I am shocked to read on James Graham's blog an account of the last general election, as told by Ming Campbell in an exclusive interview to the shortlisted five for "Lib Dem blog of the year" about the liaison at the highest levels between Labour and the Lib Dems at the last general election.
The quotation that deals with this is ;
"Interestingly, Ming pointed out that the then-elections chief Lord Razzall was in constant talks with Labour regarding our targeting strategy and how we might both target the Conservatives. Although I’m not surprised, I have to say it is the first I’ve heard of this. It feels a little uncomfortable to learn that we were in strategic discussions with the war-mongers, but then the Tories were wannabe war-mongers and were running under the most rightwing manifesto in recent memory (written by David Cameron, lest we forget). Either way, if our strategy was to work with Labour to maximise the marginal Lib-Con seats that we won, it was a pretty poor one."
Our most distinct feature, indeed to many first time Lib Dem voters, our unique selling point if you like, was our opposition to the war in Iraq yet, as it turns out, it appears that some in our party were running the election campaign as if we were a branch of the Labour Party.
And as James Graham made clear, if this was "the strategy to beat the Tories", it failed pretty abysmally.
I think some people forget why people get involved in the Lib Dems, and very often it is to rid yourself of the stench that comes from the Tory and Labour parties.
The Tories might be angry about this, but so will plenty of Lib Dems too.
7 comments:
Stench is a bit strong Nich.
I know and respect where you are coming from politically. BUT like Communism, Liberal Democracy will never work in the modern age. There's just not enough support. You've been very critical of your party of late and I believe this is because it will never be what you believe it could and should be.
It could be time to reconsider your political allegiance. I think we both know that a LibDem vote in the next election will be a vote for Labour.
Anything other than a Lib Dem vote where I live is a wasted vote. I live in a Lib Dem target seat, with Labour in a clear third place. The Tory MP is virtually invisible in the constituency and there is no way I could support him. He is NOT what I would vote for in a million years.
I pin my hopes on Ming's successor and hope the famage in the mean time is not too critical.
The odd thing is as well that this isn't a strategy that could ever work at the last election. It worked in 97 when you guys and Labour were taking over from the Tories in many seats and should thus coordinate, but if anything in 2005 you and the Tories were both attacking Labour so it made sense to cooperate with them. It would be even weirder if this behaviour continued- afterall say in a hung Parliament it would amke it almost impossible for the LibDems to enter a coalition with teh Conservatives as they had cooperated with the Labour party so intimately, which would make bargaining with Labour more difficult. Strikes me as incredibly stupid.
It's funny. I was at the interview and I don't remember this bit. I will go through my full audio recording of the interview and get out the actual quote from Ming.
Daily referendum obviously believes that liberalism should just roll over and let managerialism and populism dominate. Not something any liberal is about to do. Liberalism was pronounced dead by the fascists, the communists and other socialists and totalitarians, its not dead yet though and is increasingly relevant.
As for this claim about cooperating with Labour - it does stink. Labour are /not/ our natural allies, just as the Tories aren't.
We should fight Labour and the Tories where they are wrong (ie on most things) and we should not be cooperating with Labour (the last few times we tried that it didn't work - the only successful cooperation we've done is with the Tories where pacts stopped the party being wiped out in Parliament).
Hey Nich...what do you think of Maureen De Beer and her comments on Phil Vickery. Has she ever seen a game of rugby before? Also I have found another political blogging bluenose :
http://dizzythinks.net/
This one's a T*ry :O:O:O
Yes, I've been on contact with Dizzy for some time. He's the sort of bloke that gives Tories a good name.
Also, Peter Black, a Welsh Assembly member and possible leader of the Lib Dems in the Welsh Assembly is also aan Evertonian. I have a link to him in my blogroll.
As for Rugby, I doubt very much she understands rugby because for most people, including most blokes, the rules (aside from the obvious ones about knock ons) are a mystery !
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