2020 Liberal Democrats Leadership Election

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Isn't there a fairly obvious skeletal closet situation with Moran?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Labour is going to be essentially a different party by the time of the next election, much as by the 2019 election it was essentially a different party to the one that contested the 2015 election. Basing an electoral strategy around an assumption to the contrary would be foolish.

My advice to the LibDems, which I give out here for free, is to make a serious effort to launch some sort of recovery in the countryside.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Prior to the 2015 wipeout, they were overwhelmingly dependent on Short Money.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hobhouse has dropped out and endorsed Moran...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I really don't think this kind of thing will resonate among old-timer members...

You ever met the old time members? This is the sort of crankish nonsense the beard-and-sandles brigade have always lapped up.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm reading the "Fall Out" book of the Brexit negotiations and the 2017 election and the author said that Farron's team in his London HQ was "half gay, half Christian" (leading to the difficult situation during gaygate)...how representative is that Christian wing of the Lib Dem party membership and activists? Is there still a quite prominent Christian wing, inspired a bit by Christian Democratic parties across the EU?

I always assumed that there was a strong link between Methodism in the South West & the Liberal Democrats; political staffers do tend to be dispropotionately LGBT for some reason in my experience (even more so among the Tories)

There was a link between West Country Methodism and Liberal (and then LibDem) voting, yes, but Farron is a Happy Clappy Evangelical Anglican.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Devon is not exactly Tennessee you know. The factors that led to the Liberals and then the LibDems being so competitive across large parts of the West Country have not gone away and will erupt again at some point in the future. If the LibDems don't capitalise, someone else will.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Turns out there is such a thing as 'too weird' even for LibDem members.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

When was the last time all three """major""" party leaders represented London constituencies? Has it ever happened before?

Never. Largely because though it has been common for the Tories and Labour to have leaders representing London constituencies, Cable was actually the first leader in the Liberal tradition to represent a London constituency since Gladstone's stint representing Greenwich back in the 1870s.