Remember when we used to do the Friday Five, the Divine Ms Duffett always had a section which had five posts from previous years? Well, I thought it would be good to revive the idea with a few quintets of Festive posts to amuse you.

First up, we go back to 2010. Christmas feel a few weeks after the trauma of that “tuition fees” vote. Chris White wrote quite a prescient post about what the party needed to do to recover. He’d had a conversation with someone who had resigned from the party over the issue. This was also in the wake of the Telegraph recording Liberal Democrat ministers talking, shock horror, like Liberal Democrats:

But events of the last few days have made her think again. She can now see that Liberal Democrat ministers have not sold out – that they are fighting their corners and standing up for the manifesto on which they were elected.

She doesn’t like the Tories and has no intention of voting Labour. And now she regrets voting Lib Dem rather less than a week ago.

At times like these every straw looks like a life raft but she is certainly not alone in feeling better about political life.

The Telegraph – much to its own chagrin, no doubt – has done us a huge favour by highlighting three things: first, that Lib Dem ministers are essentially honest, even painfully so. Second, that they are standing up for our policies and our philosophy even though they find the circumstances frustrating. Third, that there is and always was a difference between Merger and Coalition.

Chris saw those revelations as the start of our path to political redemption. It’s a longer path than he may have perhaps anticipated, but the fury has died down and there are signs that people are ready to listen to us again. It’s taken a lot of hard work and will require a great deal more, but we are in a much better position than we were a few years ago.

Second up – this post from 2007 shows that it was a cause of great celebration that Nick, newly elected as leader, got into the media a whole three times. How things have changed.

Back on our first Christmas, in 2006, “the Founding Editor” wrote about the deficiencies in the electoral process for party committees and office bearers. Liberal Democrat Voice had pioneered the publication of a list of candidates, but no discussion was possible because all internet campaigning was against the rules. Things had changed by 2012 where there was widespread internet campaigning and Jennie Rigg did her questions to candidates for the Federal Policy and Conference Committees.

In 2008, we were 18 months from a General Election and 6 months from the Euros. Sound familiar? Stephen Tall kicked off a series of Op-Eds on Christmas Day asking how you’d some up what the party was about in a sentence. Heaven knows what the afore-mentioned Ms Rigg, the Liberal Democrats’ Queen of Smut in Residence would make of his answer. You could pick threads of stronger economy, fairer society in what he said, though.

Last year, Paul Walter had a Christmas confession to make.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social