Vince’s New Year message is a little different. It’s another of these W1A style videos where he goes completely off piste from the remarks prepared for him by his team. Which would never, ever happen in real life, obviously.
He concentrates on the principles that drive the Liberal Democrats, challenging vested interests and standing up for the underdog.
He’ll be wanting to get over in the next year how the Liberal Democrats have so often been right and ahead of our time. 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of the formation of the Liberal Democrats and in that time we’ve led on issues like LGBT rights, the Iraq war, environmental issues, standing up for the rights of Hong Kong citizens and calling for humanitarian intervention in Bosnia. We should also remember that Vince was the lone political voice warning about the dangers of the credit crunch.
Establishing that pattern of being right and credible on the issues of the last 30 years gives us the right to be heard on the big issue of today – Brexit.
It’s certainly a novel way to do a New Year message and the W1A format was well received last time.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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15 Comments
Disability, is one missed off the list. Disabled people do find there is much still needs to be done.
The disabled sign is someone sat in a wheel chair, that’s not the only disability. There are the unseen disabilities. Those you don’t see.
I tried to reason why we have disabled toilets to a railway company, now I’ve left it to my MP. It’s not for general use its for disabled people who find a normal toilet difficult to use. The front seats of a bus, not meant to store luggage or shopping, it’s much easier to use those seats if you are disabled, in an emergency you would be helped off the bus. Some of us have had disabilities all our lives, my daughter says she would never have believed how unseen I am.
You will never have a perfect society, but the disabled are behind on some issues.
This left me feeling flat, uninspired and slightly baffled, and I can’t see it appealing to much of the electorate. Vince is a good man but seems to lack a decent PR team. The pre-Christmas video of him being out on the streets meeting homeless people wasn’t perfect but at least it was better than this.
Agree with Yeovil Yokel. This naff message might work as a humorous message for the faithful on LDV but to put it out as Vince’s message to the public, words fail me!!!! It also makes his back up team look idiots.
His first task must be to appoint a new PR team, our current PR is a mess, and one of the reasons we are 7% in the national polls, but better locally where local members produce their own PR.
Vince, please replace it with an inspiring New Year Message today, before it is too late.
……………….the Iraq war……………..
Where was the party on Libya and Syria? This just seems to confirm that, as a party in opposition, we have beliefs that disappear when we are in government..
Also in agreement with YY. Sorry.
Not perfect, but I did quite like it – certainly no less ‘inspiring’ than the typical politician type messages seen from May and Corbyn today.
I think it’s very good. In all respects, not just because it doesn’t obsess over Brexit as if nothing else matters (sorry Caron).
The previous W1A version was good too but you had to be W1A fan to really get it. This one is sincere, fresh and accessible to all. An excellent departure from run of the mill ad land products.
Well done whoever was behind this. An emphasis on values and principles reminding members what we are about to inspire and motivate us to carry our message outwards though campaigning. It is the mark of a very different leadership to the one that nearly destroyed the Party and Tim started to rebuild. It is one we desperately need on the long hard road back to being trusted by more than a fraction of the electorate.
I had mixed feelings.
I liked Vince’s actual message but it would have been much better to simply be delivered straight to microphone: Vince came across sincerely and with integrity when simply delivering his message.
The W1A framework, pretending that Vince had to ignore and undermine his advisors in order to say what he wanted to, was crass and actually just underlined that the whole thing had been carefully directed and probably focus-grouped too. I get that there is an attempt at humour, but do we really want to be seen as a party where unaccountable wonks write all the scripts and control all the ideas unless the leader has enough courage to resist?
Not sure about the W1A joke, assume it is something to do with Broadcasting House. Just watched the message and it works very well for me. Good to see Vince breaking with the usual boring party leader stuff and he looks & sounds as though he means it.
It sounded good to me and I suspect that, like many other members of the public who have no idea what W1A is, for those who hear or see it, it will go down well.
As Vince said, policies change, but principles remain the same. As someone who has watched our policies change over the years, I live in hope that in time many will change back to where they were for the majority of time I have been a party member.
To name just a few areas of policy we used to support and where I hope the party will return to I its old policies in the year ahead – Opposition to tuition fees and access to higher education not based on ability to pay, support for renewable energy and against and subsidy to nuclear power generation, for an effective conventional defence force without nuclear weapons, in favour of electoral reform and ending the unelected House of Lords.
Finally. On Brexit, we must move on from looking like a party which wants a bad deal from the negotiations, so that the public will reject it in the unlikely event of another referendum.
And a Happy New Year to all at LDV
“but do we really want to be seen as a party where unaccountable wonks write all the scripts and control all the ideas unless the leader has enough courage to resist?”
It’s done alright for Corbyn…. honestly, it’s already how we and all political parties are generally perceived by the public.
I think the video was great and Vince did well. He got to the essence of what being a Lib Dem is all about.
Happy New Year to everyone at LDV !!!
Everyone is white. Again. No matter how many times it is pointed out this happens again and again.
Could we have a simple version just with Vince giving his key messages – it would be more suitable for sharing on other sites.