2020 Liberal Democrats Leadership Election

[Blair]

Why is Moran even a LibDem? She could easily sit with the hard left at labour.

There’s nothing really liberal about any of the candidates

Imagine if the Corbynite voters went to the LibDems, resulting in the LibDems being left of Labour.

The Lib Dems were arguably overall to the left of Labour during parts of the 2000s.
Labour isn't inherently the more left-wing party.

I know that it went left of Labour, because of Blair and Iraq

I think even during the height of Charles Kennedy & especially afterwards there was somethings that the Liberal Democrats were shockingly right wing on; a lot of the rubbish around localism (the party was historically infamous for opposing new developments) & around cutting 'red tape' 'wasteful spending'. I had a quick glance at the 2005 manifesto and saw boasts about 'cutting subsidies', 'cutting stamp duty' (the tax on house-buying) and complaining that benefits were means tested.

The Party in the 2000s was chasing every single popular cause & gap in the market it could find- this naturally lead it to occupy a space around Labours left yet is part of the reason why it ended up where it did in 2010.

[Kingpoleon]

Probably a bit off-topic, but on that note why did Blair support the Irak war? Throughout Europe the trend was generally opposed to the war, and Blair in particular seems like a bad fit for supporting it?

I would imagine most of Labour's base was oppsoed to the war, and in fact I would not be surprised if there were more supporters of the war among the Conservatives in 2002!

Why did Blair side with Bush over Chirac and Schröder? Especially when Blairism is not that far from what Schröder was doing in Germany

Britain, France, and Germany have jostled with each other for a while. They have two main goals in foreign policy traditionally: to assume leadership in Europe, and to become America’s closest friend. Blair believed that the latter could bring about the former and, as such, he regularly flirted with Clinton and Bush.

Chirac and Schröder were influenced by two different strands. In Gaullist France, France had had a nuanced special relationship with the Soviet Union, which was only reversed under Mitterand. Chirac sought to return to the days of French independence from American foreign policy. Similarly, Germany’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by Scheel and Genscher, especially the latter. Genscherism was the balancing act between East and West, which eventually led to Germany’s leadership in Europe. These two men, seeing that they could hardly tie themselves as close to America as Blair had, sought European leadership by refusing to join in with the war.

[EastAnglianLefty]

On the subject of the Wars impact on Labour I think it's biggest impact was on denting support in Muslim held seats & shaving off a lot of Labour Party Members. My view of Iraq electorally was that the mythical floating voter in Corby didn't care about it or was happy to ignore it as long as their tax credits went up, there kids had a new school & the town centre was kept clean.

Those were important impacts, but not the only ones.

If you look at local election results, it actually seems to have briefly won the support of a lot of basically centre-right voters, whilst losing as many votes amongst middle-class liberals. The former had gone back to the Tories by 2005, the latter stuck with the Lib Dems.

In addition, it helped to ensure that Labour fell to third place behind the Lib Dems in a lot of rural seats in 2005, which made the Lib Dems look like more of a national party than they were in reality and made Labour's vote more efficient.

[IceAgeComing]

Why is Moran even a LibDem? She could easily sit with the hard left at labour.

There’s nothing really liberal about any of the candidates

Imagine if the Corbynite voters went to the LibDems, resulting in the LibDems being left of Labour.

The Lib Dems were arguably overall to the left of Labour during parts of the 2000s.
Labour isn't inherently the more left-wing party.

I know that it went left of Labour, because of Blair and Iraq

I think even during the height of Charles Kennedy & especially afterwards there was somethings that the Liberal Democrats were shockingly right wing on; a lot of the rubbish around localism (the party was historically infamous for opposing new developments) & around cutting 'red tape' 'wasteful spending'. I had a quick glance at the 2005 manifesto and saw boasts about 'cutting subsidies', 'cutting stamp duty' (the tax on house-buying) and complaining that benefits were means tested.

The Party in the 2000s was chasing every single popular cause & gap in the market it could find- this naturally lead it to occupy a space around Labours left yet is part of the reason why it ended up where it did in 2010.

I mean the Lib Dems weren't inherently anything really: they were always primarily a party of protest in the eyes of the public.  They were the party that people would go to to send a message to governments but when they didn't want to vote for the other side; the party that people would tactically vote for to keep the other side out.  The evidence of 2015-19 (and if you go back a lot earlier you could include 1970 and 1951-59) is that the number of core Liberal Democrats is incredibly small: deposit losing in most of the country.

A lot of that was because they had to satisfy such a weird group of people: voters in inner-city London seats that had been safe as houses Labour for generations and also rural West Country seats where the Tories would dominate - and in both of those groups they had to attract both protest votes from the party they were running against and tactical votes from the other parties in that seat.  When they were in local government it was often in places where they were the only viable partisan opposition so they could govern very differently in different parts of the country - often they'd sell themselves as 'more competent' versions of the majority party beforehand with some slightly more radical flagship policies.  

This is why the coalition was so destructive: for the first time since, what, the 1920s they had to make meaningful national policy decisions that actually mattered and in doing that they alienated large portions of what had become their core support.  Add in the rise of UKIP (and Brexit Party in 2019 I guess) and the Greens acting as alternative form of protest vote for people and what they always did to get support doesn't really work anymore, especially with Brexit removed as a major issue.  Not looked at this in major depth but there are links between places that the Lib Dems did well in local elections in the past and places where UKIP did well afterwards: and a lot of that is the same thing - protest votes from conservatives who don't like the current path of the Tories.  I think that the recent increase of Independents and Residents Association councillors is the same thing: people that would have been Lib Dem in the past organise outside them now.

Ironic when you think about it: the Lib Dems as a party rail against populism when they were the populist party until recently.

[CumbrianLefty]

True up to a point, but political scientists detected a "core" constituency developing for the Liberals and their successors at least as far back as the 1980s. Part of that was swept away by the coalition and helps explain their electoral struggles since.

[Blair]

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/exc-lib-dem-leadership-contender-layla-moran-calls-for-treasury-to-be-replaced-with-department-for-sustainability

The problem Moran faces is that she clearly wants to be the 'ideas' candidate; but often these ideas are pointless & stupid.

Take the above; its political posturing which looks rather bold but actually is tepid and ill-thought out.

It takes a long running idea of splitting up the Treasury (something I'm lukewarm on) and creating a public finance department and a suistainbility department but wait it tries to greenwash it by claiming that this department includes BEIS (itself a super-department of limited use) and DEFRA (itself a weirdly merged department which now will spend 5 years stopping farmers from going bust) should be merged- absolute madness!

And all of this is to be done to create a new environemental department which can have the radical idea of cutting VAT on electric vehicles- and on top of that the holder of this office should be Deputy PM.

I know it doesn't matter & politicians have stupid ideas but it just shows a worrying lack of thought from people who should know better

[Blair]

TL;DR: The Lib Dems need to either become a serious party of coalition, with a tight set of achievable policies & a targeted list of seats they need, or they can became a glorified think-tank which chases stupid ideas like the above.

[DaWN]

I don't even know why Moran is doing this - I really don't think this kind of thing will resonate among old-timer members, and most newer members want to hear about how great Europe is and how awful Boris is, not bizarre policy changes that will never happen anyway.

Honestly, I'm going to throw out a #boldprediction that she comes third.

[Continential]

Moran wants to be the British Elizabeth Warren without being experienced in the topics, I guess?

[CumbrianLefty]

I've said it before, but it bears repeating - Moran's fan base is mostly Corbynistas browned off with how Labour has moved under Starmer. Not so many of them will have votes in this election, though.

[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.

[DaWN]

Well that bold prediction didn't last very long did it.

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.

Yes, I suppose there's an element of truth to that. Still, I think most old-timers will plump for Davey.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

Never really *that* numerous though?

[Blair]

Useless data alert: The Lib Dem obsessives and activists I know from uni are all backing Moran

[CumbrianLefty]

Useless data alert: The Lib Dem obsessives and activists I know from uni are all backing Moran

We really could do with YouGov commissioning another poll.

(especially since it seems certain there will only be two candidates now)

[Former President tack50]

Since the Corbynists seem to have become devoted Lib Dems now, hopefully after destroying the Lib Dems they will become Tories and destroy the Conservative Party some time in the mid 2020s

Unfortunately unlike Labour I don't think the Lib Dems can survive such a blow

[Hnv1]

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/exc-lib-dem-leadership-contender-layla-moran-calls-for-treasury-to-be-replaced-with-department-for-sustainability

The problem Moran faces is that she clearly wants to be the 'ideas' candidate; but often these ideas are pointless & stupid.

Take the above; its political posturing which looks rather bold but actually is tepid and ill-thought out.

It takes a long running idea of splitting up the Treasury (something I'm lukewarm on) and creating a public finance department and a suistainbility department but wait it tries to greenwash it by claiming that this department includes BEIS (itself a super-department of limited use) and DEFRA (itself a weirdly merged department which now will spend 5 years stopping farmers from going bust) should be merged- absolute madness!

And all of this is to be done to create a new environemental department which can have the radical idea of cutting VAT on electric vehicles- and on top of that the holder of this office should be Deputy PM.

I know it doesn't matter & politicians have stupid ideas but it just shows a worrying lack of thought from people who should know better

Wilson tried breaking up the treasury with those soviet economic planning department. I think it’s always a bad idea as it’s good that bottomline there’s only one set of hands on wallet. And this case it makes no sense as you can achieve the green goal without it. I could see the point of creating a strategic planning department within the treasury for all long term plannings

[Blair]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2020/06/next-liberal-democrat-leader-must-not-turn-left

A very sensible & not so coded attack on Moran by Tim Farron; who was social democratic choice in 2015.

[CumbrianLefty]

Davey today overtook Moran in endorsements, which may have come as a surprise to some.

[Continential]

I wonder what the party would be had Norman Lamb had won the 2015 leadership election?

[Blair]

I wonder what the party would be had Norman Lamb had won the 2015 leadership election?

There's an interesting mention in Farron article that the pro-remainia that took over the party under Farron actually saved the party; in the sense that it surged their membership & boosted their coffers. I think Lamb would have tried to take a more subtle stance; but in the lib Dems the leader really has very little power over this stuff.

It was baffling that his 2015 campaign waited until the last week to attack Farron over his views on LGBT rights & abortion; the race was Lambs to win.

[CumbrianLefty]

I wonder what the party would be had Norman Lamb had won the 2015 leadership election?

There's an interesting mention in Farron article that the pro-remainia that took over the party under Farron actually saved the party; in the sense that it surged their membership & boosted their coffers.

Also arguably stopped them dropping to a literal handful of MPs at the 2017 GE.

Part of the problem though is that the (limited and partial) success of that strategy then went to their collective heads, and helps explain the wild overreaching and hubris subsequently.

[Pericles]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2020/06/next-liberal-democrat-leader-must-not-turn-left

A very sensible & not so coded attack on Moran by Tim Farron; who was social democratic choice in 2015.

That's a good dose of reality from Farron. The vast majority of LibDdm targets are Tory seats so realistically they need to win over wavering Tory voters.

[brucejoel99]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2020/06/next-liberal-democrat-leader-must-not-turn-left

A very sensible & not so coded attack on Moran by Tim Farron; who was social democratic choice in 2015.

That's a good dose of reality from Farron. The vast majority of LibDdm targets are Tory seats so realistically they need to win over wavering Tory voters.

That isn't really the argument that Farron was making, & he didn't for a very good reason: winning those seats is (& always has been) about coalition-building: that is, your 'woke student activists' very quickly become 'graduates,' who are disproportionately already in the Lib Dems' held + target seats & disproportionately the groups that the Lib Dems already run the score up in.

They then build on that because (with few exceptions) that isn't enough to get over the line. Farron himself attributes his success to 'class-war in the countryside' & squeeze voters, the nature of which changes in every seat. Going on about a homogeneous group of voters who identify themselves as Tories or as being on the center-right just isn't how people think, isn't how people vote, & isn't how the Lib Dems have ever performed well.