In today’s Sun, David Laws has an op-ed urging Liberal Democrats to resist becoming an internal opposition, and instead maintain our role as “constructive front-seat drivers”, tackling the country’s economic and social problems.
Here’s a sample of what David has to say:
In its first year, the Coalition focus was on unity — agreeing an economic plan and proving to a sceptical country that coalition could work. We have passed both tests.
In its second year, the relationship between the parties has matured.
We don’t pretend that we agree on every dot and comma. There have been differences, including on the NHS.
Lib Dem voters want to know that we are fighting for our priorities — that we are partners, not patsies.
In spite of these differences, we are proving that we can deliver — indeed this Coalition works better than many previous single-party governments.
But let’s be clear — while it is essential that our identity is not lost, it would be a disaster if the Lib Dems were simply to evolve into an internal Opposition.
Conservatives and Lib Dems must work together to address Britain’s biggest challenges — economic recovery and mending our broken society.
Our solutions will be better as a consequence of drawing on the talents and traditions of two parties.
You can read the full piece here.
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11 Comments
ConservativeHome’s reaction to David Laws’ article is also interesting to read:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2011/09/david-laws-should-be-put-in-charge-of-a-government-drive-for-growth.html
david laws isa free trade liberal, or a classical liberal, not a free market one, free marketeers dont advoacte liberal economics david laws does
David Laws is a free trade/classical liberal. Great. So our party and the country is being driven over the edge by outdated philosophies from the age of steam. Just so long as we get that straight.
So the LibDems are in agreement with the Tories that we have broken society? Would anyone care to point to when this agreement was made?
The term “Broken Society” can be read in different ways, but as far as David Cameron is concerned I see no sign that he has a clue about what to do about it. If the phrase means anything useful it is that there is a serious problem with the social fabric of this country, and a significant section of society is alienated from it, as we saw in the riots recently. Unfortunately David Cameron’s response was to advocate harsher penalties and cutting benefits, the latter being unaffordable, the former being counter productive and both being illiberal.
It is not easy fixing a problem which is currently getting worse – who can confidently predict there will be no more riots next year?
A liberal approach would be one that tries to bring people together and rebuild communities, which is what we are meant to be doing with community politics. Local democracy is an important part of the equation, as is education and reducing inequality. We should try to bring the Tories with us, they are not going to oppose everything we suggest. However we will pay a high price if we are remembered as being part of a coalition that brought riots back the UK year after year.
The problem I have with the Laws argument is that if we follow his advice we will not be pulling our weight within this coalition. The Tories need to be scared that we might ditch them one day, and that would strengthen our negotiating position. Currently the evidence from the NHS reforms bill is that they are walking all over us, and as a result we will be blamed every bit as much as they will for implementing Tory policies.
I like and respect David Laws and hope he returns to the front bench soon in some capacity, but I don’t agree with the tone of this article at all.
No, we shouldn’t just become an internal opposition but that’s not what we’ve been doing as far as I can tell. Yes, there’s a difference between constructive disagreement and whingeing but on what basis does he think we’re crossing the line from the former to the latter?
And worst of all he’s using Cameron’s ridiculous (and insulting) “broken society” rhetoric. I hope none of our other MPs pick up this bad habit and that David has a rethink.
If anyone else appropriated £50k from their employer and used the defence that it had to be done to protect their sexuality they wouldn’t even get a hearing yet alone a slap on the wrists and a wierd school chums justification defence ‘Oh well you would have got more money if you had done it the right way so that’s all right then’. – ‘Just take seven days off keep your head down and you can come back later.’
No wonder the voters think MP’s live in their own made up world constructed for their benefit.
No matter how talented this man is (and as it’s pretty obvious he would have been in the Conservatives apart from his distaste for their views on homosexuality I am even more suspicious of his motives after this article) if he is welcomed back in this parliament it will just show how far the party has sunk and I expect rightful scorn from the public.
I just want to say how reassuring it is to read the comments on here after that awful article, Laws appears to be in a small minority within the Lib Dems. By the way, to David Thorpe, what is the difference between free trade/ classical liberal economics and free market economics?
Just as a starter for ten, here is the definition from Economypedia
Liberal economics is just another name for laissez-faire capitalism, which involves free play of market forces. Liberalization is name of that economic policy, which promotes liberal economics by restricting government role to maintenance of an efficient market economy framework. Privatization and deregulation are important components of liberalization.
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Thanks.
Perhaps our society is ‘broken’ because we are ‘led’ by so many that did not have a loving, nurturing upbringing. Taken from home at a very young age and sent away to school. Is this why so many of their class have no compassion or empathy? They have more in common with those they criticise as being from broken homes then they think.