I came into politics thirty years ago believing that the abolition of nuclear weapons, private education, health care and a massive expansion of the public sector represented a socialist programme that if implemented would make Britain a fairer country.
All these were Labour party policy and as a socialist I was an active member of the party that was happy to use the ‘s’ word. In fact it looked for a while as though the socialist left were going to take total control of the party driving out the remaining social democrats.
What actually happened was the party moved in the other direction at an increasing pace so by the time the dreaded Blair assumed the leadership it was barely recognisable and New Labour had been born.
Over a ten year period I fought every policy change and as the like minded people around me dwindled to a handful, I eventually gave up attending meetings in the early 1990s.
I became active in my trade union instead holding a number of different posts including an eight year spell on the National Executive. All my energy went into representing my fellow workers with some success despite difficult circumstances.
My disillusionment with Labour continued but I still supported the party at elections believing it was the best that was available, that it still believed in the defence of public services and probably more importantly in a naive belief that the pendulum would swing away from New Labour to a more traditional stance some time soon.
The events of the past year combined to change those views.
A dramatic change in personal circumstances meant I had to access social and welfare services for the first time. I found that far from defending public services Labour had allowed ‘marketisation’ to continue in many areas and had actually continued with privatisation.
Worse still, Labour politicians seemed indifferent to the failings in the system when they were pointed out to them and just to lazy to even respond to the concerns i raised.
I also discovered that where the state still ran things directly an inefficient, bureaucratic monster existed which treated people with nothing less than contempt.
My experiences led me to finally break with Labour earlier this year and I have not regretted it. I supported the Liberal Democrats in the General Election and my journey into a new type of politics began.
I now realise that all forms of ‘socialism’ or ‘labourism’ lead to authoritarianism. We need a state sector but it has to be democratic, localised where possible and it must exist as a helping hand not the bureaucratic monster that we currently have.
I want to see a redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation, I want to see better housing, I want us to rid ourselves of Trident and i want to see civil liberties strengthened.
Does this mean I am now a social liberal? Well I will leave others to judge that, but what I do know is that the Liberal Democrats are a dynamic force that has a future.
The formation of the current coalition was a shock to me and I do believe that it will serve to halt the steady electoral progress that the Lib Dems have been making but it hasn’t shaken my belief that the party will continue to flourish in the long term.
So I will continue to support the party and do what i can to secure the election of Lib Dem councillors in next May’s local elections.
David Warren was a Labour Party member for 25 years, most of them an activist, and has been a trade unionist holding local, regional and national office. He left Labour in March and voted Liberal Democrat for the first time in the general election.
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60 Comments
Have you not seen what the Lib Dems have done whilst in the coalition? The trebling of tuition fees, raising the tax threshold (which you’ll find is actually regressive), scrapping elements of child benefit, and agreeing to scrap the building schools for the future plan.
See how you feel when you’re lining up at a charity soup kitchen. I bet the state won’t feel so monsterous and bureacratic.
@david – welcome to the Lib Dems. Personally I would say you were a Liberal without any pre fixes.
@Daire – you are of course correct, poor people paying less income tax is obviously regressive.
@Daire
Whichever party or parties took office they would have had to tackle the deficit.
The Lib Dems influence on the coalition has meant changes to income tax thresholds
that benefit the lower paid.
The child benefit changes only affect the very high earners and despite numerous scare
stories to the contrary payments to poorer pensioners such as winter fuel allowance
haven’t been cut.
That said i am not saying that i support the coalition 100% but the point i am trying
to get across is the Liberal Democrats are the only truly radical force amongst the
main parties.
They are in this coalition and i genuelinely believe they are attempting to ensure
the deficit is tackled by minimising the impact on working people as far as is
possible.
Labour are a disgrace they pose as the party of the poor and downtrodden whilst
attacking them when in power.
13 years in office with the gap between rich and poor getting bigger! What a record.
Daire!
What? Trebling tuition fees – for who? Raising the Tax threshold is the most progressive tax measure ever. Scrapping elements of child benefit – whilst I think the rich should feel they get kick backs for paying higher tax, I think it should still be given out universally to protect children – but this was a very Tory policy from Osbourne without consultation with the Lib Dems. Scrapping BSFs? Where was that £70 billion coming from – the same money tree as the defence overspend of £35 billion on Labour’s arbitrary wars, and the PFI debt of £150 billion – our children!
@Ste Thomas
The state didn’t send me to a soup kitchen but that is where i would have
had to go for all they care.
I had to seek help and got very little. It would have been none at all if i hadn’t
fought.
Do you have to claim benefits?
My article was an attempt to have a grown up debate about politics. A point you
clearly missed.
I saw the headline about “tyranny of the state” and thought this would be about the police kettling students to stop them from protesting outside Lib Dem HQ.
Turns out I was wrong.
@ David, welcome to the Party.I had a similar journey through Labour & Marxist politics, with an extra loop through The Greens. I beleive the experience of coalition has already changed us for the better & that we will gain more votes than we lose in the long run.
@David Warren. A very good article Dave. I totally agree re. the contempt with which state bureaucracy often has for citizens who need state help. I do not however follow the logic of your “rightward” political journey. I voted LibDem at the last election. I genuinely regret it. I had no idea until after the election just how right -wing and pro-market the likes if Messrs Clegg, Laws and Alexander are. They have together changed LibDem policies without consulting their party. The LibDems now appear to have an identical hostility to all public services – private provision of such services is what both parties believe in. This Tory-led government has a simple solution to poor public service provision – run down and abolish state public services, which is fine for those who can afford private medicine, education nursing care etc. I have seen more than enough of what the Tories and LibDems have in mind and I am joining the Labour Party. The answer to often dreadful front-end provision of public services is not the right-wing market, but (a) resources and (b) strong democratic control by those who fund services (us citizens) over those who’s job it is to provide them. I respectfully suggest that your political journey has not ended and that you will find your natural home in the Conservative Party (an observation, not a criticism). I wish you well.
Mr Warren.
As the Labour marketisation of society is taken to new levels by the Tories and your Orange Book leaders what do you think is going to happen ? The state doesn’t send people to soup kitchens but your privatised providers may do. They’re already arranging for charities to hand out bags of food in coordination with Jobcentres. Be careful what you wish for. Grown up enough ?
@ paul barker
That rather depends how you define “long run” I suspect?
You may be right that experience of this particular Coalition will gain you more support than it loses…. but I remain to be convinced. Your national support has tanked in the past 6 months, even in areas where you are usually strong like the SW. You risk being wiped out in areas like the NE, and I suspect in many metropolitan areas (the recent IPSOS MORI poll has your support in London falling by more than 50%).
I am unlikely to vote for your party again in the short to medium term, absent some very different approach to the coalition with the Tories. the question is; how are you going to attract voters like me back? (Hint: it won’t involve pointing out the crumbs from the Tory table you have managed to convince yourselves amount to a real amelioration of Tory policies.)
@David – welcome to the party.
@Galen10 I doubt the coalition will gain us support – it will lose us support if anything. But in 10 years time people who once wrote us off will take us seriously which means that two or three general elections hence we will be in a far stronger position than we were last year or, indeed, are now.
Dave,
Thanks for cheering me up !!
I have been feeling pretty p*ssed off with things recently in particular the Student Fees debacle which I am still furious about – however as a Lib Dem Cllr who won my seat by ONE Vote from the Tories in 2007, I don’t intend to give it up without a fight in 2011 !!!
Whilst people like Tim Farron, Simon Hughes, John Leech etc, etc, remain in the Part so will I !! Neither Labour or the Tories would ever convince me to join their ranks !!
Good on you Dave, You Still make Politics FUN !!!
Hope to meet you sometime/somewhere on the Lib Dem Campaign Trail ??!!
Kind Regards, Nick.
David – I wish you well as an individual in your political journey which may yet have a few unexpected twists and turns in it. It is obvious from the language and emotion that you express that you appear to feel a deep sense of personal betrayal by the direction taken by the LP.
I too have had a ‘checkered’ history in and out of the the LP and have now returned to the party – not with the zeal of a convert but with a greater understanding of myself and other people and what is actually achievable in terms of a society which has changed almost out of all recognition in the last 20 years. I do not believe that all socialism or labourism inevitably leads to authoritarianism btw.
All is not perfect with the Labour Party but my overall judgement is not limited to the New Labour period but spreads over the last 100+ years and the progress that Labour has achieved, in association with the Trade Union Movement, to better the lot of the working class and the weaker sections of our society.
I think over the piece it has a proud record as opposed to the very shaky 6 months of the LibDems in government on many issues which are a naked attack on the working class and disadvantaged in society. However, I am prepared to stay judgement on the LibDems for a bit longer to see whether all those of principle, that I know exist within the party, can prevent it becoming an adjunct to the Tory Party.
I don’t strongly disagree with some of your views but in returning to Labour as a member I think it will be easier for me to achieve my aims than you will in a LibDem Party wedded to the Tory Party whose vision of National Interest most definitely doesn’t accord with my socialist vision and never will.
Welcome to the light side Dave. I personally joined the party after the Election, when we were in government. I decided it was about time the party needed every member it could get.
@Dave Warren
“I had to seek help and got very little. It would have been none at all if i hadn’t
fought.”
Many are not in the position to ‘fight’ which is what this coalition and Labour know and so are an easy target.
If you are sick and disabled soup kitchens are looming. Why do I never hear Lib Dems discussing the draconian ESA and DLA refoms that are going to throw so many into poverty or any Lib Dems defending the sick and disabled? Looking the other way?
@Dave Warren
Oh one thing I meant to point out that the most authoritative and up-to-date scare story about scrapping Winter Fuel Allowance came from Vince Cable when he opened his heart to the giggling Daily Telegraph dauntless duo and revealed it was on Cameron’s agenda..
@anne ‘If you are sick and disabled soup kitchens are looming. Why do I never hear Lib Dems discussing the draconian ESA and DLA refoms that are going to throw so many into poverty or any Lib Dems defending the sick and disabled? Looking the other way?’
I assume you mean the tests that Labour brought in? The ones the coalition have said they will change implementing all the recommendations of an independent review?
@Eco John
You are right i do feel a deep sense of betrayal i withstood many personal attacks
from local Labourites but what appalled me was when as an individual citizen they
were just not willing initially to even answer my concerns.
I was lied to by the one individual who finally did get back to me so i pursued the
issues myself.
In ideological terms Labour is dead as far as i am concerned.
The left within the party is miniscule and getting smaller. The vast majority of MPs
are career politicians who just want to get back into power.
The historical divide between social democrats and democratic socialists has
dissappeared not just in Britain but internationally.
I wish you well though in whatever you do and given i see that the future will see
greater cross party co-operation who knows are paths might cross.
@Paul @Nick @George @Rich Thanks for the kind words of welcome. I am looking
forward to helping the local Lib Dems in next years elections.
One of the many positive things i have noticed about the party is it has lots of great
activists who care about the people they seek to represent.
That certainly isn’t the case with Labour these days.
@ George Potter
Perhaps… death and taxes being the only two certainties in life (oh…that and J.S. Mill’s point that whilst not all Conservatives are stupid, stupid people are generally conservative… so that’s 3 certainties) 😉
If you last 10 years, I’ll toast your survival. The smart money at present has to be against it however.
@ Simon McGrath
The new even more draconian medical tests are coming into force in April. They are going ahead under the coalition. Why?
I know that Labour brought them in but you use this as an excuse to implement? They were wrong and so are you.
The latest review only means that the ‘health care Professional’ has to throw you off ESA with a smile (forced). the medicals did not come under that review but are to be reviewed in future. But why has the coalition gone ahead with impementing the new one before the review on the one in operation now which is also draconian, the one coming in April is much much worse. Explain why you are not defending the sick and disabled please.
@Dave Warren: Always sad news for socialists to turn right, but anyway, what do you think the gap will be between the rich and the poor after this parliament? Because it may have widened under Labour, but it didn’t widen because of Labour. Labour slowed it down at least, according to the IFS Labour’s changes to benefits and tax credits are the main reason why inequality didn’t continue to shoot up at the rate it did under the Tories.
Your mistake is in thinking that without Labour inequality would have remained static. It wouldn’t, we have a liberal economy that naturally leads to the widening of inequality and Labour has been the party pushing back against the avalanche. I’m depressingly confident that this government will make Labour’s legacy in this area look like a triumph.
Here is that IFS report, aptly titled ‘Labour’s tax and benefit increases prevent rapid rise in income inequality’- http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/4806
And don’t believe for a second what your new party has been saying about how the deficit has made their deeds necessary. It isn’t true. Read this- http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6080418/osbornes-headache.thtml
‘What jumped out at me was that the OBR says that on current government policy (ie, without Osborne’s recent £5.7bn of cuts, on the Darling trajectory) the structural deficit would be reduced from 8% now to 2.8% in 2014-15. That is to say, Osborne’s manifesto pledge – to eliminate “the bulk” of the structural deficit – would have happened under Darling. So no extra cut, or tax hike, is needed to meet this pledge.’
Also, read this- http://www.politics.co.uk/news/economy-and-finance/backfiring-cuts-might-slow-deficit-reduction–$21384971.htm
And while we’re at it, read this- http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5831523/clegg-heir-to-thatcher.thtml
Anyway, best of luck over in Ayn Rand Land.
@Anne
I fell foul of the ESA assessments that as Simon says were introduced by Labour
and are still supported by their spokesperson Douglas Alexander.
I raised this with politicians from all three parties and the only ones who failed to
even respond were Labour ones.
Even my Conservative MP has taken the issue up and i understand the process
is going to be reformed.
Labour are not interested in helping ordinary people their government was vicious
in its attacks on them i could go into detail but it would take much too long.
@Mike i don’t see it as a turn to the right because i believe that Labour is a party
of the right these days.
I don’t see that given the economic circumstances things would have been much
different if Labour had been returned to power.
They had an economic boom and they couldn’t close the wealth gap in 13 years
what a failure.
@David Warren: I agree, Labour is dominated by the right-wing, but there’s plenty of room to its right and your party has parked itself there alongside the Tories (inside the Tories soon enough I don’t doubt). The economic circumstances would be different because they wouldn’t be characterised by cuts quite so deep- Labour wanted 66% cuts and 33% tax rises to close the deficit; the Tories wanted 80% (it’s planned to be 77% in the end I think) and the Lib Dems wanted 100% cuts and no net tax rises. That’s the main difference concerning the deficit. Oh, and the idea that cutting too early would do more harm than good, a stance which your party professed to share at the moment you voted for them but whose leadership had secretly decided against.
Inequality is slightly wider, sure. But like I said, and like the IFS said, without Labour it wouldn’t have remained static. It isn’t ideal but it’s better than what your party promises to deliver.
At its very best, the social liberals offer charity to the poor. At its best Labour offers solidarity. It’s sad how the Blairites and careerists have taken over the party, but for me it’s even sadder when socialists and Labour people decided to let them have it and just give up on socialism and Labour.
I hope you’ll be prepared after this government is finished to account for the damage to the weakest that the Lib Dems are facilitating. When Clegg is off working in the EU, and Danny Alexander and David Laws are settled into the Conservative Party, I hope you’ll be happy to be left to account for it.
@ Dave Warren
The medical is NOT being reformed. The new extra draconian test (Yvette Cooper) is being implemented in April. I am astounded that Lib Dems are unaware of ths and are confused on the Harrington review which did not cover medicals but only on the way that they were being carried out by rude, unfeeling health care professionals. Many more will be falling foul in April than now.
What really angers me is the Lib Dem ignorance on this.All I hear again and again is ‘Labour did it’ as an excuse, Why do you think this excuses your actions? What do we have to do to get you to understand this is happening? There is a general ignorance of what the Harrington review was about, it did not change the medical. Please hear this.
@Mike
I don’t think we are going to agree.
Whatever Labour say now in opposition i don’t believe they would have done
much different with the economy had they won.
None of the main parties wanted to talk in detail about cuts during the campaign.
As for me being responsible for everything the coalition does because i support
the Lib Dems does that make you responsible for everything Labour did while
in power?
Benefit cuts? The war in Iraq? Smashing the Firefighters strike?
Happy to have a difference of opinion but some of the vitriol directed at the
Lib Dems is frankly making Labour sound more and more like sore losers.
@anne Dave Warren has answered your point pretty well.
Are you suggesting there should be no tests?
@Anne
I do hear what you say and will look into it more closely.
I obviously misunderstood.
Have you raised the issue with any politicians?
I am not normally one for saying ‘Labour did this or that’
but despite the obvious failings Douglas Alexander is
still defending the system.
@ Simon McGrath
Your ignorance of the new test is astounding. You obviously have no idea or in fact any compassion. Of course there should be tests but these have been engineered to throw the sick and disabled off benefits to suit Labour and Tory/Lib Dem ideology
Dave, I have raised this with many Lib Dem politicians and never received a reply, also with Labour when they were in power, no reply. Of couse Labour will defend their own policy but why does this excuse Lib Dems? Stop doing that! I despise New ‘Labour’. I am a socialist.
@Dave Warren: ‘Whatever Labour say now in opposition i don’t believe they would have done
much different with the economy had they won.’
That makes no sense. What evidence do you have that Labour would have cut 80% like this government rather than the 66% they planned? Any at all? Do you also think that Nick Clegg was lying when he said he wanted 100% cuts to deal with the deficit rather than the Tories’ 80%?
‘As for me being responsible for everything the coalition does because i support
the Lib Dems does that make you responsible for everything Labour did while
in power?’
Which wasn’t what I said. You were saying that Labour failed in closing inequality, well I hope you’ll be happy when you see the results from this government. I was saying I hope you’ll be able to account for it and hold your party to the same standards as you hold Labour.
‘Benefit cuts? The war in Iraq? Smashing the Firefighters strike?’
And? There are things that Labour people shouldn’t have done because the party went to the right. The solution isn’t then to start supporting a party even further to the right. Labour’s record does not look bad by comparison with what came before or with what will come after. New Labour was far from perfect and shouldn’t be allowed to repeat its mistakes, but the difference between the worst of Labour and the best of the Tory-Liberals is like day and night.
@ Dave Warren
http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/core.nsf/a/wr_esadescriptorslcwphysical
This link will help you, gives links to present descriptors and those coming in new test from March.
@Mike
Of course i will judge the Lib Dems as i do other parties but do bear
in mind that they have only been in office for a few months as a the
junior partner in a coalition.
Labour had a big majority for most of its thirteen years so there is
a bit of a difference.
I base a lot of my judgements on what i see locally and in Labour
i see a tired old group of people who have been around for 20 years
ran the council for most of that time and achieved very little.
They are also in the main nasty vicious people who drove out anyone
who disagreed with them.
The local Lib Dems by contrast are a young dynamic group committed
to working for the community.
They also listen to my views on current political issues which Labour
never did.
Oh and what evidence do i have for my feeling that Labour would have
introduced deeper cuts than they are now saying.
Well call me old and cynical but i think they would have come under
intense pressure from the ‘money men’ to go further and they would
have given in.
@ Mike, Sorry but I don’t believe Labour would have raised taxes – maybe VAT to 22% but not enough to have achieved that 66/33% balance. You have to judge Labour on actual track-record in power, not some ancient mythology. Labour instinctively cut the 10% tax rate and raised capital gains tax limits. They decimated manufacturing in favour of the City. They had 13 years and huge majorities to tackle the poverty trap but didn’t. Labour’s arbitrary wars have killed 100,000’s. The diminishing of civil liberties to the point at which an old socialist could get dragged from a conference for saying “rubbish”. Debt upon debt has been piled high for future generations to pay down or go without.
All of Labour decisions have been based upon their belief that such decisions were unquestionably right and popular. But Hitler and Stalin would have said the same. I think you would do well to listen to David Warren – I think he’s trying to to tell you that Labour are a long, long way down the wrong stream and without a paddle or indeed a moral compass to get back to something akin to the Internationalists who fought in Spain against fascism.
Really good article David, summing up much of what we all joined the party to fight for.
@Dave Warren: Even if in the alternate reality where you can somehow blame Labour for cutting deeper than they said they would when they haven’t had the chance and have shown no sign of doing so, why would you then join a party that promised *100%* cuts and *0%* tax rises to deal with the deficit? Read that Nick Clegg interview in which he praises Thatcher to the heavens and says his party wants ‘purely cuts’.
You’re guessing Labour would have been forced to cut deeper than they said (based on a ‘gut feeling’ and nothing more, nonsense in other words) and so you’ve joined a party that promised the maximum amount of cuts even theoretically possible in order to deal with the deficit. It’s ludicrous.
@JohnM: ‘Hitler and Stalin’- childish. Do you think it’s easy enough? Do you think Labour chose to have inequality rise? Because if so, you’re completely wrong. As the IFS said, it is only Labour’s actions that have slowed the rising inequality and without Labour it will once again shoot through the roof.
It isn’t Labour’s war, anyway. I was against it, but do you think it would have been any better for the Iraqi people to let the Americans go in alone? Blair is a neoliberal, like Clegg and Cameron, and I don’t feel like I have to justify his lies because I hated the bastard. But if you think that things would have been better in the last thirteen years without Labour you’re wrong, if you think the war would not have gone ahead without Britain you’re wrong, and if you think that Labour had access to some kind of magic wand but just chose not to wave it you’re wrong.
Come of it Mike! You can’t blame Blair for Labour’s crimes – that’s like prison camp guards blaming Hitler.
What Dave is saying is that Labour have approached everything with an authoritarian corporatism which has depended on centralising power and a bigger and bigger state to deliver less and less, and where people matter less and less. Clearly for him, he see’s no chance of Labour changing from this track. There are no signs of contrition, no fundamental rethink, just a new spin doctor appointed and new rules to say things like “Tory led” government rather than coalition.
@Anne
Thank you for providing the link for the new ESA test, under the current descriptors I would of gained 18 to 24 points but with the new test it looks like I’ll only have 12…… I am now very worried to say the least.
@David Warren
I hope you’ll be very happy with your ‘new party’ but forgive me if I no longer share your enthusiasm
@JohnM: When I say Blair I mean both him and the Blairites, I’ve mentioned numerous times how damaging it is that the right-wing neoliberals controlled the party but it is worse to be a member of a party that is entirely right-wing.
What Dave is saying is wrong, and will be proved to be wrong. Labour in government wasn’t malicious, didn’t intend to fail. Their plan was fine- accept that liberal markets are the best way to provide prosperity and confine themselves to trying to make that prosperity work for the weakest as best they can. The fact that rising inequality slowed sharply under Labour is testament to it, not a matter to condemn Labour for. But Labour’s problem was that the markets failed at every turn, internal markets failed in public services, external markets failed to provide the prosperity necessary for the Third Way to work, etc.
Labour’s problem was in buying too much into the values embodied in the two parties of the coalition and not enough Labour values.
@nige well i got nil points under the assessment despite the fact that the company doing
it are the same one who my employer used.
Well done to New Labour on that one i say.
@Mike. You seem to dreaming of a return to core Labour values which i just don’t see happening.
All the people controlling the party are New Labour.
Your party is no longer a part of the left and hasn’t been for some time now. The only candidate in
the leadership election who advocated a different course got the votes of 7 MPs doesn’t that tell
you something.
@ Nige
I am sorry to worry you. I am very worried (understatement) too as many others are. It seems though that Lib Dems have had the wool pulled over their eyes on this issue, thinking that the Harrington review was changing the Work Capability Assessment itself. they have not understood anything. The coalition is going ahead with the new even harsher test in March and they seem ignorant of it. that is very worrying but perhaps not surprising as they seem to blank out anything uncomfortable and keep shouting ‘Pupil Premium’! There are going to be genuine sick and disabled people in very dire straits but I have found it impossible to make them listen.
@ Dave Warren in reply to Nige
“Well done to New Labour on that one i say”
You are doing it again Dave!! But why are the Lib Dems in the coalition supporting the new test that is harsher than the one you had? That is what you need to explain and stop going on about Labour, they are not in power now but this is a policy the Lib Dems agree with otherwise why be complicit in implementing it and not ditching it? Have you used the link I posted earlier yet? Replies without mentioning Labour please, I know what they are.
@Dave Warren: I said this exact same thing to liberals who were talking of leaving the Lib Dems on this site- if you let the New Labour lot make you believe that it is their party and not yours, then that’s how it will definitely be.
I’ll leave you with a Nick Clegg quote-
‘There were some people, particularly around the height of the Iraq war, who gave up on the Labour Party and turned to the Liberal Democrats as a sort of left-wing conscience of the Labour Party.
“I totally understand that some of these people are not happy with what the Lib Dems are doing in coalition with the Conservatives. The Lib Dems never were and aren’t a receptacle for left-wing dissatisfaction with the Labour Party. There is no future for that; there never was.’
He isn’t wrong.
The original poster is another socialist former “comrade” moving himself to the Right, and to the right of New Labour. The LibDems aren’t a “progressive” party and have never been so. They are attached to the Right in Europe, for example, being allied with the ELDR party and ALDE group, both chock-ful of anti-welfare state Thatcherite parties.
@Anne. I raised the issue of these tests with my local MP, Steve Webb and Nick Clegg.
I am still waiting for a response from Nick Clegg but when i receive it the further information
you have supplied will be useful in ongoing correspondence.
I cannot answer for Lib Dem Ministers actions and i don’t endorse every single action that
they have taken.
I doubt you will find anybody in any party who agrees with everything that party does. Most
people who join parties because they broadly agree with its aims.
@Mike You miss my point that its their party now. I fought longer than anyone against the
establishment locally but they won because others left dissullisioned or got expelled.
The Blairites won and their heirs now control your party.
As far as the Lib Dems i don’t see them as a left wing alternative but as a different type of
party altogether.
I now see myself as a social liberal as my article attempted to explain. I know how i am
going to take my beliefs forward do you?
@Free Social Democrat I am not sure what your point is parties of the so called ‘left’ have
all been complicit in actions that could have at one time described as Thatcherite.
In Germany the SPD went into coalition with the conservative CDU/CSU!
Here in Britain Blairs’ government was proudly one of deregulation and continued with
privatisation.
The political landscape has changed i might not like it, you might not like but it is a fact.
“In Germany the SPD went into coalition with the conservative CDU/CSU!”
Yes, and the Austria SPÖ with the ÖVP, etc, ad nauseum. Different countries, different systems. In German-speaking countries it is the tradition to form ‘grand coalitions’ as it is considered, rightly or wrongly, a cross-societal pact to preserve democracy in times of instability. It’s alright sneering at such arrangements out of ignorance from an Anglo-Saxon viewpoint, without understanding the ins and outs (not to say that I like grand coalitions myself, as I don’t).
Incidentally the LibDems’ German sister party is the FDP, which is explicitly as Thatcherite as it gets, advocating the privatisation of Krankenkasse (public health insurance), public pensions, welfare, and fiercely against any kind of minimum wage… All entries in the LibDems’ next election manifesto,, one can well imagine.
Well, I was on benefits earlier this year and I am very grateful for the benefits I received. I am thankful to the generations who struggled to ensure that we have a welfare system. Privatisation and the Free Market would have left me to starve. It was the state that saved me. So I do not see the state as evil. I see it as a neutral entity that protects me from the excesses of the market. If that is “socialism” or “labourism” then I am very happy with it. Long may it continue.
@Free Democrat. I wasn’t sneering just pointing out the inconsistencies in your previous post.
@Ed the Snapper I am not saying that there shouldn’t be a welfare state Liberals played a key
role in establishing the current one.
There needs to be reform though and as i say in my post local control is one idea. We need a
wide debate on this across the political spectrum.
@Dave Warren: It’s sad, you say the Blairites won because the left-wing left. Why do you think they left? Because the Blairites had them convinced they’d lost.
If you’re committed to this social liberalism nonsense, fine. I heavily dislike social liberalism, it’s the Guardian readers ‘ten degrees to the left in rhetoric and ten degrees to the right when it affects them personally’ version of trendy faux-leftism, but anyway- what will you do when you realise that the social liberals are as marginalised by the Orange Bookers in the Lib Dems as the left are in Labour by the Blairites? Decide you’re suddenly a One Nation Tory until you find out how marginalised they are in that party?
@Mike Some left the party, some were expelled but more importantly the trade union leaders co-operated with
the new establishment.
Finally there were activists who move rapidly to the right for a variety of reasons.
By the 1990s i was attending GC meetings where i couldn’t even get a seconder for a resolution. What is the
point of that?
They changed the party fundamentally. If you want to stay and hope then i respect that but i won’t be joining you.
As far as my personal views my basic beliefs haven’t changed over the years i have always been a ‘liberal’ with
a small ‘l’ and i have decided that there is a place where i can pursue change.
The Lib Dems are a democratic party unlike Labour and we will see how the debate about the future direction develops over the comimg years.
I spent 30 years supporting Labour so throway remarks about jumping ship are unworthy of you. You might not
agree with me but without fully undersatanding my expiriences as part of the so called ‘labour movement’ you
cannot possibly understand how i have reacted.
coming years
Good for you Dave ! I am just catching up on stuff after Xmas and I have just read your article and all the various comments.
Much of the comment comes from Labour Party hacks who seem to have been lying very low over the the last 13 years during which the Labour Party lost its last shreds of socialism and gave itself up to a new generation of professional politician who have no ideological or moral base. The result leaves us with an ever growing gap between rich and poor.
You and I both know that the local Labour Party in Reading is rotten to the core as far as democracy goes and I really welcome your support as we take them on again next May.
@Ricky
Nice to hear a friendly voice!
These Labourites really are very bitter but of course they have nothing to say on policy.
I have known all their leading lights here in Reading for many years and they all abandoned
principle for power years ago.
They are going through a bit of a crisis since the departure of Martin Salter and the subsequent
General Election debacle.
That said their campaign for next years local elections will be nasty, vicious and offensive.
@ Dave warren
Do you and Ricky consider me a Labour Party hack? Unfortunately this is a tactic by Lib Dems on this site who object to being criticised and try to stifle us. My concern are those Lib Dems who are completely unaware or look the other way to what is happening to the sick and disabled now and even more so in March. I have to ask you Dave as you are affected by these measures why did you not know when you are politically active, are you being misled? I am very bitter because I was promised so much on the doorstep by Lib Dems and was betrayed. I had already been betrayed by Labour. Their actions are not an excuse for Lib Dems to continue on bad policy. Why ARE Lib Dems supporting these Labour policies? I started posting when Osborne announced the attacks on the sick and disabled in June. I have seen no defence of us or even any reply on this site by other Lib Dems though I and others continually try to raise the issue. I am grateful that you are contacting Clegg and Web on this, you may get some sort of reply. There is an article on here by Steve Webb on Welfare Reform and he too seemed to think that the review would change the WCA so it will be interesting to know what he says now! As for Nick Clegg, I think we all know what he will say! Do not be fobbed off (as they will try) by them saying that they accepted many (but not all, those on tribunals!!!) of Harrington’s reccommendations, http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/wca-review-2010-response.pdf They need to explain why they are bringing in the harsher test.
Many sick and disabled are living in fear and we are not Labour Party hacks but people who wrongly thought that the Lib Dems would rein in this policy and help us.
@Dave Warren: I’m not going to convince you to back Labour, sure, but why do you think the Lib Dems are better?
It’s easy to have democratic decision making if the leadership doesn’t have to pay a blind bit of notice to those decisions. The Lib Dems may as well let the members have a vote on policies if in the real world they don’t actually have to do anything about it- all the policies that you vote through get dropped in coalition discussions if the Orange Book cadre don’t like them and they can pretend it’s because of ‘compromise’. You’ve jumped from a marginalised left-of-Labour to a marginalised faux-left-of-Liberal. Better to be the real thing.
@ Anne
Hostility towards those who are trying to debate issues is symptomatic on this site it appears (although I’m sure many other similar sites would be no different!). It is often easier for those who support the part line to dismiss any criticism as undoubtedly the work of (in this case) Labour hacks/moles, than to actually debate the substantive issues.
As a long term LD voter and supporter (tho not member) who is genuinely horrified by the direction the party is following I actually expected more than the self-deluding, dismissive responses which are all too common on here. Sadly it seems that the narratives of “there was no alternative” and “it would have been worse if we hadn’t gone into the Coalition” are too firmly entrenched for most (though not it seems all) of the party members on here.
@Ricky: Yes, gap between rich and poor widened, but at a far lower rate than previously and according to the IFS at a far lower rate than it would have done without Labour’s changes. That’s not something to sneer at.
It baffles me how liberals get all misty-eyed for the days when Labour was more socialist. If you’d left and joined the Greens or a left-wing party I’d understand it, but jumping to the Liberals!
How can any ‘social liberal’ talk in terms of the “tyranny of the state”. For that matter, how can any Lib Dem talk in such terms. Shouldn’t such nonsense be the reserve of the far-reaches of the right-wing of the Tories? When did we, Lib Dems use Tory language? As we approach massive cuts, the problem isn’t a far reaching state, but one which doesn’t exist to catch citizens as they fall through the economic cracks.
@ Rik
“When did we, Lib Dems use Tory language?”
Perhaps since you got “pimped out” after the GE? If you’re going to be the ones taking the flak for Tory policies, you might as well speak their lingo huh? 😉
This talk of the “tyranny of the state” is very worrying. It is exactly the language that I see when I debate with “Libertarians” on some other websites. It is language that attempts to use emotive language in order to justify the dismantling of the apparatus that helps the most vulnerable in society. I have never felt “tyrannised by the state”. I have relied on services provided by the state whenever I have been in need. The state did a faster job of providing me with help when unemployed than my local authority ever did. Now that I am in work, I am grateful for the support of my trade union. But hostility towards trade unions now seems common in LibDem discussions. That is a another very worrying trend and is pushing me (someone who has often voted LibDem but never LP) to reconsider my voting preferences. With talk of electoral pacts between the Tories and the LibDems then I strongly suspect we will see a resurgence of LP support in England. The dislike of the Tories runs deeply within many British people and I think the LibDem leadership has failed to appreciate that.
@Ed the Snapper
I want to see a state sector but one that is remodelled not dismantled. The point i am trying to
make in my article.
I can only speak from personal expirience when i say that our current welfare system is bureacratic
and authoritarian.
As far as trade unions are concerned. I reamain a member of my union and still believe that there
is a key role for them in a free society.
The problem with the existing set up [and i have seen it at the highest level] is that cronyism is rife
and large amounts of members money is wasted.
For organisations that are supposed to be based on ‘comradeship’ they leave a lot to be desired.
If i told you about some of the personal attacks made on me for simply having the temerity to stand
for certain elected positions you would be appalled.
Well it looks like the comments have dried up.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the debate whether
i agreed with you or not.