Clegg shows strategic vision – but it’s still soft Tories he needs to convince
Nick Clegg’s new pamphlet – The Liberal Moment – is certainly ambitious. Good. We need to make sure that the party doesn’t end up in a comfort zone where 17-20% of the vote and a few dozen MPs is seen as an acceptable long-term position for the Liberal Democrats.
But comparing this September’s opinion polls with those of twelve months ago, the really remarkable thing is how little public opinion has changed. The Tories are in the low 40s, Labour in the mid 20s and we’re in the high teens. That’s an overall swing of about 5% or 6% from LibDem to Conservative since 2005.
In an article for the Telegraph today, I reiterate many of the arguments I made in The Cameron Effect at party conference last year. Winning over those who are flirting with David Cameron’s Tories is key to retaining and building on our Parliamentary strength.
But in seeking to appeal to the millions of disappointed people who voted for Blair in 1997, this might be exactly what Clegg is doing. A lot of those voters will now be in the Tory column. He might also be placing emphasis on the party’s overall vote share – not merely its number of seats. Coming second in the popular vote would be of immense symbolic significance even if it didn’t lead to a huge (or any) increase in seats. I’ve always said that’s a longshot – but with Labour in total disarray and with Clegg having found his feet as LibDem leader, it’s not an impossibility.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:31 am
The only way that LibDems are going to get any Tory votes is by becoming more free-market.
I think that it’s actually Labour’s votes you want to chase because a lot of their voters dislike the Labour party at the moment but would never bring themselves to vote Tory (it’s in their genes, you see) – you need to convince them that a vote for LibDems isn’t a wasted vote and that you won’t cut public services like the evil Tories.
There’s no point going after votes of the Tories who are on the top of all the polls and have strong support, when you can capitalise on the discontent of huge numbers of Labour voters.
LibDems are not going to win the next election, but I think you’d get a lot more votes this way. At the moment, Labour voters are sitting ducks that could easily be converted to the LibDems for life – as a centre-left party, it’s better to go for centre-left voters for now and not go after the centre-right – I think you’ll get more votes that way and be second instead of trailing along in third place for the rest of time.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:58 am
@GMB. It’s exactly this analysis I disagree with.
Labour voters are a shrinking pool. At some point, the Labour pool will be full of fish determined to stay in it. We may even have reached this point already. But the lower the Labour vote falls, the harder it is to convert the marginal Labour voter.
In sharp contrast, the Tory pool of voters is big and wide but very shallow. There’s loads of floating voters in the Tory column who are NOT full blooded lifelong Conservatives.
The c. 42% that the Tories are at in the polls is not the party’s base. About a third of them are people who aren’t instinctive Tories at all.
Moreover, there’s a very high proportion of these voters in our key seats of Bath, Solihull, Romsey, Eastleigh, Torbay, Winchester, Taunton, Westmorland etc etc etc. In fact in some of these key seats, there aren’t really any Labour voters left.
All that said, I do agree with your first sentence.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:04 am
I disagree with GMB, my evidence is new labour. Why do they exist in the first place? Because most people in the UK are centre-right and not centre-left. Theres no point in being an “old labour” party effectively.
It is also true that most people who ARE centre-left happen to be socially liberal. Except the BNP of course but thats another matter. Even if lib dems are centre-right, as long as they are socially liberal still, they are a better option for liberal lefties than new labour or tories are since both of them are also centre-right but also authoritarian. Plus you get the vote of right-wing liberals (such as myself) – the lib dems CAN have their cake and eat it too, getting votes from all sides of the spectrum.
Its just a balancing act, change your policy on free tuition and rock the leftie boat and appease some tories – but then discuss the legalisation of marijuana (or all drugs) and have those lefties in the palm of your hand again. Right economics, liberal social policy!
September 18th, 2009 at 1:47 am
I have to disagree with GMB too. Swathes of reasonable middle ground people (and women in particular) voted for the (New Labour)PROMISE Blair offered because they bought into the sell. It was NOT “in their genes you see” to vote Labour – or Tory. We have an increasingly promiscuous voting electorate who go where they feel comfortable – who they trust – affects their pockets etc. A huge proportion of them may well be saying right now that they are going to vote for Cameron at the next election – thats the air war folks …. BUT they are they are still persuadable IF we can win them over with a bold confident plan from Nick.
People are looking for leadership , an understanding of what has gone wrong and more importantly a convincing plan as to how put it right. Where Cameron is getting it wrong, in my view, is all his dilly-dallying – not really sure of what needs to be done – or willing to say what he will do.
The combination of a brave Nick Clegg and a wise Vince Cable -with a solution to todays problems – is a compelling sell that could really shift our national vote share – IF the party is brave enough to not only put its head above the parapet – but to take the whole party over the baricades with it.
If Nick – and Vince – can continually “up the ante” on Afghanistan, spending cuts, civil liberties, smaller government, political reform and the likes people will start to take notice.
My concern is that in the past we seem to have been too willing to “lift the foot off the peddle” once we have taken an initiative and rest on our laurels – or lose our nerve (I am not sure which). We need a consistent and increasing assault on the comfort zone of the two main parties – not allowing either to regroup before we launch our next assault.
People are crying our for honesty, they actually admire “breaking with tradition” and crave leadership and direction. I think Nick has shown flashes of genius in all three areas. I hope he ups it.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:11 am
[…] Littlewood has articles on Liberal Vision and The Telegraph reminding us of his pamphlet The Cameron Effect last […]
September 18th, 2009 at 6:13 am
[…] Littlewood has articles on Liberal Vision and The Telegraph reminding us of his pamphlet The Cameron Effect last […]
September 18th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Hmm, so why should the Conservative Party supporting Telegraph choose as its commentator from within the Liberal Democrats someone whose position is persistently “The Liberal Democrats should become much more like the Conservative Party”?
September 18th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
You do enjoy putting words into other people’s mouths, don’t you Matthew? Did this start around the time the Marxist SDP merged with the Randian Liberal Party?
September 18th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
@ Matthew.
The main way I want us to be more like the Conservative Party is to be at more than 40% in the polls, instead of less than 20%.
September 18th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
hahahaha, I see that no one agrees then – I was just thinking out loud – maybe you’re right, if the Labour voters are now moving towards the Tories then it’s those that you want to aim for.
I wouldn’t consider Labour as centre-right though, but it depends on where you consider the centre to be – I think the centre has moved left in recent years.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Mark, I am noting the Telegraph is strongly supportive of the Conservative Party. I am also noting it chooses you when it wants someone within the Liberal Democrats to write an article about where the Liberal Democrats should place themselves. I am suggesting the two are not unconnected.
September 19th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Matthew, I think your points are:
(a) The Telegraph is a right-leaning newspaper
(b) The Telegraph decides who writes for it
I doubt anyone would argue with this, it’s hardly the basis for a Media Studies PhD.
Whether this does anything to undermine my arguments int he actual articel is doubtful though!
September 19th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
My point is that people who urge the Liberal Democrats to move to the right seem to find it rather easier to get their voice heard, maybe because people who have money are more willing to give it pay those of this viewpoint to write stuff than to those of other viewpoints.
September 19th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Yeah, people that are more to the right are willing to put their own money into cause that they agree with, whereas those on the left want to use other people’s money to achieve their aims.
September 19th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Not all are happy with Mr Littlewood’s agenda of attempting to turn the Lib Dems into another version of the Tory party & nor should they be & I hope they rightfully will protest most strongly.
September 20th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
On two major concerns of traditional conservatives, personal liberty and sound public finance, we are very strong and should plug these aspects of our manifesto remorselessly. (Good debate on civil liberties going on as I type, BTW.)
Our call for UK’s military to be properly equipped should also appeal to the same constituency (as well as being right!).
September 20th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
GMB
Yeah, people that are more to the right are willing to put their own money into cause that they agree with, whereas those on the left want to use other people’s money to achieve their aims.
Well, people who have a lot of money have more of it to be able to push their own viewpoints. That’s what I am saying, am I wrong there?
My point, therefore, is that they are likely to pick and promote as commentators people who agree with them. So this is somewhat going to skew politial discourse, isn’t it?
Where am I wrong here in what I am saying?
Does this have any bearing on why it seems that Matk Littlewood and people who share his aims for Liberal Democrats seem to find it very much easier to get a public platform than people who don’t have that sort of viewpoint?
September 20th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Angela Harbutt (in response to me)
Whether this does anything to undermine my arguments int he actual articel is doubtful though!
Well, I have written elsewhere on what I think our party should be doing to rise to what people want from politics and to gain the support it should be gaining now we have seen that much of what we have been told by leading politicians first in the Tories since 1979 and them from Labour since 1997 is lies and rubbish.
But since my point is that our politics has been over-dominated by the rich, and that the sort of “cut taxes and we’ll all prosper” or “city financiers are geniuses who are making money for us all” lines have proved wrong, it is somewhat harder for me, or people who think like me, to get easy openings into the press than people like you and your group.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
“cut taxes and we’ll all prosper”
B****cks has politics been dominated by people that want to cut taxes! Is that why total taxation in the UK comes to close to half of GDP? If politics was domainated by people that wanted to cut tax then we wouldn’t be paying that much tax would we?
It’s not a bad thing for some people to be richer than others. It’s good. Some people will always be more successful than others – we don’t all have equal abilities in everything. And if someone is rich then they can do one of two things with their money:
1. Spend it
Spending money keeps the economy rolling, and naturally redistributes wealth. Rich person buys a nice new expensive car, keeping the car manufacturer in business, the employees in work and benefits the 1000s of suppliers that the manufacturer uses.
2. Save it
Rich person puts lots of money in bank. Bank lends lots of money to businesses to invest/expand (= more jobs) and to individuals to improve their quality of life in some way (whether it’s to buy a house, car or a stack of porn).
These are the market’s ways of redistributing wealth, and when the government interfered by taxing ‘bad people’ then it helps no one other than the fake charities, quangos and companies like Capita.
When you increase tax on the rich, then guess what they do – they move! Prime example: Tony Blair – I wouldn’t bet on him being in the UK for more than 90 days a year while the tax rate is at 50%.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:18 pm
‘Hmm, so why should the Conservative Party supporting Telegraph choose as its commentator from within the Liberal Democrats someone whose position is persistently “The Liberal Democrats should become much more like the Conservative Party”?’
Its no secret Mark wants to turn the Lib Dems into a the Pro European Tories rather then a true libweral party thankfully here are others other then myself who can suss out his spin from a distance.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
B****cks has politics been dominated by people that want to cut taxes! Is that why total taxation in the UK comes to close to half of GDP? If politics was domainated by people that wanted to cut tax then we wouldn’t be paying that much tax would we?
The wish to cut taxes was foremost of the Conservative Party’s views in 1979-1997, and the Labour Party’s success in 1997 was down to them establishing at least a wish to cut taxes. No major political party, apart from the Liberal Democrats at the time of “1p more income tax for education” has been explicitly in favour of higher taxation.
Neither is there any major organ of the press which is explicitly in favour of higher taxation. The Guardian runs commentary that way sometimes, but it is beaten by the many who always run commentary strongly the other way.
The idea that British politics is dominated by politicians and commentators whose main line is “higher tax please” is, I think, rather silly. It is obviously not so.
That tax turns out to be harder to push down than they suppose is another issue. To be sure, look at all those newspapers who push the lower tax idea in their commentary, and then run loads of “why oh why don’t they do something?” articles elsewhere, to which the answer is “because it costs tax money”. But newspapers don’t have to balance the books, elected politicians do.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:09 pm
No major political party, apart from the Liberal Democrats at the time of “1p more income tax for education” has been explicitly in favour of higher taxation.
Instead Labour just impose more and more stealth taxes, ‘green’ taxes and of course fines, and new offences to fine people more.