It is likely clear to most that British Liberalism has a complicated relationship with the Labour Party. We seemingly rely on their electoral success for our own; the periods in which we appear to gain the most seats seem to coincide with periods during which Labour is at its most electable. To me, this makes a significant degree of sense.
It’s obvious now that the 2019 Election was a disaster for British Progressivism. Labour’s vote share and Parliamentary representation collapsed and we, while increasing our vote, ended up with a net loss of one seat.
It seems to be that when Centre-Right voters are concerned of a far-left Labour party gaining power in the UK, they flee into the comfort of the Conservatives; seeing them as the most likely party to keep Labour out of Downing Street. Of course, to many, this is possibly old news; however, what to do about this?With the election of Kier Starmer as Labour leader, some are concerned that we may see an exodus of centre-left members and voters going back to the Labour party. Now that Momentum is less able to bully and purge them from the Labour ranks. We will inevitably see some return to Labour or some of our swing voters throw their vote behind Labour to dislodge the Tories from power after a decade of their seemingly heartless rule.
I would argue that the election of Kier is ultimately beneficial for us if he manages to make Labour seem electable for the first time since 2010. As we have seen before, a centre-left Labour is often helpful for Liberalism in terms of seats gained, likely because Centre-Right Conservatives are no longer afraid of a far-left Labour and some social Liberal Labourites might switch to us if Labour does not put enough emphasis on personal liberties (e.g. the ID card debacle).
In addition, we may be aided by the continued move by the Tories toward the far-right. It’s obvious today that the Tories are increasingly pandering to the very worst aspects of British society in their increasing nativist, populist stance and this may push centre-right market/classical Liberals out of the Conservative party and persuade them to vote for us.
The 2010-15 coalition still tarnishes us in the minds of many wavering Labour voters and much of the population at large (I am not calling on the party to issue a public apology). Sure, we did equally good for the bad that resulted, (which is irrelevant in the minds of many); however, we need to look toward how we can change minds and Starmer may pose the ideal opportunity for this.
We were right to avoid cooperating with Corbyn’s Labour, they were not a liberal party or liberally aligned by any margin; however, perhaps Starmer may take a different approach. If we can find common ground with the new leadership, then we should cooperate on mutual goals. Moreover, if we are seen to work with them were it aids both of our aims it can undercut the usual coalition nonsense from Labour itself and help convince some of their wavering voters that we are not all that Momentum have made us out to be and even more crucially (at least in my mind) it would help depose a party that has long since proven itself unfit to govern.
* Thomas Hague is a Sheffield Hallam University student currently on work placement with Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. He has been a full member of the Party since November 2016
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51 Comments
As with the Yellow Book in 1929, once again radical policies are called for.
Spot on @Manfarang
Labour has taken the first positive step in electing a credible leader. We really have to set our own house in order first with leadership election and deciding on future party direction. That said we will probably find ourselves agreeing more and more of what Labour say so we could begin with local electoral understandings for next year and see how they work out. But Labour have to want to talk to us and while we remain an invisible party under Davey where is any reason to do so.
An elected leader in a role days, does not say much about much other than him. He is a good and decent mainstream politician, Sir Keir Starmer.
The rest can wait. A report leaked reveals party internal division unimaginable in this party who argue over little other than nuance and definitions as to what sort of liberal or social liberal, or, once in a while, what sort of social democrat.
Unless you have much experience of other parties, you cannot say much more than, let’s wait and see……………..
I agree with tim rogers. We need a leader who appears credible to enough of the electorate. Then we need to remember that there is substantial evidence that the majority of the electorate do not know what each party’s policies are. They do form an impression of the parties and particularly the leaders and decide accordingly. There is also evidence that the views of neighbours friends are also important. Or nowadays people they think they are getting to know via the internet.
But it all starts with a credible leader.
It might be better to concern ourselves with our own party, and start by enthusing our members so they can enthuse others.
“We seemingly rely on their electoral success for our own; the periods in which we appear to gain the most seats seem to coincide with periods during which Labour is at its most electable”
What periods? There’s only been one, as far as I know, when this has happened. Tony Blair was lucky. The Tory Party in 1989 was a mess and completely unelectable. They weren’t much better in the next couple of elections. But they gradually got it together and thanks partly to the GFC and partly to the desire of the electorate to have a change, they were back to winning ways in 2010.
That particular set of circumstances is unlikely to re-occur any time soon.
Sorry, that should be ” The Tory Party in 1997 was a mess…”
With No Libdem held Seats in Labours top 200 Targets & a bunch of Tory Seats where we are the main challenger, it would make sense for Labour to quietly sideline some Constituencies & discourage Activists from goint to them to help. That would require a triumph of common sense over pride & an admission that we are not the Enemy. That might happen under Starmer, we have to wait & see.
While we are waiting we could be working on an Alliance with The Greens (outwith Scotland) & perhaps Plaid.
@ Lorenzo “He is a good and decent mainstream politician, Sir Keir Starmer.”
Yes, and he’s astute, and has a very high level of competence and experience. When (let’s hope) things are normal again, he will eat Johnson for breakfast at PMQ’s.
Another about to emerge is the Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds. Priti Patel must be shaking in her shoes.
Difficult at the moment to see any major talent waiting to emerge from the eleven strong Lib Dem bench.
David
Agree on the merit in some ways, of much of the substance in the election of Sir Keir, but not fully on the other aspects. Patel, is rarely scared of much, she is though not a very good figure in a government that must steer with all on side.
My feeling on our dozen, a few of talent definite to see, but they, not of the type yet established. Layla, Munir, best on the media, others too knee jerk, Tim, too much , for some, past tense alas, though as ever good always on issues.
Peter Martin 15th Apr ’20 – 4:50pm
“’…the periods in which we appear to gain the most seats…’
“What periods? There’s only been one, as far as I know, when this has happened.”
Indeed. The sentiment you quote seems to have become an article of faith on this site, but it’s based entirely on the exceptional electoral events of 1997, as far as I can see. There simply isn’t any comparable occasion of the Lib Dems gaining large numbers of seats in a GE. (And as far as I’m aware, the last time the Liberal Party made big gains was in 1906…) And the party’s continued, more modest gains in 2001 and 2005 are probably more to do with the unelectability of the then Opposition than Labour’s perceived moderation.
These are early days. Starmer decided when he first took up his position that he would attack the Government on not publishing an exit plan. He was obviously desperate to find some criticism to demonstrate his opposition credentials and chose that. It was premature then and it is premature now but still he bangs on about it. It just needs the lockdown relaxations of countries ahead of us to produce a second wave of infections for Starmer to look like a fool.
Relaxation of the rules will need to be announced and discussed at the right moment but not before the downward trend is well established and model projections of any further infections are fully explored. Starmer is in danger of politicising what is going to be a critical judgement and that for me is a sign of terrible judgement.
Our best electoral result of the last century was 2005 when we elected 62 MP’s and that included taking 11 seats from Labour which is by far the highest we have ever achieved. Previously we had only ever gained an occasional seat from Labour in a General Election -my gain in Chesterfield in 2001 being the first since 1983 and at that point one of only three since WW2.
In 2005 we were attacking Labour as hard as we were attacking the Conservatives, who as Theresa May pointed out were still seen as the ‘nasty party’ at that time. We should stop trying to define ourselves as Conservative or Labour ‘Light’ and concentrate on trying to reestablish our own identity, policies and principles (utterly trashed 2010-2015) rather than trying to triangulate between focus groups, opinion polls and newspaper headlines.
Peter Martin: The Tories may have been in a mess in 1997, but even then they would probably still have held on had Labour been led by Corbyn or one of his kind. He failed to defeat the Tories in 2017 when they ran what is probably the worst election campaign by a governing party in UK electoral history. For an incompetent government to be held to account over its own incompetence, the opposition has to be effective. Keir Starmer or someone similar would have wiped the floor with May or Johnson.
Regarding those who may think I am suggesting we position ourselves as a sort of “Labour-lite” I would like to clarify that is not what I mean.
Rather on issues where we hold common values or ideas we should prioritise cooperation rather than meaningless party politics. If our end goal is to remove a party that is unfit to govern then we should cooperate with Labour where we can, same with the Greens and other progressive aligned parties.
This only works where we can win via a Labour squeeze. It completely throws under the bus local parties who aren’t helped by cosying up to Labour such as those in seats already held by Labour or those where we need to bring over more soft tories to win. We need to build on our own identity and core vote not rely on tricking the electorate and putting our hopes on a pre planned coalition deal with Labour. “Co-operation with Labour” sounds to me like standing down or not criticising them in a ton of seats and left to fight over the scraps where they will try to get tories elected over us as they did in so many seats at the last general election. I believe this idea can only be detrimental to us in the long term. Lets just concentrate on getting as many Lib Dems elected as possible please at local and national level. People put in so much time in running their local parties, lets not alienate them and their voter base which takes decades to build and a moment to lose. If you stand down you have to expect that you have lost the seat for a generation.
I don’t think it is true to say “the periods in which we appear to gain the most seats seem to coincide with periods during which Labour is at its most electable”
As Paul Holmes points out, that was not the case in 2005, nor in 1983 when there was a big rise in the Liberal-SDP Alliance vote, and Labour were close to coming third the popular vote. In these cases at issue was the lack of credibility of the larger opposition party as much as the popularity of our message.
What IS true is that Liberals and successors have always benefited when there is a move away from the Conservatives. So gains in seats and/or votes in 1964, 1966, 1974, 1997 and 2001 all fit that pattern. Conversely when Conservatives are relatively popular and/or credible we find the going heavy as in 1951, 1955, 1970, 1979 and since 2010.
Relations with Labour are always difficult, they are a very tribal party, and they often have the attitude that no third force has the right to exist in British politics. Having said that my experience is when you talk to Labour members there is often more common ground than there is when speaking to Tories. I don’t know who coined the phrase “Labour is the competition but Tories are the opposiiton” but it still holds true.
I think we should avoid electoral pacts or certainly any thoughts of merger, but the sort of tacit co-ordination that we had in the run up to the 1997 elections, and beyond will be mutually beneficial.
I am still angry that the Party Leadership caved in and gave Johnson the election he craved in 2019. And given a choice between 40 Lib Dem seats and a Tory Government and Lib Dem 25 seats and the Tories out of office, then I know which one I prefer,
@ Alex Macafie,
“Keir Starmer or someone similar would have wiped the floor with May or Johnson……”
We’ll never know about that because Keir Starmer didn’t stand as a candidate after the resignation of Ed Miliband. No doubt if Jeremy Corbyn had been Labour leader in 2015 you’d be telling us that if we’d only chosen Ed Miliband “or someone similar (we) would have wiped the floor….”
What we do know is that Jeremy Corbyn picked up 40% of the 2017 vote in spite of most of the Labour right and the PLP doing their best to put a spanner in the works. However, now they are back in charge they are telling us how important it is going to be to unite about the new leader and provide unconditional support.
We’ll just have to wait and see if that happens, won’t we?
@Steve Comer “I don’t know who coined the phrase “Labour is the competition but Tories are the opposition” but it still holds true.”
I’m not so sure about that. For almost ten years now, the Lib Dems appear to have pitched themselves as an alternative to the Tories rather than an opposition.
Peter 15th Apr ’20 – 6:23pm…………………Relaxation of the rules will need to be announced and discussed at the right moment but not before the downward trend is well established and model projections of any further infections are fully explored. Starmer is in danger of politicising what is going to be a critical judgement and that for me is a sign of terrible judgement………….
I bow to your knowledge but, considering that Prof Neil Ferguson ( one of the leading epidemiologists advising the government and whose team provided the modelling that led to the lockdown) says that “Downing Street needs to accelerate planning for exiting the coronavirus lockdown because contact tracing, testing and social distancing will be needed “indefinitely” until a vaccine is discovered”…
The alternative appears to be, like the government’s early response to the pandemic, ‘make it up as you go along’…
Still, like Starmer, I’m sure his advice shows ‘terrible judgement’..
“Keir Starmer or someone similar would have wiped the floor with May or Johnson……”
Except that if Labour under Keir Starmer or someone similar had stood on a Second Referendum manifesto pledge Labour would probably have loss even more seats in the North and the Midlands than Corbyn did in 2019. Some new definition of wiping the floor with I was not previously aware of.
I agree with Michael Sammon and others: we need to stand on our own policies and if they happen to coincide with another party try to cooperate
“It’s obvious now that the 2019 Election was a disaster for British Progressivism. Labour’s vote share and Parliamentary representation collapsed and we, while increasing our vote, ended up with a net loss of one seat.”
The flaw in this statement is the view that Labour 2015-19 was in any way “progressive”. It was led by respectively a Stalinist Anti-Semite and a Marxist, supported by a Marxist cabal of entryists; it was authoritarian, socialist, nationalist, anti-EU, and anti-NATO. It was pretty much the antithesis of the sort of internationalist, pro-enterprise, pro-market, state-sceptic, socially-liberal party we are (or should be).
The “complicated” relationship with Labour comes about because far too many activists view Labour with rosy-coloured spectacles, seeing us as chummy best mates against a common enemy. People getting doe-eyed over Starmer should realise that he won his leadership on a socialist platform. In which case he’s a socialist – and we should avoid him; or he’s an untrustworthy liar -and we should avoid him.
I agree with Thomas’ analysis. It considers our prospects through the reality of the electoral system we operate in which has to be the starting point.
We need to see the present situation as an immense opportunity for our Party. The temptation to continue restrictive practices far beyond when they are needed will prove irresistible to the other two Parties. We can campaign for further easing of them while still endorsing proven methods of protecting public and individual health.
Peter Martin: No, not Ed Miliband. He was the Neil Kinnock of the 2015 election: soft left but no gravitas or charisma. Labour would probably have fared better under his brother, although David had baggage in the form of support for the Iraq War.
So Labour got 40% in 2017; whatever, they still lost. If JC couldn’t win against the Maybot, he was never going to win.
Andrew Tampion:
This supposes that the voters’ support for Leave was a deep-seated ideological matter. It’s more likely that they were just not persuaded of the case for Remain or a PV, because the leaders of their traditional natural party were not making it. They did not do so either in the Referendum or in the last election. Corbyn is was never going to do it — not only is he a weak politician and one who has no rapport with traditional Red Wall Labour voters, but his heart was never in it, because in his heart he is a Brexiteer. Keir Starmer might have been able to make a persuasive case for Remain to such voters, and this could have reached all but the most ideologically committed Brexiteers.
I\f you, Peter Hirst, would like to turn this into a liberty vs security issue, a division totally unnecessary, count most of us with vulnerable relatives and our own desires, not to catch this hideous virus, out of your false choice, please.
Labour under Starmer, Conservatives under Johnson, are as civil liberties oriented as any proper Liberal or social democrat, in a national emergency or crisis.
We should be careful about loss of liberty, the greatest being loss of life.
No other liberty matters.
TCO: Starmer is not in the same mould as Corbyn. He is a soft left / green left internationalist. He may well describe himself as a socialist, but other than essential monopoly public services, he is not advocating outright socialism. And indeed can anyone honestly genuinely say they’d prefer to have G4S, foreign governments (including authoritarian dictatorships), Serco, Capita or pension funds of other nations in charge than the British state – when it comes to these things?
You assume that we are all free market libertarians – which is now an utterly failed ideology. I could easily see Kennedy or Ashdown have much in common with Starmer. Trying to lump Starmer in with the SWP or whatnot does not do the party any good. It is as stupid as trying to lump the Orange Book Lib Dems in the same category as the Britannia Unchained mob.
Richard Easter. Yes, I’d like to celebrate and welcome Easter.
@ Lorenzo. Yes.
There’s always a lot confusion when it comes to Labour. Here are a few observations about common claims:
1. All progressives are on the same side. Socialism and liberalism are not the same. They do agree about the importance of rationality, but they are no more similar than conservatism and liberalism which agree on the sanctity of the individual.
2. When Labour do well, we do well. This is (mostly) right but for the wrong reasons. My preferred analogy is as follows: An incoming red tide drains the blue swamp revealing the yellow islands. This is not the same as a popular swing to us.
3. Anything to beat the Tories. A party that stands for social and economic liberalism presents the Conservatives with a serious intellectual challenge on their own home turf. A party that is Labour with water is just a portable dustbin for undecideds.
4. Labour need us. Keir Starmer does not need us, he needs Blyth Valley back. But if we do want to help him, let’s make him a present of depriving the Conservatives of all those places like St Albans that only a liberal party can take and hold.
Survivors of Covid-19 should be asked to donate anti-bodies, starting with Boris Johnson.
@James Fowler “he needs Blyth Valley back … all those places like St Albans that only a liberal party can take and hold.”
That probably says more about the social class and affluence of Lib Dems than it does about the party’s liberalism.
Why can’t a liberal party take and hold a place like Blyth Valley?
Why can’t the Lib Dems take and hold a place like Blyth Valley?
@ Alex Macafie,
“This supposes that the voters’ support for Leave was a deep-seated ideological matter…
For some it was for others it wasn’t. Many Leave voters, me included, voted Labour anyway. But it only takes the abstention of some normally Labour Leave inclined voters, just a few % in some seats, to swing the seat from Labour to Tory. The modern Labour party has shown that it both capable of winning very unlikely seats like Putney and Canterbury, but lose what should be safe seats in Stoke, Wrexham, Bolton etc. Keir Starmer seems to be the one to take it further in that direction. I doubt there’ll be a net gain in the process.
You really need to get out more and talk to normal people. They might have ‘ideologies’ as far as you and I might be concerned, but they don’t think they have. They just know they don’t like the ******* EU!
PS: If the “Maybot” was so bad in 2017 how come you had a lower vote share than in 2015? Methinks LibDems might not be the best source of advice on how to win elections!
James Fowler 16th Apr ’20 – 3:31pm
The 1906 win was before votes for women (1917-1918) and women workers in munitions factories on equal pay under David Lloyd George.
It followed a split from the Liberal Unionists under First Past the Post.
According to a Labour guest speaker at the NLC there were 57 Labour MPs elected in the UK.
Peter Watson: Lib Dems used to hold Rochdale, won Burnley, Redcar seats in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham.
Essentially the party has turned into the “European Conservatives” as opposed to a progressive alternative to New Labour. And people in those seats don’t want that. The party needs to go back to being a radical alternative – not simply corporate liberalism. There was nothing radical about Swinson and Orange Book values. It was simply another variant of international corporatism. Voters in these seats are receptive to bottom up localism. Not whatever the City tells them they need to think.
Peter Martin: the reasons for Lib Dem failure in 2017 are a whole separate issue from Labour’s failures, although thanks for deflecting.
Richard Easter: Your reasonable comment in 16th Apr ’20 – 3:15pm is rather spoilt by the later one in which you paint Jo Swinson as an Orange Booker. Quite simply, this is nonsense. Her voting record in Coalition (shared by her rival Ed) may have led to such a characterisation, but this is based on the assumption (unfortunately encouraged by our leadership at the time) that the Lib Dems actually believed in the Tory stuff their MPs were voting for. As Matthew Huntbach so often points out, we did not make it sufficiently clear at the time that the Lib Dems only had limited influence as the junior partner in a coalition, and the leadership made it look like a meeting of minds when it should have been portrayed as a business arrangement. It’s probably too late to do much about that error, except elect a leader who has no connection with the Coalition.
Alex Macfie – I welcome any correction if my assumptions are incorrect – I always assumed Jo was on the right of the party, equally in the same way I see Tim Farron as on the left.
I do believe the party should elect someone to lead who is not tainted by the coalition – and I believe it strongly. There may well have been plenty of agreements that it is hard for us to understand without it being spelt out. But equally it will be even harder for the average voter who does not follow agreements in depth and simply feels aggreived by it all.
Just as Labour can go from Blairism to Corbynism and the Tories can go from Osbornism to Johnsonism, there is no reason why the Lib Dems cannot shake off the past either. I suppose if I am blunt, I want to see a part that wins in the West Country, rather than simply West London. The sea of yellow in Devon and Cornwall is much missed, and picking up a few seats around London by appealing to corporate minded middle classes, is not overly appealing to me.
@Richard Easter “TCO: Starmer is not in the same mould as Corbyn. He is a soft left / green left internationalist. He may well describe himself as a socialist.” [my italics]
Indeed – and I refer you to the point I made: “In which case he is a socialist – and we should avoid him; or he’s an untrustworthy liar [who’ll say anything to get elected] – and we should avoid him.
“You assume that we are all free market libertarians”
You’re conflating two things in order to create a straw man. Free markets are not a libertarian idea; they are a Liberal idea. They’re even enshrined in our constitutional preamble. Free markets should be uncontroversial for a Liberal.
” I suppose if I am blunt, I want to see a part that wins in the West Country, rather than simply West London. The sea of yellow in Devon and Cornwall is much missed, and picking up a few seats around London by appealing to corporate minded middle classes, is not overly appealing to me.”
The “sea” was an illusion caused by sparse population density. There are far more urban seats to be picked up across the country than the 12 or so in total in Devon and Cornwall.
Our only future as a party is to embrace what we are: urban, middle class, internationalist, pro-enterprise, socially liberal. Demographic trends concentrating like populations together (caused, ironically, by the “egalitarian” selection-by-house-price comprehensive school system much beloved of the left) will increase the likelihood of this being successful in the future.
TCO: Most of these middle class urban seats are voting Labour. They aren’t big on free markets, even if they like internationalism. And they appear to be pro repsonsible enterprise, which means a big dollop of socialism / social democracy Starmer style for things which don’t fit that model.
The thinking in this article is plain wrong. If we throw away the pretence of being an independent party and bow before Labour, which is something no doubt many in LDV including the writer of this article want, there is really no certainty that we will gain anything. Your thinking is based on a pattern of things that happened in past elections, but you don’t take into account anything else, I think a reverse of what you think would happen if we aligned with Labour is more likely. What’s also likely,and also a concrete reality, is that Labour might not want an alignment, people in LBV begging and dreaming for Labour to align with Lib dems, never take into account Labour’s choice in the matter.
Yes, people still blame us for the Coalition government despite everything that’s happened since then, you know why that is? It’s because Labour never stop going on about our “crimes” in the coalition, they win votes in every election with this exact strategy, whilst we’re here, dreaming about alignment with Labour.
Instead of worshipping Labour, why not come up with ways the Lib dems can make themselves more electable, like conducting more meaningful thinking, and devising strategies for long term benefit to the party?
Peter Martin, Malcolm Todd, and Paul Holmes,
I don’t understand why Thomas Hague has not come back and stated when we did well and Labour did well. The following general elections between 1945 and 1997 were when we and Labour both won seats:
1964 we won 9 seats up 50% from 1959 and received 3,099,283 votes up 88.9% from 1959 and the Labour Party gained 59 seats;
1966 we gained a further 3 seats and the Labour Party gained a further 47 seats;
February 1974 we won 8 more seas than in 1970 and the Labour Party 13 seats more than in 1970.
@Peter Watson
Why can’t a liberal party take and hold a place like Blyth Valley?
Nothing is ever impossible, but liberalism struggles to make headway in certain scenarios. As I see it, liberalism stands for rationality, equality before the law and respect for the individual. It’s never had much to say about social solidarity as a response to poverty (education is the way out) or real or imagined group identities being powerful and important ‘them and us’ issues (everyone has the right not to conform). So it’s weak in the face of the clarion call to collectively take arms against foreigners or to stand together defensively to hold on to a collective past. Another way of expressing this is that liberalism is more concerned with where a person is going than where they’ve come from. That’s very powerful stuff in many areas, but it’s always going to be a hard sell in places suffused with a fierce defensive pride about what was and an anger and fear of the wider world that took it away.
Why can’t the Lib Dems take and hold a place like Blyth Valley?
They could – but for reasons that could never be sustained. SDP came within a card’s turn of winning Blyth in 1987 and the Lib Dems did win an analogous seat at Redcar in 2010. The problem was that these results were typical of a party strategy that was about not being the incumbent – whoever that was. Lib Dems were returned as the Rohrschach candidate for inchoate disgruntlement, not the Liberal candidate for liberalism.
Richard Easter: As someone who knows Jo personally from our days in LDYS, I can tell you she is not on the “right” of the party. There was very little Orange Book type thinking in the party’s youth wing when I was involved in it.
I also happen to live in that corner of South-West London where we did particularly well in the last election. Our anti-Brexit message certainly resonated with voters here in the last election, but we achieved our dominant position here in much the same way as we did in former heartlands in South-West England and elsewhere, by local activism over decades. Contrary to popular myth, it is not all rich middle-class suburbia around here; there are plenty of working-class estates in Kingston, Surbiton, Twickenham and Richmond, and a large part of our success here has been based on a relentless Labour squeeze. And I do not recognise in my local party membership the attitudes expressed by the Orange-Book types in the comments on this blog. The true Orange-Bookers in Clegg’s leadership circle have all left active politics, and are not such a force in the party as they used to be.
@James Fowler “They could – but for reasons that could never be sustained. SDP came within a card’s turn of winning Blyth in 1987 and the Lib Dems did win an analogous seat at Redcar in 2010. The problem was that these results were typical of a party strategy that was about not being the incumbent – whoever that was. Lib Dems were returned as the Rohrschach candidate for inchoate disgruntlement, not the Liberal candidate for liberalism.”
THIS^^^^^
And unfortunately, as we see by the noisy minority on this board, that was in too many places “not Tory”, which mislead many who voted for us into thinking we were the garden shed to Labour’s semi. A situation that that noisy minority are very comfortable with, depressingly. Though we see where it leads electorally.
@expats – Of course the government should be planning relaxation of the lockdown rules. Ministers say that they are doing this and I believe them. Starmer is demanding that the government announces the rules now. As I stated, he is doing this to score cheap points to be seen to be challenging in opposition.
Ferguson is correctly stating the obvious, probably to inform the press, but he is not calling for publication of the rules now.
The point is that the government has the responsibility to manage communications and the team of experts giving advice will include professional communicators, psychologists and PR professionals. They will tell the government not to dilute the lockdown message with contrary messages at a time when deaths remain at a terrible level.
I said that Starmer appeared to be politicising the matter. He confirmed that today by claiming that the government was unable to publish plans because they were paralysed until the PM returned to work. He went down even further in my estimation.
The election of Starmer to lead Labour is a blessed relief.
It was reported by a Labour supporter in video blog “A Different Bias”, that Starmer supported a making the UK a Federal system to hold it together.
A Federal system would go further than the old LibDem Regional elected bodies for England as it suggests maximum powers transferred and that the regions would have an input into Westminster, making people feel relevant in politics.
At present, most people are represented by back benchers and parties out of power, none with any clout. If they have a minister as an MP, they will be consumed with national issues and probably having an agent to do the local work. It is a terrible system and needs root and branch reform and not the pointless non devolution, duplication with a UK imbalancing of an English Parliament, which would achieve nothing but pushing damaging nationalism further
Starmer has called for an examination of the PR voting issue. It is highly controversial within Labour and they could yet stamp on it.
Starmer is a left wing north London Liberal Socialist ( with a Geordi accent ) and it is very likely that he supports PR but needed the recent votes of Labour members who opposed it. The Labour establishment had promised PR ( AV+ ) between Blair and Ashdown in 97., but then jumped on it and killed the issue for generation once the votes were in. I could think of a lot of expletives that were applicable
I cannot let TCO’s remarks on free markets go unchallenged:
From Richard Easter, above (16/04/20, 3.15pm)
“You assume that we are all free market libertarians – which is now an utterly failed ideology. I could easily see Kennedy or Ashdown have much in common with Starmer.”
From TCO, above (16/04/20, 5.20pm)
“Free markets are not a libertarian idea; they are a Liberal idea. They’re even enshrined in our constitutional preamble. Free markets should be uncontroversial for a Liberal.”
I agree with Richard, and I was surprised by TCO’s statements. In fact:
From the preamble to the constitution:
“We want to see democracy, participation and the co-operative principle in industry and commerce within a competitive environment in which the state allows the market to operate freely where possible but intervenes where necessary.”
That seems far from an enthusiastic endorsement of free markets to me (“cooperative principle”, “where possible”, etc.). My personal view is that markets are OK for fruit and veg., cars and computers, and other inanimate objects, but even there they need all sorts of rules and regulations to stop abuses of various kinds. Where I do not want to have markets is in areas dealing with people. I do not think any enterprises of which people are the object (or subject) should be run with the primary aim of making profit. This includes health, education, prisons, probation, care, etc. (Note the preamble talks of “industry and commerce” – which don’t sound like people-directed activities.)
I would also doubt the desirability of free markets in supplying services such as gas, electricity, water. The drive for profit would seem to require the consumer to buy as much of the product as possible, in conflict with ideas of conservation and sustainability. On the basis of conservation the price should be low for average and moderate use, increasing for higher and more extravagant use, probably the opposite of what profit-makers would want.
All this does not necessarily mean the solutions are some kind of national ownership and control. There is a variety of models other than ownership by shares, with profit-making for the shareholders the primary, if not the sole, aim. These include partnerships, mutuals, cooperatives, non-profit organisations, voluntary organisations. We do not need to assume the only form of public ownership is nationalisation.
David, I agree that free markets are needed for most parts of the economy to allocate resources efficiently and produce surpluses upon which we live.
However, there are natural monopolies and oligopolies that don’t lend themselves to competition and work better with co-operation or a single minimum cost provider, minimising leaks, maximising service and continuity.
There is normally one rail line, one water pipe, one sewage pipe and one electricity line or gas pipe to anywhere. The Tories artificial competition set up wastes resources trying to sell you the billing of one or another and then gets to work on fiddling up prices within a set of rules, hoping that most don’t switch, which they don’t. Tory fake competition does not work and when the rules change, generally the companies react by adapting the mainly upwards screw of prices.
Also a free market in water cannot apply when there is a shortage and we need to supply everyone with a minimum requirement, trains are overfull or the electricity and gas reserve capacities are dangerously minimal, compared to other western countries, which they are. We need more intervention, better regulation and some nationalisation. as can be justified.
Unlike water, sewage, electricity and gas the railways are in competition with other modes of transport such as cars, buses, express coaches, trucks and airlines for similar customers. They only survive because of massive subsidies and despite a big increase in passengers since privatisation (which has now been abandoned) there are still plenty of underused trains because they operate them at the Government’s instructions, not because there is sufficient demand for them.
@David Brandwood “That seems far from an enthusiastic endorsement of free markets to me (“cooperative principle”, “where possible”, etc.).”
Not if you read it as “markets whereever possible”. As I do.
@John Littler “There is normally one rail line, one water pipe, one sewage pipe and one electricity line or gas pipe to anywhere. The Tories artificial competition set up wastes resources trying to sell you the billing of one or another and then gets to work on fiddling up prices within a set of rules, hoping that most don’t switch, which they don’t. Tory fake competition does not work and when the rules change, generally the companies react by adapting the mainly upwards screw of prices.”
Wrong
The competition is not “wast[ing] resources trying to sell you the billing of one or another”. The competition is to run the service within a set of price and quality parameters, for a given service period. This is exactly how a lot of private sector tendering works – indeed it is very common in the industry I work in.
Where the failure lies is in the way the government procures. It doesn’t evaluate on the basis of both cost and quality (tending only to go for cheapest), and then has a poor in-life contract management regime.