Thursday, September 24, 2009 

A very underwhelming conference.

As conferences go, the Liberal Democrats' visit to Bournemouth was not exactly a resounding success. To be sure, as Martin Kettle suggests, anything that brings the party to wider public attention, however fleeting, helps. When 60% don't know who Nick Clegg is, according to a Newsnight poll, a figure which probably suits him down to the ground, you have to hope instead that it's your policies rather than your personality that makes the waves.

It was those policies, naturally, which came just as unstuck as both Clegg and Vince Cable did over the week. It's understandable when we're still either eight or nine months away from the election and when the political theme of the moment is how to get the deficit down with the smallest amount of pain, but surely Clegg and co realised that talking of "savage cuts" to the Guardian wasn't going to go down well? To then increase the pain by taking the sacred cow of abolishing tuition fees and downgrading it to an "aspiration" was surely asking for trouble, or as much trouble as the staid bunch of yellowshirts can manage, which, predictably, was a letter to the self-same Graun.

The standard defence of this rather amicable difference of opinion within the party is that the Liberals are the only remaining of the main three parties which actually decides its policies at conference democratically. This doesn't however explain the bewildering failure of either Clegg or Cable to inform Julia Goldsworthy of the new "mansion tax" policy, despite it firmly being her turf, nor does it then help us to understand why the party didn't know how it was actually meant to work. This wouldn't perhaps be unusual when it comes to either the government or the opposition, responding to a headline with a policy drawn up on the back of the proverbial cigarette packet or dinner napkin, with the details to follow later, but this was the party that usually has it all worked out in advance.

Part of the reason seems to be down to Clegg and Cable thinking that they can run the party as their own fiefdom, buoyed by their overwhelming popularity. You can hardly blame dear old Vince for some of the hype going to his head, but Clegg has hardly done anything to justify such delusions of grandeur. Last year Clegg's closing speech was underwhelming; this year it was completely dismal. To call it a speech might even be awarding it an adjective it doesn't deserve, as Clegg seemed to take the very worst tendencies which overwhelmed the utterances of Tony Blair, such as beginning a new paragraph when he was only starting the next sentence as well as the vacuity of the seemingly endless statements of facts and pseudo-beliefs, and combining it with the personal feel that David Cameron attempts to emulate and dismally fails to. Hence Nick wants to be prime minister, not like the Tories because they believe that they're entitled to it as their time has come again, but because he's on our side, not the side of the "others". When it comes to platitudes made to seem inspiring, wanting to be on the side of the weak rather than the strong is not exactly stirring stuff.

When attacking Labour, especially accusing them of betraying the best hopes of a generation, there was some power in amongst the placidness, but it was few and far between. Easily the worst combination, already being much mocked, was Clegg's espousal of a "progressive austerity". When Cameron and Osborne talk of austerity, it sticks in the craw because you know that not once in their entire lives have they had to experience anything approaching "austerity", yet they delight and seem almost excited at imposing it upon the country. Clegg somehow imagines that by cloaking this austerity in the verbiage of wonky ideology that we won't notice that he in fact seems to be telling us that he was to makes things, err, progressively worse. It's perhaps not the greatest example, but an Alastair Campbell would have seen that nonsense on stilts in the text and sliced it out in a second. Clegg instead just ended up looking like a flatulent prat.

This has less to do with the Liberal Democrats not being a serious alternative, and more to do with the electoral reality which makes them look not a serious alternative. Yet this week should have helped to cement the deal with those flirting with the party, while those paying attention will have likely only been further confused. We used to know what the Lib Dems stood for, just as we used to know what Labour and the Conservatives stand for; no longer. They remain the best, most viable alternative to the apparent foregone conclusion which is a Conservative electoral victory, but they seem to be going out of their way to lose votes rather than win them.

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9/24/2009 10:03:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, September 21, 2009 

The more things change, the more they stay the same, Liberal Democrat style.

It's a theme or cliché I've depended upon in the past, but sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same. A year ago some optimistic sorts thought that the banking crisis might lead to either the downfall of capitalism entirely or at least a softening of its edges; instead we've decided that socialism for the rich is here to stay, while the public sector and poor taking the pain is the order of the day. Likewise, some thought it was a historic opportunity for the left, the long-awaited crash which so many had predicted; instead the right is in the ascendant everywhere, with the exception perhaps of America where "change" came and went rather swiftly. Earlier in the year with the expenses scandal a few talked and hoped of a "new politics"; instead we're entering conference season and even though the theme of across the board cuts might be new, everything else is as tattered and torn always.

Hence I looked back at what I wrote last year about the Liberal Democrat conference. With a few slight edits and changes I could post it back up and I doubt anyone would be the wiser, not least because no one reads this toss anyway. The main difference is that Nick Clegg seems to want to establish his own motif of the times; he thinks, bless him, that this is a "liberal moment", although whether that's liberal with a lowercase or capital is not clear. A look at the polls suggests that this is in fact a begrudging Conservative with a capital C moment, with Cameron and pals now enjoying a 17-point lead over Labour. Last year I wrote that the Lib Dems were flat-lining at under 20% in the polls, and lo and behold, the Lib Dems are still flat-lining at under 20% in the polls a year later.

Politics, probably even more than life itself, isn't fair. If it was, then surely the Liberals would be doing better. Even if this isn't a "liberal moment", Vince Cable still shines as brightly as he did a year ago, and Clegg himself, while still hardly Charlie Kennedy, is making a much better fist as leader than previously. While the other parties bicker about what is to be cut, and don't even begin to broach the even more toxic topic of what taxes are going to have to rise, Cable and Clegg have set out to be both radical and upfront, something you would never accuse either Brown or Cameron of being. That doesn't however necessarily make them right, or even popular within their own party: while Clegg waxes lyrical to the Graun about how "savage" cuts are going to be necessary, the party's base is the one which is most resistant out of the three to those very cuts, instead preferring tax rises.

This not knowing the party's own support, or even directly attempting to alienate it seems puzzling at best. Ask someone with a little politics knowledge what the Lib Dems' three main policies are or were, and they'd probably tell you a 50p in the pound tax on those earning over £100,000 a year, the abolition of tuition fees and opposition to the Iraq war. The first is now long gone, the second is to be "delayed", and the party doesn't seem to know what to do over Afghanistan. Clegg's article with Paddy Ashdown in last week's Graun on the subject was a worthy effort, but "just a little more time and a desperately needed change in strategy" is hardly a vote winner. While locally the Liberal Democrats can trade on being themselves, nationally they are overly dependent, in England at least, on student populations which were more than easy to rally on both fees and Iraq. With the party now unclear on just what it will do on the former and equally opaque on foreign policy, they might have to trade on the fact that they're simply a better prospect than either Labour or the Tories, not the worst reason to vote for them, but not exactly a intellectual position.

The result seems to be that they're trying to please everyone, with the predictable result that everyone is instead slightly annoyed. Why after all should public sector workers have to suffer a pay freeze because of the failures of the private sector (the armed forces will apparently be exempt, interestingly, while they claim that only the pay total will be frozen, meaning that they'll be some redistribution presumably)? Why, just because the private sector is abandoning final salary pension schemes because they're only interested in the short-term, share prices and dividends (while the bosses of course still sit pretty) should the public sector have to follow suit? The idea that everyone should have to share the pain is repugnant. Then there's, much unlike the Liberal Democrats generally, the apparently not thought through at all "mansion tax", which although superficially attractive will undoubtedly breed resentment just as inheritance tax does, and also doubtless further prompt those who can to abandon their pads here and become non-doms rather than pay up. If the Lib Dems have in the past served as a place where policies are first thought up and then stolen by either Labour or the Tories, this one seems destined to be left well alone.

The main criticism which can be levelled against the Lib Dems in general though is that they seem to have no overall view of society as a whole. This seems to be less to do with woolly liberalism and more to do with how the party has concentrated for so long, first on tax and spend and Iraq, to now economics in general, with home affairs and the "spiritual" health of the nation taking a back seat as well as how they've been "embarrassed" in the past about conference debates on reducing the age at which you can buy pornography. For better or worse, we know that the Tories supposedly believe that society is broken, even though their solutions would probably atomise it even further. As far as I can recall the Lib Dems have made little to no response or criticism of this view, even when they are by far the best placed to do so. The Liberator, as noted by John Harris, summarises this beautifully:

"What is missing is a distinctive vision of the good society. This is a prerequisite for any successful political strategy. And it is imperative at an historic turning point such as now."

In fairness, such a vision is notoriously difficult to perfect. Thatcher managed it, even if she didn't create one or believe in it. Blair managed it. Brown has failed to, while Cameron is making an attempt. If Clegg and the Liberal Democrats could start to define one and then proselytise it effectively, they might able to paper over all the over cracks in their facade. They still remain the party which deserves to be given a chance, even as the spectre of a hung parliament begins to fade.

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9/21/2009 10:02:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, September 18, 2008 

The Liberal Democrats: getting better, but not enough.

The Liberal Democrats rarely succeed in getting themselves much attention at the best of times, so their sojourn to Bournemouth, unfortunately occurring at the same time as the implosion in the financial markets has been rather glossed over.

That's doubly unfortunate, as with Labour in dire straits financially, intellectually and electorally the Lib Dems ought to pushing against an open door, trying to communicate with those betrayed and abandoned by New Labour, whether they be the long ignored working class or the clichéd middle-Englanders that turned out in 1997. On the surface, they ought to be doing fantastically well; which other party can boast that it has long predicted the exact conditions which have so overshadowed their yearly show-piece and also the policies to deal with it? Compared to both Labour and the Tories, they're still the only one of the big three that is daring to suggest that actually the prison population should not be inexorably growing, that there is an alternative to the casual authoritarian consensus on criminal justice and that perhaps we shouldn't be wasting billions on renewing Trident.

Instead one poll has them on the depths of just 12%. Considering the poll has the Conservatives on a similarly ridiculous 52% it most likely is and will be written off as a blip. Even so, the party otherwise has been flat-lining just below the 20% mark for quite some time, and the defenestration of Ming Campbell last year has done nothing to alter that. Nick Clegg's performance as leader has hardly been stellar: the most attention he received was his "confession" to Piers Moron that he had slept with around 30 women, and he did himself no favours this week either when he thought that pensioners somehow manage to get by on £30 a week. He's also had to cope with being effectively the second Liberal Democrat that the media turn to, such has been the demand for the dancing demigod Vince Cable, merely because he unlike legions of other politicians can actually answer a question and knows what he's talking about.

Much was in evidence at the actual conference. Clegg's speech, despite some of the reviews of it, especially from the Labour-leaning bloggers, was probably about as good as it was going to get, getting the mixture just right between knockabout, talking of a "zombie" Labour government whilst attacking the Conservative party that doesn't have much left to it once you have taken the unpleasant bits out, and the deadly serious, the economic reforms which are much in order and also the proposed tax cuts for the poorest and middle earners which dominated the week. He might have made the mistake of trying to be too much like Cameron, despite the brickbats, and the wandering about and waving of arms is surely one innovation at political conferences that is not here to last, but it was what you expected: middling, strong in places and weak in others.

All eyes though were again on Cable, and his speech was little short of barnstorming. Delivered in his usual understated fashion, with by far the most wounding criticism against the Tory tax policy of "sharing the proceeds of recession" yet made. This could have quite easily been a speech by someone decidedly old Labour, from a bygone age, attacking tax evasion, demanding that socialism for the rich does not become the new religion, and calling for the poorest to be lifted out of tax altogether, while abandoning the bureaucracy of tax credits. Some bits were needlessly populist, like the idea that everyone earning over £100,000 in the public sector should have to re-apply for their jobs, which will hardly be fighting needless waste in the short-term, but this was the sort of thing on the whole you wished that the party of government should be proposing.

They could of course go further. One of the things not mentioned by Cable was the disastrous public finance initiative, with its around £100bn of debt off the Treasury's balance sheet, which needs to abandoned forthwith. On education the Liberal Democrats are still a much of a muchness, the "pupil premium" being all well and good, but not when they don't oppose the deeply authoritarian nature which much of the erroneously named academies adopt. When some schools resemble something out of 1984 and provide courses of training in working in a call centre, the equivalent of adopting pessimism as the school ethos, something has gone deeply wrong. On foreign policy they ought to dare to be different and potentially be unpopular by calling either for a withdrawal from Afghanistan or for a complete reappraisal of the current ahistorical campaign which cannot possibly either win local hearts and minds or beat the increasing insurgency with the number of troops deployed.

These might help win other a few more supporters, but you also have to be both realistic and fatalistic about their chances at the next election. They face a Conservative party which doesn't just pose a threat to Labour but also to them, especially in the southern seats, which is doubtless where the tax cutting policy has been aimed directly at. It's a risk worth taking, but it's unlikely to pay off. For those of us who have no intention of voting either Conservative or Labour at the next election, which leaves us roughly with a choice of either the Lib Dems or the Greens, the conference won't have done anything to actively turn most people off, but when the election will be fought primarily on Labour's unpopularity and giving them a kicking rather than actual policy, it means that a reversal of 1997 with a huge Conservative majority this time round looms ever closer.

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9/18/2008 10:40:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, November 06, 2007 

Around as enthralling as a dead dog.

Part of the reason why the Queen's speech (how much longer does the ridiculous and inane opening of parliament have to continue? Until Brenda's legs stop working?) was both so underwhelming and stale was that we really had heard it all before. As part of Brown's initial attempts to re-engage the public and prove how he was nothing like that control freak Blair was to "preview" the bills likely to be announced before the rise of parliament in the summer. All well and good, but it allowed David Cameron to continue his similarly moribund claims that Brown is offering nothing new. Reasonably accurate, but then neither are the Tories.

For once, the Tories actually have something of a point over their opposition to the extending of the compulsory education age to 18, which will be enforced with a great big stick rather than carrots. Those who refuse to turn up will get fined - the perfect way to enthuse our disillusioned youth with the idea that it's for their own benefit. Either you turn up or we take the (tiny) amount of money you might be earning. The next year will see reforms to secondary education that might well help with the actual problems faced: that at 14 most are already either so disenfranchised with school or accepting of failure that they don't even try. The introduction of diplomas, both vocational and academic, could prove to be vital. At 16 currently, those who go on to colleges or sixth forms are generally those who want to learn; the compulsion to keep learning until 18 will remove the relief that many feel on leaving behind those who either were disruptive or simply unpleasant. It's not their fault, it's that they're currently be failed by the strictness of the system, either taking the academic route with GCSEs or the more vocational course with GNVQs, which are decent qualifications but not worth the number of GCSEs they claim to. Getting the mixture between the two right will do far more to improve results than any threat of compulsion. By 2015 it might have been achieved, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.

As noted in the previous post, Labour is currently far too cowardly to come out with how it wants to double the pre-charge limit for "terrorist suspects", although everyone knows another battle is ahead. The latest knee-jerk on the criminal justice front is violent offenders' orders, which are bound to trouble the courts, while the sop to the tabloids is the long trumpeted and downright illiberal banning of "extreme" pornographic images, in the BBC's lexicon, which means the banning of "dangerous pictures" in actuality. The only truly radical piece of legislation is the climate change bill, and it's likely to be not radical enough.

It makes you wonder whether the government really was so set upon that autumn election, built around Brown personally, that it didn't bother to come up with any actual policies or details, both of which were wholly lacking today. This was less a vision than a panicky brainstorm in the middle of the night after Brown realised he'd forgotten all about having Brenda reading out his plans for the next year. There was talk of meritocracy, getting in tune with the aspirations of the people, but behind those rhetorical flourishes the bills themselves were as flat as the Queen's voice. It's a shame that Vince Cable is himself lacking in gravitas, as his spell as stand in Liberal Democrat leader has been something of a success. He certainly got it right on the tepidity of today:

"The anticipation was acute - but the anticlimax is deafening. The legislative programme is firmly rooted in the Blair era. There is very little new. No ideas, no vision. Is this what we have been waiting for?"

"The one-time editor of the Red Paper has penned a Queen's speech in the bluest ink. Across wide swathes of policy, his approach is indistinguishable from the Tories."

This though is intended. When the Electoral Reform Society identifies that the election could have been decided by 8,000 voters, the cross-dressing and tailoring of policies to those that most turns on the exalted floating voter is only natural. The lack of choice is acute, but no one's prepared to move beyond that dead end of radical centrism.

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11/06/2007 10:12:00 PM | | | links to this post

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