We Liberal Democrats want power. Leader Tim Farron has stated that we want to be in government again, to have power to enact our policies, and we also seek power in local government through our elected councillors.
At present though we seem all too far away from having power. The ’fightback’ after the grim 2015 General Election results seems to have petered out. Yes, numbers of council seats have been won back, and yes, we now have 12 MPs instead of 8. But highly valued MPs have lost, scores of deposits have been forfeited, and we reach only 7% in the polls. We hoped to have massive support from Remainers, now that the country’s economy is faltering and the promises of the Brexiteers being shown up, but in the highlighted clash of May’s Tories and Corbyn’s Labour, pro-EU voters found other priorities.
Then the vote on the amendment to the Queen’s Speech to stay in the EU single market and the customs union gained only 101 ‘ayes’, as the Government and the Labour Party maintained their extraordinary negative alliance. What we Lib Dems actually want is for the British people to realise that Brexit is not only harmful but need not be carried through. But it hasn’t happened yet.
So we are as powerless as before. Or are we? It’s interesting that a Corbyn ally, Ian Lavery, says that the Labour Party is now ‘too broad a church’, and that Momentum voices are suggesting that 50 moderate Labour MPs might like to join us. Previously, Tory commentator and former MP Matthew Parris had similarly said in a Times column that his party may be too broad a church, though he didn’t go so far as to advise a breakaway movement, remarking that ‘Liberal Democrats aren’t serious about government.’
Maybe then we should proclaim, ‘Now is the time to come to us, Labour and Tory doubters both – if a centre party is wanted, we are it!’ However, this is not a way forward that the British people necessarily want. Our party does not, sadly, inspire much public confidence at present. Our policy on Europe is only partly accepted, other policies more vaguely known and liked by some, but we are seen as too distant from political power. And if we remind people of our past taste of power in the Coalition, too many former complaints may be raised, especially with the new alluring Corbyn promises.
Yet I believe that it is power that we should be talking to people about. In fact, everybody wants a bit of power for themselves. It might be power to get enough to live on with a bit to spare, or to find a job that lasts, or a decent home to rent. It might be power to give our children a better life. Or it might be power to take back control – not in some nebulous political way, but to feel able at last to meet one’s own needs and hopes.
Who can help ordinary people to gain power? That depends on why politicians want power. Will the Tories help, when so many seem to want power for personal satisfaction, or to keep in with rich and influential people? Will Labour help, since they really want to do good to people through energetic state intervention?
There are many motives. But only the Liberal Democrats care about individual power. We believe in the right of everyone to be treated with respect, to have freedom to make their own decisions about their lives, and we want to disperse power as far as possible. Through our community work we try to help individuals, and we work on policies to offer whenever we gain power, so as to achieve more along with the people we represent.
This is the point: we are already committed to these actions. What is needed is to reframe the beliefs that we hold to catch people’s attention. They are inspiring beliefs which can win hearts and minds. Put most simply, what are the Liberal Democrats for? We are for empowering individual people. That is all we need to say. It is, I believe, our golden gate to open to that future when the British people will have faith in us again.
* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Cumberland Lib Dems
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Raising a flap about letterboxes
Arriving at one of East Finchley's ghost platforms
Restrained
Chase Park fair photos
A swamp of lies and disinformation
Nigel Jones
Katharine Pindar
42 Comments
Katharine Pindar asks “Who can help ordinary people to gain power?”
I suggest the political party that implements the result of a referendum.
See http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/referendum
Referendum ref.əˈren.dəm
Plural referendums or formal referenda (formal plebiscite).
A vote in which all the people in a country or an area are asked to give their opinion about or decide an important political or social question.
We will remain “powerless” until we as a Party decide what our raison d’être truly is.
Are we are Party that genuinely wishes to create a society that is more reflective of our core principles of ‘equality, fairness and justice’ or are we willing to merely willing to ‘put up with’ tolerance and acquiescence?
We need an inspiring Leader who will “walk the talk” as the likes of Charles Kennedy did with regard to the war against Iraq in the past and is willing to make and stand by decisions that may not fit into the modern political desire to be populist.
“Gender isn’t an issue any more, rightly so. Thanks to Obama, race isn’t really an issue any more – at least, we hope not. And age shouldn’t be, either. It should be who you are and what you have to say.”
Are these truly the limiting and uncorroborated views of our Party, for if they are, then we have a much steeper mountain to climb than many would have thought, and ultimately we will lose members and what influence we currently possess.
Namaste
Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
These are my personal views and may not represent those of any organisation that I am a member of.
@ David Evershed. We are not populists. We must stick to our European & Internationalist principles. We should keep campaigning for what we believe in. Otherwise what’s the point? After all the Brexiters didn’t shut up after the 1975 referendum so why should we?
David Evershed: Focus groups showed that there was a lack of understanding of the economic data, an inconvenient fact which was ignored by those who filtered the information reaching David Cameron in Stronger In (All Out War).
The fall in the value of the pound sterling happened immediately after the decision on the 2016 referendum was announced and was well publicised because it affected the price of chocolate immediately and/or the size of chocolate bars. Other imported foodstuffs are affected as existing contracts expire, leading to higher inflation and a squeeze of incomes. This is easy to explain and does not depend on overturning the lies told during the referendum on factual matters, nor the overoptimistic forecasts of economic growth based on trade deals with distant countries. Even if a trade deal with USA happens in 2-3 years time it seems unlikely that the UK will be imporeting many American cars, which are simply unsuitable for conditions in the UK.
David Evershed is just being realistic (as usual). Didn`t the drop in vote share spell out a message? The public are wiser and more foresighted than the party zealots. What would a second freferendum feel like? A benign and generous meeting of minds? The leave side ackowledging how foolish they have been, their gratitude to the LibDems for guidance and their eagerness to change their vote?
Or would it be a horrific exchange of the most bitter insults in every pub and home? Exacerbated by the charge that it a flagrant attempt to ignore an expression of opinion?
What would be the party’s objective anyway? To kiss and make up and go back to how things were before? They will never be the same as before. The milk is spilt. Can’t the party see that? It is only offering the public what they want least of all – eternal argument.
……………………………So we are as powerless as before. Or are we? It’s interesting that a Corbyn ally, Ian Lavery, says that the Labour Party is now ‘too broad a church’, and that Momentum voices are suggesting that 50 moderate Labour MPs might like to join us. Previously, Tory commentator and former MP Matthew Parris had similarly said in a Times column that his party may be too broad a church, though he didn’t go so far as to advise a breakaway movement, remarking that ‘Liberal Democrats aren’t serious about government.’……………….
Another ill thought out thread…We tried appealing/pleading with ‘tory lites and Labour rites’ when we were in coalition and had 50+ MPs…What possible chance with 12?
Even if pigs flew and 50 Labour MPs (to say nothing of the Tory defectors) joined us, where would that leave the LibDem party?..The ‘L’ in LD certainly wouldn’t stand for ‘Liberal’ and, if the Conservatives also joined, there would have to be a ‘C’ in the name of the new party…The new, improved LC party would be the ‘Last Curtain’ for us…
What does “implementing the referendum” even mean? The referendum did not give a mandate to a set of policies or a proposed programme, but gave a narrow margin of approval to an extremely ill-defined idea.
Having a referendum on the programme to leave the EU, once it has been negotiated and clarified is a perfectly reasonable position, as is including the option to reject the concrete proposals and remain in the EU. That gives people power. Working on clarifying the programme and negotiating the best programme possible is “implementing the referendum”. Simply doing whatever Theresa May decides what we should do is not. The idea that people have been given power by the last year of Tory/Labour politics is doubtful, to say the least.
If “political realism” means abandoning core values and policies when we do not win an election, or worse, that we determine our core values and policies by what goes down well with focus groups, I want no part of it.
I, too, see nothing but trouble in 50 labour MPs joining the LibDems. They wouldn’t bring their envelope stuffers and door knockers with them. They would expect to be PPCs for the LibDems against an official labour candidate. Possible conflicts there with existing LibDem PPC? Some would aim to be party leader perhaps? Anyone look the part of new LibDem head? It only works with a new party, new name new leaders
50 labour MPs are not going to join the Lib Dems. If they did most of them would lose their seats because people vote for Party and policy not personality. Great chunks of the 2015 election campaign was based on the belief that popular local MPs could retain their seats despite the performance of the Party in election after election. The result was massive losses.
Dull as it may seem, no one event or magic policy will bring seats flooding back. It’s going to take years of slow gains.
I see the brave Brexiteers have arrive en mass, strange they chosen this thread, but then it doesn’t deal with economics and the growing damage that is being seen to be done. Why embrace the referendum result when even the leaders of the brave Brexiteers have started to row back and are starting to make excuses, not their sort of Brexit. It is going badly, you know it is going badly why should we who knew it was a total disaster want to join you now, just so you can say we are all in it together?
Martin,
I think you are being a bit hard on David implying he’s a populist, none of the policies he pushes are popular. The one party you can say tried to push those policies ended up out of it’s ear in Germany after over 50 years of being a major player. That party forgot it was a pragmatic Liberal party and went off following the call of laissez-faire economic liberalism, it was rewarded by a vote share that failed to get it into parliament.
It is also worth pointing out that laissez-faire economic liberalism in the 18th century led to the formation of socialist and communist parties to fight back against what was seen as the failures of that system. You could make a case that the rise of the left in Europe and the UK requires laissez-faire economic liberalism, as we can see with the present raise of Labour under Corbyn.
P.S You can also say the problems faced by the Liberal Democrats coincided with the rise of the Yellow Bookers and their believe people wanted more stress in their lives, they don’t and any party that cause that will suffer.
We have to make a start somewhere. But where. I do not know. Scrap Tuition fees would be start. BUT who would believe us? We need to start with the young whom we disgracefully deceived. Adonis who was instrumental in the Fees creation/development
etc has now turned a full somersault and is so recommending. We should do likewise.
On Topic.
I dont understand how anyone can feel confident in their own predictions after the last 2 Years, we all need a bit more humility & self doubt.
On the “50 Labour MPs” thing, I dont think anyone expects them to join us in a group or soon. If it happens it will be in ones & twos at first & not till we are doing a lot better. Moving from one Party to another takes courage, in particular the Intellectual Courage to admit that your previous career in Politics was based on a big mistake. I dont see any defectors putting themselves forward for Leadership until they have bedded in. Of course we arent likely to see many grass-roots activists defecting, The SDP got a few hundred I think, almost all their members were new to Politics.
Would any defectors get chosen as Libdem Candidates ? That would be up to the Local Party in each case.
Would we benefit from getting people like Umunna or Berger ? Of course we would !
I dont expect any such thing soon though, its back to the slow process of recovery.
Well Paul, unlike you I was confident the Lib Dems would be crushed in 2015. I wasn’t wholly surprised that leave won, the level of discontent and anger in the country was easy to see if you live out side the politics bubble. I had hoped for better in the last election but accept it came to soon for the Lib Dems. As to the future all I will predict is volatility and anger. How the anger will be directed I’m not sure the Brexiteers will try to aim it at the EU, who the general population aim it at is more problematic, I suspect politicians and the old will make fine targets. Good times I do not predict.
Thanks, Frankie, you are always a one-man fightback against our brave Brexiteers! Expats, you might at least do me the courtesy of reading my piece properly, which would show you that I am not recommending but merely noting the latest manifestation of the idea that there may be people in the other parties who would fit better in ours. I have instead suggested that we may become more powerful by putting what we believe and act on into simple language which can catch people’s attention and engage their emotions. (Mike S. I am trying to follow what I have understood from you.)
R. U-P, are you suggesting that we do not as a party adhere to our core principles of ‘equality , fairness and justice’, but instead have slumped into mere tolerance and acquiescence? What makes you say this? I should be interested to hear more. I think in any case it will be up to us all, not just our leader, to drive us forward towards the great principles you mention, especially now that we lose Tim Farron’s integrity and passion.
Frankie,
I hope you don’t include me in the Brexiteers camp.
Whatever Brexiteers happens. And one of some form or another will, it must be worse then what we had already.
My view was that the leavers, even then, will not hold up their hands and accept a second referendum. They will accept whatever bodge gets cooked up. Rather that than another dose of last year’s trauma.
Two general elections aren’t mere focus groups. It was the people speaking (to those politicians who will listen). The party that campaigned (almost) exclusively on a second referendum went backwards.
There is no point in including the word “economics” in any reply. The party needs to understand how to recognise, and manage, national emotions.
The call for the 1st vote on the Brexit deal MUST come from the voter, us banging on got us nowhere we should stay quiet till the tide turns.,Yes we should pick ourselves off the floor and campaign for local power AND aim for Government
With Brexit or even without it we will need home grown talent to keep the economy growing. I propose not only do we allow the young to go to Uni and to train for apprenticeships but also those over 60. Not all elderly can retire to the sun or even want to. With the rise in retirement age people, when they were young, who were not able to ‘aspire ‘ to wealth could be trained .The young may grumble but there is also ‘ageism’ to cope with. To allow the elderly, with all their experience to go back to work would be a small radical policy for us to build on. Barriers must come down and we must get noticed as a radical alternative to the other parties
The only way any call for a policy can ever “come from the voter” is for some prominent politician to suggest it. The idea that policy ideas can magically come out of nowhere for voters to support is just rubbish. For it to happen, people have to campaign for it. And as the Lib Dems are the party known for being pro-EU, that means that the idea of the UK not leaving the EU, or even another referendum, would have to come from the Lib Dems. If we stay quiet, then no-one will ever suggest it, and it won’t happen.
Nigel, I’m smiling because I seem to remember putting pensioners to work was one of the wheezes some Tory minister, probably Gove, suggested in the Coalition years to save money, but I’ve forgotten the exact occasion. Of course you are right, pensioners could be a useful extra resource, as B&Q has found, if they want to do it. Possibly not replacing EU strawberry pickers in the eastern fields, bad for the back, but more work that uses their experience and mental capacity, of course.
But I want to take up here, if allowed the space, development of my idea that we should try to empower people. It will involve asking them their concerns, which is natural to our community work, and then building LD policy FROM THE BOTTOM UP, which is the opposite of what Labour will do. But I don’t agree, Mike S. (I’ve been now reading you in another thread), that that necessarily means accepting that our policy-making process at national level is removed from our voters. There has been increasing democratisation at the centre, it seems to me, with working groups publicised and open in the first place, then taking many soundings and surveys, consultations and discussions before the policies come to Conference. So long as those processes can take account of findings from local level, I think they pass muster. Surveying voters in general is not going to be effective, unlike surveying the target audience of a business. And despite my deploring elsewhere a ‘metropolitan mindset’ in the party, I don’t believe our policy development is by ‘byzantine processes run largely by metropolitan insiders’, to quote Gordon’s colourful view. No, let us develop policies from our direct contact with the people in our local communities, and feed our findings upward, demanding always attentiveness from the centre; and thus SHOW AND TELL people that we are here for them, to empower them.
Maybe people should be paid decent pensions so that they don’t have to work until they drop?
There is a fascinating LSE blog post dating back to November last year that just came across my Twitter timeline. It’s pertinent to this topic and also to Bill Le Breton’s related notion of garage politics.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/how-to-make-politics-great/
The core idea is that ” the model of citizens as consumers of politics should be replaced with a model of citizens as producers of politics.” Amen to that.
Phil Wainewright,
Interesting article, but is not possible that Trump won because virtually no party in American history has continued in power longer than two terms. The Republicans, after all, have won a lot of elections. In other words the result is not actually shocking at all and the issue is that parts of the commentariat have invented a version of the political landscape not based in reality.
As for Brexit. I suspect that previous governments backed away from holding referendums on various treaties and membership because the likelihood of losing was always high. Turn outs for EU elections in Britain are pitifully small and this referendum simply gave people the opportunity to vote with more purpose. Rather than being a howl of rage, maybe it was more fundamental. Frankly, if you had asked me a few years ago I always assumed that I was pro EU and pro internationalism, but this was because they were just positions I never questioned. When I did it turns out I’m not a fan of either of them.
Some good talking points, but the thought of 50 Labour MPs joining us would do us more damage than Labour, and won’t happen for a variety of practical reasons, even if all fifty are individually thinking that their values are better represented by our manifesto.
It’s possible that two or three could move along the benches, boosting our numbers and giving Labour something to think about. But MPs who switch parties face the potential of voter backlash, and questions will always hang over their conviction if they go for leadership roles. I expect most in Labour who might think about moving would rather sit tight and wait for the pendulum to swing back towards them. If they are feeling brave, they might vote with us and against the party whip on a more regular basis.
My worry is that far far far too many Liberal Democrats are presently sitting around (as they have done for a number of years) waiting for someone else (public, Labour MPs) to get an inspiration rather than themselves being prepared to shed some perspiration.
Alex Macfie (08 July 5:56pm): “If we stay quiet, then no-one will ever suggest it, and it won’t happen”. Vince Cable must have read your post before he went on the Andrew Marr programme this morning (Sunday).
I’m excited by a vision for us Liberal Democrats of accepting fellow citizens as producers of policies, empowering them through our local involvement in community and constituency work and local government where we can listen to their needs and wants. Offering them the chance to be heard and have a say should revive hope and enthusiasm in a way that Corbyn’s Labour Party, with its top-down efforts to decide what their needs are and do good to them, could never comprehend.
We have always known that we are fundamentally different from both the Socialists and the Tories, and this is the way to prove it by emphasising such a vision and approach, which differentiates us from them but is a natural development for us. Our centre will need to be flexible to allow more citizens’ participation, and the radical proposals of colleagues such as Bill Le Breton and Michael BG may come into focus. But the central vision is here and we should embrace it now.
(I am very grateful, Phil Wainewright, for your posting the link to the LSE blog and commenting on it yesterday evening. Rereading it now has helped me greatly to clarify and develop the idea I offered in my article above.)
+1 from me.
We have a clear set of beliefs. It can be hard to communicate them. We’re not going to get much airtime while we’re in 7%.
I thought Vince missed an opportunity to sell those ideas on Marr this morning. We need some bumper stickers.
(For the many not the few; take back control; make America great again… these slogans are simplistic but they cut through).
Phil W – great spot! … citizens as ***producers**** of politics. Think this is what Aristotle had in mind when (I think) he suggested (in those terms) that you become a citizens only when you are a ‘producer’of politics ie citizens are those who are active.
That really helps focus some ideas. Thanks.
Bill, this idea of citizens producing politics surely goes back to the fifth-century Greek ‘polis’, most gloriously developed in Athens, where every citizen had an equal duty and responsibility to play a part in running the city. If only they had given women equal rights and not believed in slavery it would have been an ideal for ever! We Lib Dems, male, female, trans, etc. should now put it into practice by empowering the citizens in our own communities and nationally, listening to them, responding to them, and developing our policies accordingly. John Hudson, why not ‘Empower ordinary people’ as a bumper sticker?
Citizens as producers of politics, garage politics, community politics. I’m afraid this is retread time. The word that sums up this mood within the Lib Dems is NEEDY.
We would love to believe that we have a brilliant, radical, empowering new political philosophy that is just about to take the world by storm. We would like to be denialist about the charge that we are just a small centrist “swing” party which disastrously swung to the right and has not been forgiven by the voters for that. So we place our faith in the Emperor’s new clothes – that if we keep telling ourselves that a resuscitated form of community politics (based on no coherent model of implementation) is about to take off, and rescue us from obscurity, then that is what it will do.
The LSE blog cited above notes that popular empowerment gave us Trump and Brexit. It grapples with how to re-educate the public so that populism will get better answers in future. Good luck with that.
The truth is that 2015 left us up the creek without a paddle. But then – somewhat like Iraq in 2003 – an issue came forward to rescue us. This time, the huge mistake by the bigger parties was, of course, Brexit. Suddenly, the Leave victory and May’s appalling response to it played the Lib Dems onside. That’s the game we should concentrate on playing. Not some ill-defined fantasy of empowering people, provided they use power the way we would want them to use it.
Eh dear, David, that’s uncharacteristically negative of you! Of course Brexit is our great game, nobody keener than I am on it – did I not write ‘Oppose Brexit, it’s bad for the country’ on LDV months ago, and hold to it ever since? And didn’t I find the one strikingly good thing that Vince said on Andrew Marr yesterday was that he could see Brexit might never happen? We can see the whites of the eyes of the frightened Brexiteers now, and our twelve MPs and powerful peers need to go for them as forcefully as they can.
But, thinking that life has to go on and it’s getting worse for people in our country, thinking of our party conference to come, thinking that even Lib Dems have complained here, unfairly, that we only have this one – albeit enormous – issue, I started wondering what vision we have which might first interest and then inspire people, and help us rise from that awful 6% in the polls. And I thought, build on our basic premise that we are concerned with the lives of our individual fellow citizens: realise that in fact everybody wants a bit of power and that we should try to give it to them. And I realised that this is something that really does distinguish us from Tories and Labour, that we would be prepared to build policy and politics from the bottom up, because we really do care about and are interested in people. All of which I tried to say above, not, obviously conveying it as well as my own strong feeling for the idea merits! Time to go and play football.
I’m really sorry, but I think David Allen is right: community politics is not going to save us because it was an idea rooted in a particular social and historical period and we are now living in a world where what we did in the 70s won’t work any more. Sure, the odd charismatic individual may still be able to get elected to Parliament as a Liberal Democrat in the future, but the days are gone when standing for the Party is in itself a reason for success. There are vast swathes of the country where we got joke candidate levels of support, worse than the 1950s, worse than Paddy’s hyperbolic tale of becoming leader at a time when we existed in margin of error territory. Because we gained seats this year we are not, by and large, admitting to ourselves how disastrous a situation we are in, and tweaking this or that policy is not going to make a scrap of difference. My fear is that the only way a liberal party is now going to survive in this country is if we get an influx of refugees fleeing the Corbynistas, and I’m not sure I would want to be a member of that party.
Tony and David, this is about seeking out and listening to people with more attention and respect. If we had done that, we would have been aware of the discontent and alienation that became so apparent in the Referendum. If we were doing that, we would be more active in seeking more local social housing, following up the needs of people driven to go to food banks, showing up inadequacies in local GP provision, questioning the local rolling out of universal credit, studying the interaction of local charities – asking, and then referring issues back to our centre for policy development. That last bit is the proposed new part – not just beavering away locally but helping to shape our national policies in accordance with the needs we find. As the LSE blog authors wrote, ‘Appeal emotionally by creating a vision – imagining a better future so as to build one.’ We Liberal Democrats don’t need to leave the fostering of hope to Jeremy Corbyn, nor should we, because we have the hearts and minds really to help.
Too much navel gazing and not enough action. We are so easily distracted by Brexit, getting into debates that won’t be won and allowing ourselves to get distracted from key policies that will make a difference. Brexit is a fight over several years. Hold firm on it, confirm our stance whenever it comes up then start pushing other policies like hell.
My local party has no clear local policies which I find hugely frustrating. If we as members of the party don’t know what they stand for, how can you communicate that effectively to voters? Until that is tackled and we have a clear message which we can all buy into, we will continue to float.
Katharine,
“This is something that really does distinguish us from Tories and Labour… we really do care about and are interested in people”
That is something we have always told ourselves. But, don’t the Tories pride themselves on networking, old school ties, coffee mornings, socials, etc? Don’t Labourites see themselves as comrades? Are we clearly more extrovert and outgoing than our opponents? Or is “caring about people” just a phrase we use to pat ourselves on the back?
We do of course have a general philosophy favouring individual freedom (though even there, the Tories would claim the same!), so, we could try to make “empowering people” our big USP. What is the evidence that the public will “buy” this? When we worry about the “surveillance state”, most of the public turn away from us and point out that CCTV stops crime and saves lives. When we seek to empower the downtrodden, such as minority groups, we tend to get support from those whose side we are taking, but opprobrium from many others. Objectively, this does not look a terribly promising big USP.
What may work better – and your last post chimes in with this – could be the more specific identification of live issues where people are losing out to vested interests, and specific campaigns to put things right. For example, what about a website to crowdsource complaints about all the unscrupulous things that many letting agents do, along with policy development toward a campaign for changes in the law? What about similar attacks on unfair practices by jobcentres? What about (come on, the middle class also matter) attacking the degeneration of motorway “incident” signage, which nowadays is rarely properly updated and usually annoyingly wrong?
These are examples of issues (it’s not potholes these days!) which really spoil people’s lives, and which do relate to individuals versus the powerful. I guess I’m saying – Get the practicalities right, get people on board, and go easy on the background philosophical stuff!
@Katharine Pindar
I’m with you to a certain extent in that we should be on the side of Mr & Mrs Joe Bloggs. Not beholden to powerful interest groups such as the Unions serving their own at the expense of everybody else, or the Banks packaging up debt instruments too complicated to understand and then getting the public to bail them out when it all turns out to be smoke and mirrors. It is about listening to people but are we any good at it? Why was is it such a surprise when we found out that Brexit was not motivating people in the way we thought it should? When we listen, are we any good at understanding and converting that to policy? There have been several threads on here recently questioning our policy making process and to a large extent you have defended the status quo. You may be right but something isn’t working. The problems of everyday life are staring us in the face. The Labour manifesto wasn’t a bad stab at it, just the method of resolution I didn’t agree with. We can’t afford things like cutting down student debt and the shortage of housing, things that people are concerned about. Yet we are planning to throw 70-80 billion at a white elephant called HS2. A similar white elephant at Hinkley Park. Your average Joe Bloggs isn’t daft. He’s just tearing his hair out at why politicians just can’t see it and care enough to do something about it.
Although a few defections from Labour MPs might boost our morale, I’m not sure that (in the event of a serious split in Labour) a whole load of clapped-out ‘Blairites’ washing up on our shores would be a particularly good thing. We shouldn’t forget just how illiberal and authoritarian New Labour (Blairites and Brownites) was in many respects – and that’s aside from the illegality of the Iraq war. That said, I can think of around half a dozen Labour MPs, commonly referred to as ‘Blairites’, who I can admire as a liberal. However, I imagine they’ll prefer to stay in the Labour Party and fight their corner there.
‘The problems of everyday life are staring us in the face.’ How right you are, P.J., and I guess when we do talk to people about their needs – as our councillors and MPs must surely do all the time – these major issues will come up. But you said, ‘When we listen, are we any good at understanding and converting that to policy?’ That’s a fair point, because as we both have mentioned, we didn’t know what was so bad in people’s lives that the majority voted for Brexit. Did we not listen enough? Or did we not convert what we heard to policy? Maybe the status quo really isn’t working?
David, thank you for coming back. I wrote my piece after looking again at the declaration of what we are about in the policy declaration paper 125, and followed from that. I’m not convinced by your query as to whether Labour and Tories couldn’t say the same, because some of the very words you use – ‘networking’ of the Tories, and ‘comrades’ of Labour – point to the narrower groups they show allegiance to. As to ’empowering people’, of course there will be conflicts between different needs and wants, but it will be the willingness to listen and reason without regard to special interests which should prove popular. (Not populist!)
In ‘identifying live issues where people are missing out to vested interests and starting campaigns to put things right’, I absolutely agree that that sounds like a great way forward , and there social media usage will be vital. Only when it comes to starting websites and crowd-sourcing them, I have to leave that to younger people who have the technical know-how. Do follow that up!
David Allen,
“…the more specific identification of live issues where people are losing out to vested interests, and specific campaigns to put things right. …a website to crowdsource complaints about all the unscrupulous things that many letting agents do.”
You may not need organised political parties for such campaigns when you have more nimble online campaigning organisations like 38 degrees and more focused single issue lobby groups that gather together like-minded individuals to petition for legislative changes?
Libdems may support such specific issues but it is the core philosophy, values and the credible prospect of improving the lot of the general public that provide the raison d’etre for a national political party.
“You may not need organised political parties for such campaigns when you have more nimble online campaigning organisations like 38 degrees”
38 Degrees has its place, but it is limited to what can be achieved by online petitioning. Very often a petition can be safely ignored by government. A political party may have more clout, because their challenge is “if you don’t shoot our fox, we’ll carry on exploiting your failure to do so by taking votes away from you”. A political party can also gain support when people think “that’s good, those LDs have cut the waffle and have taken up a real-life problem which I would like to see solved”.
“Libdems may support such specific issues but it is the core philosophy … that provide the raison d’etre for a national political party.”
True. But how does a political party best show that its philosophy is genuine and that it matters in the real world? By picking specific campaign issues on which it will win battles and help people.
In old-style community politics and its Rennardist follow-up, this was recognised, and the specific issues were identified as localised issues – potholes, pavements, etc – which could be targeted at winning local Council seats. My contention is that with the virtual death of local government freedom, we have to move on, and identify bigger issues that matter more. These are, in general, national issues. So we lose the link with local elections. That’s a pity in party strategy terms, but it’s unavoidable. It’s the wider issues (I have only given a few of the relevant examples) which will really resonate with the public.
How about a dedicated Facebook page and email address to the Chair of the Federal Policy Committee, which only our councillors and MPs can use, for the specific purpose of conveying useful ideas and suggested developments of policy garnered from their people? It could be a part of an Empowering the People and Citizens as Producers of Politics initiative, which would help the link we’ve been discussing between listening and discussing on the ground, and the central policy development which various people think isn’t working well enough. Maybe HQ could spare one of their wonderful policy people to collate and co-ordinate incoming posts from our councillors and work with the FPC Chair on what could alter or redirect existing processes to take ideas on board. My guess is that our President continues to be up for new constructive democratic development of our systems.
Comments having stopped, I’ll try to sum up on this theme of EMPOWERING ORDINARY PEOPLE and thus INCREASING OUR OWN POWER to do good. The idea is that everyone wants a bit of power, and we didn’t recognise the alienation and feeling of powerlessness that underlay much of the Referendum Out vote. We could try to listen better to the ordinary people we meet in our council work and electioneering and follow up their needs and wants as far as practicable. Just being listened to is a start in beginning to feel back in control of one’s own life, and there’s real power if ideas are followed through. We can gain people’s liking and trust again by our responsiveness, and if we then convey ideas to the centre – I suggest one practical way in which this could be done – as well as following up local needs to our local councils, we really will be able to give people hope. To build policies from the people up would be truly democratic, and something which the Labour Party with its top-down do-good-to-you stance could never attempt, and the Tories would have no heart for. I ask fellow Liberal Democrats to consider and discuss such ideas, at the same time as going on developing good policies and campaigning on particular issues.