In the never ending quest to differentiate the LibDems , I’ve developed the following formula for use in the pub on a Friday night, whilst chatting over the veg in the local shop, or wherever else the question arises (my previous longer-winded attempt on a beach is here):
Labour = social conscience plus authoritarianism
Lib Dems = social conscience minus control freakery and Conservatism = social conscience question mark.
The response so far has usually been:
I’ve never thought of it that way before.
Any other suggestions? One sentence, 25 words or under.
* Karen Wilkinson was Parliamentary Candidate for Kingwood in June 2017
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22 Comments
good attempt. Another:
labour = positive liberty bias retards economic liberalism
tories = negative liberty bias retards social democrat bent
lib-dem = uneasy middling position branded as social liberalism
In order of greater to lesser …
Labour = Social conscience + authoritarian control + social conservatism
Conservative = fiscal self sufficiency + social conservatism + authoritarian control
Lib Dem = personal liberty + social conscience + radicalism
So Labour and Tory are just left and right wing versions of authoritarian conservatism. Lib Dems are the opposite of authoritarian conservatism but with a little bit of leftiness. What Lab have in common with us, they make up for by being so illiberal.
labour = heart and no head (I care about you but think you are too dumb to make decisions)
tory = head and no heart (I don’t care about you and think you are too poor to make decisions)
libdem = heart and head in harmony (I care, and want to help you make your decisions)
Labour – we shall make everyone happy except the lazy good-for-nothing rich
Tory – we shall make everyone happy except the lazy good-for-nothing poor
LibDem – we shall take a vote on happiness, by PR, AV, XY, or … er, well, we’ll take a vote on how to count the vote!
If we’re talking centralised government then we’ve got, it is quite fuzzy, but I’ve tried my best to defuzzify:
* Labour = economically central + socially central + authoritarian central
* Conservatives = economically individually opportunistic + socially traditionalist + authoritarian centrally minimalist
* Lib Dem = economically communal/distributive + social freedoms (human rights) + minimal-centralisation but with distributivism/community democracy
* Green = Economically E.F. Schumacher + social freedoms (human rights) + minimal-centralisation but with community democracy
* UKIP = economically individually opportunistic + socially modernist + minimal-centralisation and minimal-distributivist
* BNP = economically communal but opportunistic + socially backwards + maximum central authoritarianism
* CPB = economically communal + socially progressive + maximum central authoritarianist
* Respect = economically communal (with hints of Schumacher) + socially progressive + maximum centralism and maximum communalism
* SNP, Plaid Cymru & Mebyon Kernow = economically communal/distributive + social freedoms (human rights) + maximal distributivism/community democracy
Of course, there is a bit of a difference between the elected officials and the general membership… but in general one doesn’t need to agree 100% with a party to be a member, it just needs to be the most in-line with your own wavelengths.
Labour*= The state is always good, whether it is borrowing or taxing more, while the markets are bad.
Conservative= The state is always bad and the market is always good. (After all, God works through the market, doesn’t he?)
Liberal Democrats = The state and the market both have a role to play depending on what you are talking about.
* Post New Labour
Labour: The greater good- individual freedoms respected/granted once justified.
LibDems: The free individual- liberties compromised for the greater good only when necessary.
—
I think the differentation with the Tories is a good deal more obvious. It’s Labour vs. LibDems that confuses the public, and a large part of why the LibDems are given a bad rap, as they may be being expected to be “leftist” when that’s not necessarily the point. It’s too simplistic to call them either “left of Labour” or “between Labour and the Conservatives”. The main difference (as I see it) is the split of priorities on positive/negative liberties, the obvious authoritarian/socialist ideology that Labour has grown from , while LibDems are at least ostensibly supposed to start with the rights of the individual and compromise socially from that position (so ideologically liberal, or what might be called classical liberal/libertarian these days.) I think obviously bot h parties are in the centre-ground and so neither are ideologues per se…
Labour = constitutionally conservative, economically and socially statist
Lib Dem = constitutionally radical, socially liberal
Conservative = constitutionally conservative, economically liberal.
Thank you everyone for reading and taking the time to comment.
Dave, you’re obviously bang on the nail about the bigger difficulty in differentiating from Labour.
Actually with Conservatives, many I know do have social consciences. What they are interested to learn about it the level of democracy within our party and how opaque their own is. Often they are very surprised – if not shocked – to hear of the difference between our parties even at a local level.
So far, Richard (lol!), Simon and RC (have we met?) winning it for me so far – remember, I’ve got to pick my veg and move on before scaring a non-politico into thinking they’re going to be there all morning listening to a political diatribe that goes way over their head…
Liberals = “You’re all individuals!”
Everybody else = “Fit in or f*** off.”
@ Karen – “Actually with Conservatives, many I know do have social consciences.”
Tom Chivers has described it rather well, based on The Righteous Mind:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100147703/why-liberals-need-conservatives-and-vice-versa/
I’ve already thought about this in terms of the economic left and right.
Left: compassionate
Right: fair
Centre: fair and compassionate
Parties will place themselves proudly where they see fit.
@Richard Dean:
“LibDem – we shall take a vote on happiness, by PR”,
You are presumably not a pudendal surgeon? 😉
@Spephen W:
“Conservative = constitutionally conservative, economically liberal.”
We want Gay marriage so that we can hand out more tax concessions to men? 😉
@Simon Titley
Liberals = “You’re all individuals!”
Man at back – “I’m not”.
Everybody else = “Fit in or f*** off.”
Labour knows what’s best for you, Tories know what’s best for them, LibDems know you know better.
Labour. Everyone is equal – but some of us have risen above that.
Lib Dems. Everyone is equal – period.
Tories. Everyone is equal – but some people don’t deserve to be.
BNP. Everyone is equal – except you.
Green. Everyone is carbon neutral.
Labour does not use skiver language
Conservative does
Liberal democrat Pontious Pilate washing hands whilst still complicit with Tory
will that do moderator as being on point
LibDems: Providing the freedoms only a government can provide and protecting liberties only the state can take away.
I’ll let Labour and Tory define themselves as goodness only knows what they are on about…
“Labour does not use skiver language”
Sure they do, the skiving rich who don’t deserve money they have.
I’ve never really needed to differentiate Liberals or Liberal Democrats from Tories, except to Labour hard-liners who aren’t going to vote for us anyway. As a student, I heard a Professor (?Peterson) say Liberals and Socialists both believed in liberty and equality, but for Liberals liberty came first and for Socialists, equality did. I’ve thought about that and would amend it to say that Liberals stress equality of power and socialists equality of wealth or income (which leads one to say that each can learn from the other, since the two are clearly intertwined).
What’s often missing in this discussion, and is certainly missing from jedibeeftrix’s characterisation of social liberalism, is any idea about community and free co-operation in groups. To economic conservatives and economic liberals, that’s irrelevant to the struggle of individual liberty (equals the market) with the state. To state socialists it’s a cut-price second best to action by a centralised democratic state.
The first ever Harwich Focus has the following: IN A NUTSHELL: LIBERAL DEMOCRATS BELIEVE:
What people do is their own choice unless it harms other people
Freedom and fairness are both important and go together
Community is vital: many things can’t be handled by individuals alone, but government and big corporations impose their own solutions, so people should be empowered to act locally.
Conservatives = a paternalist state and the motherland
Labour = a nanny state and the fatherland
LibDems = the country is in a state and Land tax is the solution.