The Lib Dems have been crushed. Jo Swinson lost her seat; none of the defectors from the Labour and Conservative parties managed to either hold or take the seats they were contesting; the Liberal Democrats managed to overall net lose seats in an election where that seemed almost impossible going in.
What follows is a forensic examination of where I believe the Lib Dem 2019 general election campaign went wrong. I write this not to rub salt in anyone’s wounds, but to start a serious discussion about how liberal campaigns can stop losing every time. There is a Lib Dem tendency to want to find a silver lining in even the greyest cloud – now is not the time for that. We need to understand why losing has become the norm and figure out how to stop it.
Yes, the Lib Dems got squeezed as they always get squeezed. Yes, the media didn’t give them much of a fair shake, as is almost always the case in a general election. But the failure here cannot be so easily written off. The thing about the Lib Dems’ campaign is that when you factor in every key variable – poll position at the start of the campaign, weakness of the leaders of both main parties, what the election was about – the Lib Dems campaign is very possibly the worst election campaign in British electoral history. I don’t mean that hyperbolically either, to be clear, but literally. Worse even than Labour’s 2019 general election campaign, which is mostly just about Corbyn as leader.
Let’s start with things about the campaign the badness of which has been overplayed in the media. It has become a generally accepted truth that the revoke Article 50 policy has been a disaster for the party; furthermore, that adopting this policy is the chief reason the Lib Dems did so badly. The revoke Article 50 policy is a gigantic red herring; the very same political pundits who have gone on and on about what a bad decision it was for the Lib Dems to have chosen to go for revoke would all, to a pundit, be saying what a disaster it was for the Lib Dems not to have gone revoke had they stuck with a second referendum policy. I can imagine the line: the Lib Dems made themselves indistinguishable from Labour by not going further with their Brexit policy. If only they’d gone for full on revoke, this election would have been so different for the poor, ever-cautious Lib Dems.
No, the problem with the revoke policy is that it seems to have never occurred to Lib Dem HQ that they were going to get a lot of push back on it, from both the media and the two main parties. That they would be called upon to explain it in often provocative terms. The Lib Dems also never seemed to understand what the whole point of the revoke policy was and what was actually good about it – “getting Brexit done”. It should have been about demonstrating that the Lib Dems revoke policy was the only way to end Brexit quickly. In order to have done this effectively, they would have had to attack Boris’ deal, which they pathologically avoided (we’ll come this in a moment, don’t fret). Worse, their hearts never seemed to be in the policy; whenever they were attacked on it, the Lib Dems seemed to instantly retreat from it, saying that it would only happen if they won a majority and that in all other cases they were still the People’s Vote people. There really was no point in going for revoke as a policy if you weren’t going to defend the position in all circumstances.
A much worse aspect of the Lib Dems’ campaign that hasn’t been touched on by almost anyone is just how achingly, unbelievably awful the slogan for it was and how large this features in the defeat. Build a Better Future. The fact that the slogan is asinine, vague, superficial and sounds like something any American corporation could adopt is amazingly enough only the third worst thing about it. The absolute worst thing about the slogan is that it told the exact opposite story to what the Lib Dems should have been communicating: that this election is all about immediacy. The 2019 general election needed to be about the present – about RIGHT NOW – not the future. You need to vote Lib Dem in this election because it is your last chance to stop Brexit and to stop the protracted mess of it the Tories will continue to make. You need to vote Lib Dem right now to help create a party where One Nation Tories and moderate Labourites can feel at home, since the two main parties have abandoned these people.
Related to the last point there, the second worst thing about the slogan is that it is so painfully Lib Demy. It thus served to remind those who might have been considering voting for the party of all of the reasons they have never liked the Liberal Democrats. Which brings me neatly onto my next point: how the Lib Dems retreated to a weird, core strategy for no discernible reason. One of the biggest things the Lib Dems had going for them coming into the campaign was the fact that several MPs from both Labour and the Conservative parties had defected and joined the Liberal Democrats. This gave the party a perfect reason to declare itself a sort of Lib Dems 2.0. The party was no longer what it once was – instead, it had become the meeting ground for centrists and liberals sick of the moves to the extremes both of the main parties had made. Before you say, “Well, that wouldn’t have worked”, just look at how successful Boris Johnson was at portraying his premiership as something brand spanking new throughout the election campaign, as if he wasn’t leader of a party that had been in government for almost a decade.
Yet the defector advantage for the Lib Dems was barely talked about and in fact, felt like it was minimised by the party to an almost neurotic degree. People go on about the mistake that was Jo Swinson running a presidential style thing. Yes, that was bad, one because British people really don’t like presidential style campaigns (something the Tories learned from last time, running a much more multi-personality contest this time, using Boris only as much as strictly called for), but secondly because it shaved off this massive advantage. Instead of Jo Swinson on the side of a bus, it should have been Jo flanked by Chuka, Sam Gyimah and Luciana Berger. The defectors should have been front and centre from start to finish. They should have had Luciana Berger talk about the Corbyn anti-semitism stuff, not Jo Swinson. Have Sam Gyimah and Philip Lee on as much media as you can get them on, talking about why they left the Tories and why those who voted Tory in the past should vote Lib Dem this time. It was as if this was discussed and then discarded as being “not the Lib Dem way”.
The Lib Dems clearly had no strategy about where they were standing aside in the name of Remain, and what the overall message they were trying to send was on this very important front. Examples of where this went horribly wrong: standing aside for Dominic Grieve but not David Gauke. Why? There seemed to be no reason, which made this key area of the Lib Dem campaign seem totally random. Then we have the Canterbury disaster, which I don’t need to elaborate on. Again, put aside which of these MPs kept their seat or not, I’m simply talking about the effect this confusion had on the Lib Dems’ campaign and the electorate’s image of the party. I thought right from the start of the campaign that the best thing would have been to stand aside for Remainer Labour MPs with nothing in return except the goodwill the party would have got from Remain voters for doing so. I would have stood aside for Jess Phillips – no token move, as Birmingham Yardley was Lib Dem until 2015 – and several other key Labour Remainer MPs. To make up for this, I would have gone in hard on Islington North, not because the Lib Dems would have won, but to send a message. We are anti-Corbyn and won’t put him in Number 10, but we stand tall with Labour Remainers. We hope to work with them in the new parliament, particularly when we have a hung parliament and Jeremy Corbyn is no longer Labour leader. Anti-Corbyn, not anti-Labour. It was about presenting the Lib Dems as a new, centrist, pro-European force that could win an election in the near future, not as keepers of the Lib Demiest flame.
Finally, the biggest fault of the campaign was the avoidance of critiquing Boris Johnson’s Brexit “deal”. This was the thing that really killed the campaign, not the revoke policy; if I could go back in time and change only one thing about the campaign, it would be this. The Tories wanted to say “get Brexit done” as much as they could with that phrase being questioned as little as possible by anyone. They knew Labour wouldn’t talk about it much since they were desperate to avoid mentioning Brexit, wanting to move the campaign onto other issues. This had to come from the Lib Dems. The Liberal Democrats had to say why Boris Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement will not ‘get Brexit done’ but will instead cause us to either leave the transition at the end of 2020 with no deal – so no deal comes back on the table – or Brexit goes on and on, into 2021 and beyond. This is where the revoke policy would have been given context and could have come into its own. Since the Lib Dems had to attack the Withdrawal Agreement as their whole intellectual case rested on doing so, this should not have been a problem. Yet they avoided doing so in a manner that can only be described as insane. They quite literally let Boris Johnson get away with one.
The refusal to make critiquing Johnson’s deal the focal point of the campaign had massive negative knock on effects. It made the revoke policy look silly and extreme, which became the major talking point; it made Labour’s policy, which was mindbendingly inane, then seem completely reasonable by comparison, leaking huge numbers of Remain votes to Corbyn’s party; it made the Lib Dems seem pointless in an election which should have been tailor made for them.
To summarise: the ideal Lib Dem 2019 general election campaign should have been centred on an easy to understand critique of the Tory Brexit deal, contrasting it with the Lib Dems ability to actually ‘get Brexit done’; focused as well on Labour and Tory defectors and how much this has changed the Lib Dems into something more appealing to Lab/Tory voters; that this was the electorate’s one chance, right now, to vote for this new centrist party and also the very last chance to stop Brexit. Instead, the Lib Dems ran what was almost the perfect opposite of this as a campaign and have been devastated as a result.
The worst of it is, this really was the last chance. Had Luciana Berger managed to take Finchley and Golders Green, there would have been some hope. Now, I can’t see any for the Lib Dems. This really could have been the party’s one last chance, a chance that has been blown completely.
You omitted the Lin Dem’s passionate defence of self-id, a nonsense policy that did not protect trans people and threatened to erase the rights of biological women
Yes! I know of one potential LD voter who in the end was deterred exactly by this. LibDems in future must work out a balance between possibly conflicting human rights.
because your particular form of prejudice did not actually move any voters
Oh look a self important TERF.
Absolute nonsense,
There is no risk to the rights of women from self-ID and personally I was proud that Swinson stood up for trans people’s rights. Honestly the moral panic about self-ID has gotten utterly crazy. Nearly all of what the nasty anti-trans crowd are worried about is either already covered by the Equalities act or is governed by other authorities (e.g. prisons and sports).
As someone who came out as gay in the late 80’s, I know what the bullying is like that people like you perpetuate and it needs to stop. Go and inform yourself from sensible sources such as Stonewall, not trans-panic lobby groups.
I Agree with much of what has been written here. We will however not give up. If there were no Liberal (Democrat) party one would surely need to be Invented. Onwards and Upwards, Cllr Nick Cotter.
One major error in your analysis is that you are prioritising the antisemitism campaign against Labour The trouble is that Lucian’s and the party’s assertions are not supported by the evidence – it’s a con – as you can see if you read this document carefully: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/check-evidence/. Some anti-Jewish sentiment exists in Labour as elsewhere in our society, but it is clearly not rampant as Luciana and Jo have been implying.
How can LibDems put their hand on their hearts and condemn Trump, Boris etc. for fake news and lying, when it does exactly the same itself? This deprives the party of moral authority.
Hold hard for a minute. Couple of things.
The Othering and bullying of uklabour drove out good MPs like Luciana. Much of the problem with both the main Parties is not present in the LibDems in the witness of the incoming MPs who took a day or so at Conference to lose the scared rabbit look.
In terms of the overall campaign the campaign team failed to get media coverage. When they did they trained Jo in the wrong things. There was no climate, NHS, schools and money ending a sentence. She always brought it back to the EU. But much of that was the toxic environment and aggressive Blues vs Reds sports coverage of a lazy media.
What happened was that her lack of s’ooasle at the start of the campaign meant that to have what was a new leader bringing a new approach never materialised. She lost the airtime for other reasons too and the worst was the lack of chance to finish a sentence. The sexist way she was talked over, even by female chairs of debates, was her failure not to stop. The Campaign team must all now be replaced because we have Labour to split, we want their Social Democrats. Every leadership hopeful spouts the momentum irresponsible economics and embraces the Corbyn rhetoric.
Or tasks are…
1. Hold the government to account
a. Marcus J Ball case
. b. Cobham sold to an US hedge fund
c. 11,000 patients per doctor
. d. EU condems Russian money in Malta
Twitter and Facebook are alive with opportunities to wake people up, pull Labour loyal voters from their not voting to joining us.
The people who voted for this government will be the “reformed smokers” and remove them from office one by one as their lies run into a court appearance here, an inappropriate conflict of interest there.
Begin?
Nick, I read your blog pieces with the hope of finding some inciteful comments and in this instance come away disappointed and you are incorrect on many of the points you make.
a) Remain alliance nonsense with Labour (again). How many times do you and other people need to be told is that there could not be a remain alliance with that party as they would not recpricate. To do so anyway would have been electoral suicide in many of our target seats as it would have been portrayed by the Tories and perceived by many liberal Tories as enabling a Corbyn government as there is nothing more terrifying for a Tory than Corbyn. Additionally it is worth noting that in Finchley and Golders Green where Labour had no chance along with Two Cities the Labour party were out in force knocking up their voters to vote for them. This was not so that they could win, but stop us winning / from finishing second. That’s how much they care about the remain alliance.
b) Tories not running a presidential campaign?! What planet are you on? 90% of the Tory campaign was about Johnson saying “Get Brexit Done” with a bit of Javid lying too. Lib Dems struggle for media coverage at the best of times and the media do focus on personalities, they did have Umuna and Berger hosting a number of press conferences, they just weren’t widely covered
c) Not attacking Johnson’s deal. HQ, did look at this and found out that it made absolutely no difference in changing votes especially for leavers
Nick Tyrone: Do read what Jeremy has written. It is a brutal truth that Labour put in as much effort against Johnson and the Tory Brexiters as they put in against Jo Swinson and the LIb Dems.
So far as Corbyn is concerned I think his strategy is going to plan.
Like you, I was surprised and disturbed by the way the Lib Dem campaign failed to attack Johnson and his deal. I still am really, though I note Jeremy Cunnington’s explanation: – I am not so sure I would expect it to make such a difference to leavers, but for the Lib Dems the key information is the reaction of those who oppose Brexit; did they just look at attacking the ‘deal’ or did they look at a combination of an attack on the ‘deal’ and on Johnson’s mendacious and narcissistic record?
what about swinson , her woeful leadership added to this awful outcome
The worst ting that can happen to a party leader is being laughed at.
Was Jo Swinson on drugs?
The working class voting tory
Turkeys do vote for christmas
Liberal Democrats will not recover
Labour will just elect a decent leader for once not a leader that the media can destroy as weird or toxic
Time for david Miliband
Boris would cack himself against a polished performer
There’s a lot I agree with here but reality is always more complicated than “forensic analysis”.
To give one example, how the defectors were portrayed in the campaign was extremely difficult to get right. I agree that having people of that calibre and bravery coming into the LibDems was a major plus point and that story should have been better told, but the party came close to splitting over the very idea of Lee being a candidate for us and a new leader (or her advisors) was always going to find it hard to share the spotlight with people who were prominent in other parties a few weeks ago. There was no time for these good candidates to integrate into the wider party.
It has been extraordinarily difficult for anyone to attack Johnson, his deal or any of his vacuous positions. Enough voters have accepted the lies and con-tricks to make complaining about them deeply boring and any criticism to sound like “sour grapes”. It’s straight out of the Bannon/Trump manual. Once you abandon any sense of responsibility for your pledges and statements you can say what you want to wind up your base and anyone who criticises you simply confirms the base in its self-delusion because its killing a buzz. The criticism doesn’t stick because no one ever took the statement or pledge (or deal) seriously in the first place.
As I said, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I don’t think HQ simply took unwise decisions: they had to go on a timescale and with the possibilities that existed. We have to make better possibilities for the future.
As always interesting but I do not share your thoughts about revoke Article 50. I had numerous conversations with non political friends and voters and I could not find any enthusiasts. For sure it could have been explained better but it seemed to act as a reason for people not to support LDs, and this is in leafy west London! It would seem that in the giddy atmosphere of conference little thought was given as to how it would play out-the fact that by the last fortnight we were trying to distance ourselves from the commitment suggests feedback was not positive. It was an unnecessary distraction.
A lot of these criticisms are spot on but I don’t agree that this was a last chance. People are often quick to write off parties after bad election results. The Conservative Party was apparently dead after 1997 but sadly no. Now we’ll hear that Labour and Lib Dems are finished. Let’s wait and see. Once it’s clear that the Promised Land does not materialize after Brexit the political landscape is bound you change.
I agree it has been an awful election for LibDems. Nick’s analysis seems accurate to me, a LibDem campaigner in Northumberland.
There will always be a need for a party that is neither promoting a free market neo-con or stateist socialist model for Society. LibDems will build on their traditional local roots and recover. Where they have good candidates and active campaigners they will win. As the Brexit project is discovered to be a crock of Shit disillusion with the Conservatives will grow and LibDems will need to exploit it.
I agree this election has been a disaster for the Lib Dems, although I think Nick’s analysis is only partially correct – disagreeing with my Northumberland colleague. Where they definitely went wrong was for Jo to talk about being the next PM – whoever thought that up was certainly wrong. But I am clear lots of people were looking for a party that said “stay in Europe” – to have avoided that would have lost us votes without gaining them elsewhere. Nick acknowledges that the party struggles to get fair media coverage, but he fails to comment that money makes an enormous difference in a campaign. The Lib Dems do not have the financial backing of either of the big two. People need the message time & time again through their door, and on the doorstep.
But I also disagree with him that the party is in terminal decline – nothing is for ever as can be seen over the decades. But this country doesn’t accept multiple parties & everything is geared to the two-party system. So all other parties are destined to be side shows – sometimes more effective when majorities are slim. But I am sure the 11 MPs we now have will make a lot of noise about the disastrous Brexit about to happen. I will also be doing so in my local leafleting & local press.
Unfortunately in these days of low and still falling levels of political education, we have to recognise that all successful campaigns need successful, short slogans which everyone can understand, repeated again and again. Sloganeering politics is pathetic I know, but that’s reality today (and probably has been forever TBH).
For example I think “For the many not the few” is a great slogan and without Corbyn in charge and the overwhelming dominance of the Brexit issue it would (IMO) have won the election for Labour. As it was “Get Brexit Done” was the winner.
Setting aside the “Stop Brexit” message which was clearly overwhelmed, our slogan “Build A Brighter Future” was positive but meant nothing. Whether we like it or not, millions of voters have no idea what the Lib Dems stand for, and don’t have the time, inclination or understanding to find out, as they perceive us as distant no-hopers.
I’m no marketing expert, but imagine if our key slogan in these divisive, vitriolic times had been something like “Moderate Is Good”. Or “Britain’s Centre Forwards”. Or even directly challenging Labour: “For Everyone” – what better slogan for centrist liberalism?
We need to become far more focused on basic understanding and profile of our party. A successful slogan would be a good start.
Another problem was that the LibDems attracted the title “undemocratic” with the revoke article 50 policy and not defending the democratic logic strongly enough. A referendum should only really be turned around by another referendum and it was not good to try to argue that with perhaps 37% needed to win an election that was enough of a mandate.
None of the promises people voted for in the original Brexit referendum have been met and this should have been passionately reinforced as the real undemocratic situation that only a People’s Vote could overcome, knowing the real deal.
People were scared into choosing an election rather than sticking to their principles for another referendum first that would expose Boris’s deal. Perhaps Macron fueled this with his statements on no further extensions or fears of a lack of parliamentary majority for the PV but this would have been a better route for most reasons even if it took longer to achieve.
Jo was extremely weak in undermining the initial referendum and ended up not even defending her voting in office in the coalition on bedroom tax etc where the need is to vote with the government as one.
Pretty spot-on analysis of _what_ was wrong with the campaign, I feel. Well done. What the article doesn’t explain is _why_ a modern centrist party with decades of experience in UK elections, first past the post squeeze etc. etc. could run such an incompetent campaign. The party has its largest membership ever, its biggest archest ever and oodles of experience. How could so many open goals be missed and own goals be scored? What was clearly _not_ at fault was the membership and the poor people delivering leaflets door to door in all weathers. Why was the leadership so poorly advised, or did they ignore the advice? I would love to understand why this happened.
Thanks for this, I’ve been looking for an explainer and agree with it all — maybe even your magnanimous omission of the debate performance — except maybe the end — maybe you should be leading not quitting. Either libdems should dissolve, or we should coalition with labour to get electoral reform done. Assuming labour can realise they no longer represent the majority/ workers, but rather now represent a minority ideal that will nearly always only have impact in coalition.
Nick, I agree with every word of your analysis, and hope you will be part of the necessary repositioning and rethinking of the party and its organisation.
But if you want to know why we failed, in addition to your reasons I would add the spine-compressing tone of many of the comments on your piece. As someone said, what a nebula of nattering nabobs of negativity!
I largely agree with this and I think the Lib Dems got a bit too carried away with their EU election success. The thought that kept on coming back to me throughout this campaign is that the Lib Dems should have restricted themselves to making two points, repeatedly: Firstly that Boris Johnson is not going to get Brexit done in any meaningful sense and secondly that the Brexit the Tories are trying to push through is not a Brexit that anyone voted for.
As far as Remainer alliances go, I think the Lib Dems would have been better to target seats with Brexit supporting MPs and simply dismiss the possibility of Labour winning the election.
At the end of the day, this was a Brexit election and the Lib Dems should have campaigned entirely on this single issue.
I think that there is a great deal of truth in this analysis. In particular the argument that the Lib Dems should have posed themselves as version 2.0, emphasized the Labour and Tory defectors (MPs and members) and posed themselves as the centre of the remain campaign. However, I also think that the campaign was a very bad example of over-reach. That’s what was wrong about Revoke as it implied it was possible for the Lib Dems to win the elections. That was also demonstrated by Jo Swinson’s claim to be standing as “a candidate to be your Prime Minister.” The real possibility in this election was to win between 25 and 35 seats and as a result rather like the Labour campaign, the Lib Dems spoke to their membership and less to the electorate who are much more realistic
Jo swinson
Services to the conservative party 2010 to 15
And forcing the labour party to the polls in December
Agent swinson
Mission accomplished
Nick this is a thought provoking piece. I don’t agree with all of it but I absolutely agree that the strategy was poor and the things I expected is to campaign on were either absent or lacked focus.
For me the campaign based on Jo for PM was hubris in spades. You must not get ahead of the electorate. The corollary to a good effective campaign is that you win votes and seats. Setting a target of something historically unprecedented was over promising. Under-promising by focus on encouraging voters to back your party gives you scope to over deliver. Jo Swinson’s approval rates went down during the campaign. If you run a presidential campaign and your leader bombs, so does your campaign.
The other thing thing about the LD campaign strategic messaging was that it contained a paradox
Message A
– we will cancel Brexit by revoking A50 on day one.
It was a clear message that was both risky and the most extreme of any party. (realise there were caveats around winning an overall majority but of course our leader was standing to become PM)
Message B
– we are the moderate alternative to Johnson and Corbyn.
It was a message of safety and of trust
So one message was extreme & risky, the other was moderate & safe.
I submit that paradox was not a winning strategy.
As for the fact that we didn’t go strong on Johnson’s deal not getting Brexit done, I agree was a tactical blunder. If we didn’t think it would move votes then why did Jo address that issue during one of the later debates when she came out with the best line of the night about it being “only episode one” etc.
Attacking Corbyn really from before the start of the campaign had to be done but it needed to be done in conjunction with attacking Johnson’s deal. It seemed to me when offered the chsnce to attack them both, Jo chose, or was steered to chose attacking Corbyn.
My final point goes back to the Revoke policy. My 45 years as a Liberal/Lib Dem member has taught me that very often the party makes tactical decisions and then is stuck with trying to build a strategy around them. In my view this is an arse upwards approach. Some of it is inevitable because the way that a democratic party makes policy. Our main historical opponent – the Tories NEVER have to do this because they solely exist to win elections and govern. That is all they care about. Once they have won then any policies they put forward follow their core strategy – tweaked from time to time.
I was asked in the run up to conference to review a motion from the floor to move to a revoke position. I could not make the Conference but the one that was passed, with all the fanfare that went with it seemed much more gung go. It seemed to me that is was tactical to outflank the Labour Party in advance of their conference. In the event it may have been the catalyst that moved them finally to back a PV with Lexit and Remain options. It was short term tactically effective but it left us looking extreme. It gave Labour the opportunity they wanted to paint themselves as moderate and remainy enough for many of their Remain voters to stick with them.
I always thought letting Johnson have the General Election he so clearly craved was a huge strategic mistake. The justification I’ve heard was that the WAB had been passed, and so Brexit would happen.
BUT the timetable was lost, the Benn Act was in place, and the Government was forced to ask for an extension.
I realise that the indicative vote process was inconclusive, but would we really have against a soft Brexit if it was the last option standing.
Our strategy appears akin to that of someone who bets the house an an outsider in the Grand National, then gets upset when it doesn’t win.
One of the problems they have is they are still doggedly defending the coalition, which was essentially a traditional conservative government with a bit of liberal messaging on gay rights. Where were the Liberal Democrats when Michael Gove was staging a right wing revolution in education? Where were they when Teresa May was introducing her hostile environment for immigrants, which would eventually lead to the Windrush scandal. And that’s before we even get to the endless public service cuts, cuts that effected constituencies that would later vote Brexit the most.
Perhaps the most damning indictment was that a government featuring the most pro European party in British politics ended up being part of what was probably the most euro sceptic government since at least the last days of Thatcher. Where were the Liberal Democrats when David Cameron was constantly grandstanding against other European leaders to shore up his right wing, something that caused him real problems later on when he tried to renegotiate our place in the EU.
The harsh unpalatable truth is that the 2010-2015 government seeded everything wrong with Britain today and that includes Brexit and Jo Swinson was in it. This isn’t actually a Nick Clegg is evil type comment piece at all, in fact I bear some responsibility for it as well as I was stupid enough to vote Tory in the 2010 election! something I assure you will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever happen again. The Lib Dems likely went into those coalition negotiations in good faith but were completely outplayed by the more experienced party. Once their poll ratings collapsed as a result of the broken promise on tuition fees the Tories had them, they knew they would never bring down the government and so Cameron and co could essentially do what they liked.
The Liberal Democrats one shot in office was fumbled and that is why in the years since they have only ever had flickers.
And I am replying to myself because I forgot to mention Iain Duncan Smith and his disability cuts. There was just so much wrong with that government that its difficult to remember it all!
Oh god, and I forgot Iain Duncan Smith and the Disability cuts! There was just so much wrong with that government that its difficult to keep track of it all!
And I forgot Iain Duncan Smith and the disability cuts! There was just so much wrong with that government its difficult to keep track of it all!
This election should have woken the snivelling left-wing lunatics who have alienated working class men. But no. The problems are deeper than a bad campaign.