In my view the results of this week’s local elections are the most unfortunate possible. They illustrate perfectly the limitations of our strength and of the nature of our offering to the public.
We made enough gains for the party leadership to pretend to be victorious – and, yes, eight gains in a row is something to be very proud of. But our gains were incremental on a night when Reform and the Green party hoovered up millions of votes. (The limits of Reform’s success are not lost on me by the way – they reflect Reform’s current standing in the polls which is about 5% off the peak of a short while ago; long may it continue to wain.) As others point out, we face diminishing returns on a policy that is designed for limited appeal. Its purpose is to make well off people in the south east feel good about themselves*, and it has very limited appeal to the people we need to be talking to, and, to be honest, very little relevance to the problems the country faces. So we are still deliberately digging ourselves into a hole which is of no use to the country, and the result was just good enough to encourage our leadership to keep digging.
In my view we need to reshape the way we make our policy to fit what is actually happening to millions of people in this country who vote for change, whether it be Reform or the Green Party, because the status quo is failing them and has been for some time, and they have no hope that it will change. We have decided to cast ourselves in the popular mind as a more of the same party, just a bit nicer than the others. And more of the same won’t cut it any more.
Our minds are both concentrated and limited by what we are going to put in our next manifesto, and here is where I propose we should make a very significant change in our planning, and in our offer to the public.
Look at the country as a whole. Look at the state we’re in. Our rivers are swimming in ****. Much of our housing stock is decrepit. Schools and hospitals are falling down with a repair bill than runs into tens of billions. The NHS is creaking. Our navy doesn’t even have one single ship available to take on the Russian frigates escorting their shadow tankers through the English Channel. Forty years of austerity have reduced us to the position we’d be in if we’d just come to the end of a protracted and debilitating war. But because it’s happened gradually, we still think gradual answers will provide the solutions. They won’t. Waiting for the proceeds of growth will not cut it for a country where millions still rely on food banks, and people die while waiting for NHS treatment.
We need a programme for national renewal, just as we would at the end of a war, and I believe that that is what the Liberal Democrats should aim for. The country’s problems will not be solved in the duration of a single Parliament, or even two. We should look to a twenty five year programme, and we should wrap that around whatever our next manifesto says.
For example, by 2050 we will have rejoined the European Union. In the next Parliament, as the first step towards that, we will negotiate to rejoin the Single Market.
By 2050, our country will be entirely fossil fuel free. In the next Parliament we will lay the groundwork for that by rebuilding the National Grid so that the renewable energy which is ready to be used can be used. And we will drop the link between all energy prices and gas prices so that people will benefit from cheaper power when it is available.
By 2050 every single dwelling in the country will meet high environmental and comfort standards. In the next Parliament, as the first step towards that, we will refit the million least fit houses and flats, and we will finance local authorities to upgrade their stock.
And so on. Every area of our manifesto should be part of a long term plan.
It’s going to take at least 25 years to get this country to where it could be, and that is what we should aim for.
* Yes, I know – people like me.
* Rob Parsons is a Lib Dem member in Lewes. He blogs at http://acomfortableplace.blogspot.co.uk. He curates Liberal Quotes on Facebook
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7 Comments
Thank you Rob. It’s not enough to keep reinforcing our ‘Maginot Line’ in the wealthy South whilst Reform (and Greens) ‘blitzkrieg’ the rest of the country.
We seem to have had several articles in the last days expressing the same frustrations in different ways. Not only are we failing to attract voters who are finding the Greens more interesting but we are failing to grow our membership. Certainly in my part of the country our campaigning is for the most part being done by people in their 60’s and older. Younger friends and our friends’ children are finding the Greens a more attractive option, even though on the really important things we seem to be relatively close. Is there nobody in our leadership team who can really catch the attention of the under 40’s?
Unfortunately, much of the electorate has lost interest in moderation preferring to opt increasingly for more radical options on the right and on the left. Inevitable a party in the centre is going to suffer when that is the political zeitgeist.
Might such a manifesto include the end of our national chronic child hunger/semi-starvation?
Paul, you don’t have to be far left or far right to offer hope. I think people tend towards Reform and Green because they perceive something different. Eg in the BBC article about Rupert Lowe’s puppet party in Yarmouth “”I just want something different,” explained Antony Holmes, 42.” And they “hope” different will be better; unfortunately it takes years to find out. I really dislike the single spectrum approach to politics with parties whizzing like abacus beads on a string, but if you must have it, centre parties can offer hope.
Steve – yes – eg by 2050 we will have eliminated child poverty; towards that, in the next Parliament, we will increase the child portion of UC to…
In Greenwich, London, the Lib Dems came last in most wards. It must be very demoralising for some really good young candidates who performed well at the Hustings locally but didn’t get anywhere.
I don’t know if the Leadership or MPs will pick up on these posts? I remember how bad times were in the coalition and several hundred of us called for a change of Leader (Nick Clegg). I remember reading comments on here that we were betraying the party. Good to see that these insults made back then are not being made now.
There are several really good policies the Lib Dems rarely highlight these days. One of them from the coalition days; raising the income tax personal allowance and threshold was a flagship Liberal Democrat policy. A policy the Party should be proud of and has benefitted so many working people on low incomes/minimum wage. The only problem is that successive Conservative and this Labour government have refused to raise it above £12,570 despite the cost of living crisis! Can’t the party make more out of this issue and the need to raise the rate? I barely hear it mentioned when LD spokespeople are interviewed on radio or TV.
The other policy is the Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) targeted support to eliminate poverty by steadily increasing welfare benefits for those most in need. Far more should be made of both policies at local and national level.