Nominations close in the contest for party leader today at 4 pm.
That means that if you want to get a vote and aren’t currently a member of the party, you will need to join by then. You can do so here.
Party membership now stands at 60,533, with more than 16,500 of those having joined since polling day. What will the electorate be at 4pm? In 2007, it was 64,727. Could we possibly match that?
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26 Comments
Lib Dems have got a problem: on the left all the most astute analysis of the election is coming out of Labour. Lib Dems appear to be clutching at various ideological comfort blankets whereas Labour seem to be doing a hard-headed analysis of what went wrong and are aiming get in power and stay there.
Labour are going to focus on childcare, small business, big business, immigration and basically the main issues that bother the electorate. Lib Dems seem to be trying to find niche markets. Big problem.
Eddie Sammon’s analysis is wrong. The pressure by Labour’s economic right-wing Blairites to return that party to Tory-lite, which so humiliated the Liberal Democrats in Coalition will destroy Labour’s prospects at least in the North of England as it has in Scotland.
With eight MPs, four of whom were discredited by breaking a solemn pledge, the party is barely in a position right now to set Government policies. It is quite right firstly to settle the leadership, and then to return to its roots, as a community campaigner for competence in public office, starting with Cllr Tom Wells’ excellent Facebook campaign to sort out the extortionate contracted-out mess that is the Worcester bypass. I am sure there is no shortage of other campaigns ripe for our expert attention.
From this can come our national policies, not from an agenda set by metropolitan media PR consultants who claim the right to set public opinion.
I give the Tories 18 months before their reputation for fiscal competence comes apart. You cannot promise the sort of sweeties they are without raising taxes. History may well then judge better the contribution made by the likes of Vince Cable, Danny Alexander and David Laws.
Jeremy, I think your analysis could be right if Liz Kendall wins, but Yvette Cooper seems to get the concerns of both the north and the south and so do plenty of other people in the party.
I’m still a Lib Dem voter, but if Yvette wins the Labour leadership then I might well be off. Farron is nice, but I’m closer to Lamb, however I think their pitch is too narrow.
We seem to have a chicken and egg scenario here: Do you join the party to set the agenda? Or wait for the agenda to be confirmed to decide if it is a party you like? I would agree and disagree with both the comments above. Whilst I think both of you have accurately stated the situation, I don’t think the discussion should be about seats, policy, or other parties credibility. The next year or two is about building a brand around the Liberal Democrats. Everyone has a vague idea what it means to be in Labour, or Conservative, or even smaller parties like the Greens. We need that image back, with a generation who are ready to promote that value even when it comes as electorate expense. You cannot create a new politics whilst playing the old.
Eddie Sammon
I can see a big problem for Labour, and it is the very electoral system that they are so fond of. The Tories are in, it takes more than a bump in opinion polls for Labour to get them out. In the mean time, why shouldn’t the Lib Dems explore possibilities and play about with some niche ideas. They are still alive, despite an extraordinarily challenging five years, a massively demoralising election result, and the tragic loss of their most popular leader in living memory.
And since they are still alive at this moment, I think perhaps it is worth waiting to see what they have really got. I don’t see any other UK parties who could take recent events the way the Lib Dems can.
Imagine Labour with 8 MP’s.
Eddie, you have reasonable concerns, but do not mistake some outspoken voices on LDV with what may actually be happening: You can take anyone who goes on about breaking a solemn pledge with a pinch of salt. Not that the matter is completely irrelevant, but the issue will move on (there is every likelihood that as many will complain that the system is too expensive, i.e. that the pledge was honoured too much as will complain that it was not honoured at all). There is a danger that some fall into of accepting Labour’s narrative of Lib Dems, hook line and sinker. This line always was a fiction, the Coalition followed Labour’s economic plan more closely than it did the Tory’s, and though this narrative was immensely damaging to us, it did Labour very few favours
Nonetheless, there is a potential problem of our party appearing to the left of Labour and simultaneously lacking credibility, just as there is a problem in insisting that we always park ourselves to the right of Labour (particularly if it reverts to Nu-again-Labour).
Where you could be wrong is in your reference to “various ideological comfort blankets”. You do not state what these are, but you would be mistaken if you are referring to aspects of a distinct Liberal ideology that places the role of the State as subservient to individual liberty, is in fact distrustful of any concentrations of power and is ever watchful of the tendency of such powerful institutions to abrogate further powers.
There is, more than ever a need to construct a coherent Liberal critique. If this means our opposition, say, to increased state surveillance is sad to put us ‘to the left of Labour’ then so be it. There will be other issues, such as the in regard to the powers of large Unions, where we will not be ‘to the left of Labour’.
Martin, I agree with you. What we need are liberal policies fit for 2015-2020. For instance: I wish we lived in a world with no border controls, but being pro immigration is not suitable in the current situation.
My concerns are not the voices on LDV, but the leadership campaigns. I don’t think they will appeal much beyond the base.
Labour have too many vested interests to occupy the centre-ground and keep their party together, but I think they are going to get very close to it. As may the Conservatives. I hope I am wrong, but we will see what unfolds over the next few months.
Thanks to others for engaging with my points too.
Eddie:
I do not think it is right to worry about the ‘centre ground’. The ‘centre ground’ is actually for (almost) all parties – a mistake to think that it could ever belong to us. Of course if we, or any party, renounce the ‘centre ground’ we are turning away from prospects of electoral progress, however our Liberal identity is independent of any notion of ‘centre ground’.
Eddie Salmon speaks a lot of sense here.
I get the impression too often that the Lib Dems have become so far removed from the ordinary voter that they risk only appealing to intellectuals and university students with the narrow (and complex) obsessions with things like electoral reform, human rights legislation and foreign aid. These things simply will not win us votes, will not help in connecting with the problems most ordinary people have and simply reflect the terribly unreflective nature of the membership compared to the country as a whole.
The focuses for the lib dems in my view should be radical reform to housing and how it’s dealt with in this country, reform of the minimum wage and immigration (advocating controls, albeit it justifiable ones). These are things that appeal to normal people and not just the party membership.
Sammy, so where do those of us abstract irrelevances who genuinely believe in completely bonkers craaaaazy untested dangerous ideas like electoral reform and human rights (which clearly have no place in a liberal democratic party) go, then?
Ta very much to you.
@Matt(Bristol)
I question whether your attitude is necessary; manners cost nothing.
I have not said there is no place for electoral reform or human rights, or that I consider them “craaaaazy untested dangerous ideas” but simply that they do not have mass appeal to the average voter. If this party is serious about regaining lost ground then it simply has to move beyond the pet interests of an overly white, privileged middle class membership and appreciate what is actually of concern to normal people.
Honestly go for a walk around London and ask yourself are these people who can’t even afford to rent a room without sharing it or spend well over 60% of their salary on rent going to view electoral reform as a priority? Currently no party actually bothers to speak for them or offer any real solutions; the middle class have plenty of advocates.
“are these people. . . . going to view electoral reform as a priority? Currently no party actually bothers to speak for them or offer any real solutions”
Which is a direct result of a failed electoral system that robs them of representation.
Sammy, most of the people in similar cirumstances to which your describe whom I work with, live surrounded by and met regularly in the run up to the election saw the lack of choice in politics as a key reason for not voting at all.
Now, a geek’s rendition of STV may not be readily communicable to most people, but the idea that the system is rigged to benefit two parties (in England) and that we want to change the party so that you get more choice absolutely is. UKIP turned voting reform and the unfairness of the system into a populist argument, after the election – it’s not rocket science.
I agree that housing reform needs to be a key issue, and I agree that people are worried about immigration (whether there are clear,easy, answers to the latter is not something it would be wise to discuss directly now, but I’m sceptical). Incidentally, I think clear, accountable governmental reform is part of housing reform – it’s about who build houses, for what purpose, and how we can change their minds and influence them — and they need to be local and accessuible to us, for that to happen. That’s local government and electoral reform in a nutshell for me.
What particularly concerned me in what you posted (and I apologise for the sarcasm, but I don’t like being told that I’m not ‘normal’ if I’m interested in X rather than Y, and I also find this odd within a party that seeks to further freedom from conformity), was what seemed to be a rather glib assumption that the party’s values are an ‘offer’ we can easily manipulate to attract voters without necessarily worrying about longterm narrative and ‘brand’ coherence.
If in the early 2000s, a small political party is seen and portrayed as favouring higher taxation in targetted areas, say, (oh, and is in semi-public discussion with X or Y party about joining the government) and then in the mid 2010s is advocating and turmpetting tax cuts and spending and is in public coalition with a party generally accepted as being the blood-enemies of Party X or Y, without genius, plain-language calling-a-spade-a-spade narrative of what happened between then and now apart from ‘we though we could win votes’, people are going to feel conned and defrauded. I’m not saying there was an intent to con and defraud them, by the way…
I agree we need to work out who liberalism or Liberal Democracy or the ‘radical centre’ or whatever it is we think we are about, is _for_ and how to talk about to, for and with them (or ‘us’ or whoever ‘we’ are) intelligibly.
But the belief I felt I discerned in what you said (maybe unfairly) that there is a golden group of ‘normal’, ‘average’ voters whom we need to target, that we just get into a focus group, write down the secret special policies on the insiders of their eyelids stick them in the nafiest and hey, we’re on the road again, don’t talk about electoral reform or it’ll scare people … well, I worry that that’s suspect, disingenuous and self-deluding.
I do believe democratic change for the country is about muc, much more than getting a referendum on STV, and I do accept I probably won’t get one of those soon. But as an activist and money-giver, I’m really, really not going to be interested in a party that secretly wants STV and electroal reform, but has internally decided for ‘strategic’ reasons and in its qeust for popularity that we can’t tell ‘normal’ people that publicly – implicily that that sort of thing is only for the inner ‘elite’.
If that’s waht you mean, or if that is where we risk ending upthen in fact we will have created the middle-class-elite fallacy you seek to refute and challenge, and we will only feed an internal doublemindedness about the party’s values that could easily destroy it.
Sorry – a nest of typos. ‘stick them in the MANIFESTO’ is what I should have said in the third to last paragraph.
Also, ‘change the system’ in para 2. I give up.
@Sammy
‘only appealing to intellectuals and university students’
I’m not sure how Sammy defines ‘intellectuals’ but it’s worth remembering that around 30% of the electorate are either university graduates or university students. Obviously not all of them are interested in electoral reform or human rights, but it would be foolish dismiss a group very much bigger than that which just voted Lib Dem.
I don’t think Yvette Cooper is advancing any “astute analysis of the election”. The Labour Party lost its soul under Tony Blair
In my opinion the main reason Labour did so badly (although they did put on more votes than the Tories, despite losing so many in Scotland) was because they had a party leader who no-one trusted to be Prime Minister, largely because the more sincere and decisive he tried to sound, the more insincere and indecisive he appeared to be. The Labour Party spent the whole campaign acting as if they were afraid of their policies. If they had been a bit more proud of their policies instead of pretending they did not exist they would have done a few % better and forced another hung parliament. And if they had picked a better leader with the same policies 2 years before they would probably not have suffered the same debacle in Scotland and might have won outright.
Meanwhile the Tories “won” by increasing their vote by just 1% – no surge of popularity or endorsement of “austerity” here. They benefitted from a useless opposition scared of its own shadow, and a coalition partner from whom they were able to take the seats necessary to win. Without those gains from us the Tories would have stayed static. And our misfortune was largely because we also had a hugely unpopular and distrusted leader, mostly because breaking the pledge destroyed his credibility.
I am afraid Martin that wishful thinking will not get rid of the legacy of the pledge – only a leader who did not break it will do that
Reading through the comments on this thread, it strikes me that the Party would do well to look to the example set by Charles Kennedy who fearlessly stood up for his beliefs and principles and thereby won more seats than any other Lib Dem leader. As the saying goes “To thine own self be true”. The rest will follow naturally if your beliefs and principles are sound ones.
I’m not sure that ” only intellectuals and students” are interested in electoral reform. There is a thread on ‘Fairer Voting System’ right now on Digital Spy. It was started yesterday and has already had over 1,500 views. Folks more knowledgeable than I am on these matters may want to join in that thread to support the case for electoral reform and allay some common misconceptions to a wider audience than on LDV. The thread is at:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2077879
Sammy, many thanks for your comment. I suppose some people just think the same! :D.
Regards
David,
and the proportion of graduates is rising all the time, with a current participation rate of about 45%.
One reason why persuading us to target university students as the group for us to annoy above all others was such a coup for wily Tory strategists!
I see Phyllis has said this amounts to some people falling for Labour’s analysis and thinking the solution is to “become more right wing” – it is not about becoming right wing, but becoming “no nonsense”. Both economic liberals and social liberals often get a fright when they see security measures because it won’t fit their social libertarian viewpoint and I am saying we need a bit less of this and more concern about what people want.
I don’t see Lamb or Farron sufficiently challenging these attitudes – in fact Lamb is trying to hunt for measures that advertise it, and whilst he has come up with good ideas, the party should be mainly concerned about the voter’s main concerns, not trying to find a handful of distinctive policies that only have a periphery influence on people’s lives.
Disagreeing with the status quo is often good, but people shouldn’t prioritise change over people’s people’s needs.
By the way, I’m fond of Lamb’s idea of the right to die, but on the Daily/Sunday politics the other week when asked for an area he disagreed with Farron on he came up with gay marriage. All very well, but Lamb having a slight disagreement with Farron on gay marriage is not going to flood people into the polling booth’s.
Eddie,
I agree with much of what you’ve written, but I’ve just rejoined, pretty much for the same reasons you’re thinking of leaving. With only 8 white male candidates to choose from we don’t have a huge pool of MPs to draw from for leaders. I don’t envisage either Lamb or Farron leading the party into a new golden age, so things are more broken than many yet realise, but Labour will never sate a true liberal. They can cherrypick our ideas and spend election campaigns trying to act like us, but they’re not as good at it as someone that sees the world through the lens of equality, democracy and fairness. I agree that we’re poor at meeting the electorates needs, we prefer to cheerlead our own topics rather than theirs, and that can’t work for a mainstream political party. It’s one of the many facets that we must change if we’re ever going to get anywhere.
I too am impressed by figures in Labour that seem to be genuinely trying to work out what went wrong, and it does seem the Lib Dems have made little progress in that area. There are many problems ahead, I’m not looking forward to being in a party led by Farron, but as of today the Liberal Democrats are still the party of the centre ground and the others would be a compromise. I think the brand is damaged so badly it’d be best to drive it off a cliff and claim on the insurance, but there isn’t a real alternative to the Lib Dems yet (Scottish voters may disagree!), so I’ve joined for the rebuild and as tribute to CK – I’m not optimistic but I am pragmatic and still remember a world where Social & Liberal Democrats were local people known for being open minded and helpful. We can get it back.
Hi ChrisB, I really appreciate your comment. I’m only a supporter, not a member, but I still have “allegiances” and hope to join a party again soon.
We will see. I am aware that Labour have deep problems and I don’t think I would fit in well amongst some of their more longstanding and traditional supporters.
Thing with us lot Eddie is we’re tolerant of people’s views, on the whole. We love to argue, but liberals shouldn’t require conformity and there’s not another political party like that. I might not agree with everything you write, but you’re young, passionate you’ve got ideas, that’s just what the party needs right now. For too long we’ve had this arbitrary left/right mindset imposed on us, when we should really be looking for better solutions to the problems of citizens. Labour are full of people that talk like Marx and lead by people that act like Thatcher, this party is your natural home because you have nuanced and, to be frank, quite odd viewpoints sometimes, as opposed to standard left/right rhetoric. Conformity is for the birds, join the odd squad and be proud!