Across the pond

Liberal Democrats are getting plenty of advice about to how to make themselves electable. Much of it based on the notion that politicians need to learn all about marketing. And much of it written by journalists who themselves have helped to foster a culture of cynicism about politicians. After all, don’t we all know that they will do anything to get elected?

But marketing a political party is not like selling soap powder. The whiter than white soap powder wars were all based on selling the package rather than the product. The competing soap powders, Persil, Daz, etc, were actually all made in the same factory and there was almost nothing to choose between them insofar as getting nasty stains out of clothes. In much the same way the orgy of privatization ushered in by Margaret Thatcher, makes us all prey to utility companies urging us to change our supplier. Though they are all delivering us the same gas and same electricity.

So currently the Lib Dems are being urged to to choose the leader who can make the party electable. Someone who will trim his or her sails to the opinion polls. This advice is based on a reading of history that suggests that Tony Blair made Labour electable again by changing the party’s image and by abandoning principle in favour of cowtowing to popular prejudices. And that David Cameron’s recent surge in the opinion polls arises because of his charisma rather than his policies or principles.

This so-called analysis is simplistic. Roll back to 1997. Tony Blair actually believed in the third way. The Labour Party has always been a broad church. Blair’s personal beliefs were fuelled by those in the party whose egalitarian zeal was based more on the thinking of Jesus Christ rather than Karl Marx. In power, as he grew older, he moved further to the right so that he was more admired by Margaret Thatcher than by Tony Benn.

Brown in the first successful weeks of his premiership won the support of the press and the hearts of the public by showing his convictions, and matching policies to those convictions, particularly by doing something for the poor. He was blown totally off course by David Cameron’s surge in popularity during the Conservative Party conference.

The headlines were grabbed by the shadow chancellor’s pledge to raise inheritance tax to £1 million. But it was not this single proposal which sent the Liberal Democratic vote into meltdown. It is the fact that Cameron is not just an opportunist. He speaks from his own convictions, and those are based on the beliefs the kind of Conservatism exemplified by Harold Macmillan in the twentieth century and Benjamin Disraeli in the nineteenth century. Those Tory voters who deserted to the Lib Dems came flocking back. Whether they will stay will depend on the totality of policies offered by the shadow cabinet, and by the alternatives offered by Labour and the Lib Dems. Brown is already being pressured by the Blairites to change course. The squabbles and bitter hatreds within Labour’s broad church are again beginning to surface.

This is an opportunity for the Lib Dems. To take advantage of it they need a new leader with vision and convictions. One way of reading the success of Blairism is to argue that Blair stole the clothes of the Lib Dems, which was a coalition of the reforming zeal and emphasis on individualism of the Liberal Party with the efforts of Shirley Williams, William Rogers and David Owen to translate Labour ideals into a modern social democratic party, with a Britain as part of Europe rather than a poodle for American power.

The next leader needs to be someone who understands that government in the twentieth century means dealing with vast companies who have more power over our lives than most governments and who are responsible only to their shareholders. How to deal with them effectively no political leader has got right yet.

The two leading contenders are likely to be Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. I shall be following what they have to say, to see which one of them is up to the challenge I have outlined above. And I shall be looking out to see whether there is a budding Shirley Williams amongst the LibDem faithful, who can show half the electorate that women can succeed without trying to be male than the men.

LibDems: Orange not whiter than white

Liberal Democrats are getting plenty of advice about to how to make themselves electable. Much of it based on the notion that politicians need to learn all about marketing. And much of it written by journalists who themselves have helped to foster a culture of cynicism about politicians. After all, don’t we all know that they will do anything to get elected?

But marketing a political party is not like selling soap powder. The whiter than white soap powder wars were all based on selling the package rather than the product. The competing soap powders, Persil, Daz, etc, were actually all made in the same factory and there was almost nothing to choose between them insofar as getting nasty stains out of clothes. In much the same way the orgy of privatization ushered in by Margaret Thatcher, makes us all prey to utility companies urging us to change our supplier. Though they are all delivering us the same gas and same electricity.

So currently the Lib Dems are being urged to to choose the leader who can make the party electable. Someone who will trim his or her sails to the opinion polls. This advice is based on a reading of history that suggests that Tony Blair made Labour electable again by changing the party’s image and by abandoning principle in favour of cowtowing to popular prejudices. And that David Cameron’s recent surge in the opinion polls arises because of his charisma rather than his policies or principles.

This so-called analysis is simplistic. Roll back to 1997. Tony Blair actually believed in the third way. The Labour Party has always been a broad church. Blair’s personal beliefs were fuelled by those in the party whose egalitarian zeal was based more on the thinking of Jesus Christ rather than Karl Marx. In power, as he grew older, he moved further to the right so that he was more admired by Margaret Thatcher than by Tony Benn.

Brown in the first successful weeks of his premiership won the support of the press and the hearts of the public by showing his convictions, and matching policies to those convictions, particularly by doing something for the poor. He was blown totally off course by David Cameron’s surge in popularity during the Conservative Party conference.

The headlines were grabbed by the shadow chancellor’s pledge to raise inheritance tax to £1 million. But it was not this single proposal which sent the Liberal Democratic vote into meltdown. It is the fact that Cameron is not just an opportunist. He speaks from his own convictions, and those are based on the beliefs the kind of Conservatism exemplified by Harold Macmillan in the twentieth century and Benjamin Disraeli in the nineteenth century. Those Tory voters who deserted to the Lib Dems came flocking back. Whether they will stay will depend on the totality of policies offered by the shadow cabinet, and by the alternatives offered by Labour and the Lib Dems. Brown is already being pressured by the Blairites to change course. The squabbles and bitter hatreds within Labour’s broad church are again beginning to surface.

This is an opportunity for the Lib Dems. To take advantage of it they need a new leader with vision and convictions. One way of reading the success of Blairism is to argue that Blair stole the clothes of the Lib Dems, which was a coalition of the reforming zeal and emphasis on individualism of the Liberal Party with the efforts of Shirley Williams, William Rogers and David Owen to translate Labour ideals into a modern social democratic party, with a Britain as part of Europe rather than a poodle for American power.

The next leader needs to be someone who understands that government in the twentieth century means dealing with vast companies who have more power over our lives than most governments and who are responsible only to their shareholders. How to deal with them effectively no political leader has got right yet.

The two leading contenders are likely to be Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. I shall be following what they have to say, to see which one of them is up to the challenge I have outlined above. And I shall be looking out to see whether there is a budding Shirley Williams amongst the LibDem faithful, who can show half the electorate that women can succeed without trying to be male than the men.