Politics: Lib Doom

When politicians start complaining about the media, you know that they’re in trouble.

When politicians start complaining about the media, you know that they’re in trouble. This weekend, a Liberal Democrat minister bounded up to me to complain about a double standard in the way that his party was reported. ‘Yes, we’ve lost councillors but we’ve gained five Cabinet ministers. Did anyone ever say that Tony Blair should resign because he was eroding Labour’s base in local government?’

The minister’s bullishness couldn’t disguise the fact that the Liberal Democrats are staring disaster in the face. Not only did they lose 695 councillors last Thursday, but they are also in danger of a wipeout at the next general election.

In the north, the Lib Dems are being punished for going into coalition with the Conservatives. In the south, meanwhile, coalition has meant that their supporters are now prepared to do what they once considered unthinkable, and vote Tory. To make matters worse, the referendum on the alternative vote — which would have increased the number of Lib Dem MPs — was defeated by a margin of more than two to one.

Politics in England is once more dividing into only two camps. Those who are in favour of the coalition are voting Conservative and those who are against it are voting Labour. The Liberal Democrats appear to be getting none of the credit for the coalition’s successes, and much of the blame for its failures.

If the Lib Dems can’t find a way of fixing this problem in the next four years, then disaster beckons. Nearly everyone in the party concedes that the coalition’s initial strategy of emphasising how close they and the Conservatives had become has not worked for them. As one source put it to me, ‘It’s been good for the reputation of coalition government but bad for us.