . and sometimes comes much, much slower. 🙁