Imagine our surprise on Saturday when news of Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election of the Labour party came through hot off the wires. As it happened, my partner, who is about as a-political as you can get (and that’s saying something, considering we have been together through multiple elections, not least of all the General Election last year, somewhat inconveniently we were moving flat the day after – a story in itself) had made a special study of this election and mentioned the news.
In this age of anti-politics, the figure Corbyn cuts has great appeal for people like my partner, who are not necessarily overtly political, but are reasonably well-informed with no fixed views or attitude. In a sweeping generalisation, it is much akin to what we see in America right now with Trump, albeit in extremis politically to what the Hon. Member for Islington North has to offer. This is the stark zeitgeist we are operating in.
I was reminded yesterday, thanks to social media, of a status I had written some six years ago to the day, an observation I made about Ed Miliband’s election as Labour Party leader. “We (as Liberal Democrats) have the result we want”, I wrote. How wrong I was. At the time, I felt an inherently weak leader in the mind of the general public would only serve us well. The folly of this idea had its apex in the early hours of May 8th last year, when the very idea of Miliband and Scottish nationalists cobbling together a coalition drove the so-called ‘soft Conservatives’ – crucial to securing victories in all our Tory-facing seats – to the ballot box not caring really how brilliant their Lib Dem incumbent was, because the national situation required they duly vote blue. Which they did. A lot.
You think it was hard then? Imagine our task now. The political masters at work, unseen, and unheard now, but who wait for their moment at Tory HQ, will be perfectly aware of this come 2020.
For me, I became active in politics because I was convinced the political colours I nailed to my mast were my beliefs and ultimately of benefit to the society in which I lived. I still do, more so than ever before. This is why I brood, probably unfairly, on movements such as ‘More United’, offering a new way funding candidates of any colour, especially when the principles here are so close to our own as a Party.
Look at Labour; a movement of half a million people across the country. It doesn’t seem to stem their losses, however. They are winning support, unfortunately for them in areas already a stronghold for their party. I am cheered to see our own party membership figures rise, and gains at the (local) ballot box. I am acutely aware however it is not by any means the whole story. We must not be lulled into a false sense of security, and we must learn from the past.
Our duty now is to capture hearts and minds through our own party colours, be unafraid and fight, fight and fight again to ensure success. And capture the zeitgeist. Because only then can we offer a realistic alternative opposition to the current Government.
* Gerard Thompson is a Liberal Democrat living in the Eastbourne constituency, and formerly Party Agent and Campaigns Manager for Eastbourne Liberal Democrats and Stephen Lloyd.
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22 Comments
It’s nice to read an analysis of the election debacle that doesn’t blame it all on the coalition.
We can only know how and why one person actually voted but my belief is that our defeat was the fault of David Miliband (for letting his brother beat him).
In between the deepest of Red and the brightest of Blue any party that advertises itself as proudly beige was going to be abandoned.
The general point is more serious and that is the rallying which we are seeing, to demagogues, on right and left, by a frightened and angry electorate.
Our offering thus needs to be just as strong, stark and impactful as any from Trump or Corbyn.
@Barry Snelson “Our offering thus needs to be just as strong, stark and impactful as any from Trump or Corbyn.”
I genuinely do not know whether or not I agree.
I want to. I want the Lib Dems to demonstrate a clear sense of direction and purpose and to offer something to vote for rather than “none of the above”.
But … a polarisation of British politics might mean that any soggy centrist position will look like a safe refuge to a lot of voters and perhaps the best (but cynical) strategy for Lib Dems is simply not to frighten anybody away by taking a position on anything.
Not convinced. The Miliband/SNP scare worked because it looked like Labour had an actual chance of getting into power. (It also succeeded because rather than point out the unlikelihood of the scenario, our leadership actually joined in.) The Corbyn-led Labour Party is a different beast. Tory Scaremongering about a hard-left Labour government necessitating a Tory vote is not going to work simply because Labour under Corbyn is so unelectable. Labour is even less electable than it was under Foot, when it got the lowest share oft the vote ever achieved by a principal party of opposition, and the Alliance came close to it in vote share (unfortunately without effective targeting). 2015 may have been like 1992 for Labour and for us, but the next election will be more of a 1983 scenario.
In a previous age of demagogues – the 1930s – the soggy centrists failed miserably – especially in Weimar Germany. People need to know what a strong Liberalism that can stand up to crude populism and fascism-lite looks like.
So Militant Liberalism? Sounds challenging, but I’m up for it!
Having read the article I am not clear what the problem is or the proposed solution.
Can someone help please?
“And capture the zeitgeist.”
To capture the zeitgeist, you have to know first, what it is, and where it’s coming from.?
I find it interesting Gerard, that you perceive your partner to have fallen under some kind of Corbyn spell. I noted that in Tim Farron’s speech on the EU, he also declared that some of his mates and even his family members, didn’t see the EU project in the same way as he did.
The implication from both you and Tim is,… ‘Oh my lord,… even the people around me are falling under some strange Mesmer,… quick,.. quick, we must redouble our efforts to rescue them before it’s too late.’
Why do you and Tim refuse the ask the internal question,,. What if.? What if they see something I have not.? Might it be possible that they have briefly glimpsed the zeitgeist, whilst I’m still staring at an ink blot, trying to work out what the hell it is.?
I was very amused when Jonathan Ferguson on another thread, coined the term,.. *..the ‘far centre’..*, until I realised how poignant and observed it was. Just as we use the terms,.. the far left,.. and, the far right,.. ‘the far centre’ should accurately enter the lexicon, as a truism.
Only when you realise that the ‘Praetorian Middle’ is crumbling, and work out why, will you begin to see the zeitgeist.
Any explanation of our near wipe out in 2015 that puts the blame primarily on the last minute Milliband/SNP coalition fear is really not tenable.
The result we got was entirely in line with our consistently low opinion poll ratings for the preceding four years and with our poor election results in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. It should have been no surprise to anyone.
Exactly so, Paul. But whisper it here; most contributors to this site are still in denial.
@ Nick Collins
Most activists are not in denial, we could see it coming. When the MP’s did not follow the demands of the activists to throw out the NHS bill the writing was on the wall.
It is time to move on, learning from our mistakes. If we are in coalition again, which is likely, the leader and MPs will have to take more notice of the members.
“In a previous age of demagogues – the 1930s – the soggy centrists failed miserably – especially in Weimar Germany. People need to know what a strong Liberalism that can stand up to crude populism and fascism-lite looks like.”
This, this, a thousand times this.
@ David Beckett. Some of us saw it coming rather sooner than that: in May 2010 to be exact. Sadly, we were in a very small minority.
You say that it is time (for the LibDems) to learn from their mistakes. Your next sentence indicates that you, for one, have yet to do so.
Weimar Germany? (and the Menshevik revolution in Russia) need to be considered in context. Treasury advisor John Maynard Keynes said that Germany would not be able to pay the reparations after World War One. UK PM David Lloyd George said the same. The French invasion of the Ruhr to enforce reparations was militarily possible but economically unwise. Different policies followed World War Two, including huge financial investment via Marshall Aid, rejected by communist-controlled countries.
@peterwatson yes I agree with you. But the centrist position is not soggy. Liberal Democrat ideology should simply be to run a modern economy in the most common sense way that the whole population benefits and is cared for by it. If we think a Tory or Labour policy will be detrimental to this we should say so and explain why.
I agree with Christopher.
We should be able to explain why we differ from the Tories and/or Labour on any given issue with reasons, because we (attempt to) pick our policy positions based on reason. It’s often not nearly as PR friendly, or good for a sound-bite, but right now the fact that we aren’t burdened by dogma is a strong selling point. We should be pushing that angle.
Granted, some of the public like a bit of dogma, and they are not our natural audience, but there is a large chunk of the public that likes to think of themselves as reasonable, rational who are ready to respond to an explanation for a policy that is based more on facts than an angry reaction to something the other lot did.
The challenge is that it can be harder to get an ‘in’ on a reasonable discussion with someone outwith our normal social circle, and even harder to maintain the discussion without someone trying to hijack it.
Actually Weimar Germany was not necessarily soggy centrist. One area in which the Christian Democrats and the Roman Catholic Centre Party were able to feel they had common cause with the National Socialist German Workers Party in their ill fated Coalition Government, was in opposing the Avant-Garde nature of democratic Weimar Germany and what they portrayed as its ‘decadent Liberal’ culture.
Had it not been for the Wall Street Crash and the ensuing Great Depression Weimar Germany might be flourishing today. Prior to that the Weimar Government (with lots of USA financial help) had restored the German economy to pre 1914 levels and Streseman had won the Noble Peace Prize whilst rehabilitating Germany internationally. A militaristic, Prussian dominated Germany was being radically reshaped until the ‘City Slickers’ on Wall Street let greed wreck the World economy.
Thankfully we learned from history and passed legislation to control the excesses of the capitalist financiers. But then some idiots deregulated the financial markets in the 1980’s and again in 1997/8 and………….!
What’s all this about “soggy centrists”; has LDV been taken over by refugees from “Bake Off”?
Paul
The Christian Democrat Party in Germany was founded after WW2. Various center and right wing parties existed during the Weimar Republic.
@Nick Collins
I saw it coming at the Rose Garden!
Realistically we may have to go into coalition for the sake of the country, hence my suggestion that members are involved in the way it is run.
For a start when supping with the devil you use a long spoon, no rose garden love ins.
“And capture the zeitgeist.”
Many want it but it’s missing in action – and has been since ever the Lib Dems were founded. It seems to me that it’s therefore really rather important to ask why such a desired outcome is perpetually out of reach. Are we missing something important?
I think we are.
The party’s governance and policy-making processes, adopted after hard negotiations at the time of the Liberal/SDP merger, put great emphasis on “deliberative policy making” which was a response to the perceived chaos of the Alliance era. They also stressed “democracy” but of a rather peculiar sort.
So the system that was designed delivers just that. To paraphrase Peter Drucker, ‘doing things right’ (which is the brief for working parties) is merely management. But leadership is about ‘doing the right things’ and, bizarrely, there is no-one fully accountable to both MPs and membership who is responsible for that, only a morass of non-transparent committees that inadvertently imposes a deadly orthodoxy.
The zeitgeist doesn’t exist in this or that policy or in a clever soundbite but in articulating a coherent group of ‘stances’ – by which I mean something much less defined than ‘policy’. (Trump is an extreme example of the importance of ‘stances’ as opposed to ‘policies’.) That’s simply not something a committee can do; it’s why orchestras have conductors.
One symptom is how for the last two leadership elections we have had both candidates supporting exactly the same platform, all officially-sanctioned by due process of working party and conference. It’s difficult to see how they could have done anything else given the system. Maybe some of them 100% supported the orthodoxy but, as it turned out, Clegg certainly didn’t. It caused much unhappiness but since the leader is officially little more than a figurehead there isn’t the universal expectation that one who screws up will get challenged.
That’s why it’s a peculiar sort of democracy; the leader isn’t really accountable or subject to challenge and isn’t expected to capture the zeitgeist (or find advisors that can). All that we expect of our democracy is that as many people as possible get to vote as often as possible.
@ David Beckett. By “we” I assume that you mean the liberal Democrats.
I am not part of that “we”. I left the party in 2011 and I am not planning to rejoin.
But “realistically”? I do not think you need worry about acquiring a long spoon. I’m the same age as Neil Kinnock and I do not expect to see the LibDems with enough MPs to become serious contenders for power, even as junior partners in another coalition, should I live to be 100.
Clearly there are two things at play. One is the need for a leader in whom people can place there trust but secondly a Party which can put forward the ideas/policies that deal with the concerns and wishes of the electorate. Norman Lamb’s Commission on the NHS is a perfect example that the Party must build on to produce many more good, deliverable (and popular) policies.