Tag Archives: party messaging

Peter Black

What should the Liberal Democrats stand for?

By Peter Black | Sun 31st May 2026 - 7:55 am

Listening to David Miliband at the Hay Literary Festival a few days ago, two things that he said struck me as interesting.

The first was that the Labour government had been elected to effect change, but they have not changed enough. The second related to the high number of young people who have left school with no education, employment or training opportunity. Where is the triple lock for that cohort, he asked.

Of course, both of these statements are easy soundbites, needing much more policy detail and commitment before any government can make a difference, but if, as is the case, people are disillusioned with Starmer’s administration, and are casting around for an alternative, then why have the Liberal Democrats not stepped into the breach?

Just over a week ago from the time of writing this, Harrogate MP, Tom Gordon, posed the question on Liberal Democrat Voice of what his, and my party, should stand for.

He pulled out three examples from the King’s Speech, where the Lib Dems could adopt a distinctive position. These were a full ban on conversion therapy, with no exceptions, Leasehold Reform and opposition to digital ID.

My purpose is writing this is not to disagree with Tom’s analysis but to seek to extend it to a fuller list of how the Liberal Democrats can promote a radical and bold programme for change that will make people sit up and listen, a broader canvass if you like.

My list is not comprehensive and there will be items that others will want to add or take away from it, but if we are to use the opportunities that present themselves to grow our party then we need a narrative that will capture people’s imagination.

Above all, we need an engaged leadership who are prepared to embrace an agenda for change in a serious and compelling way, without the stunts and gimmicks that have lost us support in the past. 

None of these suggestions are new, it’s just that the party has appeared too timid to fight for them in the past.

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Posted in Op-eds | 22 Comments
Imaduddin Ahmed

Our messaging on Palestine did not cut through

By Imaduddin Ahmed | Mon 18th May 2026 - 2:22 pm

The fallout from this year’s local elections has sparked an important conversation about where our Party goes next. I was recently one of just eight Lib Dem candidates elected to the Council in Haringey, where we worked the soles off our shoes to win twenty-one seats from a base of seven. Without any door-knocking, the Green Party won one of our safest seats and set us back in others. Our experience has been mirrored in other metropolitan areas full of disaffected Labour voters, including other boroughs of London, Manchester (see Jonathan Moore’s “What did the Greens have that we didn’t” and Shaun Ennis’ “Standing Still”), Sheffield, Bradford and Birmingham.

In contrast to the Greens, we lacked coherent national messaging. Apart from Ed boycotting the King’s banquet for Trump over Gaza, which was mentioned positively at the door, we ceded ground to the Greens on agreed upon Lib Dem policy. Erstwhile Lib Dems told me that they didn’t see the Party on the screen, nor know what we stood for any longer. Even an affluent progressive voter told me she felt unrepresented.

By contrast, the Greens have been far more successful at projecting a coherent, values-based identity. Voters saw Zack Polanski as bold, willing to challenge injustice and take clear positions, even where doing so carries political risk.

Palestine is clearly part of that picture.

Voters are looking to be inspired by parties willing to stand up consistently for international law and a values-based foreign policy. The Greens’ vocal and highly visible stance on Palestine has enabled them to fill that space, and there is growing evidence that this has translated into electoral gains in Labour-facing urban areas where we might otherwise have advanced.

In Birmingham, for example, the Greens climbed from 2 seats to 19 while the Liberal Democrats remained static at 12, despite expectations that we would emerge as the main opposition to Reform. This must surely bear some relation to the Greens’ greater clarity on Palestine in a city with four universities, a highly educated Labour vote, and many Muslims, who feel besieged by anti-Muslim Labour and Tory messaging, never mind Reform.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 12 Comments
Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes: What are we campaigning FOR?

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 26th August 2025 - 11:57 am

The Liberal Party I joined in 1960 was far better at thinking than campaigning.  The party leader, Jo Grimond, published several books, with radical proposals ranging from co-ownership to joining the ‘Common Market’ and cancelling the independent deterrent.  There were multiple policy groups, several academically-led bodies like the ‘Unservile State Group’ that published their own lengthy analyses, and a Liberal Summer School.  We weren’t much good at campaigning, but we prided ourselves on being ‘the party of ideas’.

Young Liberals in the 1960s also loved debating policy, but after the setbacks of the 1964 and 1966 elections were critical of the amateurish approach to campaigning.  Community politics proved itself from local successes, and rising generations of Liberal campaigners learned how to win, one ward and one seat after another, through pounding the pavements and taking up local issues.  Several decades later, the 2024 election showed what we can achieve through targeted campaigning.  But facing an electorate that is more and more sceptical of all politicians, we risk being seen as nice, friendly but hard to define in political terms.  The Labour government is now being criticised for having no overall message to underpin its policies.  We are in danger of attracting similar criticism.

So we need to spend more time thinking, making political discussion and informed proposals complement continued campaigning.  Party policy-making runs through an unavoidable cycle between elections: immediate exhaustion after each election, with new MPs, Councillors and members finding their feet and defining their roles; sufficient experience and time in the second and third years to try out new ideas and shape them into attractive and practical policies; greater caution about floating new ideas as the next election approaches, as party strategists boil down policy packages into messages and manifesto and guard against hostile publicity exploiting any half-prepared idea that is floated.  

We need to be particularly attentive during this political cycle for two reasons: first, that the most likely outcome of the 2028-9 election is that no party wins an overall majority (unless, horror of horrors, Reform sweeps in), and that we find ourselves as a potential partner in whatever government is formed; second, that the economic and international situation which that new government faces will be at least as grim as it is today.  Many Liberal Democrats will groan at the suggestion that we might once again go into government, particularly if we were not the senior partner.  But we could not refuse to negotiate if the outcome is unclear, and if – for example – we find ourselves with 100 MPs or more in a 3-party negotiation (an entirely possible scenario) we will be in a much stronger position than in 2010, provided we have prepared carefully and have agreed priorities.

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John Grout

Why are we not leaning into our radical side?

By John Grout | Wed 9th April 2025 - 6:55 am

In recent months, a direction of travel has emerged for the party. One might expect that faced with a right-leaning, technocratic Labour party that’s disappointing in government, we Lib Dems would lean into our radical side, channelling Kennedy in a full-throated stand for our values to outflank Labour, if not wholly to the left, then certainly on a more radical side.

That is not what has been happening – if anything we remain more fixated on last year’s battles against the Conservatives. Flashes of radicalism are visible in our opposition to Trump and Farage, and standing up for communities. But in recent months we have also seen signs that the appetite for being the party of Kennedy is not there, despite the widening gap there in British politics.

For instance, the ‘Buy British, back Britain’ line coming out of HQ sits uncomfortably with both our values and our – in my opinion, much better – messaging about supporting our allies. As Liberals, we should not be joining the throngs manning the battlements and pulling up the drawbridges, instead being consistent in reminding everyone of the value of a community of nations working together. We’re doing that already with our robust rhetoric about aligning strongly with our European and Commonwealth allies – our messaging about whose products we buy should echo that. ‘Buy local, buy liberal’ would allow us to champion our own producers as well as goods from nations that uphold our values.

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Posted in Op-eds | 18 Comments
Rob Parsons

New Year, New Message?

By Rob Parsons | Tue 2nd January 2024 - 1:51 pm

So often the principles of liberalism are – rightly and reasonably – tempered in Liberal Democrat campaigns by the need to couch our message in forms appealing to voters. I believe that the next election is one of those rare moments of confluence where the core messages of liberalism are exactly what voters want and need to hear. The unapologetic promotion of liberal principles will give the country the hope, the promise and the solace which the large majority of voters and citizens now seek.

Whatever the complexion of the new government, it will inherit a wrecked economy and a shattered society. This reality should not deter us from offering a sweeping and hopeful vision of what Britain can be like if the right steps are taken now. The right steps are completely in tune with the vision of liberalism for empowered citizens living in equitable and vibrant communities within a competent state.

The preamble to our constitution reads “no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”. Our leaders are plagued by poverty of vision, by ignorance of the array of solutions available and by conformity to desiccated doctrines like the necessity to “honour” Brexit.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 26 Comments
NewsHound

Mark Pack hits back at activists who called for bolder, distinctive offer to voters

By NewsHound | Wed 6th December 2023 - 1:26 pm

Last week we brought you news that 30 senior Liberal Democrats had written to the Guardian to say that the party should have a bolder, more distinctive offer to voters.

It’s only fair that we bring you the party president’s letter to the Guardian, defending the party against these claims. Mark Pack said:

Far from being too cautious, the Liberal Democrats under Ed Davey have shown incredible boldness (Lib Dems are being too cautious, say senior party members, 29 November). We are the only party committed to 0.7% on international aid, to proportional representation and to combating climate change. Above all, we are the only party to have a real plan to transform our broken relationship with Europe.

With Ed Davey as leader, our plan to get this Conservative government out of power is working, the team is united and we are winning again. Since 2020, we have taken the fight to the Conservatives – in record-breaking byelections in former safe seats from Buckinghamshire to Shropshire. We have added swathes of councillors across the country. The Liberal Democrats are the only party that wants to radically change the system from vested powers to fairer votes. We can only achieve this change through winning elections, with more MPs, more councillors, more assembly members in Wales and more MSPs in Scotland.

However, two other letters from Liberal Democrats on the same day had a different view:

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