The new Libdem Manifesto abandons everything Jo Grimond ever stood for.
Electoral reform and the principle of proportional representation do not even get a mention in any of the Libdem manifesto summaries shown in the media today. But as The Slog can now reveal, this is not a new development.
Go back through the archives on Google in relation to Libdem manifestos, and in relation to proportional representation you will see – over and over again – the words ‘the first thing we mention’ and ‘at the forefront of our thinking’. I’ve not been through the whole turgid 109 pages of the 2010 Number yet (the first four were bad enough) but I can tell you it doesn’t get much of a mention; and it doesn’t ‘feature’ at all.
As a lifetime supporter (up until Menzies Campbell) of what used to be a fine and visionary institution called The Liberal Party, I have to regard this as the political sell-out of the century. But then, Ming Campbell did start the rot in the Party’s cross-beam during his mercifully brief and utterly disastrous tenure of the leadership.
In 2007, the BBC got onto a dynamite story that Campbell was – for reasons best known to himself and his coterie – seriously thinking about dropping unequivocal support for PR. It was, the reporter had heard, seen by Ming as ‘a millstone’ likely to scupper any negotiations with a future minority Government. On 9th March that year, the Party was forced to deny that the issue was under discussion as a policy issue.
However, the weasel-worded press release didn’t convince anyone. It followed ‘apparent confusion’ over the party’s strategy after a senior official told reporters electoral reform was no longer ‘a deal breaker’. That would’ve been an odd (some would say Freudian) choice of words, but I understand there is no doubt that the official did give an off-the-record briefing to that effect.
The official’s conversation ‘was later dismissed as “unauthorised”‘ the BBC noted, and the official left his employment with the Libdems just four days later. He had ‘already agree before the brief’ lied the press release, ‘to move on’. This is the sort of ‘It has been Unsaid’ Orwellian bollocks that passes for reality in the media-obsessed politics we all have to suffer these days.
Why have the Cleggies done this? And despite some mutterings among the rank and file, why hasn’t LibDemVoice kicked up more about it? Obviously, words like ‘rock’ and ‘boat’ spring to mind, but it is immensely disappointing to see perhaps the one Party with any hope of looking credible on the ‘change’ dimension dropping the corner-stone upon which real change can be built.
This is a sad day for Liberals with a cap L like me, wot wonce woz. My first (and greatest) political inspiration was Jo Grimond, easily the most far-sighted British politician of the middle 20th century years, and the only politician in my lifetime who never made me feel let down. If Jo’s ideas for worker shareholdings, PR and early EU membership had been followed, there would’ve been no Union bullies, no Thatcher, no City madness, no Blair and no bloated Brussels – and Britain would be a richer, fairer country taking the role that Germany now deservedly occupies.
Compared to this great man, Nick Clegg is a pubescent gnat.
The Slog 