Lord Rennard, the Lib Dems’ former chief executive and campaign supremo, is a
frequent attendee at Westminster events. He usually makes just one point: the party’s polling may be poor, but the situation can be saved. Rennard points out that the party was delivered from
disaster in 1997, thanks to targeted campaigning and a successful scheme to differentiate the party from Labour and the Tories. That campaign should be the model for the next one, which Rennard
believes has already begun.
He has elaborated on these ideas in the
Guardian. He writes:
‘I always told candidates to think as much about the psychology of Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” as any market research. This explains why issues such as the economy and the future
of the NHS matter so, so much when people consider voting choices. These issues are bound to be at the forefront of the next election campaign. Some aspects of the coalition agreement will
inevitably come back to haunt the Lib Dems. But the party will be helped by people’s fears of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls being jointly responsible for economic management and ongoing fears about what
would happen if the Conservatives had complete freedom of manoeuvre on issues such as the NHS. Lib Dems must this week reassure people that any changes in the NHS are in the interests of patients
– and explain that this would not necessarily have been the case without their influence.’
Banking reform will almost certainly be added to that list. ‘What might the Conservatives have done without Vince, Nick and Danny in government’ seems a likely strategic argument.
Ministers will sound these issues in the conference hall and at fringe events throughout this week, directing activists for the fight ahead. Because, with polls indicating that a majority of people don’t know what the party stands for, the challenge is to disseminate.
The activists pose another impediment for the leadership in that, as Nick Cohen argued in cover story earlier this year, they are ideological and perhaps expected more from power than the Vickers review and
the thwarting of Andrew Lansley: already there are murmurs about the coalition’s NHS reform at the conference, with former MP Dr Evan Harris demanding and failing to force a vote according to
Sophy Ridge. The grumblings seem to be general: a Lib Dem activist told me yesterday that many of his colleagues have
chosen not to attend conference. The leadership still needs to reconnect with elements of its party
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