Tag Archives: political strategy

Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: Swirling unease among urban Lib Dems

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 18th May 2026 - 5:14 pm

The celebratory yellow smoke from the 2024 general election may have cleared, but inside the local party branches of some of our major cities a very different kind of atmosphere is settling in. It is a thick, unmistakable sense of urban unease.

Whilst the national narrative remains focused on the “Blue Wall” breakthroughs, a growing contingent of activists and councillors in our urban heartlands are beginning to ask a difficult but very necessary question: at what cost?

As others have intimated on this website over the past week, in the wake of recent local election results the mood among urban Lib Dems has shifted from quiet concern to open frustration and potential dissent.

I got a sense of this when, on Thursday evening, whilst on the train travelling down to London to appear on Talk, I got a message from a very prominent city-based Lib Dem asking if I had a few minutes for a chat. In our subsequent phone call this person, usually very affable, was noticeably reaching the end of their tether at what they perceive as the party leadership all but abandoning us being competitive in urban areas. I gave this a brief mention on Talk later that evening and clipped it up for social media the next day. The reaction from others in the party was interesting and, in some cases, very telling. Whilst most folks agreed that something is going very badly wrong others tried to suggest that everything is hunky dory in the party and there are no problems.

As I suggested on my Political Frenemies podcast on Friday evening, sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the reality of a situation is not a very sensible or useful way to behave for a political party.

For years the party’s strategy has pivoted heavily toward suburban and rural gains – a strategy that undeniably delivered seats in Parliament. However, on the ground in our cities, many feel the federal party is leaving them to rot.

Several well-known figures within the party have now broken ranks. Tom Gordon MP, Cllr Victor Chamberlain and former London Mayoral candidate Rob Blackie have all waded in. In private forums and increasingly public social media posts, activists are criticising recent local election results as a sign of an ever-narrowing political identity for the party. It is clear that tailoring our message so specifically to disenchanted Conservatives in the shires, we are becoming background noise in the diverse, high-density wards of the English North and Midlands.

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 18 May 2026 – five/six party politics requires a new approach

By Mark Valladares | Mon 18th May 2026 - 7:30 am

155 net gains in terms of seats, 3 net gains in terms of councils, more MSPs in Scotland were the headlines after the elections eleven days ago. On the face of it, it looked reasonably good. Not great, but another advance nonetheless.

But, behind the headlines, it has become increasingly apparent that all is not well in terms of the Party’s progress. So many contributions reached us from across the nations, highlighting tales of good campaigns and hard work overtaken by Greens or Reform candidates whose clear messages and perceived alternative to a failed status quo appealed to voters in a way that we didn’t or, perhaps more worryingly, couldn’t.

As an editorial team, even as a medium independent of the Party, we retain a broad loyalty. We don’t want to rock the boat just because we can. But we do believe that we have an obligation to offer a space for members and supporters to debate the issues of the day and it is clear that there is significant dissatisfaction with the strategy of the Party at the centre.

Many potential solutions have been offered over the past week, much of which has come down to expressing more clearly what we, as liberals, believe in. And whilst I would never suggest that I am any sort of political strategist, I have always believed that the policies of a political party should be able to be easily surmised from the basic ideology it expresses. That becomes rather harder if you don’t really expound a political philosophy.

I’m not a radical for the sake of radicalism but it seems to me at least that we have to be clearer about the sort of world we want to create – the “vision thing”, if you like. The Greens and Reform currently have that clear vibe where, even if you have no real idea of what they would do in power, you can superimpose your dreams onto them. They have an identity that we currently don’t.

To make matters worse, the complications of five or six party politics don’t appear to have been entirely factored in. We’re still locked into a strategy of “only we can beat X here” and, whilst that’s effective against deeply unpopular Labour and the Conservatives, and has value against Reform if we have demonstrated that we’re the obvious choice to keep them out, we don’t seem to be able to deal with opposition from both political flanks at the same time in places where we haven’t got a firm presence. And there are too many of those.

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Kevin Chun

Londoners need hope – our Party offers none

By Kevin Chun | Wed 13th May 2026 - 8:47 am

These local elections were successful for many, and yes, we should be celebrating. But as someone who fought in Central London — a Zone 1 ward, as central as it gets — I can’t honestly say I feel happy.

Everyone keeps talking about the Lib Dem tortoise, the slow and steady march forward, but all I can think of is the Blackadder episode where they measured gains on the Western Front with a tape measure. Being a Lib Dem in Central London feels exactly like trench warfare.

It feels like we have out-of-touch generals sitting miles behind the lines, poring over maps, insisting victory is just around the corner, while sending activists over the top with bayonets against machine guns. Every election we’re ordered forward again into impossible territory, and every time the dispatches come back from HQ saying: good progress elsewhere, keep sacrificing for the cause. Meanwhile, the people actually in the trenches are exhausted, abandoned, and ignored.

I’m sorry, but we cannot carry on like this.

In two years, 72 MPs have done virtually nothing for communities like mine. People on estates in London are struggling now. Families need lower bills now, safer streets now, housing now, hope now. Instead, what do we get? Vague promises about half-price energy bills in 2035, and a leader who seems obsessed with church roofs while the country falls apart around us.

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Rob Blackie

The biggest risk is playing it safe

By Rob Blackie | Tue 12th May 2026 - 8:58 am

It’s a few years into a Labour government, who are making unpopular decisions. And in the London elections – we surge to power as the biggest party, or main opposition party, in Lambeth, Southwark, Brent, Camden, Islington and many other London boroughs.

2002 was a great year for us in London, and other cities where we fought Labour. We leapt forward as progressive voters switched from Labour to us.

By contrast in 2026 our vote share in inner London boroughs was the worst since 1978. We aren’t running any inner London boroughs. We are only even the main opposition party in one, Brent.

This isn’t just a London, or a city, problem though. Our 2026 local election vote share of 14% is worse than in the coalition year of 2011 – and our lowest in 8 years.

Why is this?

The youthfulness of modern cities seems an easy place to turn for an answer – dominated as they are by working age people. But this is simply a sign of our failure to reach these voters.

Liberal values in Britain are, generally, most strongly held by younger people. We should be doing much better among the working age voters.

We have this opportunity – but why aren’t we exploiting it?

Pollster Chris Annous points out that most voters do not believe that the Liberal Democrats actually want to change our country. In fact they see us as representatives of the status quo, alongside Labour and the Conservatives. And the public desperately wants to see Britain changed.

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Jude Parker

The Overton Window – what Liberal Democrats can learn from Nigel Farage

By Jude Parker | Mon 22nd September 2025 - 4:30 pm

I expect many LDV readers will by now have seen the interview where Ed was asked the question “can women have penises?” 10 times. He dodges and dances around the point, trying to find the middle ground that will please both sides. He inevitably fails and erodes trust from everyone, who rightfully see a politician trying to avoid saying what he really thinks.

Imagine, if you will, an alternate timeline. The first time he’s asked, Ed answers Piers with “yes. Trans women are women, and some trans women have not had bottom surgery, therefore some women have penises”. The next day, that quote is splashed across the headlines. “Lib dem leader says some women have penises”.

Does that scare you, dear reader? And, more importantly, should it scare you?

In this article, I hope to convince you that it is both best for the party AND best for the country to revel in this sort of controversy. State our liberal values, especially the ones we’re afraid will put people off, and state them as loudly and unambiguously as possible.

And so, we come to Nigel Farage. What can we say about him?

  • He likes lager
  • His political views are abhorrent, but because he consistently and unambiguously says what he stands for, the electorate trust him
  • He has probably done more to change the political landscape of the UK in the 21st century than any other single person (despite failing to be elected to parliament multiple times, and still having a parliamentary party that could fit in a pedalo)

… but how has he done it? Well…

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Adam Robertson

In Defence of Nick

By Adam Robertson | Wed 28th May 2025 - 2:01 pm

Nick Clegg, is arguably the best modern Liberal Democrat British Politician by virtue through taking the party into power in 2010. You may be thinking why does he need defending within our own party? That is a good question considering if he was in the Conservative and Labour Parties, he would be feted (apart from Tony Blair due to Iraq) for taking the party into Government for the first time since the Second World War. Yet  Mathew Hulbert suggests it would be wise for him to make fewer public interventions as possible, despite being a former Deputy Prime Minister.

Why do some members of our party feel this way about Nick Clegg, considering the Coalition was ten years ago? The British public seem to have reluctantly accepted that the Coalition cuts were necessary compared to the current Labour Government ones. As Mathew says in his article, Nick did help to bring in Equal Marriage with Lynne Featherstone, but Nick also helped to bring in the Pupil Premium, lifted three million people out of Income Tax, and restored the link between pensions and earnings. I can go on, but the main achievements can be found here. 

Admittedly, I accept that the Party lost 49 seats at the 2015 General Election. It is clear that the negotiating team could have got a better deal from the Conservatives, particularly on constitutional and political reform, and on the issue of Europe. Let us not get started on the issue of tuition fees, which should have been handled better especially the politics of it, although I think Nick is not completely to blame here. 

However, it is only fair to assess the legacy of the Coalition, when both constituent parts are out of Government completely. The Financial Times has pointed out that we could benefit from the coalition legacy, as Labour faces the reality of governing. 

Nick may not have  broken the mould’ in challenging the Conservative and Labour dominance within our electoral system during his time as Leader, although I argue even more important was that he could see that the political axis was changing from the traditional economic axis of redistribution v tax cuts, to a cultural axis of liberalism v authoritarianism. 

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Peter Wrigley

Politics must change

By Peter Wrigley | Wed 16th April 2025 - 8:32 am

Now that the United States has abdicated from its position of leader and protector of the “free world” politicians of all parties are in agreement that ”the world has changed” and we must change with it.  I believe that, looking backwards for half a century or so rather than just from  the accession President Trump, and forward for another fifty years rather than to the next election, we need a fundamental shift in the political debate in at least the following  areas.

Physical Standard of Living

For a least a century and a half there has been an assumption that each generation should enjoy a better material standard of living  their parents.  In our developed economies we must abandon his idea.  Yes, there will be advances in medicine and other scientific areas, in arts, music and leisure pursuits,  which improve our quality of life, but we already have the capability of affording everyone a decent material standard of living, provided we share more equitably.

Climate Change

We have to take this very seriously indeed: it is not just an optional add-on but must be central to our policies.  The current Labour government seems to be prepared to postpone or even ditch policies to limit damage to the environment if they impede short run physical growth and employment. We need to find other ways of “ raising all boats” to an acceptable standard.  Better sharing is the obvious one.

Inequality

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Nick Baird

The challenge for liberals everywhere – what if Trump’s policies actually work?

By Nick Baird | Sun 26th January 2025 - 1:00 pm

A provocative title? Of course there is much to offend us in President Trump’s pronouncements, along with the character and antics of his various nominations to Government posts. But if we previously assumed that much of what he said was bluster, we now have to face the reality that he means what he says, and consider what the outcomes might be. In particular, what if he succeeds?

This is not a simple question. To start with – what does “success” look like? We often condense that into simple numbers – GDP growth, inflation, stock market indices and unemployment figures. It is certainly possible that by these simplistic measures, and in the short term, Trump might succeed and grow the US economy without runaway inflation. With the world’s reserve currency and largest economy under his control, he has options not available to the UK and most other countries, and if he can bully OPEC into increasing oil & gas production alongside increases in US domestic production, falling energy costs might offset the inflationary effects of import tariffs, along with his programme of deregulation and gutting of Government Agencies tasked with policing and enforcing what regulations remain.

I know what you’re thinking (because you’re reading LDV) – what about the cost? What about climate change and damage to the environment? What about all the lives destroyed when settled yet illegal migrants get rounded up and deported? What about inequality and minorities? What about healthcare and reproductive rights?

And you are absolutely correct, but what will the headlines be? Particularly when the full impact of some of his policies may not be felt until after he leaves office.

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Mo Waqas

A Vision for Change: embracing the political middle ground

By Mo Waqas | Fri 1st November 2024 - 9:52 am

In today’s political landscape, many feel disillusioned. Labour seems unable to fulfill its promises, while the Conservative Party’s long tenure has left a bitter taste. This climate presents a unique opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to step forward and appeal to those who feel politically homeless.

Our approach must prioritize practical, common-sense policies that harness the power of logic over divisive rhetoric. We must address the pressing concerns facing the UK today—ones that impact the everyday lives of the working class. From the increasing cost of living to the scarcity of high-quality jobs, we need to offer solutions that resonate with those who feel left behind by the political establishment. It’s crucial that we don’t simply offer critiques of other parties but provide a grounded, realistic alternative that people can truly believe in.

Addressing the Rise of Far-Right Sentiment

Across Europe and the US, we’ve seen the dangers of far-right movements gaining traction by preying on people’s frustrations. Far-right ideologies often thrive in environments where individuals feel their voices aren’t heard, especially as they contend with economic hardship or lack of opportunities. In the UK, recent protests and social movements indicate a rising frustration and a void in representation for moderate and rational perspectives.

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Posted in Op-eds | 20 Comments
Mark Valladares

LibLink: Should the Liberal Democrats move to the right economically?

By Mark Valladares | Sat 21st September 2024 - 5:22 pm

Catching up on my reading, I came across this advice from “The Economist” from Wednesday.

With the ongoing debate about overtaking the Conservatives at the next election, and with real questions about the political direction of the Conservative Party under a new leader, what, if anything, should we change as we face a Labour Party with a vast majority and emerging challenges from the Greens and Reform UK?

The Economist sums its advice up thus:

Britain has a two-party system designed, broadly, to produce one party more to the left economically and another more to the right economically. Labour has sewn up

…

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Lord William Wallace

We should be setting the agenda, not following it

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 2nd September 2024 - 1:45 pm

After such a successful national election campaign, led by a coherent leadership team, I hesitate to disagree with Mark Pack’s August Report (LibDem Voice August 20th) on ‘the New Political Landscape’. But I don’t agree that in the first year after a decisive election our party’s campaign themes should be driven primarily by what the polls tell us about public priorities and what voters want to hear. Political parties should aim to set the agenda when they can, not simply respond to existing public anxieties.

A political party has to appeal to three different audiences: to the wider public, directly on the doorstep, through leaflets and postings, and indirectly through the access we hope to gain via the respect of professionals in the media; to the small proportion of UK citizens actively interested in political issues, who we hope will be persuaded to join us and contribute actively (and financially) to our campaigns; and to the even smaller group of commentators on politics in written, broadcast and social media, who summarise and interpret partisan politics to the wider public.

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Lord William Wallace

Why levelling up is not just a challenge for the Conservatives

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 7th June 2021 - 5:32 pm

The pledge to ‘level up’ the left behind parts of England is key to what happens in English politics over the next 3-5 years and beyond (I say ‘English’ politics because the dominant political issues in the four nations of the UK seem to be diverging). Boris Johnson’s promises to revive the towns and industrial communities of northern and coastal England have raised expectations, and won votes and seats. But even if he calls an election early in 2023 he will need to have demonstrated that commitment in increased expenditure to retain many of the votes won over in 2019.

The difficulty of reconciling this promise with the Conservative ideology of low taxes and a constant squeeze on public expenditure has just been demonstrated by the refusal to accept Sir Kevan Collins’s estimate of the scale of investment need in schools to catch up with years of neglect capped by 18 months of pandemic. £50 per pupil, offset by a reduction in the pupil premium, presents ‘an undervaluation of the importance of education’, Collins declared as he resigned.

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Mark Argent

The next coalition?

By Mark Argent | Mon 17th August 2020 - 8:15 am

Does soul-searching over the 2010–15 coalition leave Liberal Democrats in danger of failing to take the credit for our real achievements in government and undermining our relevance by being reluctant to try again?

Even before the arrival of Covid19 we were in turbulent times. British politics since the referendum has been highly dysfunctional.

In the 2019 General Election, my sense was that the Tories and Labour had lurched to extremes. On the doorstep I found even Remain supporters switching from us to the Tories for fear of a Corbyn-led government. Labour seemed to have prioritised ideological purity over electability, which was the place from which they were attacking us over the coalition.

Under normal circumstances, their choosing, in Keir Starmer, a leader who would be a credible Prime Minister would change everything and point to a revival of their fortunes and ours. As it is, the proposed changes to constituency boundaries are likely to favour the Tories. If the country is to move away from having an anti-European, authoritarian and incompetent government, we will need to work with Labour — which has to include the possibility of coalition.

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Chris Pallet

The coalition and the leadership contest

By Chris Pallet | Mon 22nd June 2020 - 2:35 pm

The legacy of the coalition seems to be a big part of the debate around our leadership election. Those arguing the most important thing is that we move on from the coalition will tend to favour one of the two candidates not around during the coalition. And visa-versa. I assume contributors to Lib Dem Voice are not allowed to write direct endorsements of their preferred candidate, but they can signal their preferences by proxy in this way.

So, in that vein, here are my thoughts on what factors we should consider when choosing our next leader. You will note that many …

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Mark Argent

Has Dominic Cummings pulled a fast one?

By Mark Argent | Tue 2nd June 2020 - 8:50 am

I want to describe his trip to Durham during the lockdown as somewhere between “grossly irresponsible” and “utterly foolish”. But it is a little too easy to write him off.

This is the man who took a pile of grievances about things that had little to do with the European Union and coalesced them into a vote for Brexit — even though this will make life worse for most of those who voted for it.

This is the man who (apparently) took last year’s parliamentary stalement and Boris Johnson’s illegal prorogation of Parliament and enabled the Tories to win a handsome majority …

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Peter Cocks

Our Government is a Stage Magician

By Peter Cocks | Thu 21st May 2020 - 8:54 am

Onstage, the magician does not perform an act of magic (spoilers I know) but of distractions. Whilst the rabbit is being yanked from a top hat, the spotlight focused firmly upon its fluffy ears, the magician performs his deceit elsewhere. The Johnson administration has been doing this since it first stepped into Number 10, albeit without the rabbit (though I am sure Mr Rees-Mogg can provide a top hat).

The first smokescreens appeared before and during the 2019 General Election campaign. The inflammatory entitlement of bills as ‘surrender acts’ and CCHQ twitter posing as an independent fact checker meant nothing to crucial swing voters, but attracted uproar from political commentators and activists, distracting from meaningful issues. It was at this same time that the Conservative manifesto was published, detailing economic policies unlikely to please northern Labour voters the Conservatives were gunning for. However, the furore surrounding the aforementioned ‘nothing’ issues overshadowed scrutiny of the manifesto. The rabbit reared its head and hooked the audience, the magic worked. Johnson won.

Next, it was time for a reshuffle, and with it another conjuror’s trick. Despite padding-out support within cabinet, he accidentally booted his Chancellor. With David’s departure, audiences of microphones turned to the Prime Minister. The spotlight then fine-tuned its focus on government, when accusations of bullying and unfair dismissal were levelled at the Home Secretary. Yet, when media scrutiny was firmly locked onto the new cabinet, Johnson bamboozled again. Despite having gotten engaged three months previous, Johnson first officially announced his engagement to Carrie Symonds, enveloping the attention himself. On the 1st March, a day after the most senior Home Office civil servant accused Priti Patel of bullying and just a week after the Chancellor’s resignation, the front pages of The Times, Mail, Express, Sun and Telegraph were covered in lovers’ portraits of the happy couple. The announcement’s timing drowned mentions of Patel’s behaviour, keeping Johnson buoyant in the polls.

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Rhys Taylor

Sticking down the Overton window

By Rhys Taylor | Tue 5th May 2020 - 12:48 pm

Government and public opinion have for most of the last few decades described deep societal injustices as a matter of inevitability and described government action – or inaction – as the morally right thing for government do to.

We’ve been told, and most largely believed as a general public, that it’s inevitable that the economic cycle will see huge numbers of people out of work, huge numbers of people experiencing the worst forms of homelessness as inevitable, inevitable that some of the most deprived and marginalised will live with in poorer health, with less housing and income security and less opportunity.

We’ve …

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Adrian May

Ode to something less than Joy

By Adrian May | Mon 4th May 2020 - 11:02 am

There was a time, not so long ago, that any news interview conducted outside the Westminster Parliament would be punctuated by a loud and long cry, “Stoooopppp Breeeexiiiit”.

Brexit was not stopped. December 2019 saw a Tory government returned to power, transformed from a handcuffed minority to a stomping majority. The Liberal Democrats did not benefit in any huge way from the Stop Brexit stance, lost one seat overall, and a certain person did not stand before us as the next Prime Minister.

We could focus on a post-mortem – all the events that led to that outcome – refining …

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Nicolas Webb

Rising above politics as usual

By Nicolas Webb | Mon 17th February 2020 - 12:44 pm

The decision to not rush the leadership election has allowed a welcome space for a discussion on the strategy and philosophy of being a Liberal Democrat in 2020. I am a new member having joined just last month. I do not pretend that my views carry any more weight than any other member, and probably less than those who have worked so hard for the party. Nonetheless, the opportunity to contribute ideas to the direction the party should now take was part of the reason I joined.

Post-Brexit we have a clean slate. The challenge is to apply the timeless principles …

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Mark Valladares

Brexit – it’s time to accept that we’ve lost. There’s a new battle to fight…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 16th December 2019 - 7:55 am

I’m a pro-European. I’ve been involved in European politics as an active ALDE Party member for some years now. And it grieves me to say this but… we’ve lost. Complain about the voting system, about the lies, the sheer injustice of the thing, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Conservatives got their majority and will end the debate about our membership of the European Union in seven weeks. They’ve got a mandate, like the one we would have claimed had we won.

I’ve received a number of invitations to join a group seeking to campaign to rejoin the European Union, and there may be a case to be made for that in the years ahead. But looking backwards gives you neckache, and liberals have a new task ahead, to make the case for liberal values and persuade the British public that our outward looking, inclusive stance isn’t just good in itself, but can actually being benefits to those who have felt failed by the political system.

And yes, that means making the case for a stronger, more secure relationship with our neighbours, holding the Conservatives to account when their choices are bad for our country, its people and the economy. It means having a vision for how that relationship will look, and a willingness to argue for it. What are the benefits to voters in Sunderland, or Lowestoft, or Truro, of a closer trading relationship with Europe? And what are the concessions we might have to make?

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Nick Barlow

The way forward: We need a pause to properly respond

By Nick Barlow | Fri 13th December 2019 - 12:32 pm

We’re all hurting today. The election result might not have been completely terrible – our vote share went up! – but it’s not been a good campaign for us, the results are far below what we wanted or expected, we’ve lost our leader, and we’re now going to be leaving the EU in just seven weeks’ time.

The easy response would be for us to dust ourselves down, elect a new leader as quickly as possible and dive straight back into the fight, but I think that would be a mistake. Last night was a massive moment for us as a …

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Geoffrey Payne

So what happens after the next general election?

By Geoffrey Payne | Tue 10th September 2019 - 12:45 pm

Even now with just weeks before the next general election it is impossible to know where we will be with Brexit. For the sake of simplicity, I would like to put Brexit to one side for now. The Tories might find a way to implement hard Brexit by the 31st October and before the next General Election, we shall see. Discuss it elsewhere. There are plenty of other considerations we need to think about.

I can see 3 plausible scenarios for the next general election;

  1. The Tories squeeze the Brexit Party vote and get an overall majority, or;
  2. We have a hang Parliament

…

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David Boyle

Time for a Broad AllIance to take power?

By David Boyle | Tue 2nd July 2019 - 12:53 pm

“We must be more than a political party or we will cease to be one,” said the great writer G. K. Chesterton, when he was a Liberal. “Time and again historic victory has come to a little party with big ideas: but can anyone conceive anything with a mark of death more on its brow than a little party with little ideas,”

I am writing about the man at the moment and I believe he was right, and especially perhaps in the first of the two sentences.

Nor are we such a little party these days, but the ideas we …

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Dan Whitehead

The Liberal Democrats are back and the electoral opportunity is huge

By Dan Whitehead | Mon 27th May 2019 - 7:02 pm

I’m not a Lib Dem. I’m Labour and I hope that in voting as I did I will help the Labour Party see sense and do the right thing for the country.

This was Alistair Campbell tweeting about his support for our party on Sunday night, following the European election results.

In some ways history is repeating itself. Through his work in convincing the Blair government to go to war in Iraq, Campbell was also partly responsible for the last great surge of support from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. What we learnt from that episode in our history is that …

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Mark Argent

Is it time for Theresa May to admit that Brexit is impossible and retract the Article 50 notice?

By Mark Argent | Mon 18th March 2019 - 12:05 pm

If Brexit goes ahead in any form, it would need exceptionally-good government to address all the resulting challenges. The parliamentary chaos of recent weeks has shown a government a long way from this. Is it time to admit that Brexit can’t be delivered?

Theresa May has given it her best shot. It is hard to see anything else she could have done to make Brexit work. The game-changer of the last few weeks has been the sheer level of parliamentary dysfunction. It’s now clear that Brexit can’t happen on 29 March because of the sheer volume of legislation to be …

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Caron Lindsay

TIG’s not it

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 19th February 2019 - 6:55 am

When you are an active member of a political party, the amount of the infrastructure of your life that is embedded in it is colossal. My husband knows that we have a bird of liberty as well as a spaniel determinedly pushing its way between us when we try to grab some time together.

Our lives revolve round election cycles and meetings and protest marches. And this blog.

Most of my best friends are in the Liberal Democrats. To be honest, I think they would still be my best friends wherever our lives took us, but, still, I share stuff with them that if we were in different parties I wouldn’t be able to any more.

Making the decision to leave is difficult and painful and not at all easily taken.

So when I see people leaving the Labour Party when they have finally reached the end of their rope with Jeremy Corbyn, I know how hard it must have been for them. I respect them for having the courage to do so.

I like some of them a lot on a personal level and I have no problem with working with them on the areas where we share common aims.

However, I am underwhelmed by their statement of values on their website. Some of them are fine – just a bit motherhood and apple pie.However, parts of it made me cringe:

…the first duty of government must be to defend its people and do whatever it takes to safeguard Britain’s national security.

It’s a bit hawkish. I get that they are trying to get away from the spectre of Corbyn, but the first thing above all else, when 3 million of our citizens are about to have their rights massively downgraded and people have trouble putting food on the table? Really?

There are also some real deserving/undeserving poor undertones to it – and an echo of that awful phrase “hard working families.”

I think the thing that bothered me most, though, was:

We believe that our parliamentary democracy in which our elected representatives deliberate, decide and provide leadership, held accountable by their whole electorate is the best system of representing the views of the British people.

I get that they are restating the obvious that democracy is a good thing, but you can’t say that politics is broken and then say that our way of doing it is best. How much more powerful would it have been if they had said, as we do, that our political institutions need redesigning and rebuilding so that people get the Parliament that they ask for. If they did, the country would not be in its current disastrous pickle.

I lived through the birth of the SDP 40 years ago and it genuinely felt exciting. They used phrases like “breaking the mould” and talked about pursuing a reforming agenda in every area of life. This doesn’t have that coherent approach. It’s like TIG’s members can agree what they’re against – the various circles of Hell in Corbyn’s Labour – but writing a coherent vision statement has not come easy. In some ways their statement is more cry of pain than beacon lighting our path.

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First impressions from my first party conference – by a Lib Dem who voted Leave

By Keith Bates | Thu 21st September 2017 - 1:36 pm

I joined the Liberal Democrats in April 2017. This was my first party conference. I also voted Leave in the EU the referendum. Should I be in this party? Absolutely.

Europe

I sensed that many members didn’t truly understand Leave voters. Nick Clegg seemed a bit more in tune: “why wouldn’t you vote Leave after all you were promised by the Brexiteers?”. Remain is one thing that undoubtedly keeps the party unified. But Remain in what? Jean-Claude Juncker’s vision of a more federalised EU with power centralised? Seems profoundly un-Lib Dem to me.

Nick Clegg convinced me on Remain when he talked about “concentric circles of membership” with the UK sitting on an outer layer, and that is the rub of it. It is not a credible position to just articulate “Remain.” The Lib Dems have to put forward a simple vision for what type of EU we advocate remaining in and how we will make it happen. Nick’s vision or something else that the UK population will buy into? That is how you can convince Leave voters.

The party of the centre

I understand liberalism – it’s why I joined the party, but I still wasn’t sure by the end of the conference, where the ‘centre’ actually is. One member gave Jo Swinson and Norman Lamb a good ear bashing during a session on how to revitalise the centre ground: “why have we gone through 6 conferences, 2 general elections, 1 referendum, and the party still doesn’t have a clear vision on this?”. To own the centre ground you have to be the party that defines it to the public, otherwise you are just emulating others and playing catch-up; to win the game it helps to set the rules.

We need to articulate what the Lib Dem USP is for the ordinary person, defined in a way that is easily consumable and clearly differentiated. At the moment I’m still not sure, and I can’t explain to my wife the unique difference between us and centrist leaning Conservatives / Labourites. Norman Lamb gave us a great starting point when he talked about the business of government being “how to create prosperity and how to share it”. This is the question to which we need some radical answers that differentiate us.

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David Thorpe

Opinion: Liberals must learn the lessons of Thatcher

By David Thorpe | Fri 11th January 2013 - 2:49 pm

It is a truth often acknowledged that Tony Blair and David Cameron, in moving their respective parties to the centre ground, left a gruelling obstacle on the road to a truly Liberal Britain.
But it’s not from those leaders that the next generation of Liberal Democrat’s must learn, rather it is from a leader who would regard liberalism as a dirty word, and many Liberal outcomes as inimical to her view of society, Margaret Thatcher.

The lesson for Lib Dems is that Thatcher understood that the less well off are just as aspirational as those born to wealth. The Tory method …

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