Could history repeat itself? In 1962, the then moribund Liberal Party captured “true blue” Orpington in a by-election, on a massive 26 per cent swing. The prime minister, Harold Macmillan, had been a proven election winner, but by then he was seen as out of touch and beset by sleaze (the Profumo scandal). He decided to go before he was pushed.
His hapless successor, Alec Douglas-Home, fared no better and lost 60 seats to Labour at the 1964 general election. Labour achieved a narrow win then, followed by a landslide at the second attempt in 1966. The Liberals added three seats to their six, and got up to 12 seats in 1966. My contribution, as a keen Liberal student, was to campaign for Labour in a Tory-Labour marginal.
The yellow canary in the mine sang again in the run-up to the 1997 election. By-elections were won by the Lib Dems in safe Tory seats (Newbury; Christchurch; Eastleigh). The Conservative government was beset by economic crisis, sleaze, divisions over Europe and sheer exhaustion. Tony Blair’s Labour Party gained 145 seats in the general election. My contribution was to get elected as a Liberal Democrat MP, one of 26 additions, bringing the party’s total to 46.
A lot has changed since then: the financial crisis, coalition government, the rise of Scottish Nationalism, Brexit and now, the pandemic. But the voting system and (in England and Wales) the relative strength of the parties remain essentially the same. What, therefore, can history tell us about the future in the light of the Lib Dems’ spectacular victory in North Shropshire?
The first and obvious point is that even the most committed Liberal Democrats like me don’t expect to win the general election, which is due to be held by 2024. We did embrace that possibility in 2010 for a few days during the election campaign (“Cleggmania”) and for a few nanoseconds in 2019 after the European elections. But a more realistic if optimistic outlook is the prediction of “party strategists” that the Lib Dems could take 30 more Tory seats (and a few more from the SNP). Even a total haul of 25-30 seats at the next election could put the party in a position nearly as influential as in 2010.
> We did embrace that possibility in 2010 for a few days during the election campaign (“Cleggmania”) and for a few nanoseconds in 2019 after the European elections.
If you’re putting candidates forward in a majority of seats, then you need to present yourselves as a capable option to lead. If not, if you start with “we won’t win, but …” then you’re telling voters not to bother, that you’re at best a protest vote.
I think it’s pretty difficult to tell the voting intentions of a general election from specific ‘ give this government a good kicking’ by elections with perhaps local issues. Certainly it might help give the message that voting Lib Dem isn’t a wasted vote necessarily and rehabilitate them , but are those Labour voters that switched going to do so in a general election? Will Conservative voters that stayed at home or switched do so if they think it puts Labour in power? I wouldn’t go counting chickens quite yet.
as powerful as they were in 2010
So form a coalition with the Tory party and help to bring in another ten years of austerity.
I wonder if they will break main campaign promises again
The Lib Dems do best when the two parties main are both shit and indistinguishable from each other. Now that we’re back to a choice between Tory and Red Tory I expect they’ll position themselves as the genuine alternative.
Does that mean we can recycle all the LibDem SURGE memes?
If they can avoid making major promises that they have no chance of delivering on and avoid a Tory coalition, they can at least stand a chance of doing well and at least remaining relevant until the following election. The Lib Dems were not as powerful as they thought they were, that was their ultimate downfall. They need to learn from that if they want to avoid spending a decade in obscurity and trying to make themselves relevant again.
By-elections are notoriously unrepresentative of general elections. However the Lib Dems are the only real opposition that isn’t part of the Conservative Party. I think they’d do well to lean slightly rightward. The left in this country is becoming unelectable. We have not had a Left wing UK government in decades for a reason. New Labour was the closest we’ll see and it appears the Conservative Party is more than capable of adapting itself to centrism (One Nation conservatism) when there is need for it. Labour seem to be adapting against the trend of public opinion… no one seems to know why
Answer: “No”. There, saved you a click.
BTW before I get downvoted – I hate the current government
They won one by-election via protest vote after a particularly shocking violation of the social contract (though I would argue it’s dead at this point.) They’ve still got loads of work to do to undo 2015.
So strong enough to form a coalition with the tories again?
And thats meant to be a good think? Given how the tories played them last time i dont see that going well.
As someone from the first group to pay £9k tuition fees, the Liberal Democrats can fuck right off.
Just in time to prop up the next Tory minority government. No, never. You get what you vote for with this lot. Never vote for this Tory by the backdoor mob.
Can we trust them not to just bend over to the Tory wishes though?
I’m not sure how this would would work as they would be projected to fall behind the SNP, so they wouldn’t even be the third largest party.
> The Liberal Democrats are now poised to be as powerful as they were in 2010
Cant wait for them to absolutely fuck it up again (Y)
Ah that’s good, it’d be nice to see how little they’d sell out for again. That was a good laugh.
The bi product of having a feckless government and pathetic labour party
I wonder whether they will have the courage to issue a student loans election policy?
Think I know the answer to that one!
I still think either that woman was just an exceptionally good candidate or it was total coincidence that everyone threw a protest vote on the Lib Dems instead of the usual Greens.
Back to Gimp level of power then. Well done vote splitters.
I hate to say this, but so many people older than I in the 2000s during Cleggmania were telling me that the LibDems could not keep their promises. I voted for them, they went into coalition and although I understood that they were in coalition with the Tories; I felt that they promised too much and failed to deliver. It’s going to take a lot to swing me back round into voting for them ever again.
In the age of ancients Lady Thatcher waged war against the endless Keynesians. She won and started an age of the free market, which built the great city of London for the masters of the universe. There was also the furtive liberal democrat pigmy, owner of the dark soul.
Now the age of the free market is ending a great plague ravages the land and the city of London’s grandeur is nothing but an illusion maintained by its final attendants decrepit and mad…
Will the heirs to the furtive pygmy chose to prop up the age of Thatcher, linking the fire of the free market so that it may continue another cycle or will they let an age of dark come. Will they even remember why…
24 comments
Could history repeat itself? In 1962, the then moribund Liberal Party captured “true blue” Orpington in a by-election, on a massive 26 per cent swing. The prime minister, Harold Macmillan, had been a proven election winner, but by then he was seen as out of touch and beset by sleaze (the Profumo scandal). He decided to go before he was pushed.
His hapless successor, Alec Douglas-Home, fared no better and lost 60 seats to Labour at the 1964 general election. Labour achieved a narrow win then, followed by a landslide at the second attempt in 1966. The Liberals added three seats to their six, and got up to 12 seats in 1966. My contribution, as a keen Liberal student, was to campaign for Labour in a Tory-Labour marginal.
The yellow canary in the mine sang again in the run-up to the 1997 election. By-elections were won by the Lib Dems in safe Tory seats (Newbury; Christchurch; Eastleigh). The Conservative government was beset by economic crisis, sleaze, divisions over Europe and sheer exhaustion. Tony Blair’s Labour Party gained 145 seats in the general election. My contribution was to get elected as a Liberal Democrat MP, one of 26 additions, bringing the party’s total to 46.
A lot has changed since then: the financial crisis, coalition government, the rise of Scottish Nationalism, Brexit and now, the pandemic. But the voting system and (in England and Wales) the relative strength of the parties remain essentially the same. What, therefore, can history tell us about the future in the light of the Lib Dems’ spectacular victory in North Shropshire?
The first and obvious point is that even the most committed Liberal Democrats like me don’t expect to win the general election, which is due to be held by 2024. We did embrace that possibility in 2010 for a few days during the election campaign (“Cleggmania”) and for a few nanoseconds in 2019 after the European elections. But a more realistic if optimistic outlook is the prediction of “party strategists” that the Lib Dems could take 30 more Tory seats (and a few more from the SNP). Even a total haul of 25-30 seats at the next election could put the party in a position nearly as influential as in 2010.
https://giphy.com/gifs/realitytvgifs-rupauls-drag-race-work-rupaul-qRVj1p6gTyQjS
> We did embrace that possibility in 2010 for a few days during the election campaign (“Cleggmania”) and for a few nanoseconds in 2019 after the European elections.
If you’re putting candidates forward in a majority of seats, then you need to present yourselves as a capable option to lead. If not, if you start with “we won’t win, but …” then you’re telling voters not to bother, that you’re at best a protest vote.
I think it’s pretty difficult to tell the voting intentions of a general election from specific ‘ give this government a good kicking’ by elections with perhaps local issues. Certainly it might help give the message that voting Lib Dem isn’t a wasted vote necessarily and rehabilitate them , but are those Labour voters that switched going to do so in a general election? Will Conservative voters that stayed at home or switched do so if they think it puts Labour in power? I wouldn’t go counting chickens quite yet.
as powerful as they were in 2010
So form a coalition with the Tory party and help to bring in another ten years of austerity.
I wonder if they will break main campaign promises again
The Lib Dems do best when the two parties main are both shit and indistinguishable from each other. Now that we’re back to a choice between Tory and Red Tory I expect they’ll position themselves as the genuine alternative.
Does that mean we can recycle all the LibDem SURGE memes?
If they can avoid making major promises that they have no chance of delivering on and avoid a Tory coalition, they can at least stand a chance of doing well and at least remaining relevant until the following election. The Lib Dems were not as powerful as they thought they were, that was their ultimate downfall. They need to learn from that if they want to avoid spending a decade in obscurity and trying to make themselves relevant again.
By-elections are notoriously unrepresentative of general elections. However the Lib Dems are the only real opposition that isn’t part of the Conservative Party. I think they’d do well to lean slightly rightward. The left in this country is becoming unelectable. We have not had a Left wing UK government in decades for a reason. New Labour was the closest we’ll see and it appears the Conservative Party is more than capable of adapting itself to centrism (One Nation conservatism) when there is need for it. Labour seem to be adapting against the trend of public opinion… no one seems to know why
Answer: “No”. There, saved you a click.
BTW before I get downvoted – I hate the current government
They won one by-election via protest vote after a particularly shocking violation of the social contract (though I would argue it’s dead at this point.) They’ve still got loads of work to do to undo 2015.
So strong enough to form a coalition with the tories again?
And thats meant to be a good think? Given how the tories played them last time i dont see that going well.
As someone from the first group to pay £9k tuition fees, the Liberal Democrats can fuck right off.
Just in time to prop up the next Tory minority government. No, never. You get what you vote for with this lot. Never vote for this Tory by the backdoor mob.
Can we trust them not to just bend over to the Tory wishes though?
I’m not sure how this would would work as they would be projected to fall behind the SNP, so they wouldn’t even be the third largest party.
> The Liberal Democrats are now poised to be as powerful as they were in 2010
Cant wait for them to absolutely fuck it up again (Y)
Ah that’s good, it’d be nice to see how little they’d sell out for again. That was a good laugh.
The bi product of having a feckless government and pathetic labour party
I wonder whether they will have the courage to issue a student loans election policy?
Think I know the answer to that one!
I still think either that woman was just an exceptionally good candidate or it was total coincidence that everyone threw a protest vote on the Lib Dems instead of the usual Greens.
Back to Gimp level of power then. Well done vote splitters.
I hate to say this, but so many people older than I in the 2000s during Cleggmania were telling me that the LibDems could not keep their promises. I voted for them, they went into coalition and although I understood that they were in coalition with the Tories; I felt that they promised too much and failed to deliver. It’s going to take a lot to swing me back round into voting for them ever again.
In the age of ancients Lady Thatcher waged war against the endless Keynesians. She won and started an age of the free market, which built the great city of London for the masters of the universe. There was also the furtive liberal democrat pigmy, owner of the dark soul.
Now the age of the free market is ending a great plague ravages the land and the city of London’s grandeur is nothing but an illusion maintained by its final attendants decrepit and mad…
Will the heirs to the furtive pygmy chose to prop up the age of Thatcher, linking the fire of the free market so that it may continue another cycle or will they let an age of dark come. Will they even remember why…