Happy thirty-first birthday, Liberal Democrats?

Liberalism is desperately needed today. Liberal Democrats are sometimes powerful voices, but sometimes tongue-tied.

We must demand better.

Last year I chose six words (three positive values, one urgent priority) for a short video on ‘Why the Lib Dems’:

Exit From Brexit

If our MPs would even pick six such words and sound like they meant them, that would be a start.

Our Leadership seems to think ‘Why can’t we all get along?’ is good enough. It isn’t. It’s a cry of helplessness, and they have no answer to their own question.

I don’t have all the answers. But the least the Lib Dem Leadership can do is answer why we shouldn’t all pack up and go home. The slogan “Demand Better” is a headline to get attention, but with absolutely no idea what to say if anyone then looks our way and asks, ‘Yes, what?’

It’s a cliché to say a Liberal won’t take their own side in an argument, but even after years of singularly failing to put any passion into Liberalism I didn’t expect our own Leadership’s answer to ‘Demand a better Centre Party’ to be ‘Oh, perhaps they have a point’. After a year of navel-gazing about ‘Registered Supporters’, now our Leadership doesn’t even seem to have the energy to ask potential supporters to register with this party in particular. Rather than assuming people would rally if we tinkered with the mechanics, perhaps the Liberal Democrats should have considered that the way to get people to support us is to articulate something worth supporting.

Some time ago, I wrote about “What It Means To Be A Liberal Democrat”. I made the case for the values I believe in and the positive difference Liberal Democrats should make.

Liberal Democrats can certainly demand better than what I publish here. But first we need our Leadership to stop standing frozen in the headlights in the middle of the road. To go anywhere, we must set out a direction of travel.

What It Means To Be A Liberal Democrat

To be a Liberal Democrat is to believe in freedom.

Freedom grounded in real life, starting with people as they are. Not ‘The People’. Not ‘Our People’. Freedom based on the unique worth and potential of every individual person, and the reality that the person who knows best how to live their life is themselves.

To be a Liberal Democrat is to demand better. Government shouldn’t just protect the interests of those who are already well-off, and sneer at and push down people working hard to make a life for themselves, or those who aren’t able to support themselves. Liberal Democrats demand freedom from poverty. Government shouldn’t assume it can do everything, control everyone, as long as you take what you’re given and don’t ask awkward questions of those in charge. Liberal Democrats demand freedom from ignorance. Government shouldn’t tell you that your nation is the only thing that matters about you, drive out ‘outsiders’ and call anyone who doesn’t want their flag cut smaller, narrower and meaner ‘traitors’. Liberal Democrats demand freedom from conformity.

Liberal Democrats feel in our guts that everyone should be free to live their own life, that pushing people about and telling them what to do or who to be is wrong. We feel in our guts that everyone should have a fair chance, that prejudice and lack of opportunity are wrong. We feel in our guts the need for a better future, that piling up today’s problems for our kids to deal with tomorrow is wrong. But politics isn’t just about gut feelings and protesting when things aren’t right. We must face up to how things really are to work out how to change them, and change our own methods if experience shows us better ways to achieve our ideals. So Liberal Democrats are principle-led, but evidence-based.

An open, fairer society and a greener, stronger economy are interdependent. Liberal Democrats champion opportunity, fairness and economic responsibility. An economy that works, that encourages enterprise, that’s environmentally and financially sustainable, and where everyone pays their fair share. All thriving within an outward-looking, optimistic society that’s open-minded, open-hearted and open to co-operating with other countries to tackle climate change, promote peace and increase prosperity for our whole planet’s future.

Liberal Democrats believe freedom needs both positive help to make it real for everyone, and action to break down barriers to freedom such as poverty, ignorance and conformity. Education is the single most crucial way to combine both. A great education ensures everyone has the opportunity to realise their potential, whatever their background, whatever their choices. Every child getting the best education is central to them growing up with the freedom to live their own lives, getting a fair start and building for the future. If you’re for every person, and you want every person to have the ability to ask the important questions and make their own informed decisions in realising their own dreams, education is where it starts. If you want an economy growing and succeeding with innovation and creativity and where the most talented get ahead instead of just the most wealthy, education, training and apprenticeships are where it starts.

From the foundation that society should be for everyone and that everyone should be free, Liberal Democrats understand that individual people choose to come together in any number of complementary ways – families, jobs, mutual interests, neighbourhoods, nations, the whole human family – and that decisions can be made at any of those levels without giving up the others. That’s why we’ve always been both the most localist and the most internationalist party. Any political party denying diversity, defining itself by just one single identity or community and telling each individual that your birth or your faith or your cash or your class or your country is the only thing that counts doesn’t just diminish people’s lives and hopes, doesn’t just make society more fearful, hateful and divided, but is the mark of a party so stuck in its own prejudices that it has no idea how real people’s real lives work.

One vivid, simple answer to what Liberalism is for has always stuck with me: Liberalism is about standing up to bullies. That’s why a Liberal’s gut instinct is to side with the underdog – whoever the bully is and whoever the underdog is at any one time. Any sort of power can threaten liberty, but any sort of power can defend it, too. Whether it’s the state, or big business or big unions, or just other people, any of them can boss you around and anyone can help stop you being bossed around. So Liberals wouldn’t label any of them ‘the enemy’ or do away with any of them – just as we won’t say any of them are right all the time. When government acts fairly it can be the biggest force to restrain bullies, from crooks and murderers to stifling communities and bad employers; but a government that bosses you around or that only protects one special interest or only picks on another is just a bigger bully. The closer anyone has to a monopoly of power, the more it’s abused. Liberals challenge power and privilege, break up monopolies, set the same rules for everyone and make the starting point for any decisions the people that they affect.

When the starting point is people, what’s the end point? Get real! If you start with people you never say ‘that’s it.’ Whether it’s a grandiose utopia that you’ll never finish building or a thousand mean little targets to tick, imaginary end points have two things in common. Believing the ‘ends’ justify the means, they throw real people under the bus, seeing individuals only as statistics or as problems. And they never work. A Liberal society isn’t a perfect society, because there aren’t any perfect people or perfect politicians – but an open, untidy society that develops constantly in response to the individuals who form it has the advantage of being about real life. Liberals don’t say ‘We know best’, because everyone’s best is different.

To be a Liberal Democrat is to be wary of grand plans and little prejudices. To say of human nature, ‘It’s complicated’. Anyone might be kind or selfish, creative or lazy, successful or failing. Other parties see that as a reason to control people, because they believe people who disagree with them can’t be trusted with freedom, and they think ‘their people’ will want to do what they tell them anyway. Other parties fear pluralism, diversity, flexibility and individuality. Liberal Democrats might give an instinctive two-word answer to that ending in “—off”, but we have a better answer, too, countering fear with hope. Our fear is more that if a government makes a mistake in its giant one-life-fits-all authoritarianism, it’s going to be a doozy. And our hope, based on realism, is that the more different ideas run free, the more brilliant, practical ones will succeed. Believe in people, enable people, and unlock everyone’s potential.

To be a Liberal Democrat is to embrace the contradictions – because people are contradictory. Because only one idea has room for how messy, contradictory and wonderful real life and real people are. Freedom.

The Story Since 2016

I’ve never published this before, but for a couple of years it was on the Liberal Democrat main website as one of nine shortlisted essays chosen in early 2016. The competition was part of a consultation on “What It Means To Be A Liberal Democrat In 2015”. I re-read it a couple of weeks ago and was surprised how relevant it still seemed (even the ‘traitors’ line was in there back then). I aimed to make our Liberalism instinctive and accessible, and that stands. My video above is much more politically punchy for our immediate priorities and better to show someone who’s not interested in philosophy. Comparing this essay to my 2017 General Election post “A Liberal Britain. A Brighter Future. My Hope”, that takes a very different approach and that, too, has some punchy lines confronting issues I didn’t mention at all here (though in trying to find hope post-Brexit I was a little too shell-shocked to do more than wish it would all go away).

You’d think British politics has changed a lot since 2016. As the Prime Minister might say, nothing has changed, and yet everything has. Back when I wrote my “What It Means To Be A Liberal Democrat”, I was concerned that I’d leaned a bit too hard on vigilance about the state rather than its power to help – giving emphasis to education, but not health or infrastructure. After two years of Theresa May in charge, I didn’t go nearly far enough in warning against the might of government to be a heartless bully, an unmitigated f— up, or both at the same time. Back then, Brexit was a looming threat, not yet a tectonic shift. Since then, British politics has been frozen while Britain itself has become far worse – all because of the worst decision ever made in British democracy, and a slither of decisions and non-decisions ever since that have only made the worst decision worse still.

In the face of this titanic catastrophe, the Liberal Democrat Leadership has been more frozen than most. Much of the time their only message has been ‘Why can’t we all get along?’ when the answer is ‘Because an awful lot of people made a decision based on hating other people’, and wishing and hoping that they didn’t really mean it and that the clock would turn back has failed to make any impact as a political strategy because it has no political appeal and no political reality. Liberalism is worth fighting for. Bullies must be stood up to. Looking hand-wringingly heavenward and wishing that the bully and the bullied would just get along simply does not cut it.

If I’d started writing this today, stopping Brexit would have been the angry focus and I would have been far more pugnacious against Theresa May and her fascistic Hostile Environment or Jeremy Corbyn and his sub-BNP attacks on immigrants stealing British jobs. I’ve written quite a few times on what the Lib Dems stand for, and I may well write again. But I realised that what I’d written was something positive – and that wasn’t afraid to take a side. I’ve decided to publish pretty much what I entered, with a couple of small polishes. The competition set a limit of a thousand words. I’ve reintroduced a sentence or two that I’d originally cut for space, but mainly I’ve put back one whole paragraph. The reason I removed that one at the time was that I liked what it was aiming for but it just didn’t quite flow. Ironically, I found the Lib Dems’ “Demand Better” gave me the edge I was looking for, so that one paragraph has been rewritten today and restored to set the tone at the top.

You see? You can get something out of demanding better – but you have to give people some idea of what you’re demanding.

Labels: Brexit, Bullies, Economy, Education, Environment, Ideas, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Meddling In Things That Are Nobody's Business But Your Own, What the Lib Dems Stand For

My answer to that and three questions behind it – what have we done so far? What do we want to do next? And, most importantly for me, what values inspire us to do it?




This is the sort of thing I do if it’s the day before an election, I’m on my way home, my head is buzzing with politics and I come upon an unsuspecting park.

I may be making it up on the spot this time, but you know it’s in my heart too (and a quickie because I’m too knackered to write what I’d like to).

Vote Liberal Democrat!


If you’d like more reasons, then there’s also…

• Liberal Democrats Believe – fifty statements of Liberal faith and counting
  

• Richard and me on the Lib Dem history of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people
  

• The six Lib Dem ‘red line’ priorities that I tried to remember as I went along
  

• The full Liberal Democrat Manifesto – Stronger Economy. Fairer Society. Opportunity for Everyone.
  

• Mark Pack’s infographics on what the Liberal Democrats believe and what the Liberal Democrats have achieved in government
  

• And one negative: Things To Remember About Labour

Labels: Economy, Education, Environment, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Marriage, Personal, Tax, Video, What the Lib Dems Stand For

This week’s inspiring thought in my occasional series of Liberal moments is close to my heart: it is, of course, from Doctor Who. A confrontation between the Doctor and a much more dictatorial egomaniac, it’s taken from Episode Five of The Green Death, first broadcast forty-one years ago today. From the same story that featured Jeremy Thorpe as Prime Minister, this pits a monopolistic megacorporation, totalitarianism and pollution against the Doctor’s freedom, ecology and individualism. The argument crystallises in one especially memorable exchange that says benevolent authoritarianism is not enough if it means absolute ignorance and conformity. It’s about freedom:

“Doctor, believe me, we wish you no harm…”
“Ah, don’t worry, my dear feller. I’m having a whale of a time.”
“In the end, we all want the same thing; an ordered society, with everyone happy, well-fed…”
“Global Chemicals taking all the profits…”
“What’s best for Global Chemicals is best for the world – is best for you!”
“Such as a little touch of brain-washing.”
“Freedom from fear, freedom from pain…”
“Freedom from freedom!”

This 1973 story was co-written by Robert Sloman and then-producer Barry Letts, who it appears was rather pro-Liberal. The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) had spent a few years exiled to Earth in the near future, and was still popping back on occasion to help out his friends at UNIT; The Green Death has one of the slyer little suggestions about their stories being set a few years later than broadcast, as the phone is at one point handed to a Prime Minister called “Jeremy”. Unfortunately, the striking Liberal revival in the following year’s elections didn’t quite carry him that far, and the 1975-but-set-in-1980 story which suggested Mrs Thatcher as PM was altogether more on the button. Since then, actual Liberal politicians have mostly just had backward references, such as Mr Asquith springing one of the Doctor’s companions from Holloway or Mr Lloyd George drinking the Doctor under the table. A Liberal worldsview, on the other hand, has always been part of Doctor Who’s RNA. I argued that most comprehensively in my “How Doctor Who Made Me A Liberal”, but it’s summed up with particular clarity here.

The Doctor’s been captured and is being interrogated by the managing director of Global Chemicals, himself only a cog in the company machine (and that taken to extremes). For greater efficiency, productivity and profit, the company’s BOSS has decided to take over the world. Just as its workforce are brainwashed into servitude, a signal will be transmitted from the sinister multinational’s subsidiaries all across the world to bring the entire human race under its control in a literal ‘command economy’. So far, so familiar. But as you’ll have seen from the key quotation above, this particular mind-control story has thought about its message and argues it in unambiguously Liberal terms.

All Power Is Dangerous – Especially If It’s ‘For Your Own Good’

My favourite contribution to Mark Pack’s “What do the Liberal Democrats Believe?” is on the basic conviction that unites social and economic Liberals:

“All POWER (be it government, business or other people) can both PROTECT and THREATEN LIBERTY.

“Economic and Social Liberals put different emphasis on the BEST DEFENCES and the BIGGEST BULLIES.”

The Green Death’s Liberal analysis is dead-on that same line. It chooses as its main target a monopolistic mega-corporation – but it’s just as applicable to totalitarian government that would exert the same degree of power over individuals. Indeed, part of its point is that any body that exerts total power can be exactly as dangerous and as illiberal as any other. When the Doctor carelessly resists the brainwashing, the political applicability comes as thick and fast as Global Chemicals’ poisonous pollution. First, the machine grumbles that:

“The subject is not responding to therapy.”

“Therapy” is exactly the “pretty euphemism” for what political opponents in the Eastern Bloc of the time were often subjected to – and this story would have exactly the same philosophical underpinning were the villains, say, Evil Space Communists with the same plan. No doubt many of those who praise The Green Death for being ‘left-wing’ because it’s ‘anti-big business’ would have criticised it as ‘right-wing propaganda’ had the allegory apparently pointed against big government instead, but that’s missing the point: it’s not a left-wing or right-wing critique of the ‘wrong’ sort of big power, but a Liberal critique of any sort of Big Power.

The crux of the argument above isn’t simply that ‘turning the entire human race into zombies is bad’, though. I’ll admit that even most of my political opponents would agree that’s a bit much. It’s that what Global Chemicals wants to impose is in many ways tempting. It’s simply taking to a sci-fi extreme the ‘perfectly reasonable’ exercise of power to ‘help’, and that’s an argument that this scene ruthlessly exposes and explodes:

“You’re not trying to tell me this is all for my own good?”

Which, of course, is exactly the point. Pay attention to the characters and their motivations, and no-one here is simply perfect or simply evil: the Doctor’s attitudes aren’t always appealing, with his own insufferable prejudices showing through, and the villains are at times endearing and well-meaning. From their point of view, it is all ‘for people’s own good’. Which is one of the political phrases that always sets alarm bells ringing for me, along with “we all want the same thing”. Who could object to an end to pain and hunger? To universal happiness? Well, what if my idea of happiness is different to yours? Liberals don’t say ‘We know best’, because everyone’s best is different.

This goes right back to my first Liberal Monday choice, when I observed how over the course of a century the most-quoted Liberal creed had thankfully moved from utilitarianism to Mill-and-Taylor-flavoured social Liberalism. I said there that utilitarianism and utopia had a superficial attraction, but gave me the creeps. Here’s the difference in a nutshell: today’s Liberals prize freedom from conformity for every individual to live their own life; Global Chemicals offers a perfect utilitarian future of absolute happiness, absolute equality and absolute mindlessness, forever. Even Liberals need to guard against the price some would too eagerly pay ‘for your own good’.

I was only a year old forty-one years ago, but as a boy the novelisation of this story was one of my favourites, and one of the books I credit with making me a green Liberal. And yet this most cuttingly Liberal of all scenes, as blatantly applicable to big states as big business, wasn’t even in the book. I didn’t see it until repeats nearly twenty years later, when it instantly struck an unforgettable chord with me. So why wasn’t it in the book? Well, the story was novelised by Malcolm Hulke, one of Target’s most talented writers, the one most likely to chop out scenes from the script and add his own that fleshed out the characters – so that’s probably it – but also the range’s card-carrying Communist Party member, so it’s just possible that like me he saw the Doctor objecting to an utopian regime promising freedom from material want at the price of “Freedom from freedom” for exactly what it was…

Or you may simply remember this as The One With The Maggots.

Labels: Books, Doctor Who, Environment, Ideas, Jon Pertwee, Liberal Mondays, Liberalism, The Golden Dozen, The Green Death, Utilitarianism, Utopia, What the Lib Dems Stand For, Why Is Doctor Who Brilliant?

Tomorrow, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg puts the positive case for being in the European Union, in the first of two debates with UKIP Leader Nigel Farage putting the negative case for Little-Englanderism (the other two ‘Leaders’ can’t decide, so they’ve bottled it). That makes two headlines for What the Lib Dems Stand For: “Stronger Economy, Fairer Society” and “IN Europe, IN Work”. So how do those two fit together? Here’s my go at something slightly more than a slogan, but still punchy. If you like it, please borrow it to stick on a leaflet or add to a speech. If you don’t, please send me something better!

• The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.
  

• To make that freedom real needs both fairness and economic responsibility: an economy that works, that encourages enterprise, and where everyone pays their fair share.
  

• So freedom from poverty requires responsible spending, not debt, built on fairer taxes where lower earners pay less tax and the wealthiest pay more; being in Europe to be in work, to fight crime and tackle climate change; and building green jobs for the future.
  

• Freedom from ignorance needs better education and training, so people have the opportunity to realise their potential.
  

• And freedom from conformity, supported by freedom from poverty and ignorance, means everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose – without harming others; with equality before the law; with a better say, because no government always knows best.
  

• These values are why Liberal Democrats are working for a greener, stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.

Last year I wrote a series of articles on What the Lib Dems Stand For, looking for something to fit in a box on a leaflet or in a minute’s speech – something to enthuse and inspire Lib Dem believers, something to attract and persuade potential supporters, something that’s more than a slogan or a soundbite but short enough to get in one go.

I opened it up into a meme, and many other Lib Dems took part as well – you can find the links to where I’ve published theirs, too, below. That’s still open: if you can do better, whether saying ‘Change this little bit because…’ or suggesting your own from scratch, I want to hear from you, too (my email link’s on the sidebar. I’d like to hear if you make use of mine, too).

Especially now we’re sharing power, it’s important to assert our values. I wanted to answer: What makes us different, and makes us stay? How is that reflected in our priorities in Coalition Government? How does that pick out the central message of the Preamble to our Constitution? How does that expand on the party’s ‘core message’ slogan of “Stronger Economy, Fairer Society”? And how can we best express it in language that feels natural to us and anyone listening to us? All the while making a positive case for us, not just ‘…But the others are worse’? I’ve tried to do all that together. Does it work for you?

Adding ‘IN’

Last year I tried to combine everything at once, with the added challenge to make it short and to make it make sense, rather than just being a storm of buzzword-salad. It works pretty well for me telling the story of how the three big freedoms of our Preamble fit together with fairness, but even then I knew it had to leave some things out, and the biggest one I couldn’t seem to fit in was internationalism. And what’s our big theme for this year’s European Elections? Who could have guessed?

My main change today is… Adding more words. Compared to last year’s, below, it’s up 16, taking it further from my target of 150 to fit in a medium-sized box on a leaflet or just one minute in a speech. What do you think of “being in Europe to be in work, to fight crime and tackle climate change”? Does it work? Does it fit? Is it too specific compared to the more values-based rest of the text? I based it on our three main campaigning messages about Europe, because I couldn’t find a way of getting the ‘drawbridge down’ sort of values behind them to work in just a few words. Can you?

And yes, now it makes the “Freedom from ignorance” bit look a bit short, but I’m not adding even more. Though if you don’t like semi-colons and want to break it up a bit more to make it easier to read, the pedant in me doesn’t like it, but you can use full stops instead to make the “Freedom from poverty” and “Freedom from conformity” bullets punchier.

The ‘What the Liberal Democrats Stand For Challenge’ So Far

This aims to be something short and simple that Lib Dems members can look at and think, ‘Yes, that’s some of why we bother’, and that other people can look at and think, ‘Oh, that’s what the Lib Dems are for, and I like it’. Feel free to borrow it for a box on your Focus leaflets, to be part of your speeches, for your members’ newsletters, your Pizza’N’Politics evenings – wherever it’ll do some good. And here’s what I’ve done with it so far, including many other Lib Dems’ own versions…

Happy 25th Birthday, Liberal Democrats – and What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.1

Why we should sum up What the Lib Dems Stand For, and how it’s developed over the years.

What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.2 – a Challenge and a Meme #LibDemValues

Setting out my ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ based on the Preamble, practice and core messaging, and challenging other Lib Dems to come up with their own.

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.3 – Eight Answers (so far) #LibDemValues

After receiving the first set of responses, rounding up eight different Liberal Democrats’ versions of what we stand for – so far…

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.4 – What It’s All About #LibDemValues

Inviting people to use my short declaration of ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ and explaining what each bit of it means.

What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.5 – Why I Am A Liberal Democrat #LibDemValues

This one’s very different – longer and more personal: how did I get here? Why did I become a Lib Dem in the first place? And why do I stay?

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.6 – Another Eight Answers #LibDemValues

Another eight different Liberal Democrats’ versions of what we stand for in the second set of responses people sent in.


Last year’s slightly shorter version:

The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

To make that freedom real needs both fairness and economic responsibility: an economy that works, that encourages enterprise, and where everyone pays their fair share.

So freedom from poverty requires responsible spending, not debt, built on fairer taxes where lower earners pay less tax and the wealthiest pay more, and building green jobs for the future.

Freedom from ignorance needs better education and training, so people have the opportunity to realise their potential.

And freedom from conformity, supported by freedom from poverty and ignorance, means everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose – without harming others; with equality before the law; with a better say, because no government always knows best.

That’s why Liberal Democrats are working for a stronger, greener economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.

Once again, there will be more.

Labels: Blogs, Education, Environment, European Politics, Ideas, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Memes, Nick Clegg, Tax, The Golden Dozen, Top Tips, UKIP, What the Lib Dems Stand For

In government, in elections, in just wondering why we bother, Liberal Democrats must be inspired by what we stand for. So today I’m writing about just two things. First, what my short declaration of ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ means, how it explains our beliefs, our priorities in government and our message, as set out by Nick Clegg:

“The Liberal Democrats are building a stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.”

And second, Mark Pack’s new Infographic poster version of what Lib Dems believe. You’re still invited to write your own, too! Thank you to everyone who has. When enough of you have come up with your own ideas on ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’, and I’ve already seen a few since the last time I republished several contributions, I will do another round-up to boost the debate and meme.

I hope some of you will find my own version of ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ useful. My aim is to bring together our philosophy, our heart and soul, with what we’ve brought to the Coalition and with what the party leadership’s now encouraging everyone to get across as our key message.

If you want to use my declaration in any way – leaflet, speech, newsletter, website – please do. If you drop me a mail to say so (email link on the sidebar), I’d be interested, and if you give me a credit, I’d be delighted. But it’s free for you to use whether you give me any mention at all – the reason I wrote it is to help get the Lib Dem message out, and the more it spreads, the happier I’ll be.

I deliberately made it short, but not just a soundbite, so it can be used simply, snappily and comprehensibly in all sorts of places. But several contributors to my first appeal to join in the meme not only set out their own declarations but explained how they came to them, so I thought I would, too. Below, I’ve published not just each line of my short version, but explained just what each bit of it means. If you use it, I hope that’ll help you with the context if anyone asks you any questions. Even if you don’t use it, I hope it answers any questions of your own about it!

What My ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ Means

The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

I put freedom first, and freedom in two very definite contexts that make clear what’s different about the Liberal Democrats. We start with the individual, which is crucial: it means we’re not a class-based or nationalist party. It means we’re for everybody, not a divided society. Any party that puts a particular group first obviously discriminates against anyone who’s not in that group, which is for me an entirely wrong approach to politics. More subtly, that also limits even people in the ‘favoured’ group, because the party sees them as ‘one of them’ first and foremost, whatever that person thinks is most important about themselves, their relationships, their hopes and choices. Start with the individual, and you understand that people combine in many ways and have many different identities – perhaps part of a class or nation, yes, but also a family, a local community, a workplace, an ethnicity, a sexuality, a fandom, a religion… And it’s up to them which is the most important for them to define themselves, not for a political party to instruct them in what’s the point of their lives. The other crucial context for freedom is that Liberal Democrats see some problems not just as probably bad things that are box-ticking targets to reduce, but as evils because they’re barriers to people having freedom over their own lives. That’s why standing for freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity makes us different: they’re bad because they hurt and hold back individual people.

To make that freedom real needs both fairness and economic responsibility: an economy that works, that encourages enterprise, and where everyone pays their fair share.

Expanding on what freedom means, obviously it needs fairness to underpin it – not everyone has the same chances to start with, so not everyone has the same freedom, and it’s the job of a Liberal party to help raise people up. That goes hand in hand with a successful economy – fairness isn’t much of a virtue if it just means pushing everyone down equally, or if it’s an excuse to stifle people being creative and generating financial success, because government’s too often tempted to see itself as the owner and source of all money. So economies are at their best when they’re sustainable, when there’s plenty of opportunity to innovate, and when some of that success is shared.

So freedom from poverty requires responsible spending, not debt, built on fairer taxes where lower earners pay less tax and the wealthiest pay more, and building green jobs for the future.

If you’re in desperate need for the basics of life, it’s very difficult to exercise any other freedoms, even if you’ve got them in theory. As Winston Churchill – not often seen as on the red-hot lefty side of Liberalism – said:

“To have a little freedom, you must have a little money.”

So ensuring everyone has a material baseline is crucial to Liberal Democrats, but it’s only the start of freedom. It’s all the more reason to make sure, too, that the whole economy works, not just to pay for supporting those in need but so as many people as possible can make a success of themselves, as well. Just pretending government can always be a source of goodies and that all money comes from and belongs to it sounds lovely to some people, but turns into a disaster. Labour irresponsibly borrowed much more money on top of what the real economy was bringing in even at the height of a boom – meaning that, when the terrible crash came, the national debts were already piling up again and the Labour Government was already committed to so much spending it couldn’t afford that the deficit between spending and income was so much worse than any reaction to the crisis alone.

You don’t look after our children by giving more money to international bankers in debt interest than we spend on education and then stiffing those kids with the ever-growing bill for this generation’s financial failures when they grow up. It’s not fair to make them pay for our environmental failures, either, so as the economy is rebuilt it has to be with green growth, not just repeating old mistakes. That’s why each government should be paying its own bills, but shared fairly by changing the balance of taxes, as the Lib Dems have done in government by massively reducing the tax bill for ordinary people, lifting the lowest-paid out of Income Tax altogether after Labour doubled their tax, and at the other end, making the wealthiest pay much more than they did under Labour (not least by raising Capital Gains Tax on the wealthy after Labour cut it), and holding back the Tories’ desire to give extra to the rich (not least by keeping a top rate of Income Tax that’s still higher than Labour had for 155 months of their 156 in power).

Freedom from ignorance needs better education and training, so people have the opportunity to realise their potential.

Education and training have for a long time been at the heart of Liberal Democrat policy priorities. All forms of learning give people the skills and opportunities to widen their chances in life, and the knowledge and freedom to make their own choices. From the 1990s, Paddy Ashdown championed extra investment in education as the single most important way to get the economy working, by helping unlock every individual’s potential. From the 2000s, perhaps the issue Nick Clegg has been most passionate about is investment in early years education to help increase social mobility and help prevent people being held back by inequality from an early age. In government, the Liberal Democrats have made these passions into realities, especially through the Pupil Premium that targets more schools money to pupils from deprived backgrounds, and through a huge increase in apprenticeships to open up real training and work opportunities.

And freedom from conformity, supported by freedom from poverty and ignorance, means everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose – without harming others; with equality before the law; with a better say, because no government always knows best.

Freedom from conformity is the most distinctively Liberal of all freedoms. It’s important to have the material basics and not be held back by poverty – but it’s not enough. It’s important to have the opportunities and skills and the ability to make your own informed choices that free you from ignorance – but it’s not enough. It’s crucial that you have the freedom to live your own life as you see fit, not as others tell you to, not as the government orders you to, nor even as well-meaningly bossy people want you to ‘for your own good’. No-one else knows best for you, because everyone’s best is different.

Liberal Democrats believe you’ll be able to contribute best if you’re free to be creative, be individual, and make your own life. It’s not government’s job to order you about. Instead, government should be making sure you’re not pushing other people about, and making sure everyone gets the same playing field in society, with the law not tilted to rich or poor, big or small, or against any particular sex, race, sexuality, religion or other part of who you are. And the best way to hold government to all that is to make it much more accountable, letting you see more of what’s going on, making democracy more representative, breaking up big government, spreading power to different levels so more people can get involved and stop absolute power making absolutely wrong decisions.

That’s why Liberal Democrats are working for a greener, stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.

So that brings everything down to the core of the Liberal Democrat message. For everyone to do well, rich or poor, entrepreneur or ordinary worker, and not least those who need help to get by, the economy needs to get stronger and more sustainable, built to last with green growth and paying its way. For everyone to do well, society has to be for everyone, with everyone getting better chances and not being held back by poverty and ignorance, and everyone paying their fair share. And perhaps most importantly, everyone should be able to do well in their own way, not just conform to how government or any other bully thinks they ought to, because you’ll not just be happier and more fulfilled, but you’ll always work harder and do better and be more successful – and more able to share that success, too – the more you get the opportunity to live your life in your own way.

What Do the Lib Dems Believe? A New Poster!

I wrote last month that I’d helped Mark Pack with a new Infographic he’s designed with Kath Harding. It sums up his idea of “What Liberal Democrats Believe,” too, and he’s published it today in an exciting new form that you can print out as a poster.

Mark’s aim, like my ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’, is to come up with something that’s a consensus across the party on our beliefs, but it’s more than that. It’s a mixture of history, philosophy, controversy and current priorities, the story of the Party and its soul, if you like, for information and for inspiration. I think it does pretty well, and I’ll be proud to have it on my wall. Mark’s done a brilliant job of bringing together an awful lot into something simple and striking, and putting up with several competing ideas from several competing people, and perhaps most of all with very many nagging emails from me. I think where I made the biggest difference is in building on others’ ideas on the differences between Liberals by then saying what brings all Liberals back together again, as for me it’s important not to lose sight of how all Liberals agree as well as how, being Liberals, we naturally think for ourselves and argue, too.

You can find the Infographic in both small and poster-or-publication-printable versions here, along with Mark’s own setting it in context.

The Complete ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ Challenge

• 2013.1 – What’s the Big Idea?
  

• 2013.2 – My Version, and making the Challenge. Now it’s your turn!
  

• 2013.3 – The first Eight Answers to the Challenge. What’s yours?
  

Labels: Blogs, British Politics, Coalition, Education, Environment, Ideas, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Memes, Nick Clegg, Tax, The Golden Dozen, Top Tips, What the Lib Dems Stand For, Winston Churchill

Liberal Democrats! What would you say the Lib Dems stand for? How would you inspire members to stay with us? How would you persuade voters to agree with us? How would you link our philosophy to our achievements in government – and make it clear which bits of government are distinctly Lib Dem? Here’s my go at saying what we stand for. Does it make sense to you? Inspire you? Irritate you? Is it good enough, or could you do better? Then look below and join in the meme, sharing your own vision, your own enthusiasm in time for Conference.

The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

To make that freedom real needs both fairness and economic responsibility: an economy that works, that encourages enterprise, and where everyone pays their fair share.

So freedom from poverty requires responsible spending, not debt, built on fairer taxes where lower earners pay less tax and the wealthiest pay more, and building green jobs for the future.

Freedom from ignorance needs better education and training, so people have the opportunity to realise their potential.

And freedom from conformity, supported by freedom from poverty and ignorance, means everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose – without harming others; with equality before the law; with a better say, because no government always knows best.

That’s why Liberal Democrats are working for a stronger, greener economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.

Yesterday, marking the Lib Dems’ twenty-fifth anniversary, I offered an older version of my ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ and explained in detail what the idea was about and how I’d used and changed it. So, today, I’m just giving the main ideas, and a challenge to you.

The Meme

OK, Lib Dems – can you tell me what I’ve got right, or got wrong? More importantly, can you do better?

So I’m starting a meme. Blog it. Put it in the comments below. Email me (contact in the sidebar). Tweet it (hashtag #LibDemValues). If you come up with your own version by Wednesday evening and let me know, I’ll do a round-up post with all of them on Thursday, to give us all something to go off to Conference with, inspired.

And if you blog your own version – please do – then please also tag three other people to take part. The more the merrier. And should you wish to nudge any MPs, Peers or other party grandees…

I hope you’ll think about What the Lib Dems Stand For just from reading this and not need a personal invitation, but to get the ball rolling I’m tagging not just three but six people:

• Richard Flowers (and Millennium Dome, Elephant), because he’s the person whose judgement I most trust in all the world, and a brilliant Liberal writer, and I love him.
  

• Charlotte Henry and Linda Jack, because I sometimes agree with each of them and sometimes not, and because they’re both talented Liberals with firm ideals, and because they’re about as far apart from each other as any two people in the Lib Dem family. So, Linda and Charlotte, if you can come up with a ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ that’s distinctive, and has some consensus across the party, and that the other can still agree with… Well, I’ll be quite surprised, but I’d be delighted!
  

• Caron Lindsay, because she’s sensible and thoughtful, and needs a special present of more work to do to mark her ascension to Co-Editor of Lib Dem Voice (congratulations!).
  

• Chris Richards, because he’s got a keen Liberal eye and has often written (previous site) about the Lib Dems’ need to hone our Liberal message.
  

• And, OK, the sixth person is two co-people: Liberal Youth Co-Chairs Kavya Kaushik and Sam Fisk, because their ideas are bound to be fresher than mine.
  

What’s It For?

• To offer something short and simple that Lib Dems members can look at and think, ‘Yes, that’s some of why we bother’, and that other people can look at and think, ‘Oh, that’s what the Lib Dems are for, and I like it’.
  

• It’s easy to lose track of what we stand for when we’re in not just government but Coalition Government. So this is my attempt to bring together our lasting values, and our priorities in government, and the party leadership’s own new ‘core message’ – not changing the principles, but showing why they’re still relevant to what we’re doing in power. Can you manage to combine all three?
  

• Be as long or as short as you like, but I’ve kept this ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ to about 150 words. That’s long enough to make a case, not just a soundbite – but short enough to use as part of something else. It can fit on a Focus leaflet in a medium-sized box, or in a speech in around a minute.
  

The Bits I Think Work Best

• I love the line from the Preamble to the Lib Dem Constitution that says we want to build a society “in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.” It’s a great poetic flourish, and sums up the three biggest barriers to liberty, the heart of the Lib Dems for me.
  

• I’ve rewritten it so it works on its own. As part of a longer paragraph in three sets of three it’s fine, but taken out of that it’s too passive. So by making it “Freedom from…” it becomes positive, a rallying cry for active politics.
  

• To say what you stand for, it’s useful to say what you stand against as contrast. I wrote yesterday why I didn’t want to slag off Labour and the Tories (moving targets, and some of them sometimes liberal allies against poverty or ignorance, though rarely conformity) – freedom’s enemies aren’t other parties, but real-life evils.
  

The Bits I Think Probably Need More Work

• I like the structure I’ve got now. My first go at this update mostly shoved in new bits while still trying to keep the word count down, and turned into an ugly mash-up of buzzwords with no real narrative. The one I’ve published here flows, it’s easy to follow, and makes logical sense – not quite a story, but at least an argument. It’s a bit repetitive, though that does get the message across.
  

• More problematic is that it suggests a ‘shopping list’ list approach – for each type of freedom, I’ve just picked out a couple of examples that chime with our priorities, but it could suggest that’s all there is, and prompt people to ask ‘But what about…?’ The one I’m most unsure about would be part of “Freedom From Poverty”. By putting it first and saying it supports other freedoms, I think it’s implicit that people need to be free from poverty, and talk instead about how the big economic decisions can make that possible. Should I have stated explicitly that we must ensure everyone has the basics on which most other freedoms depend? And where would that fit?
  

• My main problem comes from the bit that works best – in structuring it around the three freedoms, filled out with our current priorities, it squeezes out some ideals close to the Lib Dem heart. I don’t see a way to get them in without either rewriting the whole thing or adding a lot more words. There’s nothing about internationalism, it only hints at political reform, and the environment only fits in on the economy. If you’re doing your own, I’d be interested to see if you can manage each of those.
  

Stronger Economy, Fairer Society: The New ‘Core Message’

• I wrote last week about the ‘official’ new Lib Dem ‘core message’ from Nick Clegg and Ryan Coetzee –building a stronger economy in a fairer society. You can read the whole thing on the Liberator blog, where Simon Titley overdoes his dislike of it. There’s no extermination if campaigners don’t use it; it’s simply an attempt to establish some sort of identity when pretty much every Lib Dem knows most people have trouble saying what we stand for. I know when I was a candidate, the facts and figures would have been useful, even though I was very capable of summing up our beliefs. So, for me, it’s a useful start – and I suspect Simon would have been less hostile to the concept if he’d agreed with what it said…
  

• What’s good about it is that someone’s thought about how to get our message across with some basis in what we’re actually doing, a great improvement on our recent vacuous slogans. Essentially, it’s back to the ’80s: a sharper, more priority-driven version of the Alliance’s ‘Head and the Heart’ message, saying we can split the difference between Tories and Labour and give you only the good bits of each. The full briefing trumpets our achievements, but is heavily based on attacking Labour and Tories equally over different ‘rubbish on the economy’ / ‘rubbish on fairness’ issues. It gets across our priorities in government.
  

• Where it’s not sufficient is in communicating our ideals as well as our immediate practical aims, let alone joining them up. There’s only the faintest whiff of ideology, in “Fairer”. That has three problems. Without being distinctively, positively us, but more of a reaction to the other two, we’re looking for a very bland, centrist gap in the market – which leaves us vulnerable if anyone else gets their act together to fill it. “Fairness” is part of our message but, as shown when that being our only principle in the last Election came back to bite us on the bum, in a time of austerity people don’t think it’s “Fair” if they suffer at all – even if the suffering’s shared equally, it doesn’t feel like it, so they don’t believe us. And with nothing green, or about freedom, it not only fails to inspire the idealists we need to do all the hard work, but means that if we try to kick up a fuss in government about the green or freedom issues that we really care about (and which themselves strongly distinguish us from the other parties), voters might well say, ‘But why? You haven’t mentioned them, so they can’t be that important’.
  

But that’s enough from me. Over to you – what do you say the Lib Dems Stand For?

Labels: Coalition, Education, Environment, Ideas, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Liberator, Memes, Nick Clegg, Personal, Top Tips, What the Lib Dems Stand For

The Liberal Democrats were founded twenty-five years ago today. It’s a relief that the party’s just had such an impressive present to celebrate (if you can call the result of such hard work a present). But winning elections isn’t the only thing that matters – I joined that month in 1988, and like most Lib Dems, if all I wanted was to win I’d never have chosen this party. So, especially now we’re sharing power, it’s important to assert our values. What makes us different, and makes us stay? How does that join up to what we’re doing in government? And how can we best express it in language that feels natural to us and anyone listening to us?

What the Lib Dems Stand For – 2006 Version

I don’t think every Lib Dem should say the same thing all the time – as if we could. It’s helpful, though, to communicate some of the same ideas and some of the same words, and for those who aren’t fussed enough to think through and distil our philosophy, but want one handy if they need it, here’s my contribution from half a dozen years ago:

The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

Everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose, without harming others.

For freedom to be real for everyone, it needs fairness: equality before the law, with public services funded fairly and the people they affect trusted to control them.

Freedom comes from good education, so people can make their own choices and realise their potential.

Freedom needs good health, which must be safeguarded by a decent environment both for people today and for future generations.

A free democracy needs open decisions, with as many people as possible having a say. Governments must trust the people before people will trust them.

To build freedom, fairness and a green future, we must pool our efforts in effective communities, locally, nationally and internationally.

That’s the important bit – my go at summing up the party’s soul, if you like, something that Lib Dems members can look at and think, ‘Yes, that’s some of why we bother’, and that other people can look at and think, ‘Oh, that’s what the Lib Dems are for, and I like it’.

If you read down, you’ll see how I came to it, how I made use of it, and why you should come back tomorrow and read my follow-up – because it needs a rewrite, not least because Lib Dems are now in government and because of the work on the new ‘core message’ under Nick Clegg and Ryan Coetzee: not changing the principles, but showing why they’re still relevant. It’s easy, in government, to get stuck in the mechanics and lose sight of why we’re doing it, and as policies change to reflect changes in real life, it’s all the more reason to plant a clear image of the sort of party we are, to inspire people to stick with us through thick and thin.

The Liberal Democrats’ 25th Anniversary and Our Founding Principles

I last wrote to celebrate the Lib Dems’ birthday when we turned twenty, talking more about my experience of what had enthused and supported me over the years (and how, early on, we were at 4% in the polls, near-bankrupt and coming a very distant fourth in elections, with no-one knowing what our name was, including us – all without being in government). Quite a bit’s changed since then. But one of the things I think I can help with today is joining up our lasting philosophy with the party in action, today.

Julian Huppert MP has a similar thought – he’s written today about “The Preamble, 25 Years On”. That’s the Preamble to the Liberal Democrat Constitution – a long statement of beliefs and policies that theoretically underpin the party as a whole. It’s usually reduced down to its most famous passage (40 words out of 800), quoted on every Lib Dem membership card, which doesn’t convey everything but which encapsulates the heart of our philosophy for many of us:

“The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”

You can see, by comparing the two passages, how this excerpt from the Preamble has inspired my own statement of ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’, but how I’ve also aimed to relate it to our policy priorities and how best to deliver those principles in practice. Some people respond to ideals, but others more to practical proposals – and that’s why we need to get across both. More, we need to show how each depends on the other.

So why are we so bad at doing that?

Why Bother Saying What the Lib Dems Stand For? And How Did I Go About It?

It’s immensely frustrating that of all the strong, clear, often excellent messages Lib Dems put out at so many levels – on local issues, on policy after detailed policy, and now struggling towards what we’re achieving in the LiberaTory Coalition – the one thing that we’ve never paid much attention to, and that even some Manifestos have left out, is what links it all together. Not everyone’s only interested in single issues, but inspired by a wider vision – and because unforeseen events always force parties to react without warning, doesn’t it make sense to give people an impression of your general philosophy, so they can be confident about what sort of reactions you’ll make?

I remember the clarity of our 1997 General Election campaign: that with Labour set on sticking to the Tories’ public spending plans, only the Lib Dems would make a real difference. Standing for Parliament for the first time, I campaigned hard on the investment in schools and hospitals that only we were committed to. But even then, I was dissatisfied with increased public spending (even saying how we’d pay for it) being our only message, and knew that if Labour did increase taxes (or, as it turned out, mostly mortgaged the future instead with massive, irresponsible borrowing even in a boom) and delivered on public services, which they eventually did, or if Labour sent the economy totally pear-shaped, which they eventually did, that message just wouldn’t cut it.

Though Liberalism provides a far more coherent and consistent philosophy for the Lib Dems than whatever shifting melanges animate other parties, it can be a hard task to sum it up, in detail or in brief – and I have to admit my series of in-depth ‘What the Liberal Democrats Stand For’ posts on this blog has mostly gone unwritten or in fits and starts, and I’ve not even finished republishing my original 1999 Love and Liberty pamphlet on here. What I did buckle down to communicating, though, was not the grand vision but the short story.

Sometime between the 1997 and 2001 General Elections, I decided to come up with something that summed up both what we stood for and how that explained our current priorities. Something that wouldn’t be wiped out by economic circumstances, or that by contrasts to other parties that meant ‘our core message’ would have to change when they did. Something that satisfied me – and, I hoped, other people. I aimed for about 150 words, in reasonably approachable language – something that didn’t just sound like a stretch from a textbook or a policy paper. Every year or two through most of the 2000s, I’d take another look at it and slightly update it to incorporate the party’s latest policy priorities or slogans, so that it flowed from our philosophy to the party’s current message and helped make sense of both.

When Would You Say What the Lib Dems Stand For?

At only about 150 words, my ‘What the Liberal Democrats Stand For’ was long enough to tell something of a narrative to follow, and short enough to use in all sorts of ways and places. Here are some of them:

• I put it in a box on an election leaflet when I stood for Parliament again in 2001 – alongside local issues, because some people would be stirred by practical action on their street, but others would respond to ideals.

• Appalled by so many manifestos for election to the Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee being utterly devoid of philosophy or principles, I regularly stuck it down one column of my own (and each time was elected near the top of the poll).

• I was often asked to make speeches to various Lib Dem groups and other groups on Lib Dems’ behalf, and would place it near the start to make my pitch – short enough to say within about a minute, and instinctively the starting point for any speech about the Lib Dems.

• I’d even include it in my speeches introducing the FPC Report to Conference in the four years that I was the Committee’s Vice-Chair, because I believed that if any Lib Dem body should be concerned with what we stand for and communicate it to people, it should be the one that’s responsible for the Manifesto. So my speeches established the FPC as about policy and philosophy, not just vacuous managerialism (and I was occasionally complimented on it by some of the few people who’d turn up at dead o’clock on a Sunday morning to listen).

One thing all my versions of this statement did was be positive. From the start, I made a definite decision not to put anything in it about Labour or the Tories – even though it’s much easier to define ideas by contrast, and even though it’s always fun for partisan politicians (and I am one) to knock the opposition. But there were three very good reasons I banned myself from falling back on the easy way. First, this is about us. We’ve got a clear, strong, Liberal identity – so no statement of values should just split the difference between other parties and have to be rewritten not if we change, but if they do. Second, it puts people off. It can be very satisfying within your own tribe to slag off your opponents… But people wavering between your lot and another understandably recoil if you tell them one of their possible choices is evil, and I laugh when the only message one of the other parties can offer at elections is ‘We’re rubbish, but they’re worse!’ I want to have something positive to say instead. And third – this is meant to be a short, simple summary of what we stand for, which has already got quite enough to cram in to very few words. Why give space in that to your opponents?

My health has gone downhill more sharply than ever over the past half-dozen years, so I’ve not been standing for any elections, making fewer speeches, and – writing longer articles mostly in the same place that it would be silly to repeat the same message in every time – haven’t been updating my 150 words during that time.

The last time I remember doing so was in 2006, which is the version I’ve published above. Our three campaigning priorities had been Education, the Environment and Health (see each of them in there); our three key words from the previous year’s Manifesto had been Freedom, Fairness and Trust (a word against which, even then, I’d argued against as a ‘Kick me’ sign, so look above for how warily I used it); and I was kicking against what was supposedly the new agenda for that Parliament. I felt an acute sense of frustration bordering on rage at an unforgivably dull policy paper that was meant to set out our aims and priorities – every word of it now long-since forgotten, an utterly missed opportunity to be the lasting rallying cry it should have been. Even at the time, it was barely noticed. I analysed that paper in detail for the newly created Lib Dem Voice, including my alternative ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’, that latest version limited to 140 words not in anticipation of the creation of Twitter but because that happened to be the length of the piss-poor excuse for a statement of principles at the start of the paper, and I wanted to make a direct challenge to it, and to spur anyone else to see if they could do better. I also made an unkind speech taking the piss out of the paper to the mostly empty hall that summed up the enthusiasm the paper had generated; eventually, it went through by a large majority cast by all the people who’d filled in at the end for the more interesting next item on the agenda, but this Pyrrhic victory for the empty managerialists who’d written it was soon forgotten, just as most of those voting barely heard a word of the debate even at the time.

The next time that a major paper made any such attempt was 2009. It did so far more coherently in its detail and setting out our priorities, but was even worse in its philosophy: as I wrote in another fisking for Lib Dem Voice, it didn’t even have a piss-poor summary of what we stand for, instead referring to certainty about our values and being guided by them without ever stating what they are, making it the first completely value-free statement of values. I stood up and told Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander that I was deeply worried when they’d written a draft Manifesto in our name that stopped talking about “Freedom” and replaced it with “Safety” and “Strength”. You can watch my speech in which I pointed out just who that sounded like (you might think ironically, in hindsight). And, afterwards, I was told I had a point, and they’d listened, and the real Manifesto would be better – and it was, a bit, though I might have hoped that when it came to the first Manifesto since 1992 that I hadn’t been on the Policy Committee to write bits of it, I wouldn’t be proved to be the only member of the FPC who remembered to put in a little thing like “Freedom”. But ever since, that word’s been lost in the focus groups, and the concept too often lost in practice. So it’s definitely time.

Where Next? For Tomorrow

My ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ needs updating. It needs to show how we still stand for the same Liberalism – but how it relates to the current ‘core message’, and how it inspires our approach in government. It needs all three to answer the question ‘What are we about?’ Without being recognisably the same Liberal philosophy we’ve always stood for, why did we bother all these years? Without relating it to the message the national party’s putting out, how’s it going to catch on? Without relating it to what we’re doing in power, why listen, in the real world? I don’t believe in ‘Campaign in poetry, govern in prose’, which is just a fancy way of ducking the question.

That’s why I’ve been making a few attempts, in the last few weeks, at the biggest overhaul of my 150-or-so-word ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ since I first wrote it – because I believe it needs to do several things at once, and several more than it’s done before. And my first bash at it (as I knew even before I sent it to some of the Lib Dems I most trust, who shook their heads) was an ugly mash-up and just didn’t work. I don’t think I’ve got it right yet – but my latest version’s good enough to risk publishing.

So, please come back tomorrow, where I’ll set out my latest attempt at ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’, and challenge you not only to tell me what’s good and bad about it, whether it inspires or irritates you, and, most importantly, challenge you to do better.

Labels: Coalition, Education, Environment, FPC, Ideas, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Memes, Paddy Ashdown, Personal, Top Tips, What the Lib Dems Stand For

Last week, the lovely Caron Lindsay came up with a meme – what were we blogging on about this date for each of the last five years? I’ve still had my horrible ear infection and not been blogging much but, having managed a monster Doctor Who review this morning, I’ve been nudged by Millennium to take a look through the back catalogue. It turns out I’ve never blogged on May 23rd before, but aiming for mid-May has reminded me of an exciting variety of old posts: Doctor Who; politics; politics; and Doctor Who (few of them short). Who’d have thought?

• 2011: The BBC were doing one of their rare repeats of old Doctor Who, this time in honour of the late Elisabeth Sladen. I reviewed Doctor Who – The Hand of Fear and took a look at the show’s greatest ever season…
  

• 2010: I was more horribly ill than usual that May and didn’t blog much past the first week; my nearest to mid-May was about the Coalition negotiations, but having written quite enough about that recently, I’m going back to Lib Dem Fair Taxes: The Reverse Poll Tax. It turns out that all the tax cuts for ordinary working people under the Coalition are thanks to the Lib Dems, and the Tories opposed them. Who knew?

• 2009: Remember the expenses scandal? Nick stood up to the establishment; too many of them got away with it; and I asked some awkward questions of our own MPs – which ones were taking the piss? Come to think of it, it might be worth asking the same questions at regular intervals. Here’s Parliament In Crisis: A Good Day For Nick, But A Lot More Questions To Come.

• 2008: Excited by a comedy historical episode with Agatha Christie and a giant wasp on the horizon, I took a look back through Doctor Who’s adventures in history, and particularly the fifth Doctor’s surprisingly clever little mystery Black Orchid. It’s Doctor Who and the ‘Celebrity Historical’.

• 2007: May of that year brought a tragic announcement… oh, who am I kidding? This one, of all the posts I’ve re-read this afternoon, still brought a smile to my face. All together now: Ding Dong! The Witch is dead!

Going back slightly further, 2006 was my first and in fact my most productive year blogging, so I took a look at that May, too: still nothing on the 23rd. But it turned out that we’d just had some local election results that had disappointed many Liberal Democrats (ha bloody ha, comparing the figures) but where Labour were relying on nothing but hatred of the Tories; that the Green Party were looking to nick votes from us; that Lib Dems were in fact much better on green action than they were; and that I was making a suggestion for how to get across, in part, what the Lib Dems stand for. How strange and long ago that all seems.

Labels: Blogs, British Politics, Doctor Who, Environment, History, Liberal Democrats, Memes, Top Tips

With no party winning a majority of seats (much less votes), two years ago today the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats did the responsible thing and reached an initial agreement on Coalition. Since then, some Tories have been wailing that they can’t do everything they want because the Lib Dems won’t let them (and because the voters didn’t let them), many Lib Dems have been suffering and most voters have been wanting to have their cake and make cuts to everyone else’s. Soon, I’ll be looking at some of the effects and just what the Lib Dems stand for in detail. Today, I’m looking back to what I and others said then, how that worked out, and whether we were right to say it in the first place.

Forming the Coalition was easier for the Tories. First, because they’re not used to being out of power and would do anything to get it back; the Lib Dems, having been out of power for ninety years, were a bit more concerned with what to achieve with it. And second, because once the negotiations reached an agreement between the two parties, they could make an instant yes / no decision, as the Tory Leader’s word is law right up to the point they decide to cut his head off (luckily for Mr Cameron, his main threat at the moment only appears to be Nadine Dorries, a headless chicken herself).

The Liberal Democrats who negotiated The Coalition: Our Programme For Government had, instead, to convince the rest of the party to agree in advance (which turned out not to be so hard after all, and strengthens Nick Clegg in adversity where Tories who get cold feet can pretend it’s all David Cameron’s fault). And once Parliamentarians and Party Committees had been convinced, the rest of us were given our opportunity in that rare beast, the Special Conference, held on Sunday 16 May 2010 in an unfriendly aircraft hangar at the Birmingham NEC. Now, what I should be doing, of course, is re-reading our 2010 Manifesto, the initial Coalition Agreement and the long Coalition Agreement, cross-referencing them against each other and against the Government’s record. Sorry. I haven’t (though I did notice that during the negotiations I said it should be all four of our front-page Manifesto priorities, or no deal, and our negotiators got three and a half, which was better than I was expecting). But what I have done recently is come across the scrappy bit of paper on which I jotted down my speech to that Special Conference and, bonus! It was only a minute long…

Coalition Special Conference Speech: “The Worst Possible Time”

If you want to make a speech at a Lib Dem Conference, you have a think about why and then put that down on a card. The Chair of the debate balances what you want to say against what everyone else does, so the debate’s neither too repetitious or two one-sided (a speech against often helps you get called, with the speakers against Coalition at the Special Conference also being virtually all of the tiny “No” vote so as to make the debate sound more balanced). And the likelihood of your being selected also rises or falls depending on how popular the topic and how early the hour. If you say just what everyone else is going to on your card, but less coherently, and you put in to speak in the packed debate on the Manifesto immediately before the Leader’s speech, you’ve got no chance, while if you want to be called at 9am on the third day of Conference to speak against the Milk Marketing motion, even if what you’ve written is gibberish, the Chair will be as pathetically grateful you’ve got out of bed as if you were the cavalry charging over the hill.

It turned out that, for this debate, arguably the most important the party’s ever held and all essentially on the same topic, nearly two hundred people wanted to make the fewer than forty speeches there would be time for at five minutes apiece. Worse, MPs, Peers and all the rest of the Party Great and Good were all lining up impatiently for their own chance at the lottery, making the likelihood of your being called if you were an ordinary member slimmer still. My beloved Richard Flowers wrote an excellent speech about making the Liberal difference, but didn’t get the chance to make it.

However, for massive debates like this – well, there are no others like this, and haven’t been since the Lib Dems were formed, but for major debates with wide-ranging policies – there’s also the opportunity of making an ‘intervention’. This means you don’t go up to the stage to speak, resoundingly, from the lectern, but have to clutch your notes in your hand at a smaller mike somewhere in the middle of the seating; that you’re chosen at random; and you only get one minute, one second after which you will usually have the power to your mike switched off, which is ignominious and unhelpful to your point if you’re in the middle of a sentence. In this case there were a mere hundred or so people chasing just over thirty mini-speeches but, luckily, my name was called for a slot – and here’s roughly what I said in it:

“I wanted a progressive coalition too, but 57 Lib Dems plus one Alliance Party’s still only 58, so we had to talk to both nasty authoritarian parties instead.

“When I read that Coalition Agreement, some of it was inspiring.

“OK, some of it was dispiriting.

“But at last we can implement Liberal Democrat policies. Liberalism.

“We can hold back the worst of the Tories – when the alternative was the DUP making the Tories that much worse.

“And we can scrap some of the worst of that appalling Labour Government in the Freedom Bill – which I hope will include the Digital Economy Act. No wonder Labour didn’t want to talk.

“This is our first real national power since 40 years before I was born.

“Maybe it is the worst possible time to take power.

“But I don’t want us to wait until I’m wheeled into Conference aged 78, in another 40 years, to say, ‘Well, the economy’s crashed again and at last we’ve got another hung Parliament. Maybe we should try it this time’.”

Why did I want to speak? To make my point; to be part of history; to ‘dip my hand in the blood’. Take your pick. I wanted to make a mark on the main issue – astoundingly, no-one else seemed to say what I said – I knew what I wanted to say, and I found myself ever more strongly hoping that I’d get the chance to say it as the debate went on, with most of the ‘interventions’ basically shopping lists of ‘I want you to renegotiate the entire Coalition Agreement because you’ve not included my pet project’ or, even more aggravatingly, delusional members moaning that they wanted a “progressive coalition” with Labour and wasn’t it unfair that the voters hadn’t given either party enough seats to do it.

So I know that my first line was made up on the spot to answer back. I have no illusions about either of the other parties. Progressive? Labour? Thirteen years of appalling Labour Government, and one week for some idiots to forget what they were like, apparently. Two years later, I can still think of plenty of things to remember about Labour. Anyway, knowing the mike-choppers are brutal on one-minute interventions, as I found myself starting that way instead I automatically skipped over my original opening line: ‘Of course it’s scary. Coalition might make us unpopular – power can do that. So can permanent irrelevance.’ Of course, it’s a good job I did, as we’re today so universally beloved and soaring at 57% in the polls that, had I suggested out loud that Coalition might make us unpopular, I’d look a right nana now.

[Tumbleweeds]

I had the added fun of having been horribly ill – much more than usual – throughout the previous month, and varied from bounding about with nervous excitement to being half-carried on the day. Luckily for their own nerves, the speakers waiting in line for the mike with me didn’t know that I didn’t know if I was going to speak or to projectile-vomit. Luckily, I spoke, and under the various stresses of the moment, with some passion: what one activist called later “A frisson of ‘fuck off’!” Being on form, I got a lot of applause and quite a few cheers (which are pretty damn rare).

“It’s Going To Be Bloody Awful…”

But it’s not just ego that makes me regret there were no cameras there. For only the second time I can remember at a Lib Dem Conference, the press were excluded: party managers were worried there’d be a storm of opposition to the Coalition, I think. Instead, Nick Clegg afterwards slightly ruefully called the 98% vote in favour a bit North Korean, and posterity – and the day’s news broadcasts – were denied quite a few telling speeches.

Although I didn’t think much of most of my fellow interventionists, some of the principal speeches were very impressive, and if there was one advantage to denying the cameras access, it’s that some ‘big guns’ felt they could speak more personally, just to a hall full of Lib Dem members, rather than have to beam a message to the country as a whole. I remember other people raving about several of them: Simon Hughes touching activists’ g-spots; Chris Huhne grandly combative; David Rendel sad and dignified speaking against. But the two speeches that stuck in my heart were each from senior Lib Dems I’ve never been a huge fan of, despite one of them being then at the crest of quite amazing popularity. One spoke to my hopes, and said he would look after them, the other to my fears, and said they were worth facing.

So when things get bad in the Coalition, I still hold firm to what I said then, and hold close the speeches from Tom McNally and Vince Cable, both newly-appointed ministers. Tom, in the Justice Ministry, knew that of all the ministers speaking, he was the one right on a major faultline between Liberals and Conservatives, and he took his responsibility seriously in promoting freedom rather than just letting yet another hideously authoritarian Government take over: he was, he said, “Minister with Responsibility for this party’s soul.” And Vince was the platform speaker who didn’t seem starry-eyed, or triumphant, or combative, but in tune with my feeling that I wished it wasn’t the worst possible time to take power, but that if we said, ‘No, it’s too difficult and it’ll hurt’, what would have been the point of all those years in the wilderness? We had a responsibility to do what we could. And one line of his should be written on every Lib Dem’s heart:

“It’s going to be bloody awful. But it’ll be less awful because we’re there.”

I remembered the lovely Andy Strange having written an excellent piece about the Special Conference, so I’ve looked up what he had had to say at the time in case there was something important I’d forgotten. For me, he sums up the tone of the debate perfectly as a “pattern of a clear head and a troubled heart”, and has a far better overview than I can remember of it two years later. But I’m also slightly embarrassed, as I’m sure there were other people who wrote about the debate, and it’s just possible Andy’s may have stuck in my head because his was the one I agreed with! He, too, says “Vince Cable gave the best speech I heard” and “The speech that moved me most was the one by Tom McNally.” And also, erm…

“The best speaker in the two intervention slots was Alex Wilcock who managed to make several telling points in a short space of time.”

When I Feel Cowardly

It has, obviously, been bloody awful. Again obviously, we’d be far higher in the opinion polls now (though the new Lib Dem minister in May 2010 who said we’d be down to 5% within a year is still looking on the bright side) if we’d refused to enter the Coalition, not that the voters who back us in mid-term (or even mid-campaign) opinion polls ever have the guts to actually vote for us, and those polls and the lovely pure voting record of our forty or so MPs against the Conservative Government elected in Autumn 2010 would give Lib Dems the warming glow we need to sustain us against the unfortunate let-down that we were slashed down to forty or so MPs when the Conservative Government was elected in Autumn 2010. And we’d have voted against the unlimited rises in tuition fees that the Tories wanted and that Labour’s Browne Report decided, and we’d have patted ourselves on the back when we were a useless minority of forty or so MPs with both the other parties voting it all through, because at least people would still see us as the fluffy, nice, ineffectual party, and they still wouldn’t vote for us.

When I feel cowardly, I wish, in secret, that the Labour Party had managed to creep back into office in 2010 with a majority of 6 seats, rather than dodging the bullet and going into Opposition, where they could say they never did any of the things they did in Government, and vote against all the things they did in Government, and not face a single one of the consequences of the things they did in Government.

I wish, when I feel cowardly, that I wasn’t just writing about things to remember about Labour, but watching Labour MPs scream and turn on each other as their party writhes around with nowhere else to go but face up to their trashing the economy. Watching the Labour Party destroy itself as it either stuck to the cuts they announced before the election and prayed someone else would have to carry out – the cuts “worse than Thatcher” that Labour’s Chancellor promised, mañana – or that they’d bottle them, crash the economy completely and have no-one willing to lend to them, like many other countries in the same position.

I wish the Labour Party who laughed that “There is no money left” to the Coalition that had to pick up their shattered pieces had to find some. That the Labour Party who dicked about in negotiations because the last thing they wanted was to be back in power and then said how terrible a betrayal it was to have a Coalition, because they always thought they could smash our teeth in and then drag us into bed with them like their battered wife, were instead dumped with just enough power on their own to destroy themselves. That when Mervyn King said that whoever won the 2010 election and had to deal with Labour’s disastrous legacy would be “out of power for a generation”, it would mean the Labour Party.

But no.

If we Liberal Democrats were cowards, we’d have joined either Labour or the Tories years ago, never mind what power is for, it’s easier just to sit back and enjoy it. And we Liberals used to dream of being out of power for just a generation.

Holding Back the Cry-Babies Who Think They’re Born To Rule

I’d love watching the Labour Party be destroyed by staying in Government. But that would mean destroying more of the country, too, from their sinking the economy to enforcing their ID cards, and that wouldn’t just be cowardly, it would be evil.

I don’t like the Tories. I never have, and never will. But they’re just like the Labour Party, except that they were serious about compromising on a programme for Coalition Government because they wanted it, and Labour weren’t because they didn’t. Because Labour are cowards.

As for the other lot… There was a brief period where the Tories were trying to be nice, and to their credit I did think their slogan “Together in the National Interest” was a lot better than our slightly forced “In Government – On Your Side”. I remember interviewing Oliver Letwin in Autumn 2010 (written up by Prateek Buch and Mary Reid), and he was trying his hardest to show that we were all the same, while I and others tried our hardest to prize out some differences. He called himself both a soggy liberal and a Gladstonian Liberal (tip for anyone else trying to put one over: you can’t be both). I managed to prize out some differences that convinced me he was really a Tory, but, fine, one we could do business with. Interestingly, one issue the Lib Dems were pressing for and the Tories were still against at the time was same-sex marriage, and the more I threw at him Conservative reasons for it from every direction, the more he looked like he wanted to run away. So, to be fair to them, the Tories in Government have still let themselves be moved further since. But within a month, there came the Browne Report on tuition fees; within six, the AV referendum campaign, and never glad confident morning again. At which most Tories and most Lib Dems breathed a secret sigh of relief and thought, well, we may still have to work with each other but we no longer have to pretend we don’t hate each other’s guts.

Too many Tories still believe that they have a divine right to rule. Well, tough. Labour drones love to squeak ‘No-one voted for this government!’ despite the two parties having had the support of well over 50% of the voters, massively more than any other government during my lifetime (and, still, even in last week’s ‘terrible’ elections). To be fair to the Tories, even on their own they got a lot more votes than Labour did when their last Government ‘won’ absolute power in 2005, though both of them only got a little over a third of the vote. Funny how Labour drones never got round to saying ‘No-one voted for that government!’ isn’t it?

But Liberal Democrats are old-fashioned in that we think Governments need a majority of votes to count, and if they don’t get them, they’re not legitimate. The Tories, of course, are used to being bastards, but they’re not bastards with a majority, so every time they scream that we’re stopping them doing every nasty thing they want – and we are – what they’re really furious about is not ‘the Lib Dems won’t let us govern like Tories’ but ‘the voters didn’t let us govern like Tories, and how very dare they?’

Last year, my subtle and judicious (and award-winning) article “Tory Boy Throws Toys Out of Pram: Not Exactly ‘Man Bites Dog’” explained the whining Tories’ sense of entitlement, their inability to do basic maths, and how far right they want the Government to be – but Lib Dems have stopped them being – on a massive range of issues they were crying bitterly about. I’d like to say the Tory Party’s grown up since, but the latest cry-baby who thinks he’s born to rule is David Cameron, so that’ll be a no.

A Determined Birthday

There’s a lot more to say about the Coalition Government. It’s not a happy birthday. But so what? We knew what we were getting into. We never said we were going to be happy. We said it was going to be bloody awful. And it is.

But we also said it would be less awful because we’re there. And it is. And not just because we’ve put the brakes on much of what the Tories wanted, and fixed much of what Labour did – last week, proudly, with The Protection of Freedoms Act (going right back to my Special Conference speech) becoming law and making Britain a bit more Liberal, a bit less Labour’s bully state.

Those four priorities written on the front of the Liberal Democrat Manifesto are being put into positive action – well, three and a half of them, at least. In Coalition Government, even with Labour blowing the economy to bits and leaving an incredible debt to repay, and even having to compromise with the Tories over what they want to do, the Liberal Democrats have still put our own distinctive stamp on good things from government, not just lessening the bad. Look at that front cover: the only party that ever proposed raising the income tax threshold and cutting taxes for 23 million ordinary working people; the Pupil Premium to help out poorer schoolkids; a fairer economy, tackling the banks, record numbers of apprenticeships, green jobs and the new Green Investment Bank open for business; more open politics, even as Labour and the Tories both try to dick about with democratic reforms they both stood on, too.

When things are bloody awful, it’s easy to be cowardly. It’s easy to let someone else take the responsibility. It’s easy just to take it easy.

The Liberal Democrats have never been a ‘take it easy’ party – or we’d all have joined one of the others and coasted, long ago.

It’s not a happy birthday for the Coalition. It’s a determined birthday. Just as it was a determined birth.

I’ll return to look at what the Lib Dems stand for – and what might make people listen to us again. I’ll look at some more of the Coalition’s greatest mistakes. But today, of all days, I’m determined that we should carry on doing the right thing, because while that may be worse for us, it’s a lot better for the country.

Mark Valladares asked last month, “Can we stop apologising for being in government yet?” Let me agree with him and say, with a lot of determination and, for cowards, a frisson of ‘fuck off’, that the only apology due would have been if we’d been given the opportunity of making a more Liberal Government and let people down instead.




And thanks to everyone who’s linked to this, particularly Caron’s lovely post.

Labels: British Politics, Coalition, Conservatives, Education, Environment, Health, History, Labour, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, Personal, Richard, Speeches, Tax, The Golden Dozen