Yesterday Party President Sal Brinton was interviewed by Dermot Murnaghan for Sky News.
You can read the full transcript of the interview here, but here are some snippets:
DM: … you are in touch with the Lib Dem grassroots as President and we heard from Lord Steel, the former leader, saying there is no appetite amongst Lib Dems for another coalition.
SAL BRINTON: That’s not the grassroots that I’ve been talking to.
DM: Now tell me about the polling, we can’t ignore that, 8% in the latest poll, it is looking pretty bad for the Liberal Democrats, you could finish as the fifth, sixth party.
SAL BRINTON: I think what is going to be interesting is the number of seats that we retain and many, many political pundits are saying we are going to do much better in terms of seats so for once, first past the post might actually benefit the party but what we do know is that where we can get out message out directly to voters and not mediated through the local press and the national press, actually people like what we’ve been doing and that’s why we are very strong in the areas. They also like our MPs, there is a strong incumbency factor, so I suspect we will have more than 8% of MPs in the next parliament.
DM: But how much of his [Clegg’s] fire does he turn on David Cameron? We hear that the two men got on very well, you were just telling me that is part of the reason why the coalition has lasted those five years after all the naysayers. How does he then turn round and criticise a lot of what David Cameron has done?
SAL BRINTON: Well it’s not about what the Conservatives have done, it’s what the Conservatives propose and therein lies the big difference between the two parties.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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15 Comments
Can we get away from saying that FPTP might benefit us?
Even in the best of scenarios, FPTP will still give us far less seats than our proportion of votes.
If we got 10% of the vote, 10% of the seats is 65 and I can’t see us getting anywhere near that.
FPTP might not screw us over quite as badly as it usually does, but that’s still a far cry from saying it will benefit us!
Totally agree with Daniel Henry’s comment on FPTP.
FPTP will kill us off as a party, if not at this election then at the next one if we go into coalition again.
Ah yes, blame it on the press and the local press. It is depressing to have a President who is out of touch with both the grassroots of the Party and basic maths. No one in their right mind is suggesting we will get more than 8% of the seats (48+)
And when we don’t do better than the polls are suggesting and when we are 5th place in 550 seats, how do we rebuild ? Sal Brinton hasn’t got an answer. And if we go into another coalition – do we expect to lose a further 2/3 of our remaining support ? Or do we think if you play your cards right you can increase your support whilst in coalition which rather suggests that the handling of the current coalition has been a right mess.
” Well it’s not about what the Conservatives have done, it’s what the Conservatives propose and therein lies the big difference between the two parties.”
No, there in lies the small difference between the leadership of the parties, others of us have longed wish to see foor example redistributive economic policy and constitutional reform, which seem of no interest to the Danny Alexanders of the world.
I am one of the grassroots who supported the last coalition with the Conservatives and would support another coalition with the largest party after the coming election.
The Lib Dems were able tohave a referendum on the AV system. The public soundly rejected it. Whilst there are various alternatives for a PR system we can’t expect the public to differentiate between them. So there is no appetitite for another referendum on the voting system.
8% of the seats sounds like a realistic target to aim for and comparison of our eventual seats with share of vote is a good defence of the seats we win under the FPTP system.
Lib Dem policy on economics is to be liberal, for free markets and free trade and only to intervene where strictly necessary to correct markets where competition is unfair. We are not a socialist party.
David Evershed – spot on
@David Evershed
“The Lib Dems were able to have a referendum on the AV system”
No we weren’t. We mostly just had a referendum on Nick Clegg in 98 per cent of the land. In bits of those small proportion of places that did not have elections at the time of the AV vote, the ‘Yes’ won quite handsomely.
A coalition with the largest party if possible, yes- for a price. They will have their price too of course, but let us be clear about ours. If we are not to have constitutional reform, then we need to get substantially more policy concessions than we did in 2010. The existence of other options (SNP, DUP, whatever) is a good thing- it means we can walk away without fearing we just forced an early election. And we must have the courage to walk away if the deal on the table is not good enough.
We cannot sensibly join a coalition if we have less than 40-45 seats.
Tony
Having read the full interview, I hope Sal and our candidates, especially those who might appear in the media, have a better grasp of where the £8 billion for the NHS is coming from.
I have distributed many leaflets containing this promise, but, while they detail what is being spent on the NHS, there is a real shortage of any detail as to where the money will be raised from.
Can anyone answer this?
of the course the ‘I know better than the President’ brigade come out of their lairs and try to pull her apart.
Sal was actually miles better than I had expected her to be, and whether you agree factually with what she said, she took the anticipated questions and gave them an excellent and confident twist to present the Party in a good light. That she did well, and I hope she will be in front of the cameras regularly.
@Tony Greaves Why not? The DUP are quite happy to join a coalition with 9 seats.
Of course, what we mustn’t do is pretend that the ratio of the big party’s seats to the small party’s determines power- we as the small party have to be clear that this is a partnership and without us the big party wouldn’t have a government, so they’re going to have to implement some of our policies. If the big party refuses, we need the courage to walk. This- a refusal on policy grounds- is a much better line of events than sulking the corner crying “we only have 39 seats, coalition is impossible”.
John Barrett
My understanding is that extra council tax bands at the top end will raise £2.5bn and changes to the tax laws to block avoidance will raise £5.5bn . I think increased tax take from economic growth is also factored in somewhere.
I hope the manifesto launch will give us more detail.
There is also an issue about whether the extra cash for mental health is part of, or in addition to, closing the £8bn NHS gap.
I’ve just had a gushing congratulatory message from Sal Brinton on my excellent choice (not cancelling my direct debit for my membership) and she seems to be identifying so thoroughly with the leadership line that there must be doubts about whether she can act as an authoritative referee or a bearer of hard advice in the likely event of internal conflicts in the wake of the election result.
I hope that’s a wrong impression created by the need to talk with one voice during the election.
I’m surprised by some comments today. What is 8% of 650 seats in the HoC?