Folk memory and voting behaviour - why protest votes aren't all you might think

My Dad lived for the last part of his life on the Isle of Sheppey, so I always take a look at elections results there. Here's the result for the ward he lived in from last week:

There were three contested seats in Sheppey Central ward.

• Elliott Matthew Jayes, Swale Independents, 1019 votes
• Peter John MacDonald, Conservative, 488 votes
• Pete Neal, Conservative, 461 votes
• Trudi Louise Nicholls, Conservative, 325 votes
• Chris Shipley, Green Party, 383 votes
• Paul David Steele, Labour, 339 votes
• Mad Mike Young, The Official Monster Raving Loony Party, 330 votes

Elliot Matthew Jayes, Swale Independents, Peter John MacDonald, Conservative, and Pete Neal, Conservative were elected to Sheppey Central.

One suspects that, had the Swale Independents stood a full slate of candidates they'd have won all three seats (and a surprisingly good performance from Official MRLP - Sheppey is a hotbed of political luncacy). On the face of it, given the seat was held by the Conservatives, this was a shock result - matched by ten other independent gains across Swale. But maybe not - here's the 2007 result:

And in 2008, Independents won a further seven seats on Swale District Council. In this part of the world, there's a tradition of the alternative to a conservative being a local independent - my Dad was wont to say that, just maybe, we should have more independent councillors.

We saw last Thursday the same effect across North Yorkshire where the most popular chosen vehicle to kick Conservatives with was a vote for Independents. Elsewhere in the country the popular choice was voting Liberal Democrat but, again, the local folk memory determined where this would happen - almost always where the Lib Dems have, at some point, controlled or been in leadership on the local council. Here are some of that party's big wins this year:

Winchester (Lib Dem control 1995-2004 & 2010-2011)
North Norfolk (Lib Dem control 2003-2011)
Bath & NE Somerset (Lib Dem minority leadership 1995-2011)
Hinckley & Bosworth (Lib Dem control 2007-2015)
North Devon (Lib Dem control 1991-2007)
Chelmsford (Lib Dem control 1988-1991, 1995-1999)
Vale of White Horse (Lib Dem control 1995-2011)
Mole Valley (Lib Dem control 1994-1995)

Nearly everywhere we look the local folk memory would have predicted whether Independents or Liberal Democrats would be the choice of disgruntled voters. Elsewhere the results seem a lot more stable (they probably aren't) with it being harder to gauge who gets the protest - in remain voting areas without a folk memory of Lib Dem or Independent voting the protest is as likely to go to the Greens whereas in more leave inclined areas it's UKIP or similar (in places like Bradford South there's a less savoury folk memory in voting - the BNP).

So the great Liberal Democrat performance in many regards reflects a recovery from what might be called the 'Clegg Collapse' of 2011 when the party lost 690 seats. There are some results from last Thursday - Cotswold, for example - where the Lib Dems are building new strength (in very strong remain voting areas as a rule) but mostly we've seen the public's desire to punish the Conservatives without voting Labour reflected in wins dependent on the folk memory of past strength. In a weird old way, it's a reminder that we're all pretty conservative in our voting behaviour!

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Dear Liberal Democrats, please rebrand as the European Party. Please.

It's a long while since the Liberal Democrats were in any recognisable way either liberal or democratic. This makes the idea - mooted by Richard Dawkins - that they become the European Party a sensible one:

Writing to the Guardian, the 74-year-old, said: “Following its victory in the Richmond by election, I write to suggest that the Liberal Democratic party should change its name to The European Party.

“We of the forgotten 48% are surely more numerous today, now that Brexit’s rudderless fiasco is becoming as obvious as the shameless lies earlier told by its advocates.”

The reason why this is a great idea isn't that the 48% will flock to its banner but rather that this leaves the way clear for a genuinely liberal and democratic party in Britain. Right now Farron's Euro-fanatics, by hogging these words, are preventing a genuinely liberal, free market and internationalist message from being heard.

Indeed the Liberal Democrat Party's obsession with Europe has, even in those moments when there were glimpses of actual liberalism, meant that the cause of big government has sat at the heart of its policies and programmes. It's clear that today's Liberal Democrats are more comfortable with the eco-fascist Green Party, complete with crashing the economy and living in mud huts while scraping a living from a vegetable patch.

Here in Bradford, our liberal democrats prefer to patronise regular folk in the cause of public health - vaping one month, fizzy drinks the next - rather than admit to the idea of choice, responsibility and agency.

So get on with it Mr Farron (who's pretty much a communist) and rebrand your Party so we can set up one that argues for free markets, free speech, free trade and free enterprise.

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On the need for liberalism...

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Jeremy Browne is a Liberal Democrat MP. He has written this in The Spectator and I agree with him:

An unambiguous liberalism best captures the spirit of our era – freedom and opportunity. Free people, free speech, free markets, free thinking. It is egalitarian, internationalist and healthily subversive. A new generation – both economically and socially liberal – is looking for inspiration.

The problem for Jeremy is that most of his party don't agree with him - they agree with tepid, smiling sort-of-socialists like Tim Farron. Indeed - as James Delingpole observed in the same publication - there is a gap in the market for a classical liberal party.

All the other terrain on the political map has already been fully occupied. Classical liberalism has not — and it’s about time it was. It’s the only political philosophy which acts genuinely in the interests of the ‘many, not the few’. 

On the face of it (and given the public debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage over the EU) is seems odd that two writers identify the same need for a genuinely liberal political party but one finds the answer in the Liberal Democrats and the other in UKIP.

The problem for James and Jeremy is that neither of the two parties in question are interested in being that real liberal party. UKIP are becoming a very different and essentially socially reactionary party, unconvinced by free trade, tempted by protectionism and distrusting of anything foreign. The libertarian moment for UKIP has passed as Nigel Farage realises that his audience are nationalist and conservative not liberal and internationalist.

For Jeremy the problem is just as stark. The rump of the Liberal Democrats will reject any more moves towards economic liberalism preferring instead to paint a smiling face on big government social democracy.  The Liberal Democrats here in Bradford oppose free schools, support rent controls and are enthusiasts for the nanny state - I cannot see them embracing Jeremy's four freedoms.

I wrote not long back about searching for that real liberalism where I asked for a party with an international focus, a preference for the local over the national and markets over planning. Above all I want a party that prioritises personal choice rather than social prescription. The market doesn't offer such a party in the UK.

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Searching for a new liberal party....

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I'm a Tory so I guess it's none of my business but it worries me a little that there is no genuinely liberal voice in UK politics. Perhaps the collapse of the party that colonised liberalism with a sort of tepid social democracy presents an opportunity to rediscover a genuinely liberal voice in British politics.

First here's the always on the money Graeme Archer on the subject of yesterday's Liberal Democrat annihilation:

Take away every elected Tory, and Toryism would continue, and sooner or later find a way to be represented in parliament again. Ditto Labour. But take away every elected Lib Dem, and what are you left with? The vacant contradiction at the heart of the "LibDem" construct: neither properly liberal, nor effectively social democrat. Just nothing.

Yet liberalism is a real thing - the Dutch show this with not one but two liberal parties (as I understand it one is quite crunchy and classical liberal whereas the other is more cuddly and lentil-eating). The problem is that the Liberal Democrats simply aren't liberal - indeed their political position was for me summed up by their leader on Bradford Council when she said - indeed says repeatedly - 'we're not liberal, we're liberal democrats'.

Now while Graeme suggests that all the real liberals were absorbed into the Conservative Party (certainly the economic liberal were but there's a strong case to be made for all the inheritors of Gladstonian liberalism to be in my party - even down to the nannying fussbuckets since Gladstone was certainly one of those) this means that whiggish tendencies have to fight their corner with proper conservatives of one sort or another.

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats are doing a lot of soul-searching. Some of this is pretty unedifying - I watched some activist laying into Danny Alexander during the BBC's Euro elections programming. It wasn't about policy but an extended moan about going into coalition and how it didn't work out. But elsewhere the debate is more real with 'social liberals' like Tim Farron in one camp and economic liberals like David Laws in the other. For the former their policy prescriptions are almost indistinguishable - a penchant for localism aside - from those of the Labour Party whereas the Conservatives would welcome Laws or Jeremy Browne with open arms.

What is lacking here is a real liberal challenge to current economic orthodoxies or setting out policies that actually sit with the views of the private sector, middle class, metropolitan population. These policies could have the following components:

1. An international focus. For the Liberal Democrats at the moment this is done through blind adherence to the European 'project' despite all its manifest illiberalism, protectionism and preference for dirigisme over economic freedom. Rejecting this model means rejecting the EU and arguing for a unilateral approach to free trade - looking beyond a stagnating and inward-looking Europe to emerging nations and the old 'anglosphere'.

2. A preference for local over national. Partly from its base in local government and partly out of conviction, the Liberal Democrats have always supported the idea of 'localism'. But for this to work, you have to accept inconsistencies - the 'postcode lottery' beloved of the media. In return you get more accountability, a drive to improve, and more creativity in the design and delivery of government services.

3. Emphasising markets rather than planning. This isn't saying 'no planning' but it is expressing a belief that markets are, ceteris paribus, better at allocating scarce resources than planners. Such an emphasis might lead to new solutions to the challenges of pensions and caring for the elderly - getting away from the tax and provide approach to look at insurance systems for example.

4. Prioritising personal choice over social prescription. Bits of the social liberal agenda fit in well here - support for same sex marriage and more open immigration, for example. But this must be joined by wider personal choice issues and by rejecting the nanny state approach to public health. Plus, of course, things like free schools and home education.

The four broad principles provide the basis for a different agenda - one that is prepared to explore currency choice, drugs liberalisation and devolved city government. It would be very distinct from the dominant centre-right, conservative approach that focuses on getting the right governance and the right people in charge - making the state model work rather than reforming it through devolution, markets or a combination of the two.

Perhaps after it has searched its soul the Liberal Democrat Party will emerge renewed and ready to embrace a genuinely liberal policy agenda but somehow I doubt this. Rather we will see the Liberal Democrats squirm about trying to triangulate a slightly more left-wing agenda in a last ditch attempt to survive. And because the Party's last few redoubts - Sutton, Eastleigh, Colchester, Orkney & Shetland - will hold out along with a smattering of hard-working councillors across the country, the Party will believe it has the means to rise again. Meaning that my hope for a real liberal party would be dashed!

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Now the Liberal Democrats want to ban cars...

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I guess this is something to do with saving the planet. But quite frankly they can shut up and go away:

Nick Clegg’s party has unveiled proposals to only allow ultra-low carbon vehicles on UK roads by 2040.

The controversial measures would mean millions of petrol and diesel cars being forbidden.

Only electric vehicles and ultra-efficient hybrid cars would be allowed on UK roads under the Lib Dem plans. 

What is it about these so-called 'liberals' that makes them want to ban things, stop things and generally restrain and curtail the liberty of ordinary Brits?

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Tim Farron wants expensive fuel to go with the expensive food....

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You have to admire the populism of Tim Farron, president of the Liberal Democrats:

Mr Farron told The Sunday Telegraph: “I am afraid the Government has seen flashing pound signs, and has not considered the long-term threats fracking poses to the countryside. “I think this is a very short-sighted policy, and we will all be left to live with the consequences.”

Now this is a man who campaigned for expensive food. I know it didn't look that way but rather as an admirable campaign to protect the livelihoods of farmers (many of whom Tim represents). Nevertheless, the impact of his campaign - and his continued support for agricultural protectionism - will lead to higher food prices.

So now, in the interests of a headline, Tim is supporting expensive energy. I know it doesn't look that way. Rather it's portrayed as caring for the environment. But the effect of Tim's campaign - if it succeeds - against fracking will be higher energy prices. Meaning that less well off people (perhaps there aren't so many of these in South Lakeland) will struggle to heat their homes especially since Tim's campaigns already mean such folk pay more for their food.

Even worse Tim's campaign already misleads:

“With a wind farm you can actually choose where you put it; that is not the case (with) fracking,” 

Actually you can't 'choose' where to put a wind farm - to have a chance of viability turbines have to be in places where there's lots of wind, which isn't just anywhere.

And then, having misled, Tim scaremongers:

 This technology can lead to earth tremors and I’m particularly worried that buried nuclear waste in my part of the country could be affected.

There have been around 100,000 fracking wells drilled and the biggest tremor recorded from this is 3.6 on the Richter Scale, which is a bit like having a heavy lorry drive past the front of your house. Typical tremors are 1.3 to 2.6:

If there is an earthquake of 1.5, they have to stop. The British Geological Society says a tremor like that is not usually felt by anyone. It describes an earthquake of 2.3 as being like someone dropping a bucket of water. To put it in context, there have been three of those in Britain in the last month. 

So - getting a cheap headline, presenting misleading facts and scaremongering. A good day's work from the Liberal Democrat's president!

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I'm pretty sure this argument is a logical fallacy...

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...but then Malcolm Bruce is a Liberal Democrat so we shouldn't be surprised:

Nigel Lawson is a climate change denier so anti EU stance should be judged with that in mind.

I think it's fair to say that Lawson isn't a 'climate change denier' merely someone who asks difficult questions about the sacred cow of AGW and the economic presumptions associated with the public policy response.

 We should note that the central plank in the Liberal Democrat defence of EU membership - repeated to the point of obsession - is that it is essential if we are to respond to climate change.

Presumably by nationalising seed production and distribution?

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Jeanette Sunderland - "liberal" democrat and nannying fussbucket

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I can't bring myself to do anything but place the liberal here in inverted commas. I've lost count of the times when Jeanette - Lib Dem leader in Bradford - has said something along the lines of:

"I'm a liberal democrat not a liberal"

And today (although for some reason I can't find the story on the Telegraph & Argus website), Jeanette demonstrates the truth of this - she ain't a liberal she's a nannying fussbucket:

"I have been at meetings where several officers and the chair call for a break so they can go out for a cigarette. The rest of us are waiting, it is a lost opportunity to get things done."

This fussbucketry continues as Jeanette claims that these breaks cost "up to £500" and that us councillors shouldn't be breaking for a fag because we're now "going to have a say" on public health.

At a time when Bradford faces real challenges such as jobs and regeneration, it is pretty sad that nannying fussbucketry is all that comes to the mind of our "liberal" democrats.

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Nannying Fussbucket of the day - another illiberal Liberal Democrat: Jenny Willott MP

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I do sometimes wonder whether there remains anyone in the Liberal Democrat Party who actually possesses a shred of belief in liberalism. Each day I see another example of a Liberal Democrat politician advocating something that restricts freedom and limits choice.

Today it's Jenny Willott who thinks that the poorer residents over her inner-city constituency should be made to pay more for a bottle of wine:

"We need to do much more to tackle this problem - alcohol abuse is not only destroying the lives of individuals and families, it is also a huge burden on society as a whole.

"These measures are not about stopping responsible drinking but designed to tackle the minority who cause alcohol-related crime and disorder in our local communities, as we see each weekend in Cardiff.

"This is something I feel very strongly about and have been calling for action on for years. I am delighted that the Government is proposing to introduce a minimum price for alcohol, and encourage as many people as possible to contribute to the consultation to ensure we get this vital policy right."

I'd love to understand what strange process goes through the minds of these Liberal Democrat MPs - forget about the facts, let's get a headline in the local rag by proposing yet another illiberal restriction, control of ban! I can only suppose that political parties are not subject to the trades descriptions acts!

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Today's illiberal liberal - Lynn Featherstone

I really do despair at times at the intellectual contortions that some "Liberal Democrats" have to go through to justify their use of the term 'liberal' in describing themselves. Here's Lynn Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP sucking up to the Hampstead feminist lefty vote:

When asked if I supported the campaign ‘No more Page 3′ during an interview with the Independent on Sunday – I said yes!

It isn’t top of my list of things to do – but it is part of the whole issue surrounding the coarsening of women’s representation in the public space – and it is anything but harmless.

Page 3 has the effect of enforcing the notion that women are little other than sex objects. For me, a semi naked woman in a ‘family friendly’ daily newspaper for the direct purpose of the titillation of men is an outdated idea that has no place in a modern world or in a country that prides itself on the strides made in the last 40 years towards equality between the sexes.

There is an honourable argument (that I don't personally agree with) against 'Page 3' - Ms Featherstone rather tritely touches on it by talking of coarseness and women's representation. But this argument is not, and never has been, a 'liberal' argument. If anything the focus on public morals and behaviour reminds us of Georgian sensibility or of a Victorian high Tory viewpoint.

What I find odd is that our National Gallery is filled with paintings depicting women as sex objects - a glorious Reubens is above and there are thousands of others showing seductions, orgies and even rapes. Yet Ms Featherstone does not campaign for covering these images but rather the slightly less stylish snaps of naked ladies in The Sun.

I'm guessing that the women pictured in The Sun appear willingly and are paid well for doing so. At which point the Liberal argument should be to applaud their enterprise, respect their individual choice and, if offended, not buy the newspaper concerned. Not to try and ban the pictures.

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Liberal Democrats? You're kidding - nannying fussbuckets more like

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Not content with proposing to rob public sector pensions to build "social" housing, the Liberal Democrats have opened up a new front in the attack on personal choice and freedom:

The plans to levy charges on drinks like Coke, Pepsi and others will be debated at the party’s annual conference and could become Government policy, party officials said.

A motion, to be debated on the Sunday 23 September, says the party should call for “fiscal measures such as the taxation of heavily sugared drinks”. The motion is "quite likely" to be passed, officials said, although it could be amended

That's right folks, our Liberal Democrat partners are starting the 'denormalisation' process for pop. And at the front is this woman:

Prior to her elevation,Baroness Parminter worked as a freelance consultant advising charities and companies (including Lloyd’s, the City of London Corporation, Mencap & Age Concern) on charity issues, campaigning and corporate social responsibility. From 1998 to 2004 she was the Chief Executive of the conservation charity the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Between 1990 and 1998 she worked for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, rising from public relations officer to become Head of Public Affairs. She also chaired the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals, which helped to ban hunting, between 1997 and 1998.

A professional nannying fussbucket if ever there was one. And quite prepared to make stuff up to support her unpleasant, illiberal ideas:

“I am concerned by the timebomb that we have of obesity – particularly among children; we have 500,000 children who have liver disease because of obesity."

This is a lie. A complete untruth. Indeed, if the good Baroness shut her mouth for a second and engaged her brain, she'd work out that liver disease would - on these figures- be the only childhood illness! The figure comes from a (pretty questionable) claim by Professor Martin Lombard, National Clinical Director for Liver Disease, in July last year:

From this sample of two year groups, Professor Lombard has estimated that for all children between 4 and 14 there are half a million who could be at risk of developing fatty liver disease either now or in the future.

This is based on the revelation that around 22% of reception children were overweight or obese and about a third of Year 6 children were "above a healthy weight" (whatever that means). More to the point the explosion in obesity simply isn't taking place. Here's the statistics from the National Child Measurement Programme:

In Reception, the proportion of obese children (9.4%) was lower than in 2006/07 (9.9%). The proportion of overweight and obese children combined (22.6%) was also lower than in 2006/07 (22.9%). The proportion of underweight children (1.0%) was again lower than in 2006/07 (1.3%).

In Year 6, the proportion of obese children (19.0%) was higher than in 2006/07 (17.5%). The proportion of overweight and obese children combined (33.4%) was also higher than in 2006/07 (31.6%).The proportion of underweight children (1.3%) was lower than in 2006/07 (1.5%).

I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned about obese children - being very overweight is pretty unhealthy - but the figures tell us this isn't a worsening problem and may even be a diminishing problem. What the Baroness Parminter's of this world are doing is judging other people's choices as wrong - she doesn't approve of fizzy drinks just as she didn't approve of hunting and doesn't like the thought of working class people being able to live in the countryside.

How on earth she can lay claim to the title "liberal" defeats me - surely it breaks the trade descriptions act?

What she is is a nannying fussbucket.

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In which Liberal Democrats channel the spirit of Robert Maxwell...

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Robert Maxwell, former Labour MP and rapacious capitalist famously robbed the pension funds of his employees at the Daily Mirror and elsewhere to bail out the problems of his business. We looked on in horror as this bloated socialist exploiter ripped off ordinary workers.

It seems that the Liberal Democrats - in search of a gimmick - have decided to learn from Bob and rip off members of pension funds. In this case to build housing that the normal (private sector) funders won't provide finance for:

Funded by public sector pension funds, the 300,000 properties a year target would more than double the current rate of housebuilding.

Building this many homes (just building - we would need to buy the land too) will cost about £30,000,000,000 each year (let's call this £30 billion). The income of local authority pension funds in 2010/11 was £10.6 billion made up from employee and employer contributions plus investment returns.

Even if the existing development funding system generated 150,000 houses (for 2011 the figure was a tad short of 120,000) that would still require £15 billion each year. This could only be achieved by redirecting funds from other investments. If the Liberal Democrats want this to continue for the five-year lifetime of a parliament that would require £75 billion - 50% of all the funds under investment by local authority pension funds.

So we have a scheme that redirects funds from profitable investment intended to secure a decent pension for the funds' members. And places that money into property schemes that the private sector will not finance - presumably for lack of confidence in the anticipated return.

This would be morally bankrupt and criminally stupid.

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John Leech - another socialist in liberal democrat clothing

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The government's Faustian pact - a deal that still remains despite the financial train crash - with the banks has cost ordinary folk dear. Yet this so-called "liberal democrat" wants to make it even worse:

...although the taxpayers own 82% of the company, we do not have a rep on the board and cannot force the company to lend money to businesses and create jobs.

This man is an MP - elected to provide intelligent leadership - and he wants to "force" a bank that's lost £1.5 billion in a year to lend money it doesn't have to businesses. It seems the argument is that Vince Cable thinks this a good idea. And, of course, Vince is the man because he used to work in a big (oil) business so understands all this money stuff.

More to the point (and I don't know Mr Leech's background) our MP seems to have not the first idea about the duties and responsibilities of a company director. Generally speaking their first duty is to the company's interest. And right now this is to get the balance sheet fixed, pay off those bad debts and make RBS a viable business. Running the business into the ground by forcing it to make a load more bad loans on political direction is a daft idea.

Mind you, we could have let RBS go bust in the first place. That would have been a liberal response!

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Top Liberal Democrat MP says don't vote for the bloke who works

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Absolutely - Liberal Democrat MP, Bob Russell said just that:

Now retired, Councillor Offen [the Lib Dem candidate] is able to devote the time to the role of Councillor which the Tory candidate simply cannot because of his employment situation.

Got that folks! This MP thinks you can't be an effective councillor if you work for a living! And he kept digging:

‘I stand by my comment that the Lib Dem candidate has more time at his disposal than the Tory candidate.’

So one guesses that Mr Russell wouldn't vote for any Liberal Democrat candidate who had less "time on his hands" that an alternative from another party?

Although that would be to expect consistency from the Liberal Democrats. Which would be a first!

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Tim Farron - Communist

Supermarkets are evil, they are driving down the prices for suppliers forcing poor farmers to go out of business. This must be stopped!

But just a minute – how do we do this? After all those farmers already receive a subsidy from the Common Agricultural Programme to produce their sheep, beef or milk so the taxpayer is already (in theory) subsiding the price of these goods.

Apparently we need a regulator! Who – according to Tim Farron, President of the Liberal Democrats -  would:

Totally agree! A strong regulator would make sure consumers don't pay more & that farmers get a better price

So we create a system where the price to the supplier is fixed (or subject to controls to guarantee a minimum price which amounts to the same hill of beans) but the supermarket can’t pass that on to the consumer.

We would have a subsidised, loss-making farming business with state determined minimum prices and a grocery sector with state determined maximum prices. If that’s not a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is!

Rather reminds me of the Soviet Union!

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Hey Lib Dems, you could try truth and liberalism for a change?

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Nick Clegg - I'm guessing the party has a new marketing boss or something - has been told that he needs to "rebrand" the Liberal Democrat Party.

Last week, Liberal Democrat MPs were summoned to a meeting to be told that "external brand experts" had been hired to try to boost the party's standing with the next general election still more than three years away.

In a further internal move, Mr Clegg has recruited a party donor and millionaire accountant, Neil Sherlock, to run his Cabinet Office team with the title of director of government relations.

Aha, not a marketing director - worse, an accountant!

And the strategy appears to be that old Lib Dem stand-by - taking credit for things they didn't do (a sub-set of their usual dissembling and unpleasantness). Starting with the abolition of slavery:

MPs should also, they were told, claim more credit for "Liberal" achievements of the past such as the abolition of slavery - even though the leading abolitionist, William Wilberforce, was an independent MP. 

And let me just correct the Daily Telegraph there - Wilberforce was, of course, a Tory.

However, in the interests of a coalition partner, let me suggest how the Liberal democrats might resolve their problem. It seems to me, a humble observer, that the party might do better if it:

Stopped laying claims - whether locally, nationally or historically - to things it had no hand in (this applies equally to the filling in of potholes, the abolition of slavery and the introduction of universal suffrage)

Started being a liberal party - you know one that actually believes in liberalism rather than the statist, social democratic, nanny state party it is at present

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Reasons why you shouldn't support the Liberal Democrats No. 436,738

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Because they're just tax and spend social democrats:

Proposals to impose tax on lump sums withdrawn from their pension pots by the newly-retired will be set out today by a think tank linked to the party leadership.

They would affect anyone taking out more than £42,000 as a lump sum on retirement. Currently pension-holders can withdraw £450,000 from their pot tax-free. 

Look you pseudo-socialists - people have already paid tax on that money. You know that income tax stuff.

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Quote of the day....

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This from the Man in the Shed is definitely the case:

I'm disgusted with Nick Clegg's actions to try to cripple the UK for his Euro masters. This is one of the many reasons the hatred for the Lib Dems in many Conservative circles goes far beyond that for Labour.

At every local branch, every party executive meeting and at every event, I hear the cry that we must stop "the tail wagging the dog". Personally, I still hate the Labour Party far more but 'The Man' has a point.

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The Liberal Democrats need "Nicks" not "Tims"

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There are, it seems to me, two sorts of Liberal Democrat. I’m going to call them “Nick” and “Tim” for the sake of explanation.

For many year’s Tim was the man. Liberal Democrats – and Liberals before – were activists, campaigners, street politicians. The purveyors of pavement politics, the champions of potholes, the organisers of dog pooh campaigns and the persistent pointers at things in the local paper – and these tactics worked, Tim and his friends got elected. 

Tim isn’t really a liberal or even much of a democrat. Tim knows the buttons to press with the local ‘community’. Tim is prepared to be inconsistent and contradictory, to say one thing on the council estate and a completely different thing in the terraced town centre. To campaign against a wind farm while, at the same time, making the right green noises to a different audience somewhere else. 

Tim doesn’t think about the philosophical basis for his liberalism but prefers instead to make the right, slightly pink-tinged remarks about tax, business and the environment. The sort of remarks that get you liked, that plays to the prejudices of people who consider themselves “liberal” but aren’t.

Because farmers like subsidies, Tim will campaign for subsidies without thought. If NIMBYs and BANANAs approach Tim, he will support them without question. Tim is progressive in that slightly mushy, largely meaningless way - as if he'd stopped thinking about politics after his first "it's not fair" thought at the age of 14.

For Tim the acme of politics is the “good constituency MP”, the man or woman who does little else than chitter and worry at little local issues, who cares more about electoral tactics and the next “Focus” leaflet than about the economy or the environment (except, of course, when those are the correct tactical topics for that “Focus” leaflet).

The Liberal Democrats were filled with Tims. The pavement politics, the deception, the inconsistency worked and the chambers began to fill with Liberal Democrats. And thoughts turned to government, to the prospect – at local level first, then nationally – of having to propose some sort of coherent believable strategy for government. Tim was lost. Tim wanted to just attack the Tories, to continue the never-ending local campaigns about potholes and cracked paving stones. Government wasn’t for Tim.

But there was “Nick” to help. Nick was different. He hadn’t grown up as a local activist; he’d been on the international stage. Nick was well-educated – top schools, Oxford – and worked in banking, management consultancy and the European bureaucracy. Nick actually believed in something called ‘liberalism’, actually had a philosophical basis for the arguments he made and put forward policies that weren’t simply a tactical response to whoever in the local constituency shouted loudest.

Nick provided some gravitas, a sense that this was a party with a real programme rather than a collection of slightly odd people brought together mostly by a desire for power and a shared dislike of Labour and/or Conservative. Nick began to think, to propose policies based on local power, on the effectiveness of markets and on personal choice. For sure, Nick’s ideas were dragged back by Tim who wasn’t quite ready (or rather worried that his carefully manufactured activist image would be damaged by actually having to believe in something) for a coherent policy for government, but those ideas began to get a purchase with supporters. And Nick came to lead.

Now times are tricky. Nick took the liberal democrats into government, made them support some tough policies necessary for that government to work. And Tim isn’t happy. Tim liked it when he didn’t have to defend the difficult decisions of government. Tim preferred the time when the prospect of eternal opposition allowed him simply to say the things that got the best response from his voters. Tim just wants to be a “good constituency MP”, some form of self-directed delegate of the loud voices in some part of England. Tim wants the Liberal Democrat comfort zone.

And Tim is wrong. Tim will make the Liberal Democrats irrelevant again. A bunch of irritating blow flies rather than a diligent hive. An opportunistic, devious, untrustworthy and prejudiced bunch of slightly left-wing activists rather than a serious party with a set of serious policies based on a coherent, believable political philosophy.

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The sorry end of liberalism in the liberal democrats

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The papers have been filled with Clegg inspired testosterone as the might Deputy prime Minister regales his followers with all the things he has stopped from happening - you know the things like developing choice and competition in care, health and education.

And this is pretty sad because I thought Nick was a liberal. You know what I mean? The sort of politician who believes in the power of independence, in giving people choice and that responsibility comes from freedom not from government dictat.

It would appear not. It would appear that the last vestiges of liberalism have faded - Clegg now leads a social democratic party virtually indistinguishable from the social democratic party led by Ed Miliband.

I'd hoped that having liberals in the coalition would push my party away from the state-directed controls to which we were wedded - be it on the environment, on crime or in public health.

Sadly it appears not. Indeed I hear more genuinely liberal voices from the right of my party and (inconsistently it must be said) from UKIP.

The Liberal Democrats are no longer a 'liberal' party, Shame really as Britain needs one.

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