Feeling their pain

The parallels between the plight of today's LibDem activists and that of many Labour supporters during the Blair years.

Contribution by Councillor Bob Piper*

Ed Miliband’s appeal for those Liberal Democrats dismayed by the coalition with the Conservatives may attract some waverers, but I doubt it will lead to the complete demise of the Lib Dems that some people are predicting.

Personally I have a sympathy with those on the radical wing of the Lib Dems who feel betrayed by Clegg, Alexander and co. They will have spent years listening to their leaders in opposition decrying “the two main parties” and promising nirvana if only they were in power. Ok, most will surely have accepted that getting power in their own right was not achievable in the short term, but they hung on to the belief that they could hold the balance of power in a coalition. And so it came to pass. But I doubt many Lib Dem members thought that entering a coalition would result in their MPs accepting a complete u-turn on issues like tuition fees. Accepting a review of Trident is one thing, they may even have accepted that the Tories and Labour, whichever they joined up with, would combine to ensure Trident was renewed. But to see their leaders vociferously arguing for a measure which they had spent over 10 years decrying… that was not what they were expecting.

The reason I have some sympathy is that some of us in the Labour Party have been there and bought the t-shirt. We spent the best part of two decades on platforms condemning the Thatcherite market-led NHS reforms, the privatisation of public services, the anti-trade union laws, the Private Finance Initiative etc. Then we suddenly discovered that these things were not going to be reversed, but worse, they were actually at the heart of Blair’s New Labour party. I remember only a few months in to the Labour Government of 1997, when the euphoria was still pumping through Labour veins, moving a resolution at UNISON’s Affiliated Political Fund conference calling for a halt to PFI schemes. The resolution was passed but was opposed by two leading lights of the union, Dave Anderson and Ann Picking (both destined to become Labour MPs) which made me uneasy at the time. And also opposed by Keith Vaz who, without a hint of shame or irony, told the conference that previously we had quite rightly opposed ‘Tory PFI’ …this was different… it was ‘New Labour PFI’!!!

And this was years before Blair’s wars and infatuation with Bush, or plans for 90-day internment, or ID cards and all of the other authoritarian post-9/11 measures. You know, those things that Ed Miliband confessed were errors or misjudgments during his leadership bid.

So, if there are Lib Dems out there thinking of packing it all up, my message to you is don’t despair. Clegg may be just a blip, a small hiccup in the long history of your party. Stick to your principles and one day you may be secretly stifling a smug grin as speaker after speaker stands up to denounce Clegg and his ilk and all of their crypto-Tory machinations.

In closing though, comrades, I have no wish to form a coalition with you. We should both want to trample the Tories in to the dirt and ensure a permanent democratic socialist/social democrat political future for Britain. A strong Liberal Democrat opposition to what you perceive as the excesses of a Labour Government should be the short term aim, not the shabby little compromise you now find yourselves locked in to.

Of course, for those who really don’t have the stomach to endure five years of the current horror show… I’m told our membership is still open to applications.

*This article was originally posted at Councillor Bob Piper.

Why party politics is a pathetic joke

The three main parties have switched policy on tuition fees more often than tennis players swapping ends at the end of every game.

Wherever you stand on tuition fees, the recent debate said an awful lot about the world of party politics. And if you think this sounds like a bit of a swiping statement, just take a look at a few simple facts.

No matter which major party you look at, what you have staring at you in the face is politicking and opportunism of the worst kind.

It's a joy to behold when LibDem MPs and activists alike turn overnight into staunch defenders of the brand new Super-Expensive Higher Education system. The very same people who for years (and until the other day) were ranting against fee-paying universities as if it would mean the Apocalypse.

Read this BBC report from 2003. Look at the bit where the LibDems education spokesman slams the Labour government for the "nonsensical notion that all graduates suddenly become high earners". And then this: "Saddling students with a mortgage-style 20-year debt creates a huge disincentive for higher education". It's going to be "mortgage-style debts", is what the Lib-Dems shouted til the other day.

Not only that. The LibDems were also warning of the dangers of "[the] market [being] introduced into higher education". "Top-ups wil deter students", they protested.

Today Clegg & co would tell you it's not ideal, but it's ok. "You don't have to pay up front" must be one of their most quoted statements in defense of the new system.

Except that's exactly how the Labour government sold a very similar policy to parliament a few years back.

"[The students] will make a fair contribution to the cost but only after graduation, through the tax system, on the basis of ability to pay", said Tony Blair in a speech in January 2004, adding that "[tuition fees] do not penalise the ordinary taxpayer".

Now you hear Harriet Harman attacking Coalition plans to "dump the cost on to students". Which is amazing, because while she was in government and Labour was doing exactly the same, her colleague and then-Higher Education Minister Alan Johnson defended trebling tuition fees. "I just reject the notion that working-class kids are more debt averse than youngsters from other backgrounds", he told the Independent.

And when you read what Charles Clarke mumbled about "growing pressure on public budgets", you could be excused for thinking it was one of the current ConDem ministers talking. "There is no alternative", sentenced Charles Clarke. Just like what David Cameron said the other day.

Which leads us to the Tories. Back when Labour trebled tuition fees, they were frothing at the mouth. "Have the Tories become Old Labour?" wondered a BBC report in 2004, with reference to the Conservatives' proposal "to abolish tuition fees"!

Back in 2003, then-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith pledged that all university tuition fees would be abolished under a future Conservative government, condemning them as "a tax on learning". Seriously.

A year later, then-Shadow Education Secretary Damian Green called for tuition fees to be scrapped altogether. "This would help students avoid the burden of long-term debt which deters increasing numbers of poorer students from applying to university", he said.

In opposition, current Coalition Minister Kenneth Clarke said "It is the ordinary student from the ordinary family [...]who will carry the burden of tens of thousands of pounds-worth of debt [...] Does [the Labour government] seriously expect that that will have no effect at all on the willingness of such people to go in for the more expensive courses in higher education?".

Well, apparently not. According to his current government colleague and fellow Tory Michael Gove, "[higher fees] won't put off students". Fancy that.

It really must take some stomach to still put up with it. How do you do tribalism? How can anyone keep up with all the somersaulting without getting a headache or feeling at least an inkling of nausea?

How can anyone still happily believe and justify either of the three parties while they engage in their pathetic exercise of swapping ends in the style of tennis players at the end of every game?

Because the truth is theirs is a world were both principles and respect for voters mean absolutely nothing. And tuition fees are just an example. The hopes of ordinary people can be trampled over and their good faith abused whenever and wherever convenient.

Which is why the non-voting contingent has just recruited a new follower.

When pictures speak louder than words

Click here and here to read Nick Clegg's December 2009 "pledges" to phase out and then scrap tuition fees.

Click here to read Vince Cable yesterday proposing tuition fees to go up to £7000 a year.

Steve Richards: "A U-turn that will wreck public trust".

Two months after the vote: The Lib Dems' side of the argument

Part seven of our series. The LibDems have been taking some serious stick over the Coalition deal. Today, Mark Thompson sets the record straight and explains the LibDems' side of the argument.

In the immediate aftermath of May 6, I was expecting the Lib Dems to have performed better. When the exit polls came out I was sure that they would be proved wrong, but in the end they were almost spot on. In fact they had been a bit generous to us.

I spent most of the night in the National Liberal Club amongst other Lib Dems. Generally the feeling seemed fairly flat as the bad results came in. However, as the night wore on and it started to become clear that the Lib Dems would hold the balance of power, I got more excited. I was hoping for it to end up a doubly hung parliament (where the Lib Dems could have formed a majority with either of the other two parties) which would have given us maximum bargaining power however it was not to be.

I knew though as I walked out into the street at around 7:30am with fellow party members that politics was about to change quite fundamentally and I was very excited.

Later on, the news that a deal was being struck between David Cameron and Nick Clegg took a bit of getting used to, but it was the only game in town in the end. I blogged on the Tuesday morning when it was still looking possible that the party could try to strike a deal with Labour that we should take the Tory deal.

I am certain that a wobbly rainbow alliance built on the foundations of a minority Labour/Lib Dem coalition would have been disatrous. In the end I am a political realist. The deal we struck was the only politically viable one and I think we actually got a good deal all things considered.

And here is why. The country and its finances were (and are) in a mess. We have to get them sorted. The way that the public voted has ensured that no single party can command a majority. So the Lib Dems went into coalition with the Conservatives I think primarily to ensure that there was stable government for the country.

However we have got more than that. We have been able to get a significant chunk of our programme into government. We have already seen in the budget an increase in the tax threshold for the lowest paid by £1,000 and I fully expect that to rise further in later budgets helping the lowest earners and increasing incentives for people to work too. We have seen capital gains tax increased from 18% to 28%. Neither of these things would have happened if the Tories were in power on their own.

There are lots more policies as well as these headlines when you drill down and this will continue to be the case for the lifetime of the government.

In addition to this, we have 5 cabinet ministers including the universally respected Vince Cable in charge at Business and Chris Huhne who has impeccably progressive green credentials as Environment Secretary. Huhne has already assured our party at conference that there will be no public subsidy for nuclear, for example. I am far from sure that would have been the case under a government with a solely blue hue.

To those that keep crying "betrayal!" at the LibDems, this is what I have to say.

Firstly, I am not really clear what my party is supposed to be betraying. We are not some adjunct of the Labour Party. We are our own political movement with our own traditions and political identity. We are fighting in government for as many of those to be put into practice as possible.

The other thing I would say is that, if you are in favour of electoral reform, then accusations of this sort are rather baffling. A more proportional system would inevitably lead to coalitions where parties from different traditions have to come together and compromise.

Of course the Lib Dems have to defend what the party is doing in government (and I do not agree personally with the whole programme by the way) and fully expect the opposition to hold us to account. But I think it should be on the policies themselves, not some notion that we have betrayed something or someone. That is singularly unhelpful and I think will eventually backfire on Labour.

As for the leadership race within the Labour Party, I think the major problem that Labour have is similar to that of the Conservatives in 1997. All the main contenders are very closely associated with the previous discredited government. There needs to be some fresh thinking.

One of the reasons I could never have considered joining Labour is their woeful record on civil liberties. It was visible again the other day when Ken Clarke made his comments about prisons questioning whether banging up more and more people was the right approach. Straight away Jack Straw wrote a piece for the Daily Mail painting the government as "soft on crime".

This is the sort of approach that people are sick of and the new leader whoever they are needs to get a grip of. Otherwise Labour are risking spending another decade or more in the political wilderness as the world moves on without them and they are still fighting the political battles of the Blair/Brown era.

Mark Thompson is a Lib-Dem member and activist. He blogs at "Mark Reckons".

Two months after the vote: the next five years

Part five of our post-election series. Today, Left Outside analyses the Left's future prospects.

[This is a guest post]

Throughout the election I did my (small) bit for democracy by delivering leaflets for my local Lib Dems. I've always found leaflets a little annoying, but then, as I'm not a Lib Dem I didn't feel comfortable canvassing for them yet I wanted to help defeat the incumbent Tory.

I cast my ballot for David Rendel and waited up until 4 in the morning to hear that he'd been defeated. Here I suppose I could rant that a Tory was always going to win in the end anyway, but I don't want to.

I would still vote the same way as before and I would still get out there and try to support the Lib Dems. I'm under no illusions, they are not a party of the left, but I am as much a Liberal as I am a Socialist and even if the Liberals sacrifice their pretensions of leftism at least we can hope they will somewhat neuter the social reactionaries in the Tories.

Although this position puts me in the mind of this Beau Bo D'Or picture, with hindsight it seems the best I could hope to achieve on May 6th, and grim pragmatism has always been the way I have approached elections.

To begin however there is still a lot with which to be disappointed. The Tories are going to reduce the deficit too quickly and this is going to damage the economy; the Lib Dems are sadly acquiescing in this. The anti-deficit vanguard have taken control, despite the deficit of evidence to support their position.

Of course, this being the Tories there is also some hypocrisy to worry about. The Tories claim to be worried about debt, yet they have pledged to reduce immigration, something which will make the debt burden worse and trend GDP growth lower. Two of my main concerns, a chance for a decent living for me, and a chance to give a leg up to those unlucky enough to be born within different borders have been dealt a severe blow.

The positive side of this election is less clear. But I do think it offers a chance to regroup, although I appreciate this may be me taking refuge in a cliché.

There will likely be 5 years to get the left's electoral platform in order, and that means the Labour electoral position. The Labour Leadership contest is leaving me somewhat nonplussed - especially since the exit of John McDonnell, but it is not the distance of the election that leaves me uninterested. For me the next 5 years are not about getting elected, they're about fighting for services.This is for pragmatic and strategic reasons.

We will enter the next election in an odd position; normally a government has to lose an election, an opposition rarely "wins" it. Nobody won the last election and this puts the left in a strong position. Rather than wait for the Government to fail the left can spend 5 years presenting an alternative.

This is how I want to see the next 5 years spent; the Labour party spending some time becoming a party of the people rather than one claiming to be for the people despite evidence to the contrary; bloggers fact checking the government; unions defending their members; the public protesting for their services and the Tory's cuts delayed.

Click here to visit Left Outside's blog.

Thank you, Charles Kennedy

Support for the coalition wasn't "unanimous", like Clegg said.

The former Lib Dem leader and current MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber explained in today's Observer ("Why I couldn't support Clegg's deal with the Tories") why he "felt personally unable to vote for [a coalition with the Conservatives] when it was presented to Liberal Democrat parliamentarians", describing the alliance as a blow to "the long-nurtured 'realignment of the centre-left'".

Kennedy's remarks are the most high profile display of dissent within the Lib Dems since the coalition took shape five days ago. It adds to criticism received from Southport MP John Pugh and disquiet amongst grassroots activists, all of which is at odds with Nick Clegg's remarks that his party's backing of the coalition is "unanimous".

Kennedy also remarked how the option of letting the Tories form a minority government on a "confidence and supply" basis was dismissed too quickly and warned of the risks of "assimilation within the Conservative fold" as history may repeat itself. Cameron, wrote Kennedy, is "happy to describe himself as a 'liberal Conservative'. And we know he dislikes the term Tory. These ongoing efforts at appropriation are going to have to be watched".

Good to know not everybody has been lobotomised just yet.

The Lib Dems' campaign: misleading advertising?

Nick Clegg, 30 April 2010: "I don't think the choice is between Conservative and Labour – the choice is now between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats".

Some of the people defending the so-called Lib/Con coalition point at similar scenarios in countries with more proportional voting systems.

If you want to avoid distorted landslide majorities, their argument runs, coalition governments are the price to pay for electoral fairness.

This view, however, is flawed on several levels.

1) Most parties joining coalition governments in Western Europe (i.e. France, Germany, Italy) run their election campaign openly declaring where their allegiance is. The process is not as murky as what we saw in the wake of May 6 in the UK. Someone voting for the Green Party in Germany knows that their party will either remain independent, or form (like they did from 1998 to 2005) a coalition with the SPD.

Similarly, someone casting a vote for the Northern League in Italy will know already that their party will be a firm ally of Silvio Berlusconi's party.

Of course there are exceptions (like when the Catalan nationalists CiU backed Aznar's right-wing government in Spain in 1996) but, understandably, they don't tend to go down too well with the electorate.

2) The Liberal Democrats campaigned consistently as an "alternative" party. The reason why so many Lib Dem voters are up in arms at the sight of Nick Clegg jumping in bed with David Cameron is that, for many years, the Lib Dems portrayed themselves as "the real alternative" to both the old parties. "The party that is different", in fact.

Their recent "Labservative" campaign was launched as the party preened themselves as "the only real alternative" to the other two.

But the most atrocious piece of politicking can be found in an interview Nick Clegg gave to a national newspaper six days before the election. Two weeks ago, the Lib Dem leader remarked: "We have taken Labour's place in UK politics".

Most importantly, he added: "I don't think the choice is between Conservative and Labour – the choice is now between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats". Clegg couldn't have been any clearer: a vote for the LibDems would be alternative to the Tories- and that was said on April 30.

More, he also said: "I think if you look at the debate last night, there is just a gulf between what David Cameron stands for and what I stand for – in terms of values, in terms of internationalism, in terms of fairness, in terms of progressive tax reform, in terms of political reform, in terms of simply living in denial, as does Labour, about a major problem of their creation in the immigration system."

I guess even a five-year-old could see why millions of voters and activists now feel shafted.

Particularly, there are entire areas in England (particularly the south-west) where, traditionally, Labour have been a non-entity and the only alternative to the Conservatives have been the Liberal Democrats.

Just imagine thousands of activists working their arse off to fight off the Tories in several constituencies only to find out that a week or two later all that had been an exercise in futility.

The end of the LibDems?

As they sign up to an agreement with the Tories, the Liberal Democrats may have just signed their own suicide note.

The temptation is to just go back doing music and TV reviews, like when this blog first started. It's a sad day for British politics and many people are feeling significantly let down. This is why:

1. Let's begin by saying that I'm fully aware Labour is to blame for the collapse of coalition talks with the LibDems (and the SNP as well). Too many party dinosaurs rubbished the idea in public and poured scorn over a range of policies, not least electoral reform.

2. I'm also aware it was never going to be easy for the LibDems. "Poor Clegg, damned if he did...", like someone remarked this morning in the Independent. The root of all crap began on May 6, when, quite simply, the LibDems failed to muster enough support.

3. The honourable (and legitimate) thing to do was to let the Tories form a minority government. The LibDems could have shown "responsibility" by not voting it down initially. This would have also been in the party's medium and long-term interests. Supporters of last night's agreement fool themselves that this way the LDs can keep the Tories' nasty side at bay. But they fail to register that a Tory minority government, quite simply, would not have the numbers to implement its nastier bits anyway.

4. Some people say that Nick Clegg was left with no other choice because they would have been slain by the press as "irresponsible", especially in the midst of a downturn and need for "strong government". But since when have we cared about what the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph think? They would tear to pieces anything left of Thatcher anyway. Also, imagine if the same yardstick had been applied when the LDs voted against the Iraq war. I don't recall any LibDem fretting anxiously that "now we’re going to be called wet and irresponsible at a crucial time for our nation".

5. The Lib Dems have been selling the deal on the basis that they manage to secure a number of important concessions from the Conservatives. This is, however, a mixed bag, and less of a victory that it would appear at first.

6. Yes, one of New Labour's worst ideas, ID cards, will be dropped. The LibDems also managed to grab a commitment to raise the tax threshold towards (but not at) £10,000 of income. The Tories dropped their appalling plan to cut inheritance tax for millionaires and made concessions on education and a mostly elected House of Lords too. Finally, the Tories agreed to a referendum on Alternative Vote (AV), a moderate type of electoral reform (nevertheless an improvement on the current system).

7. It is understood, however, that the Tory high-cadres are confident they can win the referendum. They have the financial backing, the media and the momentum behind them. If referendum on electoral reform is lost, the blow for the Liberals will be unprecedented.

8. Supporters of the agreement amongst the Lib Dems are being exceptionally naive in forgetting that, concessions aside, the government will remain a Conservative one. The Tories will get (and rightly so, they're by far the bigger partner) the lion's share of goverment posts and will set most of the agenda. Tory MPs, activists and supporters did not wait 13 years and a 97-seat gain to sit back and let another party -least of all the Liberals- call the shots. Not on your nelly.

9. When the coalition collapses (which could happen anytime over at least 145 factors including Europe, immigration, surveillance, Lords reform, cuts, etc) and new elections are called, the Tories will have little to lose. They're unlikely to perform much worse than they did on May 6. They have a massive power base and enviable media support. Even at their rock bottom (1997) they still managed to get together 30 per cent of the popular vote. The same cannot be said of the Lib Dems, whose recent good luck was primarily due to disgruntled "progressive" voters. Needless to say, after seeing their party actively propping up people like George Osborne, William Hague and Liam Fox, they can kiss most of them goodbye now.

10. I'm amazed at how the LibDem high ranks are failing to take the pulse of their grass-roots voters. Lib Dem MPs may have "overwhelmingly" given the Cameron/Clegg partnership the nod, but the disquiet amongst voters is massive. Of course, this is hardly statistical evidence, but 9 out of 10 LD voters I personally know are feeling immensely let down. And that's to put it mildly.

11. The most tragic thing is that more and more people, politically, now have nowhere to go. I hear genuine Labour supporters saying "come with us now", but the expression "goldfish memory" springs to mind. Were they hiding under a rock for the past 13 years? And anyway, even if that was a viable option...would that be to support non-entities like David Miliband and Tony Blair's other grandchildren?

Lib-Lab pact- the rational choice?

"The Liberal Democrats should join a coalition with Labour even though this may seem both unlikely and ill advised at the moment". Ceri Ames explains why.

Firstly, the priority of the LibDems has to be electoral reform, and this is pretty much what Clegg has been saying so far. If the LibDems deal with the Tories, they will have to fight to get any agreement on electoral reform, and have so far only talked about setting up a committee to look at the issue.

Traditionally in British politics, this means kicking the topic into the long grass until the urgency and public interest has died down, and then making the most minimal, least status quo altering, changes possible. Even if they did get some sort of promise, it is again likely to be the option that least adversely affects their prospects.

Furthermore, any deal is likely to be opposed by large numbers of Tory MPs. So Cameron will have to balance his need for LibDem backing against the discontents in his own party, and having failed to win a majority against a hugely unpopular government, will hardly be doing so from a position of strength.

All of which implies that the LibDems are not going to get the proportional voting system they must see as essential to any deal. Moreover, their own bargaining position is not as strong as it may appear. Whilst Cameron may desperately want to form a government, and the Lib Dems offer him his best chance of doing that, the rest of the Tory party may not be quite as desperate.

If the price the LibDems ask is too high, the Tories can always try to go it alone- they would only be just short of a majority with the unionists. And if no one can forms government, or if a coalition falls apart within a few months, a new general election would probably increase the Tories' seats; it would almost certainly do the LibDems no favours, and their best chance for reform would be missed.

However, their bargaining position with Labour is much stronger; Labour have no option but a coalition if they have any chance of staying in power; there is opposition to PR within Labour, but less than within the Tories, and Labour's short term interest lie in supporting PR, unlike the Tories'. And despite the LibDems move to the right over the last few years, a coalition with Labour is likely to be easier to accept for LibDems members grown used to being a centre-left party.

I'm not suggesting that a Lib-Lab pact would be easy. Brown's leadership could be a huge problem, and the media, led as usual by the outrage of the right-wing papers, would question its legitimacy. Certainly Clegg would need to have exhausted (or be seen to have) negotiations with the Tories. But if presented as the best option for national stability or some such, and perhaps emphasising that this would only be a short term arrangement, these problems could be overcome.

The Lib-Lab coalition could then implement such policies as they agree on, negotiate the terms of a referendum on PR, and call a new election in 18 months to 2 years. An election after which, assuming some form of PR is introduced, the LibDems would hold the balance of power again, and could look to a deal with the Tories without the issue of electoral reform blocking the deal.

In other words, this would be in both the LibDems and the Tories (if not their current leadership's) interests. The question that's most difficult to answer is whether it would be in Labour's.

[Contribution by Ceri Ames]

The Lib Dem flash mob

Trafalgar Square, London, 3 May 2010
(Photo by Mark Breugelmans, courtesy of Rachel Coleshill)

Letter to Nick Clegg

Hours away from the final Leaders' Debate, here's a plea to the Lib Dem leader. Your plan to scrap tax on the low paid is your winning card. Use it.

Dear Mr Clegg,

I know you're never going to read this letter but, as the clock is ticking towards the third and final Leaders' Debate, there is one thing in particular I'd like to ask you.

You're probably aware of this already, but did you know you have a real trick up your sleeve that you didn't quite use up in the previous debates?

There is in fact one of the Lib Dems' manifesto policies that chimes with voters more than any other. I read last week that over 80 per cent of the electorate agree with it.

I'm talking about your excellent plan to lift the low-paid out of taxation altogether. Around 4m workers in Britain earn under £10,000 a year and pay a precious 20% of that sum to Inland Revenue.

Your proposal will mean £700 in extra cash available to all of them. This is a true vote-winner and you need to spell it out loud and clear tonight on the BBC and maybe even repeat it a couple of times.

While the other two can waffle about with words like "challenge", "big society" and "tough times ahead", the Lib Dems' tax plan would definitely stand out.

And that's because it is factual, fair and progressive. It would have the same impact the minimum wage had. It would show whose side you and your party are on. It would strike a chord with people - the millions of voters who know far too well what it feels like to struggle with bills and trips to Poundland in a quest to make ends meet.

£700 a year may be spare change to a City gambler, a Tory donor, or a Premier League football player, but to most ordinary people it can really make a difference.

It could mean less chances of slipping down the circle of depression. It could help most families torn apart by poverty-related rows and assorted dramas. It could mean an end to red letters, final demands and defaulting on repayments. It could mean treating kids to better clothes or a small holiday. It would allow a lot of people to afford better and healthier food or, who knows, it could even be put aside for savings, the kids' future education or whatever.

Not only that. The Lib Dems' tax plan would ruthlessly expose Labour's ineptitude (they had the time and the numbers to come up with something similar in the last 13 years but never did).

It would also humiliate David Cameron. What better chance for the viewers to compare the Tories' inheritance tax cuts in favour of millionaire's kids with your proposal in favour of millions of ordinary workers and pensioners? Have you noticed how embarrassed Cameron looks each time their inheritance tax plan is mentioned on TV? The guy knows this is deeply unpopular, especially in the middle of a massive downturn.

In short, your plan to scrap tax under £10,000 is a serious vote winner. Please Mr Clegg, use it.

Wishing you all the best for tonight,

A potential Lib Dem voter.

Why the right-wing smear machine will backfire

The British people are more intelligent and independent than the country's press barons and their spoilt kids seem to think.

"Nick Clegg's loony plan". "Nick Clegg hasn't a clue". "[H]is policy as pure folly". "[Clegg is] faltering". And this is just a single rickety piece in today's Sun.

We already saw what the Daily Mail are capable of. The last 48 hours have seen a parody-like, unprecedented number of outright lies, smears and hatchet jobs aiming at nothing but the pure destruction of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats (click here and here for a light-hearted idea).

Clegg has been accused of everything under the sun: he stole public money and he's pro-Nazi Germany; he's a Brussels stooge and he flies business class; he's a liar and a cheat; he's not truly British and he's pro-paedophiles; he wants all prisoners to roam free and he's anti-God; he's elitist and a snob and, in case you didn't know, he also has a foreign wife, which is very very bad.

Another couple of days and the right-wing press will make him look like Fred West if he'd embraced satanism.

Remember that, in Britain, the right-wing press have the lion's share of daily publications. Together, the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Daily Star (aka Hairy Palm) and the Telegraph constitute a staggering grandtotal of over 7 million copies circulating every day. Add the Murdoch-owned (but at least slightly more balanced) Times, and that's another half a million copies with their weight firmly behind the Tories.

The remaining bit consists of the pro-Labour Mirror (1.2m copies- but it hasn't been nice to Nick Clegg either) and, finally, the Guardian and the Independent (both fairly neutral towards the Lib Dems), whose combined circulation is 1/6 (one sixth) of the Sun alone.

Anyone with half a brain would see that the anti-Nick Clegg hysteria is a brutal, massive-scale operation to stunt the development of a level playing field campaign.

Here is a party tallying anything between 25% and 30% of the popular vote which is fighting an election without a single friendly newspaper on their side and with most of the others out in force to literally destroy them and bully them out of a positive electoral outcome.

It emerged this morning that the Sun censored an opinion poll showing that "if people thought Mr Clegg's party had a significant chance of winning the election, it would win 49 per cent of the votes", way ahead of the other two.

That's what people think. But the Sun doesn't want you to read about it. The Sun wants to ram down your throat the notion that Nick Clegg is a conniving/evil/loony piece of shit. Anything that threatens the status quo must be torn to pieces.

However, the good news is that the British people are more intelligent than the country's multi-millionaire press barons and their spoilt kids seem to think.

People are clearly fed-up with the rotting two-party straighjacket.

Not only that. The British love an underdog and chances are this industrial-scale assault against the newest party will backfire tremendously. And it will be a fine day when we see the Sun and Rupert Murdoch's spoilt little rich kid licking the unexpected winner's arse.

It won't cost them much: they lost their dignity a long time ago.

Pathetic Sun on Nick Clegg

The manic swiping at the Lib Dems is direct indication that Britain's own bible belters are taking the prospect of a Tory defeat very very seriously.

The right-wing press are up in arms over the prospect of the Conservatives squandering what, until recently, looked like sure victory.

The Sun is a case in point. While no less right-wing and populistic than the Mail, the tycoon-owned red top is instinctively more shallow and tends to appeal to attention spans the length of a fart.

If one is the rambling, frothing sermoniser, the other is the pitchfork-waiving lynchmob.

And so today's Sun attempt to smear Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is possibly one of the most pathetic pieces of churnalism of 2010. The front page screams LIBDUMB EXCLUSIVE: Clegg's secret election dossier found in a cab but, as you go through the article, the way the paper is trying to make a story out of nothing is actually touching.

The EXCLUSIVE "secret election dossier" simply contains a number of tips regarding Nick Clegg's forthcoming television debates. Big deal.

Look how ridiculous this sentence is: "the Lib Dem leader was painstakingly coached", meaning that the Sun have just learnt that politicians are coached before TV debates. Wow. Keep goin' lads, don't let that pair of tits take your eyes off your daytime job!

I mean, use your brain. Think before you put that crap to print.

Because David Cameron isn't "painstakingly coached", is he? He doesn't get all spruced up and poked about before the cameras are switched on. He doesn't hire the most expensive PR teams available. He doesn't go on telly wearing more make up than The Cure's Robert Smith circa-1989, does he?

Then, ever more desperate, the article tries to make a big deal out of one of the Lib Dem's bravest and more popular policies, scrapping the £100bn cold-war style nuclear deterrent system called "Trident". Clegg's notes simply say "Avoid unilateral disarmament implication", meaning make sure it doesn't sound like we're giving up unilaterally on defense.

The pervy rag reads it as "leaving us at the mercy of nuke-armed rogue states".

And then there's more hollow fuss made about Clegg's advisers' notes on the other two leaders, the tricky bits to avoid and how to best exploit their weaknesses.

Amazing EXCLUSIVE, Sun. If that's the best you can do then just keep'em coming.

The Nick Clegg Effect explained

The Lib Dems' amazing surge in the post-TV debate opinion polls proves how hungry the British public is for progressive policies.

Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron must be pulling their hair out in frustration for agreeing to a Leaders' debate with the Liberal Democrats.

They obviously underestimated the risks, because the moment they accepted a debate with someone largely unknown to the public and alternative to the tired old Tory/Labour choice, Brown and Cameron gave up their exclusive right to a duopoly - a privilege resulting from a rusty, old-fashioned, bicephalus voting system.

The moment a third party was allowed the same air-time and the same chances as the other two, the public were handed a preview of what a fairer political system would look like.

The last ten years in British politics resulted in a succession of political raspberries blown at the public. In spite of overwhelming public opposition or scepticism, Labour and the Tories fundamentally agreed on most things that matter: foundation hospitals, the Iraq War, tuition fees, the banking system as well as the £100bn nuclear deterrent called "Trident".

Time and again, even when two thirds or more of the electorate disagreed, the public had policies rammed down their throats and not a chance in hell of finding their voice represented fairly in Westminster.

The press robotically go on about the BNP benefitting from Labour's crisis but, if anything, the recent surge of sympathy for the Lib Dems (and the Green Party as well) suggests that the majority of disillusioned former Labour voters are looking to the Left and not at Nick Griffin's knuckle draggers instead.

The Leaders' debate proved that the British public are not as right-wing and conservative (with a small 'c') as the dynamics in Westminster would indicate.

Of course, it helps that Nick Clegg is a slick communicator and a fantastic debater. He looks new, young and on the ball. But what lies behind his rising star is the fact that the British public are tired of hollow formulas like "tough-times-ahead" and "we're-all-in-this-together". They're hungry for clear, factual and -why not- often progressive policies.

And in fact, with the possible exception of immigration, the Lib Dems are at their most popular when they spell out policies that sit to the left of both the Conservatives and Labour. Take a look at three examples.

Opinion polls confirm that Nick Clegg's fierce opposition to Trident is backed by an overwhelming majority of the electorate. Most British people don't think that £100bn should be spent on a nuclear defense system that was designed for the Cold War, the USSR and Frankie Goes to Hollywood singing "Two Tribes".

Similarly (and this is a point Nick Clegg will have to insist on at the next debate), 84 per cent of the public agree with the Lib Dems that people earning less than £10,000 should not pay a penny in tax. Rather than an arcane system of wage top-ups and other benefits, it would be a lot fairer if low earners and pensioners were lifted out of taxation altogether.

This would give most workers an extra £700 each year. Those on the breadline would certainly notice the difference: 4m people in the UK earn less than £10,000. The public would much rather money was spent on this than the Tories' manky tax break for the married or Labour's expensive weapons of mass destruction.

The same again with the so-called "Mansion Tax". The Lib Dems propose that, in times of crisis, people owning mega houses worth over £2m should pay a little more on their properties. Over three quarters of the electorate agree. Compare it with the Tories' proposal to cut inheritance tax for the super rich. It is so unpopular that David Cameron doesn't even have the guts to mention it while he's on telly.

Leaders debate across the papers

The verdict is unanimous: clear victory for Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.

"The Liberal Democrat leader was given a great opportunity to introduce himself to the millions of voters who scarcely knew him and he took it with gusto".
Nick Robinson, BBC News

"Nick Clegg seizes his moment in historic TV debate"- "A Populus poll for The Times gave a stunning victory to the Liberal Democrat leader as he used the limelight of the historic ITV broadcast to devastating effect".
Roland Watson, The Times

"Clegg smashes through two-party system".
Andrew Grice and Nigel Morris, The Independent

"Nick Clegg's star rises in great showdown"- "Nick Clegg emerged as the early winner of the first televised leaders' debate last night by successfully positioning himself as the Westminster outsider".
Robert Winnett and Andrew Porter, The Telegraph

"Clegg seizes moment in TV spotlight" - "Lib Dem leader makes powerful pitch as he depicts his party as a significant change from Labour and the Conservatives".
Patrick Wintour and Polly Curtis, The Guardian

"Brown beaten into third in debate"- "A YouGov snap poll for The Sun put the Lib Dem leader clearly ahead of his rivals, winning just over HALF the full vote".
Tom Newton Dunn, The Sun

"Clegg wins the TV war of words: Viewers are turned off by Brown's aggression but leaders fail to land knock-out blow"- "While the two main leaders clashed repeatedly, it was [...] Mr Clegg who seemed to have the advantage".
James Chapman, Daily Mail

Clegg and the battle of the "two-bit" parties

The Lib-Dems don't like it when a vote for them is dubbed as "wasted", so why is Nick Clegg demeaning Plaid Cymru and SNP voters?

Right when I was warming up again to the Lib-Dems in the run-up to the general election, here comes Nick Clegg's useless, gratuitous and arrogant swipe at both Plaid Cymru and the SNP.

Similarly to what he said last week about the Scottish Nationalists, on a visit to Cardiff the LibDem leader described Plaid Cymru as an "irrelevant, two-bit" party.

Yet, confirming that politicians are incapable of grasping irony, two seconds later Clegg slated those who routinely say the same about the Lib Dems.

For instance Lord Adonis, the Labour peer who yesterday urged LibDem voters to support Labour if they want a realistic chance of stopping the Conservatives -in line with twenty years of Labour or Tory politicians repeating that a vote to the LibDems is a "wasted" one and that "nobody cares about the Liberals".

What's that saying...treat others the same way you want them to treat you?

Click here to access our 2010 Election Guide.

2010 Election special: Liberal Democrats

In part 8 of our Pre-Election guide, Andrew Hickey explains the philosophy behind Britain's third largest party: the Lib Dems.

A lot of people don't get the Liberal Democrats.

I think this is to do with the fact that we're portrayed in the media (and, indeed, used to portray ourselves) as centrists, which given that the parties of the 'left' and 'right' in the UK are both right-wing authoritarian corporatist parties with little but brand names to distinguish them, leads people to dismiss us without really bothering to investigate what we stand for.

The fact is, the Liberal Democrats are a fundamentally different kind of party to Labour and the Conservatives. Not because of our policies - though these do differ substantially from those parties - but because of our philosophy. I don't have much space, so I'll give two examples.

The first is this, from our constitution, printed on the membership card of every member:

"the Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity".

Is this something you can really imagine 'New' Labour or the Tories saying? In particular, note the bit about conformity. Other ideologies may well accept, say, bisexual or trans people, because they believe in fairness - and I do not want, at all, to slight the very real commitments to equality that have been made by member of other parties. But only liberalism as an ideology sees non-conformity as an actual good, as something to be celebrated (and not in a 'celebrating diversity' way, but as the core of our beliefs) rather than tolerated.

Alex Wilcock once spent some time coming up with alternative slogans for the Lib Dems. My favourite was "If you want to tell the Daily Mail to fuck off, vote Lib Dem".

We believe in freedom, not just the 'freedom of choice' the major parties talk about, but real freedom - including the freedom to do things we may personally find distasteful. We fought against the recent criminalisation of 'extreme pornography', for example, not because we as a party find that sort of thing of interest, but because finding something a bit icky is not actually a good reason to criminalise it.

Also, we're the only major party that doesn't want power.

That may sound like an odd claim, but it's literally true. The Liberal Democrats support a form of proportional representation called 'multi-member STV'. I don't have space for the details, but if it was brought in in Westminster it would lead to power being shared between a lot of smaller parties co-operating, rather than alternating between two big near-identical parties as today.

The Tories and Labour talk about change and reform, but will never reform the system that keeps them in power. Were the Lib Dems to get into power, we would make sure it never happens again. That's why you should vote for us.

Andrew Hickey is a member of the Liberal Democrats. He blogs here.

[Tomorrow: The Green Party, by Peter Tatchell]

20 years of...LibDem leaders

Who's been the best Lib Dem leader in your opinion?

Paddy Ashdown, 1988-1999

Charles Kennedy, 1999-2006

Ming Campbell, 2006-2007

Nick Clegg, 2007-

13 years too late

Yesterday's farce in the Commons highlighted one thing alone: electoral reform is one of Labour's biggest failures.

In theory, the news that Parliament finally agreed to back a referendum on changing the voting system is something to welcome with open arms.

In theory, again, voters will be asked whether they'd rather keep the current First Past the Post system, or the so-called AV (Alternative Vote).

The choice is expected to be between more of the current winner-takes-all (meaning Labour or Tory winning by a landslide for periods of ten to twenty years), or something a little (though only a touch) more reflective of the popular vote.

As it is, millions of voters are literally wasting their time. The last two general elections were textbook in the way they highlighted the enormous disproportion between popular vote and allocated seats. In 2005, Labour received only 35% of the popular vote but were handed 55% of the seats. 22% of the electorate cast a ballot for the LibDems but all they got in the Commons was 9.6% of the seats.

In practice, however, the debate may prove futile. As it comes in the dying stage of this Parliament, the whole motion was tabled way too late. Also, it's yet to go through the Lords. A referendum wouldn't be held before October 2011, and the Tories already said that, if they win in May, a popular vote on the subject will be given the elbow.

Yesterday's speech by Jack Straw in the Commons was actually infuriating. As he called the referendum "a fundamental plank of our democracy", he said that "the alternative vote takes on the considerable strengths of our system and I suggest, builds on it. We propose a referendum because we believe it is not for us to decide, but it is important the people should have that choice". What a cheek.

So much do Straw and his party believe in it that they waited thirteen years to propose a referendum on the subject. Thirteen years. Reneging on promises, playing dumb and procrastinating, saying no but and maybe, dragging their heels, kicking and screaming. Thirteen bloody years, squandering massive majorities, to stage this belated, half arsed attempt at wooing the LibDems before the curtains are drawn.

Yesterday a Tory MP was right when he said that Straw is the same person who "has so successfully and personally obstructed [electoral reform] for over a decade".

Electoral reform remains one of the biggest failures of Labour's time in office.

More on the subject on Make My Vote Count.

The tedious party conference season is back

Will it ever be possible to hear a political debate other than the one about "the immigrants" that isn't shrouded in hollow Westminster-jargon?

With the soporific party conference season under way, it is clearer than ever that Britain's mainstream political debate is moribund.

Aside from the tiny elite of MPs, think tank people, Nick Robinson and Polly Toynbee, most people are not going to be remotely interested in the hollow language of Labour, Conservatives and, I'm afraid, the Lib Dems too.

I've lost count of self-referential newspaper articles trying to dissect the subliminal significance of Nick Clegg not wearing a tie or speculating over whether David Cameron will use an autocue or not. People are not interested. Especially because, at the risk of sounding overly cynical, the three parties really are regurgitating the same things with the only difference consisting in touches and tones.

The litany of this season is the word "cuts".

Nick Clegg spelt it out at the beginning of his speech. "Oh my god. What will that imply?", gawped the newspapers. "That's what David Cameron did too! But he sounded more confident", argued others. "And will Gordon Brown cut a submarine only or two?", is the big concern.

This is why people are falling pray to the far-right. It's not because Labour doesn't ape disgraceful headlines like this one. It's because people can't even remember the last time they heard a mainstream politician discuss something relevant to their day-to-day problems.

And when proposals are made, they are literally drowned in that exasperatingly hollow Westminster-jargon of "tough messages", "difficult choices", and "progressive austerity".

No wonder that when some populistic peddlers appear and mouth off hysterical xenophobic slogans, they strike a chord with people. All they need to do is rant about the most tribal of issues and the easiest of punchbags and half the job's done- especially with the direct help of million-selling tabloids doing the groundwork.

What's most striking is that, on the left, there is the biggest gap in history awaiting to be filled. Forget the broken record about immigrants, for a second. There's a list of concerns that would strike a chord with ordinary people -and with good reason. Except that nobody's out there to articulate them. People need to hear tangible solutions to low salaries, wage differentials, repossessed homes (65,000 this year alone), the cost of living, the cost of transport, job insecurity or raging unemployment.

The Lib-Dems could cash in on it, but instead they're eager to join in with the decrepit tediumfeast of Labour and Tory.

Nick Clegg's been repeating that "the party must make though decisions to be taken seriously by the voters", yet it's unclear how aping the others at a time of unprecedented unpopularity for the political establishment would help him break through that stubborn 18 per cent barrier.

The only time the Lib Dems looked like they were going to overcome political wilderness was when they were stating loud and clear that they disagreed with the other two. Iraq and top-up fees were their best moments. On both, the majority of the country was deeply at odds with the parliamentary majority and the Lib Dems were the only alternative on offer.

However, that was five years ago. Until they decide to bite and show some jaffas, you'll have to put up with more Nick Robinson reporting about the underlying implications of open neck shirts and gurning jaws.