David Maddox: Change of Lib Dem strategy?
Those of you who take an interest in party election leaflets - and I guess if you can be bothered to read this blog it will probably include you - then the utterances of Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat's Shadow Scottish Secretary, on Newsnight Scotland last night may have come as a surprise.
To put this in context I would ask you to remember the classic line used by all parties now, but developed by the Lib Dems, of only "only we can beat.... here." Usually it is accompanied by a spurious bar chart showing neck and neck support between their candidate and the sitting MP.
Often the claim bore little resemblance to reality. I remember as a 13-year-old in 1987 helping my mother deliver such leaflets for the then Lib/ SDP Alliance candidate in Norwich North only for the chap to come a very poor third.
Perhaps more famously Linda Gorn, the Lib Dem candidate in the Holyrood by-election for Moray in 2006 made a complete fool of herself by basing the campaign on that message. She disappeared shortly after coming third.
but last night Mr Carmichael said the idea of "binary political choices" was "condescending and arrogant".
He added: "The politicians have got to get real here, they've got to recognise that there's a major problem of political disengagement and instead of telling people what choice they have got why don't you just try and listen to them for a while and engage in proper, serious political debate about political issues, about the state of our economy about the state of our democracy and about the fact that most people don't see any solutions coming from a broken political system at all."
He meant this in a context of the election being one between Labour and the Tories or Labour and the SNP, but it certainly makes that old Lib Dem leaflet slogan look odd too.
To put this in context I would ask you to remember the classic line used by all parties now, but developed by the Lib Dems, of only "only we can beat.... here." Usually it is accompanied by a spurious bar chart showing neck and neck support between their candidate and the sitting MP.
Often the claim bore little resemblance to reality. I remember as a 13-year-old in 1987 helping my mother deliver such leaflets for the then Lib/ SDP Alliance candidate in Norwich North only for the chap to come a very poor third.
Perhaps more famously Linda Gorn, the Lib Dem candidate in the Holyrood by-election for Moray in 2006 made a complete fool of herself by basing the campaign on that message. She disappeared shortly after coming third.
but last night Mr Carmichael said the idea of "binary political choices" was "condescending and arrogant".
He added: "The politicians have got to get real here, they've got to recognise that there's a major problem of political disengagement and instead of telling people what choice they have got why don't you just try and listen to them for a while and engage in proper, serious political debate about political issues, about the state of our economy about the state of our democracy and about the fact that most people don't see any solutions coming from a broken political system at all."
He meant this in a context of the election being one between Labour and the Tories or Labour and the SNP, but it certainly makes that old Lib Dem leaflet slogan look odd too.
Labels: Alistair Carmichael, elections, leaflets, Liberal Democrats
posted by Administrator at
16:24
3 Comments:
Alistair Carmichael ought to have a word with Argyll & Bute's present Liberal MP, Alan Reid, who has been up to these very tricks.
At the last Scottish elections the Liberals had the SNP at 3rd (or was it 4th?)on the infamous Liberal bar graph. As we know, they lost to the SNP's Jim Mather.
Now Alan Reid, master of the photo op, has reproduced a similar graph which bears no reality to the reality on the ground, where Argyll & Bute is a straight tussle between the SNP & Tories.
Producing these silly graphs can only be counter productive, which Mr Reid will discover the hard way within a few months.
David
The Lib Dems seem to roll along, election after election, kidding us on that they are a credible 'large' party, without ever getting into power (except when they hang onto Scottish Labour's coat tails at Holyrood.) They never seem to follow through with their big ideas, instead they sit on the fence hoping to pick up votes from those disenchanted by Lab/Tory.
But their big ideas, if pushed a bit harder, could strike a chord with a large proportion of the electorate, both in the UK and in Scotland...
Real PR, not AV, would change the whole complexion of Westminster, meaning parties would have to cut down on the aggressive spin, because they'd have to work much more closely together to get things done.
A Federal monarchy, akin to that in Australia, would clean up the constitutional mess that is the UK, with the four 'nations' having real and perceived equal status, whilst still retaining the Monarch as Head of State.
Alongside that, Devo Max in Scotland is closer to what the Lib Dems aspire to than the Calman proposals, yet they never promote that idea.
A bit more conviction and a little less tactical pussy-footing may actually see them grow in support!
I got a leaflet the other day entirely based on the theory North Glasgow is going to be a L-Labour fight. This depends on the fact that the LDs came 2nd across Scotland at the last Westminster election. In fact their vote has fallen off so badly they are now Scotland's 4th party. Electoral calculus show it as Labour-SNP marginal.
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