What it would take for the Lib Dems to break through the Labour/Conservative duopoly? My opinion is that the sort of exceptional circumstances that would allow such a thing to happen are so improbable that the possibility is usually discounted altogether.

The last “Leapfrogging” – Labour over the Liberals – emerged from a combination of factors. There wasn’t one person plotting and scheming – events simply conspired to create an inevitability that, once the dominos began falling, proved unstoppable.

But, intriguingly, there are some exceptional factors in this General Election: The previous Government has been the most corrupt in living memory. Ambient disillusionment with politics and politicians has turned into a corrosive loathing and disgust over the expenses scandal. Trust has been destroyed, confidence shattered. That’s the first domino.

The second domino is the decision to have televised leaders’ debates, and the decision to include the Liberal Democrats.

The third domino is Clegg offering a centrist, moderate, anti-establishment protest vote at the exact moment that people, more than anything, want to protest and bring down the Establishment, and the Establishment has granted Clegg a platform to get this message heard. In the debate he managed to make the case that Labour and the Conservatives represent one single organisation, and a sort of selfish power mad parasite on Britain, whilst at the same time making the Lib Dems seem to represent.. well… normal people.

It’s a fiction, of course, but it’s close enough to the truth to make a lot of people believe it… and that’s what’s fuelling Cleggmania. This leads nicely to the fourth domino: The media. Normally, you see, they don’t bother paying too much attention to the Lib Dems beyond what they’re legally compelled to. But this election? Well, there’s a whole new story because of the bizarre polling showing massive support for the third party and the Government falling into 3rd place in many polls. This reinforces Clegg’s narrative, and as it’s repeated so it becomes more and more “true”, which keeps the Lib Dems polling well and we get the 5th domino: The media story becomes, “how will Labour and the Conservatives stop Clegg?” If this were a political thriller being written, that’d be the point of no return.

There’s other dominos (social media being the least predictable) but the biggest and most exceptional of all, the one that absolutely has to fall if there’s going to be a “Leapfrogging”, is also the most terrifying: Imagine Labour fails to recover and Lib Dems remain strong. The poll is held and, despite coming third in the national vote, Labour still wins the most seats. That’s the outcome predicted from the polling taken over the weekend. Suddenly we’d have a major constitutional crisis where the ‘winner’ of the election is the least popular party with the smallest mandate. At that point, if that domino fell, Proportional Representation would become inevitable and that, I think, changes everything.

Of course this is just a story, but the story of this election is strange enough already and has wrong-footed all of us. Every day the bizarre polling continues the worse it’s going to get, too. To my own utter astonishment Mr Clegg has got me half believing he can really do this. More on this to come…

The coming General Election hopefully won’t be held at the very last possible minute, because not even Brown would be that stupid… would he? To be remembered as the Prime Minster that had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of office, like a gambler chasing his losses needing to be thrown out of a casino?

Lib Dem Voice features a guest Op-Ed piece about the question of the Lib Dem’s position in Hung Parliament, pointing out that the media’s agenda for the Lib Dems will be “who are they going to support? Labour or the Conservatives?” and this noise will drown out absolutely everything else. 

Put simply, the easiest way to destroy the Lib Dem party in the next election is for an ‘informed source’ to leak information that Nick and Vince are planning to do a deal with Gordon Brown to keep him in power. 

That’s it. That’s all it’d take. Such is the vulnerability of the ‘no comment’ strategy. There is no more important communications challenge facing this party than getting this issue solved quickly and definitively. 

Ruling out supporting Gordon Brown’s Labour would go a long way.

“There’s no blank cheques, but it’s clear supporting a 4th term Labour Government is unthinkable for us – not after the mismanagement of the economy, culture of spin and deceit and the abuse of civil liberties. A vote for the Lib Dems will never, ever be a vote for Labour” said Ann Counterfactual earlier today. 

…could be political dynamite. What better way to drum up a bit of “if the Tories can’t beat Labour in your constituency, we urge you to hold your nose and vote Lib Dem” from all the newspapers except for the Daily Mirror, who will be riding donkeys wearing underpants on their heads cheering on a 4th Labour term.

Poor sods. 

But the story would then become, “so what are your conditions for working with the Tories.”

Back to where we started? Not quite. It would give us an opportunity to give our main policy priorities. Our platform might actually get heard. 

This, combined with a desire to increase the basic rate tax threshold to £10,000, along with a ‘do less, but do the essentials better’ approach to public services, along with urgent reform to civil liberties… and we’d really be onto something. Dance, Vince, Dance.

Ann Counterfactual said, “One important part of refiring the economy has to be putting money back in people’s pockets. Most people want healthy public services, but if we can’t afford those services then we simply can’t afford them – no ifs, no buts – we have to live within our means if we really want to help anyone at all.”

and

“Look at how Council Tax ruins the lives of the most vulnerable pensioners and tell me how you think tax is a good thing? Sometimes the tax itself does more harm than good.”

I think I’d actually explode if I heard something like that. 

The Lib Dem leadership are doing sterling work promoting tax cuts as something that can help “The Poor”, and it’s true – they can.  Reframing these sorts of policies as something that benefit ordinary people, not just the rich and the mighty, is something we should be proud of, not afraid of. 

By acknowledging that taxes are a burden, even if we currently only care (on paper) about the burden on groups not traditionally targetted with a ‘hey, would you like to pay less tax?’ message, is an important moral victory for liberalism.

It’s baby steps but perhaps people like me should applaud and welcome these steps rather than flame people for not going far enough.

If the objective of my old blog was to “destroy socialism” I’m now in a new phase of my political life. I have a much less ambitious challenge now:

I want the Lib Dems to be fully supportive of Free Trade and to be against Social Engineering.

How’s that sound?

So if you’re wondering what my ‘agenda’ is, now you know.  I want the lib dems to be something people like me can get behind, even if it’s not 100% pure libertarianism – and I’d love it if that happened through persuasion, debate and discussion. Wish me luck.

When I did a bloggers interview with Nick Clegg, the question that really made him squirm was one about populism. Today he reacts to the G20 agreement with what looks like The Invisible Hand of Vince:

… use the money to create the thousands of new jobs and thousands of new homes this country so desperately needs

An economic liberal who thinks that it’s ever okay for Governments to ‘create jobs’? I don’t understand it.

Scratch that. I do understand. It’s called populism, and it’s the reality that all democratic parties that plan to exist need to face up to.

It’s easy to condemn the Liberal Democrats for coming out with lines like this – after all, David Cameron is having to do exactly the same thing, even though he doesn’t have an activist base waiting to eviscerate him for saying something counter to the prevailing Keynesian mood. It’s not just about pandering to activists – it’s, and I’m ashamed to admit it, ‘listening to people’ out in the country and ‘going to where they are, not where we want them to be’ – all things I demanded the Liberal Democrats should start doing, and now I’m getting it I’m just as miserable as I was when we were blissfully unaware of anything as crass as ‘public opinion’. Hoist. Petard. Etc.

Political expediency  means politicians must reach out to an electorate that’s been programmed for decades to believe that Governments can ‘Create Jobs’ from thin air. In terms of votes, it’s easier to condemn rivals for not creating enough jobs  (but if it’s always a net benefit then why not create 2 million jobs? why not simply create full employment?) than it is to explain why ‘creating jobs’, has an opportunity cost – and what that actually means. 

But this goes to the heart of my own pet theory about the inner mechanics of the Liberal Democrat party, how we bring together social democrats and liberals under one brand. The entire merger negotiations could be summed up in one sentence:

“Right, the SPD will do the economic stuff, you can have the rest. How’d that sound?”*

Vince Cable is the man setting our economic agenda, and it’s his remit so that’s understandable. He’s extremely popular beyond the Lib Dem Bubble World and seems in touch with what the mob reckons these days. Nick would be a fool to expose rumours of disagreements between himself and Vince because it would be Nick that came out the loser.

But meanwhile there’s no authentic economically liberal voices in the political mainstream. Each day, that “we’re all Keynesians now” throwaway line seems more like a command than an statement.

Vince, charming, witty and lovely man that he is – believes in the power of Governments spending money to get us out of recession. Fair enough – voters will make their choice, but my concern remains: How do you dig the Liberal Democrat Party out of this hole? How do we stop being Labour’s Mini-Me? How do we put individuals – not collectives – at the heart of what we do?

This is the challenge for those of us who want real change in the Liberal Democrats: We need to challenge the collectivism continuously and persistently and put individuals at the heart of what we do. No more “hard working families” only rubbish. No more putting The State or The Nation’s interests ahead of the interests of individuals – plenty of other parties to do that, don’t you think?

If we can do this, and find enough common ground between us so that most of us can get behind it – and I’m confident we can – then we can get out of this hole and we can start a genuine liberal renewal in Britain. And I don’t mean “hey let’s close all the prisons down and stop punishing criminals” style liberalism either. That stuff’s as much a mockery of the traditions of liberalism as Thatcher’s ‘neo-liberalism.’

If it’s possible to put individuals as the driver of change within the Liberal Democrat party – which considering the disparate views and opinions would be no trivial accomplishment – then we have the basis on which the party can lead rather than just follow public sentiment. It’s not just a question of, “hey, you’re at A, we’re at A too!” but saying, “hey, you’re at A, let’s get you to B.” The difference is understanding what people’s real concerns are but not then asking them what should be done, because they’re getting those ideas from Labour. 

Just sayin’, like.

*it’s of course arguable that there were very few ideological differences between the Liberal Party and the SDP at the time. Collectivism’s been very successful in Britain.