2020 Liberal Democrats Leadership Election

[Blair]

FWIW I think Davey would face an extremely tough challenge from either Moran or Cooper; because of the simple argument that 'it's time for someone new'.

He also had the sense to make the Liberal Democrats as more than a one issue party- he was very big on climate change & was actually the MP who helped repeal section 28 (the most heinous anti-LGBT law on the books)

Davey is a very safe pair of hands & the logical argument is that he takes the reins for 2-3 years and lets one of the 2-3 women take over- but that was always the argument about Vince (who was awful) and Swinson (who had enough hubris already)

[Blair]

The reason is that MPs are extremely busy; one of the reasons why the last month of the Labour leadership was dead was because MPs are both having to do a lot more constituency work & deal with any relevant work in Parliament on topics that they cover.

There's absolutely no energy or time for a leadership contest in the current climate (which we expect to last for the next 3-5 months- ignoring the unknown & aftermath)

Unlike the Labour Party there's no need for a new leader for the sake of opposition; and frankly the cynic says wait until you have an open media cycle & less going on.

[Blair]

The reason why the Liberal Democrat vote share went up is because they attracted more of the anti-corbyn vote than they did in 2017; whether that was because of anti-semitism (see Finchley) Brexit (Kesington) or just general 'a plague on both your houses' (see every seat where the Labour/Tory vote went down)

Much like in 2010 they didn't actually benefit from this increase because it was laregly in seats where it made little to no difference. Besides even on the most optimistic of actually polling/data you could get them to around 30-40 seats...

Having read the report (well I skimmed it) it correctly identifies the main problem; a stupid god awful message (make Jo PM), a boring, bland & decidely average leader (who had the baggage of coalition without the political clout that comes from being important enough to defend it) and a stupid policy which they didn't want (revoke A50)

These three things baked in the problems of the campaign; as the small third party it's virtually impossible to overturn them. The report rightly notes too that a lot of money was wasted in the defector seats-Sam Gyimah for example handed Keningston to the Tories & ran a foul campaign accusing the sitting Labour MP of being responsible for the Grenfell fire. (see more below re coupons)

Funnily enough after years & miles of columns about Labour members ruining the party it was the Liberal members who did so by putting this policy on the party- Labour quite rightly stop conference from writing the manifesto.

The major problem was going for an early election; the Liberal Democrats bolted before the SNP & the SNP were always expected to eventually back one eventually so they were happy to wait- it was  a leap in the dark to hope that Bojo would lose a december one & thus Brexit would be stopped. There was no good date for an election but December was clearly an awful one & they were warned by both their own MPs & by Labour MPs.

And to follow up earlier- this was a brexit election which frankly would have only deprived Johnson of a majority if there was much like in 1918 a coupon for the 2nd referedum candidate; Labour wouldn't stand in the 50 or so Liberal/Tory targets & the Lib Dems would pull out of Tory/Lab marginals. It's extremely unlikely but this is the only way that 2019 produces anything close to a hung parliament.

However a lot of the above is known- what is interesting is the future of the Lib Dems. As Stephen Bush from the NS put in a good piece the Liberal Democrats use to win running hyper-local campaigns which led to them having a group of MPs with very little in common.

The only other alternative is a party for progressives in seats Labour can't win; if they can't win Sheffield Hallam, Bermondsey or other former Liberal-Lab urban marginals against Corbyn in a low-turnout election they're not coming for a while...

Starmer imo is extremely well suited to at the least take votes, if not outright threaten some the new Liberal-Tory marginals (Wimbledon for example)

[Blair]

I very much look forward to & expect they'll pick Moran but I have quite serious doubts about her suitability for the job.

Now reported that moves are afoot to install a new permanent leader by the autumn.

I do wonder if they would benefit from the SNP's approach of having Davey as the Westminister Leader (who is quite respected across the house) & someone like Moran as the Party Leader- the obvious drawback is the lack of publicity but they only get one question at PMQs every few weeks...

The above made me realise that one major reason for their lack of success is no longer being the third-party at Westminster; you lose a fair bit of funding, you lose coverage and you're reliant on a tiny pool of talent.

[Blair]

you're a Lib-Dem!

The point about Moran is quite interesting; the problem I have is that there are a group of politicians I find extremely annoying & I completely lose any sensible ability to judge/analysis them- Moran falls into that category.

It's interesting that you raised the same concerns; I don't usually like to become one of those people but her personal relationships & her handling of them as a frontline politician certainly raises alarm bells about her overall suitability.

She also comes across as a parody of what Liberal Democrats use to be in the pre-coalition days; but frankly most of the Lib Dem parliamentary party does (the eccentric rural MP, the party staffer, the random local etc etc)

The point about Chuka is interesting; we heard locally he was going to get Twickenham (along with stupid rumours he might go for Ealing & Acton or Brentford- the two local labour seats to his home with largish FBPE tendancies) and it was a bit surpise he went for Two cities- although he was actually the favourite for a while.

The party frankly didn't lose anything by him well losing- beyond another talking head for newsnight. He's an idiot who if he wanted a career in politics should have stayed in Labour; he isn't a Lib-Dem by any mark of the word & his colleagues are pretty close to getting what he wanted back (an electable, centre-left, crank free labour party)

On this point I do wonder what people's thoughts are on the ideological implications of the Lib-Dems taking in the defectors- I always thought it was perfectly sensible to take whoever was offered but I do wonder if the party contributed to the idea it had no driving liberal identity because it took people like Umunna, Gyimah, Philip Lee & Angela Smith.

[Blair]

The point about Chuka is interesting; we heard locally he was going to get Twickenham (along with stupid rumours he might go for Ealing & Acton or Brentford- the two local labour seats to his home with largish FBPE tendancies) and it was a bit surpise he went for Two cities- although he was actually the favourite for a while.

The party frankly didn't lose anything by him well losing- beyond another talking head for newsnight. He's an idiot who if he wanted a career in politics should have stayed in Labour; he isn't a Lib-Dem by any mark of the word & his colleagues are pretty close to getting what he wanted back (an electable, centre-left, crank free labour party)

On this point I do wonder what people's thoughts are on the ideological implications of the Lib-Dems taking in the defectors- I always thought it was perfectly sensible to take whoever was offered but I do wonder if the party contributed to the idea it had no driving liberal identity because it took people like Umunna, Gyimah, Philip Lee & Angela Smith.

Honestly, they got close enough in Cities that it might have fallen if the campaign had been less disastrous, and it's the only London seat where trying to run without any local government presence or workable voter ID records was actually plausible.

My problem with the idea that the Lib Dems' ideological coherence was harmed by taking in the defectors is that they weren't that coherent beforehand - people are criticising the old Lib Dem model of wanting more housing nationally but none in their constituencies, but that continues to be exactly the line of their local government brigade.

Interestingly, judging by their social media presences Lee seems to be the only one with much interest in hanging around the LDs now, despite having been the one who caused most ructions in the membership.

Yeah; I'll save my rant for why Change-UK should have stayed as a Parliamentary grouping another day but none of the people who joined the Lib Dems did themselves any good. I think it actively contributed internally to the idea that they were a 'stop Brexit at any-cost' party.

The thing about cities is that I didn't realise there was quite a large BAME (I assume laregely afro-carribean) vote which Labour always manages to pull out- it was sh**tty of Labour to target the seat as they knew it would hand it to the Tories still a cynic says it means they've got a shot at the seat in 2024 (I mean what difference did it actually make?)

[Blair]

These three things baked in the problems of the campaign; as the small third party it's virtually impossible to overturn them. The report rightly notes too that a lot of money was wasted in the defector seats-Sam Gyimah for example handed Keningston to the Tories & ran a foul campaign accusing the sitting Labour MP of being responsible for the Grenfell fire. (see more below re coupons)

I don't think you can say this at all. The Lib Dem vote in Kensington would've almost certainly come primarily from the very wealthy southern half of the constituency, whilst I think it's highly likely they did pretty poorly in the much poorer north (location of Grenfell). So it's not at all unreasonable to assume most of their voters were ex-Tories. Now who these people would have voted for if it was just a choice between Tory and Labour is another question entirely, but if you look at the available evidence (the Deltapoll) the same % of Lib Dem voters preferred the Tories to Labour as preferred the Labour to the Tories. Thus it is possible that Labour would've held Kensington narrowly without the Lib Dems trying to win but equally the Tories could've won it with a larger majority.

The idea that Lib Dem voters at the last election would've overwhelmingly preferred Labour to the Tories in a binary choice is a myth that needs dispelling (along with the myth that all Brexit Party voters would have voted Tory if the party didn't exist).

I mean re the bolded I never said that & have for a long time I have told Labour people who argued for an alliance that this wasn't the case...

And yeah the various sham People's Vote organisations endorsed Gyimah because he was a high-profile defector & because several of those groups were Lib-Dem fronts (to an extent). They did this on the basis of useless polling as the report makes clear & because Coad was a corbynista.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/30/tactical-voting-could-deliver-remain-victory-in-election-study

It was for the above reason that I know for a fact from other Labour people that they had a fair amount of confused voters who geneuinely didn't know whether to back the Lib-Dems or Labour as the pro-european to beat the Tories.

My argument (maybe poorly put) was that the pro-european/tactical vote was mixed/botched in Kesington. I know that there were enough tactical voters in these types of seats to make a difference...

[Blair]

and to nitpick I'm not sure how many inner city guardianista types they are left in London as we can barely afford the rent in Zone 5- and Moran is very much the candiaite for the suburbs as IIRC she lives in an infamously NIMBY oxfordshire seat

[Blair]

I mean I'm aware it's hardly data driven analysis but generally a popular leader with a good campaign will have a 'rising tide lifts all boats' effect on seats; there were a lot of seats that Labour won in 2017 which no-one thought they would & where on reflection where awful matches for Corbyn.

[Blair]

I'd still probably vote for Ed Davey if I was a Lib Dem; as others have discussed the best route back for them still appears to be remaining credible enough in tory held seats (which requires a very delicate dance)

Moran however I fear appeals very much to the types of Lib Dem members who doom the other centre-left parties.

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

And that's not the only one...

[Blair]

I'd still probably vote for Ed Davey if I was a Lib Dem; as others have discussed the best route back for them still appears to be remaining credible enough in tory held seats (which requires a very delicate dance)

Moran however I fear appeals very much to the types of Lib Dem members who doom the other centre-left parties.

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

And that's not the only one...

Theres more to her assault charges and her pansexuality?

I understand she's in a relationship with the former head of Press for the Lib Dems- who was in the news during the general election.

This is in itself is perfectly normal; Westminister is even worse than the US capitol for relationships within parties (half the Labour Party is married to each other) but it's just another example of 'oh wait your personal life is generating another story'

Certainly wouldn't surprise me, she is the sort of politician for whom the euphemism "colourful" could have been devised

(whereas, of course, Davey is pretty much the opposite - I think that some of his backers see him as a placeholder for a few years until Daisy Cooper is ready tho)

I was going to post that I thought the Davey approach is a good strategy; he's well respected in Westminster, is an experienced former Minister and is actually what I think of when I think of the Lib-Dems; a dedicated constituency MP who is firmly on the centre-left on most issues other than the economy where he sits on edge of the centre.

However I know this is the exact approach they tried with Cable; it failed hugely because everyone ignored Cable when he was leader, he got no media coverage & then when Swinson became Leader they had someone untested with little public profile, no real experience and no obvious politica atenna or judgement.

It's still baffling they punted on a right wing bag carrier from the coalition who's area of passion appeared to be Sheryl Sandberg esque femisim.

[Blair]

The two central challenges facing the Liberal Democrats with an approach that focuses on those seats is their membership & the stupid degree of power they have over setting party policy.

It's hilarous that mountains of words that were written about Labours members & how out of touch they were with  real labour voters when in the end the only people pissed off about Labour members led policies were BJP Hindu voters & private school parents.

However as the Liberal Democrat report made clear the members lumbered them with an awful policy (revoke A50) that killed their chances both on the national stage & in key target seats- I'm sure it won't be as big an issue but there could easily be similar problems with the 2024 Manifesto especialy if Moran gets in charge- as she seems to chase policies around without a grand plan.

A point not mentioned is money.

I'm no expert on how the Liberals were funded before but a lot of the money they received (and wasted) in 2019 was from anti-Brexit & anti-Corbyn donors; some of whom are already donating to Keir Starmer. They faced a big problem between 2010-2015 in that there progressive donors & even long standing members ditched them for Labour.

Add in the coronavirus (which funnily enough will swell Labours trade unions levy) & they'll face a 2024 election with a challenging set of choices about money.

[Blair]

London is not coming back to them- they wasted vast sums of time & money during both 2017 & 2019 on seats in London- whether that was Vauxhall & Bermondsey in 2017 or Two Cities & Kesington in 2019; it's a complete waste & London Labour is one of the most effective politcal machines when it gets its act together.

I always wonder if it's because political staffers all live in London or if I'm just projecting myself as a Londonder but the seats always get a much higher mark up in strategy discussions.

Of course we are going to get boundary changes; but even off the top of my head the Lib Dems only had what 3-4 more London seats in 2010 than they do now?

[Blair]

My current (foolish) prediction is that Moran will win, everyone on twitter.com will say how progressive & radical she is- and then she'll completely bomb & get forced out.

It will be fun to go back to the old approach of Labour trying to occupy the mainstream of public opinion (the thing that all 3 Labour leadership candidiates agreed on) while the Liberal Democrats chase every single political cause that they can.

It's going to be a long four years with Moran.... what does everyone else think about her?

[Blair]

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

God, 9/11 & Kosovo are the three reasons.

Kosovo convinced Blair that Liberal interventionism was morally right & correct; it's forgotten that Blair had to drag Clinton & the US into intervening. The result being that chilren are named after him in Kosovo- which certainly made him think it was the right thing to do.

I also think that the intervention in Kosovo was on shaky legal ground; which explains the willingness to not care about Iraq being on even weaker legal grounds. Blair became convinced he could save a country & do it without any concern for the UN: see Iraq.

His Chicago Speech from 1999 shows he was already having these thoughts quite early on- 9/11 turbocharged this

An interesting way to work out why Blair did it is to ask A.) Would he have tried to get Al Gore to do it? Yes but would not have convinced him B.) Would Gordon Brown have supported the US? Yes but a lot less militantly

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.

[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.

[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.

[Blair]

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

[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.

[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.

[Blair]

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)

[Blair]

Rush of nominations yesterday - scores on the doors now Davey 1443, Moran 1001.

This contest now appears to be getting a bit spicy on Twitter, including threats to leave the party if the "wrong" leader is elected - Labour people will be all too familiar with these psychodramas

I do wonder if we're going to see another internal election where the commited forever online activists vote en masse for Moran while the people who forget they're members until they get an email vote for Davey.

[Blair]

Ha its rather tragic that I had no idea that voting had started (I remember when it was the weird nomination stage) & equally had no idea it was ending.

God knows what the result will be; I expected a narrow victory for Swinson last time but she steamrolled it.

All the FBPE ex-labour members I know are backing Moran; I think the Lib Dems even more so than the Tories/Labour have seen the biggest change & churn in their membership over the last 5 years.

I still think Moran is very much like a cheap rocket; she's capable of giving them a big, she knows how to get her name in a story & she has a clear plan for lifting off- I just feel there's a chance it either explodes on launch or crashes at the General Election.

There's a danger that Moran will offer comfort for a lot of people (including funnily enough left winger critics of Starmer) who want the Lib Dems to become a party that even's less representative of the UK, even more focused in urban seats & even less willing to have a conversation about winning back places that now have Tory majorities of 10K.

[Blair]

I think people still overestimate the willingess of the Labour Party to back PR; especially because it's seen (incorrectly) as the worse sort of naval gazing- I remember the 'he needs a helmet, not a new voting system' type ads we had in 2011.

I think the only accepted way to change a voting system is via referendum & I don't think PR would pass; the two easiest arguments are 1.) It costs too much 2.) Do you want Farage/Galloway/Momentum in Parliament?

There's a certain visceral distrust of it; while the AV vote in 2011 most likely did a lot worse for a whole host of reasons (being a half way system, clegg being hated etc) it wouldn't fill me with confidence. Even more so it's part of a horse trade for a government.

On a slightly related note there's a tendency in both the Lib Dems & Labour to talk about PR without working out how you achieve it (aka 326 votes for the bill & 50%+1 in a referendum)