Just how bad do Labour need to get before the whispers of tactical Anti-Labour voting become a deafening roar? It seems stunning to me that it’s something people are only willing to discuss with me in private, but so far, in public? Nothing.

So hey, let’s start a debate. 

For a party that’s won many, many seats as an Anti-Tory vote in the post, even contemplating the idea of an informal tactical voting pact that might benefit the Tories isn’t just difficult – it’s practically heresy. Admitting that you might prefer any Tory Government to this Labour Government is … well it’s taboo (dontcha know they eat babies??), and risks the heretic losing all credibility.

Old hatreds are the most stubborn, and within parties – where second guessing what everyone else might be thinking and second guessing what you think you think you should be thinking…. *breathe* …makes thinking for yourself something of a challenge. As I’ve discovered, challenging the orthodoxy is not a fast track to popularity and fills one with feelings of guilt and alienation. If I wasn’t so obstinate and a chronic anti-authoritarian I’d probably have given this up long ago.

Yet I still believe this is a party that wants to find the right balance between Liberty and Equality. We might argue about what the correct balance is – and I argue that the correct balance is 100%-0% obviously - although I find it hard to believe that any Lib Dem would believe that Labour’s too far in the ‘Liberty’ direction. Equality as the ‘End’ means Authoritarianism as the ‘means’. That’s why it’s a trade-off and why you can’t ever have both. This is Lib Dem 101 stuff. We all know it. And we all know that Labour’s Authoritarianism has gone too far. 

If our party is serious about getting this balance right, never mind what I think is the right balance, it must be willing to stand up and say so when the balance goes too far towards “Equality.” 

If we’re not just secret socialists, if there’s more to our party than a bunch of social democrats who happen to hate Labour, then we need to be willing to say “time for more Liberty,” and be unafraid of doing so. Prove we mean it by recognising that the balance is, currently, skewed too far towards Authoritarianism and help the country put Labour back into the Wilderness labelled, “where people who can’t be trusted to run the country go to learn valuable lessons”.

I’ll take Tories on best behaviour over a vindicated 4th Term Labour Party any day – unless of course the Lib Dems can pluck victory from the jaws of defeat this time, naturally. I know the Tories are barely better. I know that to expect anything other than a slowing down of the bad is undue optimism. But if Labour are forgiven by the electorate for everything they’ve done so far… well, there’s no words for how frightened that makes me feel.

UPDATE: According to John at ‘Liberal Revolution’ the answer to the question “How far should the Lib Dems keep away from Labour?” is “as far away as Saturn is from the Earth“. He’s been doing actual canvassing.