On 3 March 2013, the Liberal Democrats marked their twenty-fifth birthday. The story of the party since 1988 has been a dramatic one, from near-extinction, through a failed realignment of the left, a period of rapidly changing leaders, and then into government, for the first time for a third party for sixty years. The latest issue of the Journal of Liberal History (issue 83, summer 2014) is a special edition looking at the key factors contributing to the party’s survival and success, up until entry into coalition.
The party’s campaigning ability is obviously key. From 1997 onwards the Liberal Democrats have managed to win significantly greater numbers of seats than their predecessor parties, often on smaller proportions of the national vote – the outcome of a combination of intensive local campaigning and an increasing targeting of resources on winnable seats, together with a steadily more professional party organisation. In the first article in the issue, Mark Pack examines the evolution of the party’s campaigning techniques and structures.
Local government elections have been critical, giving Liberal Democrats a focus for their efforts and, in most areas, a taste of electoral success and a demonstration of the way in which effective campaigning and organisation can lead to results. Matt Cole’s article looks at the party’s record in local government elections and its impact.
As a party based more on ideology than class or sectoral support, policy-making has been important internally, as one of the ways to define what being a Liberal Democrat means. The party’s retention of a democratic policy-making process is no accident; and when leaders have decided to ignore it, as over university tuition fees, the result has not been a happy one. David Howarth examines the functions of policy for the Liberal Democrats.
The role of the party leader has often been crucial. Overall, the party has been well served by its leaders, particularly during election campaigns, which is when most electors see and hear them; Ashdown, Kennedy and Clegg all performed creditably in the general elections in which they led the party. This in turn, of course, places a greater premium on their effectiveness, which is why Kennedy’s and Campbell’s perceived shortcomings caused such concern. Duncan Brack’s article describes the key characteristics necessary in a Liberal Democrat leader, and analyses the extent to which the four leaders to date have possessed them.
The Liberal Party both benefited and suffered from being primarily a repository for protest votes. To a certain extent the Liberal Democrats have strengthened their social bases of support, appealing most strongly to the educated middle classes, particularly those working in the professions and the public sector. The impact of coalition, however, and the party’s actions in government, has been substantial, severely testing the electorate’s support for the party. In the fifth article in this issue, Andrew Russell considers who votes for the Liberal Democrats.
The Liberal Democrats were of course in power in two nations of the UK before entering government in Westminster. Caron Lindsay analyses the record of the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ two periods in coalition, 1999–2003 and 2003–07, and draws parallels with the later UK experience. Russell Deacon looks at the Welsh Liberal Democrats’ period in coalition in 2000–03, and reflects on the experience of working with the Labour Party.
The impact of the current coalition government on the Liberal Democrats is of course of huge significance, and we will consider it properly in the Journal after the 2015 election. Douglas Oliver’s write-up of the History Group’s meeting in January 2013, however, provides a chance to look a different coalition that never happened, when Paddy Ashdown, Roger Liddle and Pat McFadden discussed ‘the Project’ – and draw lessons for the aftermath of the 2015 election.
This issue of the Journal of Liberal History is available to non-subscribers for £9.00, either from the Liberal Democrat History Group stand at the Glasgow conference or from LDHG, 54 Midmoor Road, London SW12 0EN (cheques payable to ‘Liberal Democrat History Group’, postage and packing included; payment via our website coming in a few weeks’ time). An annual subscription costs only £20 (£12.50 unwaged); see http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk.
* Duncan Brack is the Editor of the Journal of Liberal History and co-edited this special issue with guest editor Mark Pack.
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9 Comments
“Ashdown, Kennedy and Clegg all performed creditably in the general elections in which they led the party.”
This statement does not stand up to scrutiny. Much has already been made of Kennedy’s weaknesses which those who hid them from the rest of us decided were outweighed by the advantages which he brought to the Party in terms of image and broadcasting talent – until they decided otherwise. Paddy Ashdown was inspirational but more than blotted his copybook by pushing the boat out with Tony Blair in a manner which few in the Lib Dems could describe as honest to the Party and not really forgivable. Nick Clegg performed brilliantly in Party leader debate number one (abetted by foolishness of the other two performers), adequately in another and not-so-well in the third. He went into polling day officially espousing a debt reduction policy and tuition fees policy which he then told the world he didn’t really believe in. Creditable?
The greatest test of the performance of nearly every job where teamwork is involved is largely determined by the appointments which are made by the person or persons in charge . The collected outputs of all these people nearly always eclipse that of the direct performance of he person him/herself. Being a Political Party leader is no exception. The central Team which Nick Clegg assembled for 2010 was so poor that we were denied any independent inquest into how we lost so many seats on a greater vote share. We were then permitted to see it all happen again with the AV campaign. Charles Kennedy’s team was not much better. I do not know enough about Paddy’s group to comment but, arguably, it did the most difficult job.
“…….from near-extinction, through a failed realignment of the left, a period of rapidly changing leaders, and then into government, “and now facing near-extinction!
All that work, all that progress, all those councillors, all those Focus deliveries, all those MEPs nd then the Clegg Coup followed by failure heaped upon failure.
Nick Clegg did not perform creditably at the General Election- he blew the advantage given in the first leaders debate – it is too easy to blame hostile press rather than the fact that the party was ill prepared for responding to cleggmania or to the obvious flaws in the manifesto – on immigration, on joining the euro and on what the lib dems would do in event of a hung parliament. As the Clegg Coup book makes clear he gave little thought to a hung parliament – hardly shows does it ?
Duncan Brack’s article on leadership is both stimulating and infuriating. Stimulating because it suggests a very good list of 5 characteristics of leaders, and I concur wholeheartedly with all of them. And it gives a neat synopsis of key events in the leadership of all four men. The table of “leadership performance” is particularly useful as it is a table of factual data (e.g. poll ratings, votes share, number of councillors, vote share in all election types, party membership etc) that usefully counterpoints the narrative.
What is infuriating is how unremittingly awful the numbers presented in table 1 are for Clegg: Current net approval -42%, compared with(for example) a worst ever approval of +8% for Charles Kennedy. Poll rating when Campbell resigned 11%, compared with poll rating today 8% (I note that ICM in The Guardian have tonight given the Lib Dems the joint worst VI score the party has seen from ICM in 20 years). Councillors when all the others stood down: in the region of 4500. Councillors now: 2257. I simply do not buy the “price of coalition” argument.
It is now too late to do anything about the Clegg incumbency. So what strategy is being developed to limit the damage his continued leadership will do to the re-election prospects of the party’s MPs?
Paul in Wokingham
As usual you get to the point and present a key question –
It is now too late to do anything about the Clegg incumbency. So what strategy is being developed to limit the damage his continued leadership will do to the re-election prospects of the party’s MPs?
I disagree about it being too late to do anything; it is never to late to replace the pilot if the plane is about to crash if He remains. But I fear most people in the party have given up on replacing him just now and are waiting for next May’s disaster before wielding the knife.
I hope there is a strategy to limit the damage in May. Bill le Breton pointed out recently that there are maybe a dozen seats where targeting whatever resources are available might make the difference between us keeping an MP or losing. This might make the difference between a 2015 result of 31 MPs as opposed 19. Both disastrous compared to the numbers achieved when Kennedy lead the party in the 2005 election only to be criticised by the Clegg Coup conspirators for not doing better. One assumes that at the very least the lesson of May 2014 has been learned and the media campaign will not be centred on Clegg .
Thanks to everyone for the comments, particularly on the leadership issue. The History Group is planning a book on Liberal leaders since the Great Reform Act, with a chapter for each one, so this is a kind of early draft of the sort of approach we’re thinking of. More comments welcome.
The phrase ‘Ashdown, Kennedy and Clegg all performed creditably in the general elections in which they led the party’ is quite precise, though; it refers only to their election performances, not to their overall record as leaders. For that, you’ll have to read the full article! I’d go along with many of Tony’s comments.
And don’t forget the rest of the issue – there are a lot of interesting articles there.
Caracatus
it is too easy to blame hostile press rather than the fact that the party was ill prepared for responding to cleggmania or to the obvious flaws in the manifesto
“Cleggmania” was mainly due to two factors.
The first was that LibDem activists had all got out with their pre-election leaflet delivery, so that did a lot to push the opinion poll rating up, nothing to do with Clegg.
The second was that Clegg had made so little impact since getting elected as leader that most ordinary people were unaware of who he was when the general election was called. This meant he had a novelty factor, people saw it as a new choice that they hadn’t been aware of before, which gave it a sort of boost that didn’t really mean positive choice just “It’s an option I hadn’t considered, but now I’m aware of it maybe”. That soon wore off after people had more time to see what Clegg was really like. But it shifted the focus of the party campaign from what was actually winning the votes that count – local activity, and we never recovered from that.
Duncan, How can losing 5 MPs in 2010 be described as creditable? Nick had the Bones reorganisation and its centralised structures failed to deliver. Likewise only a Tory or a Labour party MP would ignore the Local Government and Euro Elections where Nick was failing before 2010. His legacy is one of failure, despair and disillusion for so many members and ex-members, councillors and ex-councillors, activists and ex-activists. If he remains as leader he will be our speaker in the leaders’ debates and his failings will be exposed again. He has to go before May to save us from electoral meltdown. The question is do any of the pretenders have the courage to save the party?
David Evans
You are absoutely right to highlight the facts that Clegg (and the cul de sac of Orange Bookery ) was already a vote loser before 2010.
To be fair to Duncan Brack he did say — “performed creditably … … it refers only to their election performances”
Clegg was not a complete flop in the few weeks of the 2010 General Election even though he has been a complete flop in everything else before and since. I am re- reading the book The Clegg Coup, whilst it is page after page of sickly praise for Clegg the real villains of the piece are the shadowy Marshall and Laws and even they had reservations about Clegg’s abiilities. They no doubt have someone lined up to replace Clegg after next May when he is no longer useful to their plan.