Catching up on my reading, I came across this advice from “The Economist” from Wednesday.
With the ongoing debate about overtaking the Conservatives at the next election, and with real questions about the political direction of the Conservative Party under a new leader, what, if anything, should we change as we face a Labour Party with a vast majority and emerging challenges from the Greens and Reform UK?
The Economist sums its advice up thus:
Britain has a two-party system designed, broadly, to produce one party more to the left economically and another more to the right economically. Labour has sewn up the left. The Conservatives have only a loose grip on the right. There is only one place for the Lib Dems to go on economics: right.
I’d argue that the focus on left and right overlooks one of liberalism’s great strengths, that we increasingly look at the world in terms of freedom and community – how we can give people control over their own lives whilst maintaining cohesive societies.
But what do our readers think?
* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.
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19 Comments
You ask a question, Mark.
My question in return is, do you really want a replay of the 2015 General Election ?
It might be good advice if Labour had indeed “sewn up the left “. However, as Labour are a right wing party, roughly where the Tories were before they went mad, it’s very poor advice.
@ David,
That’s a bit simplistic, if you don’t mind me saying so.
There are some really good questions about the sort of economy we want to build and what we want to do with it so as to create a fairer society with greater equality of opportunity. And there’s always been that tension in our Party between social and economic liberals.
If you adhere to a left/right model of politics, there is a temptation to exploit a gap in the market, such as that created by the Conservatives switching to a nationalist stance. On the other hand, adhering to your philosophical principles means that that space is left to others, unless you can persuade them to your view.
My suspicion is that any policies we promote will be defined on the left/right spectrum by our opponents anyway, so we might as well have the courage of our convictions and put our case to the electorate.
The Economist will always advocate that any party adopts “right-wing” economics, and we already know from the 2010-2015 experiment what that means for the Liberal Democrats.
The claim that Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer have somehow sewn up the left economically is of course absurd. (Unless The Economist actually meant stitched up.)
They are both hellbent on implementing Austerity 2.0 and will quickly find that it works out for Labour in exactly the same way as it worked out for us
I assumed The Economist was a centrist highly respected publication but this is so simplistic and wrong. Is it based on the assumption that since Ed Davey is keen to attack even more Conservative seats that we must veer towards the right in our economic policies ? If so then as far as I am concerned Ed will be leading us in the wrong direction and I find this worrying. We must base our policies on our principles which include making absolutely clear now that we must reverse the inequalities that the current system has produced and it appears than even Labour is not inclined to do that. If we loose our way in this then we will have lost a key purpose for our existence. We need radical change in current economic systems and if proposing that means loosing a few of the conservatives that have recently voted for us, then so be it. As we found under Nick Clegg, we will loose our roots and even more people if we do otherwise.
I must add, because of obsession by some about how we can get even more seats, that policy based on our root principles comes first, then we work hard to persuade voters they are right for everyone.
What’s the difference between moving to the right economically and moving to the right politically? I can’t see there is one.
The political right tends to make the mistake of thinking that a smaller Govt budget deficit will necessarily lead to smaller Government. It doesn’t. Trying to squeeze the economy by applying austerity economics leads to higher levels of unemployment, underemployment and poorly paid part time time employment.
The demands on Government consequently increase.
If anyone on the political right wants to know how to achieve what various Tory governments have failed to achieve I would suggest they read some MMT theory. It’s widely considered to be a left inclined theory but in fact it’s politically neutral. It will give them the answers they might be looking for.
The main threat to us in England is The Green Party which sells itself as well to our Left. Leaving aside what we actually believe, moving to the Right would be daft, gifting support to The Greens.
There’s been a few articles like this written here on LDV as well. They seem to be written by people who have started with their conclusion and then made up some reasons to support it.
This is revealed by comments like “labour has sewn up the left” which can only be said in good faith by someone who’s lived under a rock since 2019 or at least 2023.
In reality they already lost a ton of votes and several to the greens and independents whilst they were still in opposition.
We also have done perfectly well at winning seats from the Tories in every election where they were vulnerable (1997, 2001, 2024) whilst still being on the left.
And what even gave the author the idea that it was reasonable or sane to tell party to fundamentally change it’s ideology because you reckon this might have some electoral advantage?
Is it because that’s what Labour does? Hello?
I have always believed that being the centrist party gives one the luxury of pursuing the policies that fit the circumstances while staying to your basic beliefs. There are times when a centrist state-controlled economy is best. There are times when a free market economic is best and there are times when a mixed economy suits the moment. But it all times we should be open to new ideas, new people and new concepts. In short, we should be liberal.
It has a strong hint of truth *if* the strategy of the Lib Dems is indeed to overtake the place of the Conservatives as one of the big two. It just seems a little farfetched that you could replace the Conservatives while being to the left of Labour, unless of course you’ve convinced yourself Labour is now a cameronite right wing party in which case it makes perfect sense.
It’s more a matter of tone than policies, as Ed understood with the general election campaign. Be pragmatic but caring. Don’t do anything stupid like Brexit, and don’t buck the markets like Truss tried to do.
We need to keep reminding ourselves that there was no great Labour victory this year.The percentage of votes for Labour was about the same as the previous great defeat of Labour. Whatever happens in future will depend to a large extent on things outside our control.
The short answer is no as austerity and Osbornomics basically failed. It went too far and stifled growth. There is also only a small constituency for right of centre liberalism. The Lib Dems don’t need to move to the left either they are in the right place economically.
The longer answer is that its complicated as there are lots of strands to economic policy: fiscal, monetary, regulatory, trade etc. I would advocate continuing our expansionary fiscal policy I.e spending more whilst pursuing sensible deregulation, making greater use of the private sector and liberalising trade.
It’s such an important question to explore at this time in the cycle, however I think as others have already noted, that the right vs left dichotomy is very simplistic. One of the great strengths of the Liberal Democrats in my view is their pragmatism in policies that are not shackled to ideology – we strive pragmatically for greater equality and expansion of opportunity without getting embroiled in class war, nor necessarily favouring public or private.
With respect to the question of economic policy, we might be seeking the win over remaining Conservative votes, but we don’t need to embrace economic ideology. We do have to demonstrate that we are party of sound money, pro development and growth in both the private and public sector, and concerned that all citizens get an equal chance to share in the benefits of that growth.
Here our offering can be distinctive not just against the Conservatives but also the Greens. The Green Party seems to find kinship often with de-growth and population reduction worldviews. Thus we can be clearly differentiated from the Greens in being clearly pro-growth and economic opportunity, and being very clearly pro fertility and family (another core appeal of the Conservative vote). The Liberal Democrats’ 2024 manifesto went much further on parental leave than did others. Similarly Liberal Democrats propose Rent to Own whereas Green want to abolish Right to Buy so that houses remain in ‘community’ (council) ownership.
And we no longer have a binary divide in British politics, or a 2-party system. Civil liberties, toleration of diversity, social solidarity versus libertarianism, central direction/strong government versus local democracy and consensual politics have all become part of the mix. Our new Parliament has 9 party groups with 4 or more MPs; and in terms of votes, 5 parties gained over 5% and no party gained more than 34% (the ‘two major parties’ between them gained only 57% of the vote). I don’t think the next election will see a ‘return to normal 2-party politics’ either.
The FT has a good article Starmer and Reeves must articulate the government’s purpose
“Progressive governments succeed when they own the future and have a vision of how it could be better and fairer: that’s what the New Labour slogans meant. Gordon Brown’s “prudence with a purpose” got it right (and would be apt for the moment the UK is now faced with). The inheritance is difficult, rebuilding is imperative, it will take time and effort but there will be a pay-off.”
What is needed above all is competence and a vision for where the country can go:
“In the end, the “vision thing” is the difference between leaders and managers. So many things were done badly and incompetently by the last four prime ministers that it must often feel to Labour ministers that refraining from harm is all there is to delivering change. But they also need to do the right thing. That’s the message Starmer and Reeves need to put at the heart of their conference, with its slogan “Change begins”.
I used to occasionally argue here for the clear, classical liberal space in British politics which was – and remains – unoccupied. Moving there would be a very risky, if we did then our purpose and message would be coherent and distinct.
Watching the course of the last election and it’s result has changed my mind a bit though. There now seems to be a Stanley Baldwin shaped, centrist space in which comfortable, mild mannered, and good thinking people are looking for the leader who takes the politics out of
politics. We did extremely well at dominating that traditionally Whiggish space, and peeling it away from it’s (unlikely?) coalition with Tory nationalism. Let’s not do anything to upset that profitable applecart.
Being right or left of the centre only handicaps a Party in economic decision making. We should be flexible enough to what is right at the time. Selling this approach is another matter.