It has been a long time since I posted or blogged anything - but inspired (ish) by the party conference season, I wrote this for Lib Dem Voice.
I was quite interested to see that it received about 30 comments in the first 24 hours, mostly from Lib Dems soul searching about whether they're of the left, right or the centre.
Positioning on the political spectrum is always a little futile - of course vision, values and persuading the electorate to your position matters too.
But I do think it's a big problem for the Lib Dems - and one compounded by coalition. Not many knew where they stood. Many voted tactically or as a protest vote. Coalition has blurred them further - are they Tories in disguise. So, it seems true to say that their urgent task is to define themselves in clearer terms. They've been able to fudge it before as, in Nick Clegg's words, a "stop the world, I want to get off, party".
But in 2015, they need a much clearer sense of what they stand for as an independenty party. That seems to me unarguable.
I was quite interested to see that it received about 30 comments in the first 24 hours, mostly from Lib Dems soul searching about whether they're of the left, right or the centre.
Positioning on the political spectrum is always a little futile - of course vision, values and persuading the electorate to your position matters too.
But I do think it's a big problem for the Lib Dems - and one compounded by coalition. Not many knew where they stood. Many voted tactically or as a protest vote. Coalition has blurred them further - are they Tories in disguise. So, it seems true to say that their urgent task is to define themselves in clearer terms. They've been able to fudge it before as, in Nick Clegg's words, a "stop the world, I want to get off, party".
But in 2015, they need a much clearer sense of what they stand for as an independenty party. That seems to me unarguable.
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