In this age of anxiety, can Liberal Democrats meet the national needs?

People are reaching out. The more politically active join Labour or the Liberal Democrats. Many others worry quietly, and more of them than usual seek out personal counselling. The holidays and the pause in political activity may offer some relief, but the anxieties persist. In fact it’s a worse time than before, because the months of campaigning for the Referendum and the weeks of political upheaval were exciting and arousing. Now is the time of waiting and worrying.

It’s been a year of no genuine government. It climaxed in a campaign which in its incoherence and noisy assertiveness showed up British politicians in a very poor light. The campaign ended in vast uncertainty about what happens next. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the most powerful men in the country, suddenly lost power. The Government regrouped with an assertion of right to rule, but without legitimacy. The main Opposition fell apart and seems fatally split.

Meanwhile there was no comfort anywhere. The dreadful Syrian conflict seems to show Britain’s military and political impotence in world affairs. The other countries of the EU have become conflicted by the rise of Far Right and Far Left parties. The unstoppable flow of immigrants and refugees fleeing war and terror baffled and alarmed the European countries of the east and south. The fear and dread spread to Britain, the least affected nation, with those furthest away from the problems enhanced by immigrant numbers still trying to retreat by voting Leave. Simultaneously the fear of terrorism has grown with the assaults on people holidaying or partying or even praying, not far away, in Paris, Nice and Munich.

It’s not as if ordinary people here have lives of ease and comfort, to be able to forget about politics and shut out the troubles of the world. There’s been no rise in the standard of living for most working people since the 2008 economic crisis. The successful rich, in the City, in industry and banking and property, grew richer so that inequality has become ever more evident and galling. After de-industrialisation and with a shrinking service sector, people have taken what jobs they can – short-term, zero-hours, minimum wage, self-employed, in care or in catering, hard-worked and ill-rewarded. Young people struggle to find affordable rented homes, let alone to be able to buy. Old sick people are shunted between hospital and home with inadequate social care. Benefit recipients, falling foul of the failing system, must resort regularly to food banks and other charities for help.

What can we Liberal Democrats do to work for the people? This should be our time, for we at least can offer coherence and steadiness, the psychological reassurance of our comparative unity, our consistent values and principles, and our recent positive contributions to government, national and local. Now we need to hammer out updated policies on structural reforms and economic growth and better services, on renewable energy and alternative investment, on health and housing and education: to work out and show this autumn what we can do for Britain, and for Europe.

* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Cumberland Lib Dems

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22 Comments

  • ‘Recent positive contribution to Government’. The pain of the Bedroom Tax is still too raw for a lot of people to trust the Lib Dems. sad truth is the party inflicted a deadly blow to itself and much misery to the poor and needy. I say this not in bitterness but as an ex voter of the party. I am not sure how the party will ever recover from such a nasty attack on lifes most weak. I often come near to forgiving the party but then I look on the terror that the Bedroom Tax caused and I cant.

  • Thank you for this post,it reminds me that we cannot be a party like Labour opposing everything but afraid to have a policy on anything, in order to appeal to people likeSilvio.
    The bedroom tax was clumsy but not wrong..as a leader of a Council some years ago when Council House sales to tenants soared , we were left with people in real need of social housing. But some larger houses were underoccupied and the now single tenant in that house, who had lived there with a large family for years, refused to move to allow people like themselves in the distant past,to benefit. We chose the route of cash incentives to move and it worked. So I say the theory of bedroom tax was ok. but its application awful and clumsy.
    We as a party can begin to develop policies in line with our beliefs that recognize the deepening chasm between the wealthy and the less well off, because we are a party not wedded to theold hard left ideology nor devil takes the hindmost of Thatcherite Tories.
    Let the discussion continue and Silvio please take part.

  • Lorenzo Cherin 2nd Aug '16 - 4:18pm

    Councils up and down this country have implemented the bedroom tax or penalised with housing benefit reductions ,on the sly years before , for private tenants. Nobody gave a da..With a massive shortage of social housing the policy was not unfair at all if councils themselves had done it gradually and flexibly. That was not the case .

    There was much that New Labour and the coalition did that was good and bad and middling. We must move on.

    Katherine right often , is here .

  • Lorenzo Cherin 2nd Aug '16 - 4:26pm

    Bob Sayer

    Avery good comment , would have liked to have had you in charge instead of the Labour councils , yes , Labour councils , that cut or would not pay housing benefit in full some many years ago , when my wife needed a room of her own with an orthopedic bed because of injuries from a car accident a few years earlier and they said we could only get the housing benefit for a one bedroom flat , despite it being a reasonable rent !

    I loathe the nasty right wing policies but the lies about who did what when are as bad !

  • Tony Dawson 2nd Aug '16 - 4:41pm

    The short answer to this question, at present, is ‘No’. That need not, however, be the case in a couple of year’s time. Unfortunately, for all the madness which the Labour Party is getting up to, the nation as a whole still currently believes them to be the only real opposition to the Tories by a margin of about 4:1. To change that requires Lib Dems to get out there and start winning elections – and the media to notice this.

  • Bob Sayer “we cannot be a party like Labour opposing everything but afraid to have a policy on anything, in order to appeal to people like Silvio. The bedroom tax was clumsy but not wrong..

    Sorry, Bob, to say as a former Council leader that it was clumsy but not wrong is a bit like Haig justifying the Somme. Seven miles gained (but over 420,000 casualties)…………… I speak as a Trustee of a Food Bank, experience with the CAB and a Cabinet member with responsibility for Social Work.

    One of the worst examples of “clumsiness” was the impact on victims of domestic violence………….. and there are many more examples. Thank goodness Tim opposed it.

  • bob sayer criticises a “Labour that opposed everything”…Geoffrey Payne criticises a “Labour that didn’t oppose everything”…
    Make up your minds…

    Articles like the one above stating “This should be our time, for we at least can offer coherence and steadiness, the psychological reassurance of our comparative unity, our consistent values and principles, and our recent positive contributions to government”, forget that it was the abandonment of our values whilst in government that is still remembered… NHS, Tuition Fees, Secret Courts, Welfare and, of course, Bedroom Tax….

    bob sayers’s defence of the hated Bedroom Tax “Correct, just clumsy” says much…Our leader condemns “Cameron’s Cronies” but ignores our own “SIR Danny Alexanders”…..

    We will not succeed on the national scale until we have regained trust at the local level; a process that took decades to build, and less than a single parliament to destroy!

  • Peter Watson 3rd Aug '16 - 9:09am

    @Geoffrey Payne “the Parliamentary Liberal Democrats voted against the Tory Welfare reforms last year that Labour abstained on. Yes the bedroom tax was a terrible policy that caused a lot of misery but the party will not support that kind of policy now.”
    Unfortunately that seems to point to a party which will say one thing to get into power and do another thing if it is in power. That was a theme which damaged the reputation of the party severely between 2010-2015 and which makes it difficult to trust the much diminished Lib Dems post-2015.
    I believe that the party needs to stick to a clear, consistent and well-communicated set of positions, perhaps for several years, before it will be able to re-establish itself. Sadly I don’t yet really see much sign of that (with the exception – and risk – of being perceived as a single issue pro-EU party), and rumours that Farron might be replaced by Clegg undermine what small progress has been made. After the confusing and contradictory behaviour in coalition, it is difficult to pin down precisely what Lib Dems stand for as a party (hopefully more than compromise and soggy centralism).

  • David Garlick 3rd Aug '16 - 9:46am

    We Liberal Democrats were not “in power”. We were in a minor party in a coalition where you get some of your policies through by supporting some of your partners. It seems remarkable that the term coalition in its most simplest is till portrayed as if all the policies were ours. We should have walked away as soon as we had established that the economy was stable but the long term nature of the ‘deal’ was just one of our mistakes.

  • Peter Watson 3rd Aug '16 - 10:46am

    @David Garlick “We should have walked away as soon as we had established that the economy was stable but the long term nature of the ‘deal’ was just one of our mistakes.”
    There was a risk associated with every decision about how to manage being in the Coalition government.
    In my opinion, given the hand dealt by the electorate, going into coalition with the Tories was probably the right thing to do (though I would not dismiss the alternative of confidence and supply). However, in Coalition, the Lib Dems’ fundamental mistake was to sacrifice their identity and to appear indistinguishable from their Tory coalition partners when presenting and defending policies, made worse by maintaining this for 5 years. This made those policies look like a willing betrayal of Lib Dem voters, even if they might have been the result of strong debate and reluctant compromise behind the scenes.
    Since 2015, it looks like the party has not progressed. Neither clearly moving away from nor building upon the Coalition years, with a bit of inconsistent tinkering around the edges, the party’s position on important issues looks very fuzzy and undefined.

  • The Coalition was probably the best government of the last quarter century (nod to Blair’s first term, though), as is becoming increasingly obvious by comparison with the current government and the Major, Blair II and Brown governments.

    Economic stability, a gradual reduction of the deficit, and a counter to the less well thought out policies that went before.

  • It is indeed an “Age of Anxiety”, which is well described by Katharine but the answer to the title questions is ‘No. The Lib Dems need to offer HOPE, they need to give a REASON for that hope, and they need to be clear WHO it’s for. Taking each of these themes in turn:

    Firstly, too many have been remorselessly beaten down, condemned to a life of financial and housing insecurity, dependence on state assistance with little to look forward to, all in the name of creating a “stronger economy” (although it’s achieved the exact opposite!). These bad trends are the result of inbuilt Tory biases given free rein over nearly 40 years but it’s perfectly possible to devise policies that would lead to better outcomes.

    Secondly, it is perfectly obvious that neoliberalism has failed just as post-war socialism did in 1979 leading to rampant inequality and ongoing financial crisis. Yet there is little consensus about the causes and without that there can be no plan. The best the Lib Dems can offer is a fairly random collection of policies, some mutually incompatible, that are traditionally deemed ‘liberal’. In practice they offer only an alternative management within the (failed) status quo. The incredible support for Corbyn shows the immense appetite for alternative solutions even though his ideas are an odd muddle.

    Thirdly, there is remarkable confusion about who the party’s core constituency actually is. The LEAVE vote, largely by those on the wrong side of the inequality divide, was a shot by them across the bows of the neoliberal policies that have so harmed them. One might imagine that Lib Dems would therefore pay careful attention to LEAVE concerns, the group least represented at Westminster. UKIP has realised this and is capitalising on it but Tim Farron immediately identified with the REMAIN camp, effectively saying to the economically disenfranchised, “Get lost, I’m not listening”.

    At this point there is only one way forward. The party must reform its dysfunctional governance and policy-making, something it can’t blame on other parties or a hostile media. In particular, it has been culturally scared of disputes at the top ever since SDP/Lib Alliance days but needs to rediscover and exploit policy diversity as a source of hybrid vigour and strength.

  • Simon Freeman 3rd Aug '16 - 5:29pm

    I’m the sort of person Katharine is talking about. I was an SDP then Liberal Democrat member, but left in around 93/94, and voted Labour for 22 years apart from one council election and a euro Election when I voted Green. This year I gave my first preference vote in the police Commissioner Election to a decent Labour Candidate in the Brightside and Hillsborough by election I voted Liberal Democrat. in the Council elections it was 2 votes Labour and 1 vote Green. I was for Remain. I want as close a relationship with Europe as we can have to keep the peace and promote trade. We need to safeguard the rights of EU Nationals living in the UK and the rights of UK citizens living in Europe. We need to keep the good European laws that protect the environment, health and safety at work and consumer rights. I’m genuinely torn as to whether the best way to do that is to fight to stay in or campaign for a sort of associate membership. I want to replace the House of Lords with a Senate 100% elected by PR. I want to give the NHS the money it needs and do more for about Mental Health. Student Fees are too high. Promote social housing. Reverse cuts to rural bus services, make more use of our railways and light rail systems. We need to do much more to expand renewable energy but we do need nuclear power as well. We should stop fracking. Society has become too unequal. We need a proper attack on tax evasion and avoidance , a return of the 50p tax rate, consideration of the Tobin Financial Transactions Tax. I’m very unhappy about the cost of Trident but do think we need to stay in NATO and maintain spending on conventional defences. I also think we should maintain spending on Foreign Aid. Like some of your other correspondents I opposed the bedroom tax. My reasons for drifting away from you before were because I rated our local Labour MP Helen Jackson in the early 90’s and the fact that locally I supported things the Labour Council were doing like building a Tram system, building sports facilities and renovating Sheffields beautiful Lyceum Theatre. However I do feel I am heading in your direction again after flirting with the Greens. I like Paddy Ashdowns idea for a Cross Party “More in Common” movement, because I can assure you there are a lot of centre-leftish people like me casting around for a political home. movement supporters. Any thoughts?

  • Gordon

    “One might imagine that Lib Dems would therefore pay careful attention to LEAVE concerns, the group least represented at Westminster”

    You would hope that but we know it is misplaced hope. These people are never engaged with.

  • Matt (Bristol) 3rd Aug '16 - 6:19pm

    “The Coalition was probably the best government of the last quarter century (nod to Blair’s first term, though), as is becoming increasingly obvious by comparison with the current government and the Major, Blair II and Brown governments.”

    TCO, for the first time in a long time, I can see your point, although I’m probably likely to rank Blair I a bit higher than the Coalition as it enacted more structural, constitutional and process change than the Coalition, and was in a position for more redistribution of wealth.

    But that suggests my expectations and those of the entire centre-left are ridiculously high, or we have to resign ourselves to a lot of shoddy governments that only enact half-baked proposals that half address the problems that a limited amount of society are experiencing, whilst continuing to be held by the short-and-curlies by vested interests.

    Argh.

  • Katharine Pindar 3rd Aug '16 - 9:59pm

    Hi, Simon, you are absolutely right, those are the things I want, that the Liberal Democrats in general want, so do stay with us: – and, Gordon, I don’t think that these things amount to ‘a fairly random collection of policies’. Peter W. and expats, it just isn’t true that our ministers in the Coalition abandoned their LD values, or that we say one thing in power and another thing outside it. I personally studied what we had achieved in Coalition and wrote a leaflet about it, which, thanks to constituency colleagues was published and more than 9000 were distributed locally. But much more importantly, David Laws published his 580-page book, Coalition, which clearly shows how our ministers fought against and prevented the worst excesses proposed by their Tory colleagues, and, if you haven’t time to read it all, expats, at least check out Appendix One, three pages of ‘Key Lib Dem achievements in Government’. We’ve a lot to be proud of there, and a lot to build on now.

  • @Matt (Bristol) yes I suppose Blair I was like a band’s first album, the outpouring of 18 years of pent up demand.

    The Coalition was never going to be able to deliver much in the way of radical change given the electoral maths but it did it’s job of avoiding economic calamity whilst evading the most egregious Tory SNAFUs we’re now seeing.

    Looking at today’s news on the economy and the post Brexit prospects you’d hope there might be a little more recognition of the part we played in preventing an earlier disaster.

  • Peter Watson 4th Aug '16 - 1:18pm

    @Katharine Pindar “Peter W. and expats, it just isn’t true that our ministers in the Coalition abandoned their LD values, or that we say one thing in power and another thing outside it.”
    Tuition fees?

  • Katharine Pindar…let’s try Secret Courts and the Bedroom Tax…just for starters

  • David Evans 4th Aug '16 - 3:55pm

    Katherine, the only problem is that the voters totally disagreed with you and showed it in 2015. Until you and the powers that be come to terms with that rejection, we will at best simply continue to tread water.

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