A policy paper which will be discussed at Liberal Democrat federal conference this autumn has been published. It will form the basis of the party's manifesto for the next general election, whenever the Conservatives feel they can safely call it. It is good combative stuff, in the mould of the party's campaigning material over the period of the parliament and through several mightily successful by-election campaigns. However, I feel that it misses an opportunity to address a failing which has been identified by the average person in the street, when interviewed by media reporters, that it is not clear what the party stands for.
The nearest approach to a statement of philosophy appears on the fourth page:
2.0.1 Over the centuries, Britain has taken enormous strides to becoming the fair, free and open society we all know it can be.
2.0.2 For more than 150 years, Liberals and Liberal Democrats have led that change: championing free trade, introducing the state pension and free school meals, laying the foundations of the welfare state and the National Health Service, legalising same-sex marriage, and taking urgent action to tackle the climate emergency.
It is a list of individual policies, and not a comprehensive one either. Where are fair votes, cooperation with continental Europe, co-ownership of commerce and industry, fair local taxation, devolution of government, the wages councils (the first effort to establish basic pay for the least well-off, which Thatcher systematically demolished), sick pay, restorative justice and several more initiatives? If there is to be a list, let it not be a partial one. Better still would be to restate the aims of the party, and its predecessor, as laid out in the preamble to the constitution. The introduction to the manifesto should set the background from which the individual policy positions detailed in the body of the document spring.
My other major gripe follows from the lack of a positive statement of a philosophy. The pre-manifesto is too reactive. It defines itself in relation to the Conservatives. In section after section, there is a reference to the evils of Conservative government. Fine for a campaign in an individual seat, especially at a by-election where the party is the main challenger in a Tory-held seat and one wishes to garner Labour-inclined voters, but for a national campaign open to the charge that it is too negative. Besides, in a situation where Labour is steadily abandoning traditional social policies* we need to make clear that we are different from both major parties. Merely replacing a Tory government with a Starmer-led Labour one will lead to no change across a significant area of government activity.
I am too old and cynical to believe that debate at Conference will lead to major changes to the manifesto as set out in the policy paper. However, I am confident that there will be unfettered debate where views such as mine as well as others' will be aired. That is another aspect of the Liberal Democrat party which makes it distinct from the other political gangs - sadly, increasingly so - and one of the reasons I continue to be a member.
* Only this weekend Labour has now set its face against redressing the gap between rich and poor which has steadily widened since Thatcher/Major.
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A slight correction, thanks to the Mainly Macro blog, about the income gap cited in my footnote:
Although inequality can be measured in many ways, here I want to focus on one particular measure: the share of income going to those at the top of the income distribution (1% or 0.1%). In the UK this started rising from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s, but it hasn’t risen significantly since then.
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