Lib Dem review of the year

2013 hasn’t been an easy year for the Liberal Democrats, but then again neither were the preceding years of the Coalition. At best, they’ve just hit the double figure mark in the polls, often falling behind UKIP. However, scratch beneath the surface, and it hasn’t all been so bad. In certain areas, the Lib Dems are still winning.

For this review, I’ll do a simple list of positives and negatives during 2013 for the Lib Dems, before making a general conclusion.



Positives

-£10,000 income tax threshold


The Coalition is set to reach the £10,000 target early (2014), and Nick Clegg has outlined plans to push for a £10,500 threshold before 2015. This means that in 2014 a key manifesto pledge will have been fulfilled, something which David Cameron said was “a great idea; I’d love to do it” but “can’t be afforded” in the first TV election debate in 2010. Furthermore, a £10,500 threshold would set the party on the way to their next goal; raising the income tax threshold to the minimum wage level (around £12,500). It is vital, however, for the party to prevent the Tories from taking the credit for this (which George Osborne and company are already trying to do).



-Eastleigh by-election win

This summed up the Lib Dem bulldog spirit, and the virtues of building up strong local support over the years. As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, this by-election victory was all the more astounding given low poll numbers, Chris Huhne’s controversial exit, the sex scandal surrounding Lord Rennard and the surge of UKIP. There are still warning signs; the Lib Dems lost a 19% swing, and the strong UKIP presence no doubt helped to split the Tory vote. However, whilst UKIP’s second place performance grabbed the headlines, the pressure and heat was turned on David Cameron and away from his Coalition partners, something that can be beneficial to the Liberal Democrats and their differentiation strategy before the 2015 election.




-Free school meals


Every child in England between reception and year two will receive free lunches, an initiative worth around £437 per child to families. This was in exchange for a tax break for married couples, but if the Lib Dem leadership is wise enough it can present the trade off as an example of what each Coalition member is prioritising; the Lib Dems want to help out families with young children, the Tories want to focus on marital status and a piecemeal tax cut.



-Blocked Tory agendas


David Cameron has spoken of a “little black book” of Tory plans that have been blocked by the Liberal Democrats, but will form part of the next Tory manifesto. The Lib Dems have responded well, presenting their own version of the black book and what would have happened without a Coalition; a vital message to convey to the electorate if they are to disprove the myth that the Lib Dems are ‘Tory poodles’. The ‘Snooper’s Charter’ has been blocked, maintaining the civil liberties agenda that the Lib Dems cherish so much. Furthermore, further use of the crude ‘go home’ messages on vans aimed at illegal immigrants has been stopped.

This is a summary of Tory plans blocked this year alone; other prominent victories, such as preventing an inheritance tax cut for millionaires or preventing workers from being fired at will have been achieved by the Liberal Democrats across the Cameron ministry. Emphasising these victories, whilst preventing other unfair Tory plans where possible, is another important area that the Lib Dems need to hammer home to the country if they are to show that they really are a brake on the Tories.




Negatives


-Sarah Teather exit

“Sarah Teather is desperately angry about all those policies she voted for. The alternative of course was not voting for them”. A tweet from Zac Goldsmith MP which sums up well the irony of Teather’s exit, but nevertheless it is an uncomfortable resignation. Teather is one of just 7 female MPs in the party, and her resignation summation had particularly hard hitting words; “I no longer feel that Nick Clegg’s party fights sufficiently for social justice and liberal values on immigration...something did break for me that was never, ever repaired”. Whilst Goldsmith highlighted Teather’s contradictions, her exit brings back memories of unpopular policies, namely the tuition fee increase and increasing VAT to 20%. Also, in not standing down immediately, she is essentially a lame duck MP, and the events sour somewhat her impressive achievement of overturning a Labour majority of over 13,000 in 2003 (Brent East).


-Low poll numbers

The General Election of 2015 isn’t too far away now, and even closer are the European Elections (2014). I won’t hammer out a list of polling figures, but various polling companies and the UK ‘poll of polls’ show the Lib Dems stubbornly just below double figures, a number which won’t translate well if maintained. There’s every chance of the Lib Dems getting hammered in the European Elections; the likely scenario is that UKIP finish first, Labour second, the Tories third and the Lib Dems fourth (or perhaps even lower). Whilst these types of elections aren’t necessarily indicators for national elections (UKIP finished second and Labour finished third in 2009), it can’t be good for morale if the Liberal Democrats do badly. Taking any potential Coalition popularity out of the question, as the most pro-European party in the UK the Lib Dems will do well to present a positive message in the light of growing Euroscepticism. The party needs to replicate Eastleigh in 2014 and 2015, and budge up those stubborn poll numbers.




-Chris Huhne exit

In the grand scheme of things, Huhne’s resignation demonstrated the Lib Dem’s fighting spirit, as they retained Eastleigh. However, the party still lost a member of the cabinet, and it made for a couple of weeks of uncomfortable viewing and reading. The Lib Dems lost a prominent MP and battler against the Tories, but Mike Thornton’s victory in Eastleigh and the passage of time has meant that Huhne’s exit hasn’t lived long in the memory.


Conclusion

Steady progress has been made, with some promising outlooks for the future. 2013 was certainly a far better year for the Lib Dems than preceding ones in the Coalition (it can’t get much worse than late 2010 or 2011), but more needs to be done. In the negatives section, the exits of Huhne and Teather can be shaken off (and to an extent already have been), but increasing the poll numbers will be a far more difficult task. The party have achieved some good policy initiatives as listed above, and on the national front unemployment is down to 7.4%, with a record number of people in work (over 30 million). However, more needs to be done on youth unemployment, along with the national shame of people resorting to food banks (some 350,000 people).


With regards to hopes for 2014, the party needs to keep on blocking unpopular measures that can’t be compromised on, and presenting this to the electorate as a sign that Coalitions can work (and indeed, that a Lib Dem presence is vital). Furthermore, the party must face the daunting task of the European Elections, with a UKIP victory and a Lib Dem slump the likely outcomes as it stands. Nevertheless, 2013 has show that slowly, but surely, the Liberal Democrats’ ‘muscular liberalism’ is starting to take effect.

Russell Brand got it wrong; we need to vote

I’ve never been a Russell Brand fan, but I can’t deny that he talks a good game. Despite his extrovert personality and celebrity background, there’s an underlying clarity and passion in the way he speaks. There’s no doubt that he jousted well with Jeremy Paxman, and there’s no doubt that he made some good points. However, I fundamentally disagree with his central argument; I believe people should vote.


I’ve noticed with socialists that they are often very good at identifying the problems, but when it comes to offering solutions, strong questions marks occur. Brand argues that we “shouldn’t destroy the planet, shouldn’t create massive economic disparity, shouldn’t ignore the needs of the people”, and notes that there is a “huge disparity between rich and poor, where 300 Americans have the same amount of wealth as the 85 million poorest Americans”. A clear picture is painted here, but the solution is altogether more sketchy. Brand suggests “a socialist egalitarian system based on the massive redistribution of wealth, heavy taxation of corporations, and massive responsibility for energy companies and any companies exploiting the environment”, and thinks a “centralised administrative system” could achieve this, but when Paxman counters that a Government would be needed to do this, Brand responds with “Yes, well maybe call it something else. Call them like the adminbots so they don’t get ahead of themselves”. This may well be taken as a humorous response, but it calls into question how seriously we can take the argument.


Russell Brand doesn’t want people to vote, and again he appeals to the intuitive side by saying “why vote? We know it’s not going to make any difference. We know that already”. This really frustrates me. It’s pedalled all too often in everyday life, and whilst safe seats are a sad fact of political life (I should know, I live in one), you can’t change anything by not voting. I accept that there are numerous cases in history where change has been brought about by uprisings and so on (think the October Revolution in Russia), but the focus here is on the UK, which wasn’t susceptible to a widespread revolution even during the Industrial Revolution. If large swathes of the population were to be caught up in Russell Brand’s populism, it would be an open goal for the Conservatives to appeal to an even more narrow group of the nation and win. Of course there are issues with the current political system, and problems in society, but I can’t accept Brand’s argument that “there’s gonna be a revolution, it’s totally going to happen. I ain’t got even a flicker of doubt. This is the end”. Not only is that not the right solution, I don’t think it can be taken seriously as an argument.


The 1945 UK Election is a benchmark for how it should be done. People wanted change, so they voted for it and got it. Not only that, they got one of the greatest UK Governments ever, one which tackled poverty and income disparities, maintained low levels of unemployment and created the NHS. We live in a different age, but I’d still argue that many of the issues that Brand highlights were problems just before Labour came to power in the forties. It may be tempting to see abstention from voting as a great two fingers up against the political class, but what would it solve? The types of politicians that many people despise are still going to get elected. There will always be people who are still going to vote. I’m generalising a lot here, but I’m pretty confident that many of the people who will always vote are likely to be Tory voters. Brand attacks the Conservative Party in his interview, but for people not to vote would only be beneficial to them. It’s not plausible to consider that everyone in the UK will stop voting, so the system under heavy criticism from Brand will stay right as it is by his logic.



Vote for change; that’s the answer. Not enough interests and needs are truly represented in our Parliament; I absolutely agree with Brand on that. I’m also utterly convinced that we need a change in the electoral system. The kind of revolution we need is an extension and improvement of our democracy, and better democratic models. I’ve made this argument many times, but I genuinely believe that First Past the Post encourages the current system, and discourages many people from voting. However, that’s not an argument to decide to stop voting altogether. If some good can come out of UKIP’s recent success, it’s that electoral reform will be put back on the agenda (this is under the assumption that a good polling rating nevertheless results in zero MPs for UKIP in 2015). Proportional Representation would shake up the current system and make it fairer, and would make people feel that their vote does count, and can change things.


I did a blog entry on policies that I believe can restore some faith in politics (people, rightly, will never be 100% satisfied in the political system), and I’ll briefly list my conclusions from that here:

-Electoral reform
-Party funding reform
-Statutory register of lobbyists
-Reform/abolish expenses
-Votes at 16 and 17/better political education


Although there are difficult obstacles, these can all be achieved, and through democratic means. I think it’s appropriate to bring up the quote often attributed to Winston Churchill that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others”. Brand says there is an alternative, and he’s right. However, that alternative can be shaped and achieved through voting, not through a vague utopian mantra riddled with contradictions. You don’t tackle apathy with apathy.