Our tactical victories betray a lack of strategy – the need for an economic vision

Thanks to Labour’s abstention on the welfare bill, a party that was just two months ago caricatured as ‘Tory enablers’ can now credibly claim to be the only national voice of left-wing opposition to the current regime. While I’m sure we’d all much rather be seen as the latter than the former, the fact that this repositioning is possible at all speaks to the central flaw at the heart of our political platform.

When I consider voting for the Tories or for Labour, I know that in doing so I’d be declaring my belief in a certain economic narrative. If I vote Conservative, I’ll be paying lower taxes, and if I want to start a business it’ll be easier. If I vote for Labour, it’ll be easier to get employment in the public sector, and there’ll be more support for me should I lose my job. I know all of this without even glancing at their manifestos, because each party’s identity is inextricably bound to its economic vision.

Thinking about the Lib Dems, I could maybe list some specific lines of their manifesto, and I could probably think of a few things they achieved in Coalition, but I don’t know what those pieces add up to. People don’t vote for itemised policies, they vote because they identify as the sort of person who will be better off under party A than party B. And until we offer a unified narrative of our own, there will never be a constituency of people who think to themselves, ‘Yes, me and my family will probably be better off under a Lib Dem government’.

To be clear, this isn’t a problem caused by the division between classical and social liberals; the idealistic gulfs within other parties dwarf those in our own. Nor are we lacking for ideas; our failure lies in our inability to synthesise those ideas into a single platform.

This ephemerality of our platform is why, even when we were riding a wave of popularity in 2010, our vote share capped out at 23%. And it isn’t a coincidence that the SNP have finally become a relevant political force at the same time as they’ve begun articulating a clear and distinct vision of what an SNP economy looks like.

Their successes – and those recently of ‘third’ parties in Canada, Ireland, France and elsewhere – prove that there is space today for economic visions that fall outside of the modern left/right paradigm. It’s up to us to find that space. And that doesn’t mean plastering over genuine differences of opinion. It means coming together to answer a succession of questions: which industries will be better off under a Liberal government? What life events will be easier? Who wins when Tim Farron sits in No. 10?

Then, and only then, can we string those answers together into a mission statement that tells people what they get when they vote Lib Dem. Many of us criticised ‘Stronger Economy, Fairer Society’ as an empty platitude, but the truth is that there was nothing else that could go there, as a result of our consistent failure to identify ourselves with a comprehensive economic platform. The path to electoral recovery has to start there: finding that platform, tying ourselves to it, and beating the electorate over the head with it.

* Fergus is a party member in South London who has previously stood as a council candidate in Cambridge

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76 Comments

  • Sam Barnett 23rd Jul '15 - 3:46pm

    Hear, hear. A strategy based on just occupying whatever oppositional space Labour neglects is limited, and given the profusion of other small parties these days, probably won’t work.

    At the end of the day voters won’t turn up for us in really big numbers until they have a clear idea of what a Liberal majority government would look like

  • Absolutely agree. I think our narrative needs to be this: The Lib Dems are the party for people who believe Westminster has too much power; it has failed time and time again to provide fairness and equality. We are the party of democracy and devolution – the party that wants to make your voice heard as to how the country is run.

    And therein lies the problem. If we are the party that gives you a voice, we cannot speak for you. This makes providing a specific, compelling narrative v difficult!

  • “And it isn’t a coincidence that the SNP have finally become a relevant political force at the same time as they’ve begun articulating a clear and distinct vision of what an SNP economy looks like.”

    A pity that that vision was based on assumptions like $100 a barrel oil and the idea that the UK could carry on borrowing vast amounts without Scotland ever having to pay its share back (presumably having declared independence once the money is spent). May 2015 was Scotland’s “Syriza moment” only without the disastrous consequences seen in Greece. However, it has to be said, Scotland’s economy is lagging that of the rest of the UK at present, probably because of the uncertainty the SNP has created. The SNP provides no basis for the Lib Dems’ economic policy in future whatsoever.

    Our party already has a ready made economic agenda. We were putting it into practice in government before we were rudely chucked out by an unthinking electorate, with things like regulating the banking sector, investing in green energy and supporting business development through initiatives like “catapult centres”. And jolly good most of it was too. Sadly it will only be after the Tories wreck half of it that people will realise how much we were doing.

    The problem is not the need for a new economic strategy, it is that the voters never got to find out what it was in the first place.

  • Donald Smith 23rd Jul '15 - 4:38pm

    It would seem to me we have some strong economic strands we could tie together – supporting long- term sustainable wealth creation and jobs. Our green agenda, Vince’s support for apprenticeships, our old support for mutuals and worker democracy could go with more support for small and medium enterprises and a fairier banking sector.

  • John Tilley 23rd Jul '15 - 4:44pm

    “….If I vote Conservative, I’ll be paying lower taxes, and if I want to start a business it’ll be easier. ”

    Excuse me if I draw attention to the record of previous Conservative governments.

    Lower taxes ??? When was the Conservative government that ended with lower taxes?

    I guess from your picture, Fergus, that you are very young and you do not actually remember any Conservative governments since you started paying taxes yourself.

    If you swallow Conservative Party propaganda wholesale it might just skew your analysis.

  • To follow on from Donald’s points above (I’m looking forward to a “fairier” banking sector 😀 ) we could add:

    – simplification of the tax system
    – break up of concentrations of monopolistic power
    – support for alternative models of provision

  • Bill le Breton 23rd Jul '15 - 4:48pm

    RC ends his comment , “The problem is not the need for a new economic strategy, it is that the voters never got to find out what it was in the first place.” And I fear this also applies to readers of the Op Ed.

    Fergus Blair lists ‘a succession of questions: which industries will be better off under a Liberal government? What life events will be easier? Who wins when Tim Farron sits in No. 10?’ but why is there no stab at their answers?

    Over at Stumbling and Mumbling Chris Dillow identifies five problems for which an economic narrative should provide a diagnosis and solution:

    1. “the combination of slower innovation, low investment and weak productivity growth that have given us slower growth in real incomes:”

    2. The reduction in ‘middling-income jobs’ – the rungs of the ladder that will make social mobility even harder.

    3. What to do about ‘the rise in the share of incomes going to the top 1%’ if you think this is a problem.

    4. Low productivity and the seeming failure of managerialism.

    5.Decorporatisation – the rise of self-employment – is this a failure of the mainstream to provide employment or is a transformation into a post-capitalist society?

    Efforts to answer these questions as Liberals would very likely provide a distinctive set of policies.

    Come on Fergus … tell us what do you think?

  • Bill le Breton 23rd Jul '15 - 4:51pm
  • Spot on Fergus!

  • Historically the Conservatives were the party of the land-owners and the elite, while Labour was the party of the (industrial) worker. The Conservatives have re-positioned themselves as the party of business and now neo-liberalism and for less money to be spent by the government. Labour still is the party of the workers rather than those who own businesses. There is no evidence that the Labour party wants a larger public sector as an aim in itself but it is seen as more concerned with ensuring that the public services are not cut.

    With the foundation of the SDP the Alliance attracted mainly people who had degrees, were middle managers or worked in the public services. To these groups were added people who opposed the Iraq war and students (possibly with members of their families). We have lost the support of two or three of these groups – public workers because of the cuts under the coalition, students and future people with degrees (and members of their families) because of the tuition fee hike.

    However maybe we should look at what a liberal society looks like – a society that looks after the environment, everyone has the financial resources to make choices about their life, everyone who wants a home has one, everyone can access education for free for the whole of their life, everyone can work if they wish to, no one is forced to conform and different life styles are acceptable, everyone’s healthcare is free, consumers are protected by strong protection from the government, personal liberties are protected, everyone has the same access to the legal system, those with disadvantages are given the support they wish to have to have the life they want. More people will be involved in making government decisions and these decisions will be made at the lowest level possible. To achieve this society there has to be the taxes necessary to finance it. We would tax land and wealth more and income less. We would use the tax system to encourage economic activity.

  • Conor McGovern 23rd Jul '15 - 5:06pm

    Donald Smith +1

  • Fergus Blair 23rd Jul '15 - 5:33pm

    John: The accuracy of that belief isn’t the point; what matters is the strength of the narrative (in fact, in an earlier draft of this article I drew attention to the fact that their rhetoric and record tell two very different stories). If anything, it speaks to the success of the Conservative Party’s spin that their reputation is so far removed from their actual record. Regardless of their recent history, people who wanted to pay less tax voted Tory in 2010 and 2015 because of a consistent narrative that they had been building for decades.

    We have to remember that, almost by definition, as activists and party members we are more aware of politics and political history than the average voter. It’s very easy for us to lose ourselves in complex discussions of the nuances of a political tradition, and miss the simpler, clearer message that ends up getting through to voters.

  • Christopher Haigh 23rd Jul '15 - 5:53pm

    Hi Fergus, it would seem to me that the energy sector is the most fundamental economic activity to get a clear policy on. The use of coal is too environmentally pollutant, nuclear power has un-projectable decommissioning costs, fracking appears to be environmentally unsound and short term, offshore wind farms give rise to planning battles with antagonistic conservative NIMBY groups, solar panels on roofs don’t look too good. However with UK winter weather and any expansion of manufacturing industry, we need a supply of clean and competitively priced energy. I thought Ed Davey in Department of Energy did an excellent job on this during the coalition-perhaps he can work on a new policy for the party. Not sure what the Conservative energy policy is now. Don’t even know if Labour party has an energy policy after the demise of coal.

  • John Tilley 23rd Jul '15 - 6:14pm

    Fair enough, Fergus. You should have kept to the earlier draft. 🙂

    Meanwhile, can you avoid using the words “narrative” and “nuance” in the same comment? In this country we got on well for centuries talking about politics without those words.

    We could just say what we mean rather than nuancing narratives.

  • Donald Smith 23rd Jul '15 - 6:30pm

    The Dillow piece is very interesting and worth thinking about. His challenge isn’t just to Labour but all parties. We do seem to be moving into a different economic world, where as policy tends to address the problems of the past. I don’t have any answers to his questions but suggest that cooperatives/mutuals and self-employment offer distinctive models that don’t neatly fit into staid – capitalist v state socialist dogmas. They fit more easily into Liberalism. Whenever I here Labour people espouse worker democracy or co-ops I have to ask what have Labour governments actually ever done for them. It’s a mystery to me how the the Co-Op party affiliated to Labour in the 1920s and then stuck to them ever since.

  • I have to disagree. Opposing the welfare reforms does not automatically entitle us to claim the mantle of credible left wing opposition to the Tory’s, nor have we as a party tried to claim it. If we are now perceived as opposing rather than enabling that is purely a fault of the misunderstanding of what we did in government. We opposed many of the measures in the recent bill in government, and continue to do so in opposition. This opposition may be seen as being left wing and socialist in nature but again this is a misunderstanding of the reasons behind our continued and unfaltering opposition.

    This opposition would not have been called left wing whilst we were in government, yet it was just as present in our actions, so to call it that now suggests that the change lies in the way in which people perceive the party in different situations, and not some inherent chameleon quality which needs addressing internally.

    If we are claiming the mantle of ‘real’ opposition to the Tory’s (as opposed to the ‘real’ left wing) then that is based on our uniformity, consistency and resolve over the issues we are opposing them on, both in and out of government.

  • Richard Underhill 23rd Jul '15 - 7:35pm

    John Tilley: This is about perceptions as well as actualities. Pollster Ryan Coetzee touched on the issue of “the brand” when he came to Maidstone to explain a local opinion poll. The reality is there are huge regional differences in circumstances leading to different priorities at local level. We also have paradigms lost. The divisions over the Corn Laws were relly about prices, who gets the money?, who gets to eat?

  • Fergus highlights an important issue. Although I can see people going for the characterisation of the Tories, I do not think he has it right for Labour nor SNP. I doubt very many vote Labour thinking that it will be easier to find jobs in the public sector. Nevertheless, whether Fergus gets it right or not it is the issue of identity that counts

    TomasS gets closest when he highlights power structures, but Fergus really seems to want something relating to economics, so how about:

    A fair deal in the market place: Liberal Democrats will help stop big corporations ripping me off.

    Fergus, I do think that this has become about a rather forced divide between economic and social Liberals. It really is time to recognise that pursuing the idea that there is this division is damaging to the party: we have to project ourselves as socioeconomic Liberals.

  • Michael Kitching 23rd Jul '15 - 8:17pm

    Is the answer to this question not to become the party that will refocus taxation on unearned wealth to support social mobility and reward enterprising behaviours? I think there is a whole narrative to be had on Labour rewarding you for the success of others, whilst the Tories reward you for the success of your parents.

  • An truly excellent article. I agree with it all wholeheartedly.

    However, it poses questions. Where are the people with the answers!? 🙂

  • HAN and everyone else:

    The Challenge is on. Starting with “If I vote Liberal Democrat…” In 25 words a clear, economy related message . Slightly reformulated mine is:

    If I vote Liberal Democrat, I will get a fair deal in the market place with help to stop big corporations ripping me off.

    I would like to see others do better. Fergus, please put in what you would have.

    Accepted that this is only the part of our message that relating to how people are affected by issues of the economy. Similar messages would be needed for democracy and distribution of power to control people’s lives; liberty and basic rights; care and protection of the vulnerable.

  • Little Jackie Paper 23rd Jul '15 - 9:16pm

    I don’t have any particular problem with this as such, but it seems to assume a dichotomy that, to my mind, is dated at best an an abstraction at worst. For many years now the talkboards have been filled with airy demands for, ‘change,’ with not much consensus over what that change might be.

    My view is that for 30+ years there has been a broad cross-party consensus on what might be called, ‘the open agenda.’ LAB, CON and Coalition all vigorously sought to, ‘open,’ the economy. Open to foreign money, open borders, open to foreign ownership, the list goes on. Above all the wish has been to be, ‘open for business.’ The EU’s role now is to, ‘open,’ Europe and the whole Party of IN plainly spoke to a no-questions-asked endorsement of the open agenda. I make no value judgment on the open agenda here – I simply observe that it has been pursued by all the main parties.

    Stark reality is that however many have done well out of open, a lot of other people feel that open is most certainly not in their interests and that what’s good for business is not necessarily good for them. I would find it rather hard to explain to someone who has just seen their job zeroed and outsourced to Bulgaria that all this is in their best interests.

    I don’t really think that anyone has really grappled with this new divide. A divide not on classic left/right class based lines but on who is and is not doing well out of the open consensus. It is interesting, and perhaps telling that Ed M did rather well out of his proposed energy reference pricing policy – something I would see as more indicative of closed rather than open.

    Labour is no longer the party of the working class because there is very little, ‘classic working class,’ now. Conservatives have moved a long way from their roots too – things are not pickled in aspic. UKIP are basically about a more closed society – at least in their rhetoric. The real challenge for those that believe in open is to understand the divides that have opened up around the open agenda. That is where a strategy is needed.

    I’ll give an opener policy suggestion. Large scale funding for a reliable, portable, accurate real-time language translation technology. That would do far more for the open vision than anything the European Commission will ever do.

  • Kevin Manley 23rd Jul '15 - 9:19pm

    I don’t agree at all that people vote for the party they feel they’d be better off under, or at least not better off financially. Sure that some do, but I reckon they’re in the minority and anyway you can’t get your calculator out and try to work it out because parties never tell you what they’re going to do, only what theyre not going to do. I will probably be better off financially under the Tories as a typical “middle class” professional in the private sector with a decent salary, a house, and a family and I am sure Labour had their sights on a few things that would hit me in the pocket. But I have never and will never vote Tory, and if it was a straight choice between Tory and Labour I would vote Labour every time. There are also lots of working class Tories or UKIPpers, and tonnes of affluent lefties which wouldn’t be the case if they were each making a rational decision about which party they’d be better off under. I would suggest instead most people vote on values, and that what’s important is that the party now tries to rediscover its values. It seemed in 2010 to 15 that the party didn’t have any values, having consistently run to the left of Labour not so long ago and then jumping in with the Tories,and then to top it off ditching key pledges for convenience. It seemed thier only value was to have some power and their sales pitch in 2015 was defined by reference to the other parties’, rather than the parties own values. “Vote for us, cos we’re not them” was never going to wash. No surprise then that those more leftish Lib Dems totally deserted for Labour, Green or SNP and those of a more libertarian leaning went back to the Tories

  • Little Jackie Paper 23rd Jul '15 - 9:20pm

    Michael Kitching – Lovely thought, but given the current intergenerational divide I’d say that there’s more chance of us driving for McLaren this weekend than there is of that happening.

  • Michael Kitching 23rd Jul '15 - 9:48pm

    LJP- I’ll just stick to my VW Polo then. 🙁

    On a serious note, I probably agree, but isn’t there an opportunity now for the party to challenge some norms and to think about where we REALLY would like to take our country. Arguably we are at our best when we are away from consensus, the other parties usually catch up with us 5 or 10 years later! If we want to build up a base that doesn’t consist of protest voters and disaffected Labour Party members then being a little idealistic might be a good thing.

    I’m no economist though, so I bow to mightier intellects and will return to binge watching TV.

  • James Ridgwell 23rd Jul '15 - 10:03pm

    thanks Fergus for a useful article. Broadly I agree that the average member of the public could characterise Labour or the Tories’ professed aims/long-standing narratives (eg perhaps NHS& public services, equality for L and pro business/the economy, self reliance/lower taxes for the Tories) but would struggle to characterise ours -they would be unlikely to know what we stand for. They might know we profess to be liberals but not be sure what this means for them beyond perhaps some issues they may well see as peripheral eg snooper’s charter etc (I’m not saying that isn’t an important issue – im just saying its prob not top priority for a lot of ppl. I say this as someone who felt this way about the LDs a year ago before I started to look into the main parties’ policies etc in detail and joining this party in Feb this year,the first time ive been involved in party politics (and as someone who was at least moderately interested in current affairs prior to that). I agree we should cultivate a platform that implants an instinctive idea in people’s mind’s about what we stand for, esp around the economy/jobs,the #1 issue for many. This could be part of a LD ‘core’ (20, 25…or 35%? strategy!). I think the answer given above by Michael Kitching is a very good start. I also think Little Jackie Paper’s characterisation of Open versus Closed is very insightful (although I’m not sure it was intended as the basis for a core narrative for us).

  • Fergus Blair 23rd Jul '15 - 10:24pm

    Martin, I think your challenge encapsulates the problem very well. I deliberately avoided trying to offer solutions in the post partly due to word limits and partly because by its very nature, this process of defining an economic message for ourselves has to be a collaborative one. There’s already a huge number of great ideas in these comments, but I think there are two things we need to bear in mind when contemplating them:

    1. What’s the common thread that ties them all together?
    2. How do we make them directly relevant to the experiences of individual voters?

    For example, Christopher’s points about our environmental commitments are excellent ones. The problem is figuring out what connection they have to individual people. If the government radically changed its emissions targets tomorrow, it would certainly affect me in that it would impact the prices of goods I buy etc., but that sort of thing is hard to visualise and quantify. One case that might be instructive is the recent success of Tesla motors in California; maybe we could be the people offering to invest in the sorts of large scale green infrastructure projects (charging stations, in this case) that are needed so that you can benefit every day from cutting edge science.

  • Fergus Blair 23rd Jul '15 - 10:25pm

    As to the more general question of common economic themes, I agree very much with what people have said about protecting individual liberty against corporations, although that may end up being too similar to the sort of banker-bashing that Labour are intermittently happy to indulge in.

    Personally, I like the idea of choice and options. Maybe the deal we make with people is that if they vote Lib Dem, they’ll have more options at every stage of their life. We’ll make public services flexible and user-driven to the point where people have as much control as possible over the sort of healthcare they get, the sort of education their children get, the experience they have on public transport, etc. We’ll support entrepreneurs and people looking to grow their businesses so that at every stage of a person’s career they have a plethora of options open to them. We’ll incentivise the sort of high-tech, cutting edge fields that generate new products and services for British consumers, and we’ll keep British markets as open to the world as possible. These ideas are all just starting points, obviously, but I think you could probably craft a narrative around that sort of forward-thinking, consumer-based economic approach.

    So, to answer your challenge, this would be my personal starting point for a 25 word pitch: If I vote Liberal Democrat, I will have more flexibility and options at every stage of my life and career and every time I use public services.

  • Little Jackie Paper 23rd Jul '15 - 10:31pm

    Fergus Blair – Problem with choice though is that you only have choice if there is surplus capacity. If you don’t have surplus capacity then the choice is on the part of the service provider, not the user.

    Surplus capacity is a big enough ask in good times – now it’s fanciful.

  • @LJP as anyone trying to choose a school will know.

    Furthermore many people are scared by choice because it means uncertainty and personal responsibility.

  • Jonathan Brown 24th Jul '15 - 1:37am

    This isn’t a fully-formed proposal by any stretch of the imagination, but perhaps the word ‘modern’ could be a helpful starting point in defining us, and not just on the economy.

    – A modern economy is (or ought to be) one that is environmentally friendly, full of genuine opportunities (not just ‘choices’), involves educating _everyone_, rewards work, moves beyond traditional left-right extremes and accepts that there is a time and a place for private and publicly funded services, is inovative, high-tec, expanding, etc.

    I’m aware that some of those descriptions are subjective (you can certainly argue that the modern economy is really one of stagnation, under-investment, wastes talent, etc.), but it is designed both to describe in a simple way what our vision is (even if people disagree with it they will at least understand what we mean) and to appeal to liberally-minded people.

    This vision might not appeal to the stereotypical socially conservative, UKIP-leaning voter, but then they’re not our main target anyway. The vision certainly ought to appeal to socially liberal, reasonably well educated, open-minded people who really ought to be seeing us as their political home. (Not saying we should only target these people, but these people should definitely be a target.)

    It would also allow us to make a very simple argument that lumps Labour and the Tories together in a way that shows how our economic vision is different from theirs.

  • Clare Brown 24th Jul '15 - 7:05am

    Definitely agree with the idea that the Lib Dems need a much clearer ‘instinctive’ brand. When we look at a person’s house, income level and type, the clothes that they wear, whereabouts in thhe country they live etc, often it seems easy to guess if they are more likely to be ‘Tory’ or ‘Labour’. But what does a typical Lib Dem look like? Our diversity is perhaps a strength but even so we maybe need to create a bit of a caricature of a Lib Dem voter, if only for ourselves so we know who to aim our marketing and comms at.
    I agree wholeheatedly with Jonathon Brown that key words for any Lib Dem mantra have to be ‘modern’ and ‘environmentally friendly’. Labour and the Tories are not instinctively either of these. Plus we need a key concept to distinguish us from the Greens – ‘Liberal’ is there on the tin but do people actually know what liberal means?

  • John Roffey 24th Jul '15 - 7:20am

    Although there are many sound comments above – I am concerned that the question of how to get the voters to take any notice of what the Party has to offer is not being addressed.

    A few commentators on other threads have pointed out that there is now little coverage of the Party in the MSM – and I fear that this decline is going to continue unless some simple policies, that interest the public and MSM commentators, are introduced reasonably quickly. The Party needs something that identifies it in the public’s mind.

    When Farage speaks – anyone vaguely interested in politics knows he will be addressing the issues of our membership of the EU and immigration. When Alex Salmond/ Nicola Sturgeon speak it will be about independence or for greater self government for Scotland, when Caroline Lucas speaks – it will be about the environment. Each of these subjects has significance for those voters that do have an interest in politics.

    Anyone who has watched the Parliament Channel and the debate on the Finance Bill will know how difficult it will be for TF and the other MPs to make an impact without an/some identifying policy [Caroline Lucas is a feisty performer considering she is the Greens only MP].

    What issue or issues have the Liberal Democrats got that remotely approach these levels of public interest?

  • Donald Smith 24th Jul '15 - 7:49am

    Inevitably we’re moving away a bit from the original post. However, I suggest our distinctive voice is for democracy – empowering people, making sure the people on the edges get heard and noticed, that everyone has a stake in the country, that everyone – no matter how they identify themselves, or are identified by others – counts. UKIP = anti-EU, anit-immigrants, SNP = crude nationalism, Greens = environment, LibDems = power for the people, ALL people or ‘a voice for everyone’. Or to get back to the original thread – LibDems are the party of those who feel steamrollered by global corporations, big city interests or an uncaring state, of the independent retailer, the entrepreneur, self-employed.

  • Jenny Barnes 24th Jul '15 - 8:17am

    “we maybe need to create a bit of a caricature of a Lib Dem voter” Sandals?

  • John Roffey 24th Jul '15 - 8:27am

    Donald Smith 24th Jul ’15 – 7:49am

    “I suggest our distinctive voice is for democracy – empowering people”

    This certainly has the advantage of being able to incorporate a number of elements [were you tempted to post ‘power to the people’] and I would have thought could have broad appeal. Elements that fall under this heading include FPTP, Lords reform, Federalism and, probably the most important, Corporatism. However, given the significantly reduced platform now available to the Party coupled to the internet age – punchy ‘tweet’ sized one liners are probably required to summarise each.

  • Christopher Haigh 24th Jul '15 - 8:34am

    @Donald Smith – Hi Donald , I agree. Liberals need to explain that we wish to protect the interests of the common person from oppression by over-powerful government, monopoly business, and wealthy individuals.

  • John Roffey 24th Jul '15 - 8:42am

    Jenny Barnes 24th Jul ’15 – 8:17am
    “we maybe need to create a bit of a caricature of a Lib Dem voter” Sandals?”

    Plus long hair and beards? Is there a dress code for the HofC?

  • Donald Smith 24th Jul '15 - 12:35pm

    @John Roffey – yes, I was tempted to say ‘power to the people’. But then I thought that might sound too much like an empty slogan having been misused over many decades. I also thought of ‘standing up for the disadvantaged/disempowerd’ but thought that be demeaning to many.

    I have the beard by the way – but never wear sandals.

  • I’m a new member and I saw both Tim Farron and Norman Lamb speak before the leadership election and I think Fergus is correct – we heard a lot about having a “fairer society” but not a lot about a “stronger economy”. Not that I am suggesting the two are mutually exclusive, one of the main reasons I joined this party is because I believe that having a fair and free society leads to a stronger economy and that’s where I think our message needs to come from.

    To give an example, Tim repeatedly stated that we are the party who see immigration as a blessing and not a curse, but we need to be stating why we believe this and how we can increase the contributions made by immigrants to our society. Off the top of my head I can think of policies like reintroducing the post-study work visa for non-EU migrants who have graduated in the UK. This would help sectors who have skill shortages, such as engineering, get the skills they need so they can grow and become more competitive on the world stage, not to mention help attract more non-EU students (who pay extortionate fees) to UK universities.

    This is how I think we will get our message across and form our economic vision. Every time we state a liberal principle, we must also link it to the economy.

  • Sue Sutherland 24th Jul '15 - 2:31pm

    I agree with most of the above and with the article but especially like James Ganes final sentence “Every time we state a liberal principle we must also link it to the economy. ” Our Liberal visionary forbears Keynes and Beveridge worked together to propose a view of economics that supported the welfare state and the sort of Liberal society they envisaged. Unfortunately we now have a view of economics which is destroying the old welfare state through austerity and that harsh view of the economy dates back to Thatcher. It is a view that dominates Europe as well as the UK and the Labour Party were led by it in power. We need a new view of how the economy works which will support our vision for the future and give people hope. Economists in the party should be looking at emerging theories and working with their authors. Tim needs to set up such a group quickly so that we have a coherent message to campaign on. There have been 30 years of Thatcherite consensus , it’s time for change and finally the Lib Dems shall lead from the front.

  • Fergus:

    I am not happy with putting ‘choice’ prominently on the agenda. I presume that you want to promote the idea that Liberal Democrats provide more opportunities. ‘Choice’ is too often used by Conservatives to defend or even increase inequalities. I really do not understand what you are thinking of in the public sector. Each time I turn on a tap or plug into the mains, do I have choice, other than to whom I send my bills? If I am ill or injured am I looking for ‘choice’? Too much of the choice, I do have does not seem to make great sense: if I look at rows of tins of tomatoes in a supermarket, I can choose different brands, is that really a ‘choice’? I can see that for Liberals, diversity is important and essential to promote progress – I assume that is what you are thinking about. – but that is a more abstract idea and not something that has such an immediate impact on people’s daily lives

  • Fergus – thanks for an excellent article. I have been trying to say just this for years but you have managed to put it far more succinctly and powerfully than I ever managed.

    A few points:

    1. I don’t agree with those who think inventing new slogans is the place to start. Chris Dillow (in the article linked by Bill le Breton) says that a new economic narrative “should consist of a diagnosis and a solution…” (added emphasis). I agree. Diagnosis must come first. If it’s right then the solution is often obvious. Politically, diagnosis matters because it provides the confidence and ammunition to attack the other parties and will show up how wrong or self-serving their proposals are. Slogans will emerge later; writing them requires a different skill-set than diagnosis.

    2. Power and its close relation, money, are key to diagnosis. Understand how and why they are manipulated and how they flow around the economy (or more often don’t) and the problem is largely solved. Together they account for much of what happens. Sun Tzu advised, “Know your enemy” but Lib Dems largely haven’t bothered to.

    3. The conventional Lib Dem approach to policy making has been to find things that score well with focus groups in important policy areas like the economy, housing or health. That’s absolutely wrong; diagnosis is about focussing on what matters, not what happens to score well with focus groups. We need leadership that makes the case for what is right. The voters aren’t stupid; they will recognise and support good sense.

  • Bill le Breton 24th Jul '15 - 7:45pm

    Gordon expresses it really well. Thanks for focusing on Dillow’s major theme – diagnosis – and adding the need to lead. We have to be innovative and then to persuade. Persuasion is achieved by campaigning.

  • Early in the coalition we put in place some policies to support environmental policies without taxing citizens who behave in ways that don’t support the environment. The provision of energy saving devises rather than trying to change behaviour has to be the liberal way. Liberalism is about freedom, but it is also about choice and having the economic resources to make that choice. This also includes having the availability of education and training to make and implement that choice. For some it means having the social care to make and implement that choice. In the 1940’s liberals stated every man and single woman should have a job. Today we should say every adult who wishes to work should have a job and the support needed for them to obtain and continue in a job. Part of a liberal economic policy would be intensives and fines for business that didn’t employ people who needed support. For a liberal world it would be better for the jobs and life-styles available in the UK to be available in every country of the world. So in a liberal society life is made easy for people to start their own businesses, there is the support necessary for people to start their own business and support continues as they grow and employ their first workers. This support might include having a government run bank, it might mean setting targets for bank lending to new and small businesses with fines for those that fail to meet the targets. In a liberal economy there are no private monopolies and the government ensures that new companies can always enter every private market. In a liberal society the public services are run by the people with direct elections. The involvement of more people in these decision making bodies becomes a liberal aim. Liberal economic policy is about getting economic growth across the whole country and includes regional economic support.

  • John Roffey 25th Jul '15 - 7:29am

    Donald Smith 24th Jul ’15 – 12:35pm
    ‘power to the people’

    There is little doubt that there is an undercurrent of revolution, if democratic, taking place in UK politics. This was initially demonstrated by UKIP who moved from a 3.1% share of the vote to 12.6% – although they did fall from there near 27% at the EU election – such a rise in popularity is quite remarkable by any measure. The Greens move from 1% to 3.8% was also significant – and had they got their act together in time – it is very likely they would have significantly improved on this outcome.

    What is for sure is that the mainstream parties are under severe pressure – and this will continue once political debate starts again in earnest in September – when the new Labour leader has been elected. The Tories really should not have won the election – as the polls were predicting – their election strategy of targeting Labour’s economic competence [coupled to an unconvincing Miliband] worked and worked well – but is unlikely to succeed in five years time – as it is an extremely dubious route to economic success.

    If the Party does not wish to suffer further decline it will have to demonstrate it is no longer, what once was described as a ‘safe’ mainstream party – it will have to demonstrate some revolutionary zeal if it wants to compete with its main rivals – UKIP & the Greens.

    TF has demonstrated this approach by rejecting the Osborne suffocating austerity program – this will need to be built on with dynamic policies that do provide much greater democracy. Democracy is a theme that is not ‘owned’ by the Party’s rivals – and seems to me to be the unique identity needed to enable the Party to rise again.

    Pity there is such opposition to renaming the Party ‘The Democrats’ as this would clearly demonstrate a major shift within the Party to help rid it of the negative image that has built up as a result of its time in coalition.

  • @James Gane excellent point. This is exactly the sort of thinking we need from our new members and you are correct – we don’t spend enough time on the economy which is what matters most to the majority of voters.

  • @John Roffey form SDP 2 if you want to. This Liberal won’t be joining you.

  • John Tilley 25th Jul '15 - 8:48am

    Richard Underhill 23rd Jul ’15 – 7:35pm
    “Pollster Ryan Coetzee touched on the issue of “the brand” when he came to Maidstone … ..
    The divisions over the Corn Laws were relly about prices, ”

    Richard Underhill,
    I had not realised the Corn Laws are still a big issue in Maidstone.
    Does that explain why our candidate did so very badly in the General Election this year despite the fact that I received an e-mail from HQ just days before the election asking me for money because it was likely to be a win for us and he was “almost there”? 🙂

  • TCO 25th Jul ’15 – 8:29am
    “@John Roffey form SDP 2 if you want to. This Liberal won’t be joining you.”

    Call the Party ‘Republicans’ if you want to – the point is to demonstrate a change in direction so as to help rid itself of the negative image it is presently saddled with – as a result of its time in coalition.

    Democrats would obviously be more appropriate if it were attempting to define itself as the party trying to improve democracy in the UK.

  • @John Roffey then the obvious answer is the Liberal Party dedicated to four-cornered Liberalism!

  • Richard Underhill 25th Jul '15 - 10:29am

    John Tilley 25th Jul ’15 – 8:48am
    “Pollster Ryan Coetzee touched on the issue of “the brand” when he came to Maidstone … ..
    The divisions over the Corn Laws were relly about prices, ”
    Sorry ,’ relly’ should be ‘really’,
    ” Ryan Coetzee touched on the issue of “the brand” when he came to Maidstone”. This is true, but he mainly talked about opinion polls.

    Ryan Coetzee’s reference to “the brand” left us with an unanswered question. Perhaps there were undecided debates in HQ at the time.
    Those who remember Charles Kennedy’s leadership and the increased number of MPs achieved then, may recall that as leader Charles was in favour of campaigning on local issues. He said that he “would not claim to know ” what they all were, supporting local decision making and resisting press and media pressures for standardisation and nationwide conformity to central command.
    Charles’ constituency in the Scottish Highlands was a long way from the ‘Westminster bubble’.

    The price of food remains an issue, despite the passage of time and an increasing variety of imports.

  • Richard Underhill 25th Jul '15 - 10:51am

    John Roffey “Labour’s economic competence [coupled to an unconvincing Miliband]”

    There were two, or three, Milibands in the campaign. Ed had defeated his brother in an election, under Labour Party rules which have since been changed. Reportedly David’s 50th birthday party was not attended by Ed, reportedly lacking an invitation and maybe a desire to attend.

    Ed had said ” I am not Tony Blair” to applause from Labour delegates, and “I am not Gordon Brown either”, which was obviously true, but should personal ambitions from those with similar policies descend into the next generation?
    (It happened with two Liberal Prime Ministers).

    The third Miliband was a Marxist. Undeniably true and repeated in several newspapers, repeatedly, but how much influence was involved?

    A consequence was that Ed was not believed about relations with his brother and mistrusted about the influence of his father. After the result of the general election Ed resigned as Labour leader.

    His brother’s contract running a large international charity ends in 2018. The euro-elections will be in 2019, depending on the outcome of the referendum. The UK general election will be in 2020, unless the UK government is defeated in a motion of confidence, or no confidence, before then.

  • John Roffey:

    Renaming the Party? – Most of us had been thinking of shedding the word ‘Democrat’.

    P.S. If under Tim Farron we were renamed ‘Democrat’, wouldn’t the Party be labelled as the Christian Democrat Party?

  • Bill le Breton 25th Jul '15 - 10:52am

    Richard Underhill, did you see the so-called opinion polls, the actual questions and their ordering?

    If you are a member and belong to the ‘members’ forum’ you can follow a trail to see the types of questioning and their ordering in the one used in Solihull.

    They were the worst form of comfort polling and totally without use – £350,000 down the drain – other than to delude candidates and decision takers into erroneous targeting decisions.

  • Richard Underhill 25th Jul '15 - 11:24am

    Bill le Breton 25th Jul ’15 – 10:52am
    Thank you. The parliamentary candidate in Maidstone and The Weald had a brilliant record of achievement for the people of Maidstone, better broadband in Cranbrook, buses for school children, … and immense amounts of personal canvassing on the doorstep, compared with the Tory MP who was derided in the Daily Mail and out of her own mouth on U-Tube.
    The first opinion poll was shown to members and activists in Maidstone by Ryan Coetzee. There was another, but i did not see it.

  • Richard Underhill 25th Jul '15 - 11:44am

    Before “better broadband in Cranbrook, buses for school children, …”
    insert “air quality on the one way system in central Maidstone”

  • John Roffey 25th Jul '15 - 1:47pm

    Martin 25th Jul ’15 – 10:52am

    “P.S. If under Tim Farron we were renamed ‘Democrat’, wouldn’t the Party be labelled as the Christian Democrat Party?”

    Not a name I would choose, but In 2013 Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union won nearly 42% of the votes – I suspect quite a few Party members would live with even that name for a similar result!

    Democrats is enough.

  • John

    “Democrats”??? What a way to make us distinctive when every Party in Britain claims to be that!

    I have another suggestion: Soft Soap everyone likes that and it means about as much as “Democrats”

  • John Roffey 25th Jul '15 - 2:59pm

    Andrew 25th Jul ’15 – 2:14pm

    ““Democrats”??? What a way to make us distinctive when every Party in Britain claims to be that!”

    Andrew – the rationale is in my 7.49am post and my exchanges with Donald Smith above. Clearly there would be no point in naming the Party ‘Democrats’ if there were not a singular intention to improve the quality of democracy in the UK [demonstrated by its policies]. However, if there were, it would provide a clear distinction of a change in direction to what happened during the period of coalition – which has left the Party with a negative image.

    Also, with the Greens, UKIP and the national parties being L/D’s primary rivals – it does provide a unique identity which I am sure will be required if the Party is to claw back voters lost during the last five years – competition is now very fierce – unlike any the Party has faced in recent years.

  • John,

    I think Liberal Democrats does the job rather better… After all those lost votes did vote for that brand which has quite a long history in most of our target seats.

    I was elected as councillor in 1988 when the Party (known as the “Social and Liberal Democrats”) was at 3.5% in the National polls. My tag line was “Keeping up the Liberal Tradition”. “Liberal” does have some resonance you know, which the coalition has not entirely erased..

  • John Roffey:

    Have you read J.S.Mill ‘On Liberty’? Liberalism is the important word.

  • Bill le Breton 25th Jul '15 - 7:40pm

    Richard Underhill, sorry if this seems to labour the point – I wasn’t commenting on the abilities of your candidate and his team. I asked, did you see the the poll? That is did you see ALL the questions? Did you see the order of the questions? ie the ‘script’ that was followed?

  • John Roffey 25th Jul '15 - 8:06pm

    Andrew 25th Jul ’15 – 3:50pm

    “I think Liberal Democrats does the job rather better… After all those lost votes did vote for that brand which has quite a long history in most of our target seats.”

    … but has not done so at a time when there is such fierce competition for the votes of those who do not, for good reason, trust the politicians from the old mainstream parties. You remember the polls that showed the electorate thought they were less honest than estate agents – NC’s reversal on tuition fees is frequently raised when the Party is mentioned in the MSM. This is a huge handicap which has the potential to ensure that the Party is unable to recover. A change in party name would help to clearly distinguish what happened under the coalition from what is to come.

    I have nothing against liberalism – in fact its definition is the closest to my own political beliefs – I was a member of the Liberal Party about 10 years ago. I think, when David Green was General Secretary and worked on articles with him. However, unless the two parties can reunite so that the ‘Liberal Party’ name can be used again this cannot be used now – or would be fraught with difficulties:

    http://www.liberal.org.uk/index.htm

    We have to keep in mind that only some 20% of the voting public have any real understanding of what goes on politically – the majority are most influenced but what they see in the MSM – which, in the main, is heavily biased towards the Tories. The vast majority are certainly not influenced by the, mostly 19th century achievements of the Liberal Party in the UK. I am just trying to be practical at a very difficult time for the Party.

    New Liberal Party?

  • Richard Underhill 25th Jul '15 - 10:53pm

    Bill le Breton 25th Jul ’15 – 7:40pm
    i was late for the meeting, so may have missed something at the beginning. We were not issued with a printout of the first poll and I did not see the second. Maidstone was the last seat in England not held by an MP to be targetted, according to Paddy Ashdown. There was also Montomeryshire.
    i felt that something went out of the life of the campaign at about that time, but, if HQ were providing money they would want to control the political direction.

  • James Spackman 26th Jul '15 - 9:18am

    Good article, building on comments made by Andrew Marr on election night.

    For me we must simplify the message for clarity:

    Right-wingers want lower taxes, but lower taxes mean less freedom if you can’t afford it.
    Left-wingers want higher taxes, but higher taxes means greater dependency for anyone in need.
    Liberals want fairer taxes – because fairness creates opportunity for everyone!

  • Bill le Breton 26th Jul '15 - 11:58am

    Thank you Richard. Forgive me if I appear rude in having pursued this. It is just that I have seen a few of the actual surveys, I find it amazing that no-one bothered to look at the full survey, but left it to relatively inexperienced people to both devise the survey and selectively brief on the findings*

    For info; this is how they were done. Early in the survey a Voter Intention question was asked (VI 1) there followed at some stage a process of so called testing of messages. These were all positive in relation to LD policies centrally and locally and locally mentioning the LD candidate by name. They were followed by attack messages against the opponent ie. The Conservatives are backing X … or your local Conserevative council has done Y (where the main opponent was a Conservative).

    There then followed a second Voting Intention question (VI 2). Not unsurprisingly this figure was circa 50% higher than the answers for VI 1.

    Had the Party taken the VI 1 and, where applicable added say 5% for incumbency, they would probably have got a reasonably accurate figure for what happened on May 7th. In the case of your constituency there would not have been an incumbency boost. I am willing to bet that your VI 1 was probably on the mark. I am willing to bet that no one at the meeting you attended was given that figure.

    On the members’ forum site there is a justification given for this – along the lines of ‘we knew what the negative attacks on us would be and therefore didn’t need to test these’. This produced a push poll. It was comfort polling pure and simple.

    *it should be recalled that the actual polling company that collected the info refused to put their name to it and explained that they did the work on a tab and field basis ie they had no part in the questioning or its order or its manipulation. That alone should have set alarm bells ringing.

    We therefore based our targeting on unreliable polling information and no actual field work done by experienced people on the ground to assess the real capacity of each campaign selected as a target.

    It is interesting to read that you thought some of the life went out of the campaign when the constituency had been given target status.

  • Richard Underhill 26th Jul '15 - 12:55pm

    Bill le Breton 26th Jul ’15 – 11:58am
    I live in the constituency and borough of Tunbridge Wells, but spent most of my time canvassing in Maidstone, which had an excellent candidate in Jasper Gerard, very hard working.
    Maidstone borough council has different boundaries from the constituency of Maidstone and the Weald.
    The Tories lost overall control of the borough council in May 2014. A Tory councillor resigned in disgust and left the area. The council by-election in Staplehurst was won by a Liberal Democrat, (despite the World Cup) with a majority of six votes (compared with Jasper’s forecast of five). At that stage we had momentum.
    The Tory MP had been criticised for issues on expenses, not living locally, and incompetence and ignorance about her job as a minister in sports and the Passport Office.
    Maidstone did a huge Thank You party for Jasper Gerard. The regional chairman Paul Heinekins wasa there (sorry if i have mis-spelt his surname). He said he was influential in diverting money to Maidstone (and thereby away for Eastbourne and Lewes?)

  • Bill le Breton 26th Jul '15 - 1:59pm

    Thank you Richard. I don’t know Jasper Gerard but I firmly believe that his book, ‘The Clegg Coup’, should be required reading.

  • David Evans 26th Jul '15 - 2:43pm

    Of course the real comfort part of the Comfort polling was to give comfort to MPs around the Euro elections that their seats were safe or at least “in play” so any change of leadership was un-necessary and damaging. Hence Julian told his constituency meeting which was discussing replacing Nick with the message that if we replaced Nick he would lose his seat. As we all know, Julian lost his seat and the last chance to replace Nick and make a try to save the party was lost.

  • Brilliant argument Fergus, agree entirely!

  • Bill,

    You have to remember though that the Ashcroft polls, that did not ask any leading questions, were just as comforting and just as wrong as the internal polls. The only thing Ashcroft did was ask firstly “how would you vote in a General Election tomorrow (Standard voting intention, SVI) and secondly “taking into account the situation in your constituency, how would you vote” (CVI). In Lib Dem held seats the CVI was invariably much better than the SVI, and what really happened turned out to be in between or nearer to the SVI. However Ashcroft evidently either believed in the CVI or wanted people to believe in it (that being the conspiracy theory!), since CVI is his headline figure here http://lordashcroftpolls.com/constituency-polls/ (if you want to find the SVI and the tables you have to find the article when they were first reported).

    Interestingly, one place we did better than Ashcroft was Hallam (and that may have been due to a late squeeze of Tory voters, and the result was within margin of error anyway)

    In LAB-CON marginals SVI and CVI were often very similar, but Ashcroft mostly had Labour doing much better than they did in both measures.

    The Ashcroft polls were the reason that 90% of the pundits predicted > 20 Lib Dem seats…

  • BTW Ashcroft has produced no explanation for why his £multimillion investment in constituency polling was so wrong…

    But it was rumoured that the methodology was the same as used by the Tories in their own polls…

  • Bill le Breton 28th Jul '15 - 6:57pm

    Andrew – all good points. But Ashcroft’s were not nearly as comforting as the Party’s. For instance where Ashcroft had a seat neck and neck or plus 1, the Party’s polling had it at +13%

    The Ashcroft constituency VI was designed to identify both incumbency and ground war effects. But our ground campaigns were seriously degraded and the Tory use of social media so much more significant. Which is why the standard VI was a far better guide.

    On the question of the general over optimism of the press it needs to be recalled that Ashcroft did not poll all LD held seats. There were a considerable number of seats he thought non marginal (on the safe side)and didn’t poll. I cd never understand this as quite a few of those were on my June 2014 ‘seriously concerned’ list. Journalists, like Ashcroft, or taking a lead from Ashcroft, started counting from the wrong base figure. Certainly we did.

    By beef has always been that our polling’s first VI was a wiser guide. That there was no reliable intelligence from the ground. Campaigns went to Dragons, not Dragons to campaigns. Dragons were generally not experienced campaigners. Area agents were extremely inexperienced and were more intent on message discipline than assessing strength. And as a result the summer of 2014 was wasted as an opportunity to do a hard assessment of where the true political frontier lay.

    (This is not hindsight as I was expressing these concerns on the private forum.)

  • Bill,

    I think what you are saying is that the Tory groundwar was far more effective than ours… Seems to have been true, but still we have beaten them in recent local by-elections where they evidently tried hard… So I am not sure it is the groundwar compared to the way it reinforced the airwar of fear of the SNP and coalition in general

    But still the Ashcroft polls were a bit all over the place even compared to the actual results, and I think any constituency poll is vulnerable to systematic errors (the demographics used are based on the census which can easily be inaccurate locally due to changes or just data entry error…). Of course most of them were from 2014 as well.The other problem is always getting enough young voters…

    The one that really fooled me was Watford, where Ashcroft did 3 polls in 2014, the last just after Dorothy Thornhill was selected where we went up strongly. I really thought having a Mayor who had got 46% of the vote standing and good local government results would at least put us in with a chance…

    Also seats like Twickenham and Thornbury and Yate should have been held if the Tories and us had been on 34% and 9% as in the final polls… So electoral calculus type application of swing had us doing better than we did..

    I still think the best way to do a constituency poll is just to give people the ballot paper and ask them to fill it in… By the end of the campaign that should work well…

    Hopefully the Party will listen to more experienced campaigners next time. Tim Farron knows what to do if his local results are anything to go by!

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