Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Over 500 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.
Farron, Huppert and Oakeshott had best 2012 say Lib Dem members
LDV asked: In your opinion, which Lib Dem MP or peer overall has had the best year?
This question allowed an unprompted, free-text response, which over 400 party members filled in. And here’s what you told us:
- 1. Tim Farron (82)
- 2. Julian Huppert (58)
- 3. Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott (45)
- 4. Vince Cable (35)
- 5. Baroness (Shirley) Williams (17)
- 6. Jo Swinson (13)
- =7. Nick Clegg (12)
- =7. Ed Davey (12)
- =7. Lord (Tony) Greaves (12)
- =7. Lord (Tom) McNally (12)
- 11. Simon Hughes (11)
- 12. Lord (Paddy) Ashdown (9)
- 13. Lynne Featherstone (6)
- =14. David Laws (5)
- =14. John Pugh (5)
You told us Vince Cable was the Lib Dem minister who’d had the best year; and Nick Clegg who’d had the worst. But the overall winner of which Lib Dem politician has enjoyed the best 2012 goes to the party president, Tim Farron.
His popularity doesn’t always mean party members agree with him — he caused a storm earlier this year by controversially co-signing a letter attacking the Advertising Standards Authority for banning a controversial religious advert. Yet Tim’s same day response to the criticisms points to the reasons for his popularity: a frank, hold-my-hands-up apology for the bits he regretted and a clear, concise re-statement of the liberal values that underpinned his point. Then there’s his enthusiastic but honest pick-me-up emails to members after the latest election disappointments, or his real-time, unspun verdicts on events like the reshuffle, or his willingness to listen to party members’ views on key liberal issues.
Cambridge MP Julian Huppert is another guardian of the liberal flame, fighting the good fight on the internet snoopers’ charter, against Heathrow’s expansion, reforming drugs laws, or championing science policy in parliament.
Meanwhile Lib Dem peer Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott has been a persistent thorn in the side of George Osborne and the Coalition’s economic policy, arguing in the summer for a wholesale change at the Treasury, and putting forward his own plans to kick-start the economy. His pithy assertions will not always have gone down well with the leadership (especially when implying Nick Clegg should be ditched as leader) and his surprise declaration the Lib Dems shouldn’t appoint more peers to the Lords left me baffled. But there’s no doubt his combative differentiation strategy has gone down well with members: he was voted the party’s most effective non-MP campaigner in the summer by party members.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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6 Comments
I am astonished to see my name in this list considering the bit part I nowadays play in national politics (but rather amused by the company I am keeping).
I don’t usually take part in this kind of nonsense or comment on it (and in doing so now I am breaking a several months self-imposed embargo on taking part in the public section of LDV in protest against some of the policies imposed by the moderators…)
I just want to say that if an old fogey like me is in this list, it really shows what a bad state our party is in. (Perhaps the fact I am here is due to holding my Council seat fairly comfortably last May which is the only good thing I can remember in the past twelve months…) Oh well, only another year to go to the end of 2013.
Tony Greaves
I think where Matthew Oakeshott has done well is in standing up to the Tories on banking reform. He seems to be one of a dwindling number of Lib Dem politicians who has a mind of his own and a reason to exist and not just prop up the Tories in office.
12 votes for the Leader from over 400 paid-up Party members.
Says it all really.
Farron’s championship of the “75% of Liberal Democrat policies implemented” line, which most of the general public misread as “75% of this government’s policies are Liberal Democrat” and hence concluded “Gosh, if that’s so, the Liberal Democrats are nothing like what I though they were, I’m never going to vote for that right-wing bunch again” should have been a mark of shame. If the man had any decency he should have resigned when the team who came up that line did another calculation on the back of a different envelope and came out with the figure 40% rather than 75%.
This unrelentless optimism coming in statements and presentations from the top about our position, when the general public can see quite obviously it’s not like this is doing us no good whatsoever. We are seen like smarmy salesmen, cynically pushing a rubbish product with lines we ourselves probably don’t believe. It ought to have been OBVIOUS, as it was to most ordinary people, when that “75%” figure first came out, that the government we have now feels nothing like what we wanted when we started supporting the Liberal Democrats, and so however it was derived,m it was extremely suspect. Apart from the foolishness in presenting it in he way Farron did, he also in this way revealed himself as a useless politician, because one of the most basic jobs of a politician is to look at and investigate figure, see where they came from, don’t just take them for granted, do some analysis,m and be very cautious of bad statistics. This was bread-and-butter work when was a councillor, poring over the figures coming from the council (when we still had them because we still had a committee system), to see whether they made sense or what lay behind them if they didn’t seem to. Just taking the line “it must be true because it’s written down here on paper” would be to abdicate my job.
Peter Chegwyn
12 votes for the Leader from over 400 paid-up Party members.
Says it all really.
To be fair, we’re not the Korean Workers’ Party, so we don’t have to hold to the position that if it’s the poll of the “Best X” for any X, our Glorious Leader must naturally be it.
@Matthew
True enough, but you’d think that more than that would spontaneously choose the party leader, wouldn’t you?
It is amusing to see that Tony Greaves has got more than twice as many votes as David Laws…