Tag Archives: vince cable

The Sunday Times has an article today (£) in which a highly worrying quote is attributed to Norman Lamb:

I want to be part of this movement. This is an opportunity that cannot be missed. We have to play our cards in giving it its best chance of succeeding.

Is he about to join TIG?

Well, I’d love to know what he was asked and in what context. By movement, he could mean the general prospect of this leading to a massive realignment of politics. He could be talking about the movement that this party’s strategy wants to drive.

Norman would be missed if he left us, but several senior sources have told me this weekend that they think it is unlikely that he will.

One said:

He is such a passionate Liberal and so loyal to the Party.

He has always been really good at working together across parties. I really wouldn’t want to lose him. However, his comments are not out of step with the feeling among our MPs generally. They think that the TIG project is just the start and that there are great opportunities for us from what may unfold in politics in the short to medium term.

The Sunday Times report has this to say about relationships between the two groups:

Meanwhile, a merger with the Liberal Democrats appears unlikely. Many of TIG’s founders believe the taint of the coalition years makes a formal alliance with the party politically toxic. What they instead want is for the party’s 11 MPs to join their new one, and they have been sounded out by Leslie and Berger about switching.

Lib Dems, on the other hand, feel protective of their party’s machinery, membership and history, and will not abandon it all for an upstart group with no official status and no formal policy platform. Some even feel uncomfortable about the prospect of joining forces with former Tories. “I worked with Anna Soubry during the coalition,” said one. “I like her, but she’s not a liberal. In many ways, she’s one of the last genuine Thatcherites left.”

I suspect that first paradoxical paragraph is an accurate reflection on what some members of TIG think of us. But it doesn’t make sense to say that  we’re toxic because of the coalition while accepting two MPs who were part of it, one of whom as a minister.  And then to say that we should join them. That’s about as all over the place as it gets. However, we have amongst our MPs three excellent and highly skilled former Cabinet ministers and two excellent and highly skilled former ministers. TIG is bound to be hoping that they can get someone to move across, but I see no indications that this will happen.