Love and Liberty

What do the Liberal Democrats stand for, and why vote for us?

Liberal Democrat Leadership contender Edward Davey MP highlights “a greener economy, a fairer society and a more caring country” on my lead question.

Last month I sent three questions on Lib Dem values to both Ed and Layla Moran – plus two individually tailored ‘mean’ questions each. Layla replied last week, so you also can read Layla Moran’s five answers here. Ed and his Correspondence Team have now replied to me in full, and you can read his five answers below.

Ed Davey MP’s Answers to my ‘Values’ Questions (asked to both Candidates)

Question One:

People say all politicians are the same. Lib Dems have often seen moderation, working with others and compromise as virtues, to the point of the caricature that a Liberal is someone so fair they don’t take their own side in an argument. So what really motivates you?

When someone asks you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in a sentence or two what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and why anyone should vote for us – what do you answer?

The biggest problem for the party over recent elections has been our failure to answer that question. The election review was clear about that: we must have a coherent message that speaks to voters.

So I’ve set out my answer in this election: I want the Liberal Democrats to be known as the party that fights for a greener economy, a fairer society and a more caring country. And I’ve illustrated that with a Green Economic Recovery Plan and priorities on childcare, education and carers.

My motivations in politics have long been the environment and caring. I was an environmentalist before I joined our party 30 years ago when we were 4% in the polls – and I joined partly because Ashdown and Hughes were the only politicians talking green.

And a lifetime of hands-on experience as a carer – as a young carer for my mum when she had terminal cancer, for my Nanna when she became frail and elderly and now as a parent of a disabled child – drives me just as much as any intellectual debate, linked as it is to the real life experiences of 10 million carers.


Question Two:

Two of the most heartfelt Liberal Democrat instincts are ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ and ‘Stand up to bullies.’ Whether you call those ‘moderate and Liberal’, ‘caring and courage’, ‘love and liberty’, the party feels both, needs both, but they’re often competing as well as complimentary, so our balance between them changes with the times.

Which do we need most to lead on right now?

We are at their best when we can find issues that follow both instincts – because they are indeed often complimentary. Getting Boris Johnson to agree to a public inquiry at PMQs was a huge moment for me, and plays perfectly into these two instincts.

It was about both standing up to Boris Johnson and his awful Tory Government, but also looking to deliver something meaningful and life changing for the millions of people affected by the Covid-pandemic. I don’t think it is simple to say we can focus more on one than the other.

Rebuilding our society and economy post-Covid will need more of one, continuing to hold Boris Johnson to account so we can win elections in the future is a bit more of the other.


Question Three:

Ask what the core of Liberalism is and the answer’s obvious: “It’s About Freedom”. So obvious, that was the title of the Liberal Democrats’ 2002 philosophy paper. Look at our other positioning papers and manifestos under Charles Kennedy – “Freedom In A Liberal Society”, “Freedom, Justice, Honesty” – Freedom led*. Our constitution leads with “Liberty, equality and community”. But Leaders and campaigns since have made Freedom or Liberty invisible. Afraid it’s not popular, not relevant, or just ceded it to the illiberal Right?

Neither of you chose Freedom as a buzzword or even talk about it in your values. Why not?

I talk about freedom a lot, actually, because it runs through everything I’m standing for in this election. When I talk about my plans for carers, the reason I want more legal employment protections for carers is because it will give carers the freedom to choose how to balance their work and caring responsibilities. The investment I believe we need to make in universal childcare is all about unshackling people from excessive costs and opening up their options in terms of work and childcare responsibilities.

I’m a Liberal to my fingertips, and freedom underpins my views and priorities, and is never hidden. Whether “freedom” as a word is a good campaigning slogan, seems to me a different debate.

Ed Davey’s Answers to my ‘Mean’ Questions for him

Question Four:

The Leader needs to win attention and support. You’ve been Acting Leader for over six months, during which our poll rating has halved since the General Election. You’ve had your shot and flunked it. Why should we give you even longer to keep failing?

Good to get a nice and friendly one! I think it’s fair to say that being interim co-leader, on the back of a bad general election result, in the middle of a global pandemic is hardly the rich soil on which to grow a party. I think most reasonable people would agree with that!

I also note that our party scored just 5.9% at a nationwide elections, 11 months into the leadership of one Paddy Ashdown. I’m glad we didn’t ditch him in 1989.

And I’m proud of the work we’ve done holding Boris Johnson to account, setting up the coronavirus volunteer task force and forcing the PM to agree to holding a public inquiry, but I’m standing in this election because I want a mandate from members. I currently don’t have that, so I can’t push forward and deliver on my vision of a fairer, greener, more caring society, and help rebuild our party to win elections again.

The election review was brutally honest about the problems facing our party, and they were never going to be solved in 6 months after an election, even without a global pandemic. We have a big rebuilding job on, but I have every confidence that with a mandate for members, and the support of our party, we can implement the election review and rebuild the party to get us winning again.


Question Five:

People need to feel good about their vote to vote for us again. Nasty choices in the Coalition destroyed our feel-good factor as the Nice Party. As they did every day with Jo, Labour will derail us by throwing that history at us. Your history. How do we move on when a Minister from the past as Leader will always be on the defensive?

We had our best ever local election results and European election results with a coalition Minister, Vince Cable, leading our party, so I’d challenge the idea it automatically has to be a drag on our party. It certainly wasn’t for Vince!

I think we need to be realistic that elements of the Labour Party will throw coalition at us whoever is leader, because in plenty of places they are our political opponents and therefore it’s in their interest to bring it up. But I equally don’t think you’ll see the same level of vitriol from the top of the Labour Party under Starmer as we did under Jeremy Corbyn, because Keir Starmer knows he needs us to win seats against the Conservatives if he’s going to be Prime Minister.

I’m proud of what we achieved in coalition, from trebling renewable energy, to the pupil premium, to same-sex marriage and tax cuts for millions of people. Of course, no Government gets everything right, but I think the fact that I’m backed by people, like Daisy Cooper and Tim Farron, who were critical of coalition is testament to the fact that they recognise the choice for our next leader is bigger, and more important, than who was or wasn’t involved in coalition.

The other thing I would say is that the election review is 61 pages long, but mentions coalition in passing two or three times. It is a mistake to think our issues are purely routed in that, the rebuilding job we have is so much bigger.

Lib Dems Believe – More Answers

I’m grateful to Ed and his team for answering so comprehensively.

You can read Layla Moran’s five answers here.

You can also read my original post here, where I asked these questions to Ed and more to Layla. I also talk there in detail about why I chose the questions I did. I believe we need to be both distinctive and sharp to break through, and that politics-free politics won’t cut it. Post-Brexit, post Covid-19, I don’t feel I know the answers, and I want a Leader who will inspire me. But I want to avoid another Leadership self-destructing by hoping that nasty questions they don’t want asked will somehow just go away. Liberal Democrat Leadership elections are nice and wish the best for everyone, but actual election campaigns are not – I’ve attempted to test the two candidates a little harder. You can also read two utterly terrible answers to what the Lib Dems stand for that I’ve previously heard, one in a complacent local party and one from a very senior Lib Dem…

As a bonus, I also asked my Lib Dem values questions to several other current senior Lib Dems. Party President and Acting Co-Leader Mark Pack sent me his own answers, which you can read here. For that post I included some of my own answers, and several of the best answers I’ve previously heard or read, going all the way back to David Lloyd George and including a link to my very favourite – and very long even though I’ve abridged it – speech by Paddy Ashdown.

I hope some of them inspire you, too.

Labels: Ed Davey, Lib Dems Believe, Liberal Democrat Leadership, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, What the Lib Dems Stand For

What do the Liberal Democrats stand for, and why vote for us?

Liberal Democrat Leadership contender Layla Moran MP highlights “Education, the Environment and the Economy” as her three key priorities on my lead question.

Last month I sent three questions on Lib Dem values to both Layla and Ed Davey – plus two individually tailored ‘mean’ questions each. Layla and her Correspondence Team have replied to me in full, and you can read all five answers below (I will continue to nag Ed and his team).

Layla Moran’s Answers to my ‘Values’ Questions (asked to both Candidates)

Question One:

People say all politicians are the same. Lib Dems have often seen moderation, working with others and compromise as virtues, to the point of the caricature that a Liberal is someone so fair they don’t take their own side in an argument. So what really motivates you?

When someone asks you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in a sentence or two what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and why anyone should vote for us – what do you answer?

Layla has said on many occasions what motivates her is the need to make a case for a fairer, greener and more compassionate society, driven from the bottom up, that will champion small businesses and seek to tackle discrimination.

An issue we have regularly faced is the question of what we as a party stand for, at the last general election we were seen as the party of Stop Brexit. We now need to redefine ourselves as a party, we need to be a party with liberalism at its core, and as Paddy Ashdown used to say, ‘fizzing with ideas’. Layla wants the Liberal Democrats to have a clear vision, with a progressive green agenda highlighted by three key priorities; Education, the Environment and the Economy. This is what Layla wants the party to stand for. In the coming months, and possibly years, liberal ideas could be more popular than before, because Covid-19 has exposed the deep inequalities in our society and a clear majority are open to change – this is a huge opportunity.


Question Two:

Two of the most heartfelt Liberal Democrat instincts are ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ and ‘Stand up to bullies.’ Whether you call those ‘moderate and Liberal’, ‘caring and courage’, ‘love and liberty’, the party feels both, needs both, but they’re often competing as well as complimentary, so our balance between them changes with the times.

Which do we need most to lead on right now?

Quite frankly, we still need to do both, in different ways. In terms of defeating the Conservatives, Layla has said she will work with anyone who shares her progressive liberal values. She is open to working with Keir Starmer and Labour on an issue by issue basis – though she would strongly encourage and push for an end to Labour tribalism and hostility in some local areas, as well as fully eradicating the antisemitism that is still prevalent in certain parts of their party membership.

Right now, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Greens share a similar vision for the society we want to see, one which contrasts sharply with the inward and backward looking world of the Conservatives. For us to overcome the injustices in the system, we must look to engage with other parties to take forward our shared goals. In Oxford West and Abingdon, Layla was supported by the local Green Party, who she still meets with regularly to update them on what she has been doing as their MP.

However, we are still different parties with different views on how change should be achieved. We have to be careful how we communicate our distinct identity, while allowing voters to see the common ground. In future, Layla believes a more respectful discourse between respective leaderships would show voters that an alternative Government to the Conservatives could be possible. This is all the more important for us as there are now around 90 seats in which the Liberal Democrats are the main opposition to the Conservatives. If we are to win these seats, we must regain the trust of Labour voters.

Layla has often stood up to bullies and has stuck up for the underrepresented. The Build Back Better policy paper, spearheaded by Layla, shows that the Liberal Democrats can be radical and progressive and campaign for the country to go in the right direction; an equal society, strong social justice and getting across our liberal values to the wider public. The Liberal Democrats are at our best when we are ‘fizzing with ideas’, as Paddy used to describe it. We need to show that we have the new ideas that can transform Britain after the COVID pandemic, and create a fairer and more inclusive society. We should also continue to call out the Conservatives for their illiberal and quite frankly offensive views on social issues, whether that be on racism or LGBTQ+ rights.


Question Three:

Ask what the core of Liberalism is and the answer’s obvious: “It’s About Freedom”. So obvious, that was the title of the Liberal Democrats’ 2002 philosophy paper. Look at our other positioning papers and manifestos under Charles Kennedy – “Freedom In A Liberal Society”, “Freedom, Justice, Honesty” – Freedom led*. Our constitution leads with “Liberty, equality and community”. But Leaders and campaigns since have made Freedom or Liberty invisible. Afraid it’s not popular, not relevant, or just ceded it to the illiberal Right?

Neither of you chose Freedom as a buzzword or even talk about it in your values. Why not?

Layla has often used the word freedom when discussing her vision for the country, and her reasoning for entering politics. In an interview in the New Statesman just last month Layla said that the party must emphasise that liberalism means “freedom to” as well as “freedom from”. She explained that this means talking about education and climate change, but also about business and the economy. Layla understands that liberalism is all about freedom, and she continues to advocate for greater freedoms for those who need it most.

Layla Moran’s Answers to my ‘Mean’ Questions for her

Question Four:

Last year Lib Dems surged on a pro-EU campaign. It wasn’t enough – but it was the one thing people knew about us and drew votes to us. I’ve read your “Vision”. There is no mention of Europe or working with other countries (a two-word afterthought: “and abroad”). Why have you completely dropped our one selling-point?

Layla’s heart has never left the EU, she is a European. However, that is not the feeling of the majority of the country right now, as demonstrated by the outcome of the 2019 General Election. Right now, the Liberal Democrats need to regain the trust of the electorate, and that starts by changing the hearts and minds of the country. Layla believes that we will rejoin the EU at some point in the future, but we need to reflect on when we start to promote those ideas, and how we do it. We cannot say to the electorate ‘we told you so’. Currently we should do all we can to avoid a No-deal Brexit and to campaign for as close an alignment as possible with our European friends and neighbours.


Question Five:

People need to feel good about their vote to vote for us again. How can the party stand unequivocally against bullying and domestic violence when the question keeps coming back to you and you’ll always be on the defensive with ‘Yes, but…’?

Thank you for raising this and allowing us the chance to address this issue. Layla understands the concerns of members about the incident which happened seven years ago in Glasgow.

Layla first spoke out about this last year. Though it wasn’t universally reported this way, she made it clear that she acted defensively – Layla acted in self-defence because she felt threatened.

As you may have heard her partner at the time and her were both arrested in line with Scotland’s zero-tolerance policy. She was initially charged but the charges were dropped when there was no case to answer. Layla has forgiven her former partner but nevertheless, she is keen to make sure her side of the situation is clear.

Layla is ready to state this categorically should she be asked about this by the media. Though, despite appearances on Sophy Ridge, BBC, SKY, ITN – broadcasters are yet to raise the issue.

There has been an election since she spoke out about the incident. Word from the campaign team was that it was barely raised on the doorstep in Oxford – and it certainly didn’t impact her vote share as she increased her majority by over 8,000.

Politicians are people with pasts. Layla has been open and honest about this awful incident. She is completely supportive of the zero-tolerance policy. She does not believe this diminishes or undermines the qualities and vision she would bring to our party as leader.

Our enemies will always try to hurt us, and pick apart our MPs’ lives looking to attack them. Layla knows that her honesty on the subject and her strength of character means she is prepared for this and will do all she can to ensure she embodies our values. Layla hopes members will support her in doing so.

Lib Dems Believe – More Answers

I’m grateful to Layla and her team for answering so comprehensively.

You can read my original post here, where I asked these questions to Layla and more to Ed (from whom I am still hoping for some reply). I also talk there in detail about why I chose the questions I did. I believe we need to be both distinctive and sharp to break through, and that politics-free politics won’t cut it. Post-Brexit, post Covid-19, I don’t feel I know the answers, and I want a Leader who will inspire me. But I want to avoid another Leadership self-destructing by hoping that nasty questions they don’t want asked will somehow just go away. Liberal Democrat Leadership elections are nice and wish the best for everyone, but actual election campaigns are not – I’ve attempted to test the two candidates a little harder. You can also read two utterly terrible answers to what the Lib Dems stand for that I’ve previously heard, one in a complacent local party and one from a very senior Lib Dem…

As a bonus, I also asked my Lib Dem values questions to several other current senior Lib Dems. Party President and Acting Co-Leader Mark Pack sent me his own answers, which you can read here. For that post I included some of my own answers, and several of the best answers I’ve previously heard or read, going all the way back to David Lloyd George and including a link to my very favourite – and very long even though I’ve abridged it – speech by Paddy Ashdown.

I hope some of them inspire you, too.

Labels: Layla Moran, Lib Dems Believe, Liberal Democrat Leadership, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, What the Lib Dems Stand For

What do the Liberal Democrats stand for, and why vote for us?

That’s my lead question from several I sent to Liberal Democrat Leadership candidates Layla Moran and Ed Davey. I’m still awaiting their replies, yet have just had answers from a Lib Dem Leader… But probably not the one you’re expecting.

Doctor Mark Pack is Acting Co-Leader of the Liberal Democrats, an unexpected temporary addition to his election as Lib Dem President, so I sent him three of the same questions and he was first to respond. Thank you, Mark! Here are Mark’s pithy answers:


Question One:

People say all politicians are the same. Lib Dems have often seen moderation, working with others and compromise as virtues, to the point of the caricature that a Liberal is someone so fair they don’t take their own side in an argument. So what really motivates you?

When someone asks you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in a sentence or two what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and why anyone should vote for us – what do you answer?

We want to give everyone the best possible chances to live their lives as they wish, to be who they want to be and to make their own choices. Both Labour and the Conservatives are far too keen to tell people how they should behave, or to pick chunks of society who they don’t care so much about and to put different parts of our society at odds with each with other.

(That’s my English doorstep answer, of course. For Scotland and Wales, I’d talk also about nationalists, and how we want to bring down barriers, not put up new ones between people on our common islands.)


Question Two:

Two of the most heartfelt Liberal Democrat instincts are ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ and ‘Stand up to bullies.’ Whether you call those ‘moderate and Liberal’, ‘caring and courage’, ‘love and liberty’, the party feels both, needs both, but they’re often competing as well as complimentary, so our balance between them changes with the times.

Which do we need most to lead on right now?

As your own blog’s name correctly captures, we need both. Each is dependent on the other. Love and liberty each flourish when the other is present. I wouldn’t make a forced choice between the two, just as I won’t pick vowels or consonants are the most important types of letter. It’s when both come together that the best happens.


Question Three:

Ask what the core of Liberalism is and the answer’s obvious: “It’s About Freedom”. So obvious, that was the title of the Liberal Democrats’ 2002 philosophy paper. Look at our other positioning papers and manifestos under Charles Kennedy – “Freedom In A Liberal Society”, “Freedom, Justice, Honesty”, “Freedom, Fairness, Trust” – Freedom led. Our constitution leads with “Liberty, equality and community”. But Leaders and campaigns since have made Freedom or Liberty invisible.

Are we afraid it’s not popular, not relevant, or have we just ceded it to the illiberal Right?

I’m enthusiastic about the concept of freedom while being cautious about the vocabulary. The word as acquired strong right-wing overtones. If someone saw a leaflet saying ‘I’m for freedom’ and had to guess the politics of the candidate before reading on, I strongly suspect most people would assuming the person is right-wing, a libertarian even perhaps. If the word freedom seems right-wing, I also suspect the word liberty sounds like a word from the past. You’re more likely to hear it in a historical Hollywood movie than in ordinary conversation.

So I don’t worry too much about word counts on either, as long as the concept comes through clearly in what we argue for – such as the future benefits of a close relationship with the rest of Europe that minimises barriers, and so protects people’s freedoms.

Lib Dems Believe – More Answers

I posted my three questions (with an extra two individually targeted ‘mean’ ones for Ed and Layla) here on Monday, along with some of my own commentary on where the Liberal Democrats are going and – to lower the bar for the candidates – the two absolutely worst answers I’ve ever heard on Lib Dem values and why to vote for us.

I was rightly challenged on this to share some of the best answers I’ve had, too. So you can read my eight-Tweet thread here in which I pick out some of my favourites, including answers directly to me from Lib Dems such as Lynne Featherstone, Caron Lindsay and Brian Paddick, and historical choices such as David Lloyd George and Roy Jenkins (and a friend has just shared with me his own new vision this week, which I hope to quote and promote when he publishes it).

During the 2015 General Election I posted every day on Lib Dems Believe with a variety of values, long and short, old and new, in which the same ideas and ideals came across over and over, though in a wide variety of different words. Most answers I’ve had tend, like Mark’s, to be pithy. My absolute favourite is of course the longest of all those I chose, an abridgement of one of Paddy Ashdown’s Leader’s speeches and still the most inspiring I’ve ever heard. I recommend it.

Finally, as I’m judging others it’s only fair I put my own answers up for judgement too. Over many blog posts on what the Lib Dems stand for over many years, the pithy values closest to my heart remain “Freedom, Fairness, Future” (which I evolved from the party’s “Free, Fair and Green” in the 2000s because alliteration goes a long way) and “Freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity” (my more active rewording of the Preamble to the Lib Dem Constitution). My longer versions have changed much more, but this article includes both the latest written statement of values and my YouTube ‘Why vote Lib Dem’.

Here’s to the next set of inspiring answers!

Labels: Lib Dems Believe, Liberal Democrat Leadership, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Mark Pack, Paddy Ashdown, What the Lib Dems Stand For

What do the Liberal Democrats stand for, and why vote for us?

That’s my lead question of a set I’ve just now sent to Liberal Democrat Leadership candidates Layla Moran and Ed Davey. I’ve asked each the same three questions about values (each framed by a contentious scene-setter) and a different two individually targeted mean questions, because I want to be inspired – but also I don’t want another Leader self-destructing.



I ask about values because those are what motivate me – and because for people to vote for us, we need to get their attention, we need to have something to say, and we need them to feel positive about their vote, that we embody their values too.

We work hard, we deliver leaflets, we’re local champions. That will always be crucial. But it has never been enough to break through – and we have just had three General Elections where it was within the margin of error of not being enough to avoid extinction. ‘Shut up about anything and just deliver leaflets’ has been tested to destruction. Where we work, we… mostly still don’t win now. This is not the 1990s any more, where local work had the wind in our sails of a popular leader who was on telly a lot, where most voters felt we were a sort of nice party, and where almost everywhere in England if they didn’t want to vote Labour or Tory we were the only ‘other’ option, so we could win through politics-free politics. None of those are true any more, and closing our eyes, wishing, and acting as if they still were will keep us irrelevant. While the SNP are the third party at Westminster – even though they’ve always won fewer votes than we do – even getting a one-liner on the news is a challenge, and using it to say nothing distinctive is a failure.

I like both candidates. Both have already said things that I fiercely agree with and both have made me go, ‘Oh, for f—’s sake!!’ so they’re both as qualified as any previous Leader on that basis. I’m not yet committed to either (though I’m leaning more towards one of them). I don’t know if either can break through, but I have to hope. Yes, both are talking up their local campaigning successes – but they are rare winners for the Liberal Democrats, and that’s something else we somehow need to get across to win again: people are put off voting for losers, and that vicious circle has been reinforced by the absolutely necessary cancellation of this year’s local elections, usually the one day of the year when Liberal Democrats have a chance to make good news about ourselves.

I am less certain about where the Liberal Democrats should go from here than I have ever been. For years, I have written about what the Lib Dems stand for. Last year, I demanded better of the party with the latest of my own arguments for our values. I summed those up in three words: “Freedom, Fairness, Future”.

Post-Brexit, post Covid-19, I don’t feel I know the answers. Though I still think “Freedom, Fairness, Future” are as good a handle on what we stand for as I’ve seen, even then I knew that they didn’t instinctively get across the internationalism at our heart, and I added “Bollocks To Brexit” – our one message that has chimed with large numbers of voters for ten years. Today, as two terrible disasters unroll with no end in sight, I can’t see where we go next. I can’t find an optimistic message. I started writing these questions a full month ago (and an extra candidate ago), but it’s been a rougher month than usual and I’ve been hoping for something upbeat to say. I don’t have it, but I still look for it.

Will Ed or Layla be able to inspire me? I hope so. For me, the single thing I most want to hear from a Liberal Democrat Leader is a clear heart to what we stand for that will not just have me nodding, but will have voters feel, yes, that’s better, I agree with that, that appeals to me, those are my values, that’s someone I can vote for.

My ‘Values’ Questions to Both Candidates

Question One to both of you:

People say all politicians are the same. Lib Dems have often seen moderation, working with others and compromise as virtues, to the point of the caricature that a Liberal is someone so fair they don’t take their own side in an argument. So what really motivates you? When someone asks you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in a sentence or two what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and why anyone should vote for us – what do you answer?

Question Two to both of you:

Two of the most heartfelt Liberal Democrat instincts are ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ and ‘Stand up to bullies.’ Whether you call those ‘moderate and Liberal’, ‘caring and courage’, ‘love and liberty’, the party feels both, needs both, but they’re often competing as well as complimentary, so our balance between them changes with the times.

Which do we need most to lead on right now?

Question Three to both of you:

Ask what the core of Liberalism is and the answer’s obvious: “It’s About Freedom”. So obvious, that was the title of the Liberal Democrats’ 2002 philosophy paper. Look at our other positioning papers and manifestos under Charles Kennedy – “Freedom In A Liberal Society”, “Freedom, Justice, Honesty” – Freedom led*. Our constitution leads with “Liberty, equality and community”. But Leaders and campaigns since have made Freedom or Liberty invisible. Afraid it’s not popular, not relevant, or just ceded it to the illiberal Right?

Neither of you chose Freedom as a buzzword or even talk about it in your values. Why not?


I want to be inspired – but I want to avoid another Leadership self-destructing by hoping that nasty questions they don’t want asked will somehow just go away. Because getting people to feel warm and positive about voting for us also needs people who share our values not to feel, ‘Ick. The Lib Dem Leader doesn’t have my values’. I really hope both Ed and Layla have thought of the painful, embarrassing or exasperating question they least want to hear and are ready with their one-line, truthful reply to it first time. Those probably aren’t the mean questions I’ve come up with, but I’ve done my best to test them anyway. Liberal Democrat Leadership elections are nice and wish the best for everyone. Actual election campaigns are not.

My ‘Mean’ Questions to Ed Davey

Question Four to Ed:

The Leader needs to win attention and support. You’ve been Acting Leader for over six months, during which our poll rating has halved since the General Election. You’ve had your shot and flunked it. Why should we give you even longer to keep failing?

Question Five to Ed: People need to feel good about their vote to vote for us again. Nasty choices in the Coalition destroyed our feel-good factor as the Nice Party. As they did every day with Jo, Labour will derail us by throwing that history at us. Your history. How do we move on when a Minister from the past as Leader will always be on the defensive?

My ‘Mean’ Questions to Layla Moran

Question Four to Layla:

Last year Lib Dems surged on a pro-EU campaign. It wasn’t enough – but it was the one thing people knew about us and drew votes to us. I’ve read your “Vision”. There is no mention of Europe or working with other countries (a two-word afterthought: “and abroad”). Why have you completely dropped our one selling-point?

Question Five to Layla:

People need to feel good about their vote to vote for us again. How can the party stand unequivocally against bullying and domestic violence when the question keeps coming back to you and you’ll always be on the defensive with ‘Yes, but…’?

Two Terrible Answers (they must be able to do better, surely?)

I’ve asked some version of my ‘Why vote Lib Dem?’ Question One to Liberal Democrat Leaders, MPs and candidates local and national for over two decades. I’ve heard long and short answers, wonky and passionate, brilliant and unexpected. As I don’t have the latest ones yet, I thought I’d share the two absolutely worst experiences I’ve had with the question (if not the names).

At the height of Lib Dem blogging, my beloved Richard Flowers and Millennium Dome, Elephant organised many bloggers’ interviews with Lib Dem MPs and candidates for senior posts. I took part in several, though even when I was prolific in my blogging I still didn’t manage to write as much as I should. Only one MP was so gobsmackingly bad on this question that I made a deliberate choice not to write up the interview. This was his response to my ‘Why vote Lib Dem?’ question:

[PAUSE]
[GLARE]
[PAUSE]
“…I would refer them to our excellent policies.”
[GLARES AND SHUTS UP]

While my question has been pretty much the same across the years, I’ve changed the ‘frame’ depending on the context for the candidate – local, national, leadership. At one hustings in a local party that had become the epitome of politics-free politics and where competitors had matched and surpassed Lib Dem campaigning, I prefaced the question by pointing out that while we like to say that we’re local and hardworking, Tory and Labour candidates say the same, so what sets us apart from a local, hardworking Labour or Tory? The Returning Officer read this out in a tone of utter derision and said that it must have been written by a Labour or Tory plant, at which the audience laughed and a candidate agreed that there were no such things as local and hardworking Labour or Tories. That was their entire answer. Coincidentally, this was in a Parliamentary seat where Lib Dems had previously held six of the seven wards and had been reduced to just two in that Spring’s local elections, including Labour gaining their first elected councillor there for fifty years, so the reeking complacency was a more telling answer than any other I’ve had to this question.

I’m hoping for something more inspiring from Ed and Layla.


Updates:

Layla Moran Answers on Lib Dem Values and my ‘Mean’ Questions

Ed Davey Answers on Lib Dem Values and my ‘Mean’ Questions

And bonus Liberal Democrat Values: Mark Pack’s Three Answers



*Just after I posted, two more sprang to mind: “Freedom, Fairness, Trust” under Charles, for which I was Vice-Chair of the Federal Policy Committee and spoke in favour of at Conference, and the more mangled “Trust In People: Making Britain Free, Fair and Green” under Ming, for which I wasn’t and spoke against. But Freedom was always a big Lib Dem thing, until it wasn’t.

With thanks to my husband Richard for proof-reading and ‘Are you sure that’s wise’-ing this, and to Will Barter, who last month shared with me a piece he’d written on the direction of the party in general. One insight crystallised something for me with an ‘Ah! I wish I’d thought of it from that angle years ago!’, so I’ve nicked it. All my choices about where I’ve taken it and everything else above are my own responsibility.

Labels: Ed Davey, Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat Leadership, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, What the Lib Dems Stand For

The Liberal Democrats are in the middle of our most exciting (and certainly our most positive) Leadership election in over a decade. I’ve not been well enough to make it to the hustings, but I also have questions I would like to ask the contenders. So I’ve sent three questions to Jo Swinson and Ed Davey, each question framed by a contentious scene-setter, starting with the one I’ve asked as many Lib Dem candidates as I can for about twenty years. Thank you to Jo: here are her answers.




Question One:
People say all politicians are the same. Lib Dems have often seen moderation, working with others and compromise as virtues, to the point of the caricature that a Liberal is someone so fair they don’t take their own side in an argument. So what really motivates you?
When someone asks you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in one or two sentences what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and why anyone should vote for us – what do you answer?

“Jo believes that people should vote for the Lib Dems because we are the only party who are campaigning to truly improve the things that are most important to them – building an economy that puts people and the planet first, targeting rising inequality, the climate emergency, and fixing the broken social safety net; harnessing the technological revolution for Britain’s future, making sure that the benefits of automation and technological change aren’t just felt by the richest but by the people whose jobs and lives are set to change; and fixing our broken politics by working together, reaching beyond tribal politics and the damaging rhetoric being espoused by populists and nationalists, building a co-operative democracy that works not for our own successes but to improve the lives of our citizens.”


Question Two:
Nancy Seear’s answer to how the Liberals survived near-extinction in the 1950s was: “We didn’t like the Tories and we didn’t trust the state.”
The Lib Dems seem to be emerging at last from another extinction-level period.
What two ideals made us survive this time, and what can we learn from that?

“What we’ve seen since 2010 is an astonishing tenacity of people who have always been liberals, and an openness to new members and new ideas. This combination has seen our membership grow to its largest number ever – filled with people who have never joined a political party before and who have been welcomed into the Liberal Democrats. These members have helped to make us relevant again and their enthusiasm is what pushes us to win.”


Question Three:
The Tory Leadership contest went up in smoke over what drugs they’ve all used that they say should be illegal for *everyone else*.
When it comes not just to drug use but to any ‘victimless crimes’ that a lot of people disapprove of but which don’t harm others, should ordinary non-MP adults giving their informed consent be criminalised?

“Lib Dems have been clear over a long time that criminalising people for drug possession and consumption is counter-productive and should be stopped. Our policies in general shy away from any unwarranted criminalisation – focusing on the harm principle that if your actions harm someone else, they should be stopped, but that anything else needs serious consideration and debate before we look to involve the criminal law.”


I sent Jo and Ed these questions three weeks ago, followed by reminders. Jo’s team replied one week ago with a very reasonable apology – unsurprisingly, people have been asking Jo a lot of questions. I was in the middle of drafting an article to go with the questions and was going to publish Jo’s answers as soon as I’d finished it… But, finding it harder and harder to write these days, I’m still very slowly chiselling my thoughts and have only managed a paragraph or two each day of a rather difficult week.

Having sent me her answers, it’s unfair on Jo and her team for me to keep delaying. So it’s my turn to apologise to Jo and publish. And if I can finish writing something before the Leadership election actually closes…

Labels: Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat Leadership, Liberal Democrats, What the Lib Dems Stand For

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

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

A quick test. Read this paragraph – which other parties is it implicitly opposing?

Government should be about freedom from poverty. Governments shouldn’t protect the interests of the already powerful and wealthy, and sneer at, snatch from and push down people working to make a life for themselves, or those who aren’t able to support themselves. Government should be about freedom from ignorance. Governments shouldn’t assume it can do everything, control everyone, as long as you take what you’re given and don’t ask awkward questions when paternalist leaders claim they always know best and ignore the evidence. Government should be about freedom from conformity. Governments shouldn’t tell you that nation is the only thing that matters about you, exclude ‘outsiders’ and shout ‘traitor’ at anyone who doesn’t want their flag cut smaller, narrower and meaner.

How I Wrote For Agenda 2020

The Liberal Democrats are in the middle of an “Agenda 2020” consultation about the party’s values. As part of this, they ran an essay competition to sum up in one thousand words what it means to be a Liberal Democrat. I entered, as did my husband Richard, and we were both shortlisted from the sixty-odd entrants for the nine finalists put to public vote. Though the vote’s now closed, you can still read all the essays here. There’s another exciting consultation session coming up at the Conference in York in a fortnight.

Anyone familiar with my level of productivity – the length of time it takes me to get anything written, and also the length of text once I’m done – will be unsurprised to learn that I left writing my entry until quite late, then didn’t like what I’d written, then wrote it again from scratch a couple of days later, and then found myself with something I was happier with, but which was also a little over one thousand seven hundred words. On the afternoon of the deadline.

My final entry was in some ways an improvement on the larger draft – less repetitive, and more powerful in combining some ideas – but as I lopped more and more out of it in increasingly desperate haste, it did lose some elements altogether, which inevitably changed its tone and weakened the message. At some point I might write a version that brings some of those bits back in, but for now I’ve simply presented you with one previously deleted paragraph above. The only other person who read my long draft thought it was the best bit. So why did I cut it?

What I Aimed For (and why that paragraph didn’t fit)

I set myself several tasks in writing the essay beyond ‘What the Liberal Democrats should be if I were their god-emperor’. Not least because we don’t, as a rule, believe god-emperors are a good thing. So I wanted a statement of belief that not just fired me up but which I thought most other Liberal Democrats would agree with at least most of, too. And I wanted something that could clearly explain and inspire people outside the Lib Dems to try Liberalism. I’m sick of people saying, ‘Oh, you Liberals, you’re too reasonable, you don’t feel strongly about anything’, or ‘Oh, you’re just about feelings, you don’t live in the real world,’ both of which I will politely refute on the doorstep (rather than swearing at the f***wits in the towering rage they deserve), so I aimed to counter both of those loads of old b****cks, for example. And some of it was a reaction to things other Lib Dems had said we stood for, where I thought, ‘Not me, matey’. But amongst all the other things I wanted to do in a thousand words – possibly why it got to nearly twice that – I told myself, as I always do when I try to express what the Lib Dems stand for, that I had to be positive. We hardly ever get any time to say what Liberal Democrat values positively are, so why on Earth waste time just saying what’s wrong with the others instead?

And that’s why the paragraph above had to go. Although it was a sort of judo-statement, illustrating Lib Dem principles by overthrowing other parties in turn, and even though it didn’t name them, it still stood out as knocking copy in an essay that should have been positively Liberal Democrat.

[By this stage, readers who read all nine of the shortlisted essays will almost certainly be able to deduce which essay was mine, and also which essay I would have given ninth preference to. It’s a shame we didn’t get to vote for them all in order of preference, as there were none of them I was entirely happy with but eight I would be fairly happy with. I did consider fisking each of them, but I thought that might have come over as a ‘vote for me’, which we were asked not to do – though I’d also have fisked mine, having written it and knowing its flaws, and even Richard’s, which I found the most inspiring.]

Which leaves the one last question about that paragraph: which parties did you assume each line was overthrowing in turn? Because I reckon two are pretty unambiguous, but the other… I deliberately wrote it so you could infer more than one ‘enemy’, because it was an attack on a particular sort of philosophy, not on just one party that enslaves people to that philosophy. Even so, one party was flashing like a neon light in my head. But when the only other person who’s read it until now told me that was the best bit, he also named the kicking I gave to a different party as particularly satisfying. So, out of interest, who was it for you?

A Note On Health

Regular readers will have noticed that my blogging has been even worse than usual – especially and embarrassingly as I’d set myself explicit targets, so you can spot each one that goes by. It’s not just a lack of blogging mojo (though that always comes up). On top of all my usual long-term health problems which are permanent and quality-of-life-sapping fixtures, I’ve had a chest infection for two months now that just will not shift. I can cope with my usual asthma, but persistently finding it difficult to breathe makes all sorts of things rather difficult. And because when my physical ill health is especially low I easily pick up bonus problems, suffice to say I’ve been picking up several bonus problems. So at the moment I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to York, nor even if I do so (as with several previous conferences) whether I’ll spend most of it keeled over in our hotel room. But in the hope of minimum functionality, I hope to see some of you there.

Labels: Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, The Golden Dozen, 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

A fortnight ago I emailed all of the then declared contenders to be the next Liberal Democrat President with questions (below) about their personal political philosophy and our shared Lib Dem values, to be published here. I received Sal Brinton’s answers last night, and here they are now.

What I believe and why I can only be a Lib Dem:

Fairness and equality are at the heart of everything I believe in. Every child should have the best start in life, the opportunity to do what they want, even if it isn’t what everyone else wants, with the best skills they can learn. I want people to have the freedom to say and do what they want – but not to harm others. We need a successful economy, but not just for the few rich, for as many as possible, with a safety net for those that struggle. This isn’t just about holding back the worst excesses of the Tories, or preventing Labour controlling everything, it’s a philosophy, a way of life.


2. What Lib Dems stand for, and how we’ve shown that in coalition over the last four years:

Liberal Democrats believe that the best people to decide their future are individuals themselves. We believe that people should have the freedom to do what they want – as long as it doesn’t affect others negatively – and we want to make sure that they are given the best chance to do it. We also think that the state should provide the best support possible for everyone, but with the lightest touch that it can, and the state should protect people from those more powerful controlling them. Access to health, education, justice should be universal (you can’t reduce inequality without this), and we want decisions to be made as locally as possible. A vote for us is a vote for you achieving the best you can and want.

As liberals, we are often very hard on ourselves. Compromise in coalition has been tough, and we’ve made mistakes, but we need to remember what we’ve achieved. In coalition we’ve succeeded in making tax fairer by raising the personal allowance rate: giving every tax payer £700 per annum. We have started to reduce education inequalities through providing extra money for the most disadvantaged pupils and students, and the results are beginning to show it works. In the worst recession for decades, we’ve protected the NHS budget and insisted on proper funding for mental health services. We’ve given you, Alex, the freedom to marry Richard this weekend: achieving same sex marriage is core to our belief in freedom and equality, and we persuaded the Tories to support it too. We’ve protected girls from FGM, and provided 0.7% of GDP for international development, guaranteeing help for the most vulnerable people in the world.

Liz Lynne’s answers can be found here.

Daisy Cooper’s answers can be found here.

NB On Monday, the three contenders on the ballot paper were announced as Liz Lynne, Daisy Cooper and Sal Brinton. Linda Jack was unable to find enough people within the Liberal Democrats to support her nomination.

My Questions As Sent

I have two related questions for you. Both are more concerned with politics than process. One is after a short two-pronged answer from the heart – had I been able to come to Conference, I would have preferred to put you on the spot with it in person to hear what you instinctively believe. The other question is asking you to come up with a longer, more thoughtful answer on our values that you’d be happy having the whole party say (as if anyone could ever persuade us to stick to one hymn-sheet).

Question One: What You Believe

People say all politicians are the same. It’s hardest for us in Coalition, but there’s some truth in it when every party promises to give money to the low-paid and the NHS, or when every local candidate for every party talks about experience, hard work and listening to local people. So what really motivates you? What for you makes the Lib Dems different from any other party?

If someone asked you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in one or two sentences what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and then why anyone should vote for us – what are your answers?

Past answerers include Presidential contenders and London Mayoral candidates.


Question Two: What the Lib Dems Stand For

Looking for something that’s more than a slogan or a soundbite but short enough to get in one go, imagine this answer as about one minute of a speech, or a box on a leaflet (perhaps 150-200 words, but that’s up to you). As you will be the voice of the Party if elected, can come up with something you think every party member could be happy saying or printing to explain What the Lib Dems Stand For? Something to enthuse and inspire Lib Dem believers and at the same time to attract and persuade potential supporters?

How would you link what makes us different, our philosophy, to what we’ve achieved in government, and what we want to do next? However you want to put that together, as specific or as thematic as you like.

I start this as a meme that many other Lib Dems have answered over the past couple of years (if I ever get a wide enough selection in, I might publish a book of them!). If you want to see more about what that’s involved, here’s my own latest version, including links to where I’ve printed other Lib Dems’ ideas.

Best of luck to each of you.


I had also spent some time trying to think of a ‘nasty’ question individually tailored to each of you – which I did for the last set of Presidential candidates and, going back further, for Nick and Chris in 2007. You may be relieved to read that I’ve decided not to ask those this time as I was unable to construct nasty questions of equal balance: the best I could think of for one of you was much too gentle, and for another of you, too bare-knuckle brutal. So that’s your lot from me!

Labels: Liberal Democrats, Liberal Mondays, Liberalism, Memes, Sal Brinton, What the Lib Dems Stand For

Twelve days ago I emailed all of the then declared contenders to be the next Liberal Democrat President with questions (below) about their personal political philosophy and our shared Lib Dem values, to be published here. I received Daisy Cooper’s answers this morning, and here they are now.

Pithy -

We believe and trust in the power and potential of every individual to be whoever or whatever they want to be. We want to tear down the barriers in your way and we want to give you the tools and knowledge you need. It’s about freedom and we believe that to be truly free every person must be free from the shackles of poverty, ignorance and conformity.


What the LibDems stand for and how it relates to what we’ve done in government:

We believe and trust in the power and potential of every individual to be whoever and whatever they want to be. We want to tear down the barriers in your way and we want to give you the tools and knowledge you need. It’s about freedom and we believe that to be truly free every person must be free from the shackles of poverty, ignorance and conformity.

Individuals and communities must also be free from the crushing concentration of power in any institution wherever it exists – in the state, the media, in corporations or elsewhere; individuals should have the power to take the decisions that affect their lives.

Our vision of society is built on a ‘holy trinity’ of individual freedom, social justice and repatriating powers back to people and communities.

Labour believe in the power of the state, the Tories believe in the power of the markets, we believe and trust in the power of every individual to know what’s best – every individual like you.

In government, Liberal Democrats have given individuals the freedom to decide how to spend more of their money by increasing the point at which low and middle earners start paying tax.

By giving schools a pupil premium to help kids from the lowest income families, we’ve pulled down some of the barriers to children getting a good education.

And in all our efforts in government to break up the banks, reform the House of Lords and curtail the monopoly of the big energy companies, we seek to wrestle power out of the hands of the few for the benefit and use of all.

Liberal Democrats are committed to breaking up the fortresses of the rich, the powerful and the privileged and to fighting for a society in which individuals can take that power back and use it.

Liz Lynne’s answers can be found here.

NB On Monday, the three contenders on the ballot paper were announced as Liz Lynne, Daisy Cooper and Sal Brinton. Linda Jack was unable to find enough people within the Liberal Democrats to support her nomination.

My Questions As Sent

I have two related questions for you. Both are more concerned with politics than process. One is after a short two-pronged answer from the heart – had I been able to come to Conference, I would have preferred to put you on the spot with it in person to hear what you instinctively believe. The other question is asking you to come up with a longer, more thoughtful answer on our values that you’d be happy having the whole party say (as if anyone could ever persuade us to stick to one hymn-sheet).

Question One: What You Believe

People say all politicians are the same. It’s hardest for us in Coalition, but there’s some truth in it when every party promises to give money to the low-paid and the NHS, or when every local candidate for every party talks about experience, hard work and listening to local people. So what really motivates you? What for you makes the Lib Dems different from any other party?

If someone asked you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in one or two sentences what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and then why anyone should vote for us – what are your answers?

Past answerers include Presidential contenders and London Mayoral candidates.


Question Two: What the Lib Dems Stand For

Looking for something that’s more than a slogan or a soundbite but short enough to get in one go, imagine this answer as about one minute of a speech, or a box on a leaflet (perhaps 150-200 words, but that’s up to you). As you will be the voice of the Party if elected, can come up with something you think every party member could be happy saying or printing to explain What the Lib Dems Stand For? Something to enthuse and inspire Lib Dem believers and at the same time to attract and persuade potential supporters?

How would you link what makes us different, our philosophy, to what we’ve achieved in government, and what we want to do next? However you want to put that together, as specific or as thematic as you like.

I start this as a meme that many other Lib Dems have answered over the past couple of years (if I ever get a wide enough selection in, I might publish a book of them!). If you want to see more about what that’s involved, here’s my own latest version, including links to where I’ve printed other Lib Dems’ ideas.

Best of luck to each of you.


I had also spent some time trying to think of a ‘nasty’ question individually tailored to each of you – which I did for the last set of Presidential candidates and, going back further, for Nick and Chris in 2007. You may be relieved to read that I’ve decided not to ask those this time as I was unable to construct nasty questions of equal balance: the best I could think of for one of you was much too gentle, and for another of you, too bare-knuckle brutal. So that’s your lot from me!

Labels: Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrats, Liberal Mondays, Liberalism, Memes, What the Lib Dems Stand For