Love and Liberty

I’m a Liberal and I want a brighter future.

This General Election hasn’t been about that. I’m sick at heart of the Theresa May—Jeremy Corbyn—Brexit bad trip to a meaner past.

But the hope of a Liberal future keeps me going.

My vote on Thursday will not be just to stop the Conservatives / stop Labour because though both are s**t I’m marginally more afraid of one than the other. I can’t vote to make Britain just a bit worse.

I’ll vote positively.

Here’s my hope of a future worth voting for.

Do you want a brighter future?

Because if you do, then I should warn you – it’s going to take all sorts of things. Making society be for everyone, so everyone can be free. Finding long-term funding for the NHS and schools. And not being afraid to reconsider when things go wrong.

It won’t be easy answers, fear and blame.

But I’ll tell you what it could be…

Britain, 2030. A Liberal Democrat government, and a decade since Britain voted against the mayhem of a disastrous bad Brexit deal and changed Britain’s future.

The biggest change was the one no-one expected. It was Brexit that broke Westminster. The Prime Minister no-one elected ordered everyone to obey. The government without a plan grabbed for more power than ever. But the more they tightened their grip, the more people slipped through their fingers. Their extreme Brexit mess brought Britain to the brink of disaster, yet they never took responsibility for their own incompetence and they still tried to stop anyone having a say. Labour just split four ways and fought each other. But with popular pressure (and all those Lib Dem gains), even MPs rebelled. A new hope. When Britain had another choice, we threw out the idea of government control too.

The Liberal Democrat government came to power to bring everyone together, admitting they wouldn’t always know best and promising to listen all the way. Principles first, then consulting people, testing plans out to make sure they work, building consensus – that’s how changes happen now. The age of imposition leading to massive screw-ups is over.

It’s much easier to be heard and make a difference. Britain’s nations, regions, cities and counties took back control from one-size-fits-all Westminster. With real power distributed, economies across the country are stronger. Fair votes mean you get what you vote for and can hold them to account. With the end of safe seats, some Labour and Tory MPs gave up, but now all parties have to work harder and listen more. And whether the best place to use power is locally, nationally or internationally, the most important place to take decisions is you taking power over your own life.

The NHS has the money it needs and now treats mental health as urgently as physical, but it’s also helped by preventative health and reducing pollution.

Schools have the money they need, but they’re also helped by tackling child poverty. Better education, training and apprenticeships enables everyone to have opportunity to realise their potential, whatever their background, whatever their choices.

At last there’s a government willing to tell it like it is. That people want to come to Britain because it’s a brilliant country with British values of tolerance, freedom and standing up for the underdog. That there’s no way to stop that without tearing down so much that’s good about Britain. And why should we want to? Openness and compassion have always made Britain a brighter country for everyone. And for the people for who still want Britain smaller and meaner, if you want the economy to thrive to support our NHS and schools – if you want the people to work in our NHS and schools – then we have to welcome migrants too.

At last Britain’s leaders are in tune with Britain’s bigger values. It’s made such a difference to have a government valuing diversity and inclusion, refusing to find groups to blame. The Liberal Democrats set their mission as freedom for everyone from poverty, ignorance and conformity. They tackled inequality and prejudice, saying whatever your sex, race, class, sexuality, gender identity, disability, belief or background, you were part of society, the barriers stopping you getting on must go, and we should all look out for each other when we need it. That was the turning point against the rise in hate crime a decade ago.

There’s more freedom and less crime. Everyone has the liberty to live their lives as they choose (without harming others) after scrapping victimless crimes that waste people’s lives, waste public money and waste police time. Now police get to chase the real crooks, far fewer young and ethnic minority people get criminalised, and the Cornish economy’s booming on the cannabis crop.

Remember when governments always acted like people were simple and taxes had to be complicated? That was the wrong way round. Now everyone pays their fair share and can see where the money comes from, and small businesses flourish because the wealthiest can’t find loopholes.

Britain is becoming more respected again in the world. It’s been hard work. After decades of shouting insults instead of wanting to make Europe work, a lot of our European partners were just fed up with us. But it helped that there was relief all round when Britain voted not to keep trying for a much worse deal than we had to start with by leaving, and instead at last to get stuck in and change the EU for the better. Making it more democratic, decentralised and open. Encouraging both free and fairer trade in and beyond the biggest single market in the history of the world. Standing up against racism and intolerance. And young people feel like they’ve got their future back.

Above all, Liberal Britain has turned to the future. Innovation and enterprise are getting results. Green jobs are leading the economic revival as internationalist Britain becomes a leader in zero-carbon technology to tackle climate change. With environmental and economic responsibility at home, we’ve stopped leaving problems for the next generation to tackle, and started addressing intergenerational equality.

Not everyone’s happy. For bullies, busybodies and bigots it’s much harder to push others around. But life’s better for most people who want control over their own lives, not control over everyone else’s.

A Liberal Britain by 2030 isn’t a certainty. It’s a choice. And you always have more choices. You can stay back and let things happen. You can complain there isn’t a better yesterday. Or, every new day, you can decide to get stuck in and help make a better future.

Why I’m Looking Forward To Britain In 2030

If you’re wondering why this isn’t totally on-message, it’s partly because I never am, partly because the election’s had naff all vision in it so I wanted to say something I felt, and it’s partly because although it’s about the future, it’s one I prepared earlier.

My health has been almost as crappy as the election campaign and I’ve not been able to do much. And the election’s not cheered me up, to put it mildly. I’ve not had the mojo to write.

But this January the inspiring people at Your Liberal Britain ran a competition to imagine what a Liberal Britain might look like by 2030, and I wrote something for them then. Here it is.

I hadn’t been expecting a General Election, either.

You might have recognised some of the words, some from unexpected places, but not from our Manifesto. The way I’m most on-message, it turns out, is that the Lib Dem Manifesto is Change Britain’s Future and the party’s been campaigning for a Brighter Future. What I’ve published above was almost all written in January, but after using “better future” a lot in mine I’ve decided that I like “brighter” better. So I changed a few of those.

The Your Liberal Britain competition asked for 500 words. I wrote nearly a thousand in one big rush and, having left it until the deadline, was hacking bits out all evening to try and reduce my word count. I remember deleting one paragraph at five to midnight just because it was the right length. I didn’t much like what I slashed down to 500 words, and I didn’t win with my 500 words. Now I come to share my words, I’ve kept the ones I liked.

More Liberal Democrat Values

Every day in the 2015 General Election, I chose an inspiring Liberal quote from a wide range of people. You can see all the variety of Lib Dems Believe here.


Me on video in 2015: Liberal Democrats Believe



Me on video this year: Another Vote – Another Disappointment?



Your Liberal Britain: all sorts of goodies, and worth coming back to after the election for more inspiration and more consultation. I’ve not had the spoons to do all the Lib Dem philosophy I want to over the last couple of years. I’m thrilled these new members have been doing way more than I ever could.


And of course the official version – the 2017 Lib Dem Manifesto Change Britain’s Future, free to download in a range of accessible formats.


Now, please, if you found any of this moving, or inspiring, or just some hope, go out and vote for it.

Labels: Brexit, British Politics, General Election, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, What the Lib Dems Stand For

One of the many ways in which beloved husband is doing an amazing job right now as Liberal Democrat candidate for Macclesfield is answering approximately a gazillion emails a day. Some, by this stage, literally in his sleep.

I’m long past ever standing as a candidate again, not least with this year’s catastrophically unhelpful health getting in the way even of helping Richard anywhere near as practically as I’d like.

So imagine my surprise and delight on receiving my own email enquiring about an urgent issue of Liberal Democrat policy which must be worrying people up and down the land: with Lib Dems committed to a referendum on the terms of the Brexit deal, if we form the new government on Thursday, who would negotiate a deal we were bound to oppose?

To B and How To B, That Is the Question

Here’s the question I was asked:

“…if you propose a second referendum for people to decide on the deal, assuming a Lib Dem government was in office, how would this happen in practice? Considering the party’s historic support for EU membership, who would conduct the negotiations for a Brexit deal for us to vote on? Would the responsibility for negotiations be devolved to the Civil Service or some other external body?”

And here’s the main part of my reply:

“In practice, of course, whatever party is in government, the vast majority of negotiations are conducted by civil servants: they are huge and vastly complicated and require a vast team of people and a lot of hard work. Even if David Davis isn’t doing any of it.

“The answer is to be found in the first chapter of the Lib Dem Manifesto, in effect – that doesn’t just set out the party’s policy around a third EU referendum, this time on the terms of the deal, but the party’s priorities in Parliament for setting the terms for the negotiators. The primary one is of course to remain in the Single Market, which virtually all the leading No figures led people to believe before last year’s referendum and then swerved into such a damaging far right isolationist position afterwards.

“Should there be a massive political earthquake and the Lib Dems form a majority government next week, I would be delighted and I have to admit a little surprised. However, there’s no doubt that would mean Britain’s centre of gravity on Brexit would have shifted markedly, so I would expect to see a choice between remaining as a full member or an exit deal based on a much closer relationship than Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Nuttall’s – one, as the likes of Farage or Johnson said before the referendum rather than what they’ve said since, similar to the relationship the EU has with Norway or Switzerland. Ironically, that means that the Brexit deal would be much closer to the one voters were told about in advance.

“As I say, the party’s aims for mitigating the disaster of Brexit in negotiations are set out in detail as the first chapter in the Manifesto, which you can download for yourself here.”

With the election constantly framed as a ‘choice’ between two parties offering two identical destructive chaotic Brexits and neither offering to talk about any of the detail – because they’re dumb, but they’re not that dumb – and the Lib Dems mostly failing to get a word in edgeways, I wish the question of exactly how Foreign Secretary Nick Clegg would lead Brexit negotiations come the glorious Lib Dem landslide this week were one that was keeping me awake at night.

Still, in the happy daydream in which the Liberal Democrats sweep to power on Thursday, imagine the Lib Dem government, with painfully honest commitment to its manifesto pledge, negotiating a liberal Brexit. Come the day of the deal referendum, instead of being offered destructive chaos, loss of British power and influence, rights stripped away, food riots and catastrophic collapse in living standards by the Theresa May—Jeremy Corbyn—Paul Nuttall Brexit alliance, which the majority of Britons would be likely to look at go ‘No thanks,’ the Brexit choice is instead a middle way, keeping most of the goodies but being able to say we’re not quite in. And so only a Lib Dem Government’s positive negotiations could save Brexit by producing a deal which the majority could swallow and go on to win the deal referendum for (mostly) out!

What an irony, eh?

No, somehow I can see a few steps along the way that I don’t quite believe, either…

What Should Negotiations Try To Keep (but probably won’t)?

What certainly will happen after Thursday’s result, whatever it turns out to be, is that Liberal Democrats in Parliament will stand up for British voters to have the final say on the final Brexit deal. The Conservatives and Labour will both deny that. They’ve both already voted to stop people having a say. And as the negotiations proceed into the long and complicated reality and away from back of a fag packet insult your intelligence slogans, Liberal Democrats in Parliament will stand up for these priorities and more:

• Protection of rights for EU citizens and UK citizens

• Membership of the Single Market and customs union

• Freedom of movement

• Opportunities for young people

• Defending social rights and equalities

• Maintaining environmental standards

• Law enforcement and judicial co-operation

• British business and jobs

• Science and research funding

• Travel and tourism

• Respect for the interests of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the people of Gibraltar

I really should’ve put these in my email, too. Sorry to the person who contacted me. Replying set my mind going, and it probably should have been the other way round.

The more Liberal Democrat MPs are elected this Thursday, the more votes there will be in Parliament to press for these priorities in the Brexit negotiations.

The more Conservative and Labour MPs are elected, with their Leaders’ identical commitment to a disastrous Brexit, the more certain it is that Parliament will throw all those priorities in the bin.

There probably won’t be any UKIP MPs elected on Thursday, but with Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn following UKIP Brexit policy to the letter, that won’t make any difference.

Lib Dem voices in Parliament will probably only be able to make things a bit better unless we romp home. But a bit better is better than nothing. Why vote for parties that have promised to make everything worse?

I have a terrible feeling that all those priorities and so much that’s good about Britain will be thrown in the bin. And that the scale of what – to pick only the latest prediction I’ve seen – Will Hutton calls “an epic act of national self-harm” will only become clear not even when the details have been published but only once it’s all actually happened, everything’s wrecked and it’s too late to go back.

Which means that only after the economy has crashed utterly and Britain’s divided and unhappy will a Liberal Democrat government be voted in as the last resort to do the impossible job of fitting the broken pieces together. Tried a bit of that seven years ago. Can’t say we enjoyed it and were greatly thanked for it…

Labels: Brexit, British Politics, General Election, Liberal Democrats, Referendum

Time for another video…

Here’s what I say in it:






So there’s going to be another General Election. Maybe you’re not that excited. Maybe you’re still disappointed by the last one.

In a democracy, you get choices. So you expect the people who made a different choice to be disappointed.

But the great about democracy is that if you wanted something different, you can always keep putting another point of view, and there will always be another vote.

Wanting to silence dissent or saying one vote counts for ever is sticking a knife in democracy.

We’ve had two really big votes in two years, the General Election, then the referendum. Now we’re to have another one, think about something that’s strange about them.

It’s not just the losers who’ve been disappointed. Even the winners aren’t happy. What happened?

The Conservative Party

At least usually if you voted for the winning party, you’re satisfied for a bit. And the winning party’s quite happy for a bit.

Well, it didn’t happen this time.

Even though most people voted against them, two years ago the Conservatives won by that much. But they’ve been behaving as if they rule the world ever since.

That’s disappointed a lot of people who voted for them last time.

Because a lot of people said they liked David Cameron. He seemed like a moderate and not the nasty, arrogant sort of Tory.

And the Conservative Party promised that voting Tory meant two things above all: stable government and economic success.

That’s all gone, never to return.

Literally the day after the last election, they shut down support from disabled people getting into work. Just because they could. Nasty.

All the way up to today, with the Tories hell-bent on inflicting the most damaging hard Brexit they can. Arrogant.

In between, they’ve messed around with our schools. They put the NHS in crisis. Because their far right hate the environment, they’ve cut green energy so the Tories went from hugging a husky to tilting at windmills.

But above all, this Tory Government has meant utter political chaos and instability, and economic disaster.

The worst of it’s in one word: Brexit.

First the Prime Minister went.

Then none of them had a clue what happened next.

But they’re still behaving as if they rule little England.

Now inflation’s rising, jobs are falling, companies are moving out of Britain, they’re throwing away the biggest Single Market in the history of the world. And Britain is getting smaller, meaner and nastier. A terrible disappointment to everyone who believes in British values.

And still no-one has a clue what happens next.

I bet one person does. Because in Britain we have General Elections every five years. The only reason not to is if a weak Prime Minister is in a total panic and does a massive U-turn. Theresa May has called an election before it’s even half-way time. It must be because she’s panicking. She’s seen some secret figures of how bad it’s going to be and is making a run for it before total disaster.

The most unstable government in decades. The economy thrown in the bin. Now there’s only chaos. Mayhem.

What can the Tories say to the voters they’ve let down? All the Tories stand for now is hating foreigners and bossing people about.

And it’s not just Tory voters who are disappointed.

Tory MPs have actually resigned from Parliament and left politics because they’re so fed up.

Even David Cameron did it! How much of a disappointment do you have to be for the guy who’s just been Prime Minister to say, that’s it, I’m sodding off?

And since the local elections a year ago, in the by-elections every week where people vote for new councillors – the Tories have lost 21. They must be disappointed with that.

The Labour Party

Now, I’ve never been a Labour supporter either. But even I can see that you need a strong opposition to hold the Government to account when they’re in such a mess. Well, there’s no such luck. If you voted Labour last time, well, you’d have been very disappointed they didn’t get in. But they failed by a mile. And since then, they’ve just got worse.

The one reason the Tories look like grown-ups after all their Mayhem is – the Labour Party.

Corbyn and Labour MPs and members who are even more at war with each other than the Tories are. When the country really needs someone to force the Tories to account, all you’re getting is the worst opposition in living memory, who are only interested in fighting themselves.

But the thing that’s really disappointed people is the one you’d never expect.

The most far left Labour leader ever votes with the Tories on everything – he’s given the Tories a blank cheque to do whatever they want on Brexit in every single vote in Parliament. And Labour are boasting they want a harder Brexit than the Tories. A harder Brexit than UKIP!

So there are Labour MPs who’ve resigned from Parliament too, and left politics too, because they’re so disappointed.

And since the local elections a year ago, in the by-elections every week where people vote for new councillors – Labour have lost 13. What a disappointment for what a let-down of an opposition.

UKIP

Then there’s UKIP. At the last election they got one MP. Just one MP.

Guess what happened?

He’s left the party because they all spent so much time fighting him.

Since they got their dream result in the referendum they’ve gone through four leaders. One of them twice. All they ever had was hate, and now they’ve got no-one else to hate but each other. They’re just falling apart.

No MPs. Very few councillors. And you can guess what’s been happening since the local elections a year ago, in the by-elections every week where people vote for new councillors – they’ve lost another 7, probably all they were defending. They must be disappointed with that. But nobody’s even paying any attention any more.

The Liberal Democrats

And then there’s the Liberal Democrats.

Everybody knows at the last General Election we had a terrible result. The worst since I’ve been alive. We all worked hard, we were all disappointed, and our voters were disappointed.

But that’s not where it finishes.

Two years ago we had over forty thousand people still working hard as Lib Dem members. And we didn’t give up.

We went up.

Within a week of the last election, we had more than fifty thousand members.

And still more people joined.

And when the referendum went Leave by that much, more people joined.

By a couple of weeks ago we’d doubled our membership to eighty-five thousand.

On the day Theresa May panicked and ran for an election, Lib Dems surged to more than ninety thousand members.

We’re still growing every day.

Because Britain is better than this, and there is only one party that is fighting against the disappointment.

Because standing up for a better future inspires people. Being a proper opposition. Standing up for working together. For trade and peace and prosperity and the environment and education and our NHS.

And our MPs have actually gone up instead of quitting. One of those brand-new Lib Dem members was determined to make a difference, and she did. She won voters over and overturned a huge Tory majority when she was elected MP for Richmond Park in December.

And since the local elections a year ago, in the by-elections every week where people vote for new councillors – Tories down 21, Labour down 13, UKIP down 7.

People have voted in 33 new Lib Dem councillors.

You don’t have to give up.

You do have a choice. You can change direction. You don’t have to live with disappointment.

There is always a new day.

We’re in league with the future. Join us.

If you want the choice to stop Brexit, if you want Britain to be the open, tolerant, outward-looking country we can be proud of again, if you believe in freedom, fairness and a better future, join the Liberal Democrats.

Theresa May has called a panic election at a time she thinks is best for her to fix the result. But we have a choice.

Mrs Mayhem – prepare to be disappointed.



*Local by-elections results May 2016 to April 2017 from Political Betting, April 8th 2017

Labels: Brexit, British Politics, Conservatives, General Election, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Video

Only the Liberal Democrats, hardened by a hundred years of losing and buoyed by an inextinguishable hope in Liberalism, could follow an ‘extinction event’ election by gaining more than eleven thousand new members in less than a week. Welcome, all of you! You might like to look at Liberal Democrat Voice’s New Members Day (new voices, recommended reading and party essentials). You help remind us all that for all the talk of historical precedents, the year we’re in is 2015. But tonight I’m still looking back with a sense of history and with thanks to so many Lib Dem MPs.

I’ve been writing my post-election thoughts throughout this week. Regular readers will be unsurprised to know that the article’s been getting longer and longer – and may well split into a series of about half a dozen. But in case I don’t have the energy to write them all, there’s something I want to make sure I say.

I’ve read a ton of historical comparisons over the last few days – some glib, some persuasive. But while there’s much to learn from history, we do need to remember that this is 2015, not any other year, and that the way back to wilderness or revival is not predestined. On the face of it, this seems most like 1970 in our share of seats and votes – 7.5%, down to 6 MPs, a surprise Tory victory – which would ‘put us back’ to before I was born. Those losses were followed by new ideas and something of a comeback at the next general election; I hope for new ideas, too, and though ‘Let’s dig out our answers from 1970!’ doubtless has some merit, I hope most of our answers this time are going to be a bit fresher.

Right now, I’ve been distracted from writing about what we might learn simply by how terrible it feels. I know and admire quite a few Lib Dems who’ve suddenly lost their seats. I can’t help wondering if, whatever year is the more precise statistical match, this feels more like the 1920s – when a much larger group of Liberal MPs with great records in government were suddenly hewn down. I remember when the Coalition was formed five years ago, one of our Peers telling me that at his first Liberal Assembly, in Llandudno in about 1956, he’d been introduced to an elderly man with an ear trumpet who had been a Liberal Minister in our government of what is now a century ago – and that he still couldn’t quite believe that now, though it had only come when he’d got that old himself, he was walking around Liberal Democrat Conference seeing new Liberal Democrat Ministers again… Even if it had to be another coalition with the Tories, which hadn’t ended so well in the 1920s. On the bright side, we come out of this one battered but surprisingly united, rather than with two rival Leaders waging war on each other. And those were the two pretty good rival Leaders. I joined the Liberal Democrats when we were founded in 1988, just after we’d had two pretty bad rival Leaders waging war on each other, and in elections the following year we crashed to 4% and won no seats at all.

If you want two hopeful signs for the future, signs that we are now in neither the 1920s nor the 1980s, not only is our membership rocketing rather than falling through the floor after this year’s defeat, but we are also not split down the middle, which helps. The Conservatives’ mean authoritarianism will not have an easy ride.

Around 80% of the new members in the last week are people who’ve never been Liberal Democrats before, according to the party’s membership department. On a more anecdotal level, a great many of our new Liberal Democrats I’ve seen online have been inspired more than anything else by Nick Clegg’s resignation speech last Friday. I’ve been a Liberal Democrat for a long time, and it inspired and moved me, too. I’d watched through the night in a sort of grim blankness, and wondered what it would take to break that numb feeling. Within a few seconds of Nick starting to speak, I was in floods of tears. Here are some of the words that meant the most to me:

“It’s been a privilege, a huge privilege, an unlimited honour, to lead a party of the most resilient, courageous, and remarkable people. The Liberal Democrats are a family and I will always be extremely proud of the warmth, good grace, and good humour which our political family has shown through the ups and downs of recent years. I want to thank every member, ever campaigner, every councillor, and every parliamentarian for the commitment you have shown to our country and to our party.

“It is simply heartbreaking to see so many friends and colleagues who have served their constituents so diligently over so many years abruptly lose their seats because of forces entirely beyond their control.

“In 2007 after a night of disappointing election results for our party in Edinburgh, Alex Cole Hamilton said this: if his defeat was part-payment for the ending of child detention, then he accepted it with all his heart.

“Those words revealed a selfless dignity which is very rare in politics but common amongst Liberal Democrats. If our losses today are part payment for every family that is more secure because of a job we helped to create, every person with depression who is treated with a compassion they deserve, every child who does a little better in school, every apprentice with a long and rewarding career to look forward to, every gay couple who know that their love is worth no less than anyone else’s and every pensioner with a little more freedom and dignity in retirement then I hope at least our losses can be endured with a little selfless dignity too.

“We will never know how many lives we changed for the better because we had the courage to step up at a time of crisis. But we have done something that cannot be undone because there can be no doubt that we leave government with Britain a far stronger, fairer, greener, and more liberal country than it was five years ago.

“Fear and grievance have won, Liberalism has lost. But it is more precious than ever and we must keep fighting for it. That is both the great challenge and the great cause that my successor will have to face. I will always give my unstinting support for all those who continue to keep the flame of British Liberalism alive.

“Our party will come back, our party will win again, it will take patience, resilience and grit. That is what has built our party before and will rebuild it again. Thank you.”

Thank you, Nick. And never-ending gratitude to Lynne, too, in particular. Many people in our party and beyond made a difference, but the unstinting efforts of Nick and Lynne above all made it possible for Richard and me to marry, after twenty years of waiting through Tory and Labour Governments that made us second-class citizens. We will never forget and never regret that. And I will miss other former MPs I admire for their Liberalism, for their achievements, and in several cases for their friendship. I will keenly miss Stephen, and Stephen, and Danny, and Simon, and Julian, and too many others.

I believe both Norman and Tim have much to recommend them as potential Leaders, but I hope it’s not too discourteous to say that one of the results that left me most distraught would have been my first choice for Leader, Jo Swinson. She so terribly nearly held on (with the lowest fall in her vote of any Lib Dem in the country, an example of the difference between someone who’s always worked hard and the bewildered ‘ultra-safe’ Labour MPs all around her who’d never had to do a day’s work for their seats and were buried under sudden avalanches). I hope she’ll be back, and that open-hearted Liberalism will rise over narrow-minded nationalism.

Among the most damaging mass results of last Thursday – along with our extermination across the South-West – is that all our surviving MPs are now white, cis, straight men. Do not blame any of them for this. They’ll have enough to cope with. And there’s no simple answer. We had women MPs; we selected women in most of our seats where the sitting MP was standing down. We didn’t hold any of them. The Labour Party in particular will be as ruthless in attacking us for the voters’ choices as they were in pouring in resources to defeat Lynne Featherstone – choosing to let marginal Tory MPs off the hook to make sure that they cynically brought down Lib Dem women.

I will offer ideas of what might help for the future. But for today, I simply ask you to be kind to Lib Dem MPs (and staff) who’ve lost their seats if you meet them, and to be even more kind to the eight Liberal Democrats who won. Because all of them suddenly have so much more work to do.

Labels: General Election, History, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Marriage, Nick Clegg, Personal

It’s finally come: the official end of the 2010 Parliament, and the official start of the campaign (“Not ’til now?” said Tegan, dismayed). And though you might think Doctor Who is all about the Liberal philosophy and not pounding the streets with Focus leaflets, I’ve found evidence of one of the Doctor’s companions standing for election is just the way Lib Dems do.

By chance, the Doctor Who story starting today on the Horror Channel is Snakedance. And there’s a photo-op from that story that shows exactly what I’m talking about. The Doctor tends to be a bit rough and ready in sorting out the big problems and then leaving before he has to do the clearing-up, but Nyssa, one of his friends from the time, was raised in a tradition of public service and proper tidying up (Cleaning up the Mara’s Mess! After Cleaning up the Melkur’s Mess! A Record of Sweeping, A Promise of More!).

We don’t see the TARDIS leave at the end of Snakedance, but you can bet the Doctor goes and hides in it while Nyssa takes over doing her thing. Or, at least, campaigning to be put in charge in the proper #LibDemsPointing way.


RELEASE: IMMEDIATE

What Have the Federation Ever Done For Us?

Nyssa of Traken [pictured, pointing] is standing for Market Ward, Manussa, and campaigning for a new deal for the Scrampus System.

“The Federation have been in charge round here for five hundred years – today! And what have they done since ridding Manussa of the Mara? Nothing but lounged around fondling suggestive antiques on expenses. Market taxpayers have had enough.

“It’s time for a change. We can start by cleaning up this unsightly graffiti that’s all over Manussa’s ancient monuments.”

/ENDS

Labels: Doctor Who, General Election, Lib Dems Pointing, Obscure Doctor Who Jokes, Peter Davison, Snakedance

You want the most blatant difference between parties? Tax. The Liberal Democrats would raise taxes on the richest to give a £700 tax cut to low and middle earners; Labour have just raised taxes again on low and middle earners; the Tories claim they want to reverse Labour’s tax rise, but won’t say how to pay for it – while their biggest commitment is a massive handout to double millionaires. And the simplest way to explain that difference? Remember the last Tory Government’s flagship poll tax, taking proportionally most from the poor? Lib Dem fair taxes are the exact reverse.

And, yes, I know this one’s pathetically late, but come on – the Lib Dems will keep on campaigning on it, and the Tories will keep on slashing the poor to subsidise the rich.

The Tories Only Cut Taxes For the Wealthy – and Make the Rest of Us Pay

The poll tax was the Tories’ big new idea to take them into the ’90s. It was so shockingly unfair that it brought riots on the streets. Simple idea: instead of taxing people on the value of their homes, everyone would pay exactly the same. Sounds fair for a second… Until you realise people on the lowest incomes would have to pay just the same as a multi-millionaire. A tiny fraction of the ultra-rich’s income; a massive hit to someone working hard to make ends meet. No wonder that tax break for the richest brought down Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister and forced the Tories to cobble together the mess that’s the council tax instead.

Today, exactly the same instinct that created the poll tax has risen to the privileged top of the Tory Party again. They just don’t learn. For three years, it’s been their main tax priority to cut inheritance tax for double millionaires. At a cost of £6 billion to the rest of us, only the richest 3,000 families in the country would get a tax cut of a quarter of a million quid each. Nice if you can get it!

Lib Dems Cut Taxes For Most – Wealthiest Pay More

In complete contrast to the Tories’ tax plans, the Liberal Democrat flagship policy in this election is a massive £17 billion tax switch. Everyone earning up to £100,000 a year would pay no income tax on the first £10,000 they earn. That means a tax cut of £700 for most people on low and middle incomes.

And to pay for that enormous cut? Five different tax rises at the other end of the scale: equalise capital gains tax with income tax, so people can’t dodge taxes by sticking their loot into property; giving everyone the same basic rate pension relief, instead of giving twice as much back to the wealthiest; a 1% mansion tax on any property value above £2 million; cracking down on tax avoidance, including specific measures on stamp duty and a new general law against measures designed to dodge tax; and taxing air travel per plane, not – as it is now – per passenger, so air freight pays its weight in tax and polluting planes fly full instead of half-empty.

Making Work Worth Working For

Everyone who’s ever worked on a low wage – and I know this, but I can’t imagine many Tories do – knows that one of the big problems is that benefits vanish just as your hard-earned cash starts to disappear in tax. It means you’re often hardly any better off working than not. No, if you earn under £10,000, you won’t get the full £700 – but you will get to keep what you earn, rather than see it pocketed by the tax man.

Labour prefers to make people dependent – taking money with one hand, giving tax credits back with the other… As long as you jump through the right hoops, and fill out the right forms, and wait for the money to come through, and hope it doesn’t get taken back because they made a mistake or changed their minds. They just love to control people – they just don’t understand that it’s better, simpler, and cheaper than all the bureaucracy just to have the self-respect of keeping your own money, not relying on the whim of government handouts. And to make sure they keep low and middle earners in their place, Labour have done the opposite of the Lib Dems taking people out of paying tax altogether. They’ve claimed not to increase income tax… But they doubled the tax on every single one of the lowest earners by scrapping the 10p rate. They raised taxes on income without saying the words by raising national insurance – which works in just the same way for most. And rather than lifting that threshold at which people start paying tax, Labour’s frozen it at just about £6,000, so that inflation alone means the lowest earners get clobbered for extra tax.

Tories Prefer To Hit the Poor Rather Than Rich Tax-Dodgers – Who’s Surprised?

The gap between the rich and the poor is bigger under Labour than it was under Mrs Thatcher. The lowest-earning 20% of people pay a higher share of earnings in tax than the wealthiest 20% under Labour. It’s the purpose of the Liberal Democrat tax switch to tackle that, to make taxes fairer.

I’ve written about the Tories’ very different tax-cutting agenda, instead to widen the gap between rich and poor. But the parties also have a different idea of who to chase hardest for money gone missing. I mentioned that the Liberal Democrats want to chase tax-avoiders. Well, let’s look at the figures. Tax avoidance that’s currently exploiting legal loopholes is estimated to cost the taxpayer nearly £50 billion a year: the Lib Dems’ plans assume that, by taking action to close those loopholes, at a conservative estimate about 10% of that would be scooped up – about £5 billion. That’s not counting getting harsher with not the dodgy dodgers but cracking down on definite criminals: illegal tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year.

So what’s the Tories’ priority? Not one word about wealthy tax dodgers. Instead, their right-wing dog-whistle posters shrieked “Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work” and, after twenty years of every government cracking down harder on people who not just refuse to work but are too ill to work or who can’t find a job because the government’s stuffed the economy, how much more do you think can be squeezed by kicking the poor still harder? The Tories scream that they want to kick the poor. The Tories shout that they want to give massive handouts to idle millionaires. And while tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year… Benefit fraud costs just over £1 billion.

You might be more generous or more imaginative than I am, but I can’t think of a single possible explanation for the Tories attacking people who cost £1 billion and giving extra to people who cost £15 billion that doesn’t boil down to them getting all their funding from rich tax dodgers on the one hand, and wanting to grind down the poor and sick who can’t hit back on the other.

The Reverse Poll Tax – The Tax Cut Tories Will Never Agree With

In the election TV debates, David Cameron described the Liberal Democrat tax cut as “a beautiful policy,” but said that it couldn’t be afforded. That was a lie. You can pay for a £17 billion tax cut – by raising £17 billion more from the wealthiest, who currently pay a smaller share of their income than the poorest.

Well, we know why that’s almost literally unthinkable for David Cameron, don’t we?

The difference between Liberal Democrat and Tory tax cuts could not possibly be any clearer. And to return to the comparison with the poll tax…

Remember how the poll tax gave a massive tax cut to people living in huge mansions, while hammering people on tiny wages in tiny homes? The Tories today want to give a much, much bigger tax cut to people inheriting huge mansions – not even to people who’ve earned them. The Liberal Democrats today want to pay for a tax cut for ordinary people, in part, by taxing huge mansions.

Remember how the poll tax took the same amount of cash from everybody, so the rich gave up the tiniest fraction of their wealth and the poor were robbed of a huge slice of what they earned?

The Liberal Democrat tax cuts are the precise reverse of that. By giving back the same amount of cash to everyone earning between £10,000 and £100,000, it’s fair – because everyone gets the same – but helps you more the less you earn, which starts narrowing that gap between rich and poor where lower earners pay a bigger share.

The Liberal Democrats have said they want to give a tax cut of £700 to low and middle earners – which means that the lower down the scale you earn towards £10,000, the bigger the percentage gain to your wages.

The Liberal Democrats have said they want to cap all public sector pay awards, with the economy doing so badly, at £400. Again, a solid cash figure – again, that means that the lowest earners would get the biggest percentage increase, but better-off public servants (like MPs) couldn’t get a larger share.

Not all tax cuts are the same. The Conservatives’ instincts are still exactly the same as those that created the poll tax to help the rich. The Liberal Democrats’ instincts for fairness are exactly the opposite – helping the lowest and lower middle earners most. And, of course – unlike the Tories – the Lib Dem manifesto printed the figures to say how it would all be paid for.

There is all the difference in the world.

Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, General Election, Liberal Democrats, Tax

If you’re interested in what the parties have to say, you’ve probably already glanced at their manifestos (available for free online) or bought one of the “Why Vote Party X” books in the shops. I’m not going to do an in-depth analysis of any of them at this stage, though I’ve read some more thoroughly than others. But even at a cursory inspection, you see something of the parties in them. What are their priorities? What do the covers and contributors tell you about their approaches? What about the gays? And why (surprise) do I prefer the Liberal Democrat publications?

Labour?

The cover of their Manifesto mentions “A Future,” but it’s a retro-future, desperate to ignore all the failures of the past and imagine themselves safely back in a cosy socialist utopia (not one on offer within the text): the cover looks like it was drawn in the 1950s as an advert for Nuclear Families For A Nuclear Future. I’m gay, I don’t trust nuclear power, and I don’t want to go back to the ’50s – and I don’t like Labour always telling me their perfect niche into which I should fit (as ever, no new policies on LGBT equality – though Mr Brown personally attacked marriage equality. Their record is to wait for the Lib Dems to come up with them, vote them down, then pick them up a few years later when it looks like they’re ‘safe’). There are no new ideas – just, as ever, that Labour knows best, mixed with authoritarian dog-whistles like calling a chapter “Crime and Immigration” (but with cartoons, though. Surely no-one who uses crayons could be evil). The Why Vote Labour book makes the same approach still more explicit: it has the central stamp of approval from Gordon Brown’s foreword, but the deniability of being written by someone who’s not an MP; the Conservatives are attacked by implication in the book’s first paragraph, and by name in the second; and while there are many paragraphs allegedly written by other people, most of them are just identified by a first name and a town – like a made-up quote on a leaflet – and all of them are put carefully in their place, framed in boxes under orders as examples of the central Labour Truth.

But neither of these publications matters very much. Can you think of a single new policy that Labour’s been campaigning on? Not one. It’s all been about a tiny fraction of government spending that they can pick out as a potential Tory cut to make you scared, then either saying the “Liberals” will do the scary same thing or cosying up with “I agree with Nick” on alternate sentences.

The Conservatives?

The cover of their Manifesto offers an “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”. Only the Tories could frame a populist appeal to every citizen in the style of a £500-a-head white tie do, as if assuming everyone goes to them all the time, like they do; only the Tories could invite everyone to participate in government, then spend their entire campaign taking fright and shrieking panicky scare stories about the awful danger of, er, anyone but the Tories forming the Government of Britain. So I admit I’m biased against a cover that might as well be a neon sign saying ‘We Don’t Mean It’. Open it up, though, and it does look more inviting. There’s none of the faux pas of the cover – instead, it’s a graphic designers’ paradise, easily the prettiest of the manifestos. And the mood music is early David Cameron: it feels more like a “liberal” Tory manifesto than any that have gone before. There’s no sign of the hard right policies that have appeared in desperation in speeches and posters as Tory support has sagged during the campaign – there’s little sign of much in the way of firm policies at all, but there are lots of nice full-page pictures of towns across Britain and in other countries, as if the Tories are taking credit for them, or possibly preparing to annex them.

The Conservative Manifesto was launched a couple of days after their Shadow Home Secretary was caught saying one thing in public and another thing in private about gay rights, yearning for the days of signs in windows marked “No Blacks, No Gays, No Catholics”. I wonder, I thought, if the manifesto does the same thing? Well, in panic at their plummeting gay vote, David Cameron… No, actually, he’d just made that awful fuck-up in a Gay Times interview and had to ask them to stop the camera, hadn’t he? Then he spun to the gay press that he’d begin the campaign on 6th April by mentioning gays in his first election speech, but having said that to the gay press, said “Black and white… Rich and poor…” but didn’t say “Gay or straight…” to the crowd and the TV cameras. Say one thing in one place, say something completely different to someone else. That’s the Tory way of speech – what are they like in print? So, amazingly, George Osborne was thrust out as a ‘safe pair of hands’ and promised to tackle homophobic bullying, at long last, and even came up with a uniquely Tory policy none of the other parties had mentioned and which I thought was a good idea and on gay rights. Credit where it’s due – that’s a first! He said they’d go some way (though, of course, not all the way) to quashing convictions of men who’d had sex with men that was only illegal because the law at the time was discriminatory. But… No. Again, the Tories say one thing to gays, but something else to other people. Because on the day their manifesto launched, “homophobic bullying” was put on the front page of their website… But it’s not in their manifesto. Nor is their other idea. Or any other pro-gay policies whatsoever. They do, though, have a nice pretty picture of Brighton, and mention how gay it is, because if that’s in a Tory manifesto it must all be down to the Tories. Somehow, I don’t think it works that way.

Oddly, the Why Vote Conservative book has a more coherent stamp to it, every word written by the same person and advancing an argument… But it’s also by a long way the most deniable of the three. Written by a Tory blogger, it opens not with a foreword from Mr Cameron but a disclaimer that he had absolutely nothing to do with it, nor any Tory MP nor employee. Gosh. So, they’re really keen to be pinned down on policy, then.

Oh, and in the last few days, David Cameron’s rushed out a “Contract” on Britain with a different set of policies again. Some of which were in the manifesto, and some on the posters (no, not the first set – nor the second – you know, this week’s Tory posters), and some presumably were just what Rupert Murdoch told him to say to try and salvage his investment.

It’s not clear which, if any, of these publications indicate what the Conservatives would actually do if given power – except enjoy it.

The Liberal Democrats

The cover of the Liberal Democrat Manifesto is quite plain – in both senses. “Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2010,” it’s labelled. “Change That Works For You – Building A Fairer Britain”. And the only other thing on the cover is, would you believe it, policy. Imagine that, for a manifesto? It sets out the party’s four key priorities about Fairness. The same ones Nick settled on last year; the same ones he made the centrepiece of his speech to Lib Dem Conference in March; which I picked out as the party’s key themes at the start of the campaign; the same ones he’s explained in every interview; the same ones I saw him give a barnstorming speech about on TV at his final campaign rally last night. Inside the manifesto, it explains those four key priorities in more detail, right at the front. Then sets out all the other policies, saying up front that the key priorities are the most important, but that they’d try to implement the rest too, depending on how much influence the Lib Dems win in the election (oh yes – and after several decades of being the party most committed to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, even when they were wildly unpopular, there are commitments to plenty of them in there. Including, in the section on education, with tackling homophobic bullying, as well as that on “families of every shape and size,” the workplace, hate crimes…). Every single section has green tabs next to commitments to show how a green approach runs through every area of policy. And, at the back, there’s an index so you can find every issue you’re interested in more easily, and a full set of costings – the only manifesto that sets out how a single policy can be afforded. And this sets out the figures for every single commitment.

This is very odd, after the other two manifestos. Words and numbers, rather than just packing the pages out with pretty pictures (though there are a couple)? It’s as if the Liberal Democrats want you to know what they’re promising, be able to check the figures, and hold the party to them. Imagine!

Then there’s the Why Vote Liberal Democrat book. It has a foreword from Nick Clegg, and it’s written by Danny Alexander, the MP who’s Nick’s Chief of Staff and who also edited the manifesto. Well, I say it’s written by Danny… But, although it’s not afraid to say up front that all this is the Liberal Democrats saying exactly the same here as everywhere else – though, in fact, I prefer the more expansive Liberalism of Nick’s introduction here to the much shorter, more businesslike values page in the manifesto, a document boiled down to concrete promises on fewer pages with larger type – it’s not all written by Danny, and nor do other contributors only walk on as directed to give their name (or part of it) to a carefully spun paragraph. While Danny edits the book and provides the overarching theme, each chapter is written by a different Lib Dem spokesperson or supporter. Where the manifesto gives the bullet-point commitments, this explains the thinking and the philosophy behind them, not by central party diktat but in many people’s own words: MPs; councillors; a former senior police officer; a former Director of Public Prosecutions; actors like Colin Firth; musicians; and, yes, an out gay Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate – Ed Fordham, who I hope very much will win Hampstead today – writing about gay equality. It’s a party not of iron control and a single voice, but people working together and unafraid to speak out. It isn’t just the same as the manifesto – but it’s entirely in harmony with it, complimentary, not contradictory. They’re the only two publications from any of the three parties that actually work together persuasively to say why you should vote for them.

What the Parties Stand For

For weeks, I’ve wanted (but not had the energy) to write a piece on each of the manifestos, which I’ve finally got out rather late… And a piece comparing each of the parties’ key pledges announced at the start of the campaign, which – as the Lib Dems had four, Labour five and the Tories six – was going to be Torchwoodishly called ‘The 456 Are Coming’. Perhaps it’s just as well I never got to write the latter: while Nick Clegg and his party have been campaigning so determinedly on the Lib Dems’ Four Fairnesses that I suspect every Lib Dem and a substantial chunk of the public could name them, the other parties’ focus-grouped ‘pledges’ have formed such a minuscule part of what they’ve actually said that I bet they’d be news even to most of their candidates. What, I have to ask, is the point of campaigning to get elected if you don’t know what you intend to do? Are Labour and the Tories really only about power and nothing else? It looks like it.

All the Tories stand for is their sense of entitlement. They think they were born to rule, and they’re damn well going to do it, and do whatever the hell they like, even if only a third of people vote for them. Exactly what they want to do is still unclear: “liberal” Conservatives gave way to ferocious personal attacks on Gordon Brown; now the policies they’re campaigning on are of the hard right, while trying to scare anyone who thinks they shouldn’t have absolute power. Having changed all their policies and their approach several times just in a month’s campaign, it’s difficult not to conclude that they want power because they just want power.

All that Labour stands for is stopping the Tories. Seen their posters? Seen their broadcasts? Heard their speeches? They’re the only party in this election running an even more negative campaign than the Tories are. After thirteen failed years, they’ve got nothing left but scaring people into voting unenthusiastically but worriedly for more of the same. As I’ve observed of them so often, their one theme is, “We’re shit, and we know we are, but – ooh! The Tories! Scary!”

And what do the Liberal Democrats stand for?

The same as we did at the beginning of the campaign. The same as we did before the campaign. The same as we did last year. The only party that’s set out firm priorities, and stuck to them – not panicked and changed them from week to week, or just tried to define themselves by being ‘not the scary other lot’.

The Liberal Democrats stand for fairness:

• A Fair tax system, with no tax to pay on the first ten thousand pounds you earn – paid for by more tax from the richest and on pollution

• A Fair start for children, with a pupil premium for schools to invest in the least well off

• A Fair economy, rebalanced to stand up to bankers and with investment in new green jobs to start the country growing again

• Fair, clean, open politics, including fair votes, the ability to sack your MP if they let you down, no more unelected second chamber so no more cronies, and a Freedom Bill to scrap many of Labour’s unfair 4,300 new laws.

If you vote for the Liberal Democrats, you know what you’re getting. And I will – because I want to get it.

Labels: Books, British Politics, Conservatives, Gay, General Election, Labour, Liberal Democrats, What the Lib Dems Stand For

With just twenty-two hours left of the most exciting election in our lifetimes, you probably don’t want to read even more political analysis and predictions – not with the real thing nearly decided. So I’m looking at no bets or polls tonight, but I’ve read some brilliant pieces from people about why they’re voting, and what’s worth voting for. Take a peek: these are some of the best, most inspirational pieces of political writing I’ve come across in the last few days (if you read no others, David Matthewman’s “Why I’m A Liberal Democrat” blogs are heartfelt, intelligent and personal).

David Matthewman: Why I’m A Liberal Democrat

Among the very many other things I’d meant to do this election and never managed, I was going to write a series of articles about why you should vote positively for the Liberal Democrats. I am enormously grateful, therefore, to the lovely David Matthewman for writing many of the same ones that I would have liked to but didn’t (and in several cases writing ones that I suspect I agree with more than the one I would have written). They’re all excellent, but I’d particularly recommend his first one, which explains just how important one of the two or three Lib Dem policies I’d pick as my favourite really is. He and Richard Gadsden are excessively kind to me in his fifth piece (and Richard tells me something I didn’t know, and blush at), but if you’re short of time, I’d skip to his most recent two, on Fairness and Unpopular Causes, each of which are both inspiring and thought-provoking.

1 The Freedom Bill

2 The Banks, the Credit Crunch and Vince Cable

3 The Green Economy

4 Electoral and Parliamentary Reform

5 Fellow Liberal Democrats

6 Education

7 Fairness

8 Unpopular Causes

Oh, and if you’re still thinking of voting Labour, David has something to say…

…And so does Liz. Less scathingly.

…Oh, as does former British Ambassador Craig Murray. Horrifyingly.

But back to the positivity…

More Lib Dem Link Love

Did you see Nick Clegg’s personal guarantee in some of the newspapers? There’s a pdf of it here. Unlike other parties, we’ve been campaigning on exactly the same four priorities through the entire election. Almost as if we a/ mean them and b/ haven’t been panicking…

If you want to know more about those four priorities, Millennium Dome explains them in superb detail – and contrasts them with the Conservatives’ rival “plans” for “change”.

Like David, Freethinking Economist Giles Wilkes has written his own reasons to vote Lib Dem.

There was rather a good piece in the newly Lib Dem-supporting Guardian the other day along the same lines, too: Five (Other) Reasons To Vote Lib Dem. Historian Timothy Garton Ash is passionate about a Liberal vote for the Lib Dems as well. Go for it!

There are of course local council elections taking place across most of Britain along with the General Election tomorrow, and one of our most fabulous council candidates is the lovely Jennie Rigg. Among her many excellent pieces is one about the Tory press’ desperate ‘mudslinging’ that some Lib Dem candidates are – imagine! – individuals (fantastic fact: the “ventriloquist” candidate, the lovely Chris Young, also wrote the song Letterboxes that Jennie endorses with such feeling).

Speaking of mudslinging, the Independent’s cartoon yesterday about the desperate Tory attempts to expose the ‘horrifying reality’ behind the Lib Dems made me smile…

…As did Jonathan Calder, with one of the best headlines of the campaign.

The lovely Andrew Hickey tries to put partisan feelings aside – with some success – to explain what each of the parties stand for, and (with significantly less success) about tactical voting.

The lovely Chris Lomax writes passionately about the Lib Dems as the party of science. Geek The Vote is campaigning on it.

As I linked to several anti-Labour pieces above, in the interests of balance some Lib Dems are not wholly convinced by the Conservatives:

The Tories appear to being mysteriously (and illegally) aided by the British Union of Fascists “Young Britons Foundation”.

One top Tory candidate, hilariously, has complained that “If this was a safe seat we wouldn’t have to do this work.” Very deserving of your vote, then: “Big Society? …High Society, more like,” observes Liberal Vision.

Another Tory candidate, less hilariously, thinks gay people are possessed by demons. Jae Kay is unimpressed by the “liberal” Tories’ response to their medieval high-flyer (presumably not on a broom).


And finally, to concentrate your mind on your vote – Nick Clegg:

“It may just be a small cross on the ballot paper, but it is a big opportunity.”

Labels: Bigotry, Blogs, British Politics, Conservatives, Gay, General Election, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Nick Clegg, What the Lib Dems Stand For

The General Election looms tomorrow. Knackered? Footsore? Your brain turning to cheese at repeating that you agree with Nick’s Four Fairnesses seventy-three times a day? Then here are three songs to perk you up. They’re all from the 1990s – no, not Things Can Only Get Better; too much like intruding on private grief – and include, for me, the ’90s’ two greatest pop anthems. The first is foot-stompingly Liberal; the second, a total fake (and not quite the proper song, either); the third wasn’t a big hit, but it’s difficult to find a bigger hitting out at the Labservatives.

I’ve been horribly ill throughout the campaign, but today lifted my spirit if not my body with some music. In a strange way, it was inspired by this week’s Doctor Who DVD release, The Creature From the Pit, David Fisher’s witty novelisation of which has just by remarkable timing has just been broadcast over the last week on BBC7, read by Tom Baker (the final part’s tonight at half-midnight, but you can still catch most of it on iPlayer or, of course, buy the CD). No – I’m afraid none of the songs are about giant green blobs, but a point for each of the two key Liberal messages in the story, and a further one for which well-known Kate Bush single it made me think of, and why. This afternoon, then, I staggered to bed in horrible pain and curled up with Kate to sing me to sleep. While dozing, I remembered her fabulous, bonkers but politically unsuitable anthem Ken, which got me thinking of political songs, while Kate in general got me thinking of the wonderful ’90s Doctor Who New Adventures and their obligatory Kate Bush song titles. That collision in my brain demanded ’90s political anthems… So here they are.

The Levellers – One Way

I doubt the Levellers have any party affiliation, but if there’s any finer anthem that sums up Liberalism for me, I haven’t heard it (that techno remix of The Land having failed to chart). Where Labour and Tories want to give you goodies if you fit into their precise definition of a good life, and punish you if you don’t, Liberals think the government can’t know best for you, because everyone’s best is different. Who’s the only party backing a Freedom Bill to sweep away many of Labour’s bossy, vindictive, stupidly timewasting 4,300 new laws? Who’s the only party that wants to give a large tax cut to the vast majority of people, however they choose to live their lives, rather than the Tories’ bribe to people in the right sort of marriages and massive tax break for double millionaires? I agree with Jonathan Calder and – like Simon Goldie – I agree with Nick. Vote Liberal Democrat, and sing along! Or not, according to taste.

David Cameron – Common People

This is mean – though not remotely unfair – and isn’t a patch on proper Pulp. It does, however, make a point, and made me laugh.

Chumbawamba – Amnesia

“Do you suffer from long-term memory loss?”

I know that it’s very on-message to talk about the hopes people had for New Labour back in 1997, and certainly, by comparison to the Conservatives today, Tony Blair had a wild storm of optimism around him. But, bitter old git that I am, I always loathed him – I thought he was a Tory from the word go, and though “I told you so” is never an appealing line, I’m not standing for election tomorrow, so I’ll point out that I did indeed tell people so. I said it at my count on election night 1997 (where I stood hand in hand with my beloved Richard on the stage, on the telly – yay!), coming an heroic third in a Labour-Tory marginal, an unemployed Lib Dem against a Labour millionaire. After congratulating her on her win, I warned everyone in the hall (in the sort of barnstorming speech I so rarely get the chance to make) that Labour would let them all down and be exactly like the Tories. I was shrieked and howled down by Labour – as committed to free speech as ever. Of course, I wasn’t entirely right: in so many ways, Labour’s thirteen years have been so much worse than the Tories. So Chumbawamba’s song here greatly appealed to me, though it wasn’t in tune with the times and I was just about the only person who bought it.

Labour? Tory? Just the same. If you’re thinking of voting for either tomorrow – just how overwhelming is your amnesia?




Or there’s the thing Newsnight got Right Said Fred to do, but there’s nothing sadder than a commissioned pop anthem, is there?

Labels: British Politics, General Election, Labservative, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Music, Personal, Tom Baker

Does anyone have a nice big Liberal Democrat poster – Bird of Liberty, “Winning Here,” that sort of thing, but not a candidate’s name – which they could post to us? Physically, I’m not a lot of help right now, but we do have a large window, facing directly onto the Thames, which can be seen from the footpath and from all the boats that pass by. Up to about four feet across would be fine… If it’s that big, you could even see the day-glo orange diamond from the opposite bank. If you have a spare, please e-mail me (my addy’s in the sidebar).

I’ve not had an election like this one, and really rather hope not to have one again: my health, never good, has crashed so badly that… Well, I won’t go into the grisly details, but during the last fortnight I’ve lost more than a stone while hardly moving. The extent of my exercise has been occasionally to force myself out to the newsagent usually five-to-ten minutes’ walk away, depending on how brisk I’m being; at the moment, it’s taking me fifteen there, and twenty back, by which time I’m lathered in sweat and can barely stay upright. So I’m feeling just a little bit left out of things, and can’t even eat to cheer myself up. Thanks, then, to the Lib Dem candidate who rang yesterday and pummelled my brain for suitably aggressive hustings lines, as that made me feel slightly better than completely useless and as I could do it from my sickbed and say ‘I’m terribly sorry, I’m going to have to stop now’ without actually falling over in front of them. Oh, and just for a laugh, I could only hold the phone to my right ear, as I’ve also lost most of the hearing in my left in the last fortnight (eardrops from doctor faring no better than the anti-nausea pills).

If you know us, please also be nice to Richard, who as well as having to cope with me is working his usual long days, then working for the Lib Dems at nights, and yet is still managing to be far less ragged than I am (while definitely ragged enough to worry me).

Anyway, if you could send us a poster, that would add to a sense that I’m somehow doing my bit. In fact, an ordinary-sized window poster for the street side would be handy, too. Staggering about our local area this afternoon I noticed that, despite ours being in theory one of England’s few thrilling four-way marginals, there is in fact just one solitary little poster on any nearby street. And even that’s in the Conservative candidate’s house, bless him! So help the Lib Dems surge to, er, parity.

Labels: General Election, Health, Liberal Democrats, Personal, Richard

The attacks and smears launched by the Tory "forces of hell" today, the establishment closing ranks behind David Cameron to try to block change, they all signify one thing: regardless of the actual outcome, they all expect Nick to win the second debate.

So the question is, looking at Channel Four's "Ask the Chancellors" and the first Leader's Debate on ITV... what spin are the Tories planning to use this time? And will it be another U-Turn on what they said last time?

Those excuses in full –

- Vince only did well because he was in the middle and looked in control



- Cameron only did badly because he was in the middle and was picked on



- Osborne only did badly because he was on the side and looked sidelined



- Nick only did well because he was on the side and looked like the outsider



- Vince only did well because he didn't get asked any tough questions (by, er, Osborne)



- Nick only did well because he was fed questions that let him talk policy (by, er, Cameron)



- Vince only did well because the audience was stuffed with Liberal Democrats applauding and laughing



- Cameron only did badly because he couldn't connect to an audience who weren't allowed to applaud or laugh



- Vince only does well because the media have him on all the time and put him on a pedestal



- Nick only does well because people have never heard of him



- Cameron (elected Tory leader 2005) only does badly because he's been doing the job so long he's portrayed as yesterday's news



- Nick (elected Liberal Democrat leader 2007) only does well because he's not been doing the job for long enough



[that's enough useless Tory excuses, ed]

The only way that the Tories can plausibly complain that Nick's profile is because people have only just heard of him is if they are retrospectively condemning the media exclusion of Liberal Democrats over the last three years. And are they?

Labels: Conservatives, General Election, Leaders' Debate, Nick Clegg