I’m furious.
It’s not an ideal place to begin to write a blog but I imagine it can be harnessed effectively by it’s conclusion.
I’m furious. Thankfully not at the electorate which is always a hiding to nothing. No, it’s mainly with a Tory party that has managed to sneak away with winning an election whilst avoiding being held truly accountable.
We know they will make £12 billion of welfare cuts yet they managed to avoid telling us which of the most vulnerable are most likely to be hit.
I’m furious at a Tory party who played the politics of nationalism and remember that only one day after the Scottish referendum, Cameron was talking the language of division over English votes for English laws.
And fury simply turns into incredulity when we see that Michael Gove is now the Minister responsible for justice.
The obvious vessel for my fury would be to turn to what we as Liberal Democrats can do to lead the fightback against the Tories.
I pause to see the danger here, though. There’s a danger in the Tories now becoming the natural target of our efforts, that we let the Labour Party get away with both their 5 years in opposition and how they conducted themselves during the election campaign.
Yes, fair enough – they deserve a fresh start with a new leader if they choose to go in a different direction. But, these years need to be remembered for their dangerous rhetoric (and mugs) on immigration, their scaremongering around tuition fees and crucially, for their inconsistent self-serving stance on Electoral Reform.
Fairer votes. The Labour Party had the opportunity to implement from their own manifesto a change that they’d made no moves on in 13 years despite the recognition it was important.. We can only hope that a future Labour leader will finally get on board with the fact that 1 in 4 people registered to vote choose to support either UKIP, the Liberal Democrats or The Green Party, yet they only have 10 MP’s between them.
And it’s this, combined with fury, which gives us some indication of where we need to go next.
We have a leadership election and I find myself in the rare position of being unaligned and undecided. I hear talk that Electoral Reform doesn’t resonate with the public, that we didn’t win the argument last time and it’s a political academic discussion that only people in North London or Cambridge care about. Dare I say, it’s seen as geeky.
The latter point may have some validity, but I want a leader who will speak to the public and make them care too. It’s not an either/or universe. Our new leader needs to listen, guide and inspire when it comes to our NHS, education and public services yet it doesn’t exclude them from really leading the fight to change a voting system which is disempowering millions of people from Politics.
I want a leader who is proud of our Government record, who doesn’t have blinkers about where we failed to communicate effectively with the electorate whilst still being immensely proud of what Nick and our colleagues achieved in office.
We need a leader who is as passionate about Europe and internationalism as the party is, leader who will hold both Labour and the Tories to account and give us a very distinctive voice that isn’t defined solely by what they’re not. And I want a leader who can take our collective fury – and go out and create hope enveloped in pragmatism.
I’m looking forward to the debates and the discussion that follows as to who’s best placed to do these things. Let’s talk about all the important things that really matter to the Public when we’re out door knocking and bell ringing. And, Norman, Tim or whoever it may be, let’s not forget about electoral reform.
* Zack Polanski is a Liberal Democrat member in Holborn and St Pancras
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13 Comments
‘ I hear talk that Electoral Reform doesn’t resonate with the public’
Have you forgotten we had a referendum 4 years ago and electoral reform was massively rejected by the public.
Better to focus on issues the public cares about.
Zack, I share your sentiments as regards the welfare cuts. But I tend to blame the electorate. They knew about the cuts proposed, in a global sense, but the majority choose not to concern themselves too much with them.
There seems to be a sense that parts of the safety net for the vulnerable should be weakened, if not hacked away. That is extremely disappointing.
We played the hand the electorate gave us in 2010, and if you look at what of our 2010 manifesto we delivered, we played a blinder.
If we had traded tuition fees for AV, we’d now be in the position to demand proper PR after 5 succesful years in coalition and without the “treachery” label.
The naivety of the negotiating team in giving away tuition fees will forever be astonishing and frankly, the MPs should have had enough nous to send them back to renegotiate, but I suspect they were also seduced by the prospect of AV delivering for us.
Blair’s continuing problems with dodgy dossiers, illegal wars et al just goes to show that the “good interred with the bones” stuff is doubly true in politics, where opponents and the media (often one and the same) are always on hand to remind.
But frankly Lord Steel, thats all 20/20 hindsight stuff.
Reality will bite the SNP in the ass soon enough, and they will no doubt suck all the money back to Edinburgh/Glasgow before too long, so some of our scottish losses are hopefully reversable.
The surge in membership since the election shows that even those who wanted us punished think it went too far – the tragedy will be if we fritter away those new members by drowning them in procedural guff so beloved of us crumblies that tend to be in charge – or have them out FOCUSing before the ink is dry on their membership cards.
Social media will be more key in each successive election, so thats where we need new blood to focus, so that every branch has a strong Facebook/Twitter/etc presence that can be harnessed come elction time.
As someone once said, “dont get mad, get even” – so lets direct our furies in that direction
it’s conclusion → its conclusion.
The plural of MP is MPs, not MP’s.
Also, minister, not Minister, government, not Government, politics not Politics and public, not Public.
Why are you furious, if you jump into a den of snakes, why are you shocked when they bite you. It’s what they do. You should be furious with yourself for believing they would do anything else. The Tory’s are not called the Nasty Party as a joke.
Why has my comment been deleted? It was on topic and did not cause offense, unless criticism counts as such. Is dissent not allowed?
Dear Zack, we lost roughly half a hundred seats. Of those, half a dozen may have been lost because we again for the second election running failed to cope with Tory attack lines – especially but not exclusively the SNP scare. However, a lot more than half a dozen were lost because of our silly Blukip campaign that told all LD>UKIP supporters that UKIP was a viable option for them and told LD>Cons that the way to stop UKIP’s influence was to vote Tory.
And finally we had actually lost the rest – the large majority – by about December 2010. Just look at every single election in which voters from those seats voted – Scottish Parliamentary, Welsh Assembly, Euros, Council seats and Parliamentary by-elections (including Eastleigh) – every chance they had – they told us plainly what they thought of us.
If you don’t understand this and if you and others like you continue a life of denial, you will find yourself being a member of a party of 5 in 2020.
Re: 20/20 vision. This is simply not true. Many comnentators on this very forum having been warning of impending disaster but were consistently dismissed as Labour stooges.
I’m not sure why my previous post was deleted so I’ll try again. In a nutshell – I’m furious that the Lib Dem leadership withthe acquiesence of many in the party did not differentiate themselves enough, appeared to be in agreement about many right wing policies beyond the coalition agreement and squandered the support of so many promisef a ‘new type of politics’. By allowing themselves to appear Tory-lite they have help to decimate the party just when the toleerance of Liberalism is needed most. Not only could have coalition have been played differently it could have bern an opportunity to build up not nearly destroy the party.
The problem for the Lib Dems is one of credibility. In government you supported welfare cuts, you supported the benefit cap (your website even boasts about it: http://bit.ly/1JQWnBQ), you backed the bedroom tax, and you backed workfare. How can any part of the electorate believe you when you now start arguing that targeting the vulnerable is wrong now?
The failure in government wasn’t primarily one of communication, it was one of policy. If you going forward being “[still] immensely proud of what Nick and our colleagues achieved in office” then you are never going to win back those former supporters (like me) who are appalled by the way the Lib Dems allowed a minority Tory government to run roughshod across so much of what makes our country great and enact a string of brutal, illiberal legislation that targeted the most vulnerable.
Zack
You write really well. I hope you continue to pen more articles.
Electoral reform is unlikely to be something forgotten by any of the leadership candidates. The question they need to resolve first is what kind of government they want to stand for that can be elected in a fair way. Electoral reform is ultimately a means (a fairer means) to ends which are important to society like ensuring the poor don’t shoulder the burden of public spending cuts, tackling child poverty and forging international agreements on big issues like climate change
We also need to ‘fess up where we got things wrong. Only putting AV on the table (I mean rather than a range of options) was seen in my community as self servicing since we are a second preference more than first preference party to a lot of the electorate (much as that’s a shame but it’s true). It looked like we got one foot in the door and were rigging the system.
My view is all the options should have been offered to the electorate but the negotiating team agreed with the tories only to offer AV and this led to a loss (wasting our opportunity) as well as looking cynical.
Good for you! And good luck in all your campaigning in the future. It is good to see the young so energised.
Thanks Roger!