There was a big difference between Tim Farron’s frst two conference speeches as leader. The first came 3 months after a brutal general election at a time of existential crisis for the party. The second, at a time of existential crisis for the country, enabled him to set out our party’s mission: to fight for the values we hold dear and not to let the Tories away with 25 years of untrammelled rule while Labour fiddle on the sidelines..
He’s written about that for PoliticsHome.
I said on the night of my election as Liberal Democrat leader: “Our survival, revival, our rebirth, our rebuild will happen in communities in councils in common rooms, away from the stuffy corridors of Westminster.
“Step by step, we will change people’s lives for the better and as we do that we will regain their trust.”
This is happening and you can see the results for yourself. I’m not getting ahead of myself but adding to our results in May’s local elections, when we had the best results in a decade, this shows we have started to turn the corner.
Some of the commentators will do what they always do and use up ink talking about our demise; but like we have shown many times in the past, they are wrong and we will show that again.
Just take the case of the byelection in Sheffield. Nearly two weeks ago our team in Sheffield delivered a local and purely liberal message and it worked. They campaigned from dusk till dawn and won. But where was Labour?
Just yards away from where the Lib Dem team were knocking on doors, some of the local Momentum activists were in the pub. They were campaigning. They were telephone canvassing for Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership election. Meanwhile in the real world outside that rather nice Sheffield pub, real people were voting in a real election. A real election where the unspeakably brilliant Gail Smith was about to take the Liberal Democrats from 4th to first, gaining a seat from Labour with a swing of 38.1%.
Now, in the wake of the Brexit vote those divisions are more exposed than ever before. With our country facing huge challenges – from inequality and injustice, to an NHS in crisis and an economy in jeopardy – we are left with a reckless, divisive and uncaring Conservative Government and Labour fighting among themselves with no plan for the economy or the country.
Only the Liberal Democrats have a plan on Brexit, are talking about proper funding for the NHS and are working to deal with the housing crisis.
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Back on the campaign trail
1963: London's summer of the Hoverbus
Have resignations led to a rethink?
nigel hunter
Chloe
Abrial Jerram
16 Comments
We are winning council seats but it does not seem to be raising us in the polls. How long will it be before a rise out of single figures? Should we build up by going for minority issues that affect the few and get them as a start for a core vote then when we are in the 15 to 20% campaign for issues that the majority think about?
Local election results will only be noticed once we get a good Westminster result. Get thee to Witney!
Nigel. Be patient the rise in the opinion polls only follows something headline dramatic,
normally a parliamentary by election success. This was the pattern in 1957 , 1962 and 1974, in which all were preceded by local election gains. The world does not change in that respect, fingers crossed for Witney.
As a Red Ukipper I have voted for local Lib Dems in council elections. The reason is simple. When it comes to getting potholes filled and your bins emptied on time, no-one gets it done, better, than your local Liberal.
The best analogy I can make is that every large city office building will have someone who holds a position as Senior Maintenance Engineer. They will be tasked to keep the building safe, warm, dry, clean and fully functioning for the purpose required of the building, and chances are they will be highly skilled and efficient at that job. But,… that does not mean you think their talents will scale up to being the CEO of the company that operates in that building. Its horses for courses.?
The bigger political paradigm shift that Tim and many other liberals are missing, is that liberalism,.. social liberalism,.. neo liberalism, and the Third Way engineered by the likes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair,… is on its death bed. It’s hard to vision this new reality, but only when you do take it on board, will you understand the phenomenon of Farage, Corbyn, Trump, and Berni Sanders.
This new political mood might be summed up in the voters mind as :
‘ Anything,… BUT Liberal Centrism !’
But why so..? Centrism, had at its core the desire to garner political power from those ‘comfortable middle ground voters’. But,.. in channelling your campaigns at acquiring the votes of the secure, happy (we’re doing OK), middle 33%, you were unconsciously giving the ‘middle finger’ to the 66% who were not happy, and worse,.. felt disenfranchised and not represented for the last 30 years.
Through this lens, we can now see that those disenfranchised 66% are pulling to *both* Right and Left,… Trump, Farage,… Corbyn, Sanders,.. in fact… ‘Anything BUT liberal centrism’. Thus we see that pursuit of liberal Third Way Centrism from Bill Clinton onwards was *the creator* of the roughly 66% ‘left behind’. The consequence is thus. You may be very content being the established middle 33% ‘happy bunnies’, for whom liberal centrism works a treat,…. but,… centrists are now reaping what they have sown, and liberal centrism is being roundly rejected by the 66%, (all across the western world), for whom it has never worked. And as an aside that’s why there’s a high probability that Trump will win.
@nigel hunter “We are winning council seats but it does not seem to be raising us in the polls.”
From the article on this page: “Just yards away from where the Lib Dem team were knocking on doors, some of the local Momentum activists were in the pub. They were campaigning. They were telephone canvassing for Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership election. Meanwhile in the real world outside that rather nice Sheffield pub, real people were voting in a real election.”
Up and down the country, people were and are talking about Corbyn’s leadership election. Did many people even notice a change of one of the 84 councillors in Sheffield (still Labour-controlled)? (An anti-Corbyn Labour candidate losing probably made it even harder for the national media to make anything of it.)
I am surprised that 16 months of flat-lining in the polls since the 2015 general election (plus at least another 12 months before that) does not get more attention. There is much talk (on this site at least) of by-election victories, a surge in membership since the referendum, and 48% of the population looking for an unambiguously pro-EU party, yet nothing yet seems to be changing the minds of the wider electorate. Martin Land might be right: the Witney by-election is a great opportunity for Lib Dems to raise their profile, but should that include Nick Clegg visiting the constituency to remind voters how close he was to their current MP?
It’s not like me to say this, but there’s too much focus on Britain. Labour today are saying how they will now focus all of their energy on the Tories, Obama is posting pictures of walking in the park saying “Happy #FirstDayofFall” whilst Aleppo gets bombed to bits.
I think the Assad regime are on the verge of “winning”, but I don’t know much. I do know this can’t go on for much longer and if they do “win” then who knows what will follow it? A million more refugees?
The problem the Lib Dems have is that they define those values as if everyone else isn’t those things unless they subscribe to the purist definitions of them of the Lib Dems (sort of mini-corbynites).
Any one with a brain can turn all those values as defined on their head and subscribe them to Corbynism or Mayism.
The real and main question the Lib Dems have to figure out is whether or not they are for planned migration, how many people do they think is the right level in this relatively small landmass and why. The problem with that question is that they think it’s for the `closed-minded` and `intolerant`. Even worse is when Tim Farron suggests that people are so small-minded and malleable that they are conned into these beliefs over Brexit like little illiterate peasants.
I would argue that Brexit IS the more tolerant, more internationalist and open-minded choice. While I have every faith in local liberal democrats to think the big ideas and look after local interests I now no longer have any faith in them having the courage to confront their own sectarian orthodoxies.
james: You describe us as “they” but do not say who you are. Have a look at the 1951 refugee convention and tell us where you find a numerical limit on the numbers. At the time millions of people were stranded outside the countries of their birth by World War 2 and its aftermath. Or consider the partition of India in which there are estimates of the number of people who died, about 1-2 million. Could it be the case that some people become less generous as they become more prosperous?
@J Dunne
Thanks for the damming with faint praise.
I am glad you admit that in local government the kippers can’t run a whelk stall, Labour will protect their union jobs come hell and high water and the extreme tories will want to privatise everything even when it costs more in the long run.
I’ve got news for you , running a local authority with a £300m + turnover and thousands of employees IS bigger than running SME companies. Liberal Democrats have proved time and again they can run Councils efficiently and with real accountability to local people.
National and UK government is no different, just on a grander scale. The MPs and Ministers from All parties bring their own political prejudices and previous experience to the roles. Liberal Democrat M.P.s have to fight their way there via Local Government gaining valuable leadership skills on the way.
Liberal Democrat ministers in the coalition gov proved their experience by getting our policies implemented.
Indeed the Cameron government didn’t last a year without us!
J Dunn,
There has not been a Party that commanded more than 42% in a general election since the sixties. All the Parties appeal to a minority of voters.
However if UKIP ever managed to get 33% support (which seems unlikely now your one policy other than letting people smoke everywhere has been fulfilled), you would still only get 60 seats in our FPTP system. Whereas a centre party could easily win outright with that %.
Certainly any Party getting 48% in a General Election would win by a huge landslide, so being the only English Party other than the Greens who reflect the views of Remainers is a good place to be in compared to UKIP…
Unlike some other voices, I think J Dunn has a very valid point.
The moderate middle looks like it has run out of plausible solutions to the West’s ever growing problems and its slide into destitution.
The MPs’ expenses scandal and the dreadful national confusion after the Brexit vote have given the demagogues of right and left an open goal.
You can see the issues being reduced to almost monosyllabic “eat the rich” or “it’s the fault of immigrants” in a way that is all bad and dangerous.
We sit, too, in that ‘beige’ zone and have to ask ourselves “Will our ideas enthuse and inspire in an inclusive and tolerant way while offering the prospect of better lives for all?”
`You describe us as “they” but do not say who you are. Have a look at the 1951 refugee convention and tell us where you find a numerical limit on the numbers. At the time millions of people were stranded outside the countries of their birth by World War 2 and its aftermath. Or consider the partition of India in which there are estimates of the number of people who died, about 1-2 million. Could it be the case that some people become less generous as they become more prosperous?`
I don’t know – you might want to ask your liberal friend Mr Trudeau.
I think we now have to stop the rhetoric. talking about ‘fighting’ the ‘fightback’ etc. That implies we are powerless and on the back foot. Labeling this, that and the other as ‘shameful’, ‘terrible’ is also counter-productive because the words lose their meaning in the end. Let’s set out a positive vision and give people hope. In the end people are more likely to vote in numbers for a positive narrative that talks to their day to day struggles.
There is an explanation of the national polls. So far as most voters are concerned the Lib Dems are dead or at best uncool. Most newspapers come pretty close to saying as much. If it wasn’t for the places were there is serious ongoing campaigning we would probably be down to 5% ! However there is nothing like a by-election for proving that reports of your death are premature – hence the “always stand a candidate” advice. And a well fought by-election can deliver results even beyond Lib Dem expectations at the moment. Poor national poll ratings can discourage opponents from taking the Lib Dem threat seriously while local shock results can turn up every Friday. This situation can’t last for too much longer ….be warned!
I think a lot of commentators fail to understand Liberalism and certainly haven’t read the last sentence of the above quote from Tim. We are trying to sort out NHS funding and trying to deal with the housing crisis both of which affect ordinary people but also those who haven’t shared in Britain’s relative prosperity. Without health and housing no one can achieve their potential, which is why the Lib Dems are getting on with trying to improve things. Where we see unfairness and inequality we try to address them not because we’re trying to use the power of the people to overturn our society like Corbyn and his allies, but because we stand up for the individual.
I agree that a lot of people are fed up with austerity and low government funding but it’s not time for the extreme left, it’s time for a new Liberalism which will help the poor without overthrowing those who create the wealth which the country needs to give hope to the powerless.
Well said Sue!