Talks of all sorts happen between different parties all the time, varying from the personal – such as a few quiet words over handling the consequences of a death in an MP’s family – to the national interest – especially on security matters – and including, of course, the political manoeuvering.
One rule however applies consistently across them all: if you’re serious about discreet talks, you keep them discreet. Talking at length to the media, whether on or off the record, about talks is only what you do if the talks are out in the public (such as the Cook-Maclennan talks in the run-up to the 1997 election) or if you are wanting to stitch up the other side.
It’s a lesson some Liberal Democrats learnt the hard way from Gordon Brown before 2010, and one fallout from Brown’s crude machinations was to help persuade many senior Liberal Democrats that no post-election deal with Brown could have stuck, even if their instinct was to prefer a deal with Labour to the Tories.
Since 2010 there have been various discreet talks between Labour and the Liberal Democrats on a variety of matters, ranging more widely than constitutional reform. The news therefore in the Sunday Telegraph about “senior Liberal Democrats in secret talks” is a story that could have been run at any time over the past year or so.
The one significant element in it is the extended anonymous quote from “a Labour source”. That’s not what you do if you are serious about such talks. Take your pick whether you go for the simple explanation – that it shows how Labour are just happy to stitch up the Lib Dems – or the more conspiratorial – that someone in Labour is deliberately trying to wreck the talks by undermining trust.
Either way, it means the news is that Labour still isn’t serious about dealing with other parties other than on the basis of treating them with the same condescension and crassness as Gordon Brown did. It’s not the act of a smart party committed to pluralism.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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29 Comments
Think you mean “discreet talks”, not discrete, Mark.
Maybe they are keen on pluralist politics, but just not with you lot. It is quite conceivable that Labour may very narrowly avoid winning the next election outright, but form a coalition with the nationalist parties with whom they share more common ground (and lets face it, the nationalists might have almost as many MPs as the Lib Dems). It would certainly do Labour no electoral favours to start publicly floating the possibility of a future coalition with the Lib Dems.
To say nothing of ‘manoeurvering’ (manoeuvring?)
Tim13: D’oh! Thanks.
“…and one fallout from Brown’s crude machinations was to help persuade many senior Liberal Democrats that no post-election deal with Brown could have stuck, even if their instinct was to prefer a deal with Labour to the Tories.”
But as we all know, it was not the instinct of the senior Lib Dems to prefer a deal with Labour…
This is yet another case of the Torygraph trying to whip up anger amongst Tory MPs and supporters and, in the process, really helping the Lib Dem cause. I hope it is all true and I hope lots of Labour supporters in wards where we face Tory opposition get the message.
OK, maybe Labour are still the big bad, but according to this from the Indy claims massive problems retaining activists and members for the Lib Dems, something must be done because the Coalition isn’t working for you. So what would you do, Mark?
Any future Labour coalition against the tories will probably be with the countries third party which will no doubt rule out the LDP.
I think our political future relies on an immediate alliance with the labour party.
Another very credible explanation would be that some people in Labour are serious, which horrifies someone else within Labour, who has decided to throw a spanner in the works.
Mark Pack :
“Since 2010 there have been various discreet talks between Labour and the Liberal Democrats on a variety of matters, ranging more widely than constitutional reform. ”
Aha, but the question is whether these ‘talks’ have been between Lib Dem and Labour people who matter (in or out of Cabinet/Shadow Cabinet) or just Lib Dem and Labour people who think they matter! And, of course, whether they have been any more use to either or both parties than (say) discussing today’s weather.
“Either way, it means the news is that Labour still isn’t serious about dealing with other parties other than on the basis of treating them with the same condescension and crassness as Gordon Brown did. It’s not the act of a smart party committed to pluralism.”
This is possible, but there are other explanations. Simon gave one. But we also have to remember that not all newspaper stories – especially those based on anonymous sources – turn out to be 100% true.
This anchor-less piece is so full of anonymous innuendo that it is either the height of incompetent journalism (unlikely) or simply a particularly cack-handed bit of gratuitous media spin.
Probably the opening serve in a long, slow burning campaign, betraying where the Torygraph will be heading for it’s 2015 effort. The midterm recess is perfect timing for this kind of thing.
Yes – let’s all join in the celebrations. Let’s indulge in 60 glorious insults about Labour, let’s fret about being stitched up by Miliband and crew when back in the real world we are being done over by the Tories.
If “quiet” discussions are going on with Labour, then it will equally not help to listen yet again to Nick Clegg rant on about the Labour Party. Anyway, there is also an argument that some realignment discussions should be in the public domain. We surely do not believe things should be stitched up without the electorate knowing about it! We should also be limbering up to oppose the likely results of the next comprehensive spending review which will be likely to tie the party leadership into its current crass economic policies beyond the next election.
– the things that will stitch us up at the next election will be the voting system and the media. ie the latter talking this morning about how voters would behave, how Labour in unwinnable seats should vote tactically, and talk again of the LDs being wiped out. The self-fulfilling prophesy programme is well and truly under way.
The telegraph article looks like a big fuss about very little to me. On the membership question we need to continually remind ourselves of the context – massive decline in party memberships across the board over the last 60 years interspersed with short periods of rising membership around “exciting ” elections – 1989, 1997 & 2010 for example.
The crucial point is the relative losses of different parties.
The tories come off worst, having lost more than 93% since the 1950s, from 2.4 million to less than 170 thousand now.
I come back to the point that we need to educate our supporters about the background & to this end we should publish regular membership figures & challenge our rivals to do the same.
Mark,
Strange that when an article, based on unnamed sources, links Clegg with Murdoch LDV are outraged; when an equally ‘dodgy’ story regarding ‘Labour’ appears it must be true.
I often feel LDV is determined to use every opportunity to alienate us from Labour. There is an old adage about not being too nasty to those you might need in the future.
Jason: Some stories based on unnamed sources are true, some aren’t. It’d be pretty foolish to think they are all of the same level of accuracy and therefore expect the reaction to all of them to be the same. Myself, where I can I check out the information and, combined with the evidence in the story itself, judge its accuracy and then form my views accordingly. I’d have thought you do the same… but if so, why complain about the different reaction to two different stories with different strengths of evidence for them?
Personally, I’ll be happy if there are conversations going on and I think it would be naive to think there wouldn’t be. Surely it’s the progressive way to do politics and engage with other parties for the long term benefit of the country.
To coin a phrase, desperately thin stuff…
…………………….I’d have thought you do the same… but if so, why complain about the different reaction to two different stories with different strengths of evidence for them?………………
Mark, thanks for response,. From your remarks I imagine you have extra’ supporting evidence for this story. I don’t; all I see are two equally vague ‘headliners’ one of which is ‘poo-pood’ by LDV and one given credence.
“The one significant element in it is the extended anonymous quote from ‘a Labour source’.”
Just got round to reading the original Telegraph article and I think this “source” is very suspicious indeed. The way they freely divulge so many details about Labour strategy, and to a Telegraph hack of all people, makes them sound either gloriously inept, some kind of plant, or not a real person at all.
Strange coi-incidence that the advert above this ‘talk to Labour’ headdline is “RussianCupid”? 🙂
And now it’s Battlestar Galactica! 🙂
@peter
What will stitch us up at the next election is not the media or electoral system. They won’t help but the real damage will be tuition fees, a strangled economy, denigration of public services …. amongst many others.
Bad workmen blame their tools.
Had the author of this Sunday Telegraph page filler been written by Peter rather than Patrick Hennessy it might have
been worthy of a mention.
Still, there were so many LibDem bashing responses in the paper’s comment section it has probably served its purpose in reassuring Conservative readers disconcerted by two uncharacteristically savage predominantly anti-Hunt (that’s Jeremy, by the way) articles, of which this is one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/9305652/Memo-to-the-Government-please-grow-up-you-pygmies.html
Sorry, typo in first line above: omit “written”.
I mean omit “written by”. Sorry there’s no edit button and I’m being careless.
Strange – I would have thought it would be flattering that one of the major parties is talking to the Lib Dems, particularly one that is outpolling the Lib Dems dramatically. I certainly can’t imagine that it will do Labour any good at all for it to be known they are talking to the Lib Dems. Most people minded to support Labour would no doubt be horrified at that, given everything that’s happened since May 2010 on cuts, the NHS, tuition fees…I could go on…
@Steve “Maybe they are keen on pluralist politics, but just not with you lot. It is quite conceivable that Labour may very narrowly avoid winning the next election outright, but form a coalition with the nationalist parties with whom they share more common ground (and lets face it, the nationalists might have almost as many MPs as the Lib Dems). It would certainly do Labour no electoral favours to start publicly floating the possibility of a future coalition with the Lib Dems.”
Steve, speaking as a Labour supporter, I would not favour a coalition with the nationalists come 2015. Lib Dems and Labour don’t agree on everything, but we are both UK-wide parties that think in the national interest, and that’s why I’m in favour of the maintenance of decent relations between the two parties ahead of the next election. One of the problems with the prospective 2010 “rainbow coalition” concept, on top of its general illegitimacy and instability, was that the SNP, PC and the NI parties would demand concessions for their regions at the expense of England. A Lib-Lab coalition wouldn’t have this problem.
@Mark Pack
Even going by David Laws’ account, Gordon Brown fought hard for Coalition in 2010, even when much of the Labour Party opposed such as move (I among them given the circumstances, despite in theory favouring a Lib-Lab coalition). I understand why Brown’s overtures to Ashdown in 2007 angered some Lib Dems, but I believe it was a sincere attempt at cross-partisan cooperation and inclusion. Indeed, it was a move that many Labour tribalists would not have been comfortable with. I think the leak and attacks on these current talks is a shame, but all parties have their tribalists unfortunately.