We continue our saunter through the year in the eyes of Liberal Democrat Voice authors and contributors. In March we had our Spring Conference in York and the build-up to Nick vs Nigel intensified.
But first, we had to deal with someone behind the scenes briefing against both Tim Farron and party activists. By and large, this party has been pretty together given he challenges that presented themselves over the last few years with little public sniping. Caron Lindsay just wanted everyone to play nice.
I don’t want to over-egg the pudding, because, by and large, members of the party have been pretty civilised, wherever they stand on the Coalition. Compared to Labour’s toxic factionalism and the hatred of Cameron in some areas of the Conservative party, we are a bunch of cuddly teddy bears in comparison. But when the instinct to show our claws takes hold, we really need to quash it. Nobody should be talking about anyone to the media in these terms. Our energy needs to go into winning elections, not fighting petty, internal battles on the pages of the media.
Having a go at political rivals is one thing (but still not good), reinforcing media stereotypes of hard-working activists takes it to a whole new level of horrible. Whoever you are, just stop it. Now. No good can ever come of it.
Benjamin Franklin is often quoted by liberals in respect of the balance between liberty and security. He also had something wise to say about sticking together:
We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
That is something we all need to remember in the year to come.
Gareth Epps wrote an open letter to David Cameron on pubcos. Of course, later in the year Greg Mulholland would lead a daring parliamentary defeat of the Government to the benefit of landlords.
The most amazing thing about York is that everyone was in such good spirits. We all knew we were up against it in the Euros, but we were buoyed up in the haven of that Conference bubble. A time to recharge our batteries before the storm. Caron Lindsay offered 5 reasons why we were so happy.
Stephen Tall had a look at our MPs’ first ever tweets. Malcolm Bruce seems to think text speak was acceptable. And Danny Alexander’s could have been a lot more than a statement of the obvious.
After the first Nick vs Nigel debate, Stephen Tall called on Nick to ditch one of his key lines:
I realise that what Nick Clegg refers to as ‘Little England’ is a catch-all term for the right’s “inward-looking and defensive agenda”. But, to many voters listening, it will more likely appear that their identity is simply being belittled by one of those Westminster elite politicians they feel so detached from. It’s the kind of language that fuels populists like Nigel Farage.
We shouldn’t be encouraging the artificial divide between Englishness and Britishness. It is perfectly possible for citizens to feel both, either or neither and still to be open to persuasion on arguments about the UK’s membership of the European Union. And we certainly shouldn’t be ceding how Englishness is self-defined to the likes of Ukip or the rest of the right.
Liberalism is about recognising individuality and promoting community – whether at family, village, town, city, county, national or international level. There’s nothing wrong with believing in Great Britain. But there’s nothing wrong with believing in England being Great either.
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7 Comments
“…..But first, we had to deal with someone behind the scenes briefing against both Tim Farron and party activists”
Any chance of reminding us who exactly it was who was doing all that “behind the scenes briefing” ???
How were they dealt with?
“We all knew we were up against it in the Euros”
I am sorry, ‘we’ didn’t have a clue how badly ‘we’ were going to be thrashed in those elections. The worst scenario being contemplated centrally at that time was going down to three MEPs. The tactics being adopted for those elections was an extension of the processes of denial which had pervaded the previous three years. If anyone had told the conference at York that we were about to be knocked back to a single MEP they would have been thrown out as a doom-monger.
Tony, quite right, I forecast a wipe-out and was rounded upon as “Mr Gloom and Doom”. I am fearful about the General and relying on the Ashcroft constituency polling is highly dangerous. It is quite possible that the voters will want a clear decision in May and we could be hit heavily by the Conservatives and SNP. It is hard to see our leader being taken seriously in the Leaders debates, everyone will have a go at him. Really as a party we do not want to be in a coalition next parliament, we need to lick our wounds, review what went wrong, re-group and recover. It could take 3 years at least. One thing does comfort me, Stephen and Caron do not sound so optimistic these days. I think realism is seeping through.
Tony Dawson
Some of us posting comments in LDV in early March 2014 did have an inkling that the results in May 2014 would be bad.
For example these two comments (both made before the Farage/Clegg TV debate disaster) —
Paul In Twickenham 2nd Mar ’14 – 9:04am
“Popular with sandal wearers”… As they say in football, “get your retaliation in first”. Sounds like Lib Dem Towers are trying to denigrate the likely candidates for a post-May leadership challenge rather than bad-mouthing the rank-and-file (most of whom wouldn’t identify with the sandal-wearing stereotype). Reading between the lines do we take this as a frank assessment of the expectations for May?
JohnTilley 2nd Mar ’14 – 10:27am
Paul in Twickenham,
Yes, it seems that even at the top of the party they have started to recognise the implications of a leader with a 58% MINUS popularity rating who has brought his party down month after month to poll ratings of between 6% and 9%
One of the good things about York ( apart of course from location!) was that we passed the policy paper giving us Liberal policies on immigration, social cohesion and asylum. There were no amendments, very few speeches against, and those that were, were on some specific points.
However the lack of a big row may be one of the reasons why the Party appears to have forgotten we have such a policy when speaking or campaigning on such matters. Our policy on asylum is massively better than any of the other parties. Just show it or talk about it to people / groups working in, or caring about the issue.
“….voters will want a clear decision in May and we could be hit heavily by the Conservatives and SNP.”
I agree. I think Milliband is just far too great a turn-off for hundreds of thousands of voters for Labour to have the slightest chance of emerging as the largest party (plus he, Balls, Harman and the rest of “yesterday’s people” just do not have any credibility when talking about economic issues as they were all “up to their necks” in it under Brown (and all lacked the guts to ditch the latter when it was obvious where things were going)). The Conservatives are likely to achieve this status and will patch up some minority government support with the Northern Irish parties (and others?) to give them some hold onto power but only with the SOLE intention of picking the absolutely best time (September or October?) from their point of view for going for a second election (as in 1974) (but this time with their gaining a majority!) and pulling out all the stops of an English nationalist/anti-EU campaign with the intention of winning back every single Kipper vote they can, relentlessly plugging the message of “A vote for the Kippers is a vote for weak government! Give us the tools to finish the job!” Where this will leave the Lib Dems, the Greens and non-Blairite/non-statist Labour is not at all clear to me, but the circumstances as they could then exist would seem to suggest one possible option at least?
@ Charles Rothwell 30/12/14; 11.07
The Tories are already filling up a war-chest for a 2nd election in 2015.
The Lib Dems are destined to be buried – Will. Be. Buried. – under a Tsunami of Kipper bilge.
What to do? Nick Clegg is a fine man who has lead us in a ‘conservative-lite/Tory Mild’ direction many of us ‘have trouble supporting’ with predictable, catastrophic consequences for our party.