Over at the New Statesman, former Lib Dem director of communciations, Olly Grender, ponders the real question dominating the Liverpool conference. Not ‘Do you support the Coalition?’ (the vast majority of members do), but rather the key dilemma: “How much do we celebrate our separateness in government versus how much do we argue that this is a fully integrated team?”
Here’s her conclusion:
So what is the correct answer? Celebrate the differences? Or talk about the team? I suspect that the holy Grail of “being distinctive” at a national rather than local level is far less realisable than people think. In pure communications terms it requires time and resources which are in short supply. If you are a Special Adviser spending all your time putting out the fires of distinctiveness, is that time that would be better spent on getting on with the governing? Perhaps this is something that comes at the end of a five-year term, not the beginning. In the bars of Liverpool tonight this eclectic family will be getting together to solve this issue.
You can read Olly’s full post here.
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One Comment
I find this answer slightly odd. Firstly the question is surely ‘how do we show our distinctiveness’ and secondly those who advocate such an approach don’t necessarily want bust-ups. Just a truthful assessment of the fact that the measures agreed are compromises. This is not so unusual in coalition goverments around the world, so I don’t see why it poses an existential threat to the coalition here. The only thing it would do is remind people that, as Nick said today, coalition policy is not the same thing as Lib Dem policy. That message can be easily confused when we enthuse about coalition policy and then, come the next national election, we advocate the opposite.