I have been a party member for two years now. One of the first things I learnt was that the online Lib Dem forums on Facebook were an odd mix of conversations. Some of which were useful and constructive, but then there were those posts which, when I read them, made me think of a saying we have here in Sheffield’s local party, ‘How is this making the boat go faster?’. I’ve recently seen another spate of these and it is that which prompts me to write this.
Often these conversations are vitriolic (in my opinion) and only seem interested in attacking Nick Clegg and his supporters as some kind of Tory cabal. A sleeper cell planted years ago designed to destroy this party. The one we have all chosen.
Now, I cannot really by any measure be considered a Clegg acolyte. I do not consider myself centre right or left. I’m a pragmatist. I’m interested in helping people, that’s why I got into politics. That’s why I joined our party. To change things. To get things done which improve people’s lives.
I disagree with him sometimes, I have told him so in the past and I will do so in the future. I do not agree with everything we did in coalition, but I would make the decision to join another party in government every single time.
Not because I’m a masochist who wants to see our party suffer election defeats, but because we actually achieved things nationally. For the first time, parts of a Liberal Democrat manifesto were becoming laws. There were Lib Dem Ministers ameliorating the worse parts of Tory excesses. The excesses which have become prominent and increasingly obvious to the electorate since May.
You can, if you like, talk about a betrayal over tuition fees. You’re right. We put up tuition fees after pledging not to, and in doing so we accepted that we would be hit over and over with that reversal. But, for a poor boy from a working class, single parent family in East London, the amount of money I have at the end of each month to pay my bills is far more important than intangible debt which has little impact proportionate to my salary.
I know it’s not a popular thing to say, but personally, I want to thank Nick Clegg. For doing what was right, rather than what was easy. I know that there is nothing in this piece which is new or revolutionary. I know that this article will not change the minds of those who already excoriate him. I suspect that I will be told that I’m naïve, that being young and a member of the party for only two years means I don’t understand. It may be true that I don’t understand all the small nuances of internal party politics, who does what and why.
But what I do know, is that what makes the boat go faster, is working together. Constructive criticism should always be welcomed and I do not claim to have a monopoly on what ‘constructive criticism’ constitutes. But vitriol and angry bellowing, merely drown out the lessons of the last five years in a pugilistic din.
This is not meant as an attack on those who disagree and dislike Nick Clegg, which is an entirely valid point of view. It’s a plea: when we discuss the past and the lessons which we can learn from it, as we should. Let us ask ourselves, ‘Is what I’m about to say going to make the boat go faster?’
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47 Comments
Spot on, Adam. I joined the Party in 2011 and my oars are still paddling to make this boat go faster.
Without the stablity of a coalition the fallout from the financial crisis of 2008 would have been much worse. The creation of a new economy will not come about through divisiveness.
The death of Labour MP Harry Harpham at 61 from cancer will give the Sheffield constituencies a challenge.
Yet another thinly disguised attempt at rewriting history….
Can we not just ‘draw a veil’ over our coalition years? There is no doubt about what the electorate thought, and think, of our performance in coalition; are just 8 MPs not proof enough? Do you really believe that telling them they were wrong will help?
As for “This is not meant as an attack on those who disagree and dislike Nick Clegg” that is exactly how it reads to me and the ‘spate of vitriolic comments are usually in response to the “How well we really did in coalition” threads…
From your “For the first time, parts of a Liberal Democrat manifesto were becoming laws” it is only a few words short of the disastrous “70% of coalition policies are LibDem” nonsense…..
You talk about “making the boat go faster”; perhaps quietly jettisoning the baggage we accumulated 2010-2010 would help….
If constructive criticism is how to make the boat go faster, I would suggest it is worth bearing a few things in mind.
Many comments in recent years about life under Nick Clegg’s leadership have used the word ‘Titanic’ and I would suggest that if the boat is heading in the wrong direction, just making it go faster does not actually help. It can result in disaster. Making sure it is heading in the right direction is much more important than the speed it is moving.
For many, like me, who have been in the party for decades, it broke my heart to see hard working Lib-Dem friends and colleagues on Councils, at Holyrood and Westminster losing their seats, not through anything accidental or because of their own behaviour, but because of a number of actions of Nick, his Ministers and the party leadership through the coalition years. For all those who argue (like Adam) that they stopped some Tory excesses, there are as many who believe the party facilitated too many more, by supporting their actions, including many Tory policies not covered in the coalition agreement.
It might have started with Tuition Fees, but the list of u-turns and self destruct actions by our leadership is too long to detail withing the space allowed here. That list would have grown if we had remained in coalition with the Tories under Nick’s leadership. His unbridled enthusiasm for Turkey entering the EU and his passion for adding his personal friends and some questionable donors to what many consider an already inflated group in the Lords along with his constant justification of his support for the Conservative Party in government would have continued to undermine the campaigning in many constituencies and at local level, where hundreds of activists, like Adam, work to improves their communities.
It is time to move on from the debate about Nick’s time as leader, as most people have made up their minds on the issue and while some believe it to be positive, like many others, I believe history will conclude it to be a complete disaster for the party.
Making the boat go faster, when you are heading for an ice-berg is not a wise thing to do. Setting a true course and continuing to make progress to your destination is what good captains should do.
Nick Clegg looked the people of this country in the eye and promised them a new type of politics. He did that while making a pledge on tuition fees – the best known LibDem policy by far – that was an out and out lie. They will now have a major problem with trust for a generation because of Nick Clegg’s actions and you want to thank him. Absolutely amazing.
Was it really worth silencing forever the outlook represented by the Lib Dems up to 2010 in order to address an economic situation which could, and should, have been faced by a government of national unity?
I agree, make the boat go faster. I regularly offer ideas to help do this, but I don’t help by refusing to get involved locally (at this stage).
What really excites me is winning, but many are more excited by changing the world for the better, which excites me too, but I think this is where a lot of arguments come from. People have different aims.
malc
There was no money left. No cuts Ed didn’t last and cast iron Dave is going rusty.
Manfarang – If Clegg had told Cameron there would be no coalition without the freezing or scrapping of tuition fees the money would have been found. It is by far the main reason that the LibDems stand at 6/7% in the opinion polls – after tuition fees hardly anyone trusts them. The party is going nowhere until they correct this lie, and half hearted apologies by Clegg and Farron just won’t do.
“For the first time, parts of a Liberal Democrat manifesto were becoming laws.”
This is simply not a correct or truthful statement. Look at the 97-01 Parliament and the number of Lib Dem Mps who piloted private members bills.
Airbrushing history like this acheives nothing. Until this “coalition only” mindset is addressed I don’t see how the lessons can be learned
To develop John Barrett’s metaphor still further, it is not about making the boat go faster until it is heading in the right direction. Polling and election results over the last 7-8 years make it clear a change of course is needed. Like a tanker, it seems to be taking longer than expected to turn around.
malc
Maybe Cameron said stuff it I have enough money for a second general election.
Some very good points but remember that social media can easily make a few people’s voices sounds much louder than they are. There are a small number of obsessives who take every opportunity to attack Clegg and the Coalition ( most of then of course were always against both) but who are totally unrepresentative of the Party members.
Entertainingly some of them who were very loud supporters of Tim have now decided he betrayed them as well.
@Adam Hanrahan “Let us ask ourselves, ‘Is what I’m about to say going to make the boat go faster?’”
Before you wrote this article, did you take your own advice? How has it made the boat go faster?
I do not share the views of the vehement critics of Nick and the coalition , but , Adam excellent though this is as a positive contribution , I am not , myself sure , it is about “faster,”in keeping with others.Surely it is about friendliness vs bitterness ?!
simon mcgrath 5th Feb ’16 – 12:31pm………….Some very good points but remember that social media can easily make a few people’s voices sounds much louder than they are. There are a small number of obsessives who take every opportunity to attack Clegg and the Coalition ( most of then of course were always against both) but who are totally unrepresentative of the Party members………..
Perhaps, Simon, you’d do well to remember that it is not the ‘obsessives’ on an LDV site (read by a few LibDems) that you have to worry about; it is the larger electorate….
If 8 MPs (to say nothing of our missing MEPs and hard working local councillors) has not convinced you, and those like you, that the coalition years were an unmitigated disaster for this party then I don’t hold out any future for us…..
We are constantly told how the Labour party is hopelessly divided, is commanded by a looney leftie who is blindly leading them over a precipice, and yet the polls, if anything, show less support for us now than in May 2015……Why aren’t the electorate, who by now should be aware of how the policies of a Conservative majority (made up of the same Leader, ministers and MPs that we supposedly thwarted for 5 years) feel like, flocking to our banner?
I’d suggest that they remember, only too well, how we honoured our “New kind of Politics” pledge and no longer trust any of our promises…..
Nick Clegg did not lie. He was unable to persuade his coalition partners.
Richard Underhill – Clegg voted for an increase in tuition fees after making a pledge not to do so. Once he had our votes he did exactly the opposite of what he pledged – how is that not a lie? Some LibDem MP’s were honest and kept their word, Clegg wasn’t among them.
Richard Underhill
Not true I’m afraid. Osborne was prepared to leave tuition fees as they were. According to those on the inside Clegg was keen to triple them.
There were some substantial increases in the percentage of votes cast for the Liberal Democrats in this weeks local by elections and the party came very near to winning 2 seats, yet support in opinion polls seems stuck at about 6 or 7 %. Tim Farron does not seem to have struck a chord with the electorate and his popularity rating is negative. The Conservatives are losing support in actual elections but holding up well in opinion polls. Why is this ?
@nvelope2003 “Why is this ?”
A relatively small number of by-elections is unlikely to be a representative sample.
More significantly, Lib Dems are not standing in every seat, so assuming they are avoiding by-elections where they expect to perform badly, this would inflate their apparent support when compared to polling.
it might also be that the party’s reputation at a local level has taken less of a battering than at a national level which would be reflected in polling.
AndrewR 7:243 pm
You are not on the inside.
Manfarang
The coalition agreement allowed Lib Dem MP’s to abstain on votes to raise tuition fees. Nobody forced Clegg to vote to treble them.
Nick Clegg was actually keen to treble tuition fees former coalition colleague reveals
Nick Clegg was offered a pass on a rise in tuition fees by George Osborne and apparently turned it down
Adam
A very worthy attempt by a fairly new member to persuade those who have used LDV for so long to twist thread after thread – whatever the ostensible subject – into a vehicle for their bile and hatred (not too strong a word I think) for Nick Clegg. Unfortunately as you can now see you have provided them with an opportunity to have another go at their favourite subject. At least in this case they are entitled to say that their contribution is relevant to thread but I have no idea what other constructive purpose it has. Let me tell you this, Adam. Several of the “Nick haters” are not Lib Dem members or supporters at all. Others are ex-members still wanting to dig into old wounds. Some (I think few) are genuine Lib Dems who really think the Clegg has
Indeed Andrew R – so keen was our then leader to own the Coalition that he asked the Parliamentary Party via a 3 line whip to abandon the Coalition Agreement that stated Liberal Democrats would abstain on tuition fees and instead vote for them. This is where all sorts of tactics, presumably recently learnt form the Tory whips, came into play, such as getting friends of MPs from the Lords to talk to them about how much colleagues were looking forward to them joining the Lords when the time comes but to vote against the Whip on this issue would make that unlikely.
If it is obsessive not to want to competely destroy what’s left of the Party, then call me an obsessive, but don’t expect those of us who know what really went on to keep silent, or to do what Clegg’s adviser urged at the time, to leave the Party we helped build to a position where it could form a Coalition with another in the first place!
Adrian raises a good point here and as one of our best MPs deserves to be heard more widely. A lot that is rather unsavoury goes on in government and it seems Nick may have learned it very early on. It would be interesting to analyse what proportion of those made Lords were those who showed total personal loyalty to him. The fact that the lords list was allowed to fall into disrepair was probably a contributory factor in the ridiculous amount of power that was in the sole hands of the leader at the most critical time in the party’s history.
Apologies for hitting the send button too soon above. The missing piece was “Some (I think few) are genuine Lib Dems who really think that Clegg’s contribution to the Party was negative and we should learn constructive lessons from that. Personally I think Clegg undoubtedly made mistakes but that his positive aspects outweighed those. However the main point is that the boat to which you refer, while battered, is still afloat and is captained now by Tim Farron. Let us indeed make it go faster.
ADRIAN sanders 6th Feb ’16 – 11:17am……….If it is obsessive not to want to competely destroy what’s left of the Party, then call me an obsessive, but don’t expect those of us who know what really went on to keep silent, or to do what Clegg’s adviser urged at the time, to leave the Party ………
Exactly!
When Clegg and his acolytes were having their ‘love-in’ with Cameron we weren’t wanted……His leadership was a disaster (call me names, if you like, but just look at the results). The current state of the party was his, not our, doing..
It is ironic how, now that he has slunk off to the lucrative ‘after-dinner circuit’, we are reprimanded for not respecting his memory.
AndrewR
It was a coalition whip.Some LD MPs did abstain.
“We could have made a decision to drastically cut the number of university students, we could have cut student maintenance, we could have cut the funding to universities without replacing it”.
Yes it was a debacle, but one that must be understood in the prevailing financial situation and the need to maintain world class British universities.
Adam, listen to Adrian.
It is not that there was an agreement with Tories, it is the mess that was made of it and the refusal to take advice from people used to dealing with the practicalities of dealing with political opponents and still share power.
Sadie
Liberal Democrat Newswire #72 : lessons from D66 for the Lib Dems
Adam, Suffering from seasickness I shall use a mountaineering analogy. The Liberals and then Lib Dems developed a seize approach to reaching the summit. Over forty years they worked on an agreed strategy to build from local to national, from ward to constituency, camp by camp up the cliff face putting in place a system of fixed ropes. By 2005 they had reached Camp V and had brought up sufficient resources, including oxygen cylinders, to place more fixed ropes up to Camp VI from which they could move to Camp VII and from there make a summit bid using oxygen – the oxygen was all the skills and experience that thousands of activists had collected over 40 or 50 years.
Arriving at Camp V by way of the ropes, Nick Clegg and his colleagues Marshall and Laws who had become convinced that ropes and ozygen cylinders were slowing things down, decided to mount a light weight alpine style summit bid from Camp V. They convinced each other and the rest of the team that they should be allowed to do it ‘their way’.
We know that their bid failed. Some argue it was the right thing and a noble thing to try. Some think it was worth the gamble. But when they fell, they did not lose their own political lives, the crashed into Camp V sweeping it and all in that tent down the face, stripping out each fixed rope, smashing each base camp, dislodging all of the climbers waiting in those tents until they landed in a heap back at Base Camp, where we find ourselves today and where a couple of years ago you, Adam and all the other new members, found us.
Most of us here are scratching our heads about what to do next. A few have bravely set out again with an armful of ropes and pitons to start another siege approach. Some still argue that Clegg’s light weight attack was the right one, but actually have little clue as to how to use that method to get back to Camp V. All, they are sure is that once there they could use the same tactics to get to the summit. The old guard of siege climbers are still very sore that all their work and planning has been lost and very sore that their knowledge and experience was never used.
Adam, I hope that helps you see things through all the mountain mist at base camp. I am sure you see clearly the summit itself and the last few hundred metres. But please don’t ignore that Clegg, Marshall and Laws wanted to do it very differently, that they had their chance, and that they blew it. You may think they were right to try it their way, but that does mean that those who got us safely to Camp V were wrong, foolish or unrepresentative. Welcome to the Camp. I hope you get a chance to talk to some of the old climbers. Perhaps those who managed to climb Sheffield City Council summit in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties. They were real campaigners. Hard as nails.
I’m missing something here.
Is it being stated that Nick unilaterally, wilfully and without pressure from Osborne to do so, reversed his pledge on tuition fees, in the process throwing the Lib Dem party ‘under a bus’ for a generation,.. purely so that he would be given a peerage ‘post Sheffield Hallam’?
Peter Watson: One of this week’s by elections where the Liberal Democrats did not stand was one where they got 30% previously and the seat was lost by the Conservatives to an Independent. Not even the Labour Party contests every local by election and there have been LD candidates in most seats. However my point was that in a number of seats the LD percentage has increased and rarely dropped.
indigo 6th Feb ’16 – 1:15pm………….I’m missing something here…….Is it being stated that Nick unilaterally, wilfully and without pressure from Osborne to do so, reversed his pledge on tuition fees, in the process throwing the Lib Dem party ‘under a bus’ for a generation,.. purely so that he would be given a peerage ‘post Sheffield Hallam’?………..
No-one is saying anything like that….For myself I believe that some of the policies/promises that Clegg made pre-2010 were not those that he believed in… He seemed, and acted, as if he was far more comfortable with the Tory policies on NHS, tuition fees, bedroom tax, etc. than with those views this party had entrusted him to uphold……
Meanwhile
“The tension and worry provoked by this do-or-die battle is already palpable on the faces of some of the main players. None more so than Labour leader Joan Burton. She knows that if the gods are really cruel, her party could face near wipeout. So she must desperately cling to the old adage, that regardless of national trends and fixations, each constituency is unique to itself. ”
Sounds familiar.
The mistake on tuition fees was in the coalition negotiations when the Pledge was conceded. The second mistake was then to whip against the “compromise” (itself a thorough sell-out) in the Commons. Looking back it is unbelievable that it happened.
But the underlying problem was indeed that the leadership of the party, in a wider sense than just the Leader himself, had been effectively hijacked by a group of people who are on the right wing of the party, some of whom had little understanding of what the party really stands for or of how it had got them to their positions – and therefore of what was important to stand firm on.
And so (1) Tory Austerity and the assault on public services; (2) tuition fees; (3) NHS reform (against against the pre-election policy of both parties and contrary to the coalition agreement!) By which time, too late, though made worse by the continuing incompetent management of the LD involvement in the Coalition for five years.
Future historians of the party will look back in amazement.
Tony Greaves
Many above , like Adrian Sanders , have a view based on experience , it is bitterness that shows . Lord Greaves is caricatured as a grump , but again , can appear bitter .
Dennis Lorretto is correct .I have my own experience , as we , every member must .It was the bitter and vitriolic leftward hatred of any different idea that dissolusioned me , as a youth , in Labour .I was shocked I saw it in a milder form in this party some years ago and now on occasion .
I am not on the left or the right of the party .I am surprised to read what I do , about the machinations of the coalition . However , I would respect the anger of Adrian Sanders and Lord Greaves and others , far more , and the criticism of Nick Clegg and coalition colleagues , if left oriented members had not and did not show such holier than thou contempt towards any one of my , and Nick and Tims generation , who do not see one view , radicalism circa 1970, as the holy grail, and are kids of the eighties politically , open to a variety of ideas !
If this party is to move forward , because we criticise rightward cruelty and policy seen as such , does not mean we should or do want a return to yesterday as a golden dawn of Liberalism .I read of the views of Jo Grimond and am surprised how in keeping they are with my own . He was well to the right of the current or any left of this party ,ever, and to the left of the current right , also. On violent crime , on individual responsibility, on public services, he was not in any way a leftie.Neither am I .But I am a lefty compared to many , and I am a Liberal and aDemocrat . We al are , who are members or supporters . We have to work together .Let us , please !
“Attacking Nick Clegg and his supporters as some kind of Tory cabal. A sleeper cell planted years ago designed to destroy this party.”
The fact that a defender of Clegg can even think of making these remarks is revealing. The suggestion that Clegg is a kind of Gunther Guillaume (the spy who betrayed Willy Brandt) ought to be totally risible. The fact that it isn’t quite totally risible tells you a lot about Clegg’s career and achievements.
I don’t myself believe that the destruction which Clegg has achieved was ever part of the plan. The intention was similar to Blair’s, and indeed to Corbyn’s – To wrest control of a political party, and to radically change its political philosophy and direction. A risky game, as Corbyn and his allies are finding.
Is the game over now? I doubt it. On bombing Syria, our leader spoke of five tests – very difficult tests – that would have to be met before we could support bombing. Two days later, Nick Clegg pre-empted that decision by announcing that the Lib Dems would support bombing. Whose decision was it that such an announcement should be made, and that Nick Clegg was the right person to make it?
In relation to “What makes the boat go faster?” is it similar to the talk which came out of the Parliamentary party from 2005 on, when it was said that the Election result under Charles Kennedy’s leadership was not moving the Party “forward” fast enough? I would be interested to know, from Adam Hanrahan (or anyone from Sheffield, or any other local parties who used the phrase) whether anything was meant about specific outcomes, beyond just the physical election of more Lib Dems and/or taking power? It seemed in 2010 that we really didn’t have the strength in numbers to advance the Lib Dem cause in outcome terms.
I support the idea that we work with others, as a Coalition if necessary, but it is difficult in retrospect to support a situation which was very light on Lib Dem outcomes, and pretty heavy on Tory, even Thatcherite Tory, ones. If we are rowing the boat in that direction, surely, Adam, you would disagree with that. I don’t think you need to know the “nuances of internal party politics” to understand that?
Liberals and Liberal Democrats never achieved anything from outside national government, nothing worthwhile ever happened outside Westminster. Sitting in cabinet and showing Lib Dems in government could take ‘difficult decisions’, showing that Lib Dems could match the slippery politicians of the other parties, proving that you don’t need to listen to your non-Centrist MP’s or to experienced balance of power councillors or to the party in the country; delaying a Tory policies for a few years. These were clearly all worth risking crashing the party of Liberal Democracy for.
Who wanted or need radical reforming Liberal Democracy anyway, so much better that we should exercise ‘real’ power via the Pragmatic Equidistant Party. Oops almost forgot – thank you Nick.
The dark storm clouds are again forming on the horizon. Who knows maybe there will be another full blown financial crisis next year. One with no options but just imperatives. Make sure you have some gold. Happy Chinese New Year to you all.
PS
AndrewR 10:32 am
Don’t believe everything you read in newspapers.
The News Chronicle needs to be revived in an internet format.
I haven’t seen all these vitriolic posts. I may have missed some as I’m just back from holiday.
The problem about the question on what makes the boat go faster, is that it sidesteps debate about where the boat should be going. This is precisely the right time to be deepening and spreading that debate.