Over at the Guardian’s CommentIsLinked blog, Lib Dem blogger James Graham analyses the current situation for the party, asking what the future holds for us, post-Rennard. Here’s an excerpt:
Now the elections are out of the way, Clegg and party president Ros Scott must turn their attention to finding a new chief executive for the party. … it is impossible to over-estimate how he has transformed the Lib Dems’ prospects. Indeed, he has changed our whole political culture by developing and perfecting a method of populist pavement politics that can be applied almost anywhere in the country. His method is so flexible it has been ripped off wholesale by both the Conservatives and the BNP and is partly responsible for both their resurgences in recent years. …
Is it possible for a third party to find electoral success without this focus on feeding resentment about potholes and litter? There is no guarantee but if we are serious about becoming a party of government, I think it is high time we put it to the test. With Clegg now resurgent and Vince Cable continuing to dominate the economic debate, we have every reason to be optimistic.
You can read James’s article in full HERE.
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2 Comments
The original idea of “potholes and litter” was that it was a way to get people to think about politics. You would start off with the things immediately surrounding them and move on. People for whom national politics seemed abstract and boring could be engaged in that way, you could show them how these very basic things linked in with larger issues. You could also show, by turning out a Labour or Conservative councillor in a supposedly “safe seat” that actually people getting together CAN change things, democracy works, ordinary people who want to make a difference can do so.
But it wasn’t meant to end with potholes and litter and Liberal councillors. That was meant just to be the first step. Part of the problem was that when these ideas were being developed, the SDP came along, didn’t understand or like these ideas, and a huge amount of time was wasted arguing about why they worked, but the radical intention behind them got lost.
We need to reawaken it.
Thinking about this question, it might be worth considering what pavement politics now means to people like the Tories. I guess for them, it’s just one more shot in the locker. A very useful way to campaign at local level, but nothing of any more fundamental philosophical significance. Should we, now, accept that this is also the best perspective for ourselves?
I’m tempted to. The main reason why I am so tempted is because these days, the most determinedly unresponsive organisations around are local councils. It is no longer true that turning out a Tory councillor and installing a Lib Dem is the way to get your potholes mended. That is not the fault of the Lib Dem councillor. It’s the fault of the council department, who will wilfully ignore the councillor, almost as an issue of principle. Councils nowadays respond to Government targets and performance assessment, not to councillors. On the rare occasions when councils do listen to public opinion, they make a point of keeping politics and politicians out of it, on grounds of “objectivity”.
So, if Lib Dem Focus (or Conservative InTouch) claim that they can transform your locality, they are probably making a big overclaim. Not necessarily through any fault of their own!
But then I remember something else. We are the party that supports people in their conflicts with powerful vested interests. The Tories and Labour are the people who are funded by and speak for the vested interests. Doesn’t that provide a philosophical basis for what we do?
Perhaps we need to broaden the scope of our campaign politics. We should recognise that the local council is only one of many vested interests we have to deal with, and probably not the one that provides the best opportunities of success.
We also did well to campaign for the Gurkhas. What about putting more effort into campaigning for consumers’ rights? For the victims of mis-selling? For employees who are being mistreated over pensions? For dyslexic kids whose needs are being swept under the carpet by the schools? For penniless refugees facing deportation at their mortal peril? And (equally?) for rich holidaymakers who can’t get their due compensation for the runaround from the likes of Ryanair?