Was The Guardian’s Martin Kettle right yesterday to argue, as per his article’s headline, The biggest problem for the Liberal Democrats is illiberal Britain. It was a long, thoughtful piece – and, hey, it’s much better to be talked about than not, especially if you’re a Lib Dem – but, still, it was at best a partial explanation.
Let’s start with the positive stuff. First of all, Mr Kettle acknowledges the various ways in which the party has “been right on so many issues”:
By so many yardsticks, the Lib Dems deserve to be higher in the polls than they are. Michael Meadowcroft, intermittent party loyalist and former MP for Leeds West, listed several of them in a typically forceful Guardian letter today: the economy, Europe, ID cards, Iraq and localism. On all of them, as he says, the Lib Dems have been consistently right. One can add others to the list that Meadowcroft omitted: climate change, police powers, tax, electoral reform. All big subjects on which the Lib Dems have been right most of the time in ways that put the other parties to shame.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. But then there’s the problem of the current opinion polls: the Lib Dems have been tracking in the high-teens, occasionally breaking the 20% barrier. Not too bad by historical standards (as I noted here), but still some way, far too far away, from the long-desired breakthrough. All this at a time when the Labour party is imploding and the Tories’ support remains fragile.
A couple of years ago, Lib Dems might have been tempted to pin the blame, publilcly or privately, on then-leader Ming Campbell. But Nick Clegg is rated positively by the public – indeed, more so than David Cameron according to some polls – while Vince Cable has emerged as the chatterati’s sweetheart, the Lib Dems’ very own David Attenborough.
Mr Kettle identifies three reasons for the party’s failure to soar. First up is David Cameron:
Before Cameron – BC – they were most voters’ default second choice. After Dave – AD – they weren’t. A liberal Tory leader – and Cameron is, whatever anyone says – has stopped the long-familiar Tory-to-Lib Dem swing vote in its tracks.
I’m far less convinced than Mr Kettle that the Tory leader truly is a liberal Tory, except perhaps on social issues (at least these days, anyway: this is the guy, let’s recall, who happily voted for Section 28, even if he did later apologise). But politically and economically he seems to be traditionally Tory: tax cuts only for the rich, an anti-Europe neo-con, opposed to electoral reform, not serious about the environment. That a Guardian columnist should view a political leader who holds these views as a liberal says more about Mr Kettle’s Blairite view of liberalism as a flexible, cosmopolitan, lifestyle choice than it does about Mr Cameron’s actual views.
However, whatever I think about Mr Cameron, it’s fairly clear the Tory leader has persuaded enough of the public that he’s not unpleasantly right-wing; and, in the face of an unpopular Labour government, that in itself is perhaps just about sufficient to neuter the Lib Dems’ appeal to easily biddable folk like Mr Kettle.
(However, I can’t allow Mr Kettle’s lazy argument that the party’s failure to win either the Henley or Norwich North by-elections proves “the Lib Dems have lost the art of winning byelections”. This is unhistorical nonsense, as I argued here on LDV in July.)
Onto the second reason:
… the Lib Dems have become part of the establishment. For decades they have prospered as the anti-politics party, running against the system, apostles of new politics. Now, particularly after the expenses scandal, they have woken up to discover that they are seen as part of the problem. The cosy two-party system is suddenly the cosy three-party system, and the Lib Dems are a cosy part of it. Meanwhile, other small parties have seized the ground the Lib Dems once thought to rule unchallenged. If you want to vote against the establishment, you can now vote Green or Red or Ukip or even BNP.
I think this is undoubtedly the case. I would add to the expenses scandal the party’s messy defenestration of Charles Kennedy, which – whatever your views on it – severely undermined the party’s ‘nice guys’ brand with that part of the public which appreciated the Lib Dems’ fundamental decency.
However, there is a more positive way of viewing Mr Kettle’s argument that we’ve lost our anti-establishment schtick: that the Lib Dems are now genuinely seen as a party fit for power. The support we attract is increasingly ideologically coherent, much less reliant on so-called ‘protest votes’. (In reality all political parties attract vast numbers of ‘protest votes’: the Tories attract the support of those who hate the Labour party, and vice versa). This, to me, is a Good Thing. I’ve met voters in the past who have told me they’ll cheerily vote Lib Dem so long as we don’t have a chance of winning. Frankly, the party needs to learn to do without those votes.
Finally, to Mr Kettle’s third reason for the perceived failure of the Lib Dems to sweep the nation:
… Britain may not, after all, be as liberal a society as many of us would like, and sometimes pretend. I don’t think there is any doubt that the Lib Dems stand for liberal values and that the voters understand this. … The truth is simply that most Tory and Labour voters are not instinctively liberals. … In the end, the reason the Lib Dems are not doing better is simple. Not enough other people are liberals.
All fair comment, I guess (at least if we ignore the wide-eyed credulity of a Grauniadista’s bewilderment that Britain isn’t always as liberal as liberals would like). It’s a thought which has, I’m sure, struck many of us before. I recall Nick Clegg’s barn-storming 2006 conference speech in which he made a cheekily patriotic pitch for Britain to return to its true liberal values: “We want our country back”. However liberal this country is, it’s still the case that – to take just three examples – a majority of voters support the re-introduction of the death penalty, and a significant number will petition for blanket CCTV coverage, and willingly carry compulsory ID cards.
The weak point in Mr Kettle’s closing argument, though, is this: he sees everything through a tribal, party prism. Note his talk of “Labour and Tory voters”, as though they are homogenous blocks – yet less than one-third of the public strongly identify with either Labour or the Tories.
There is a visceral liberal/progressive tradition in this country. But, as a result of the quirks of history and the rigidity of our electoral system, it is spread across the three main parties: what’s termed the liberal diaspora. Equally, there is a conservative/reactionary disapora, principally concentrated within the Labour and Tory parties.
The Lib Dems’ role in politics is, it seems to me, two-fold. First, to campaign for liberal causes when they are inconvenient to, and/or unpopular with, the other two parties. And, secondly, to transform the political culture of this country – electoral reform to ensure representative pluralism, the decentralisation of power to the lowest level possible – to enable the liberal diaspora to come together in common cause, regardless of party tribalism. That’s the best, probably the only, way truly to make Britain a more liberal country.
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14 Comments
Excellent piece, Stephen. Lots of food for thought.
I agree, its a great article. I think that Labour and the Tories positively encouraged the Lib Dem inclusion in the expenses scandal, ironically including us as part of the establishment. Since then their yah boo debates at Question Time over public spending reverted to type reinforcing the two party system – and its boring, frankly.
I particularly liked the point about being considered part of the establishment, and being ready for power haven’t really thought about it like that before.
I think there is a genuine case that many people in this country aren’t very liberal, so now the Liberal Democrats have established a fairly firm liberal image, some of the “protest vote” that used to come our way doesn’t come so easily. Also, yes, the era when Liberals were thought a bit strange and not really part of the system is over – most people do just see us as one of the three big establishment parties. So, in both of these we are victims of our own success. Plus, also, yes, the press has written up the next election as “Conservatives become cuddly liberals and win over the centre vote”, and they do like to write the story then look for the”facts” to fit it.
However, I think Mr Kettle was a little polite in not suggesting that the Liberal Democrats national campaign machine really seems to have been quite incompetent recently, has missed many obvious lines, has let the party be pushed too much into the “part of the establishment” image, has failed to create an image of a different way politics could be run, has not established a strong working relationship between local activists and national party so both can work best to each other’s advantage. This always has been a problem, but it tends to happen most when we have a leader who is a bit of a media darling but hasn’t come up through the ranks. Admittedly, this is most of the time.
A good counter arguement, but I think Michael White has won on points. He could easliy have added in the semi-PR elections in Scotland, Wales and London. The view that half the population is just dying to vote Lib Dem but doesn’t cos “They can’t win” is rather knocked on the head by the evidence of these elections (and the euros).
In fact it rather shows that people quite deliberately split their vote (or don’t even bother to vote).
An alternative way of looking at the Liberal and Liberal Democrat revivals is to look at the vote per candidate.
That way the party has been pretty static since 1964, apart from the Alliance years.
The party might find it did better if it accepted that most people aren’t Liberals, at leats with a big L, and adusted it campaigning and strategy accordingly. However, the party doesn’t have a strategy at the moment – instead Nick Clegg says that if the Lib Dems doubled the number of MP’s, it would change politics. Sorry Nick, that’s just tosh.
Three points:- 1. Its useful when we get comments from a ‘criticlal friend’ it helps to consider carefully what is said and not to automatically jump into refute mode
2. As others have commented, LibDems lack a narrative. Why does it take Michael Meadowcroft in a letter to the Guardian to produce a list of policies. When I first stared campaigning in local elections it was drummed into me ‘Three things to remeber about this election’ Irrespective of what they were by the end of the compaign there were very few people who did not know what they were! We must have a narrative and bang on about it from the top of the party to the bottom and back again. Its this that will make the difference between our good policies and our opinion poll ratings (that and the BBC being forced at election time to be impartial)
3. If we are a Liberal caring party, why oh why did we vote against the release of al Megrahi? Its the best thing a Christian country has done for a Muslim for a very long time, and the effect will be positive and long term.
Three things are causing a lack of a Lib Dem breakthrough because voters are preferring the new protest parties like UKIP, the Greens etc.:
1) Lack of media coverage. The media have become locked into the “What will happen WHEN the Conservatives win” narrative. This means they automatically exclude the Lib Dem viewpoint as being irrelevant. Of course, this then ends up as a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy;
2) Our policy on Europe: Dodging the question on the Lisbon Treaty has severely damaged the Lib Dems and made them not just look like the status quo, but actually be part of it. We might, on balance, think its provisions are a good thing, but we have to admit that it is pretty much the same as the constitution and therefore it DEMANDS a referendum. If that referendum would be lost, well so be it. Britain is a democracy and a party with “Democrats” in its name should be a bit more respectful of the electorate. We have to recognise that there is zero popular appetite for ceding more sovereignty to the EU. In fact the tide is moving in the opposite direction. For the Lib Dems, the EU is ‘box office poison’ and we are failing totally to recognise this.
3) Utterly unfair coverage of the expenses scandal. The Telegraph managed single-handedly to rope the Liberal Democrats into the corruption fold by slurring the parliamentary party. Nick Clegg has let this drop, apparently, despite talking tough initially. He has been too nice. He needs to get really nasty about this, especially with Cameron and his front bench flippers and the scandalous situation with Lord Ashcroft. Nick has let them off the hook. For goodness sake, hit them where it hurts!
The Liberal Party was forged and prospered because it offered something that people desperately wanted: The vote, social reform, power and wealth to the middle classes.
Labour took ground from the Liberals because those reforms opened up the prospect of equality to the working class and the Liberals were distracted (Ireland, Balkans, Empire) / unwilling (their interests already satisfied) / scared witless (Revolution) about delivering it themselves.
In 1997 we had Worcester woman and Sierra man believing New Labour could deliver for them, essentially a social democratic agenda with lots of ill-defined feel bad / feel better factor. Not exactly as distinct a group as the 1900s working class, but Britain is a more equal society now albeit with a shockingly large underclass.
So, to take that ground back again the Lib Dems either need to find a group / cross-section to appeal to or maybe with any luck might be able to offer something tangible to the whole country. That would be electoral reform, then, as it transcends social and economic divides just as the expenses scandal has. It also fits nicely with people’s angry ‘liberal’ sense of being disempowered. With a couple of tempting sidelines in economic recovery, and no more me-too military adventures (an essential for many Labour voters and many of us who aren’t for pete’s sake). 3 things to remember. Job done.
Don’t forget the ill-defined feel good / feel bad stuff though, not something one associates with past Lib Dem election campaigns with all the policy detail.
I’ll go with Andrew’s 3 points, although I would have preferred something about tackling climate change.
The point about military adventures is a good one. According to Wikipedia it was Winston Churchill who said “Britain does not have friends or allies only interests” If we were able to define our iterests in the modern world, we could have a military to suit, rather than have a military funded at the level of a second rate country and expecting them to perform as if we still had an Empire.
mouse:
An alternative way of looking at the Liberal and Liberal Democrat revivals is to look at the vote per candidate.
That way the party has been pretty static since 1964, apart from the Alliance years.
That is somewhat to ignore the massive growth in our vote which took place between the 1970 and February 1974 general election. This was probably more critical than the Alliance years in building a realistic 3rd party movement. Most critical may have been the maintenance of significant party support and activist infrastructure in 1979, when conditions were much less favourable to us.
fdp100:
1. Its useful when we get comments from a ‘critical friend’ it helps to consider carefully what is said and not to automatically jump into refute mode
The leader of this party might take on the idea that long-term members of the party who are not particularly enamoured of him are particularly useful critical friends in this respect. We really do want the party to win and we are not going to go running off elsewhere. The idea that successful leadership means beating down the party activists, appealing over their heads to a supposed wider audience, and replacing their support with funds paid by wealthy backers might have worked a while for Tony Blair, but trying to push the Liberal Democrats into the same pattern hasn’t worked. We ought to beware of people who are critical but not friends, which applies to a lot of media commentators, they will occasionally toy with us but they often want to push us into a role in their wider picture which is not the best for us.
2. As others have commented, LibDems lack a narrative. Why does it take Michael Meadowcroft in a letter to the Guardian to produce a list of policies
Poor leadership of the party right now.
3. If we are a Liberal caring party, why oh why did we vote against the release of al Megrahi?
Ditto.
Robert C:
Three things are causing a lack of a Lib Dem breakthrough because voters are preferring the new protest parties like UKIP, the Greens etc.:
1) Lack of media coverage. The media have become locked into the “What will happen WHEN the Conservatives win” narrative. This means they automatically exclude the Lib Dem viewpoint as being irrelevant. Of course, this then ends up as a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy;
We have always had this lack of media coverage. That is why the tactic “elect a bright shiny new leader who the media like, and they’ll report us properly” won’t work. At best journalists and commentators are sloppy and lazy about us, so they won’t bother to look at what we are really doing, but instead try and fit us into existing patterns or fall back on stereotypes. At worst they are actively hostile to us, we will be used only when we can play a role for them in their real game. Politics being Conservative v. Labour is nice and simple for them, they aren’t going to break from this. That is why our success has to be through creating an alternative media at the grassroots. UKIP do benefit from having a lot of press support for their basic ideology, but they don’t have the network of experienced activists on the ground we have, and neither do the Greens or any other alternative.
2) Our policy on Europe: Dodging the question on the Lisbon Treaty has severely damaged the Lib Dems and made them not just look like the status quo, but actually be part of it.
See answer to points 2 and 3 from fdp100.
3) Utterly unfair coverage of the expenses scandal. The Telegraph managed single-handedly to rope the Liberal Democrats into the corruption fold by slurring the parliamentary party. Nick Clegg has let this drop, apparently, despite talking tough initially. He has been too nice. He needs to get really nasty about this, especially with Cameron and his front bench flippers and the scandalous situation with Lord Ashcroft. Nick has let them off the hook. For goodness sake, hit them where it hurts!
Er, yes, would anyone seriously expect the Telegraph to run the line “Good upstanding honest LibDem MPs, not like those nasty corrupt Tories”? The point of the expenses scandal was to push the line “Democracy is all bad, MPs are evil grasping people, right-wing politics in which the power of these nasty MPs is minimised is the way forward”. And to hide the fact that the amount of money MPs are taking in expenses is peanuts compared to what the equivalent bureaucrats in the private sector take – remember this happened when Sir Fred the Shred and his pension were hitting the headlines, and the middle market could have been pushed left through that. Now, I think something said which played on these lines rather than the “yah booh sucks” politics you are advocating would have worked. I think what is obvious is that party politicians insulting other party politicians is a big turn-off to the electors, and anything we did along those lines, however much it may superficially appeal as macho “hit them where it hurts politics”, would not be heard for what it was but rather as just more of the knockabout which shows all conventional politicians are “just the same”.
Andrew Houseley:
The Liberal Party was forged and prospered because it offered something that people desperately wanted: The vote, social reform, power and wealth to the middle classes.
Labour took ground from the Liberals because those reforms opened up the prospect of equality to the working class and the Liberals were distracted (Ireland, Balkans, Empire) / unwilling (their interests already satisfied) / scared witless (Revolution) about delivering it themselves.
The danger of being distracted by foreign policy issues, where a satisfying high-minded line may be taken, and one can argue that it’s all really relevant to home issues, really, well if you purchase this little pamphlet from us, oh what,
well er … you will vote for us won’t you umph as voter walks away or slams door utterly uninterested, should be considered very carefully. Anyone think that perhaps the Iraq war and obsession with it, and Gaza and other such issues might be contributing to why the far left has so failed to get anywhere despite there being a massive crisis in capitalism? As I said somewhere (how many old timers who will get the reference are there left?) “Bloody Eliminate the Iraq War”. I.e. yes, we were right on it and can be proud about that, but shut up about it as most of the electorate just aren’t interested and will regard us a bores if we mention it.
In 1997 we had Worcester woman and Sierra man believing New Labour could deliver for them, essentially a social democratic agenda with lots of ill-defined feel bad / feel better factor. Not exactly as distinct a group as the 1900s working class, but Britain is a more equal society now albeit with a shockingly large underclass.
We had a Labour Party which had been sanitised in the eyes of enough of the establishment to swing it, and the third party movement had failed to replace it, so it was back to politics as Labour v.Conservative. The same narrative is being played now, with cuddly liberal Dave Cameron lined up to take the swing. I remember the silly grins on people’s faces on May 2nd 1997, I think it to be one of my proudest political moments not to have had such a grin on that day. But Blair really did prove to be what he said he was, will Cameron?
So, to take that ground back again the Lib Dems either need to find a group / cross-section to appeal to or maybe with any luck might be able to offer something tangible to the whole country. That would be electoral reform, then, as it transcends social and economic divides just as the expenses scandal has. It also fits nicely with people’s angry ‘liberal’ sense of being disempowered. With a couple of tempting sidelines in economic recovery, and no more me-too military adventures.
Oh, well, the previous reference was meant to remind us of an article written long ago entitled “Bloody Eliminate Electoral Reform” (the then electoral reform campaign group in the party used the acronym “LAGER”) where (unusually) I had some sympathy with the author. No, I don’t think so. People find it boring, it can be sold to them by the others as us just being self-serving. And our leader has already cocked it up by pushing AV+ which does nothing to solve the problems rather than taking the opportunity to push STV which does (a little). On the last sentence of this paragraph, please re-read your first paragraph and my comments on it.
I am finding a lot of incoherent anger amongst ordinary people in this country, but nowhere for it to go. The political class, in which they include us as well as Labour and the Conservatives, is seen as just one big thing, something alien, imposed on us, has no idea of what our lives are like, means well sometimes, but is too greedy and ignorant really to do well. To break this, we need to find a way of doing politics differently, and doing it in a way which makes politics and politicians seem part of the human race, and pushes democracy and our party as the way ordinary people can get involved and take control of the way things are run. We don’t seem to have managed that under the current leadership, and I see that as the heart of our failure to build on the current political circumstances.
I’m afraid I have to agree with Mr. Kettle. The problem is that when it comes down to cases – when people’s own lives are at stake – they are all-too-often interested in outcomes and not principles.
Ask people if they should be free to develop their property as they see fit and they will say yes; tell them that their neighbour is free to do so and they hit the roof. Ban their beer and they will destroy you; legalise their son’s cannabis and they’ll do the same. And of course, everybody should be willing to pay more tax to pay for services of which they approve, but they moan like hell if you tax them for services that benefit others.
Liberalism is a state of mind (which is not unlike the view he attributes to Michael Ignatieff). It is individualistic and principled. Most people are collectivist and pragmatic. That does not make them bad people, but it does make them more likely to vote for parties that say what they want to hear and talk as though we are all part of one harmonious movement (except for the demonised outsiders, be they immigrants or bankers).
The Liberal success in the C19th resulted from a change of culture that made people more conducive to liberalism. A Lib Dem success in the C21st must also be won culturally before it can be won electorally.
Kettle’s view that Britain is a substantially conservative country (note the small ‘c’) is right – why else would John Major have conjoured up his image of warm beer & cricket or why the current Hovis advert is so successful (theme – of everything that’s happened, Hovis has stayed the same.) the death penalty is a good example of this.
Stephen also mentions the “defenestration of Charles Kennedy.” He’s right in that it did smash completely our “nice guys” image; but I wonder if some of the real problems arising from it only came home to roost earlier this year. What happened was that the MPs who pressed for him to resign effectively showed themselves to the public as ‘careerists’ – whether true or not – and thus it was much easier to lump us in with the Tory and Labour MPs who genuinely did abuse the system. I’m not saying we’d have come out of it unscathed under CK; just that the effect on the party might not have been so damaging. I do think, though, that – over 3 years later – we’re still paying the electoral price for what happened that weekend.
John Major was very widely mocked for his warn beer and cricket imagery (which he borrowed from Blair (Eric not Tony) anyway), the fact that it didn’t work is telling – Britain is actually remarkably unconservative. Which does not necessarily mean it is particularly liberal, liberalism and conservatism are not direct opposites. Actually, I don’t think Britain is particularly illiberal, but there are few people who think the really classically liberal issue are the main ones now, and therefore a party which makes its main point defending just these isn’t going to get mass support.
On the “defenestration of Charles Kennedy”, well it was easy for our opponents to spin it that way, but unless what I have heard was complete lies, it seems to me it was a decision that had to be made, should have been made some time earlier, any competent organisation would have made a similar decision under similar circumstances, and therefore any accusation of “careerism” is unfair. But it seems the guy was really well liked by the public, so perhaps the current leadership needs to work out why and follow it. Not by becoming drunk (we know what happens when that happens – lock up your cacti) but perhaps by realising a little bit more laid back attitude, and willingness to share the glory with colleagues because of that, might not be a bad thing.
Surely a large part of Kennedy’s appeal was his willingness to go on things like Have I Got News For You and be warm and funny and self-deprecating *on prime-time TV* and therefore gain a lot of positive media exposure.
Tom Papworth
Ask people if they should be free to develop their property as they see fit and they will say yes; tell them that their neighbour is free to do so and they hit the roof. Ban their beer and they will destroy you; legalise their son’s cannabis and they’ll do the same. And of course, everybody should be willing to pay more tax to pay for services of which they approve, but they moan like hell if you tax them for services that benefit others
Welcome to real world politics, Tom. Yes, in the real world one person’s freedom is a restriction on another’s, the freedom to enjoy light and open air unrestricted by some massive development next door, or to live in a society where druggies and their anti-social behaviour don’t dominate and leave you in fear, or to have state services which open opportuntities and free one from worry about being unable to afford the necessities, are real ones. The people who think this way are not fools who hate freedom, Tom, they are perhaps people with different life experiences than yours which may lead them to see and value freedoms you ignore.
The freedoms you mention Tom are real ones too, but they are not the only freedoms that exist as you and people like you say. There isn’t a simple little calculus of freedom, although if one is young and naive I can see what is so attractive about a politics that pretends there is. If one has to consider competing claims and bring on wider knowledge and experience to try and reach the best balance, it’s difficult. One cannot give the appearance of being so clever that one can if one has a little rule “the only restriction on freedom is that imposed by the government” which is all one uses, together with some trendy jargon and the support of those who dominate our culture and benefit best from that sort of freedom.
I do not have easy answers to any of these issues, my concern is only that people should see there is a balance and be well enough informed to be able to get the balance right so that it maximises real freedom. I do not know what that real freedom is, I feel only that it is not at one end of the balance as people like you claim. I can only really then trust what the people through democratic mechanisms chose to set as the balance, ensuring that they really are well informed enough to make the best choice, contributing to the debate from my own experience when I can. That is what democratic politics is for.
Most people do not think deeply about these things, most people are not that interested in politics. That is why they can often hold contradictory positions, not being politicians they are not obliged to make a real balance. So indeed, if you ask people would they like taxes cut, they will say “yes”. If you ask them would they like better state services they will say “yes”. If you ask them would they accept a cut in the state services they use they will say “no”. The phenomenon where when you try to present them with a balance “what services would you cut to enable tax cuts?” and they suppose a spending cut raising thousands balances a tax cut costing millions is common. If you go canvassing you will find many who genuinely believe the budget problems of the council or of the nation can be resolved by cutting the allowances and expenses of the elected members, this I give as just a good example of the phenomenon.
I don’t believe people are really as stupid as conventional politics often treats them, so I have always been motivated by the idea that there should be a politics which tells the truth about these things, presents the real dilemma and balance, does so free of vested interests. I think that is what our party should be about.