This has to be the strangest Twitter conversation involving a Liberal Democrat MP this year.
Lib Dem conference rally and party political broadcast superstar Kavya Kaushik asked Jeremy Browne on Twitter:
Hi @JeremyBrowneMP do you like Taylor Swift? Do you like Libertarian Fans of Taylor Swift on Facebook? Did you create the movement?
His reply:
@Kav_Kaushik I am agnostic about Taylor Swift. No to the second question!
— Jeremy Browne (@JeremyBrowneMP) January 6, 2015
Elsewhere on his Twitter feed, we find him putting his own unique twist on the current Lib Dem message:
The Liberal Democrats will cut more than Labour and borrow more than the Conservatives. — Jeremy Browne (@JeremyBrowneMP) January 6, 2015
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11 Comments
“Lib Dem conference rally and party political broadcast superstar Kavya Kaushik”? Sorry, I haven’t heard of her x
His criticism of our message is very insightful. It’s the problem of defining ourselves on the terms of others.
“A vote for the Lib Dems needs to be a vote for liberalism, not for coalition. Unlike liberalism, coalitions are not inherently virtuous”- His tweet from yesterday, again spot on. And his description of “insipid centrism” hits uncomfortably close to home.
Whilst I do think there is such a thing as the ‘radical centre’, much-criticised by others, Jeremy Browne is dead right to criticise the split-the-difference nature of the current sloganeering, which is non-radical centrism taken to its apogee (or nadir). I suspect that is about all I agree with him on, but I don’t know why he is being mocked in this way with the Taylor Swift thing.
FWIW, Louis, I don’t think liberalism is definable as one clear unified strand of thought, nor that it is ‘inherently virtuous’.
An elderly LibDem member asks (judicially): “Who is Taylor Swift?”
I do know who Kavya Kaushik is. I’ve even heard her make a speech.
Jeremy Browne is perfectly correct when he states Lib Dem policy as being
“The Liberal Democrats will cut more than Labour and borrow more than the Conservatives.”
This is the corollary of
“The Liberal Democrats will cut less than the Conservatives and borrow less than Labour.”
We should be straight with voters about the government finances and the state they are in. Jeremy Browne is doing that.
Funnily enough I had a similar thought to Jeremy Browne this morning about Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem message which appears to be, “Vote Lib Dem. We’re less fair than Labour and less competent than the Tories.”
I agree with David. I think there’s kudos is being straight with the voters.
@Matt
That’s fair, but it’s detail that can’t be covered in 140 characters. Promoting our own positive interpretation of liberalism would surely be better than our current negative message that we’re not as bad as the others. And only then in specific areas- apparently we’re fine with the idea that Labour would create a fair society, when 13 years of government suggests otherwise.
How about
“We will spend rich people’s money to help poor people stand on their own feet”
Simon – “We want to disperse power and influence more widely, not concentrate it in the hands of vested interests”
Rich people are quite capable of spending their own money – they do not need anyone else to do it for them.