The Alternative Election 2019: Liberal Democrats, 'Stop Brexit'

The Liberal Democrat offering is lean, moderate, costed and will likely deliver measured but, definite, progressive outcomes. But that may not be radical enough for many who have yet to forget, or forgive, The Coalition.

The Liberal Moment in British politics has been a major disappointment for progressives. For many, disaffected with the authoritarianism of Blair's New Labour and distressed by Labour and the Tories each holding one party control over portions of the country, the Lib Dems offered a better way of delivering policies ostensibly similar to those of Labour.

Getting a taste of government changed things for the Lib Dems. And, for many, it crystalised the priorities of the faction that put Nick Clegg into the party leadership and continues to exert a strong influence as Jo Swinson leads them into a general election for the first time.

When push came to shove, the Lib Dems where willing to sacrifice a lot of other policies, and to break a very particular promise on ending higher education tuition fees, for their priority of boosting early years education funding.

Few have been happy with the compromises the party leadership has been willing to make, but the party has been held together by what has always held the party together: their focus on liberty - on civil rights, the rights of refugees and immigrants, of LGBTQ+ people, of minorities.

But that assumption, that the wings of the party will be held together by this commonality, has begun to feel like something being tested to breaking - with some senior party members, such as party LBGT chair Jennie Rigg, quitting as, in their single-minded quest to "Stop Brexit", the leadership has welcomed defecting MPs into the parliamentary party - no matter how scant their record may be in support of unifying liberal issues, or in the case of Phillip Lee, how in opposition to liberal social politics their record may be.

What are the Lib Dems offering?

Unsurprisingly, that has lead to cancelling Brexit being the central theme and focus of their manifesto - with even a second referendum now being seen as a wasteful concession to a costly distraction. Beyond cancelling Brexit, and reinvesting money dedicated to it into key public services, the Lib Dem manifesto presents four key priorities.

First, to borrow and raise tax to fund the decarbonising of the economy and to tackle the affects of climate change. That includes a £10bn seed for a renewable power fund that would seek additional private sector contributions (not unlike the previous Lib Dem idea of the Green Investment Bank), and £15bn to make homes greener to tackle energy bills and fuel poverty.

The idiosyncratic Liberal Democrat pitch of a penny on tax returns, this time for an earmarked £7bn rise to fund social care and mental health services provision. The manifesto hints at more of this use of 'earmarking' to come, with a consultation on a specific-to-health tax.

As you may now come to expect from the Lib Dems, they intend to put more funding into education. A boost of £10bn for schools is an expected cherry at the heart of plan for reforms to education that shows, perhaps, more depth than any other part of the manifesto - and includes rethinking how frequently and heavily we subject school children to examinations and standardised testing.

Less obvious a pitch, perhaps, is the Lib Dems making their pitch on lifelong learning - matching stride and direction with other progressive parties - that offers a £10,000 per person adult skills & training budget. This may well be considered thin fayre considering the anger that followed when their leadership dropped their opposition to higher education tuition fees.

Through these pledges, there is a leanness to see in the Lib Dem manifesto, especially in how ideas are presented, with seemingly every penny accounted for and balanced. That will turn off many looking for a radical shift - and will be seen as a legacy, or perhaps a hangover, from the Nick Clegg era of 'Equidistance' that pitches at splitting the difference between Labour and the Tories.

This can be further seen in a couple of policies.

Alongside the Lib Dems pitch of 300,000 new homes a year, is a plan to help younger first time renters handle exorbitant deposits with a loan rather than reform - though that does need to be taken in the context of their long term Rent to Own proposal, where rent contributes towards eventual homeownership.

The second is the, shall we say, restrained way in which the party has approached widespread calls for at least a trial of the basic income welfare policy. Their plan, which actually comes from their conference and doesn't seem to have found a place in the final manifesto, is instead for a pilot scheme to trial a guaranteed minimum - more of a 'top up' approach, akin to Gordon Brown's tax credits.

It is worth pointing out, however, that in their analysis of the welfare offering of the main parties, the Resolution Foundation ranked the Lib Dem offering as the best for the poorest - ahead of Labour.

Conclusions

Behind the scenes, the Liberal Democrats are a broad and vibrant party with some particularly radical progressive factions - the Social Liberal Forum comes to mind. Those supporters champion a basic income, land taxes, an expansion of cooperative workplaces, and a government that is more interventionist in pursuing liberty.

But these elements have not, for some time, been representated in the party leadership in a way that reflects how these radical groups are supported among the party's members and supporters.

The Liberal Democrat leadership adheres instead to a lean, dry, and 'sensible' support for the free market - and on how therein to maximise the outcomes for people, within that capitalist framework. That means talking balanced budgets, prioritising education and tweaks, not upheavals, to the capitalist model.

When it comes down to it, the Liberal Democrat pitch - though producing some practical progressive outcomes - may simply lack the radical appeal for the times, not least with the party's damaged reputation.

And so the party will likely be swallowed by the two-party battle between Labour and the Tories, rendering even their best policies futile. Their best hope is taking enough seats to be a player in a hung Parliament.

Liberal Democrat Leadership: A chance to breathe progressive energy into a party sorely in need of a fresh start

Last month Tim Farron chose to resign as leader of the Liberal Democrats. This article won't focus on that, other than where it affects the way forward. However, his resignation does present the party with an opportunity.

The party has been on a rollercoaster, from their first experience of government in decades to a catastrophic loss of public trust that resulted in an electoral collapse that lost the party all but eight seats in the Commons.

Under Farron, who had no part in the Coalition, it appeared that things were turning around. Recoveries in council elections, and the remarkable by-election upset in Richmond Park, suggested that the pro-European party would do well at a general election.

The results were, by most measures, disappointing. Yes there were gains, with some of the party's bigger names returning - even as others departed. But the party went hard on one issue and it didn't land. And there were also unhelpful distractions.

With yet another election unlikely to be far away, the party is at an impasse. There was no election surge and the party has no resonating message. It now has no leader either.

Contenders

The next leader has to grasp these challenge quickly and get on top of them. There can be no room for looking inwards. When nominations close in a week's time, the contenders putting themselves forward must give the party moving forward.

At the outset, it seemed like there would be an a list of experienced contenders to debate just how to do that. The favourites included the experienced former ministers Norman Lamb, Ed Davey and Vince Cable.

But the strong favourite was Jo Swinson. Not only would she have have been the party's first female leader - an important statement in itself - the party would have had in Swinson a liberal feminist at the helm outspoken and capable.

The biggest difficulty barrier ahead of her candidacy, it had seemed, was her time as a minister in the Coalition. Yet her early Parliamentary career was so tangled up with Cabinet collective responsibility, that her voting could only really be seen as representative of the Coalition as a whole.

That gives Swinson, in her return to the Commons, something near to a fresh start. A chance to establish her own agenda and to define herself, and her party, anew.

However, despite being labelled the favourite (by a wide margin), Swinson chose not to stand. She was promptly elected Deputy Leader, however, so her voice will not be missed at the head of the party.

Her choice not to stand would become a trend. Soon after, Ed Davey and Norman Lamb both announced they would not stand either. With no challenger yet coming forward, Vince Cable is at present the only candidate to become the next leader.

Renewal

Over the years, the liberal parties in Britain have found themselves caught between two movements. The free marketers have been pulled rightward by the Conservatives and the social liberals have been pulled leftward by Labour.

And yet, the Liberal Democrats seemed to be making inroads as an alternative progressive party to Labour until the 2010 general election. In longstanding liberal tradition, the party announced it would respect pluralism and go into coalition with the party with most seats and most votes.

That decision, that led to Cameron and Clegg announcing the Coalition in the Rose Garden, ultimately proved wildly unpopular. It hangs over the party two years on. As the presumptive next leader, Vince Cable needs to address weaknesses like these.

To his credit, Cable has already taken steps to head off those concerns that more collaboration with the Tories awaits in the future. Cable described working with the Tories was like mating with a praying mantis - not something you're likely to survive twice.

It helps that the party has been clear that it won't be making any deals and in the election campaign, even Nick Clegg spoke of the need to work constructively with Labour in the aftermath to oppose the Tories - a clear sign that there is no going back.

The break from the past could bring with a fresh start on policy too. At the centre of the their 2017 campaign was the call for a second referendum. But it didn't really get traction. It was a policy that seemed to have missed a change in the public mood.

There is a growing sense that people have accepted that Brexit is going to happen and are focussing now on the future - a mood that makes the Lib Dems position seem nostalgic, or even conservative.

There is, perhaps, a need to draw a line under staying in - following what might be considered two defeats - and to realign thinking toward the future. Not to stop being pro-Europe or even pro-Remain, but to think about what these mean going forward rather than trying to undo the past. Three points to consider would be:

• to scrutinise and campaign for the least damaging Brexit,
• to support the right for individuals to retain their EU citizenship,
• and, to start talking about pathways back to European cooperation in the future.

The key is to start taking the initiative and look forwards, not backwards. To get back to basics, like questions of individual's rights. That idea doesn't just extend to policy on Europe.

Perception

At the heart of being forward-looking in developing policy and taking stances is public perception. For smaller parties it is a difficult, and sometimes perilous, tightrope to walk. But at it's heart, there are practical limitations these parties face and they must tailor their message to that reality.

When he resigned, Tim Farron drew a link between his decision and questions that arose in the election campaign suggesting a conflict between faith and politics. Farron portrayed the conflict as only the perception of an intolerant illiberal secularism.

Now, it certainly isn't incompatible for someone to be personally conservative and yet politically liberal, open and tolerant of others, and respecting their right to live their own lives.

But it is a hard stance to hold as the leader, as the figurehead, of a liberal movement. When asked to assuage doubts about his stance on LGBT and abortion rights, Farron failed to offer reassurance - focusing instead on himself.

Politics is a game played in soundbites and shorthands. The grand rhetoric and inspiring thought absolutely matters, so very much, but it isn't the gateway - the access point. Image and perceptions matter.

For the smaller third parties - for whom taking symbolic stands are one the few opportunities they get to show the public who they are - the leadership has to be a beacon of the values of that party, without equivocation.

The Coalition interfered with the Liberal Democrats' ability to make themselves distinct. The comedown from the personality politics that grew up around Nick Clegg has tarnished their image, along with the links to the Tories.

The party's long held commitments to plurality, to compromise, to democratic cooperation and serving the national interest above the party interests are all worthy. But little of it ever makes it to the public eye and is rarely interpreted as intended.

The party also seems to have struggled to establish what it is for, pitching a stance of 'equidistance' under Clegg that didn't really change under Farron. While there is nothing wrong with Centrism, it shouldn't be confused with just splitting the difference.

As a small party, the Lib Dems can't afford those confusions. It needs a clear message. For a good example, consider the party's 1997 manifesto. It called for active government that would strengthen liberty, promote prosperity and widen opportunity. There is what liberalism is supposed to stand for, summarised in three words: Liberty - Prosperity - Opportunity. Hopeful words that focus on the future, not just management of the mediocre present.

Foundation

The 2017 general election established a Liberal Democrat baseline and perhaps new foundations. Even with just a dozen MPs, the party still have the ability to put forward a capable frontbench team, with recognisable names associated with positive progressive campaigns.

From Vince Cable, with a long history as a treasury spokesperson and minister, and an economics expert; to Ed Davey, who was minister for energy and the environment; to Norman Lamb, who was a minister in the Department of Health, is an outspoken advocate of parity of esteem for mental health and now also chair of the Science and Technology select committee; there are strong credentials. In addition, both the returning Jo Swinson and the brand new Layla Moran are MPs who look like future party leaders.

There Lib Dems survived their mistakes and have decent foundations to build upon. But there are decisions to be made if the party wants to make it back from the brink - for the second time in it's history. But do so, the party needs to be much more self-aware and it needs to be clear.

There is still a place for liberalism under a broader progressive banner, but it has to commit. Even standing as centrist, with its cherished value of inclusivity, can be progressive. But the centre is not to be found halfway between Labour and the Tories.

Vince Cable, increasingly likely to be the next leader, has made positive steps in that direction. He has affirmed the "no deals" stance, with particular venom towards the Tories, supported the Compass campaign for a Progressive Alliance over the past few years and received cross-party backing in his own seat of Twickenham.

The last liberal recovery was founded in localism, campaigning and standing as a progressive party. The 2017 manifesto showed that the core of those ideas remains unchanged. What the party have lost their identity. It must be the new leader's priority to get it back.

General Election 2017 - A hopeful night for progressives: It's time to do opposition right

The provisional results, that give the Conservative-Unionist pact a very slim working majority.

The aim for progressives going into last night was supposed to be damage control. As it happened, they'd gone above and beyond - in fact, as the night went on, matters so very nearly tipped the Conservatives right out of government.

It will be interesting to see as the turnout is broken down to see how much of it came down to tactical voting among progressives - not organised by the parties, but voters themselves taking the lead and making their presence felt.

In the end, progressives had to settle for seeing off the Tory advance - a goal achieved with surprising comfort in the end. It came with the cherry topper of handing Theresa May an embarrassing rejection. She demanded the country unite around her and the country said no.

So much for strong and stable.

Theresa May has lost the Conservative majority and is now left dependent upon Arlene Foster and the Democratic Unionist Party - very recently hit by scandal and criticised over mismanagement in government at Stormont - to form a government.

Despite the Conservatives constant criticism of coalitions and relying on regional parties, Theresa May showed no hesitation in cobbling together a government that relied on the support of a narrowly focused regional party with some extreme views.

While the Conservatives deal with despondency, Labour are in a jubilant mood. Although celebrating and calling this a victory might be a little loose with the truth, it's a clear step forward.

In fact it is plenty enough for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to be justified in their stance that Labour are right now ready to govern as a minority government. It is a strong and confident stance they need to push and Labour MPs need to echo and reinforce.

You have to wonder if Corbyn and McDonnell always understood that Labour's route back to government would always take two elections. Last night they defied a threat of Tory advance, and revitalised themselves at home in their own seats.

Much criticised from within the party or focusing on boosting the party itself, in its own constituencies and ranks of members first, the strategy paid off. Labour's heartlands remained so and young turned out in droves.

Labour even expanded threateningly into Tory country. They took down junior ministers and established a following in the seats of senior ministers, that ran their incumbents very close and place them well for the next big push.

That will be at the next election. It will be a big moment for Labour. They've placed themselves breathing down the necks of the Conservatives and there will be no excuse next time. The platform is now there to launch Labour are into government.

However, Labour winning an election these days requires more than just Labour wins. It needs Liberal Democrat wins too. Last night the Lib Dems showed that they could win, but their performance was otherwise absurdly erratic.

From the nine seats they began the night with with, the party held four seats, lost five seats and gained eight seats. The Lib Dems also had a number of close calls either way - they really could have ended with anything from eight to eighteen seats.

The party largely held up its share of the vote - likely losing some to tactical voting, while gaining a little too. But the party could have hoped for a lot more and there will be some introspection among liberals in the days to come.

Honestly, considering the party's whole campaign at a distance, it's hard not to see Tim Farron's leadership as being compromised, despite the overall slight improvement in the party's position.

The leadership seemed to misjudge the public mood, unwaveringly focusing it's campaign on Brexit and rerun referendums, when many who the Lib Dems had to pitch to appear to have either gotten passed or not cared about in the first place.

And then there were the blunders Farron himself made, that were just plain ridiculous. No leaders of liberals should find themselves getting stuck with the label of intolerance on questions of support for LGBT and abortion rights.

The party's messy night speaks to the lack of clear message that connects values to policies to people, and resonated with an audience - as if the party simply wasn't sure to who exactly it was pitching it's ideas.

The return of Jo Swinson to the Commons for East Dunbartonshire on a clear majority perhaps presents the Liberal Democrats with a viable alternative leader - a woman, not least, outspoken and capable. All things the Lib Dems need to put at the forefront.

The SNP also had a dramatic night. While it is obviously on the one hand a tactic of media management to play down seat losses as best as possible, it was not unreasonable in this case. There really wasn't anywhere for the SNP to go after they swept Scotland last time out and the monopoly couldn't last.

The drama came from who the Lib Dems lost seats to: the Tories. Before the independence referendum that would have been, nearly, unthinkable. But last night, the Tories pretty much saved their political skins with gains in Scotland.

Their gains brought a particularly sad loss: Angus Robertson has lost his Moray seat. Sadly, Robertson will no longer bring his impressive performances to bear from the opposition benches in the Commons.

The big question going ahead now will be who can maintain their vote share and move forward. On several fronts, the Tories seem to have hit a wall that suggests they've maximised their reach. Labour, in contrast, broke new ground.

For Labour, this is a platform to win from. However, to turn that potential into a reality will depend upon keeping young voters, particularly first time voters, engaged and coming back time and again - and that will mean rewarding their engagement.

Labour also has to make a big pitch to Wales over the next five years. Voters in Wales shielded Labour last night, but the party hasn't really earned it - even with Corbyn's bright new manifesto. It has to start delivering.

There is a progressive majority. Seventeen million voted for the Centre-Left, while fifteen million went for the Right. Yet there is a Conservative government - a Hard Right Blue-Orange Loyalist coalition, no less.

It's mandate and majority are thin. Labour has a platform to fight and overturn that now, but first things first. All of the progressive parties have to get opposition right. There can be no messing around this time.

All progressive parties - Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens - have to start coordinating. And right now. Right from the start. The infighting must stop. The progressives turning fire on each other must stop.

All focus now has to be on holding the government to account, to prevent its Hard Right nature from getting out. On LGBT, on abortion, on human rights, on welfare - there are so many crossovers for progressives were opposition will be needed.

Corbyn's result has restored hope to progressives. It has trammelled the Conservatives. The time to make that count is now. The next election campaign starts now - and this time it'll be a fight progressives can win.

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.

Election 2015: Liberal Democrats

For Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, the 2015 general election has to come with extremely low expectations. The party is polling at only a third of those that voted for them in 2010, a measly 8%, and Clegg himself seems to have been made a scapegoat for all of the failures of Britain's political system.

On 7th May the Liberal Democrats look like they will be held responsible, for better or worse, both for the impact of the coalition and for the compromises made in the forming of it. While the Conservatives look set to be judged on austerity, how much support - and how many seats - Clegg and the Lib Dems are able to retain will represent whether or not the decision to enter coalition has been accepted by voters - regardless of any proposals that the party puts forward.

If the public's judgement should run against them, as polls suggest, the party looks like it will still survive in some seats where it is, ironically, protected by the first-past-the-post system against which they have campaigned for decades. That campaign for political reform was one of the party's biggest hopes for the coalition, and also their biggest disappointment. Their already compromised proposals for changes to the electoral system were rejected at a referendum (BBC, 2011), and attempts to reform the House of Lords into an elected chamber were put to an end in cross-party talks, with the Conservatives and Labour both blocking Lib Dem efforts (Clegg, 2012).

The Lib Dems have, however, managed to get quite a few policies through. The rise in the Personal Tax Allowance (Liberal Democrats, 2014), the Protection of Freedoms Act (Liberal Democrats, 2012), and the Pupil Premium (Vasagar, 2011). While they have been charged, by association through coalition, with culpability for allowing the Tories to govern, the party has argued that they have held the Conservatives back from doing their worst.

They resisted and tried to get a better outcome on the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Harris, 2012), they resisted the Tory version of the Bedroom Tax (Watt, 2014) and they earned praise for standing up for public sector Trade Union members against the Conservatives (Syal, 2014; Watt, 2015). Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, have both gone further and warned of worst to come from the Tories if they're left unchecked (The Guardian, 2015{1}; The Guardian, 2015{2}).

Their future plans have also been roundly copied by their rivals. Their Mansion Tax has been co-opted by Labour (Dominiczak, 2013) and their Personal Tax Allowance has been taken on by the Conservatives (ITV, 2014). The Liberal Democrats are also the first party to pledge an increase in NHS funding each year through to 2020, in real terms - adjusting for inflation - to the £8bn more that the NHS has stated it needs (Wright & Moodley, 2015; Campbell, 2015).

Despite all of this, there is one one policy that the party does not seem able to live down. The compromise too far was tuition fees. The party argues that, despite being a small party without enough influence and no parliamentary supporters, it got the best deal it could, rather than let something worse come about - specifically uncapped unlimited fees. The solution itself is, although achieved through what feels a lot like an accountants sleight-of-hand, higher education free at the point of use, to be paid back later in tax.

That outcome comes - along with the risk of non-payment being moved to government away from the universities in order to secure higher education funding for the present (Ashworth-Hayes & Sippitt, 2015) - with a shift in the burden of debt from universities to students. With repayment thresholds designed to protect the poorest, the tuition fee has turned into a de facto graduate tax. The problem is that the debt, though structured to lessen the burden, is still - on principle - a burden (Swain, 2015).

That goes against the radical principle the party had stood for, and it seems few want to hear the arguments about political compromise from weak bargaining positions - despite that being central to the party's political beliefs since before they were called Liberal Democrats. Their practical stances and readiness to compromise means that few would find it realistic for the party to present themselves as the radical alternative protest party that they were seen as in 2010 (Brocklebank, 2010). In that light the Lib Dems have had to take a new approach.

The new presentation is focussed on the party's belief in practical, balanced budget, Centrism. Fair and balanced is what they are presenting as the order of the day under a Liberal Democrat government - or, at least, a government under liberal influence. Fewer cuts than the Right wants, less spending than the Left wants. Cuts only to tackle the deficit, spending only what can be afforded, with a commitment to raising taxes on the wealthier to reduce the depth of cuts to public spending. Less harsh and more understanding on welfare than Labour or the Tories (Batchelor, 2014); a commitment to funding for mental health care (Sparrow, 2015); a commitment to Europe; a commitment to civil rights (Macwhirter, 2015); and a commitment to devolving power away from Westminster (Demianyk, 2015).

Despite their proposals, despite their achievements, the party is nonetheless in a precarious position. There are those, however, who are not so pessimistic about their chances on the 7th May (d'Ancona, 2015). Away from the mainstream polls, there is positive thinking amongst Lib Dems that 12-15% of vote and 30-something seats is possible, and that 40-something seats are not out of reach (Tall, 2015{2}). With annihilation predicted for them, even 30 seats would be seen as a huge victory - and maybe in some way vindication for taking the difficult decision to change British politics and go into coalition.

In that there is something from which the Liberal Democrats will ultimately take pride. Clegg and the Lib Dems have made compromise, coalition and a more grown up politics possible. They have made it possible to have, not only coalitions, but stable coalition government where both sides can openly, brazenly disagree and still work together - even if in doing so has damaged their own chances of ever playing that role again (Gibbon, 2015).

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Prospects: 8% for 28 seats (for a loss of 28).*

Potential Coalition Partners: Labour Party (273 seats), Conservative Party (273), SNP (51), Green Party (1).

Verdict: All of the reasons to vote Liberal Democrat in 2010 remain valid in 2015 - with the obvious exception of the tuition fee policy. Abolition of fees for Higher Education is now being considered a future aspiration the party, not something it can deliver in the short term. That alone may be enough to damage the party significantly. Keeping half of their seats would be seen as a major success.

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