[Politics] The Liberal Democrats

[davywavy]

There was a point, about a year ago, when the Liberal Democratic Party were the hippest, most jivingest party in the country. Bouyed by Nick Clegg's failure to make a complete tit of himself on national television, LibDem supporters were jubilant, opinion polls briefly put them in second place in the election, and "I agree with Nick" was a catchphrase for, oooh, the best part of a week.

Speaking personally, I've never really considered voting for the LibDems. I always thought they had some really good ideas, but they also had far too many policies which read like they'd been written by someone who'd been kicked in the head by a horse - and it looked like most of the electorate agreed with me, because come the election they'd slipped back to their usual third place. It's arguable that the defection of the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative partty to UKIP had a greater effect upon the outcome of the last election* than did any agreeing with Nick, but thanks to the vagaries of the electoral system we ended up with a Liberal Party in government for the first time in as long as anyone who is young enough to still have all their marbles can remember.

Since then, I've been generally impressed by how the coalition has worked out. I didn't vote for either of the parties involved, but overall I've come to the conclusion that of all the possible outcomes of the election they've turned out to be probably the least worst. George Osborne's economic shortcomings have been bolstered by David Laws and Danny Alexander telling him what to do, whilst the more 'kicked-in-the-head-by-a-horse' LibDem policies have been curtailed by David Cameron laughing until he cries every time they're mentioned. Moreover, the LibDems have got several policies through which most certainly wouldn't have happened under a solely Conservative majority - the raising of the tax threshold to 10k (which is a brilliant policy and will do more to get people into work and out of the poverty trap than Labour managed in 13 years and with all the tax credits you can eat. I'm hoping the economics of raising it to 14k will be in place before the next election), and the ending of the detention of migrant children, for example. Additionally, they've got a shot at their dream of electoral reform.

Despite their successes, the outright rejection of the LibDems by their voters has been impressive to watch. If I'd been a LibDem supporter before the last election, I'd be pretty much delighted at this stage of procedings but it appears I'm missing something about the Liberal Democrat Supporter mindset - and it's what I'm missing that I want to explore. Y'see, I'm generally an optimistic, glass-half-full sort of chap and I find that the world goes my way so rarely that I'm delighted when it does. The outrage from Libdems that their party hasn't been able to acheive their ideal world in eight months flat as part of a compromise government just leaves me baffled, and I'm starting to wonder what the average Liberal Democrat actually wants...
Nick Clegg once said something to the effect that the Libdems weren't a party of government, but their role was to act as the conscience of government and that comment makes me wonder if the LibDems (or their supporters) really ever wanted to get into power, with all the compromises and failures which being in power entails. As I didn't vote for either of the two current governmental parties, I'm aware of the smug self-satisfaction which comes from being able to believe anything I like whilst never having to engage with the consequences of seeing those beliefs enacted or challenged - and I'm kinda coming to the conclusion that the LibDems were the party for people who wanted to feel like that.

It's all really blown up over the pledges, signed by many Libdem candidates, to oppose university tuition fees. Pledges which, in the event, many of those who are now MPs have been unable to keep, to their obvious distress. Higher tuition fees have been coming ever since Polytechnics were allowed to start pretending to be universities in the early 1990s, Tony Blair decided that anyone can go to university no matter how thick they are and finally Gordon Brown getting the economy alone in the changing rooms and saying it had a real purty mouth. It really strikes me that blaming the Libdems for having to break that promise is like being angry that someone who promised to buy you a pint turned up at the pub having been mugged and their wallet stolen. Like Vince Cable wearily said - he's having to live in the real world now.

But this is a serious question to all my Libdem-supporting pals out there. What are the Liberal democrats? Or what did you think they were? Are you a political party, with politics being 'the art of the possible', with all the the grubby compromise that entails? Or were you just the biggest pressure group in the country all along who happened to get unlucky and find yourselves in over your heads when it came down to it? You've got more of your policies enacted in coalition than you otherwise ever would in a million years - why aren't you happy? What were you expecting to happen? What would you like to have happened?
What, in other words, did you actually want in the first place - because I'm darned if I can figure it out from your reactions.

^{*There are twenty seats where the number of UKIP votes exceded the number of votes which would have swung them to the Conservatives. If Cameron hadn't gone back on his EU-referendum promise, I reckon we'd've had an outright Conservative majority.}

Comments

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

The Liberal Democrats are a party of excellent ideas, but have always struck me as the 'idealist party'. They have very few policies that I disagree with in principle, but I think the real problem for them has been that they never expected to be in power. I agree with the abolition of Tuition fees, but I also believe that the number of people who can go to university should be dramatically cut...

The problem with being an idealist party is that a lot of your supporters are also idealists. Instead of thinking 'gosh, what would it have been like if Clegg wasn't involved?', a lot of supporters are throwing their toys out of the pram over broken pledges. Don't get me wrong, I think its bad that those MPs who signed the pledge didn't at least abstain from voting, but I think those who are declaring the LibDems to be 'Tories in disguise' or 'selling their soul for seats in parliament' are pretty juvenile in their arguments.

This has not been helped by Nick Clegg, who is left in a very painful position. I have no doubt that he could turn some of that pre-election charm on and deflect all manner of aggression away from the Lib-Dems and onto the Conservatives, but that would of course lead to the coalition falling to bits and the country getting royally shafted. Instead, he's being used as the man in the firing line, trying to explain that 'yes, we said we'd get you a pony for christmas, but we can't afford it'.

I can honestly see Clegg trying to make himself a scapegoat, taking as much of the flack as possible on his own back and then resigning in a hail of 'sorry' once electoral reform gets through so that the Lib Dems can pretend 'now we've got rid of him, things will be different'.

IMHO the LibDems are making the difficult transition from the heady world of Liberal idealism to the more difficult task of applied liberal values. when you aren't in charge you can change the world tomorrow, when you are in charge you have to start at day 1.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You'd think that people would be looking at the LibDems and saying "Gosh, they can comport themselves with dignity in power", and being impressed. I certainly am. Heck, drop the kicked in the head by a horse policies, and I'll look seriously at casting my vote your way next time round.

But the toy-throwing? It's been staggering. I'm amazed by just how divorced from reality so many LibDem voters appear to have been over what is actually achievable within the quite narrow confines of government.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that a lot of people used the Lib Dems as a way to excercise their beliefs without responsibility - being able to say 'I voted against that!' without worrying about having to actually take responsibility for the results of implementing it (the opposite of refusing to vote for the Lib Dems because despite believing in their policies, 'they won't get in').

This has been rather exacerbated by the wave of 'maybe we can!' that resulted from the pre-election debates. A lot of Lib-Dem supporters hopes were raised far too high, believing that Clegg would somehow implement the majority of Lib-Dem policies because he somehow had the Cons by the balls.

The problem with the student fees seems to be that Lib Dems have lost their moral high-ground and many supporters are now stamping them as 'corrupt like all the rest', perhaps having voted for them on the basis of them being 'nice' rather than their actual policies.

Given that Clegg was persuing the 'we are a serious political party' line during the election campaign, I think that has been continued very well. Perhaps if Clegg was less competant, Cameron wouldn't be able to keep putting him up to deal with the tricky press conferences.

I fully expect the next manifesto to be more realistic in its outlook, while retaining the spirit of the previous one. Hopefully that'll help them to swing more of the central vote, particularly if they get their electoral reforms.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I think that's an excellent assessment, and concur with it. I would also hope they can recover their position. I'd very much like to see the Libdems become the second party and reduce Labour to a rump.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

I think they actually have a chance of doing it, but mostly because I'm not convinced Milliband could lead his way to bed in a brothel.

Lets just hope the Lib Dems don't get jumpy and start calling for resignations because they don't like the bad press.

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. I dread to think what would have happened with a purely Conservative government. Even the tuition thing, which I am very much not a fan of, is a work in progress and will probably not be as bad as a lot of people think once the sums have been done and the government realises it doesn't actually save them as much money as they thought.

So yeah, I wasn't expecting much, and I've been slightly disappointed in some cases, and pleasantly surprised in others.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

I think the tuition thing will die down pretty quickly once people realise its just a massive saddling of debt, instead of having to pay up front. Much like the student loans now, I don't know of any bank, company or individual who counts their student loan as 'real' debt. The repayment is so long term (and slightly crooked) that it doesn't really factor in. I pay slightly less than the interest on my loan every year and will continue to do so until I die... I suspect it will be similar under the new system. (still think its the wrong way to go mind you).

Scrapping EMA is actually a smart move imho, but I'd like to see it replaced with means-tested subsidies for transport. I think that could be achievable, but we will see.. its not all as doom and gloom as its being presented.

[(Anonymous)]

Of course, the other issue is the difference between the membership and (at least certain members of) the leadership. The likes of Clegg, Laws and the rest of the 'Orange bookers' are soggy wet on Europe, but they're reasonably right-wing economically - indeed, one might actually say they were actually liberals. By comparison, the membership seems to be a spin-off of the wooliest lefties of the Labour Party.

The mere idea of coalition with the evil Tories is just anathema. The Tories could have agreed to introduce fullblown PR and the LibDem membership would still have been waiting for the first opportunity to shout "Judas" at Clegg, because that is intrinsically what they feel. They've only been this quiet so far because they know they'd have looked stupid at turning down power. In the end though, your average LibDem thinks Simon Hughes is sound. That's all you really need to know.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

I think that sums it up well. Its as much a 'good vs evil' thing between Lib Dem and Tory as it is to do with actual policies for some voters.