Wow! What a year 2015 was! It is staggering to think that just 12 short months ago we were in coalition. Now we have eight MPs. Despite that Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour party, leaving us with a centre-left vacuum to move into.
Coalition was by no means perfect. The vast majority of members and voters can agree on that. I believe tuition fees was a big mistake. It was wrong to go back on a key commitment in the manifesto. We most a lot of trust after that and we paid a heavy price in May. We lost 49 liberal democrat representatives in the Commons.
Another failure of coalition was communication. We were so busy showing that coalition worked we did not announce where we disagreed with the Tories. I think this was a key factor in the public feeling that we were “in bed with the Tories”. Progress was made on this but far too late. For the Chancellor’s final budget ministers produced an alternative Liberal Democrat budget. We should have been doing that for the whole government.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
North East Lib Dem conference
Alexei Sayle dandled the infant Jacob Rees-Mogg on his knee
Latest voting intention and leadership ratings opinion polls
A magnificent Norman Abbey
Simon Robinson 
Mark Smulian 
Steve Trevethan 
Chloe 
Nonconformistradical 