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Tuesday 22 May 2012

The Liberal Democrat Death Wish

If nothing else, this year's Liberal Democrat conference has shown that many party members are content to lurch towards electoral disaster. Broadly speaking, the members seem happier with the Farron-Huhne-Harris view of the coalition as, at best, a necessary if uncomfortable evil than they do with the Clegg-Alexander-Laws belief that it's a happy, virtuous thing.

The desire to "distance" themselves from the Conservatives is as understandable as it is likely to be disastrous. It is an approach that cannot and will not work. Running away from your record is a ridiculous approach to take and one that invites scorn and mockery. Just ask Tavish Scott and his Scottish colleagues how well it works.

It cannot work because it requires the Liberal Democrats to fight the next election in a defensive mode, forever apologising for supporting a Conservative-led government and asking voters to remember that without their presence matters might have been "even worse". But you win few points or prizes for moderating "bad" behaviour in politics. Nor is pleading for forgiveness the kind of message voters take seriously or find attractive. Indeed, it reeks of self-pity: Don't blame us, it was the beastly Tories and we never had a fair chance and it was all a dreadful mistake!

What's more, this kind of approach implicitly says to voters that Labour's attacks on us are fair and accurate but please vote for us anyway because we promise we won't make the same mistake again. It does not take a genius to appreciate that this is not a sensible way to frame an election campaign. Conceding that the government has been a disappointment - we did our best but there was a limit to what we could do to restrain the Tories - is to concede that you agree with the opposition just as much as you agree with the government of which you were a part. This is also a poor place from which to campaign.

But this is the kind of disastrous strategy the party's left-wing clearly favours. And when it leads to disaster it will be considered evidence that Clegg, not the left, was wrong! Topst-turvy stuff, for sure, but that's the Liberal [sic] Democrats for you.

Of course, the alternative strategy of robustly defending the government's record while declining to split it into seperate Tory and Lib Dem achievements is scarcely risk-free either. Nevertheless it at least has the virtue of coherence and allows the Lib Dems to campaign on a record of achievement, rather than spend their time (implicitly) agreeing with Labour that it was all a dreadful error. Some seats will still be lost but at least, in this scenario, they can be lost bravely and even honourably rather than thrown away in a fit of self-indulgent and stupid self-pity. Regrets don't do well at election time; boasts have a better record.

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