Yellow Peril

I have been politically active almost as long as the Liberal Democrats have existed, and for most of that period, the people running both main parties have been fascinated with the Lib Dems. They have regarded the two great tragedies of British political history in the twentieth century as the decline of the Liberal Party after the First World War, and the failure of the SDP in the 1980s. They have been in their present parties only because they have felt themselves born to be Prime Minister. But they have pined for something like the American Democratic Party, and they have very often started out as Liberals, or SDP members, or Lib Dems. A former Lib Dem was briefly Prime Minister less than two years ago.

I voted without equivocation for Owen Temple in 2017. Had he won, then the Teaching Assistants of whom he was such a champion would have won. With the Independents, most or all of whom in their relative stronghold of North West Durham I strongly suspect to have voted for Owen, the Lib Dems were stalwarts of that campaign. In 2020, their participation was crucial to the liberation of Durham County Council from the right-wing Labour machine.

But the Lib Dems as a national party are something else. Entirely in keeping with their roots in Whiggery, Gladstonianism, and the circle of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer who introduced monetarism to Britain, they were the more pro-austerity and pro-war party to the Coalition, as is evident from the relative loosening of austerity once they left office, and at least until recent days from the absence of anything comparable to the invasion of Libya.

The Secretary of State who hived off the Post Office from the Royal Mail in order to privatise the latter at a scandalous loss went on to become the Leader of the Lib Dems, while their current Leader was the Minister for Postal Services who refused to meet Alan Bates. Vince Cable's filleting of the Royal Mail is explicable only by the fact that as long ago as 2011, the whole City knew about the Horizon scandal, and would therefore have refused to have bought the Post Office or to have handled its sale. Thankfully, Ed Davey is to be challenged for his parliamentary seat by Yvonne Tracey, who is an Independent Councillor in his constituency and a former subpostmistress.

And when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.

To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. Nor are the Lib Dems.