The resignation of Cllr Diane Park from the Lib Dem Party in Halifax has left a vacancy for a ‘prospective parliamentary candidate’ or, ‘wannabe MP.’ For one brief moment I considered going for it… then the sledgehammer of reality smashed me back down to earth.
Amongst the many reasons why I would make a terrible PPC my personal favourite is this blog. Oh, it’ll take a day or so, but any campaign run by me could be derailed very quickly by finding a few choice quotes. Charlotte Gore wants to axe the welfare state! Charlotte Gore wants to cut spending! Charlotte Gore is pro Business and anti Union! Charlotte Gore wants to legalise drugs! Charlotte Gore thinks the BNP should be allowed on television! That’s just the start of it. There’s enough in this blog to kill any political career one hundred times over.
Then there’s standing for a party currently in 3rd place in a Tory target seat, in a town that’s pretty much in love with the BNP and has, according to Acorn data, about 500 people that would be classed as typical lib dem voters. Hmm. Then there’s the challenge of getting 20,000 people to vote for you in a year’s time. I did some rough maths and worked out I’d need to be pursuading something like 65 a day. I’d need to raise buckets of money and dazzle and beguile lots of people into delivering leaflets for me. I’d need to keep getting in the local paper, too.
Finally, it has to be said, my campaigning skills are terrible and my ability to connect with ‘normal people’ is non-existent. In another world, weirdos like me would get plonked into a safe seat somewhere and told to keep my gob shut for the duration. That’s how democracy works.
So stand? I think not. It’s not for me, this life of trying to appeal to ‘people’. If I did, I’d write a letter and deliver it to every single house in the consituency. The letter would go like this:
Dear Halifax,
I’m looking for someone. It might be you. It might be someone you know. This is someone who’s sick of politicians and sick of mainstream politics. That’s most of us these days, and who could blame us?
The person I’m looking for gets angry that the Government takes £10 billion pounds – more than twice as much as the once mighty HBOS ever earnt before tax – from cigarette duties alone. They get furious that £30 worth of petrol includes £20 of tax… and for what? This person feels ill when they discover the Government is now spending more than the entire British population takes home in wages, and they ask: For what? Where is the money going?
This person looks around and sees a country brought to its knees, surviving only on loans from the rest of the world. This person knows that Halifax’s biggest employer is the council, and it makes this person angry to think that a town that was at the very heart of the industrial revolution could be sunk so low as to survive only on scraps from the Government table. This person thinks we should be better than this.
But that’s not all. The person I’m looking for looks around and sees a country where trainspotters – of all people – are arrested under anti-terrorism laws and where it has become illegal to take photographs of the police. They see a Government determined to censor the internet, to monitor their emails and internet use. They see more and more rules and laws telling people how they should live and behave: Don’t eat. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. Don’t drive. Don’t say this. Don’t say that. Don’t vote for them. This person thinks Governments are supposed to be servants of the people, not the other way around.
If you see this person, will you pass on a message? I’d be very grateful. The message is this: “You are missed. Please come back.”
Yours Sincerely,
Charlotte Gore
Which, in a nutshell, is exactly why I’ll never be a PPC. You can’t put out something like that without looking like a nutter. Better to publish a smiley picture of yourself, with your name in big bold letters and the slogan, “ONLY THE LIB DEMS CAN WIN HERE” with “CHARLOTTE GORE: WORKING HARD FOR HALIFAX” and leaving it at that. Yes, that’s how you win elections.
Consider me preemptively quit.
Costigan Quist said...
25 Jun 09 at 9:37 pm
Should have blogged under a pseudonym. I’m a Tory parliamentary candidate for a winnable seat but the fools will never discover the truth *evil laugh*.
Charlotte Gore said...
25 Jun 09 at 9:40 pm
No, see, that’s just it. It’s wrong that MPs have to be pod people isn’t it?
Stu said...
25 Jun 09 at 9:49 pm
“Charlotte Gore wants to axe the welfare state! Charlotte Gore wants to cut spending! Charlotte Gore is pro Business and anti Union! Charlotte Gore wants to legalise drugs! Charlotte Gore thinks the BNP should be allowed on television!”
Oooh Charlotte. You give me the shivers.
A Parliament full of no nonsense bloggers would be awesome, though, wouldn’t it. Particularly when it gets to Prime Minister’s Questions, and somebody has to yell out ‘FIRST!‘
You’re right, though – publicly saying what you think shouldn’t mark you out as unelectable. Quite the opposite I’d like to believe, though, that we just haven’t figured out the right way to market that kind of honesty and openness yet. Perhaps you could be a test case and we could all pitch in?
Constantly Furious said...
25 Jun 09 at 10:14 pm
Methinks. She. Doth. Too much.
Aaron said...
25 Jun 09 at 10:25 pm
You’re not alone Charlotte, my radical distaste for the entire political system has led to me being dismissed as an “angry young man”, who has no place in the Lib Dem party.
Ho hum. Back to a career in industry then…
Anton Howes said...
25 Jun 09 at 10:28 pm
I think you should go for it actually.
Stand on a no-nonsense platform – hec, Tom Harris gets a way with tons of things that could be easily misconstrued on his blog!
If anything, it’d be refreshing to at least have a candidate speaking their mind, even if it doesn’t mean you win. As you point out, the LDs are in 3rd place there, so why worry about all of those things when your vote should only go up!
Go on, pleeeease make every liberal’s day!
El said...
25 Jun 09 at 11:44 pm
Go on, pleeeease make every liberal’s day!
Seconded.
Admittedly I’m in a different constituency and you don’t know me so I rather doubt this will persuade you…
Jennie said...
25 Jun 09 at 11:49 pm
Good. I don’t want my campaign manager standing against me
Aaron: You weren’t dismissed, you were gently criticised. Ever since that comment thread most of the participants have been asking me how much it would take to recruit you. The Lib Dem methods of making overtures are weird, but that IS what they were doing.
Hope the sanity break is going well.
Mark Reckons said...
25 Jun 09 at 11:51 pm
Charlotte. I feel very strongly that people like you should stand. The very fact that you have the guts and integrity to make your strongly held views known and back them up with robust argument and intellectual rigour makes you an ideal candidate to run for parliament and hold the government to account when you get there.
I understand where you are coming from but I absolutely hate, repeat HATE the fact that many people by the time they get into parliament are anodyne speak your weight robots who speak an almost unitelligble language and appear to have no serious beliefs or underpinning to their views.
So what if you have said a few things that would get the Daily Mail riled? They need to be taken on. It is only through people like you that it will ever happen.
I understand that this is a difficult seat to fight and it would likely be for naught so I am not even necessarily saying you should go for this one but please, please do not rule yourself out from ever standing which is what you seem to be saying.
Right, rant over. Thanks for listening!
Henry North London said...
26 Jun 09 at 9:30 am
Come and stand for the Libertarians then It’ll be just as much fun
Aaron Trevena said...
26 Jun 09 at 9:46 am
stand stand stand!
Just look at arwen folkes – she very narrowly missed being Truro & Falmouth PPC – to the point that if I’d got the date for voting right it would have been a tie with Terrye.
As many others have said – something other than a smiley face, fete opening photo and a dodgy bar chart would be a refreshing change.
I wish more candidates had blogs and spoke frankly on them, not the wishy washy stuff you see on most candidates and MP’s pages.
There are some decent blogging MPs too.. Steve Webb, Lynne Featherstone, um… perhaps even some tories or labour.
Go on, go on, go on.
What have you got to lose. If you don’t have dependants or kids to embarres, drag to london, or force to eat eggs, beef, or some other british agricultural produce that’s subject to a food scare.
Bunny Smedley said...
26 Jun 09 at 10:18 am
It would be fascinating to see how voters would respond to a ‘real’ candidate, as opposed some dogs’ dinner of careful vetting, focus-group responses, media training sessions, artfully arranged blandness and generous heapings of inoffensively ‘centrist’ party doctrine … actually, I suspect you’d do almost frighteningly well!
Cesy said...
26 Jun 09 at 10:39 am
Sounds like you’d do well as a Libertarian Party candidate, rather than Lib Dem, as Henry North said. You still might not get in, but you wouldn’t need to be ashamed of your blog.
Nick said...
26 Jun 09 at 10:51 am
It is unfortunate that libertarians usually end up having to play the long game. If you did fancy standing, I suppose LPUK might indeed be more to your taste.
Matthew Huntbach said...
26 Jun 09 at 10:57 am
When you criticise the big smiley pictures and “WORKING HARD FOR YOU” approach, I think you are right. That approach was fresh and worked years ago, but now it’s stale and doesn’t work. We do need to find new ways of selling ourselves which cause people to pay attention. It’s obvious that things have gone wrong with the Liberal Democrats – the party is bouncing around in the polls but in a narrow band with 20% being a good showing. We should be soaring. We have got nothing at all out of the current crisis, when we should have been milking it. We have ended up with the worst of both worlds – too establishment to pick up from people’s anger with the current political establishment, but not enough part of that establishment to have got anything out of it.
Unfortunately, however, my response to your “we pay a lot of tax, what do we get for it?” would be a “What have the Romans done for us?” line. Most ordinary people find it easy to hold contradictory views, one day they’ll moan taxes are too high, the next that state services are too poor.
Now, I may not like your “libertarian” line, but who was it when someone wrote some crowing article in LibDem Voice about how they won on a “Stop the Cuts” campaign the point “Er, shouldn’t we be in favour of cuts?”.
In fact my line consistently has been that I find “cut taxes (don’t mention what state services you’d cut)” and “stop service cuts (don’t mention how you’d pay for it)” the sort of childish politics I’d like to get away from.
My preference would be to put it more starkly that there is a balance and people need to think more carefully where the best point on the balance might be. Why can’t politics be like that?
Part of the problem is that most people aren’t very good with large sums of money. The real dilemma involved in making a budget defeats them. I suspect if you asked most people on the streets “OK then, you want to see taxes cut, what government spending would you like to see cut to pay for it?” they would say “MP’s salaries and expenses” and think they’ve made a serious point. Someone made a point, and it sounds about right, that all these amount to 12p in tax a year for the average taxpayer.
As for Halifax no longer being at the heart of the industrial revolution, well Charlotte, isn’t that in response to the sort of politics you endorse? We were told, and the market forced it this way, that the future of our country was shuffling money about in the City, and we needn’t worry too much about making things because we have other countries to do that for us, and we’ll pay then for it on the profits we make from this money-shuffling. The idea that we might do a little bit of planning to avoid this dangerous dependency and perhaps ensure we still had the capacity to make things should other countries decide not to indulge us any longer was dismissed as nasty silly socialism from fools who don’t understand the real world.
Well, we have the Russians and other former USSR countries to supply raw materials and energy, and China to supply us with manufactured goods, and they do it out of the kindness of our hearts or in return for what we give them, which is mainly bullshit. Funny the Iron Lady whose image was built in standing up to Russia and China should have instigated our dependency which will lead to eventual takeover by these powers. But I suppose that means they won’t nuke us if we’re part of their empire.
I think I made this point at the time, but as usual no-one was listening. I remember writing some hard-headed anti-Thatcher stuff on these lines which I proposed be put in our literature, but was told “Oh, you can’t say that”.
Joe Taylor said...
26 Jun 09 at 11:44 am
Actually, as a Lib Dem organiser I quite like the “looking for someone” premise of your letter. Although I’d finish by asking the person you’re looking for to join the party, and include a membership form.
Darren Reynolds said...
26 Jun 09 at 11:48 am
As any fule in marketing kno, one bad story is worth ten good ones.
The problem with having an opinion is, a lot of people are going to disagree with it, and you need nine things they agree with for every one they disagree with.
The maths makes this impossible.
The only way to succeed is to have a pool big enough to win, and only ever to say things that at least 90% of your pool agrees with. Result? You don’t say very much.
The squeeze overrides this, of course, but that’s a [very important] electioneering technique rather than a message strategy.
If you want to solve this problem, you have to subvert the natural tendency to vote against something you don’t like rather than for something you do. If anyone knows how to do that, where do I put my cross?
James Graham said...
26 Jun 09 at 11:58 am
I think you are right and that some of the people on this thread are quite naive: you are totally unsuitable candidate material. If it is any consolation, I am too.
While I think it would be a nod in the right direction, a change in the ‘boring’ electoral system ultimately won’t make either of us more electable either.
I don’t actually think it is that bad that the people who tend to rise to the top of politics have relatively porous views. MPs have to be all-rounders. What you haven’t addressed is how frustrating your life would be battling away at your libertarian agenda in a Parliament where the vast majority of MPs were at best indifferent. How long would it be able to maintain your interest? It would certainly bore me. Why else do single issue political parties like UKIP adopt stance that they won’t actually do any work in the Parliament they are elected to, and just hoover up the expenses for five years?
There are hundreds of different ways to make a difference in politics. Just concentrate on those.
Laurence Boyce said...
26 Jun 09 at 12:12 pm
Please stand Charlotte. There’s never any shame in coming last in a democratic contest, be it the local selection or the general election. Remember that you’re too good for us, not the other way round. Don’t compromise one iota on what you believe in. Just go in like Arnie, firing from both barrels, chucking grenades everywhere. Consensus is for wimps. Don’t forget that image really matters. Dress to kill and get your hair done. Good luck.
Roger Thornhill said...
26 Jun 09 at 12:12 pm
Charlotte,
The list of quotes INCREASES your chance of being selected as a PPC for The Libertarian Party.
Maybe the Lib Dems consider you as a mad Aunt in the attic, or something that would frighten the horses or sour the milk, but for us, you are an example of the sunlight that is needed in politics to disinfect it.
patently said...
26 Jun 09 at 12:13 pm
I’d vote for you, Charlotte, if you sent me that letter
Oh, hang on, I don’t live in Halifax. Sorry.
Oranjepan said...
26 Jun 09 at 12:41 pm
I disagree with James – it’s for the electorate to decide which individuals are their preferred candidates. It’s perverse logic to say the only grounds for thinking you are unsuitable are that you wouldn’t win – if there are any other reasons then hopefully they’ll come out during the campaign and the right decision will be made.
I have to ask, Charlotte, how wedded to Halifax are you? Maybe you need to find a seat which you are more representative of.
As for Aaron: join the party to fight to make the system better – it’s why I did! Though I don’t know whether I’m helping or hindering…
Barrie Wood said...
26 Jun 09 at 1:11 pm
Charlotte Gore wants to axe the welfare state! Charlotte Gore wants to cut spending! Charlotte Gore is pro Business and anti Union! Charlotte Gore wants to legalise drugs! Charlotte Gore thinks the BNP should be allowed on television!
Charlotte, as someone leaving the Lib Dems, if I were to ever stand against you, I’d use these quotes mercilessly. As for democracy being undermined by people like Charlotte standing, the reverse is true. Standing on a Lib Dem ticket when your personal ethos / political positioning is infinitely closer to the Libertarian Party UK, now it would be dishonest and undermine any electoral contest,
Before anyone gets too prissy about this, the LD’s are currently digging up injudicious quotes from the Green candidate in the Norwich North by-election.
At least with STV one can choose between candidates of the same party, as well as between parties. If the LD’s every accept anything less I shall not vote for them again.
Charlotte Gore said...
26 Jun 09 at 1:25 pm
Well, standing for the Lib Dems without being open about my beliefs would certainly be dishonest.
But to say that being honest about opinions that happen to be different to the party’s opinions would undermine democracy is a whole level of wrong. Surely one of the most corrupting forces in British politics is the idea that you’re voting for a donkey of the right colour rather than the individual and what they believe in?
Henry North London said...
26 Jun 09 at 1:38 pm
What like Hee haw James Purnell? Donkey through and through?
Simon said...
26 Jun 09 at 2:44 pm
If I received that letter, I’d vote for you. Come stand in Vauxhall
Aaron Trevena said...
26 Jun 09 at 2:57 pm
Barrie,
I think you’ll find that as the only “mainstream” liberal party the Lib Dems have a broad enough membership to have a large proportion to agree with most of what Charlotte’s said.
I’d sooner have a party that can build concensus between Liberals than one that only holds an extremist line – there is a lot of healthy debate amongst LD Bloggers on everything from drugs to lapdancing to gay muslims on easteners.
I’m a paid up member and I’d vote for Charlotte.
Unfortunately I suspect that James Graham is right in that 4 years swimming against the tide in westminster and being focussed on a smaller set of issues rather than being a generalist would be a likely cause of getting too fed up to continue.
I don’t think it has to be that way though.
The “jack of all trades, master of none” generalism seems more like “competant at nothing but keeping in power” for a large minority of Parliament.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a good MP with an interest in their constiuency and a couple of (or even just one) specialist subjects – they can then take an active part in debates and committees – rather than the 80% who just jeer or vote whichever way the whips tell them.
I’m probably alone in this, but I’d prefer we have more MPs with smaller constiuencies, less commitments, and more sharing of resources (researchers, interns, staff, office space, etc) and more time to do a better job of less.
That would allow healthy specialisation and encourage MPs to take more interest in the constituency and/or an area of expertise. Naturally some of the pay and perks could be cut, but given the enormous waste and subsidy shown recently we would probably get more value for money if they spent less time indulging in westminster bubble nonsense and more time on serious work – after all there are plenty of debates and committees where almost nobody bothers to turn up – much better to have a more evenly spread attendance and less use of the whips.
Darren Reynolds said...
26 Jun 09 at 3:06 pm
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a good MP with an interest in their constiuency and a couple of (or even just one) specialist subjects
We should abolish registering voters by where they happen to live and allow voters to vote in a constituency of their choice that is not geographically-based.
Ask yourself what you care most about. Now, there probably aren’t enough voters in your current constituency to elect an MP standing on that one issue. But across the country, if forming constituencies based on such passions was the norm? Sure.
For example, I’m sure there are 80,000 secularists; 80,000 supporters of nuclear; 80,000 conspiracy theorists. Whatever, this way you get true experts in Parliament who can pursue the causes their electorates are passionate about.
James Graham said...
26 Jun 09 at 3:20 pm
Darren,
What you are talking about there is Mills’ ideal of a single constituency elected by STV. Almost no-one’s vote would be wasted and people would be able to vote for local candidates if that’s what they felt was the most important issue.
I think that would be great, although we’d have to work out the details (a 3000 candidate-long ballot paper is clearly impractical). I’d vote for it, but I can’t see it happening any time soon.
Laurence Boyce said...
26 Jun 09 at 3:33 pm
I love this idea that four years of Charlotte’s libertarian agenda would start to get a bit boring after a while. Like the present crop of Lib Dem MPs are so constantly providing us with the most interesting food for thought, and are in no way towing a tediously bland and predictable line. Question: what are the key issues which each of the 63 Lib Dem MPs in turn have driven onto the national agenda? I’ll help get us started:
1. Norman Baker “proved” that Dr David Kelly was murdered [snigger snigger]
2. Then there’s Lembit’s proposals to save the world from an asteroid strike
3. And don’t forget the way Charles Kennedy put the issue of alcoholism right up there
4. …
Come on Charlotte. Please bore us to tears.
Aaron Trevena said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:00 pm
Laurence,
I kind of agree, but I don’t think it’s us who would be bored – it’s charlotte.
Also a strong liberal position is more than a single issue – it covers drugs to quangos to welfare to policing and human rights. More than enough to keep things interesting, it’s just that swimming against the tide of tired pointless legislation would make it hard for anybody with a lot of passion to keep it up.
I’d love to see our MPs rocking the boat – it’s a real shame that almost all of them have been sucked into the Westminster bubble groupthink.
Oranjepan said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:00 pm
James,
at the moment the divide between supporters of AV+ and STV is giving a free run to the status quo and hindering the chances of building a consensus on the issue.
There are so many unconsidered options for electoral reform that it might be worth writing up a list of some of them to enable us to address the issues.
I quite fancy discussing a range of mixed solutions, like reducing the number of FPTP MPs by 100 and replacing them with 100 in direct proportion to the national result. Not perfect, but it’d even out some of the current disparities and I can see it gaining support to appease both reformers and the resistance.
James Graham said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:08 pm
Oranjepan,
The electoral reform movement have been quite well behaved in that respect, actively seeking to shut down the debate on what the best PR system would be by calling for a review to resolve the matter. Sadly, the Lib Dem front bench (and some Labour MPs) chose to reopen that debate, but that isn’t my fault.
And the only reason I mentioned STV at all here was to point out the similarity between what Darren was calling for an the system Mill called for.
Constantly Furious said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:11 pm
PUT THE LIGHT OUT!! IT’S ATTRACTING THEM!!!
Oranjepan said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:34 pm
James,
Isn’t that kinda the point of Charlotte’s post?
Individuals have also got to be able to voice opinions and debates need to be rehearsed in order to build critical mass – ‘we the people’ can’t just leave it to the established official players in the sanctioned thinktanks and quangoes otherwise the process can easy be directed up blind alleys or headed off at the pass (um, etc).
I’m quite happy for there to be a review to decide the ‘best’ (most popular?) option, but we can do a great service by doing some of the groundwork and provoking the debate without giving our own preemptive judgements.
If wide-reaching form is to be successful the process by which decisions are made must also be shown to be inclusive – I’m not happy to say I support this position because X or Y also does, I want to be clear about the reasons for giving my support.
FWIW I think a multi-layered, multi-cameral democracy should be able to integrate different forms of appropriate electoral solutions according to their particular representative mandate and I want a proper debate to learn which strengths and weaknesses of each system would be most appropriate for each part.
So is FPTP+100 a potentially useful tactical suggestion? I want action, so how else can we keep up the pressure while we face a prospective tory majority to be voted in on FPTP and inherently opposed to reform of the system they are set up to benefit from?
James Graham said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:41 pm
Oranjepan,
Absolutely, which is why I think we should be calling for an open debate, not insisting that the debate happened 12 years ago (in a dusty room in Whitehall with a bunch of fusty old politicians – many of whom are now dead).
Oranjepan said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:48 pm
OK, will you be hosting a rehersal at quaequam?
James Graham said...
26 Jun 09 at 4:50 pm
Not sure what that means. I have an open comments policy and I blog about electoral reform. I could have an open thread on my blog, but what would that achieve?
smokekiller said...
26 Jun 09 at 5:14 pm
To all smokers out there I’d just like to say: Try ecigarettes and get rid of your dirty habit, I did it and I was able to stop smoking.
Oranjepan said...
26 Jun 09 at 5:19 pm
I don’t know what it’d achieve, but then I sometimes doubt the meaning of ‘open debate’.
What does ‘hosting’ mean? Well, for one, it means you get to decide the structure of the debate, the strength of which assigns its value. You’re probably more familiar with the different formats as well as the strongest voices on the subject, so you would probably be better placed than most to organise it.
Why not use SLF as a networking hub? It’s started off well enough, but has stultified recently.
burkesworks said...
26 Jun 09 at 10:05 pm
Why not use SLF as a networking hub? It’s started off well enough, but has stultified recently.
Maybe it’s what comes of being a certain age and mindset, but to me SLF will always mean Stiff Little Fingers. For what it’s worth they recorded a single called “Suspect Device” which had as its last line “we’re going to blow up in your face”. I have no idea whether that could also apply to the Social Liberal Forum, though looking at the amount of activity there I doubt it.
Hywel said...
27 Jun 09 at 11:28 am
“2. Then there’s Lembit’s proposals to save the world from an asteroid strike”
In fairness to Lembit he raised a serious issue which has now been addressed to some degree. However, dealing with the substance of this post.
“Then there’s standing for a party currently in 3rd place in a Tory target seat, in a town that’s pretty much in love with the BNP”
I’d dispute that – one split ward with BNP councillors does not equal pretty much in love with.
“and has, according to Acorn data, about 500 people that would be classed as typical lib dem voters. Hmm.”
Probably 10 times as many as Burnley then (55 Mosaic E group people)
“Finally, it has to be said, my campaigning skills are terrible and my ability to connect with ‘normal people’ is non-existent.”
Probably a bigger flaw than your signing up to the party’s complete policy platform!
David Forward said...
27 Jun 09 at 1:03 pm
Yes, that’s it! Stand as an Independant.
Caron said...
27 Jun 09 at 6:40 pm
Have a look at what’s happened up here this week – a chap who would have been effective has dropped out of being the SNP candidate in Glasgow NE and deleted his blog cos he’s worried about it being used against him.
http://doctorvee.co.uk/2009/06/26/tartan-hero-grant-thoms-on-deleting-your-blog/
Young Mr. Brown said...
27 Jun 09 at 8:46 pm
Ahhh, brings back memories.
Once upon a time, in the days when David Steel was the party leader, I was a young Liberal Party activist and my ambition was to be an MP. I dropped the idea when I realised that I wouldn’t be able to be honest about what I believed, but would have to say what people wanted to hear.
Leon Greenwell said...
27 Jun 09 at 9:47 pm
‘People’? I agree, the New Deal effort in W’ton is known as ‘PeopleServe’. People should be served to French pigs. Nicely minced and boiled, mind you.
fortunately there’s Neil Young
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/27/neil-young-glastonbury-review
Geoffrey Payne said...
28 Jun 09 at 1:05 am
Oh the irony!
The moment of truth has arrived.
You complain about the Lib Dems not agreeing with your unelectable policies, and now you find that if you stood as a Lib Dem (or anything else), you would be (lo and behold!) unelectable.
There are plenty of Libertarian political parties out there that are totally suitable for unelectable people like yourself, as they too are unelectable.
Laurence Boyce said...
28 Jun 09 at 2:53 pm
I think the point is, Geoffrey, that we make ourselves electable through being bland and inoffensive. Neither one thing, nor the other, but somewhere in between, as Paddy Ashdown used to say on Spitting Image. And that ploy has even worked reasonably well, especially when the other parties are in trouble. But it can only take us so far and, in particular, it will never ever take us to power.
Frank Davis said...
28 Jun 09 at 7:11 pm
If people like you don’t run for office, then we all know who will.
Leon Greenwell said...
28 Jun 09 at 7:30 pm
The attraction of the Lib-Dems is that we have the techniques that work – ie a functioning Constitution
It is early days yet, a lot of idealists are, I believe, going to find themselves weeded about as realpolitik looms
As long as you’ll support the development of Parish Councils……
Lord T said...
29 Jun 09 at 12:01 pm
With those policies do you actually seriously consider yourself a LibDem? As suggested before you would be better with a party that actually has your policies for themselves.
Cabalamat said...
29 Jun 09 at 12:35 pm
I think you’d make a pretty good MP — you’ve got opinions (mostly good ones), you’re not afraid to say them, and you’re not likely to become mere lobby fodder meekly doing whatever the whips tell you to.
chris g said...
29 Jun 09 at 9:31 pm
You can read my manifesto here, get back to me on Twitter with anything you agree or disagree with.
http://www.the-latest.com/my-manifesto-for-change
Alix said...
30 Jun 09 at 4:22 pm
[Comes in late]
This is very interesting, because I have been confidently told at various times in the past by you, Mark Littlewood and Anton Howes that the public was just gagging for a party to come out with a true libertarian message, and they’d all flood after it once it was there. I’ve generally taken the view this was wishful thinking, because if I agree with something, it is a pretty safe bet the majority don’t, and the presence of a critical mass of opinion in a clever corner of the internet tells you as much about wider societal opinion as a butterfly can tell you about earthquakes.
And here you’re dolefully suggesting it’s pretty much certain that the libertarian message won’t work at the ballot box. So which is it? As Geoffrey Payne suggests, you can’t have it both ways.
This is important, because we’ve got to go about advancing a liberal-libertarian agenda in a way which acknowledges realities, including e.g. the existence of Geoffrey Payne. Going purely on ballpark figures of past intellectual/political behavioural change, it will take at least fifteen years for libertarian ideas and debates to penetrate wider society, I reckon – and that’s if we do it right.
Anton Howes said...
30 Jun 09 at 7:01 pm
Alix, I’d argue that it’s about how those ideas are presented.
If they can be shown as being beneficial to many people, or provoke the “huh, that’s quite clever, why haven’t we done that?” response, then it can be done.
I reckon one of the best approaches is to show how libertarian/liberal ideas can help those under the worst circumstances, or at least contrast them with possible bad effects from illiberal policy. As Charlotte’s “quotations” and Geoffrey Payne’s comment show us, it’s important to present the ideas as being acceptable. We can’t just say Liberal = Good, Illiberal = Bad, but explain why liberal policies can sometimes achieve better outcomes, even if they may be in the long-run.
Ideologies perhaps by their nature get taken for granted by their proponents, and will become laden with jargon and other ideas that many people simply hadn’t bothered to look up before. As long as you take a step back and explain what’s actually going on, then showing that some policy may be better than another really is very simple. A decent liberal message ought to be easily understood and agreed with by someone in a pub, or at a school to pass the simplicity test.
I’d say that the public isn’t exactly gagging for it, but liberal ideas can be very easily explained, and people like to be left alone from interference once in a while, whether that’s from a boss, a parent, another individual, or even the state.
David Nikel said...
2 Jul 09 at 10:16 pm
Go for it Charlotte
picture image said...
10 Jan 10 at 2:01 am
Thankyou for sharing mate, I? m going to learn from it.