We’re Liberals and we’re democrats. So we should be talking much more about Liberal and democratic values, in public: that’s what makes us distinctive, what drives us into politics – and what attracts new people to the party.  When I first joined the party, everyone from Jo Grimond down talked about redefining liberalism and its implications for our society, our economy and our foreign policy.  Now we are too shy about reaching beyond daily press releases and restating the principles on which our politics are based.

Others are not so shy.  I’ve read defences of neo-liberalism in the Times and the Financial Times in the past two weeks, and no doubt the Telegraph, the Spectator and Unherd have offered similar thoughts.  The case for shrinking the state, for contracting out public services to private companies (which may turn out to be owned by other states, which our free marketeers somehow seem to find acceptable), for loosening regulation of markets, continues to form the conventional wisdom of the British commentariat, and Labour has not yet found a way of redefining the central issues of relations between society, economy and state.  Can we do better?

The preamble to our party constitution commits us ‘to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.’  The fundamental challenge for liberals is how to maintain such a balance in the face of rapid social and economic change, and against the background of international turmoil that threatens the liberal ideal of a peaceful world.  Community was far easier to maintain when most people lived and died within a few miles of where they had been born, and most worked for employers similarly local.  Liberty for the wealthy and educated has always been easier than for the marginal and poor.  Equality is a worthy principle, but very difficult to reconcile with liberty and with a market economy, let alone to promote at a time of rapid technological change.; practical liberals talk more of equality of opportunity and of limits to inequality.  Globalisation – the endpoint of the market economies and open borders that our Liberal predecessors worked to create – makes the preservation of stable communities and the prevention of a widening gulf between ultra-wealthy and struggling masses harder and harder to maintain.  Globalization concentrates power in multinational companies and private equity, far from the concept of ‘responsible capitalism’ with which liberalism grew.   Some liberals are now talking about wealth taxes; but that is only scratching the surface of the economic inequalities we face and will be well beyond the reach of American trillionaires and Russian oligarchs.

We also believe that ‘the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.’  Does that imply a smaller state for a liberal society, or a larger role for governmental activity (and financial redistribution) at local, regional, national and international levels?  I believe that in current circumstances we need an active and well-funded state – a Keynesian state, as opposed to the minimalist version of von Hayek and Milton Friedman.  But I’m not sure that as a party we have a coherent stance on this fundamental question, or a settled view about how public investment and public services should be organised, funded and held accountable. 

Outside and alongside our party there’s a lively and informed debate about the tensions between democracy and capitalism, about the constraints on freedom necessitated by living in dense conurbations with mobile and diverse populations, on the social changes required to cope with our ageing populations and the implications of moving from conventional measurements of economic growth to sustainability.  Dany Rodrik, Martin Wolf, Daron Acemoglu (whose new book, ‘What happened to Liberal Democracy?’, is published this month), Kate Pickett and many others are addressing broad questions like these.  Think tanks in Britain and in other democracies are pouring out studies and reports. We appear to outsiders to be focusing on retail political topics rather than the relevance of our underlying approach to politics to current political dilemmas.  

That damages us in terms of recruiting new members and activists and in capturing the attention of serious political commentators.  Robert Shrimsley explained in the Financial Times two months ago that ‘I don’t write about the Lib Dems’ because he hears us addressing church roofs rather than political or economic reform.  It’s true that other parties, from the Greens to Reform, have their own inconsistencies and contradictions; I read David Frost in the Telegraph the other week demanding a stronger defence of British sovereignty while also supporting free markets and a smaller state. But if we want to sway the public debate, to change the way governments approach the economy and social order and to transform the way we conduct our politics – as Ed Davey promised in the opening paragraphs of the 2024 manifesto – we need to articulate the distinctive Liberal Democrat approach, and why it is better than the angry populism of Restore, the small state nostalgia of the Conservatives and the romantic socialism of the Greens.

* William Wallace is LibDem peer, a former vice-chair of the Federal Policy Committee and convenor of the party's 1997 manifesto team.