Year in review August - October 2021

October

As October opened, the petrol shortages were beginning to recede, but words like cabotage and haulage were reaching public consciousness. A patina of incompetence was beginning to stick to the Government - it turns out that listening to experts, making plans and carrying them out was a better way to run the country than just perpetually reacting to things as if they were a surprise. It also meant that a few people were reminded what those foreigners had been doing all that time.

The Wayne Couzens murder trial had resulted in a whole life sentence at the end of September, but the response of senior policing figures drew much criticism. Miranda Roberts explained some of the more alarming issues and offered some very useful advice, whilst Wendy Chamberlain offered a perspective that, perhaps, only a former police officer could have.

The Prime Minister gave what might charitably have been described as a slightly odd speech to the Conservative Party Conference, rather ignoring what was actually happening and instead focusing on pleasing the people in the room. That is, in fairness, how Alexander de Pfeffel Boris Johnson has always behaved, and people kept falling for it. One could only hope that if you kept pointing out that the Emperor had no clothes, as Ed Davey did, that the public would eventually notice too.

The murder of Sir David Amess, the Conservative MP for Southend West, led to a temporary coming together of politicians from across the spectrum, it being generally agreed that he was a committed public servant, devoted to representing his constituents. Andrew Mackinlay wrote a moving tribute, whilst Andy Boddington wondered if this didn't offer an opportunity to improve the tenor of political discourse.

The debate over the future of the Party came to the fore again, with Michael Meadowcroft arguing in a powerful piece that what the Party really needed was a strong philosophical foundation from which policies would organically emerge, rather than attempting to do things the other way round. I'm with him on this, which might surprise some. But if your philosophy is clear, the sort of solutions you come up with should be apparent from first principles.

I returned to the office, which led me to wonder if this wasn't the time to reevaluate the world of work. What I didn't know at the time was that I, and so many others, were going to be asked to go back to working from home again so soon.

The end of the month saw an inevitably underwhelming Budget speech from Rishi Sunak. Underwhelming because, for the most part, the key announcements had been made well in advance. The Speaker wasn't impressed, but nobody cared that much. Michael Berwick Gooding offered up an alternative which would have done rather more to address poverty.

On the by-election front, October was mostly a month of solid holds, first in Nottinghamshire, Somerset and Surrey, and then later in the month in Birmingham and West Sussex. Unfortunately, a seat on Surrey Heath Borough Council was lost to the Conservatives, albeit narrowly.

In the polls, the Conservatives continued to defy political logic, even extending their lead slightly;

Conservatives 39%, Labour 32%, Liberal Democrats 9%, Greens 9%

Little did anyone know that one of the more crass misjudgements in recent political history was about to upset the blue applecart…

September

I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of Party conferences - I'm not a policy wonk nor am I a frequent speaker, no more than half a dozen times over more than thirty years - but I appreciate that, for many, there's something about being surrounded by your fellow Liberal Democrats that inspires and encourages.

But if politics is about changing lives for the better, it wasn't a bad conference. Abolishing conversion therapy may not impact directly on many, but for those it does affect, it is life changing. Building more houses, especially more affordable housing, will enable many to find long-term solutions and build stability. And challenging the causes of violence against women offers greater freedom to half of the population.

You might reasonably argue that all of these issues are about freedom to live one's life as one chooses, removing unfair limits put in place by others and, in a similar vein, Fraser Graham made an elegant intervention on liberty, equality and diversity in the debate on "What Liberal Democrats believe". This was followed by discussion on Party strategy going forward, as Caron reported.

Beyond Conference, the world plodded slowly, occasionally falteringly on. A shortage of lorry drivers led the Government to offer short-term visas to the very people they had earlier told were superfluous. Michal Siewniak rather neatly summed up why that was unlikely to work, whilst Chris Perry offered some more long-term solutions to this and the similar problems in the social care sector.

Vaccine passports continued to generate disagreement, with the supposedly "nanny-statist" Liberal Democrats opposing them in some rather disagreeable company. Were we right? Was it a popular stance to take? The answers to both questions weren't immediately positive, as public opinion has generally been pretty cautious over the past two years, but any stance is either liberal or it isn't, and I tend to think that the Party's stance has been pretty coherent, even where I personally don't share it.

Hilton Marlton made a plea for a genuinely Welsh voice for the Party, which struck a chord with some, whilst Katharine Pindar offered up what she described as a distinctly Liberal viewpoint.

I offered up some thoughts on our comments policy and how moderation operates in practice. And, whilst it is nice to hear from some of you telling us why we're so very wrong, there was little meaningful input sufficient to persuade us to change much.

Local government by-elections offered little in the way of new success until the end of the month, when we gained a seat on Eden District Council from the Conservatives and regained a seat lost through defection on Swale District Council but we did successfully defend seats in East Devon, South Lakeland and Newcastle, whilst there were valiant near misses in Sheffield and Sunderland.

As for the opinion polls, Labour had a brief renaissance but it didn't survive the month. That said, the polls were closing a little;

Conservatives 38%, Labour 33%, Liberal Democrats 9%, Greens 9%

Clearly, the Conservatives were nervous, with a Cabinet reshuffle intended to reassure the public that they were still in control of the pandemic response. Would that, and the booster programme, do the trick?…

August

As Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan, hopes that the Afghan Government could stand on its own two feet proved to be entirely illusionary, as did the Afghan Army. And whilst it could be reasonably said that no British Government could have dealt well with such a collapse, the failure of the Conservatives to honour their commitments was a reminder that their policy aim was almost solely to get to the next afternoon.

It started with the failure to evacuate those Afghans who had assisted our troops as interpreters, as Ed Davey noted. The challenge of how to evacuate U.K. nationals and their dependents proved difficult, as key players were either on holiday or blind to the issues. Our Foreign Affairs Editor, Tom Arms, wrote a masterful summary of the consequences of the Taliban victory, setting out the geopolitical issues. Perhaps he should have been our Foreign Secretary…

There were calls for Britain to take in Afghan refugees, whilst Lee Howgate was scathing in his contempt for the Government's attitude towards the debacle. But, by the end of the month, Afghanistan was in the hands of the Taliban, and the former Government had fled. It wasn't going to get any better for the Afghan people as winter approached…

Alex Cole-Hamilton hit the ground running as our new Leader in Scotland, chastising the SNP administration on drug policy and appointing a new, young team of spokespersons, one of whom was vaguely familiar to the Liberal Democrat Voice team…

Caron Lindsay - Social Security, Member of the Social Justice Secretary's Steering Group on a Minimum Income Guarantee

William Wallace, who was becoming something of a regular contributor, and a most welcome one at that, offered a means of determining between liberalism and libertarianism. Some of you disagreed, and a lively debate ensued. I tend to worry more about those amongst you whose definition of liberalism is defined not by what it is but what your bias against it is.

The article which drew most comment though was a piece by Duncan Brack about developing Party policy on the future relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. It never ceases to surprise me as to the number of people who like to wander into our conversations to tell us we're wrong…

We were beginning to win local government by-elections - always a promising sign. There were two good gains in the Highlands, a solid hold in South Lakeland, two seats retained in Ribble Valley and a gain in Rutland, where Lord Bonkers was doubtless effectively deploying the Bonkers Patented Exploding Focus. And the month ended with a spectacular gain in Cumbria.

It couldn't be said that the opinion polls were showing signs of a shift towards the Liberal Democrats, unfortunately, and whilst the Conservatives were looking more inept in office than ever, the tipping point where people start to look elsewhere was still to come;

Conservatives 40%, Labour 32%, Liberal Democrats 9%, Greens 8%

Party Conference season was approaching, with its opportunities for putting big ideas before the public. But were there any big ideas out there…

* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.