In the House Magazine, Lord (Chris) Rennard – campaigns guru and former chief executive of the party – has set out the ‘three- pronged’ approach that he believes the Liberal Democrats should take over the coming years.
Here’s a sample:
The first of them follows on from Nick Clegg’s first-year priority, which was to show that the coalition government was stable and capable of taking tough decisions. So an early task for Nick Clegg was to show that ‘coalition works’. This test required huge self-discipline in agreeing a four-year Comprehensive Spending Review, and some compromises that were unpalatable to many Lib Dems. But at least the commentariat cannot revert to their refrain of previous years about ‘weak coalition government’, while the claims made in the Tory election broadcast during the last general election about ‘dangerous hung parliaments’ have been shown to be false.
Events such as the Downing Street garden press conference, soon after the coalition was formed, showed that ‘coalition works’, but unfortunately they dismayed around half of the people who voted Lib Dem last time. The first step in the Lib Dem fightback after the poor results last May is obviously re-emphasising achievements for which the party can claim credit. In 2015, Lib Dems will need, above all, to justify forming the coalition by highlighting their role in preventing further economic collapse and promoting recovery.
They will want to focus on their role in taking many of the lowest-paid employees out of paying income tax, protecting pensioners’ incomes in future and helping the most deprived children get significantly greater investment in their education. There will be achievements in terms of promoting environmental sustainability and (most importantly for the voters) in ‘reforming the reforms’ to the NHS that originated from the Conservatives. There may be little to boast about in terms of consticonstitutional reform (apart from fixed-term parliaments) but we know that voters don’t appreciate them anyway.
The second prong must be to show real differences with Labour, but not in the same tone that the Conservatives generally adopt or the party will run the risk of appearing to have agreed to a merger rather than a coalition. Labour were not entirely to blame for the economic problems the country faced in 2010, but the biggest reason that their vote fell below 30 per cent for only the second time in modern history was that people lost confidence in their economic/taxation/expenditure policies. Lib Dems will not agree with all of the Conservative attacks on Labour, but on the crucial issue of the economy, both coalition parties will make similar criticisms of Labour’s continuing policies.
You can read the details of the third prong here.
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4 Comments
it would help if the libdems (Vince and Andrew Stunell) didn’t strongly support the Tory plan to let council housing wither on the vine at a time of crisis in affordable housing provision and if they didn’t support the Tory plan to rip up planning protections that prevent suburban sprawl and poor development. Neither of those were in the coalition agreement yet we have been cheerleaders for these right-wing policies. maybe our lot actually believe believe some of the stuff they are advocating? That’s a terrifying thought, and why i’ve stopped delivering leaflets for the party.
@LondonLiberal
Just a question – how is the shortage in housing stock going to be addressed if we don’t allow more development? Building upwards may be an option, but I for one really don’t care to repeat the tower block fiasco. And even that would require changes to planning law, height restrictions and suchlike.
170,000 new homes for social housing over this parliament. How is that withering on the vine
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/8777054/Lib-Dems-conference-2011-Andrew-Stunell-speech-in-full.html
The full article appears no longer to be available – so the third prong is here:
The third prong is probably the most difficult, because it requires a more delicate balancing act. Coalition only works for junior partners if that partner can show why the senior partner should not have a majority to govern on their own. Boasting of some positive achievements from the coalition and drawing a distinction with opposition parties is not enough. Preventing unpopular things happening is also important, but only becomes helpful if people know and care about them. Since 75% of voters have generally made up their minds some weeks before polling day, successful communication about these issues can’t be left until April 2015. So for the coalition to work for the Lib Dems, there will probably need to be more occasions when the coalition parties can ‘agree to disagree’. The coalition did not collapse when the government parties took different views on electoral reform. Providing that the coalition agreement itself is maintained, the coalition will not collapse if the parties that comprise it are occasionally in different lobbies on some of the issues that are of most importance to the voters.