Tag Archives: For a Fair Deal

We need to champion radical and avant-garde policies

By Patrick Streeter | Tue 5th December 2023 - 10:40 am

The Lib Dems are bumbling along at the lower end of the polls at about 12% of the vote. Reform UK and the Greens are lapping at their heels, and if the Libs Dems are not careful, they will be eclipsed by one or both of them. Both Tories and Labour are in disarray, but in spite of this, the Lib Dems are making no headway. All they are doing is just scooping up the protest vote. Why is this? It is because they have no imaginative policies.

I have studied the policy paper, For a Fair Deal. It is fine as far as it goes, but a bit limp. It is full of targets, without any explanation on how they are to be achieved. In its core is a contradiction. As large an elephant in the room as anyone might find. On page ten we state that, with the exception of emergencies, we will balance the budget, but on twenty-one other occasions we commit ourselves to investments, without showing how they will be funded. It would be fine if we are applying Keynesian economics, the jewel in the crown of the Liberal armoury, but we do not.