A new realignment of the Left is underway and Proportional Representation and the Basic Income are at the core

In Castlefields arena, Natalie Bennett addresses protesters from many different movements, who came together in opposition to the Conservative government in Manchester last Autumn.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Liberal and Liberal Democrat leaders Roy Jenkins, Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy followed a course that sought to 'realign the Left' in Britain. Powered by the dominance of Thatcherite conservatism, it sought to change the approach of the left and ultimately lead to co-operation between progressive parties, in opposition to the Conservatives.

First through Liberal-Labour pacts, of which there is an even longer history, next through the breakaway SDP/Liberal Alliance, and then in the form of New Labour-Liberal Democrat talks and cooperation. And Kennedy's 'Real Alternative' campaign banner, even in opposition to a Labour government, reflected the general cohesion of aims on the Left, if not of methods.

That particular movement on the part of the Lib Dems ended with Nick Clegg's leadership. Clegg took the Liberal Democrats back to a policy of equidistance between the two big parties, Labour and the Conservatives.

However, the fall of the coalition and succession of a Conservative to a majority government seems to have triggered a new phase of realignment. The resignations of Clegg and Miliband led to the election of new party leaders, seen to be of very different stripes from their predecessors.

Tim Farron, the new Lib Dem leader, is a campaigning Northern MP and former Party President who stood aloof from, and in polite opposition to, the coalition. So far his efforts have been concentrated on focussing the Lib Dem fightback on the party's roots - in campaigning locally for community issues and nationally on matters of conscience.

Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader seemed to send shockwaves through British politics. Portrayed by the media as a move back to some Michael Foot and Tony Benn, 80s-esque, hard Left position, Corbyn has faced disquiet and malcontent within the Parliamentary party since taking over with a landslide of party members' votes.

After the last five years, the seemingly inevitable alignment of the Liberal Democrats and Labour was shattered. It would be understandable to think finding new common ground would be difficult or impossible between the party Clegg had taken to the Centre, even Centre-Right, and the party Corbyn has been accused of taking to the hard Left.

Yet a new realignment of the Left is under way and the policies that will define the shift are already emerging in the policy debates of both parties.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour now seem to be on the same page, finally, when it comes to proportional representation. Both Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, from Labour's Left, and Chuka Umunna, from Labour's Right, have expressed support for PR. And both parties are engaged in consultations over their future approach to policy, including the welfare system - debates in which the idea of a universal basic income is playing a prominent role.

Ahead of the EU referendum, Farron has even called for a progressive political alliance on Europe - making internationalism again a core value across progressive parties. That matches, in a limited way, the arguments that Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, has been making since the last election that progressive parties need to start working together.

As for the Green Party, in true Green fashion Natalie Bennett is following Caroline Lucas' lead in standing down as party leader once her term is up later this year. So who will lead the Greens through this new realignment, and how they will handle it on into the 2020 general election, is unknown.

But the challenge ahead of the three leaders of Britain's main progressive parties is clear: to stop the Conservatives winning their way to back-to-back governments. Aligning in support of some core common policies is a start.

The next step is to commit to the kind of cooperation on various campaigns and causes that can foster the good will between parties. That mutual respect will be needed to build a real electoral alliance, that stands together behind a limited set of core ideals in opposition to conservatism.

Leak of the Panama Papers is our regular reminder of the huge credibility problem politics in the UK still faces

New revelations, about new scandals, do little to reassure a public jaded with the political process when they aren't followed up with definitive, fair and progressive action. Photograph: Protesters outside the 2015 Conservative Party Conference in Manchester .

Politics in the UK has a credibility problem. It has existed for some time. Back in 2010, before the Liberal Democrats ran into their own credibility problems, their election campaign sparked interest by drawing critical attention to a political era of empty rhetoric, deceptive spin and broken promises (Clegg, 2010).

Long locked out of power by Labour and the Conservatives, the Lib Dems were well placed to capitalise on public discontent with a political system that had also locked out the public. The 2008 crash was recent history and the deception of the Iraq War was still fresh in people's minds.

The announcement of yet another leak filled with scandal, showing billions being hidden systematically in offshore accounts (Harding, 2016) - made possible through endless technicalities and loopholes - should cause outrage. Yet the story feels like it is falling somewhat flat (Sherriff, 2016).

After standing down as Liberal Democrat leader in 2006, the late Charles Kennedy wrote that:

"The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger."

The era of austerity has not repaired public trust. Scandals keep being unveiled - like the HSBC scandal or the Google Tax Deal - and they never seem to be resolved. Like the banks after the crash, there is some awkward shuffling before business as usual quietly resumes.

All the while, our political and economic systems are toppling out of balance (Garside, 2016). With rising inequality, even homelessness, everyday life has begun to feel precarious for those outside of the highest echelons, as the Conservative government strips back basic social security.

And yet, even though the Conservative Party overseeing all of this seems to be riven with insurmountable contradictions that should pull it apart (D'Ancona, 2016), there doesn't seem to be a definitive alternative ready to step up. Labour, the most obvious opponent, finds itself in much the same situation.

Revelations of hidden billions and loopholes, by journalists, really aught to make the viewing public hopeful. In its own way, it shows civic institutions holding the powerful to account. The trouble is that with each subsequent scandal, and each subsequent failure to follow through and reform on the part of the accused institutions, the public instead becomes more jaded - not least when the scandals are of the media's own making or they are implicated.

Transparency isn't about invasions of privacy. It is about a system with clear rules, without loopholes, based on fair principles. Officials with clear and accountable powers. Public and private bodies with clear and accountable responsibilities. Without these things, without transparency, the credibility of any system will quickly be lost.

Without credibility, people are driven away disaffected - believing that fairness will not be observed or that change is not possible. It calls into question why one individual should fulfil their responsibilities when others do not and remain unaccountable. Social participation, at that point, is reduced to little more than the result of fear and coercion - people coerced into participating in an unfair system to which there is no alternative, for fear of losing what little security they have.

Rebuilding trust, and credibility, begins with transparency. But revelations alone are not enough. They're just a moment in time. These moments must be turned into momentum. Progress is turning these moments into a permanent ongoing process. A process structured around vigilance, fairness and reform.

Return of Charles Kennedy's proposal of a penny on tax for education signals worries that more needs to be done on inequality

The late Charles Kennedy, whose practical policies have returned to the table for consideration in Scotland. Photograph: Charles Kennedy speaking at the Friday Rally at the Scottish Liberal Democrats Spring Conference, 2015 from James Gourley/Liberal Democrats (License) (Cropped)

One of the more worrying statistics of the moment is that generational inequality is rising, as the doors that allow social mobility are closing (Inman, 2016). One particularly telling factor is that home ownership has become a distant and fading dream for young people, as modest incomes are no longer enough to get started (Elliott & Osborne, 2016).

So far, George Osborne's efforts have been aimed at finding ways around tackling the key problems: making larger and cheaper loans available, turning rents into deposits and selling off social housing cheaply to tenants. All of these moves are attempts to stimulate the private sector and take care of the middle class - largely at the expense of those worse off. What they don't do is fix the core problems, like a lack of supply that drives rents and prices through the roof.

But Osborne's austere laissez faire isn't going to close the inequality gap. For schools, for example, the place where inequalities first begin to take their substantial toll - whose teachers and administrators are buried under mounting stress that is driving employees away (Harris, 2016) - a place to start would seem to be a simple, practical acceptance: more money is needed. Yet with austerity ascendant, that will be a difficult thing for this government to accept.

Under the present conditions, its really no surprise that the late Charles Kennedy's penny on tax policy has seen a resurgence. Kennedy proposed, as Ashdown did before him, to add one penny in the pound to income tax - an increase of 1% in search of £3bn in additional funds - to support extra spending on education (BBC, 2001; Marr, 2001; Taylor, 2016).

The same policy has now turned up in Scotland. Will Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, announced the return of this policy to the Lib Dem's platform at the end of January (Carrell, 2016) - only to be upstaged a week later by the Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale's adoption of the same policy (ITV, 2016).

Under Kennedy, this was seen as a bold, but practical measure at a time when the economy was improving dramatically. Under Kennedy's successor Nick Clegg, the emerging financial crisis led to these ideas being translated into 'fairness'. Clegg's, now much missed, red lines in government involved sharing the burden  (Parkinson, 2012) - refusing to have cuts impact on the poorest without the equivalent be expected of the richest.

Amongst the things Clegg fought for was increased spending for the early years at school (Ahmed, 2015), hoping to close gaps so that children might grow up with the skills necessary to seize opportunities on their own merits. During that time, Conservative supremacy and lust for cuts was barely restrained by the Coalition. Now it doesn't seem to be restrained at all.

All in it together, to protect the next generation from crippling public debt, seems to have become the means to disenfranchise the next generation - denying young people public services and affordable housing. Meanwhile, the wealthy are doing just fine (Inman, 2016).

And yet, austerity has laid bare and made finally visible in the UK the true extent of the financial crisis - from which the UK was largely sheltered by the government funded public sector. From homelessness at the extreme, to the now common shortages of affordable homes, the public may now finally - thanks to austerity - be realising the full weight of the burden falling on them.

In those conditions, the re-emergence of policy's like Kennedy's penny on tax is not surprising. A general outcry for more the government to do more cannot be far away. While that, of course, doesn't necessarily always have to mean constant high levels of public spending on fully nationalised services. But more has to be done.

Mariana Mazzucato, economist and one Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell's anti-austerity economic advisors, has argued that the private sector is a weak innovator that is loathe to take risks. Quoting Keynes, she argues that most innovation - the opening of new economic spaces - is done best by government (Mazzucato, 2013) - in the form of a smarter state.

Inequality has many facets that need to be tackled. Education needs more support. Housing needs to be more widely available and cheaper. Young people need to see more opportunities in more fields. None of these things can be achieved without some additional government funding at some stage. Public bodies have the ability, and the right, to act: to open up new economies, to create new opportunities where there are now none, and to invest in new futures.

 

Breakthroughs in all of these areas would lead to new economic growth and wider spread shares of the spoils. A penny on tax for education is a modest, practical start. A small, subtle, rejection of the austerity doctrine. But it is one small solution, for just one part of a huge and interlinked problem of inequality that the government cannot for much longer simply trim around the edges.

Liberal Democrat Leadership Election: Who's who and what do they stand for?

The Liberal Democrat leadership election is the first step to recovery for a party whose voice is being missed in the campaign to protect human rights in Britain.

After the party's electoral collapse in May, the Liberal Democrats have run an accelerated campaign to elect a new leader to replace Nick Clegg. Voting will come to an end on 15th July and the results will be announced the following day.

Clegg's resignation has, dramatic as it was following the party's disastrous election night, been seen as a long delayed inevitability (Wintour & Watt, 2015). Ultimately, the decision to go into coalition with the Conservatives seems to have been something from which the party could not recover.

And yet, early indications suggest that the party nonetheless possesses an enduring appeal. Their presence is already being missed in the defence of civil rights and liberties (The Guardian, 2015), and council bye-elections are already being won (Steerpike, 2015).

However, their collapse has raised a question within the party, one that has importance for all of the parties across the Centre-Left (Kettle, 2015). Is the response to the election loss to move Left and embrace more idealistic positions, or to move Right and try to win voters away from the Conservatives directly?

For the Liberal Democrats this has been distilled into the nominated candidates. The candidate representing continuity with Clegg, seen as the Centrist and Centre-Right wing of the party which is concerned with being a practical party of government, is Norman Lamb. The more Left-leaning candidate, which in the case of the Lib Dems means embracing its campaigning and grassroots tendencies, is Tim Farron.

Norman Lamb

Norman Lamb served in the last government as a Minister of State for Care and Support, a position he pursued with a personal passion. He has made a point of vociferous campaigning on issues of mental health, and was deeply involved in the party's aims of putting mental health onto an equal footing with physical health (Lamb, 2015).

Lamb is very much the designated heir of the Centrist liberal faction that took the party into the Coalition - something reflected in the endorsements he has received, which include Clegg's closest supporter and former party leader Paddy Ashdown (Lindsay, 2015). Little can symbolise that more distinctly in the minds of voters than the fact that Lamb voted for the Coalition reforms to tuition fees (BBC, 2010).

So far Lamb has argued that the party should not retreat to its comfort zone (Lamb, 2015{2}), a sentiment likely reflected by those in the liberal centre. Yet, at the same time he argued for new ways to tackle economic inequality that are not based on old models of redistribution - singling out mutuals and social enterprises as things that liberals 'instinctively' support.

Tim Farron

Tim Farron remained aloof of the government during the last parliament, during which he served as the party president - a position from which he was often a voice critical towards the coalition (Greenwood, 2015). As might be expected, he voted against the coalition tuition fee changes (BBC, 2010).

The MP for Westmoreland and Lonsdale has received the endorsement of the party's more radical, campaigning, Left - including former leader David Steel, who was very critical of how the Coalition was handled (Steel, 2015) - and the leaders of the Welsh and Scottish Lib Dems (Perraudin, 2015). He also, notably, has the endorsement of both The Guardian and the New Statesman (The Guardian, 2015{2}; New Statesman, 2015).

Farron's main distinctive positions came up in the debate between the candidates at 2015 Conference of the Social Liberal Forum group (Lindsay, 2015{2}). He displayed his openness to liberals increasing taxes to fund public services and expressed a willingness, should he become leader, to not get into conflicts with the party conference policy making processes. Farron has also stressed his intention of rebuilding the parties grassroots and so increasing party membership 100,000 by 2020 (Farron, 2015).

Quiet establishment man or the problematic firebrand?

Voices in the social liberal and liberal centre wings of the party have their own reasons for leaning either way. Those in the liberal centre argue that there is value in the consistency of remaining in the Centre, from which the party's only opportunities to make its policies a reality will come through coalition with the Conservatives or with Labour (Tall, 2015).

For social liberals, however, there were important things ignored by the party leadership from 2010 onwards (Howarth, 2015; Smith, 2015). They argue that the leadership abandoned the radical Left-of-Centre causes and ideals, upon which they had been elected, in favour of a Centrist coalitionism - built around stability, unity and the embrace of a Toryism-lite - for which they had no mandate and were duly punished.

The Guardian has argued that there is a need for a figure who can lead a 'charismatic insurgency' (The Guardian, 2015{2}). But there are also warnings against the danger of traumatised parties electing 'feel good', comfort zone, candidates (Kettle, 2015). That need for a comfort zone candidate may factor in if there is felt to be a strong need to distance the party from the previous leadership and its direction.

One way of ensuring that distance could be embracing the rebranding of the party, with talk going around of a possible name change. Changing the name of the party could be a powerful moment upon which to hang the interviews and coverage that would make clear how the Lib Dems have heard their critics and responded (Withnall, 2015). In that case, Tim Farron's detachment from the Coalition would seem to make him the more ideal candidate - and he has certainly floated the idea of a fresh start (Farron, 2015{2}).

Yet there remain lingering reservations about Farron, in regards to his seemingly anti-liberal personal stances on a number of pressing social issues from abortion to gay rights (Birrell, 2015). With the party desperately needing to regain trust and a consistent identity, his own inconsistency could well factor against him and the party.

Though Farron might suggest that these personal standings should have no bearing, it is hard to escape an overriding feeling that there is also a decision to be made between the candidates' different characters: the quiet and practical, though establishment, man or the problematic firebrand. It's as if liberals are once more being faced with the spectre of siding with Asquith or Lloyd George. A more easily unifying figure would have been preferable, such as Jo Swinson - who would surely have been a leading candidate had she retained her East Dunbartonshire seat.

Rebuilding trust

In The Guardian, back in 2006, the late Charles Kennedy argued that:

"Fewer people are joining political parties, yet single-issue pressure groups continue to flourish. Mass international movements - from opposition to the war in Iraq to last year's Live 8 - demonstrate how great issues and principles can still motivate on a huge scale. But somehow our current political culture seems unable to accommodate and address such concerns...

...The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger."

For Liberal Democrats, and liberals generally, this has become a matter of great importance. Regardless of who becomes party leader, their first task must be to regain political trust. That means carving out a distinctive position that the whole party can comfortably adhere to and, importantly, campaign on. It means opening the party to working with others for electoral and political reform and encouraging a progressive alliance, even if only informally.

From a pragmatic point of view, those will likely remain the priorities - for the moment at least. Anything else might simply lead to a division that would strip the party of any credibility it has left, which means that neither candidate is likely to pick a fight with the supporters of the other. As a result, the issues that arise between the Centre and Left strands of liberalism are likely to go unresolved in the present. This election will instead be about who leads, rather more than to what they lead the party.

Charles Kennedy's advocacy for liberty, justice and internationalism will be missed

Sadly, Charles Kennedy has passed away (Watt & Brooks, 2015). The former leader of the Liberal Democrats led the party through its most successful period - from 1999, when he was elected the successor to Paddy Ashdown, until 2006, when he was forced to stand down due to a struggle with alcoholism.

His most famous moment as Liberal Democrat leader was to lead his party in a principled and liberal stand against unilateral war and to decry the derogation of the role of the United Nations in settling international disputes. With these campaigns, and with a commitment to socially liberal and Left-leaning policies like the abolition of tuition fees (Wheeler, 2009), he slowly increased Liberal Democrat support amongst people who began to see the Lib Dems as having supplanted Labour's place on the Left (Watt, 2015).

"He was a man who had even greater potential that will now forever remain unfulfilled and his loss will be felt deeply by all of us, particularly those who care about progressive values." (Gordon Brown)

Kennedy was an important voice for a progressive alternative, and led a party that, under his stewardship, was committed to justice, liberty and progress. His voice and presence on the political stage will be missed, not least by the campaign to keep Britain a part of the European Union - a movement of which he was a great advocate and leader.

At such a fractious time in the political history of Britain, it is well worth remembering some of the insight which Charles Kennedy brought to public life (2006):

"Fewer people are joining political parties, yet single-issue pressure groups continue to flourish. Mass international movements - from opposition to the war in Iraq to last year's Live 8 - demonstrate how great issues and principles can still motivate on a huge scale. But somehow our current political culture seems unable to accommodate and address such concerns...

...The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger."

Liberalism in the UK took a huge blow in May with the substantial defeat of the Liberal Democrats. It has taken as big a blow today with the loss of Charles Kennedy. The process of rebuilding the Left of British politics will have to go on without him, but it will keep moving forward with his substantial contributions intact.

Building a new progressive opposition will require solidarity and activism, inside and outside of Parliament

The first ten days of David Cameron's new government look like a preview of what we can expect over the next five years. From the moment he resumed his premiership there have been protests against austerity and against his party. The protest group People's Assembly Against Austerity has already scheduled a major protest for June, expected to draw at least 50,000 people, in a show of popular opposition ahead of George Osborne's July budget (Elliott, 2015).

With both of the main, traditional, opposition parties partially incapacitated - through depletion and from finding themselves bereft of leadership - these protests can be seen as an acknowledgement that opposition to the policies of the Conservative's governing majority will have to come through new voices via new means. Even though the Conservative majority is only slim, Tory rebels are most numerous on Far Right issues - which is unhelpful to progressives. That means that the little fights are going to matter all the more (D'Arcy, 2015).

Protests will be one route to challenging the government, though some would disagree. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP for North East Somerset - and one man window to the Parliament of the Nineteenth Century - criticised marchers at a protest in Bristol as anti-democratic (Bristol Post, 2015).

"It's not a protest against government policy, its a protest against the election result, so it is tainted by a lack of acceptance of democracy. I think they may have missed the General Election that took place last week, where the country endorsed the Conservative manifesto. I am all in favour of people's right to protest, I think its a very important right, but people have just voted. A decision has been taken which supported continued austerity."

The trouble is, Rees-Mogg himself is missing an important point. The endorsement of the Conservative manifesto is based on only 37% of voters. 37% is itself a poor enough mandate for a majority, even if it wasn't achieved on a two-thirds turnout. That means less than a quarter of eligible voters chose to 'endorse' the Conservative manifesto.

With Parliamentary opposition weak, protesting the iniquities of the electoral system, and demanding that they be taken into account, is all the more important at this moment. So is trying to make other views heard, like those of the 75% who have been disregarded.

Even if the government mandate and majority had been strong, opposition still plays a tremendously important role in the majoritarian system, scrutinising the government and holding it to account. When majorities are this slim, it takes a lot of power away from central government and gives it to Parliament - which means more power to constituents through their MPs. In that case, protesting would still be a viable and useful means of applying pressure.

The pressure being applied by protesters on the street looks likely to be assisted by resistance to the Conservative cuts from within their own party. The Tory-led Local Government Association (LGA) has cross-party agreement against further cuts, warning of the devastating impact that more budget cuts for local government could have local services and communities (Helm, 2015).

Led by Cllr David Sparks, the LGA has claimed that local government has cutback as much as it can with the reduction in funding of 40% since 2010 (Sparks, 2015). Sparks, as Chair of the LGA which represents 375 councils in England and Wales, added to that warning with a call for more power to devolved away from Westminster.

Back at Westminster, the SNP are claiming that they will be the main opposition to Conservative government during the next parliament, on the basis that they offered something significantly different - unlike Labour (The Guardian; 2015). It is important, however, that they have at least noted opposition is something that they cannot do alone. Angus Robertson, leader of the SNP MPs at Westminster, mentions that they will be prepared to reach out across party lines.

While the Liberal Democrats have previously shown how small parties can lead a strong opposition - particularly under Charles Kennedy's leadership when they opposed entry into the Iraq War (BBC, 2004) - they could only bring principled resistance and offer backing to popular pressure. They could not stop or change government decisions alone.

Labour, traditionally the voice of the workers, and the Lib Dems, the traditional voice for civil liberties, are at this moment both weak and rudderless. The absence of a strong liberal voice in Parliament is already being missed by some (The Guardian; 2015{2}).

If they, the SNP and other Parliamentary progressives are going to maintain an effective opposition to the Conservative agenda, they will have to pull together. They will have to reach out, not just across party lines, but also to local government and to the public to build a strong and co-ordinated activism.

They will need to oppose the government with protest and public opinion, build strong arguments to tackle the methods and underlying reasoning of the Conservative policies, and construct a compelling alternative progressive narrative. Against a majority government, all of these elements will have to come together to put pressure on where it will be most effective. That cannot be achieved without solidarity between progressives.

The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference - their last chance to define themselves

The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference represents probably the last chance the party will have to present its own vision, on it own terms, before they face an election campaign that could result in massive disappointment (Perraudin, 2015). It is not, however, a problem with which the Liberal Democrats are unfamiliar. They are long used to being marginalised and struggling for visibility.

Since the party was established - in a 1988 merger of the old Liberal Party with the Labour Party breakaways the Social Democratic Party, after a decade long electoral alliance - it has struggled to make itself heard in the political arena. 2010 had promised a major breakthrough, but, yet again, promising surges at the polls and 23% of the popular vote did not ultimately translate into seats.

The decision that followed, to go into coalition with the Conservatives, and for the leaders of the party - though not the majority of its MPs or the party membership itself - to drop direct opposition to tuition fees, turned public opinion definitively against them.

The great surprise is the difficulty which has faced the Liberal Democrats in getting across to people what it is that liberalism represents, this despite - with the exception of the pretty significant blip over tuition fees - the fact that the party has otherwise shown remarkable consistency over time. The conference speech of Party leader Nick Clegg could as easily have been promoting the 1997 manifesto as it is the 2015 manifesto.

If there is anything that could save Liberal Democrat seats at a general election, that consistency is one of them - if they can finally make a breakthrough in getting across what being liberal really means. And getting to the bottom of that, means understanding what the party has stood for over time.

The modern party's origins are in the old Liberal Party, the classical liberal, free trade, small government party that believed in laissez-faire administration, where the government does not interfere. Yet by the beginning of the 20th Century they had evolved - through struggles with old Tory landowners, and in response to the revelations of the poor reports - into the party in government under Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith and Lloyd George (governments that included Winston Churchill) that pursued the liberal welfare reforms. Those efforts established a national insurance to cover sick pay and unemployment, introduced pensions, and expanded access to schools.

That work was later further expanded after the Second World War, when the ideas of Liberal Party thinkers like William Beveridge and John Maynard Keynes had a decisive influence on the work of the post-war Labour governments. While the Liberal Party itself was at the time riven by splits as a result of different views regarding the two wars and various coalitions, the ideas and work of individual Liberals still had huge impact. The work of Beveridge and Keynes were key in the expansion of government action to intercede against the instability of the market economy, and to create cradle-to-the-grave social security in the form of welfare, pensions and the NHS.

In the face of the emergence of a virtual two-party system, split between the Conservatives and Labour while the Liberals were divided, it took decades for the party to recover. When the Liberals recovered, they did so in an electoral coalition as the SDP-Liberal Alliance - alongside the Social Democrats (SDP). The SDP had broken away from the Labour Party, uncomfortable with the far left-wing and right-wing factions that were struggling with each other for control of the party. Senior Labour figures Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams - both former ministers, and in Jenkins a former President of the European Commission - were amongst those who defected to create the SDP, and who were later to become Liberal Democrats when the SDP-Liberal Alliance merged.

The Alliance enjoyed some success in the polls - polling as high as 50% in the early 1980s- but they continued to fail to win seats. Despite, in 1983, securing as much as 25.4% of the popular vote, they only received 23 seats in parliament. Having again struggled to establish themselves and make a breakthrough with voters heavily invested in the two-party dynamic, the Alliance elected to merge and form the Liberal Democrats.

Under their first leader, Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrats made their first big breakthrough in decades, by gradually increasing their seats in parliament up to 46 by 1997. During that time the party pursued a close relationship with Labour, with talk of coalitions leading up to 1997, and over the possibility of introducing proportional representation for elections (BBC, 1999).

Looking at the party's commitments in 1997 (Liberal Democrats, 1997), it shows a remarkably consistency in message over time. In the 1990s, under Ashdown, there were commitments to raise tax by 1p in the pound to increase education funding, with the priority put on early years. A commitment to increase NHS funding, and increase choice for care. Balance borrowing against public investment, and cut wasteful spending. Championing civil rights, supporting small businesses, investing in research, devolving power through reforms of the economy and the constitution, supporting Britain's place in Europe, and encouraging a fairer society - all of these policies could have represented liberal ideas anywhere from the 1910s through to the 2010s.

The next leader, Charles Kennedy, continued to push these priorities as the party finally became widely known. However, its rise in prominence seemed to come almost exclusively from its noted socially liberal stances. The party was celebrated for campaigning for civil rights and opposing the War in Iraq (BBC, 2004). While they continued to increase their representation in the House of Commons, up to 62 by 2005, they still failed to make a major electoral breakthrough - even with an aggressive strategy aimed at defeating the Conservatives head-on (Carlin & Sapsted, 2005). When Kennedy's leadership ended in acrimony in 2006, he was replaced in the short term by Menzies Campbell.

By the end of 2007 there was a fresh leadership election, at which Nick Clegg was elected leader. Nick Clegg defined the party as the exclusive representative of the radical centre (Stratton & Wintour, 2011):

"Lloyd George's 'people's budget' to make the wealthy pay their fair share and give a pension to all those who had worked hard. Keynes's plans to make our economy work for everyone and provide jobs for all. Beveridge's radical blueprint for a welfare state to give security and dignity to every citizen... We are the heirs to Mill, Lloyd George, Keynes, Beveridge, Grimond. We are the true radicals of British politics."

Although Clegg's leadership would be seen as a shift to the Right, the party continued to be perceived as a centre-left, 'radical alternative' to Labour. Students, in particular, aligned with the Liberal Democrats - with a little help from a pledge to abolish university tuition fees. Under Clegg, the party seemed to be on the verge of a major breakthrough. However, the strong polling numbers didn't turn into seats. When the election came around for real, a lot of voters seem to have retreated to their safe havens.

The disappointment of winning only a few seats turned first into consolation at entering government, for the first time in a century, and having the opportunity to implement policies. The second turn was to astonishment and despondency as the party was assailed over the decision of Lib Dem leaders to go against their own party's official position on tuition fees, and vote for them with the government (BBC, 2010). Public anger turned into media campaigns assailing the Lib Dem leader, and now Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg (BBC, 2012). That situation has persisted and the party is now struggling desperately in the national polls. Yet, even without being vilified for a broken promise, the Lib Dems might still be struggling.

Across Europe there has been a very definite struggle faced by liberal and centrist parties. The FDP in Germany, the long time Liberal alternative to the conservative CDU and the centre-left SPD, collapsed at the last election to less than 5% of the vote - and so didn't even qualify for a seat in the German Parliament. In Italy Scelta Civica - Civic Choice - was founded to support the technocratic Prime Minister Mario Monti. In 2013 it received 8% of the vote and 37 seats. However, at the European Parliament elections in 2014 the party received only 0.7% of the vote.

For all their liberal social policies, liberals and centrists are still largely struggling to find persistent support. Part of the problem is that they are still seen as being nowhere in terms of economic policy. They are perceived to be right-wing capitalists by those to the Left who believe in a policy of taxing, borrowing and spending, and too left-wing by conservatives on Right who preach the economics of austerity.

Despite a lot of consistency between liberal and centrist parties across Europe, and consistency of policies and priorities over time, they struggled to get their message out. When they do, it is often distorted to fit into the narratives of the dominant, mainstream political-economic spectrum.

At their Spring Conference over this weekend it was precisely this message that the Liberal Democrats made with their last chance before the 2015 UK general election to put out a controlled message out to the public, announcing who they are and what they stand for. In his speech to the conference, Clegg made one last pitch to the public, in a speech that was praised (Walter, 2015), identifying Liberals with a moderate, decent, and fair centre-ground that had been abandoned by the other parties:

"And here at home and across Europe, reactionary populism and divisive nationalism are on the rise, slowly moving from the margins to the mainstream... If we want to remain an open, confident, outward-looking society, it will only happen if political parties who believe in compassion and tolerance step up to the plate.

Instead, the opposite is happening. Labour and the Conservatives are deserting the centre ground. Compromise is treated like a dirty word. Everywhere you look there is blame and division.

It’s in the angry nationalism of UKIP, setting citizen against citizen as they pander to fear. It’s in Theresa May’s Go Home vans. In the glint in George Osborne’s eye as he announces that the working age poor will bear the brunt of the cuts. It’s in the red-faced bluster of the Tory right wingers who are determined to scrap the Human Rights Act and drag us out of Europe. It’s in the ‘us versus them’ scaremongering of the Labour Party, as they condemn every decision to balance the books as a betrayal and then make wild predictions about mass unemployment or the death of the NHS that they know are not true.

As the Conservatives and Labour veer off to the left and right, who will speak up for decent, moderate, tolerant Britain?

...We have shown that we are prepared to put the national interest first, even if it means taking a hit to our short-term popularity. And we will continue to put the national interest first."

The Liberal Democrats remain sanguine (BBC, 2015). They are placing their focus and their hopes on the positive response they are apparently receiving in those places where the Lib Dems have spent decades building up a local base of support (Wintour, 2015). It would be sad to see the parliamentary influence of liberalism diminish in Britain as elsewhere, as the influence of liberalism has been a force for good.

But whether or not the Liberal Democrats manage to get themselves across to voters, liberalism will continue play an important role. From Beveridge and Keynes and their ideas backing and underwriting social security, to the Liberal Democrats who opposed the War in Iraq, to those in government campaigning for civil rights - like the end of child detention or the moves to expose and end gender inequality in pay - liberals have shown that their ideas carry weight, and play an important role, regardless of the number of seats a particular liberal party holds, and whether or not they were doing their best work inside or outside of parliament.

Italy shows the UK the dangers and difficulties involved in fixing a broken political system

The UK has once again been forced to let out a rather despairing sigh of exasperation as yet another politician is caught with a hand in the cookie jar (Toynbee, 2015). It is the third such scandal in only a matter of weeks that has called political funding into question. There is an obvious need for wholesale changes in Britain's political process.

The trouble is, changing a political system is a delicate task that is never straightforward. Italy has been caught in this particular trap for decades, and the UK can learn some important lessons from that country's struggle. In short, this kind of cash-for-influence exposé is at its worst only the tip of the iceberg, and at it's best the top of a very slippery slope.

Back in 1994, virtually the entire Italian political party system collapsed around a similar, though ultimately broader, cash-for-influence scandal, known as Tangentopoli (Carroll, 2000). The arrest of Mario Chiesa of the Partito Socialista Italiano in 1992, on charges of Bribery, triggered the tumbling of a whole house of cards. When the party distanced itself from Chiesa with accusations of his being simply a bad seed, he began to provide damning information to investigators regarding the activities of fellow politicians.

Over the next two years, as the Mani pulite ('clean hands') Judicial investigation spread across Italy, more and more politicans were implicated. To try and stem the crisis, the Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato attempted to use the power of decree to alter certain criminal charges for bribery, only for it to be seen as an attempt to extend an amnesty to corrupt politicians (Moseley, 1993).

In the 1994 elections that followed, the four largest pre-scandal parties collapsed and all but disappeared. That year also saw the rise of Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party. Out of the ashes of the old discredited order rose the populist power that has since dominated the last 20 years of politics in Italy - with more than its own fair scandals.

As Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia were symptomatic of Italy's political sickness, so Nigel Farage and UKIP are a symptom the UK's, and Marine Le Pen and Front National are a symptom of France's (Peston, 2015). These kinds of scandals embed themselves within political systems and eat away at its legitimacy. When the cracks show through, and the rotten core is exposed, it leaves access open to an exploitable opportunity. These populist groups - with their simplistic message and solutions, and often scapegoats - seize the initiative.

Since the scandal, in response to the general public outcry, Italy has attempted to redraw its political system several times (Pastorella, 2014).

The first major reform attempted to make individual politicians more accountable, and to introduce more stability to Italy's fractious parties and coalitions, by scrapping proportional representation in favour of first-past-the-post. The second was to give the largest party, in terms of the popular vote, a prize of 55% of seats regardless of the actual size of the majority they had won (Garovoglia, 2013). The first system, led to party fragmentation and frequently collapsing coalitions. The second was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 - essentially for misrepresenting voters by handing out a large electoral prize to the biggest party, or electoral coalition, even when it had won far less than a majority.

A third major attempt is currently under way, but that has already faced criticism across the Left - including from former Partito Democratico leader, and former Prime Minister, Pier Luigi Bersani (La Repubblica; 2015). It proposes to reduce the majority prize, but also to reduce the power of the Italian Senate - a move designed once more to address the fractious nature of Italian politics - and groups on the Left are objecting to this centralising of power and diminishment of oversight.

Despite these attempted reforms, despite the investigations and the political transformations, Italy is still mired as before in the same kind of corruption allegations (Barber, 2013). There are similar concerns about connections between private business interests and political parties, and with the government through the state held ownership stakes. There are even concerns surrounding some of the same figures who were connected to Tangentopoli in the 1990s.

Italy's struggle to reform, against the influence of a tight network of vested interests, is an important lesson for the UK. Failure to reform means feeding a rising populist anti-establishment feeling, that can and may be exploited in ways that threaten both justice and liberty. Attempting reform means taking on wealthy and powerful people, embedded vested interests who have a lot to lose from changes.

The first steps to reform are clear though, even if how to achieve is not necessarily as obvious. A realistic alternative needs to be found for party funding, and outside business interests for elected representatives has to come to an end. The example of Italy shows clearly: if the UK fails to pursue - as a first step - these ideals of political independence, with greater reform to follow, it could leave the country mired in populism and scandal for decades to come:

'The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger.'
(Mr Charles Kennedy, 2006)

The Choice Between Two Lefts

In the forthcoming Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election, the decision for voters of the left is still between two parties. For those of you who feel the Liberal Democrats have sold out their place on the left, let me explain how I reach this conclusion.

Whoever stands in place of Woolas as Labour's candidate, and whoever stands as a Liberal Democrat; will have to face the fact that between them they still represent the anti-Tory vote in the UK. However, in a mid-term election such as this, especially during a fixed five-year term; they represent different kinds of anti-Tory votes.

A seat for the Liberal Democrats in Oldham represents a practical opposition to Tory plans. Regardless of the line that Lib Dem Ministers feel they have to toe (or want to?), the backbenchers are the ones who will suffer most from their decisions at the next general election. So it is they who are most feeling the protesters and unhappy voters breathing down their neck.

However they also have a small ace up their sleeve, in the form of a number of former party leaders. Sir Menzies Campbell & Mr Charles Kennedy represent a more 'Left' element to the party. This backbench element, with sufficient numbers, can represent a very big stumbling block to the balance of power between the coalition partners.

Both Mr Campbell and Mr Kennedy have both been making nuisances of themselves so far during this term (Kennedy, 2010; Campbell, 2010) and both were amongst the 21 Liberal Democrats to vote against a tuition fee rise, who along with the 8 abstainers, outnumber the Lib Dems who voted for the rise (Duffett, 2010).

A seat for Labour is useful to the opposition for different reasons. The seats in parliament currently sit at Coalition 363 to Labour 255. Practically speaking, one more Labour seat will make no difference to the voting in the commons at this juncture. However a vote for Labour has the potential to be a bit of a publicity coup for anti-Tory voters.

While in purely practical terms, that seat would not be able to make much parliamentary difference for Labour, it can certainly send a very clear and public message to the coalition government. At this stage a strong media campaign, capitalising on recent events, could be a very effective tool for opposing Tory policy wishes.

Both options, of course, do present concerns for left (or anti-right) voters.

The major concern for voters considering the Liberal Democrats is their stance towards tuition fees. While those who make up a part of the Coalition, the Cleggs, Alexanders & Cables, feel compelled to do what they see as the responsible thing, the 'Principled' thing, that is what is best for the treasury when the country is flat broke; the party as a whole seems intent upon a different path.

Their path is defiance. More in line with pre-election pledges, they set themselves to go against even the Coalition Agreement's get out clause for unhappy Liberal Democrats (abstaining from the vote), to go the whole way and vote against their own party leaders who sit in government. A Lib Dem seat in Oldham means another backbencher, another seat and a stronger position from which to wrangle their own leaders away from potentially destructive policies.

For a Labour voter the concerns are traditional ones. Will my vote count for anything? For those voters that fear can be assuaged. For once it is a choice between which party will best effect left ideas. The choice will be between voting for Labour's potential ally (the Lib Dem backbench) or to vote for a Labour Candidate and sending a less practical but a very public message to the Conservative Ministers.

In the end this seat should be decided by votes cast, I think, pragmatically. It is a choice between which party would most weaken, and there-in rein in, the Conservative Government and its potential excesses.

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References:
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+ The Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election will be held on 13 January;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12003985

+ Charles Kennedy opposing Tuition Fees in Parliament, 14th October 2010:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVJ-_T6C_zU
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/14/kennedy-against-tuition-fee-rise

+ Sir Menzies Campbell tells BBC he opposes Tuition Fees, 13th October 2010:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11531247
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1320338/Ming-Campbell-challenges-coalition-joins-Lib-Dem-tuition-fee-rebels.html
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/13/menzies-cambell-joins-lib-dem-revolt-tuition-fees

+ Helen Duffett's 'Tuition fees: How Liberal Democrat MPs voted'; 9th December 2010;

+ Laura Kuenssberg's 'How Lib Dems are manoeuvring ahead of tuition fees vote';
 [Features a list of expected pledge-keeping Lib Dems]

Tension, Animosity & Strong Opposition

(This article was written prior to the Labour Leadership Election reaching its conclusion. However, it was still felt to have some merit as a prelude to next week's profile of the new Labour leader Mr Ed Miliband)

In this new parliament, the Labour Party begins its adventure along the path of opposition. It is an art the party must re-learn after over a decade of governance with an iron-fist. In doing so, it would be wise to look to the devolved administrations for instruction.

In Scotland the Labour Party is led by Iain Gray. As can be seen from the various Scottish FMQs, or a raft of reporting on Scottish politics, there is a definite air of tension about Holyrood whenever Messrs Salmond & Gray enter the chamber. Whether you appreciate the tensions or not, the tenacity and ferocity of their approach to each other frequently throws the light upon the cracks in the armour on all sides of the floor.

The tense relationship between Gray and Salmond demonstrates the importance of tension in any successful narrative. As Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, of games critique fame, puts it: 'conflict means adversity and adversity is the essence of drama'. And drama means audience and audience means scrutiny.

But this drama is no new thing to party leaders nor confined to Scotland. From the struggles between Gladstone and Disraeli, to none to subtle distaste that has been reported between Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown - on display in several parliamentary debates - the old politics has plenty of drama to go around.

But this is the leader-opposition dynamic of the 'old' bi-partisan politics. If politics is to evolve as Messrs Cameron and Clegg are hoping, then is it enough to be content with the unbalanced system of party spokespeople, limited to just two sides, haranguing one another across the floor? Again, as Ben Croshaw points out about the narrative in video games, 'conflict can be more than just two knuckleheads taking pot shots at each other from either side of a disused warehouse'.

This all leads to some Coalition news developments. The first is Charles Kennedy's refusal to support the Lib-Con conjoinment in Coalition. The second is the arrangement laid out in the Coalition Agreement for a separate Liberal Democrat spokesperson to voice opposition on behalf of dissenters from the 'government line' on controversial issues.

Mr Kennedy laid out his issues in The Observer, pointing to the danger the deal presented to the identity of the Liberal Democrats. Having previously been a Social Democrat MP, Mr Kennedy has plenty of experience of the turbulence and difficulties facing coalitions. His major cause for disappointment was the derailing of the long term Lib Dem strategy to 'realign the left', thanks to a lack of Labour 'reciprocal will'.

As for the arrangement, with specific reference to Nuclear Power, there are provisions for a Liberal Democrat Spokesman to present the dissenting case to parliament, without threatening the stability of the government. These provisions could prove an essential foundation for the future of reasonable and moderate coalition governments.

In all of this there is a scientific responsibility of government to present ample time and weight to opposition views, both in-government (such as Kennedy) & out-government (leaders of the opposition). This means ensuring the legitimacy and authority of various kinds of parliamentary opposition are not undermined. They must also account for one of the few results of the live debates that actually gave a general consensus across all media feedback. The public does not like it when politicians attack each other. They want debates to be constructive.

Taken together, this means acknowledging the history of the opposition's role, while admitting the need to advance and adapt the role to contemporary needs.

These issues raise the need to consider:

• First, the role of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition at a time of political evolution. As shown above, politics appears to be (hopefully) shifting beyond the two party dynamic. With this shift there will be calls for greater representation of the views held all across the house. How can the role of opposition develop to meet these challenges?
• Second, with the advent of an era of Party Leaders being scrutinized in increasingly public forums, can parties any longer afford to appoint/elect/enthrone a leader with anything other than a perfect public relations record?
• And finally, considering all of the above, how can the Labour Party best balance all the needs for the first senior opposition leader of this new era?

They must strike the balance between PR image and doggedly tackling the issues, while acknowledging that the opposition role must now adapt to represent a broader band of views more equally. If that were not pressure enough, they must also meet the demands of the public to be constructive. In all, reconstruction of the opposition appears to be a task that requires the attention of all sides of the house.