Local Campaign Focus Form: Simple approach to organising your thinking for a campaign

As we begin to look at the elections coming up in May, many will be looking to start or expand on local campaigns to help improve our chances of winning seats in the election. Organisation of the campaign is key to ensuring that it achieves what it sets out to. The problem with organising a campaign is the number of issues that can be focused on, including all the campaign materials that HQ send through. What we need is something which can focus our attention on the local issues. One technique that can help in this is to look at the worries of the local area, what is working well in the local area, including what people are proud of and once we know this we can look at what needs to happen in the campaign.

The worries are an important aspect of political campaigning and most politicians and local parties will know these well. We spend a lot of time listening to people and the problems they are facing and then look at what to do about it. This can be very effective and has been the cornerstone of community politics and the Lib Dems – keeping the focus local.

However, what is also very important is to honour what people appreciate in the area, what makes them like where they live. Focusing on the worries can often seem like running an area down. In may area we have high unemployment, high levels of deprivation (it is one of the most deprived areas in the country), and many things to complain about such as gangs and violence. But people still like living here. So this can be used as valuable campaigning material showing that we are standing up for the things locals enjoy and like.

These then focus our attention on what we need to do. This is a very simple process used in the solution focused approach and can be used with one piece of paper:

This is a first draft and I would welcome feedback on ideas, thoughts and criticisms to help improve it. The difference between this approach and what I have used before is the simplicity and the local focus. I know we have many resources and emails coming to us about what to put in our material, but this gives me a better focus about what needs to be in, rather than what I can put in because I have it. So to take an example:

The people in my area are not very concerned with some of the issues that we could focus on – such as the environment. While it is important and dear to my heart, the people in my area, at least those who I speak to, do not see it as a concern in this area right now. So it would be better for my local party to focus on other issues.

This approach seeks to simplify the way in which we match our campaign with local issues. It seeks to focus our thinking on the local issues. It seeks to simplify how to draw out what we need for a campaign. Let me know if you think this is something you think could be useful.

More and more believe cuts are not necessary in current shape and form: Experiments which show this is very worrying for the Lib Dems

This Government, and by association the Lib Dems, will be judged on the economy and more specifically the cuts. Opinion on the cuts has always been divided but as we are now fully signed up to the cuts, they have to be seen to be good for the country in the long run if we are to have any credibility in future elections. But it won’t be whether they are good for the country it will be whether people think they are. How people think about the cuts and the Government’s economic policy is what will make or break us as a party and there are some interesting psychological experiments which may teach us a thing or two about what to do.

UKpollingreport outlined the themes in the public opinion of the cuts earlier this year

• 62% thought they were being done unfairly
• 50% of people now think the cuts are too deep, compared to only 27% who think they are about right
• 58% think they are being done too quickly, compared to 26% who think the speed is about right
• Only 34% of people think they are good for the economy, with a majority 51%, thinking they are bad.

And suggested a trend since the General Election 2010: that the proportion of people blaming the government for the cuts is growing. This is worrying as an experiment by Kurt Gray at Harvard University about pain shows. He took participants and gave them electric shocks and asked them to evaluate the experience on a scale ranging from one (not at all uncomfortable) to seven (extremely uncomfortable). He was looking into what effect their thought on how it had been administered had on their perception of pain.

Half the time, the participants were told that their partner had chosen to shock them. The other half they were told that their partner had chosen not to shock them, but that the experimental protocol meant they had to do it. The participants who thought they had been intentionally shocked rating the pain higher than those who thought it was given unintentionally. However, they also found that the apparently unintentional shocks hurt progressively less as the experiment went on, whereas those perceived as deliberate continued to hurt as much.

What this implies is that when people think that pain is given on purpose the experience of pain is greater and non-diminishing, while when the perception is that it is not given on purpose the pain is not as painful and reduces as time goes on. Now this has nothing to do with politics but it is an interesting experiment. There are many who talk about the pain of the cuts and whether these are necessary, too deep and too fast. For those who think that the cuts are not necessary, and the charge is that this is ideological, then they may well experience the pain of the cuts more deeply and for longer than those who think they are necessary. These people will blame the Government.

The problem is that the trend is that more and more people are seeing the cuts as ideological and not necessary in the speed and amount. More people are seeing that the Government are doing this on purpose to them. This is particularly true for certain groups such as people with a disability and women.

The debate as to whether this is necessary or not was strong in 2010, however, since then there has not been as much emphasis on this. Perhaps this is because people think it will calm down? People will get used to it? Well, they won’t if they think this has been done to them when it was not necessary in the shape and form it was delivered in. We should not back down from this debate. We should keep it up. Because either it is necessary and right in the form we have chosen or it is not. And if it is not, then most Lib Dem voters won’t vote Lib Dem come 2015. What we need is for the country to understand that this is necessary and right; at the moment public perception is going in the wrong direction.

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven - John Milton (poet)

Some data for anyone interested in this ridiculous story about a massive drop in student applications

Anyone who read the papers today will have noticed the headlines of the ‘shocking’ reduction in the number of applications to universities: applicants from within the UK has fallen by 11.9% and applicants from within the EU has dropped by 9.3%. They go on to quote even more stats such as

Mature students have been particularly deterred by the higher fees, the figures show. The proportion of applicants aged 40 or older has fallen by 27.8%, while those aged between 30 and 39 has dropped by 22.7%.

It seems funny to me that the same paper seems to have forgotten what they were reporting this time last year: UK applicants are up 22.1%, while overseas applicants have risen  28.7%.

 Applications from the over-25s jumped 63.4%, while those from 21- to 24-year-olds rose 44.8%. There was also a 45.5% increase in people reapplying.

So what did they put it down to back then?

Part of the increase in demand for university places may be due to the recession.

And what happened with all these additional applications?

Professor David Green, vice-chancellor of the University of Worcester – where applications are up 35% on last year – said many other universities would be happy to take on additional students… and “many will do so, even if we receive no additional government funding for these additional students”

So are these figures a worry for the government? Well there are also other stats to take into account:

The proportion of applicants from outside the EU has grown by 8.8%.

Some universities, including the London School of Economics, Queen Mary and Bath, are seeing rises in applications, according to the report.

So lets get this straight. Last year there was a rise in applications of 22% (compared to 2009) and this year there has been a drop in applications of 12% (compared to 2010). Which is still significantly more applications than in 2009 which were reported as record numbers at the time and Universities were being fined for accepting too many students. So there are many reasons for this figure, which could be a reversion to the norm or more unlikely but pointed out by the Guardian (instead of comparing yearly figures) is this:

Demographic factors could also be behind a slump in applications. The number of 18-year-olds in the UK is projected to decline over the rest of this decade by about 11%.

Lib Dems looking weak on Europe? How to take the initiative back

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‘Europe’ as the issue is known has caused significant damage to the Tory party and has prevented many from voting for the Lib Dems. On the face of it we are on the wrong side of the debate which will not be good for electoral prospects. However, despite the poor support for the UK’s position in Europe in opinion polling there are things that the Lib Dems could do to regain the initiative and take some leadership on the issue.

 

UKpollingreport have written a nice overview of the current situation on the issue at present, which suggest that:

• 45% of people think that Britain’s membership of the EU is a bad thing, 22% think it is a good thing.
• 50% think membership has had a negative effect on the UK, 29% a positive effect.
• 10% of people support a more integrated Europe, 13-17% happy with the status quo, 33-40% supporting a less integrated Europe with more powers returned to the UK, 23-29% in support of total withdrawal from the EU.
• Questions on how people would vote in a referendum on EU membership tend to show a big lead for withdrawal (for example, 27% stay, 51% go)
• Asked how people would vote in a three option referendum, then people prefer renegotiation to withdrawal – 15% would stay, 47% renegotiate, 28% go.

Given these opinions it would seem that a party seen as positive on the issue would be fishing in a smaller pond for votes – not good for the Lib Dems. UKpollingreport have given the caveats that come with opinion polling but there is one other one which I would like to add. These opinion polls are the opinions of the people with the information as they understand it now, not as they may come to understand in a proper national debate.

One purpose of political parties is to attempt to create debates and inform the public on issues they see as important. What has happened recently is that political parties have shied away from tackling issues that are important to the party but are seen as unpopular by the public. Examples of this has been when Cameron told his party to stop ‘banging on about Europe’ for fear of turning voters away or when the Lib Dems did not enter into the debate on certain issues, mainly related to home affairs and penal reform, which was pointed out by Clegg when he became the home affairs spokesman for the party. So there may be a tendency for the Lib Dems to keep their heads down or at least not mention the positive effects of Europe in the current debate for fear of turning voters off the party.

However, there is another option that could show the commitment of the Lib Dems to democracy and Europe which would provide a good platform to debate the issue nationally. The Lib Dems could lead the way by debating the issue with a group of individuals and gaining their views after this debate which would show if there is a difference once people had engaged with the issues. This would constitute a different take on the opinion poll as it would reflect more what people really think once they have the information. Many would call it deliberative democracy and there is a format which could be used called a 21^st Century Town Meeting.

The 21st Century Town Meeting marks a departure from traditional public participation methods, such as public hearings. The 21st Century Town Meeting focuses on discussion and deliberation among citizens rather than speeches, question-and-answer sessions or panel presentations. The purpose of the Town Hall Meeting is to gather diverse groups of citizens who will participate in round-table discussions (10-12 people per table) and deliberate in depth about key policy issues. Each table discussion is supported by a trained facilitator to keep participants on task. Participants receive discussion guides that present further information about the issues under consideration.

Technology collects the individual table discussions and the results are compiled into a set of collective recommendations. Each table submits ideas using wireless groupware computers and each participant can vote on specific proposals with keypad polling. These two pieces of technology allow for real-time reporting and voting. Results from discussions are presented to participants within minutes and polling results within seconds. The entire group votes on the final recommendations.

This could be used for the Europe issue and would take one day and at the end of this day we would have some valuable data on people’s thoughts. I would suspect there would be a much softer approach towards the EU and maybe even a positive opinion towards the EU following this process. There would be some good suggestions about what to do which would be reflective not just of the party but of those who were involved (like an opinion poll). This could then change the national debate and would show that the Lib Dems are not on the minority side of this debate. This is what is called taking leadership on the issue.

For more information on this approach see AmericaSpeaks where they have used it for many issues including how to rebuild New Orleans, Ground Zero and for a policy on reducing the deficit.

In Praise of the Evening Standard: Finding strengths in Steve Webb

The London Evening Standard writes Worries over a new pensions wheeze where they have some thing very positive to say about Steve Webb which is worth highlighting:

The disgrace is not that Webb is on the case – he is the best pensions minister we have had in a generation – but that yet again Government might have to intervene to protect customers from being exploited by the financial services industry.

A solution to the Lib Dems problems: Start telling the truth

Image by The CBI via Flickr

The Lib Dems have many problems and what we can do about them is a big debate.  But there are things we can learn from some of our oldest problems which may help. One of our oldest problems has been that we have had a senior member of the party who has been very well liked in the country but this has not been translated into votes. Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy, Ming Cambell, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable have all been very well liked by the public but we have not been able to improve on our 1983 General Election result.

Vince Cable has been a consistently well liked politician and despite a difficult time last Christmas and his extremely gloomy speech to conference he still commands a +72% approval rating in the party. So what is it about Cable that attracts such positive feelings?

The Daily Mail reported Cable’s conference speech as ‘Business Secretary reveals ‘brutal truth’ about risk of double-dip recession’ which sums it up: he told the truth. And he has consistently told the truth about many different areas over the years. This is not dissimilar to the other well liked politicians in our party at their time. Clegg’s issue is that people have formed an impression that he has lied, something which killed off Tony Blair despite what many see as his exceptional political skill.

It might seem obvious that telling the truth is synonymous with good approval ratings, and as politics is about winning approval of the public, it is even more peculiar that politicians don’t always tell the truth. Now I know that most politicians will say that they do tell the truth and that they try their best and it is difficult given the circumstances etc. But we cannot deny that many politicians lie – and worst of all, lie to themselves so they can’t see it. Just look at Liam Fox. He is a lair and he lied to everyone in the country, yet he calls it a mistake. It was a mistake, but more commonly known as a big fat lie that would have gone on and on unless he has been found out. It is only a mistake because he was found out, not because it has now been helpfully pointed out to him (which he seems very annoyed about).

Some may not agree with this, so let’s just go over what a lie is so we are clear. Lying is about a deliberate intent to deceive either through commission (saying something knowlingly untrue) or omission (not saying something). Fox’s lie was an omission and the truth is that lies beget other lies and so he was then compelled to tell more lies through commission as he tried to cover it up. This is not dissimilar to our own David Laws. I know that both Fox and Laws may not have profited from their omissions, but they are lies nonetheless. And I won’t go into the issue with Tony Blair’s lies, which seem to be bigger and bigger as more information comes out. I am not surprised that politicians are the least trusted of all professions.

Which is where Nick Clegg recently said something worth listening to

The truth is the best antidote to people’s anger and suspicion, so we have got to get the truth out there

While he was talking about Hillsborough, it has much bigger implications. The Lib Dems have a trust issue at the moment for reasons we are all familiar with. If we want to build trust with the public again, we need to start telling the truth. And I don’t mean truth in the way politicians tell the truth, I mean real truth. Vince Cable is good at it and the press are often surprised when he does interviews but this is why he is seen as different to the rest of the party – he sets himself out as different by the content of his information which comes across as authentic. It only makes the headlines when a politician tells the ‘truth’ because the others don’t.

The reality is that most people lie and politicians are no exception. Once in office it may be even harder to tell the truth because they want to give a certain impression and things need to be ‘managed’. We have had some good members of our party who have been good at telling the truth and Cable has shown you can do it in Government too – no matter how hard this may be. According to Sam Harris,  who wrote lying, (read review here) the benefits of telling the truth far outweigh the cost of lies, to yourself, to others, and to society. He cites research which suggests that all forms of lying – including white lies meant to spare the feelings of others – are associated with poorer-quality relationships. If there is one thing the Lib Dems need right now – it is a better relationship with the public, particularly for Nick Clegg.

To tell the truth we need to know the truth. This means seeing the mistakes we have made, the problems we have caused, the difficulties we face as well as that which we have achieved. It means saying how we feel, our confusion, our doubts as well as disagreeing with what we don’t like in Government. So when Lib Dem ministers are asked for their opinion, they do the party no favours by pretending not to notice flaws in our work in Government, especially when those who do not vote Lib Dem are bound to notice these same flaws. So maybe Cable’s speech to Conference was gloomy and depressing, but it was honest, and we could do with more honesty in politics. And he is seen in a better light by the population and the party than all those who had to prepare facts which presented a certain view, which must say something.

And for anyone who wants to see why we end up lying to ourselves and don’t even realise we are doing it – read Mistakes were made (but not by me).

How to level the campaigning playing field: join new organisations to the Lib Dems

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Everyone in the Lib Dems knows how much of a difficult job we have in comparison to the other parties. They have more than twice as many members, more supporters, voters, sympathisers, volunteers, and more importantly, more money. If you want to win in your local area then you need more boots on the ground – for free or a fee – and this is very hard to do.

So how did the other parties get to be so much bigger than us? Labour started in 1900 as a parliamentary pressure group of working people, trade unionists and socialists. For many years they struggled to take root in the British political system and at first had no members, only organisations affiliated to it. As the party grew, so it attracted new organisations to co-opt and form their political party: Growing a party requires attracting already formed organisations which share your values/views. The Labour Party did this and went on to take over the Liberal Party.

So how do the Lib Dems attract new voters at the moment? We have tried to attract voters from other groups and we have started to form new groups within the party hoping this will attract people to join them. But maybe this is the wrong way round? Maybe we should be looking at groups to join us rather than getting individuals to join our groups? I (and others) have written about how the Co-op Party should be a long term aim of co-opting into the party but there are also other groups we should perhaps look at.

There are a number of groups which share our value base already in existence and many will vote for the Lib Dems. However, there is no affiliation or necessary benefit for the Lib Dems despite being the party which stands up for these values in politics/government. Organisations such as The Electoral Reform Society, Unlock Democracy, and Liberty are some of these organisations and I know they pride themselves on political non-affiliation and have members from all parties, but they are more clearly aligned to the Lib Dems value wise.

The long term aim could be to form understandings with these organisations where they can keep their independence but with some potential benefit for the party built into the understanding. Examples could be that their members get free membership to the Lib Dems unless they opt-out, mailings sent out from the Lib Dems but by the independent organisation or such like; something which would combine those who share the same value base.

Such a strategy is in line with how political parties have grown and would provide the Lib Dems with more people to campaign with and the organisations more clout on the issues that matter to them. It is something that the party needs to think about for the long term future of British Liberalism.

New economic liberal group in the Lib Dems: A storm brewing for the party?

Cover of The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism

Since we formed the Coalition Government there has been a lot of focus on the Lib Dem party with accusations that the party has sold out, that people don’t know what the party stands for anymore and that the Lib Dems will be wiped out at the next General Election. Many in the party have also got worried and the Social Liberal Forum was set up to represent the views of those who felt social liberalism was not being represented. Now we have news of a new grouping representing the views of economic liberals. But are we talking too much to ourselves and not enough to the public making it more likely that the characterisations are seen as true?

The desire to form and join social groups is extremely powerful and built into our nature. Amongst other things groups give us a most valuable gift, our social identity, which contributes to our sense of who we are. Sub groups within a main group can enhance motivation and performance for the main group and as an example the Green Lib Dems or LGBT Lib Dems (DELGA)  are important groups within the Lib Dem party.

Just how readily people form and join groups is demonstrated by Tajfel et al. (1971) in the so-called ‘minimal groups paradigm‘. In their study boys who were strangers to each other were given only the slightest hint that they were being split into two groups. Even without knowing or seeing who else was in their group they favoured members of their own group over the others. The formation of the Social Liberal Forum gave a formal voice to certain views within the party which inferred an exclusion of other views; it was therefore almost inevitable that an economic liberal group would then form as a result.

Co-operation within group members is generally not a problem, however co-operation between groups can be very problematic. This is seen frequently by the main political parties. People may be individually co-operative, but once put in a ‘them-and-us’ situation, rapidly become remarkably adversarial.

Insko et al. (2001) had participants playing a classic game called ‘the prisoner’s dilemma‘ which they used to measure competitiveness. When on their own people were competitive 37% of the time but when they were in a group of three this increased to 54%. People easily become suspicious of other groups, reasoning that while their individual members may be ‘alright’, the group as a whole cannot be trusted.

The Green Lib Dems or DELGA have no direct or opposing views in competition with them. They are just seeking to change the people/views around them, which is called minority influence. The difference between these and the formation of social and economic sub-groups is that they are potentially in direct competition with each other. Just have a look at Wikipedia which directly pits them against each other or the publication of ‘Re-inventing the state’ which was published in part as a response to the Orange Book a few years earlier. The formation of these two groups poses potential problems as both are seeking minority influence.

Minority influence is most likely when people can make a clear and consistent case for their point of view. If the minority fluctuates and shows uncertainty, the chance of influence is small. However, a minority that makes a strong, convincing case increases the probability of changing the majority’s beliefs and behaviors. Minority members who are perceived as experts, are high in status, or have benefited the group in the past are also more likely to succeed.

So while both groups will debate and produce new ideas for the party, which is healthy, we may also see both groups pushing repeated and defined ideas/policies and co-opting the big names of the day into their group. This could give rise to unhealthy group dynamics and give a view that the Lib Dems are indeed a split party as the media likes to characterise.

The question that comes to mind is whether their views are overlooked so much by the Lib Dem party that they need to form their own group? And if this is the case, then is this a failure of leadership to represent their views to avoid such formal internal groupings? But considering we now have these groups we need to make sure that unhealthy group dynamics do not begin to form, which is incredibly difficult, just look how other parties have tried: New/Old Labour was damaging to Labour, Pro/Anti Europe within the Conservatives was very damaging to them, One Nation Tory/1922 Committee poses significant problems for Cameron, and Blue Labour had significant resistance within the Labour party. All competing views and groups which was confusing for the voters and ultimately damaging for the party.

The leadership therefore need to manage the different groups well, with frequent communication, listening and airing of views, taking on board their views, making all groups work together and alongside each other to ensure the smooth running of the party as a whole – or we may end up with a repeat of our history.

Nick Clegg positioning the Lib Dems into oblivion unless we set up a new strand of strategy

The Lib Dem conference was notable for a few things, but not least for the differing tone that different speakers took on the Tories and Labour. The majority took to the stage to have a go at the Tories while Nick Clegg seemed to not only attack Labour but to give a clear signal we couldn’t work with them in Government. The political positioning poses a number of risks which will be seen as open goals in the not too distant future.

The Guardian reported that it had been a week of Tory-bashing in Birmingham with Tim Farron, Chris Huhne and Vince Cable taking turns to demonise the Conservatives. Yet when it came to Nick Cleggs speech we saw a very different picture:

Unlike the speeches of many of his cabinet colleagues this week, his remarks were devoid of explicit attacks on the Conservatives or their values (here)

He opened fire on Labour and seemed to enjoy it… Straight out of the Tory election script he went on to accuse Labour of being run by the unions… Effectively shutting the door to him ever being in alliance with Miliband (here)

The problem is, as he demonstrated today, he is at one with the Conservatives… It’s hard to see how he could ever form a coalition with Labour having said the party should never be trusted on the economy again (here)

Clegg’s aim was to move the Lib Dems from a party of protest, picking up the lost left votes from Labour, and into the centre ground. He wants to make the Lib Dems more electable and to ultimately to win more MPs. This shift in positioning of the Lib Dems is deliberate and many don’t like it. The question is – will it work?

So what does ‘work’ mean? I made an argument that success in politics means this:

1. To gain power
2. To keep power
3. To increase the number of people who vote for you
4. To increase the number of positions of power
5. For people to perceive the use of power as positive for the country and its citizens
6. For history to perceive the use of power as positive for the country and its citizens

It is quite plausible that asserting ourselves on the centre ground could bring electoral rewards. However, to do this we need to ensure that more people vote for us. Does bashing other parties mean other people are more likely to vote for us? There are many who doubt this. But what is even more strange is to attack another party so badly that it would be difficult to work with them in the future. For anyone on the centre left who may vote Lib Dem or Labour, saying you can’t work with Labour on the economy sounds very non-centrist, and more like someone of the political right.

For this strategy to work we need to do 2 things: Attract Labour voters and attract Tory voters. So attacking the Tories and Labour is a great way to put people off and reinforces the idea to those on the left that we are right and to those on the right that we are left i.e. that we are for no one.

But if we really want to progress electorally, we need to start attracting more people now. Cameron cottoned on to this a long time ago and started love bombing the Lib Dems and this continues to today. If we want to reassert ourselves in the centre then we need to love bomb the centrist voters who vote Tory and Labour. This means we should actively court this vote through a new strand of strategy:

To build the Lib Dem party and political parties do not build themselves through gaining more votes necessarily, they build themselves through co-opting and merging new aspects of the party. We need to split the Tories and Labour up and add the centrist parts to the Lib Dems. To do this we need to:

• Denounce the Tory party as a united party and highlight that they are a party of many parts and that the one-nation toryism now belongs with us. We should denounce the right wing part of the party and anger them more. We should ask some in the Tory party to join us if they don’t agree with these right wing views that we have angered. This shows them as a divided party and that centrist votes don’t belong there. By actively courting these votes, they will be more likely to consider the Lib Dems then.
• Denounce the Labour party as a united party and highlight the right wing aspect of the Labour party that runs very strong. But we should be actively courting Labour voters and Labour votes. If we want differentiation with the Tories then bashing Labour isn’t going to do that.

Aspects of this are happening in small amounts (e.g. Labour and Tory), we should just do more of it. Without this, perhaps the Guardian will be correct:

the Clegg era will surely be remembered as a brief, giddy interlude of power preceded – and followed – by decades of oblivion.

What are we to make of Clegg and Cameron’s new political appointments? Potential danger for the Lib Dems?

The Daily Mail are reporting that things between Nick Clegg and David Cameron are in good health again and that their recent appointments to top political posts shows how in tune they are with each other, politically. While Clegg has appointed someone to the political right in the Lib Dems to be the deputy head of the Number 10 Policy Unit, Cameron has appointed someone to the political left to be his chief speechwriter. Such appointments present some serious dangers to the future prospects of the party.

Clegg has appointed Julian Astle, who is former director of Centreforum, an independent, liberal thinktank which boasts that the intellectual base of the Lib Dems was regenerated because of it. He was a Political Advisor to Paddy Ashdown when leader of the Liberal Democrats and currently writes for the Daily Telegraph. Astle is close friends with, and a former colleague of, Cameron’s chief of staff Ed Llewellyn. When they worked together Astle would vent his exasperation that his own Lib party were too far on the left – while Llewellyn would equally complain that his Tories were too right-wing.

Cameron has appointed Julian Glover, who is a journalist at the Guardian. Glover hired Clegg – then an MEP – to be a columnist for the paper’s website and the pair have stayed friends since. Glover has consistently been one of the more Lib Dem friendly journalists at the Guardian, and the fact that he gave a much more positive opinion of Clegg’s speech at Conference to the other regular journalists serves as a good example.

Cameron has known for a very long time something that Ken Clarke mentioned this week – that the Conservative Party can only win when its Left is in control. So we had Lib Dem love bombing in an attempt to directly attract Lib Dem voters to the Tories. They still didn’t win the election, but came closer than anyone has since 1992. For the Tories to win an election they need to win over more centrist voters and those are Lib Dem target voters. So we just saw the Tories trying to kill the Lib Dems with kindness at their conference and now an appointment of someone who should be a target Lib Dem voter to Cameron’s inner circle.  This is a continuation of a strategy to remove the Lib Dems – with the talk of co-opting the Lib Dems into the Tory party an open topic:

the possibility of inviting Lib Dems into the Conservative Party after the next election, just as the Tories swallowed the National Liberals when the Coalition of 1931-1935 broke up

So Clegg’s appointment of Julian Astle is an interesting one. In some ways he offers the Lib Dems some interesting policy directions while in others he is a continuity appointment having worked for Ashdown many years ago. But in other ways this is also a high risk appointment. It has been acknowledged that there needs to be some distance between the two parties and there was some movement in this direction from the Lib Dem side and since there have been some good stands on some important issues such as the Human Rights Act. But by appointing someone who would like to move the party to the right as the Lib Dem contribution to policy, and Cameron beginning to sound more like a Lib Dem, through Glover, it will become more and more difficult to make differentiation meaningful to voters.

What will the point of voting Lib Dem in 2015 if the Tories can say that they put Lib Dem policies through because they agreed with them at the same time as sounding like the Lib Dems? They may say that there is no point in voting for the Lib Dems and may make an offer for the Lib Dems to join the Tories? What will be the Lib Dem answer to this? We can no longer give glib metaphors about the face and the nose being out front which is meaningless. What we need are specific policy announcements/directions, based on sound liberal and social democratic values. And some of this will mean reversing some of what this Government has put in place. We should use our time in Government to show our distinctiveness, not walk towards similarity with the Tories. That will make it more likely that Cameron will win the next election.