So it looks like Jeremy Corbyn may be elected Leader of the Opposition and if that happens, Labour have no one to blame but themselves.
As we’ve witnessed the farcical antics of Her Majesty’s opposition let’s consider how they have reached this point.
There’s a line that runs directly from the Blair years to 2015.
The Blair years (despite the welcome policies of National Minimum Wage, LGBT equality and various other things) were really about kicking difficult and much needed economic and welfare reforms into the long grass hoping it would be `alright on the night`. Their handmaiden was an unsustainable boom propped up by the Chinese. Though it’s true to say that Labour didn’t directly cause the banking crash – they did enable it to affect our economy by stoking up a huge credit bubble and poor regulation of the banks. Thus a blind eye was turned to an annual 3% deficit during a boom – all designed to gain ballot box receipts. The money had to run out sooner or later. Blair and his cohorts loved the housing bubble and some MPs even took advantage of it by flipping homes.
That was the first of their erroneous ways.
The second was the period post the 2010 election. Instead of doing the intellectual heavy lifting and reflecting on the reasons why they lost so as to start the hard policy slog to regain power they reverted to type. If in the 13 years leading up to 2010 they decided that the money would never run out they made it into an art form post 2010. Corbynite language first came on the scene post 2010 in local election literature.
If you drag a third party through the mud for cheap and easy local council votes yet have no idea how to pay for the things you’re attacking you end up spending political capital for short term gain. This unsustainable political model eventually failed in 2015. Even Ed Balls tried to perform a screeching uturn towards the end of the coalition years rowing back from the `all things to everyone` Labour message.
This has now led to the inevitable. The self-righteous ire Labour encouraged in their literature and on social media to attack the Coalition Government has turned in on itself to attack Labour: Labour might well have a leader who makes no apology for giving an analysis of the country’s problems without any sense of costed or politically sustainable solutions. That’s before we get on to foreign policy.
It’s almost a criminal act. Labour crushed one party that was new to national government through easy politics and is now letting go of its own responsibilities and letting down the very people it is supposed to serve.
The real job now for the non-conservative left is to find a caring alternative to the Conservatives that understands the Centre ground/pragmatic left voter with a hard-headed yet imaginative policy and cultural offer. The only question remains is whether the Liberal Democrats are up to the challenge or whether they’ll go into their own comfort zones similar to Labour.
When the history books are rewritten this period in political history will prove a lot kinder to the Liberal Democrats than others presume – they didn’t stand on the sidelines, they actually made a difference by enacting some of their policies. I doubt if it’s something that will be said of the Labour party in the coming five to ten years.
* John Abrams is a member and activist in Stockport
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45 Comments
In fairness to Gordon Brown (not something I often say) tax credits were a good concept just badly executed. Much as IDS’s Universal credit was a conceptually good evolution, badly executed.
These should not be lost if listing positive things of the 97-2010 government (oh yes and the HRA).
I agree with John Abrams that the problem goes back to Blair. Labour were elected in 1997 with a positive message and while I may think it was wrong to keep to Tory spending plans for the first two years, I can accept why that promise was kept. However they didn’t really delivery a better society. They failed to achieve full employment or try to educate the general public that it was no longer possible.
@ PSI
Tax Credits were another Labour failure. I don’t understand why it is a good thing for governments to subsidise companies by allowing them to pay low wages people can’t live on.
The Blair government was Thatcher lite and didn’t know how to address the increasing problem of disengagement from politics and the problems of the socially excluded. In the end the Labour government was based on the premise that they were better managers than the Tories and 2008 and the failures of Gordon Brown as a leader put paid to this.
Some progress was made after 2010 to provide an alternative to the government, but in the end it was too little and Labour’s message was not we will create a better society, but we will cut less quickly than the Tories, which maybe the public interpreted as the pain will last longer. It was the SNP that was providing an alternative to the Tory led government.
So maybe the reason that Jeremy Corbyn is doing so well is because Labour members are fed up of being Conservative lite and wish to have a positive message of a better society for all.
Trouble is, Labour have form here – I joined the Liberal Party in 1983 in order to try to replace a worn-out and creaking Labour Party that was so intent on ideological pigeonholes it abandoned the country to Thatcher. Think Militant, Michael Foot etc.
Where to start?
Good article. I think the first problem that Labour have is socialism, but I think the bigger problem is appeasement. They appease special interest groups that really have nothing to do with socialism until you get to the stage where the favourite for the leader of the movement believes in conspiracy theories on how everything is the fault of bankers and the West (not to mention the “Zionists”).
Lib Dems won’t go down that route, but these conspiracy theories are held by too many people and we need to start calling them out and winning the culture wars.
Sadly for the Lib Dems when the history books are rewritten they will conclude that the party allowed itself to be destroyed for the sake of aiding and abetting a Tory Government. Focus on building up the party from ruin and leave Labour to its own troubles.
No mention of Lehmann brothers or the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The 2008 crisis began in good old free market US of A. Sorry, but I still don’t buy the comparison Clegg and Alexander made with the Greek situation in 2010. I suggest Mr Abrams has a look at the comments on the economy by David Blanchflower who was on the board of the Bank of England at the time.
@Silvio
An alternative possibility is that, within a couple of years, a lot of people start looking back at the 2010-15 Coalition Government as an example of comparatively good government.
In relation to that it’s important that we point out where both Labour and the present majority Conservative Government are going wrong.
Sadly for the Lib Dems when the history books are rewritten they will conclude that the party allowed itself to be destroyed for the sake of aiding and abetting a Tory Government. Focus on building up the party from ruin and leave Labour to its own troubles.
@Silvio
An alternative possibility is that, within a couple of years, a lot of people start looking back at the 2010-15 Coalition Government as an example of comparatively good government.
In relation to that it’s important that we point out where both Labour and the present majority Conservative Government are going wrong.
“the party allowed itself to be destroyed for the sake of aiding and Abetting a Tory Government”
Yes that is a very accurate summary of the last five years.
We are in a very odd situation combining weakness with opportunity; both our rivals are deserting the Centre & talking to themselves but the voters arent listening to us. Theres a gap in the Centre thats asing to be filled but the Party that fits that space is temporarily invisible to the public – its an unstable situation that could change very quickly, we just have to plug away & be ready for any opportunities that arise.
No party has a divine right to exist, except, it would seem, the Conservative Party which, in many respects, is not a political party at all but rather an attitude to life. Sir Robert Peel had a point when he turned the old Tories into ‘Conservatives’, because their raisin d’être is to ‘conserve’. It was inevitable that we needed a new party at the beginning of the 20th century as the Liberal Party, despite its heart being more or less in the right place, could never fulfil the aspirations of an emerging working class. Those aspirations have largely now been realised so the need for that new party, the Labour Party, as the only real alternative to conservatism is no longer there.
That doesn’t mean that we just except Tory hegemony for ever. The main task for the 60 to 70% of people who do not identify themselves as Conservatives but whose political allegiance, if they indeed have one, is divided amongst several parties that do not want to ‘conserve’ everything is to find a way of working together. We could learn a lesson from the way the Liberal Party and the emerging Labour Party, through non aggression pacts, kept out Tory candidates in certain areas in several general elections before WW1. Leicester, with its two MPs, one a Liberal and one Labour’s Ramsay McDonald, was a good example. Could a similar arrangement work today? Under FPTP it might be the ONLY way to break the mould that the Lib Dems have been promising to do for the past 30 years or more.
But those that throw up what labour did wrong must of course look at themselves first, the Liberals are in the same mess as the labour at this time. Scotland is the labour problem plus Wales which I suspect will be a massive loss to labour unless they act,. but it will not be the Lib dems that replace the party unless you going to go back into coalition with the Tories.
All political parties are in a mess including the Tories , but if your going to start throwing stones in the green house you better make sure it has bullet proof glass.
labour are without doubt in a mess but the Lib dems are close to being forgotten
OK – I’ll stick my head above the parapet.
‘The real job now for the non-conservative left is to find a caring alternative to the Conservatives that understands the Centre ground/pragmatic left voter with a hard-headed yet imaginative policy and cultural offer.’
I think that what you are describing here is, to use the buzz-phrase, ‘tory-lite.’ Or, if you prefer, ‘Cameronism.’
Oh sure, the present CON government is not exactly caring and sharing, most notably on some of the welfare reforms. And it’s shown some political cowardice too. But Cameron is most certainly not a slash-and-burn headbanger. The 2015 CON manifesto included an extraordinarily generous triple locked pension, £8bn from nowhere for the NHS, intervention in the railways in the form of fare caps and several other policies that would probably not be totally out of place in Ed M’s Labour. Yes, Cameron’s tory-lite does cut some people out, most notably the young. What it is however is something that appears to be an election winning platform – at least for now.
I don’t like it, but I get a sense that a number of people, myself included, rather underestimated Cameron. His tory-lite may yet prove, partly by luck, to have some serious resonance for this country over the next decade.
Any analysis for the moment has to look at, ‘tory-lite,’ as something real, substantial and more or less in government rather than just something to trot out on the internet.
Don’t be complacent and dismiss Corbyn as “farcical”. Whether you agree with him or not he is articulating a coherent policy and critique of modern multinational corporatism and the way it impacts on society at all levels. He is pulling in huge crowds of idealistic folk and seems to be connecting with them. His policy of quantitative easing for industrial purposes has echoes of the Lloyd George campaign of 1929. Tim would give his back teeth to pull in audiences like that. WE need to do some hard thinking about how to reconnect with the public in an imaginative and creative way instead of parroting on about what is perceived to be a discredited Coalition mantra.
Labour got into this “mess” by supressing their activists and believing in the End of History stuff that was doing the rounds in the 1990s. The idea that the Reagan/thatcher doctrine had won for ever had set in. They didn’t see 9/11 or the crash coming and turned themselves toxic to a lot of their own voters. Unfortunately, the Lib Dems also brought into this and Nick Clegg to a large extent modelled his plans very much along the lines of New Labour. Contrary to some of the stuff said on here and in the press, the Tories got in on a low turn out and a split vote, not popularity. 24% of the potential electorate is what they got and that’s what they actually represent. Equally this is not a rerun of the Thatcher years either. House sales are going down not up. there’s more job insecurity, less disposable income, much higher personal debt, and a changing demographic who were not even alive in the 80s or if they were they were toddlers. Someone who was a 15 year-old in 1990 is now 40 years old and has witnessed one disastrous war after another and trust in political leaders hit rock bottom. Younger than that and they probably could not even vote in the 1990s. Basically this is the death of a 30 plus year consensus whoever becomes Labour leader and the Lib Dems need to stop harping on about ancient history.
Perhaps it might be more useful to ask ” how did the Lib Dems get themselves into this mess?”
And before anyone points me to any threads/blogs about the dire state of the Lib Dems , I don’t think you have come close to even scratching the surface of where the Party has gone so badly wrong. Labour will look after itself; Lib Dems need to direct all their energies, and then some, to saving their own Party . Or is it not enough to be down to 8MPs?
John Abrams,
Reading your article I find myself wondering if I have lived through the last fifteen years in different country from you.
A lot of whatyou have written does not accord with how I remember things.
I may be wrong.
I am puzzled by your suggestion that for the future that —
“..The real job now for the non-conservative left is to find a caring alternative to the Conservatives that understands the Centre ground/pragmatic left voter with a hard-headed yet imaginative policy and cultural offer”
I am not sure who you mean by “the non-conservative left”. It seems to assume that there is a “conservative left” – is that what your meant!
What is the “cultural” offer?
Sorry but you have lost me. Is it not the job of Liberal Democrats to promote what we believe in?
Or do you regard that as being in a “comfort zone”?
‘Little Jackie Paper’,
You might be right about Cameron. Of all the leaders, he is the one that actually does look prime ministerial. That means a great deal to many voters.
Give my regards to Puff the Magic Dragon when you see him again!
Glenn –
‘the Tories got in on a low turn out and a split vote, not popularity.’
True of course. But then I don’t think anyone claimed that the Conservatives were ravingly popular. As to the low turn out, decisions are made by the people that show up. Whether Liberal Democrats or anyone else likes it or not, it was an election-winning platform.
You are very right to point out that this is not the 1980s. Thatcher has not been PM for 25 years now and we are not far off post-Thatcher. Indeed, my suspicion is that Corbyn’s past might not really resonate. Someone now in their early 20s in insecure work, unable to afford a house and carrying student debt probably couldn’t care less about what Corbyn said about Ireland 30 years ago.
As I said earlier, I’d certainly agree that youth is the cloud on the horizon for the Conservatives. But I would argue it is probably a cloud on the horizon for most parties. Bluntly the past five years has seen political consensus on a triple locked pension alongside a consensus on fees. I make no value judgement here on these policies, I simply say that the comparison is hard to miss.
If there is going to be a real alternative it will absolutely need to engage the young. My instinct is that Corbyn will certainly try sooner not later – time will tell if he has any success.
But ultimately I have to ask if the vision here is, ‘ a caring alternative to the Conservatives that understands the Centre ground/pragmatic left voter with a hard-headed yet imaginative policy and cultural offer,’ where do the young fit. My instinct (and I claim no evidence) is that the young don’t fetishise the NHS as many older people do. They don’t look to the EU for answers any more than they look to Westminster. They likely have no problem building houses on green belt if need be, and don’t care for BANANA councils dominated by house price obsessed older people. And this is before we get to pensions.
I don’t believe that either Corbyn or Cameron has the answer to youth – but I don’t think anyone else has it either. Worse, no one seems to be all that bothered.
John Marriott
‘You might be right about Cameron. Of all the leaders, he is the one that actually does look prime ministerial. That means a great deal to many voters.’
It shouldn’t do – but it does and I think you are right. Five years ago I had him down as a light-weight. I have to admit that I appear to have seriously under-estimated him and the fact I’m not alone is no consolation.
‘Give my regards to Puff the Magic Dragon when you see him again!’
I don’t see him any more. One grey night it happened, and all that.
A bit rich of the Libdems to mock ‘Labour’s mess’ given the disaster suffered by LibDems earlier this year. Corbyn has attracted interest from tens of thousands. They are not all Trots or mischievous Tories. Even Peter Hitchens confessed to being impressed having attended a Corbyn rally. Let’s face it if Fallon was attracting such audiences this blog would be euphoric. If the Libdems want to see The left and Corbyn as the enemy whilst Cameron destroys the welfare state and public services, do so by all means. But that, in my opinion, would be to echo Mr Hardy, “another fine mess you got us in Town”.
As this a article about the Labour Party, I wonder if any one has seen this?
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/09/project-red-dawn/
Little Jackie Paper.
I actually think people are over estimating David Came3ron and the appeal of Tory Lite, because it been more or less the consensus for so long that it seems to be the definition of realpolitik . Being seen as tory-lite certainly hasn’t helped the labour big hitters and it didn’t exactly workout well Clegg and Laws either. My personal opinion of Cameron is that he gets by mostly on latent deference for the old aristocracy and an easy ride. He’s going to find division at least as deep as labour’s in EU referendum and has already ruled out standing in 2020. That’s not to say that Corbyn can win and as a liberal I certainly won’t be voting for him, but the point to me is this. Unlike in the Blair Years and in the first years of Cameron there will be very different set of arguments entering the national dialog and they are going to come from someone who will not try to hide his beliefs or run away from the “red” tag. Manufactured outrage and insinuations tend to kill off clean cut media compliant operators by forcing them into a cycle of apologies and backtracking, , but they tend to bounce off people who say yup I did this and that, yup I believe this and that, so what. Corbyn’ is 66 years old, softly spoken rather than a caricature of a shouty leftist beloved of our press, probably doesn’t see himself as prime minister either and doesn’t really have a lot to lose. Some of what he says will stick.
Chris Sh’
But that’s by a Conservative activist and is essentially about why the Conservatives are so aweson and loved and on the right path. And it also ignores the reality that they took seats more by default than popularity as their vote was barely up on 2019 and probably no better as the turnout was lower, plus Labour were hobbled by the loss of Scottish seats, which they didn’t lose to The Conservatives or UKIP, but to the SNP. It doesn’t mention the Green Vote, Lib Dem Vote, the youth vote, urban vote, the effect of vote splitting in Lib Dem seats. It’s a view based on a selective sample of UKIP and Conservative voters and it has to be pointed out that Labour defections to UKIP were lower than those by Conservatives and mostly happened in Blair years as a result of immigration/EU and the rejection of the New Labour project, which contradicts article’s conclusions.!
Nature abhors a political vacuum. Either we fill it or something else will.
‘Little Jackie Paper’,
I think many people underestimated Dave. That wind turbine on his roof and the husky ride were good theatre and led people into thinking that his heart was in the right place. The tragedy of his son, Ivan, and the way he and his family dealt with it resonated, I am sure, with many who might have thought “There but for the grace of god…….”
However, we should never forget his pedigree. He is a member of a party whose divine right is to rule. And, if he fails to deliver, he will be ruthlessly cast aside like IDS. The fact that he has said he will not seek another mandate might indicate his appreciation of his sell by date. His announcement on the morning after the Scottish Neverendum was playing to those characters on the right wing of his party who really pull the strings. The difference between them and the hard left that appear to be taking over Labour is that their views, whether on Europe, privatisation et al, are shared by a, for me, frighteningly high proportion of the (older) population, who are the ones who tend to vote.
As regards Puff, I had forgotten the last verse. Mind you, being magic, you never know. Look what’s happened to Jeremy Corbyn!
PS For those of you too young (and sensible) to know what I am talking about, “Puff the Magic Dragon” was a chart hit in the 1960s for the US trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, and his ‘friend’ was called Little Jackie Paper.
Even when I was 5, I always found that song profoudly sad.
Yet another, “Labour are Doooomed, Mr Mainwaring!”……Nothing new, nothing constructive for our party; just more “a caring alternative to the Conservatives”…..
Labour have, if Corbyn wins, thrown away their Tory lite image for a radical ‘new’ approach ( I say ‘new’ because, like fashion, yesterday’s outre’ is today’s’ in thing’). Will it resonate with voters? I don’t know but many of Corbyn’s ideas on public ownership (transport/energy) are popular; he can also say, “I voted against military adventures in Iraq, Libya and Syria” at a time when the public are re-examining our actions….
I’d love to read more “WE ARE” than “THEY ARE” articles…THEY have 230+ MPs and 30% support WE have 8(7) MPs and support to match….
@Little Jackie Piper ” My instinct (and I claim no evidence) is that the young don’t fetishise the NHS as many older people do. They don’t look to the EU for answers any more than they look to Westminster. They likely have no problem building houses on green belt if need be, and don’t care for BANANA councils dominated by house price obsessed older people. And this is before we get to pensions.”
I’m not sure what you’d class as “young” but I think this is common in anyone below Boomer age.
It’s quite simple really – Both Labour and the Lib Dems have messed up, big time.
Both are taking some steps to recover, but Labour’s huge shift to Corbynism is a bit of a last-throw-of-the-dice act, while by contrast the Lib Dems are moving far too timidly and slowly away from the Coalition disaster.
Meanwhile, the Tories are professionals. Lynton Crosby knows the dark arts of winning, with “dead cats thrown onto the table”, iron control of the message, total disregard for the facts, total manipulation of democracy. It works. Osborne knows the dark arts of governing to win. Create a mythology about the deficit, confidently express total certainty while in reality dithering and weaving, tell people to be selfish and vote for you when in fact their self-interest may well be to vote against you. It works. The kleptocrats rule and get richer, while the country goes down the pan.
@David Raw “WE need to do some hard thinking about how to reconnect with the public in an imaginative and creative way instead of parroting on about what is perceived to be a discredited Coalition mantra.”
Given the Conservatives got into government on the back of the record of the Coalition, it’s hard to argue that it is discredited with the electorate.
Are they in such trouble?. Corbyn has a wider appeal thatn many think. He could well have a honemoon period that could adversely affect ourselves, indeeed compared to ourselves they are in a wonderland. We are still at 8% and got a disappointing result at Maidstone yesterday where the fifth place Greens % vote increased. We should be focussing on our own predicament, otherwise we will not move forward fast enough. We need new radical announcements fronted by the leader, not harping back to the “memories” of coailtion.
I strongly agree with John Abrahms analysis.
Labour had a strategy developed by Alistair Darling to recover from the economic crisis. In government the restraints on the Tories exerted by Liberal Democrats ensured that Darling’s prescription was more or less adhered to.
In a time of economic difficulty Labour could not resist an easy hit against Liberal Democrats, but in so doing used language and attitudes that have engulfed themselves and validated a politics that will keep the party out of government. Labour has become a victim of its own free hits.
Many in the blogosphere have been suckered in by Labour’s agenda as some comments on this thread demonstrate. It is not a question of mocking Labour, we Liberal Democrats have severe but different problems of our own. Yet this article does underline that there is nothing to be gained from embracing Labour’s specious narrative. All this would do would be to further entrench Conservatives in government. Until Labour change tack and until their is a revival in Liberal Democrat support, the Conservatives will remain in power.
Whatever the result of the Labour Leadership election it is an undeniable fact that Corbyn has energised a political tidal wave which Liberal Democrats should learn from.
In the most democratic election ever to take place within The Labour Party more than half a million members have been issued a ballot paper.
If this is what is described as “a mess” I hope that The Liberal Democrats get into a similar mess soon.
Michael BG, tax credits were the new form of Family Credit brought in by the Tory Thatcher. As a recipient I can tell you that it was much easier to claim and was renewed every 6 months without having to pay back if your income increased. Just because Brown changed the name and gave it to HMRC to make a pigs ear does not change the fact that this was begun by the Tories and was the start of subsidising employers, no doubt the reason for bringing it in.
Martin 11th Sep ’15 – 11:39am …………….In a time of economic difficulty Labour could not resist an easy hit against Liberal Democrats, but in so doing used language and attitudes that have engulfed themselves and validated a politics that will keep the party out of government. Labour has become a victim of its own free hits…………..
Pots and kettles?…Clegg/Alexander/Laws never missed any opportunity to vilify Labour…When Milliband offered a curtailment of “Bankers’ Bonuses”, Clegg’s response was that he’d “take no advice from those who had, single-handedly, crashed the UK economy”…
Brown took time off from campaigning at the height of the Independence debate to attend the Commons and speak in support of the LibDem bill on foreign aid….Days before the GE Clegg was still blaming Labour for all the countries ills….
What a confused and confusing article which leaves me wondering if the writer and I are in the same time zone.
What is clear is that some Liberal Democrats are massively underestimating Jeremy Corbyn and the damage he can do to the Liberal Democrats. Corbyn engages with people in a way no other politician does and makes others sound and look shifty and insincere.
He also articulates an argument that has not had mainstream consideration for many years and many Liberal Democrat supporters and members will be engaged by it.
Certainly Corbyn is correct you cannot fight from the centre ground to do so allows others to determine your position.
@John Tilley
I’m not sure I’d describe a system that allows people to buy a vote for £3 as “the most democratic election ever to take place”, but that’s not the main point.
The reason that lots of us in the Lib Dems consider it a mess (and a quite delightful one) is that it looks as if the most unsuitable candidate will win.
If Corbyn does indeed win, we need to take full advantage of that, as I’m sure you’d agree.
Simon Shaw calls Labours mess delightful. What would he call the Lib Dem mess does he even accept there is one.
@Neil
“What is clear is that some Liberal Democrats are massively underestimating Jeremy Corbyn and the damage he can do to the Liberal Democrats. Corbyn engages with people in a way no other politician does and makes others sound and look shifty and insincere.”
And has it occured to you that you may be massively overestimating Jeremy Corbyn. For example, from somewhere he has gained this reutation of being “an honest politician”. You only have to look at what he says, for example on fiscal matters, to realise that he is the exact opposite.
If we have the good fortune to see him elected tomorrow, then all those dubious claims of his will be subjected to unprecedented examination and be exposed for what they are.
@Silvio
A good point. It’s precisely because we are in such a mess that the fact that a competitor party is (very likely) placing itself in an even greater mess, that I call it “delightful”.
In all honesty I don’t think we deserve the good fortune that we seem to have in prospect. As a united Party under Tim’s leadership, Labour’s likely choice of the manifestly least suitable candidate gives us fantastic opportunities.
Martin,
Labour are changing tack. They fought the last two election under basically the same economic message as the conservatives. Ed Miliband promised deeper cuts and they didn’t win and as John Tilley points out there’s a strong element of pot kettle noir here, Why vote for Tory Lite if you can just vote for the Tories who have shifted to a more liberal position on issues like gay marriage anyway. The problem for both Labour and the Lib Dems is that they were perceived as the monkeys jumping about for the organ grinder. And anyway if you were honest, Cameron is basically Blair Lite in first place. This is not a strong government, it has a marginal majority and itchy backbenchers who I believe helped defeat a bill only this Monday. Conservative rule is not the only way or a god given right and personally I think the fact that this twitchy ineffectual leaeder nearly split up the United Kingdom may very well take us out of the EU is a bigger political and social concern than the labour leadership or whether or not someone is beardy and likes cold beans. This what we don’t really know what the next labour leader will be like, but we actually have abundant evidence that Cameron is a dangerously ineffectual twerp who can’t actually carry his own party and so gambles with the entire country. We are giving him an easy ride because we are sort of conditioned into seeing the suite and the Eton tones as innately commanding of respect. He looks like a prime minister and sounds like a prime minister in Bolting brothers film, but you actually have to go back to the early 19th Century to find one this useless.
The deeper problem for the Lib Dems is we seem to be hoping Labour screws up and it will just be the 1980s again, but it ain’t the 1980s
How did the Scottish LiberalDdemocrats get in such a mess, as judging by yesterdays, dreadful, awful results. Over to Caron. By the way labour gained a seat off the Greens up there.!
How do you form a non Tory government? Not by going it alone. This question has been asked before, notably by ex Labour MP and one of the founders of the SDP, Professor David Marquand in his seminal work, ‘ The Progressive Dilemma’ published nearly 25 years ago. You might also care to read Martin Kettle’s article on a similar subject in today’s Guardian.
Whoever becomes the new Labour leader – and at current odds of 1/16 there cannot be much doubt – will have to wrestle with this problem that refuses to go away. There is no time machine to take us back to the 1950s when the two party system held sway. Multi party politics is probably here to stay; it’s just the voting system that might convince a visitor from Mars that this isn’t the case. I was born in 1943 when our country, facing probably its greatest existential crisis, was happy to entrust its fate to a coalition. I wouldn’t mind ending my days under one (but not just yet).
theakes 11th Sep ’15 – 2:02pm
“How did the Scottish Liberal Democrats get in such a mess, as judging by yesterdays, dreadful, awful results?”
It would appear that Lberal Democrats in Scotland have reached a new low of an average support in elections of 4% .
Scotland’s Liberal Democrats aligned themselves with the Unionists in The Westminster Government and in The Referendum so our support plummeted.
Deciding to become yet another Unionist party was probably in practical terms the nearest thing ever to voluntary euthanasia by a political party.