These weeks after the Super Thursday’s elections can be difficult to handle, whether you were elated by success, deflated by lack of it, or partly arriving where you want to be. Our mostly steady-as-you-go results are challenging but can also feel rather trying, both locally and nationally.
Locally, we have to get on dutifully with Liberal Democrat President Mark Pack’s blog post: ‘9 things you must do to wrap things up properly after an election’. But the questions arise straight away and require hard thinking: How can we build from victory? How can we rise from defeat? Or, if it’s No Change, how to motivate the troops and keep activity going?
This can feel exhausting. Thoughts arise of taking a holiday now instead, or at least organising some trips to see family or friends shut off from us for so long by the Pandemic. But yet we can’t shut out the plight of our Covid-ridden country because the victims are right here.
The latest for whom our concern is needed may be people in our neighbourhood renting their homes. Half a million private-sector renters were behind with their rent, Citizens Advice reported in January, and debt charity StepChange estimates that 150,000 tenants are in danger of eviction, yet the Government’s freeze on evictions is due to stop at the end of this month. That is a problem clearly requiring urgent campaigning and probable local supportive action.
We can’t switch off either from thinking of the national state of our party. How can we help restore the Lib Dems nationally, at this time of a rampant government rolling out the vaccines and claiming the economy is recovering by leaps and bounds? Next month the deadline for September Conference motions looms again. What’s worth putting forward for our country’s good? We maybe want full restoration of civil liberties, increase of welfare payments such as sick pay, better wages for care workers and urgent action on climate change. We keep repeating good aims, though, and in practice will just have to denounce Tory measures as their indifference to many struggling citizens shows through again.
How to make ourselves heard? The red-hot topic now is how progressives in the various left-of-centre parties can work together. Thus Compass proclaims, as it did last week in an email to me, ‘The case for a progressive alliance is growing’. So it may be, certainly from the national Labour perspective. As they know well, they can’t overturn the 80-seat Commons Tory majority without some help from other parties. But as for the political scene this summer, many Lib Dem councillors already understand well how to work with other parties. In Sheffield, for example, newly NOC, Labour lost eight seats and has 41 councillors now, Lib Dems gained three seats and totals 29 councillors, and the Greens gained five and now have 13. It scarcely seems necessary for Compass Sheffield members to have written to the leaders of the local party groups to urge them to work together.
The rise of the Greens, in councils and in polling, is perhaps potentially problematic for our party. But as for Labour, we Lib Dems are perennially wary of agreements not being followed through, and must regard commitment to change FPTP as imperative for any future alliance.
Now Sunday’s Observer has told us of two Blairite think tanks, Progress and Policy Network, joining forces. The shallow nature of any Labour wish to work with us is perhaps suggested by the name of this new think tank: it is Progressive Britain. Its launch statement on May 16 explains that this ‘platform for imaginative thinking’ is ‘dedicated to the intellectual revitalisation of the Centre-left in the UK’, but it only mentions Labour, and an aim of ‘the organisational and political revitalisation of the party’. We may wish to tell these luminaries that they need to look beyond agreements in the Labour party to bring the idea of Progressive Britain closer to reality.
Working together with those in other parties whom we ourselves consider progressive will have to proceed as usual, generally negotiated in individual constituencies. It is a slow business, and even an early General Election shouldn’t make it rapid – the rush to Coalition in 2010 showed too clearly the problem of precipitancy. So, unfortunately, pausing to consult among ourselves first while going on working to build up our own strength is a hard ask, but it seems what is necessary for us this summer.
* Katharine Pindar is a long-standing member of the Cumberland Lib Dems
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62 Comments
Difficult to see any advantage for the Labour Party of trying to form any sort of alliance with a Party with only 11 MPs. Plus, while is is possible that Labour voters would be willing to vote Lib Dem if they had no Labour candidate, there is less reason to believe that Lib Dem voters would back Labour if there were no Lib Dem candidate.
@Brad Barrows
I don’t know why you automatically assume that a progressive alliance means that one party has to stand its candidate down in favour of another party? Of course, this can happen and did happen between the Lib Dems, Greens, and Plaid Cymru under the Unite to Remain electoral pact in the 2019 General Election, but it is not essential. Merely not actively campaigning in certain seats where the other party is better placed can suffice as 1997 proved. The notable seat where both Labour and the Lib Dems stood their candidates down in that election was Tatton, where the independent candidate Martin Bell stood against the incumbent Neil Hamilton and won (with campaigning support from both Labour and Lib Dems it should be added).
Brad,
the compass argument is here https://www.compassonline.org.uk/the-lib-dems-new-leadership-new-politics/
“Given Scotland, there is little or no hope of Labour winning alone. It either leads and shares some power or returns to the wilderness and leaves the country in the hands of the Tories once again. The Lib Dems are second in 91 seats – 80 of them are Tory facing and none where they are a real challengers to Labour. To get the Tories out means the Lib Dems have to win as many of those seats as possible. The electoral maths demands cooperation, whether its tactical campaigning or something more formal. We should be flexible and sensible. In many cases the Lib Dem targets are soft Tory voters who may never vote Labour…”
I have just watched a Best for Britain live seminar on YouTube which added weight to two of my suspicions, touched on above. The first, that Labour under Sir Keir Starmer may not currently be ready for a progressive alliance with the minor parties – this was the opinion voiced by the Green spokesperson on the panel of three, a newly elected member in London named Zack Polanski. And my second suspicion, partly confirmed by the evidence of their greater success in the elections which was noted at this event, is that our party will have to be more wary of losing support to the Greens.
Zack Polanski spoke of local people increasingly seeing that his party is concerned with social justice as well as environmental concerns and can represent people in the local communities who have come together in the Pandemic. Well, friends, that kind of representation is what our local councillors have always offered, haven’t they? So it seems that the Greens may be potential competitors in some contests rather than allies for us.
Katharine – Zack Polanski was a Lib Dem member and approved candidate until a few years ago. He seems to have taken some of those values with him to the Greens,
RPNK people have cause to remember Zack Polanski because he made a fuss about failing to make the shortlist for the by-election 2016. His defection to the Greens came shortly afterwards. Make of that what you will.
The local Green Party in Kingston has disgruntled ex-LibDems in its ranks, and they causes us a lot of trouble locally.
We should not be pausing. As we say on our leaflets – ‘we work all year’. No matter whether we made gains, lost seats, or held all our defends, we need to continue to work each ward we were working, no matter the result. I have just attended a party webinar which gave the standard advice that we should put out a Thank You leaflet no matter if we won or lost. Locally we should be considering which wards we shall target next. This is particularly true if the council elects by thirds, but even if it has elections every four years it is still needed. The next campaign starts as soon as the last one ends. For those local council areas which elect every four years, I expect they will be holding elections in 2023 and so can start their two-year campaign for them now.
Thanks to everyone for your interesting initial contributions. Alex, I don’t know what RPNK stands for, but was sorry to hear the local Greens cause you some trouble. Intriguing to hear of Zack P’s background – he did sound rather like a Lib Dem, for instance saying the Greens were ‘generous’ and ‘internationalist’ as well as pro social justice and environmentalism. (I seem to have heard of the Greens rather less favourably over the years, whether or not they were causing local difficulties, but perhaps they have mellowed in their views and attitudes?)
The panellists I watched on YouTube tonight discussing the recent elections, with Dr Paula Sturridge and Lord Hayward the other two, thought these elections had been very significant, showing the fluidity and volatility of the current political landscape. They thought that voters can’t be slotted into the old Left and Right divisions at present. Lord Hayward, the Tory who was defeated, I am told, by our Diana Maddox in the Christchurch by-election of 1993 which he indeed mentioned, opined that ‘All parties will have to adapt their lines of thought to appeal to parts of other parties.’ Maybe our summer won’t be hard and dull after all – especially perhaps if we lend a hand at the Chesham and Amersham by-election!
Katharine, RPNK = Richmond Park and North Kingston
If there is a desire to have people working all the year round we have a number of options. There are two popular ones. One is to pay people and provide the resources they need. This is popular among parties with lots of money – in England they are known as the Conservatives. Another for members to be enthused and those interested to be enthused to join.
The reality is that a group of enthusiasts can succeed most years in areas where the turnout is low, and the other parties are not working hard using one of the methods above, or any other.
An interpretation of the recent results can be interpreted in this way. The Labour Party projected an image of being more interested in fighting fellow members of the party than working with the electorate. In my opinion this is not a good way of building enthusiasm.
The Conservative Party appeared to me to have successfully adopted the Stalinist approach – although they did not go as far as shooting people. The spokespeople – or government ministers as they are called – followed and continue to follow a party line where the script is followed without deviation and obviously that since I ceased to be a councillor I have more time to consider these things. The evidence is people neither know nor care what is in parties’ manifestos. They do want to give their views and be listened to. As a member of the party which I joined in 1959, I look at the emails I get from the party, and wonder why on Earth they are sending them. I can assure them that they build up no enthusiasm at all in me.
I am wondering whether to join the Greens. Anyone know if they behave differently?
Thank you, Catherine and Tom. I like your characterisation of the two main parties, Tom. If Sir Keir ever manages to unite his party behind him and produce the grand Beveridge-2 type overarching concept he wants, he would shoot my own fox, since I together with Michael Gooding am asking our own party to work towards a Beveridge-2 plan within a new social contract. You are right, though, that will have to involve asking many people for their views and listening to the answers. Hopefully our councillors are doing that all the time.
We could certainly do with knowing more about the Greens on the ground. But don’t join them, Tom. That would be a waste of a party member who joined the Liberals even three years before me! I don’t think our party can from the top ever generate enthusiasm in members, it’s more a question of arousing a few more enthusiasts locally. It’s hard going here in West Cumbria getting members to expect all-the-year-round working, but I’m suggesting to our local President that we ask everyone to do a little bit, starting with pointing out local issues and case work that needs doing, and from building that up hopefully we can rouse dormant enthusiasts.
The Conservative party carry on in their same inevitable way and seem immune to any scandal that surrounds them while the opposition party’s carry on bumbling around seemingly blind to the obvious, an anti Tory alliance, or we can wait for the more likely scenario, Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax moment, I hope I am still around to witness that.
“Boris Johnson’s Poll Tax moment” The C&A by-election could provide exactly that. But it won’t automatically mean the time is up for the Tories. The 1991 Ribble Valley by-election is said to have killed off the Poll Tax. But the Tories won the subsequent GE, and regained Ribble Valley.
And above all keep quiet about official party policy on HS2.
Can’t win ’em all, at least it got rid of Mrs Thatcher! Getting rid of the present incumbent would be a bonus for me!
Actually it was the Eastbourne by-election the previous Autumn that got rid of Mrs Thatcher, ironically just a few weeks after she made a Monty Python inspired joke (which she didn’t understand) about the Lib Dems at Conservative Party Conference.
Sorry to go on Alex, but it was the poll tax and her usual stubbornness that was the cause of her eventual personal defeat, as hopefully one bright idea too many will do the same now, I hope we will be ready to seize the moment?
Political leaders usually run out of steam, some sooner than others. Most just stay on too long. Sometimes it’s down to “events, dear boy” as the first Lord Stockton described it. Remember what Enoch Powell said about political careers. As for a ‘progressive alliance’, Labour will only accept it on their terms. It’s all about hubris, which the Tory party possesses in spades!
John Marriott @ You are, unfortunately, correct about a progressive alliance, and definitely correct on the abundance of hubris in the Conservative party, although I had to look up what exactly hubris meant!!!?
@Barry Lofty
Don’t worry about the ‘hubris’. But it sure sounds posh, doesn’t it? Anyone would think I had had a classical education! Try “cocky” if you prefer. Tories take power for granted and will do all it takes to keep it. Labour dreams of power and really can’t understand why they haven’t got it. Lib Dems wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole if it means compromising their beliefs.
Continuing to ponder on progressive anti-Tory alliances, ought Lib Dems perhaps to keep out of the Batley and Spen by-election, and ask Labour to leave the Chesham and Amersham one clear for us? I wonder if HQ may be taking soundings behind the scenes, though in the end of course it’s up to the local party to make the decision on what to do. There is always the possibility of tactical voting anyway, which I had heard might have had some significance in the Scottish elections, but I suppose it must be less demoralising for a local party to openly opt out of a by-election contest in favour of another progressive candidate than to be seen reaching an apparently ignominious though actually accepted result.
It is presumably easier for Green candidates to opt out in national by-elections than for us, since they don’t seem to have parliamentary hopes, at least not at present.
It’s better if both Lib Dems and Labour stand in both seats. Any alliance with Labour is liable to drive potential Lib Dem voters in seats like C&A to the Tories. In a Con~Lab marginal like B&S, the Lib Dems mainly take votes that would otherwise go to the Tories. A formal pact with Labour would help the Tories. We need to be subtle by standing separate candidates but keeping out of each other’s Tory-facing battlegrounds.
True, Alex, it has been a problem I suppose that being seen to favour Labour tends to drive away the centrist soft Tories whom we need to win over. Thank you for commenting. again, and I agree with your points.
@Katharine Pindar
The day that the Labour Party does the Lib Dems any favours is the day we find Elvis riding Shergar on the moon!
@Barry Lofty
You wrote earlier that you weren’t sure what ‘hubris’ was. Well just read Katharine Pindar’s last paragraph for another example.
@ John Marriott,
The Labour Party will do deals with rival political parties rather than favours. The snag is, though, and as Brad Barrows explains:
“Labour voters would be willing to vote Lib Dem if they had no Labour candidate, there is less reason to believe that Lib Dem voters would back Labour if there were no Lib Dem candidate.”
In other words, the Lib Dems can’t deliver on what would be their side of the bargain.
And as Alex Macfie further explains:
“It’s better if both Lib Dems and Labour stand in both seats. Any alliance with Labour is liable to drive potential Lib Dem voters in seats like C&A to the Tories.”
So the best deal the Lib Dems can offer is to promise to do whatever it takes to win back those Tory voters. So that way, the Tories could still be defeated even if Labour didn’t increase their vote share much at all from what it has been. Tony Blair won in 2005 with a 35% vote share but Jeremy Corbyn lost in 2017 with a 40% share.
The best way forward would be for Labour to become more like the old Labour party and restore its working class support. The Lib Dems could occupy the centre ground with an appeal to a more affluent voter base and so squeeze the present Tory support in the south.
Lib Dems couldn’t do ‘what it takes’ to win over Tory voters if that means only mildly criticising this appalling government, Peter: we have principles. I think maybe we can appeal to freedom-loving people by pointing out the danger of gradual erosion of our civil liberties. Why should families be expected to count the number of their relatives allowed in their houses now? They shouldn’t be asked to, and they don’t, thankfully, at least in my experience.
Why is there this arbitrary rule of six, and why is the government demanding it applies, for instance, to amateur choirs as Mary Reid points out, though not for professionally organised events? Striking absurdity – my church choir of twelve, which has been singing peacefully in church for weeks, well spaced out and pitying the congregation not being allowed to, though they are equally well spaced out as churches tend to have lots of spare space these days, is suddenly cut to six from tomorrow. Let people have their freedom back and let commonsense prevail!
(John Marriott, I don’t know what your remark about me may mean, could you explain?)
There possibly is some scope in pursuing the issue of civil liberties but Covid will, hopefully, be a past issue by the time the next election comes around. However, I’m not sure “middle England” agrees with you on Covid restrictions. That’s more an issue of interest to the political right and it is surprising to find someone with your quasi-socialist inclinations taking the same line.
I’m not happy about restrictions on watching football matches and going to the pub etc but, like most who might have a few grumbles, I’m not likely to get too militant about them. I am more interested in the growing tendency of the law to abandon the traditional concepts such as “innocent until proven guilty”. There are too many innocent people languishing in jail who should never have been convicted under the principle of “beyond reasonable doubt”. The system conspires to fit-up the innocent as we have seen with numerous wrong convictions of post office managers.
Then, in high profile cases we’ve abolished the principle of double jeopardy to give the prosecution another go if they don’t get the right result the first time around.
I’m not sure if Middle England agrees with me on this either! Many of these changes have been argued for by those, including many on the supposedly progressive left, who want to see higher levels of convictions for various types of crime whether or not there is any reasonable doubt involved.
@Barry Lofty
If you want another example of hubris, just have a read of Peter Martin’s latest contribution!
@Katharine Pindar
Your dismissal of the Green Party as not being interested in winning parliamentary seats is not only an example of hubris; but one that could see you end up with egg on your face. That party may not be a force in rural Cumbria; but I can remember when the Lib Dems started back in 1989, they got less support in the European Parliamentary elections than ‘you know who’. Mind you, as the late Paddy Ashdown remarked later, the Lib Dems were + or – 3% in the opinion polls at the time.
I appreciate that you are ‘a long standing member’ and more importantly an ‘activist’ and good on you for that; but, honestly, you really do need to wake up to what is the reality on the ground. I don’t know whether you have ever been elected to any council. It would appear from what you write not to be the case. If I am wrong, I apologise. I would never doubt your sincerity. I question only whether in this cruel world, politically speaking at least, you might just have been barking up the wrong tree.
I remember the 1989 Euro election (I was an unusually politically aware 14yo at the time) when the Greens got about 15% but no seats because of FPTP. It turned out to be a flash in the pan — they could not build on their support because they would not go along with the attempt of their de facto leader at the time (the party refused to have any actual leader), Sara Parkin, to professionalise the party and turn it into a serious political force (she left politics not long afterwards). The party then completely lost the plot when David Icke took it over, and had returned to asterisk in the opinion polls by mid 1990.
Now it is a much more professional organisation than it was then, and does seem to be building up support the slow and hard way, as Lib Dems and their predecessors have always done. As noted in another thread, the Greens have people who have crossed over from us, some of whom (but not all) have brought along our values and campaigning tactics. So I would not dismiss them at all.
I absolutely agree with Katharine that toning down attacks on the Tories is not how we win them over. What puts soft Tories off isn’t radicalism, but Labour’s infantile leftism.
Actually it was in this same thread! We have trouble with the local Greens in Kingston, but in neighbouring Twickenham and Richmond we have a successful pact with them for the Council and Parliamentary elections. It’s horses for courses really as far as collaboration with the Greens goes. I wouldn’t expect much from them in C&A because of HS2.
@ John Marriott, as you say there is always plenty ” hubris” around! By the way my earlier comment wasn’t meant to be sarcastic.
Further enlivening comments: thank you, Peter,John M. and Alex. There was no ‘dismissal ‘ of the Green party in my remarks, John, only a statement of what appeared to me to be the case – ‘that they don’t seem to have parliamentary hopes, at least not at present’. If they do now as their numbers increase, good luck to them, and we can compete with them on questions of policy, national as well as local. I’m glad you have a successful pact with them in Twickenham and Richmond, Alex; I think I remember they contributed to Sarah Olney’s brief success in Richmond.
Peter, I was interested in reading about your particular sticking points. Yes, in my case I do seem to be more concerned with our liberties than some other Lib Dem colleagues, objecting in the first place to the constrictions on extent of walks, last year. I hope your concerns can be dealt with too.
@ John Marriott
Congratulations on discovering, or rediscovering, a new word in the dictionary. It would be even better if you knew what it meant!
@Peter Martin
“Excessive pride and self confidence”. Sounds a bit like you, I would say. I guess that, after what you wrote, you will be devoting more of your valuable time to convincing the “working class’’ that Old Labour is back and is on their side, rather than having a dig at the poor old misguided Lib Dems! (Mind you, did it ever go away?) I refer, of course, to your post of 8.22am not the one timed at 10.38am, of which I was not aware, when I wrote in at 11.02am. Your earlier post was the one to which I was referring. Now, that’s an example of hubris in my book.
@ John Marriott,
Hubris would be something like Theresa May’s decision to unnecessarily call the 2017 election and so offend the Gods that they decided she should lose. I can’t quite see how they would be too bothered I’ve said a Lib-Lab pact wouldn’t work.
Katharine Pindar: Yes the Green Party stood aside for Sarah in the Richmond Park by-election and both subsequent GEs (2017 when she narrowly lost, and 2019 when she won decisively).
@ Alex Macfie,
“What puts soft Tories off isn’t radicalism, but Labour’s infantile leftism.”
Just which policies count as being “infantile”? Be specific please.
I haven’t noticed any Labour resolutions on the need to exile the Royal family or to Nationalise, without compensation, everything in sight under the control of workers’ Soviets. I would imagine that might be going slightly too far for the good citizens of Tunbridge Wells. They might be relieved to know the last Labour election manifesto was more about rebuilding the Green economy and relieving poverty. Exactly the type of policies that many would potentially vote Lib Dem to support whereas they wouldn’t ever vote Labour. It just isn’t in their nature.
So that’s why we do need the Lib Dems to do well. To reach the sections of society that Labour cannot.
Yes, Peter, a concern for social justice is something I think Lib Dems and Labour activists share, and should press on this government, though Labour people will tend to stress inequality more than my party does. So long as we don’t support neo-liberalism any more, Labour can probably accept Lib Dem thinking, Clive Lewis MP suggested in his talk to the Social Liberal Forum.
We want full employment, as followers of Keynes surely should, and you and I agree a good deal on job guarantees. Of course on that even this government has made some moves, towards guaranteed jobs for young people, as well as free retraining for people at any age who haven’t got A levels. The Tories moving into big state intervention is I suppose the most radical latest change in the parties’ stances, brought about by the crisis of Covid19, but who could have imagined that in advance?
The old order of Left and Right is shifting, as the panel in the Best for Britain seminar I listened to seemed to agree. While you and I tend to think as you suggest that there are some Conservatives who will never vote Labour, and vice-versa, we can’t be so sure these days, when many Labour apparent die-hards in the North-East have voted Tory for the first time.
Alix, thank you for reminding me of the Richmond election history, that the Greens stood aside for Sarah Olney and she was finally successful in the 2019 election. By small steps we advance. It’s going to take thousands of steps though before ‘progressives’ take power again. (So I am glad you personally are younger!)
Ian Dunt at Politics.co.uk has a short summation of why Conservatives keep winning elections https://www.politics.co.uk/video/2021/05/08/why-do-the-tories-keep-winning-elections/
His key argument is that Conservatives do whatever it takes to win and they will change and morph into whatever shape is required to do that. Labour has always found that kind of malleability much more difficult because it is a much more mercurial party who’s main principles are a fairly rigid set of ideas based around socialism, social justice and equality.
In a representative democracy, governments are elected by popular vote. Public sentiment changes and develops in response to events.
There are three different approaches to explain electoral behavior: the party identification approach, the rational voter approach, and the socio-structural approach.
Party identification argues that voters choices depend on individual allegiances to political parties. These party attachments develop during the early years of childhood (through the socialization process).
The theory of the rational voter is based upon the economic approach to politics. Voters have self-centered motivations and behave like utility maximizers. The political arena is a market in which parties compete for votes in order to get into power. On the supply-side, parties propose electoral platforms and each voter chooses the platform expected to produce the best outcome for her/himself.
The socio-structural theory of voting outlines the relevance of social variables as predictor of electoral choices. According to this model, electoral behavior is determined by voters position on the social structure. Therefore, individuals belonging to the same social group will behave in similar ways. Social groups could be defined by social class, gender, ethnicity, age or any other relevant variable. Political parties are supposed to be a device to represent interest groups in the political arena. Hence, their constituency will be group of voters they represent.
So when we talk of Tory voters we are implicitly assuming a party identification approach which may be something of an anachronism in an age of identity politics.
@Joe Bourke
Surely, “if we talk of Tory voters” we ought to be identifying probably nearly half the population who basically want to get on with their lives unencumbered by “politics” and other such sordid matters. I’m afraid that idealists of the Bobby Kennedy variety “I dream of things that never were….” (I’m sure you know the rest) where the ability to sway opinion appear to be in short supply these days. I think I might have mentioned Herzberg’s ‘Hygiene Theory’ to you before. It might be worth your while, and add to your remarkable fount of knowledge, if you looked him up. That’s Frederick Herzberg (1922-2000), by the way. His work was mainly in motivation; but he has an interesting line in ambition. For many people it really is ‘bread and circuses’; for a few it’s clearly not enough.
I’ve no idea who Ian Dunt is but with comments that are stating the bleeding obvious to me at least he is clearly not an original thinker, although he might think that he is. I’ve shared his opinion of the Tories for many years. I ‘worked’ with and against their representatives in local government at different levels for 30 years, the last four as part of a coalition. I used to attend their group meetings and I can tell you that EVERYTHING they did was with a vote in mind. That Oscar Wilde definition of a cynic (“the cost of everything….” – I’m sure you know the rest) could equally well apply to your typical Tory at all levels. However, that doesn’t necessarily make them bad people, certainly not at the basic level – higher up, well, that might be a different matter.
@ Joe,
All three mechanisms you have suggested will have an effect to an extent. Personally I formed an attachment to Labour in my early teens which some would say I’ve never grown out of.
There is another factor which you haven’t included which is sense of National identity. It’s a potent force which can trump economic and social considerations. I would say the Remain campaign ignored this factor in its campaign in the referendum.
It looks like we are entering an era when voting patterns are starting to be defined more by one’s emotional sense of National identity rather than any other factor. It has always been like this in Northern Ireland, it has been the same in Scotland for at least the last 15 years, and it is now happening in England too. The Tories have redefined themselves more as an English National Party than a Tory / Unionist party. This newer look is more appealing to what was the traditional Labour vote. They may not actually bring themselves to vote for them but they are much more likely to not vote against them by staying at home.
The big concern, therefore, is the level of voter apathy. The turn out in the Hartlepool by-election was only 42% So 58% of the electorate couldn’t find a single candidate, out of the 16 on offer, they wanted to support. Jeremy Corbyn might have had his faults but at least he had the younger generation chanting his name at Glastonbury. JC did manage to introduce some emotion into his campaign which was needed to counter more negative ones. This is unlikely to ever happen with Sir Keir Starmer.
@Peter Martin
Yes, the turnout! 31% average in the local elections just shows you how little most people bother about politics at that level. Mind you, it was a daft time to hold them this year, anyway, given what has been going on. My answer to this is MONEY. Give local government more power, which means power to tax. If real money were riding on the results of local elections, you just watch the turnout rise.
As for allegiance to a party, like you, many people still identify with ‘Labour’ ; but which ‘Labour’ do they mean. More people identify as ‘Tory’. However, it doesn’t really matter what the party stands for. How many times do you see on their leaflets reference to “Keeping your Council Tax low”, for example? The Labour version usually refers to people paying more tax but nit “hardworking families”.
I am reminded of a couple of scenes from ‘Back to the Future 1’, when the Mayor in Marty’s home town campaigns on the slogan of “Lower Taxes and Better Services”, which is precisely the slogan used by his predecessor when Marty travels back to 1955. Was it ever thus?
‘There are three different approaches to explaining electoral behaviour’, you helpfully report, Joe, and though you do not reference them it seems an enlightening way of considering the present British situation. Much will depend, I suppose, on the strength of emotional attachment (as Peter reflects) of the movers and shakers, the politically aware and active who influence others.
Labour party members, imbued with Socialist ideals, seem far more attached to their shared principles than Conservative members to theirs (Unionism no longer seeming to be very important), and therefore must passionately fight each other to get their presentation right. But I guess it is their solidarity of feeling to each other which now allows slippage to voting Tory – that is, ‘If my mates are now adopting the rational/economic approach, then it’s all right for me to do so too.’ (First thoughts, I may be quite wrong.) Nationalism has indeed been important, but is less so now, I suggest, both because we have left the EU and because it has become blurred by the Welsh and Scottish versions – seemingly of little importance in Wales, much in Scotland, little I suppose in Northern Ireland either.
What does seem clear, unfortunately, is that Liberal Democrat movers and shakers, highly principled and therefore as unable to follow the rational/economic approach as to adopt the chameleon-like indifference of the Tories, cannot at present find the socio-economic identity to inspire many voters. Yet we have touched on it: Nick Clegg had it for a time – sincerely Liberal, unable to think of any other identity ; most recently, Tim Farron had it until he lost his way in religious identity. Let us keep thinking about it.
The former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks two years ago, spoke about unity in politics. May his memory be a blessing.
He was speaking about democracy.
People, get forgotten like the cladding, that’s my opinion. Accessible Housing is
non existent for many. Medical treatment has for many, been put on hold.
I believe in unity of some kind, what do you wish to achieve?
At the moment, according to most media pundits, the only alternative to the Tories would seem to be Labour. Unfortunately, unless a large number of voters is prepared to ‘lend’ Labour its voters, the chances of its winning a working majority in Parliament are non existent. So, Starmer and co need to back electoral reform.
They had better be quick. Already there is talk of repealing the Fixed Term Parliament Act, introducing FPTP for future Mayoral and PCC elections. Clearly we don’t want the farce of the AV Referendum again so, if opposition parties are serious about change, they have got to sing from the same hymn sheet and watch out for Elliott/Cummings style dirty tricks as happened the last time electoral reform was put to the vote.
In a recent poll over half of those consulted appeared to support a change. However, a similar figure was quoted before the AV campaign got going. It’s fine to be “high principled” and even to have “rational/economic approach” as Katharine puts it; but most elections require you to get your hands dirty or at least to compromise. That’s why, if we ever do get PR, I’m in favour of all parties having at least two policy lists, those that are not negotiable in the event of coalition building and those that are.
John Marriott,
coalition red lines are easier drawn than delivered. Had LibDems considered a coalition with Theresa May, it is likely that a referendum on the Brexit deal could have been achieved with Parliamentary support from Labour and the SNP, but not voting reform. The DUP held a firm line on the Irish border as the Tories supply and confidence partners. As a result, they ended up with their worst case scenario, a border down the Irish sea.
Any coalition that includes the SNP is going to have to accept a referendum on Scottish Independence. Although the SNP may support PR, it would probably see a significant drop in their Westminster seats https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/how-would-parliament-look-under-proportional-representation. That may require Labour and LibDems ditching their policy on maintenance of the Union. A rejection of SNP aspirations for a referendum may well see the development of a full blown constitutional crisis in the UK.
Different types of proportional representation are better for different parties making it more difficult to agree on a new system. In 2017, the Lib Dems and the Green Party would have fared best under the Additional Member System. But this would actually be worse for Labour than the current method. However, under STV – Labour would have won more seats than any other party in 2017.
Labour would also have benefitted in 2019 https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/how-the-2019-election-results-could-have-looked-with-proportional-representation/ but the Conservatives would still have won more seats than any other party. LibDems would have seen the number of seats increase from 11 to 70 under the d’hondt system.
Therein lies the conundrum. The party winning the largest number of votes across the UK is shut out by a coalition of socialist, liberal and nationalist parties (until Scottish Independence) akin to the 1910 election that saw a coalition of Liberals, Irish Nationalists and Labour.
@Joe Bourke
I’m a simple guy. If a party gets, say 10% of the votes cast, it should get 10% of the seats. What happens after that is up to the parties.
Katharine, I fear you, like a lot of Lib Dems, are still misinterpreting the main element of the Conservative party’s motivations. While the Conservatives may adopt a rational economic approach, their prime driver is much more simple. It is quite simply “It is better having a Conservative in power achieving doing 75% of what we want, than anyone else doing what they want.” Conservatives are end driven.
In contrast many Lib Dems are driven by values and principles. This is why many Lib Dems fail more often than they should – as do most Labour supporters, Greens etc. Many Lib Dems prefer to do the 100% right thing (from their personal viewpoint) even if they lose rather than to be only 90% correct and win, by have to sacrificing something they consider important.
That is also why the left is fragmented and the right not. Fragments lose and Conservatives would rather join together again, reabsorb UKIP and win, than take a principled stand on race, the Union or even economic success and lose.
If you look back on LDV, you will see many old posts on why Stephen Lloyd, was not a Lib Dem, should have been expelled from the party, and was doing the unconscionable, by promising to Eastbourne voters he would not oppose Brexit. They preferred him to stay 100% loyal to them (and lose), than to be 90% loyal (and win).
It is an approach that I fundamentally disagree with.
@David Evans
YES! I could not have put it better myself. Purity at all costs. Heaven forbid you might see the other person’s point of view and actually WIN!
John Marriott,
“If a party gets, say 10% of the votes cast, it should get 10% of the seats. What happens after that is up to the parties.” Agree entirely, John. I would say forget about having at least two policy lists. They will both go out the window anyway once any post-election coalition horse-trading starts. Better to adopt a position that makes clear the intention to put across the parties arguments on the basis of merit/public interest rather than red lines that may go by the wayside.
@Joe Bourke
My thinking being:
Given that, under any form of PR, no party is likely to get over 50% of the vote, the electorate has got to understand that whichever party they vote for would have to negotiate a programme for government if given the opportunity. So, if you vote for Party A you will know which policies it intends to stick to come hell or high water and which it is prepared to put on the back burner for the sake of forming a majority government. The same would apply to Party B and so on. After all, as the song goes; “You can’t always get what you want….Sometimes you get what you need”.
If we do away with “winner takes all” then surely compromise has got to be the name of the game? To call this “horse trading” is to demean a process of negotiation that is surely part of life in any civilised society and, dare I say, any civilised household, particularly if youngsters are involved!!
David Evans. I know what Tory leaders are as well as you do: ‘sophisticated predators’, I called them a long time ago. But your envisaging them wanting Conservatives in power achieving 75% of what they want just so long as they are in power seems to beg the question, of what it is they actually want.
Isn’t that basically the enjoyment of power? Plus I suppose the continued privilege, wealth and well-being of their own kind. Not power to achieve, as we want, just power to hold and to retain. But of course in our sophisticated society the iron grip in the velvet glove is always carefully disguised. Bread and circuses as ever for the masses, show your competence to be able to share just enough, and quietly point out that people could lose even the little they have if they don’t retain these competent managers. When eventually they fall, as they must – for a short time – it is likely to be a failure of competence (fishermen and sheep farmers, are you lamenting Brexit yet?) not because this lot have cut foreign aid to the poorest countries in the world and barred more refugees settling in our rich country.
Or am I just too cynical? I meet decent Tories all the time – and fall out with a few Lib Dems as well.
As Marx famously observed the dominant ideas in any society are those of the ruling class. So it isn’t surprising that we have a well funded right of centre Conservative party, and a well funded media to promote those values and concepts. This is not to say they are an homogenous group with unchanging opinions. We’ve seen a shift from the Toryism as represented by Cameron and Osborne to the new regime of Johnson and Gore. This still has some way to go and to an extent is a recognition by them that it is necessary to maintain a popular support base.
They are good at that! This base used to be reliant on the more affluent half of our society but this has changed as they have taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by cross party splits on the EU question to appeal to a wider section of society. It is a pity the left has let this happen by giving them a free run.
From a eurosceptic left perspective, it is somewhat disconcerting that the EU’s ruling class have been declared ‘off limits’ as regards any meaningful criticism by those who are happy to dish it out to just about everyone else. In other words, it was always fair enough to have a go at George Bush, Donald Trump and even at times Barrack Obama. But EU leaders could do what they liked and no-one, on the supposed progressive left, said a word!
Durham county council…………Independents, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are holding meetings to discuss how they would share power in what was once a stronghold of the Labour party. Labour has 53 of the 126 councillors (which is 11 short of a majority).The Conservatives have 24 and Liberal Democrats 17, with most of the remainder made up of Independents who are aligned in three groups.
I don’t know how well,or otherwise, Durham is run but the change can only happen if Tory and LibDems work together.
@ Joe,
“Given that, under any form of PR, no party is likely to get over 50% of the vote”
The Tories are reportedly on 46% according to the latest polling. If there were a preferential system which counted second choice votes they’d be easily over the 50% mark.
In any case, one FPTP election has to be won by someone other than the Tories for them to be able to change the system in the first place!
So, it would be better for both the Lib Dems and Labour to concentrate on building back their support base rather than dreaming about what might be if only we had PR. From a Labour POV there aren’t many votes to be had from the Lib Dems so there’s no point Starmer trying to convert the party into the Lib Dems MkII.
There are some votes to be won back from the Tories but there are much more to be won back from the ‘Abstain Party’. They won, hands down, in Hartlepool with 58% of the potential vote!
It would be better to offer the electorate the choice of a left, a centre and a right party. If they don’t like the idea of Labour left policies then they can vote Lib Dem. So the sooner the Lib Dems continue their previous recruitment of Right Wing Labour MPs the sooner the electorate will have a wider choice of potentially viable political options.
This is what is needed to boost overall turn out.
Liberal Democrat activists being less tribal than Labour’s, with their fierce loyalty to working-class roots, or than the Conservative activists, who are strongly attached to the interests of their ruling class (thank you for that idea, Peter M.), at least we are able to negotiate with both without opposing contradictory overriding emotions.
expats, thank you for that interesting information about Durham county council. As you suggest, it seems that the Lib Dems there and the Conservatives will need to work together. Is it easier to work with Conservatives generally because of their fluidity of opinion and swift evaluation of the most profitable chances for them? I guess so.
I am personally interested because in my first job, as a young reporter on one of the Durham Advertiser local papers, I was soon made aware that Labour was effectively the ruling class locally! As I recall, dominance with an ineffective opposition led to some undesirable results, as will tend to be the case, and as we see happening now in the national scene.
Katharine, I think you have slightly misread my post. When I refer to the Conservative *party* it is not the Conservative leadership I refer to, but the routine day to day members and loyal supporters. The day to day members don’t get to exercise power in any real way at all, but they “trust” the Conservative MPs, Councillors etc to do the ‘right thing’ most of the time.
Senior Conservative MPs and councillors may indeed want power for its own sake, but they are the vehicle for delivering conservatism and so long as they do so successfully, they will bet the support of Conservatives. Losing is the one reason Conservative leaders get replaced.
As I tried to say, “Many Lib Dems prefer to do the 100% right thing (from their personal viewpoint) even if they lose, rather than to be only 90% correct and win, by sacrificing something they consider important.” They fail to achieve the 9 things they could achieve because they insist it has to be all 10.
Whether it is 90% and 9 things out of 10, 70% and 7. or even 40% and 4, is not too important to a conservative, because they know that if they win, they can come back and have another try for the others at a later date.
In contrast, when Liberals gained some power nationally in 2010, they wanted to do it perfectly and allowed themselves to be beaten by concentrating too much on a few bits of perfection instead of a lot of good enough. That is why so many still defend what happened in coalition, because of Equal marriage, Pupil premium or the Green bank – one of which has gone, one is being steadily undermined and one which most conservatives are content with anyway.
That why all too often liberals lose, lose so badly, and lose so often.
“Delivering Conservatism” is, I think, an oxymoron, David Evans. They have it and they intend to keep it, more like. My own interest is in delivering social justice through the campaigning of our party. The theme of this thread has been, what do we do next?
I suggest, take up the issues locally in our Focuses – not just the local potholes, though we do deliver on case work, but also the national issues that are local too – child poverty in our area, joblessness increased through the Pandemic, lack of social housing, failing extra schooling provision, and so on. Our national focus has to be on an all-embracing Beveridge-2 type plan to cover all these issues and restore the lost social contract. The Tories can’t deliver on that as they don’t accept the principle, and from nurses’ pay to carers’ working conditions, they will be seen to fall short.
I and Michael Gooding are asking Federal Policy Committee to set up a working group, or groups, to put together Lib Dem policies to offer a new Beveridge-2 type Plan. It will cover much more than UBI, which can be part of the central aim of ending poverty in this country. but must tackle all the social injustices which have festered in the decade of Tory rule.
Borrowing useful material from another current thread, posters reminded us that UBI has been Green Party policy for decades. This is another reflection of why our party needs seriously to consider the Greens everywhere now, sometimes indeed as progressive partners, but also sometimes as rivals for the votes we need to win. Their expansion in Scotland, pro-Independence as they apparently are, would seem an especially formidable challenge, but I suppose we cannot outbid them on environmental matters anywhere, however ‘caring and green’ we may be.
May I add one lighter note? (Not before time, you may say!) Our knowledgeable friend Joe Bourke, who is contributing enormously to the UBI thread, wrote at one point, ‘Child benefits should go to all regardless of income.’ ‘Aha!’ I thought, accredited counsellor as I am: ‘Everyone needs to recognise their inner child, and everyone of us therefore does indeed deserve nurturing!’ (Ah well, perhaps you need a counselling background to enjoy that, but Joe did brighten the day for me for a minute – thanks, Joe!)
To conclude, let’s not actually pause, locally or nationally. Congratulations to the local associations, Michael’s Basingstoke for one, already getting out their thank-you Focuses. Congratulations to the UBI working group for delivering their consultation on next steps towards it.
But UBI can’t happen yet while. What can and should happen, surely, is for us to hold this government to its promise of help to deprived areas of our country, but demand much more – answers on social care, benefits enhancement, more sustainable jobs which contribute to the environment, more training and apprenticeship opportunities, more social housing, and necessary catch-up schooling. Let’s have a new FPC working group to frame our policies and propose more, within an overall purpose of caring for and serving our people through enhanced state help: aim to create a post-Covid Beveridge-2 Plan which asserts that the social contract between government and people can and must be restored.
Katharine, I’m afraid you still don’t get it.
“Delivering Conservatism” is not an oxymoron, It is a strategy. It is a strategy to destroy liberalism in the UK.
Dismissing it with a quick one liner like “Delivering Conservatism is, I think, an oxymoron, David Evans. They have it and they intend to keep it, more like.” shows the paucity of real analysis and thought that you have put into our problem.
Over the last 10 years the Conservatives have all but destroyed us as a force in parliament. Why? Because too many want to talk about how to campaign in future rather than work out how to stop losing now.
In 2016 we lost the EU Referendum because people preferred campaigning for the future to dealing with the problem of how to win.
In 2019 we lost once again, not because our campaigning was rubbish, but because we still had not addressed why we were losing.
Working out that the Conservatives win because that is what they focus on is not an oxymoron, it is a fact.
Working out that we lose in so many places despite our campaigning because too many of us prefer talking about campaigning, but not enough to talk about how to win, is not an oxymoron, it is a fact.
I’m sorry, but when you go on to say “My own interest is in delivering social justice through the campaigning of our party,” you are just exacerbating the problem.
When will you grow tired of repeated failure and decline?
Thank you for contributing, David, but It isn’t clear to me how you think we should act to win. Since I think you live in a constituency with our sole northern MP, perhaps you and your colleagues can advise on how we here in West Cumbria can rid ourselves of our Tory incumbents. Best wishes for your continued success in South Lakes.