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| Dan Jarvis |
The victorious Labour candidate, Dan Jarvis, a former major in the paratroop regiment and who served in Afghanistan, said the result sent:
"the strongest possible message to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Your reckless policies, your broken promises and your unfair cuts are letting our country down."
The Lib Dem president Tim Farron played down the result saying that it was no surprise, while on Twitter, Verity Harding, senior policy manager was stating, "Barnsley result painful but not terminal. People aren't voting Lib Dem as a protest against Labour anymore - not a surprise!" Not terminal? Many commentators are suggesting it could be. Just how bad is the situation?
Johann Hari, the Guardian columnist, is today predicting Nick Clegg to lose his seat (if he runs again) while Mark Ferguson, editor of Labour List, suggested that the Lib Dems could see support recede to their historically peripheral regions of the South-west and North of Scotland. Why? Ferguson argues that the Lib Dems can no longer be seen as a credible alternative to Labour in many regions and the old line that they are positioned to the left of Labour has been shattered. Without the reservoir of support from disgruntled Labour supporters where will they turn for votes?
The apocalyptic visions of decline are lent a little credibility by the Lib Dem spokespersons themselves. Less than a year into the Coalition Government and a decline in vote from 17.2% to 4.1% is seen as 'no surprise'. Expectations must be pretty low at headquarters, after all, Barnsley is not a hotbed of student radicalism. Harding's analysis of "Painful but not terminal", is probably closer to the mark, but the fact that the comment is being made suggests that, in digesting the result, senior Lib Dems have considered the possibility. Harding's comment, 'People aren't voting Lib Dem as a protest against Labour anymore' recognises Ferguson's point that the Lib Dems position as the credible party of protest has been dealt a severe blow.
So what will Clegg do? Another skiing holiday? Probably not, no matter how appealing it might seem at the moment.The only thing he can do to rescue his party is to start defining some space between the Lib Dems and Tories. So far he has failed in his attempts. As I noted in a previous post (http://bit.ly/guD5Jq) he was tying himself in knots trying to square the circle of higher university fees with fairer access. The stream of universities announcing they will charge the maximum £9000 fees is a continual embarrassment to Clegg who has argued that the maximum fee will be charged only in exceptional cases. Also, his insistence on fair access to the top universities, which brought strong criticism from the Tories, was dealt a blow this week by Oxford and Cambridge indicating they would not 'lower' standards to increase admissions for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.Only a month ago Cameron condemned multiculturalism as a failure and laid out his vision of a 'muscular liberalism' defeating extremism. Yesterday, saw yet another attempt by Clegg to separate himself from Cameron. Giving a speech in Luton, Clegg stressed the importance of multiculturalism in an 'open and confident society'. Shadow communities secretary Caroline Flint said: "Nick Clegg's speech has exposed a lack of clarity at the top of government over its view of multiculturalism."
Is this true? Despite the soundbite headline, in the body of the speech reported on the BBC, Clegg was at pains to identify common ground with the Tories, "we come at some of these issues from different directions". But he added: "We completely agree that if multiculturalism means communities living in silos - separately from each other, never communicating, with no shared sense of belonging then we are both completely against it." It sums up the Lib Dem dilemma. Does Clegg want to project his own 'muscular liberalism' or does he want to maintain the coalition? Doing both is proving very destructive to the party's prospects.
Terminal? Not yet. We have a lot more twists and turns to come. To quote someone who served in both Liberal and Conservative governments, Winston Churchill,"this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
The crunch will be the AV referendum. This is a voting system nobody wants - Lib Dems want PR and are only voting for AV as a staging post - so when the referendum is lost, what will be the point of the coalition? It will then collapse. Clegg will get a Europe job or some such. Anyone noticed how Cameron has Danny Alexander sitting next to him - the seduction of power!
ReplyDeletethe tories, in my opinion are inherently devisive to seek there own aims, this is , I would say on the back of old " divide and rule" type politics, luckily many of us have principles: stick to them. Nay, I would continue with whatever work you already do and amplify its benefits, I'm ardently doing this in the fields I work in, enthused by the challenge , in my case , again
ReplyDeleteBest comment I've heard on politicians recently came from Jacky Mason (comedian). They should be on commission, if the country does well, they do well.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if the coalition can hold together, particularly post the AV campaign as eejit notes. But I think what Barnsley may signal is the collapse of the relevance of the Liberal Democrats as the third party. The collapse of their vote suggests that voters now see a clear choice between Labour and the Conservatives and, at crucial points, the LibDems are simply a second rate version of the Conservatives and so electorally irrelevant. In Barnsley it is unsurprising that it seems LibDem voters defected to Labour (or didn't vote at all), but what happens elsewhere could see a reshaping of safe/marginal seats.
ReplyDeleteOf course 2015 is a long way off but the LibDems are in an invidious position. It would be suicide for the LibDems to either leave the coalition prematurely or tie themselves to the coalition hoping that the policies will become attractive over the next four years. Where do they go, some who are from the Social Democrat tradition may defect back to Labour, others may go to Conservatives, or they may just leave it to the voter to decide their fate.