Lib Dems desperately want a message that cuts through.
Something that lifts our standing in the polls with the same gravity-defying ease as we’ve seen Reform and the Greens achieve. But I’m afraid there is no single magic phrase or policy position that will do that. (Nor, by the way, is there some charismatic new leader who could instantly rally voters to our cause. We don’t do leadership cults.)
If we want to cut through, we have to be authentic. True to ourselves. True to our values.
People are disillusioned with politicians of all stripes. They see no vision, just tinkering at the edges and broken promises. Politicians have been treating voters like consumers that want to be bribed with pleasing offers. But the focus-group approach to policy formation has failed.
Since voters don’t believe any of these bribes, they feel they may as well vote for the newcomers making the most outrageous promises. Give it another roll of the dice.
But voters aren’t stupid. One woman I called on in my local area is typical. Politics has let her down, along with others in her community that she sees struggling to get by. She wants to believe that things will get better, but knows it will take a very long time to put things right. “It’s too late for me. It’s my grandchildren I’m thinking of,” she tells me. “What kind of a future are they going to have?”
We need to fix what is wrong in Britain, but voters like this woman know it won’t happen overnight. Britain needs a generational shift in how the country is run. Today’s policies set the tone, but they should be just the starting point for a credible vision of reform stretching out over the next 25 years. Without that overarching vision, it ís as though our policies are just plucked out of the air or decided on the whim of the leader (which is ironic considering how democratically our policies are decided).
How do other parties do this? A century ago, when the Labour party replaced the Liberals as the main progressive party, it wasn’t by having a more appealing set of policies at each successive general election. On the contrary, Labour made huge missteps in the 1920s and 1930s. It finally triumphed in 1945 because it had built up a consistent vision for state socialism and welfare (with help from some key Liberal thinkers along the way) that put working people first. Irrespective of its specific policies, voters could see what it stood for.
Liberal Democrats are not going to form the next government, but if we’re going to build up our core vote, then voters need a sense of what we’d aim for in government. They need to know the bigger picture behind our commitment to carers and the NHS, our desire to fix the cost of living, our opposition to sewage in rivers, our commitment to PR and to Europe. Not just the values that we all share – a society in which no-one is held back by poverty, ill health or lack of education, where everyone is valued and empowered to choose their path – but a true sense of what that would look like.
The party strategy motion at Conference sets the operational context. But it acknowledges the huge hole where the vision should be. It’s not for me to dictate that vision – earlier articles will give you a sense of where I stand. Here are five steps forward I believe we must take as a party to start filling that hole:
- Don’t rely on the leader to conjure a 25-year vision – the grassroots must organize and lobby for it. Have those debates in the open, because when we challenge the leadership to be more radical, it helps voters understand what drives us.
- Resist attempts to define ourselves within the divisive, zero-sum politics of labor versus capital, poor vs rich. Our politics sets out to get everyone working together for the common good.
- Accept that redefining political discourse takes time. Some of our long-term goals will require many steps to complete, and not everyone will appreciate why they’re important until they begin to take shape. We’ll know we’re getting there when voters start to be able to say what we stand for.
- Take every opportunity to frame policy in the context of the long-term vision (many motions at conference fail this test).
- Tell stories about our achievements at every level of government in a way that reinforces that long-term vision.
We all know we have to do a better job of expressing what we stand for as Liberal Democrats. We have to stop expecting to stumble on the answer and start the hard work towards making it a reality.
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A Week in Politics #9
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9 Comments
25 years? and I thought a week was along time in politics!!
Phil, you are right – a twenty-five-year span.
Yet having a vision with a philosophy supported by sensible policies is but part of the issue.
It seems likely even with broadly the ‘right’ policies it could well take twenty-five years to really achieve material improvements. And that assumes continuity of approach irrespective of who might be in power.
Reality is that too many of the population look for ‘bargain package’ answers to issues that impact them. They may well be unrealistic, but these attitudes are stoked by the media hooked on easy stories without responsibility. We have the ritual nonsense of such things as “what has the Prime Minister achieved in his first one hundred days?” Who ever points out that with the best will in the world policies can take months if not years to create measurable improvements?
There is also a cultural problem. There appears to be widespread management and administrative weaknesses. Apart from the legion of capex overspends, we seem to be growing a job culture in which too many people like to move on rather than be in post long enough to take responsibility. Below them, many of the minions show little interest in dealing with issues that don’t fall strictly within their job descriptions. There appears in many instances to be a lack of basic training in terms of teaching people to work accurately. Inefficiencies are rife.
So vision needs to be supplemented by strategies dealing with all these failings too.
Your five points are perfectly sound , but they omit the main purpose of our party, which is surely to protect and improve Liberal Democracy both this country and abroad. Surly we can make that resonate “on the doorstep” when we see hat has happened in the USA and the trends in some European countries (and may well happen here if Farage’s money turns out to be effective in buying votes.)
@tony/Cumbria – As Lenin supposedly said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”
@Graham Jeffs – The consumerisation of politics can be reversed, I believe, since everyone knows those simplistic promises are never kept. But at the same time, I think it’s important within the 25-year vision to have some ‘low-hanging fruit’ that can be delivered now. The vision helps convey why we chose these particular policies rather than others, and how they ladder up to the wider goals. And I do believe the other issue you mention might be among those early wins. Taking responsibility for the wider consequences of decisions is something LibDems should champion.
@peter wrigley – I have written about a method for ensuring that the purpose of Liberal Democracy resonates on the doorstep. How can it resonate if no one knows what it is?
Sorry but l do not believe that the British people would accept a message of golden times in 25 years They are tired of reasoned and calm debate that got us to where we are. We need a strong and loud message for NOW or else we will be drowned out of the next inevitable shouting match and then slaughtered at the next election.
Yes @Tim Rogers of course we need policies that deliver for people now. My point is that, if we don’t put those policies in the context of our longer term goals, then how are people supposed to figure out what we’d do differently than any other party?
As a case in point, what does a short-term 10p off fuel duty tell people about what LibDems stand for? What is uniquely LibDem about this policy? Or have we muddled our messaging for the sake of a headline that people will have forgotten by next week?
If we’re talking a 25-year timescale than an essential part of that must be reducing the National Dept, currently costing £100billion a year to service.
That means we must be upfront with the voters to tell them for many of those years the government should be running a surplus meaning taxes will be higher than government spending. The truth politicians are scared to say at the moment is that taxes are too low.
I agree with the basic diagnosis. The Liberal Democrats do not need another slogan that will briefly “cut through” in the media. They need an answer to a much harder question: what should Britain actually look like if liberal ideas are put into practice?
That vision should begin with liberalism, not with a list of policies.
A liberal party should genuinely defend freedom of speech and freedom of conscience — including when it disagrees with the views people express in exercising those freedoms — so long as one person’s freedom does not infringe the rights and freedoms of others.
A liberal state should trust its citizens, rather than assume they must constantly be guided, protected from themselves, or told what they ought to think.
Public administration should be intelligible: it should be clear who made a decision, on what basis, how public money was used, and who is responsible for the consequences. Public policy should be genuinely accountable.
Liberalism should also be more than a softer version of left-wing and conservative fears, prejudices and solutions. It should be a distinct political tradition, rooted in freedom, responsibility and trust in the citizen.
If we are serious about building a 25-year vision, the key question is: what kind of relationship do we want to build between the citizen, the state and political power?
That is where many of Britain’s most serious problems are concentrated. Our policies should follow from the answer.
@Alan Jelfs – yes there is an important discussion to be had around government debt, but we need to distinguish between borrowing for investment and borrowing to spend. Another way to grow the tax take is by growing the economy – which may require more investment, and therefore higher borrowing, in the short term.
@Michal Simon – thank you. A great summary. Rebalancing the relationship between the citizen, the state and political power (and some aspects of economic power) should be fundamental to our vision.