2020 Liberal Democrats Leadership Election

[EastAnglianLefty]

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/01/ed-davey-ahead-liberal-democrat-leadership-race

Davey apparently well in the lead. It's looking fairly likely this will be pretty boring.

Will the Lib Dems ever vote for somebody who isn't tainted by the Coalition?

Yes. Mostly because Davey, Farron and Carmichael are their only remaining MPs from the Coalition years but also because eventually the Coalition will fade from memory both in the party itself and in the wider public.

Look, the Coalition was a mistake and they handled it appallingly - my support of the party is still very conditional on something like that never ever happening again - but it's more than time to move on.

Davey might be a bit boring but he's a safe pair of hands which is exactly what the party needs for the rebuilding process over the next five years. The only person I'd be willing to support over him at this point is Jardine - Moran is too much of a risk, Hobhouse just a bit crap, Cooper is too green.

Why Jardine? The only time I've ever heard her speak was the Donside by-election back in 2013, when she put in probably the worst hustings performance I've ever seen. Just seems like the definition of somebody who has risen without trace.

From an outsider's perspective, Moran seems like the best pick by a long way. They need to have somebody who can garner attention and comes across positively to an audience stretching from tactical Labour voters to shire crypto-Tories to the deeply but non-ideologically weird, and she seems to be the one to have anything resembling charisma.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Westmoreland and Lonsdale is the only other seat they've held continuously since 2010 and that was close in 2017, so they don't really have safe seats in the traditional sense. That said, there are certainly places where their vote is stickier than others.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Honestly, the notion that the Stop the War Coalition or the Palestine Solidarity Campaign don't care about socialist economic policies is pretty absurd - the former is an SWP front group, the latter is propped up by a combination of trade unions and various far-left groupings.

And Corbyn won by a couple of orders of magnitude more than the membership of both those organisations combined. There's plenty to complain about with regard to some of those who've joined Labour since 2015, but you're wide of the mark here.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I think this is probably a difference of terminology rather than opinion. I've met very many 'socialists' who are very much in favour of vastly expanding the social safety net and enacting punitive measures against the banks, it's just that they squeal even more than your average Progress member if you suggest that people earning £40k a year ought to be paying more tax...

[EastAnglianLefty]

I tend to think Brexit predominated partly because there wasn't the oxygen for any other issue. So either in a year's time all our politics will be coronavirus-inflected, or we'll have a reset to whatever normality will be by then. Brexit will probably have dropped down the agenda whatever happens.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Also, Davey likes it because he gets to be leader for longer, whilst the other candidates like it because they don't have to stake out a distinctive position in a difficult media environment, but in a year's time they can criticise Davey for having been as mediocre as he always is.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Swinson only lost narrowly in 2019 and it's clear that a non-negligible number of voters in the seat were more hostile to her than they were to the LDs in general. And it's a very middle-class seat. If the LDs are in a healthier state than the SNP come the next election and if the Tories aren't surging in Scotland, they've got a decent chance.

The only caveat is that boundary changes are likely to make things slightly harder for the LDs and there's a non-negligible chance it could make things significantly harder.

[EastAnglianLefty]

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.

That only works for the SNP because Holyrood is more important to them than Westminster. If the Lib Dems did it, it'd just be an admission that they don't rate Moran.

[EastAnglianLefty]

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.

[EastAnglianLefty]

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?)

Definitely not Afro-Caribbean. The 2011 census figures have it at less than 5% black. It's still very white for a central London seat, with the largest minority group being Asians. I can't find a breakdown of that into separate ethnic groups, but I think there's a pretty decent chance that it's one of the few seats where the east Asian population is bigger than the south Asian population.

There's also a sizeable 'Other' population. Again, I don't have a breakdown, but I would note that one of the Labour councillors elected in the constituency in 2014 defected to the Conservatives for reasons that seemed to have more to do with Azerbaijan than his ward.

[EastAnglianLefty]

That strikes me as a transcendentally terrible strategy.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Hitchin and Harpenden is a waste of time too - Labour voters in Hitchin might have been willing to lend their votes in 2019, but in an even year the squeeze is much more likely to be on the Lib Dems than Labour.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The problem with prioritising their 2019 targets is that the next election is highly unlikely to be a Brexit election. They won votes in a lot of those seats from people whose political inclinations are down the line moderate Tory, except that they hated Brexit. Any strategy that relies upon winning the likes of Esher falls down upon the problem that a majority of the electorate in Esher are Tories, and it's much harder to persuade Tories to vote LD than it is to persuade floating voters.

The Lib Dems need to target the way they've always targeted - based on where they have a decent local government base; a weak local Labour Party (not necessarily the same as a seat Labour can't win - we aren't ever going to win Hitchin and Harpenden, but we're well organised enough in Hitchin itself that the Lib Dems won't be able to squeeze our vote enough); and where Lib Dem priorities play well.

The bits of the 2019 list it makes sense to keep targeting are the seats they held 1997-2015 and those places that are definitely trending away from the Tories (South Cambridgeshire probably the most prominent example there.) Unless the 2021 and 2023 locals are an absolute massacre for the Tories (in which case targeting matters much less anyway), the stockbroker belt is a much worse bet.

Incidentally, looking at the LD target list, they're going to have problems in a decade's time when prominent members of their youth wing (who are vocally YIMBY) start running for Parliament, given that their target seats are some of the most vocally NIMBY areas of the country.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Well there's the countryside and the countryside isn't there. I think the party as a whole needs to accept most of the old south western base isn't coming back - it suffered a terminal blow in May 2010 and finally bit the dust in June 2016. But there are regions where a rural recovery could be very feasible - if B&R was winnable in August 2019 there's no reason why it shouldn't be in May 2024 for instance.

If I was a party strategist however, I think in 2024 I would concentrate the vast vast majority of resources on the following seats:

East Dunbartonshire
Wimbledon
Cheltenham
Winchester
Cheadle
Cambridgeshire South
Esher & Walton
Lewes
Guildford
St Ives
Hazel Grove
Hitchin & Harpenden
Wokingham
Surrey SW
Harrogate & Knaresborough
Brecon & Radnorshire

Unless there's a long-shot that becomes very promising during the campaign, don't bother outside of these seats (Tory/SNP facing seats where Labour even under Starmer will go nowhere). And obviously throw the kitchen sink at holding Caithness and Westmorland.

Overall, I think concentrating on a set of local campaigns can begin the rebuild. As for what leader will be best at that... well, dull might be the order of the day, might it not?

Under Ashdown, Kennedy, and Clegg, from 1997-2010, they got the most seats in seventy years. Southwest England, Wales, Scotland, and London will have to become competitive for the Liberal Democrats, like they were then. Certainly the greatest challenge there is Scotland.

Actually, Scotland isn't - they've done just fine there at hoovering up Unionist votes, meaning they don't have to ask those awkward questions of what sort of party they are. In a couple of their former seats the non-Nat vote has coalesced round the Tories, but they either hold or are competitive in a much larger share of their previous seats than is the case elsewhere.

[EastAnglianLefty]

To that extent, Wimbledon makes sense as a target, since it neighbours that block of seats. However, the issue there is that Labour are probably better-positioned long-term, based on local government presence and the fact that the east of the seat has a non-negligible non-white population, whilst a lot of the Tory vote is simply too rich to be swayed by the Lib Dems.

In the past they've had some success in Bromley, but failing to get second in any of the seats there in 2019 suggests it's not on the cards any time soon. They really ought to do better in Croydon South, but for some reason Croydon has always been a dead zone for them. North of the river, there are very slim pickings for them.

[EastAnglianLefty]

But places like Bromley do make a certain amount of sense for them, as it's reasonably wealthy, there are an increasing number of graduates but a comparatively low non-white population and it's in an ideal location for the NIMBY messages they thrive on.

[EastAnglianLefty]

LibDems scored under 12% GB-wide in 2019, better than the previous 2 GEs but otherwise their lowest since they started fighting most seats in the 1974 elections. In votes per candidate terms it was still their third worst since the 1950s.

And indeed it always used to be the case that the Lib Dems went up sharply in the polls during the short campaign, as they got more attention.

The reasons why this is no longer the case are probably worth reflecting on.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Worth noting that nobody online seemed to be backing Ed Davey against Swinson, but he still got 35% of the vote.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The Lib Dems were arguably overall to the left of Labour during parts of the 2000s.

I'm also of the opinion that this is mostly a myth

Yes, what actually spurred this myth is that they were more socially liberal (at a time when Labour was particularly authoritarian on law and order issues) and economics was perceived as an issue of little importance by the commentariat prior to the crash.

[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.

[EastAnglianLefty]

TBF, whilst the seats are very different, the actual core votes they get in Cambridge are the same ones they get in Cheltenham. It's just that the additional votes they need in those two seats to get over the line are very different.

[EastAnglianLefty]

You've got to remember that Anglicans in the UK have historically been a much larger and more socially variable group than Episcopalians in America. There's always been a significant evangelical wing to the Church of England, though what evangelical means in the UK isn't quite the same as what it means in the US.

[EastAnglianLefty]

As a general rule, strategies which are based around cleaning up in one specific type of seat where you did well last time tend not to produce particularly impressive results.

[EastAnglianLefty]

There are a lot of seats in the south-west where the Lib Dems got about three times their national polling share in 2019. They aren't likely to win back all of those (and there are other seats they used to hold where they're in much worse positions and probably should give up) but focusing entirely on well-off FBPE London suburbia isn't going to be enough. You have to be able to do more than one thing if you want to be taken seriously.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Also, the LD path back to relevance has two steps:

1. Win enough seats to hold the balance of power in a hung Parliament;
2. Play their cards well enough to get credit for keeping their coalition partner in check.

If they're only seeking to win about 20 seats, the window in which 1 is even possible as a strategy is incredibly narrow, especially since in those circumstances you can always promise to built a new relief road in County Antrim instead to win over the DUP.