If you can judge a party’s mood by the number of bad jokes it tells, then the
Liberal Democrats are in better form than last year. Their rally to open conference was characterised by a string of appalling gags. George Osborne was a particular target with both Don Foster and
Sarah Teather trying to raise a laugh at his expense. However, several of Teather’s jokes, which moved into real bad taste territory, fell totally flat.
The main speech of the rally, though, was Nick Clegg’s. Clegg, who was welcomed with a standing ovation, made his pitch that the party was governing from the centre, for the whole country. He ran through the usual list of Lib Dem accomplishments in office, pointing out that this wasn’t bad “considering we only have five Cabinet ministers, or six if you include Ken Clarke”.
However, the least convincing part of the speech was when Clegg tried to gloss over the philosophical differences in the party: “There are those who wish to drive a wedge between us – our opponents, the vested interests in politics and the media who want to put us back in our place. They won’t succeed. Because whether you consider yourself more of a social democrat or a classical liberal, whether your hero is Gladstone or Keynes, Paddy Ashdown or Shirley Williams, we are all, to one degree or another, all of the above”. This ignores the fact that the two traditions are often not complimentary but contradictory. As I argue in the magazine this week (subscribers click here), if the Lib Dems are to achieve Clegg’s goal of becoming a distinctive party of the radical centre then they are going to have to be prepared to junk some of their social democratic heritage and become a more clearly liberal party.
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