In a recent article on Lib Dem Voice, Scott Hill talked of the need for ‘modernisation’ of the party’s campaigning mechanisms. Some of his ideas are excellent: for example, who could argue with putting more emphasis on internet campaigning? However, I think he has gone somewhat off the rails in his adulation of what can only be described as aggressively centralising tendencies. ‘Message and projection is everything’, he writes. ‘As a party, it is vital that we sing from the same hymn sheet. Undoubtedly, debate and deliberation is necessary, but unity must be maintained right the way through the party.’
First, this democratic centralist thinking is identical to that which characterised the worst excesses of New Labour. I don’t know about you, but one of the reasons I joined the Lib Dems is because I don’t like being told what to think. Of course, I have to be careful. I have to balance my beliefs with what I know would be good for the party as a whole: we most certainly don’t want a party of Derek Hattons. But bluntly, I think my friends and colleagues in the party are intelligent enough to know what they have to do. We do not have to be told by central diktat, just in case one of us puts a toenail out of line.
Secondly, and most importantly
, not always following precisely the central party line is in fact an excellent campaigning strategy. The reason is perfectly obvious. We can adjust our policies according to local needs. It seems reasonable that in a Labour-held seat, we ought to (say) be more critical of the coalition than in a more Conservative seat. This is a generalization, but it is a fair one.
Not only would it make for a better electoral strategy, it would make sense in terms of recruiting local people to the party. It would mean the policies they were campaigning for were more likely to reflect what people on the ground actually believe in. If that isn’t a spur to activism, I don’t know what is.
We should always be careful. Total devolution of power can lead to anarchy. But representatives elected on a platform shaped more by themselves not only make better representatives, they are also more likely to be elected. And I have faith in them being adult enough not to disrupt the party whip. I do not have faith in them being directed effectively, all the time, by central organisations.
Lib Dem campaigning strategy should reflect what we believe in: more power away from central government. It has been one of our most successful campaigning tools in the past: anyone who has read ‘The Winning of Yeovil’ in Paddy Ashdown’s memoir (or better still, the superb biography of David Penhaligon) will be all too aware of this. Local campaigning is in our party’s blood. It is entirely vital for our survival. We mustn’t lose it.
* Robin McGhee is the prospective parliamentary candidate for Kensington.
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14 Comments
Apologies if I’ve misread you, but this piece seems to be rejecting *all* national campaigning as ‘centralisation’, preferring instead this comforting opposition mindset of being everything to everyone. This simply will not work when we’re in national government, and campaigns that promote 10k tax, pupil premium etc are surely vital add-ons to ensure that people vote for Lib Dems in government rather than a loose but comforting network of local champions… Neither extreme need be taken up wholly, there is a comfortable middle point available where parties can adapt messages to fit in with existing local campaigns (which is done currently, from my experience) and I don’t see why national campaigns have to be tarred with the NuLab brush when a perfectly Liberal solution would be to adapt, rather than regress.
Robin,
The main point of my piece on Friday was to encourage some celebration of the fact that we are in government. I find it saddening that we continually beat ourselves up over this fact. Rather than incessantly apologising for coalition output (which, I admit, isn’t always perfect) we should be enjoying the positive policies we are successfully implementing.
Remember, being in opposition, where we were either entirely ignored or being robbed of our greatest ideas (gaining no credit for them), was tough. Adapting campaigning to reflect our achievements in Downing Street isn’t overly radical (as some appear to believe) and will certainly increase our credibility as a party capable of governing as a majority (which must surely be our ultimate aim?). Essentially, avoiding the mistakes of Labour (Blairites vs Brownites in-house fighting) is imperative and to achieve this we must stop quarrelling amongst ourselves and focus our efforts on attacking the genuine enemies.
What Scott actually said was:
“We can no longer package ourselves as the anti-establishment party”
There is no reason why you can’t continue to be anti-establishment when in government. Indeed if you believe in “changing the way we do politics” then that is exactly what you need to do.
“being in opposition, where we were either entirely ignored or being robbed of our greatest ideas (gaining no credit for them), was tough”
Yes, it’s all so different now, isn’t it? 😕
@Malcolm Todd – Yes, it is. With 75% of our manifesto pledges kept, I’d say we’re making an impact. You can continue to sulk about tuition fees (despite the fact that the rise in fees appears to stopped nobody from going) or you can get behind the party and celebrate our positive impact.
@Z – I couldn’t agree more with your sentiments. Tarring any scheme that talks of uniting the party as New Labour-ish (or Stalinist) is disingenuous and dishonest.
@Scott — I think that about sums up the difference in our attitudes.
You think that recognising that breaking an explicit promise is a serious abuse of trust constitutes “sulking about tuition fees” (at least I assume you’re referring to my past comments on this subject and not just throwing that out as a random term of abuse at anybody who doesn’t follow your cheerleading).
You believe that party members have a duty to “get behind the party” as if we owed it something. We don’t owe the party — we own the party. Or rather we are the party, until such time as we decide not to be part of it any more. But the only people who owe the party anything are those who have used the commitment and support of its unpaid activists and helpers to get themselves elected to positions of power and public remuneration. If I were happy with what those people have done with the position they found themselves in, I’d say so — not because it was an obligation but because I believed it.
I’ve questioned that ridiculous 75% figure before. (I wonder how you count the Health Care bill in that reckoning? Are you one of those who claims that “we said we’d abolish PCTs — so that’s a tick on that one”?) It feels like the old UKIP claim about “75% of legislation being made at EU level” — a claim which fell apart on closer investigation. Even if it’s possible to quantify a manifesto such that a calculation of the percentage that’s been implemented can be made, it matters *which* 75%, you know.
Scott HillMar 19 – 10:28 am………….. the coalition output (which, I admit, isn’t always perfect) …………
“Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play!”
Whether the party should be at heart a network of local activist groups or a top-down organisation dedicated to pushing the policy lines and campaigns dictated from the centre was the core of the disagreement between the Liberal Party and the SDP at the time the two merged to form the current party. Bear this in mind next time you find someone claiming the “economic liberal v. social liberal” difference stems from the party being formed in this way – it actually much more about the way we DO politics than about policies.
The top-down way, which was favoured by most of the SDP and what might be called the “right” of the Liberal Party is the more socialist way. It’s the model of political party which taken to extremes becomes Leninism. The argument is that it is still democratic because democratic choice of policies and leaders channels upwards, but once that choice is made there should be a strong culture of obedience to the party line. Conservative and Liberal parties traditionally did not work in that way. The Conservatives were the party of the aristocracy AGAINST the Whig monarchy, and so based primarily on local loyalties to local aristocracy and peer (literally!) links between aristocrats. The Liberal Party had its roots in non-conformist Christianity with its reaction against the top-down imposition of beliefs and worship practice and its culture of individuals interpreting scripture in their own way and meeting as equals to discuss it.
The socialist model of political party does not necessarily have to be applied only to socialist policies. It has been successful because it works – but I would say at the expense of much that liberals value in democracy. This seems to be barely understood in these days when the socialist model of political party seems to be taken as the norm and the very idea that politics need not be done in this way hardly understood. It also explains (which depressingly few even in our party now seem even to understand) why it is possible to be well to the left in terms of economics and yet to think of oneself very much as a “liberal” and not as a “social democrat”.
I’ve been a member of the party (Liberal Party before the merger) since I was a teenager, and throughout that time (or certainly since 1981) I’ve heard this call to centralise. Well, a big part of why I became a Liberal instead of joining the Labour Party, despite having politics which in economic terms are firmly to the left, was that I find the socialist model of political party disgusting. To me, politics should be about getting people actively involved, not just passive consumers of a party line pushed from above.
Sadly, the socialist model of party now seems to be how most people outside politics think it works, resulting in them being very suspicious of politics and easily swallowing the line “don’t get involved – it’s all an exercise in brainwashing you to become obedient to the leaders”. As a consequence, the economic right wins, because it does not need activists to get its line across, it has the money from its backers. The left needs strong local activity to counter this, but all political parties are shrinking in terms of membership. To turn this round we need to promote a different sort of politics, one which is, er, liberal and democratic.
People are always obsessed with one kind of election, those for MPs, things are more complicated than that.
Matthew Huntbach
I defer to you on the history side but completely agree on a localized, community, bottom-up led form of politics
Good post
“Secondly, and most importantly, not always following precisely the central party line is in fact an excellent campaigning strategy. The reason is perfectly obvious. We can adjust our policies according to local needs. It seems reasonable that in a Labour-held seat, we ought to (say) be more critical of the coalition than in a more Conservative seat. This is a generalization, but it is a fair one.
Not only would it make for a better electoral strategy, it would make sense in terms of recruiting local people to the party. It would mean the policies they were campaigning for were more likely to reflect what people on the ground actually believe in. If that isn’t a spur to activism, I don’t know what is.”
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear …. in other words, we play right into the hands of every Tory or Labour activist who accuses us of doing/saying one thing in one place and the exact opposite in another.
The Liberal Democrats should not be an umbrella campaigning organisation for a random variety of local wannabees; it swhould be a National Party with a coherent philosophy built around Liberalism.
TabmanMar 19 – 1:24 pm…………
Exactly right!
The ‘nightmare scenario’ will be our leaflet campaign; one set for Labour seats and one for Tory? Imagine the ‘mileage’ for the media and other parties.
Surely the ramifications of such proposals are obvious?
People seem to have misunderstood this slightly. I was only trying to say how radical the proposals by Scott actually are, and how disastrous they would be for morale and electoral success.
I certainly don’t think there should be NO top-down direction, that’s obviously a terrible idea. I just think that absolute obediance to the central party line (ie., I should stress, about three or four people) is an equally bad plan. But it’s what Scott implies should happen. I for one would not like to be a candidate if I were not allowed to speak my mind. At the moment I am and I do, and I hope and have faith that my voters will reward me for it.
The question of moulding our positions according to constituency… the logic of the position taken by some posters has been that any differentiation the opposition can pick up on means we’re electorally screwed. Firstly, no change there then. Secondly, I was actually arguing for difference of emphasis rather than message. In some places we might prefer to trumpet civil liberties, in others our income tax changes. I admit I was probably wrong to say ‘adjust our policies’ when I meant emphasis, so fair enough.
On a final note, as for general campaigning strategy, just talking about our successes in Government gets us somewhere, but still not very far. Although it appears some people don’t have memories going back that far, see how the strategy of just defending what they did in Government worked out for Labour in 2010. Or for the Tories in 1997. We have to be self-critical: say what we did right (lots), say what we did wrong (lots), say why we did it wrong (coalition), say we wouldn’t do it in a majority.
To be frank, as a local campaigner, admittedly in central London, I want to resolve local actions. The problem with all catch-all parties is that their policies necessarily have different impacts on different communitites and groups, and in different places. So, as a local campaigner I have to try to adapt national policy messages to use locally, whilst also pushing back up the party aparatus when I disagree with a policy or implementation decision.
I do hold fast to the fact that we as a party continue to have rational and decent debates and disagreements, and that they do not, as a rule, resort to referring to a gold tome of judgement, little coloured books notwithstanding.
For me, the best thing about being in power is that we as local campaigners have a better chance of having our concerns heard, although as we are in coalition those opportunities are somewhat tempered by our partners. As a great policy spokensman once said (Prateek Busch, actually), I’m a liberal becuase I have a natural suspicion of power.
I’m afraid that I am still of the disposition that on some issues I would rather stick to my principles and lose than win without them; whatever the desires of the party centre apparatus.