There was once a time, some 100 years ago, where one could take a walk around town and be met with an unmistakable cry: ‘I’ve got my Lloyd-George,’ the pensioner down the street would proclaim, with a Cheshire cat-like grin on their face. They were referring to the first iteration of the state pension, which was introduced by the then Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd-George.
It’s hard to contemplate a Liberal politician possessing such gravitas or sway in today’s politics. The Liberals seem long since extinct, reduced to a huddle of Waitrose shoppers in the South West whose existence rests on bemoaning potholes and insisting that the answer to all of life’s most difficult questions is to rejoin the European Union.
Where the Liberals once gallivanted around the country as a national force, forming governments and enacting meaningful change, they now have a ‘leader’ whose biggest achievement was asking a former prime minister to compete with him in a virtual football match. Christ. Even Hamlet couldn’t have undergone such a downfall.
But the party of iced matchas and labradoodles appears to have caught on to this problem. Just last week, Charlie Maynard, the party’s Treasury spokesman, fired the starting gun for a Liberal Democrat coup. With rumours flying around as to whether Davey would be ousted, it all came to a head on Tuesday evening, when the former postal affairs minister faced down more than half of his parliamentary party in an effort to cling on to power. But, in true Liberal Democrat fashion, the gathering was anything but spectacular.
Those who were present at the meeting labelled it a ‘damp squib’. No blood was spilled, nor were any insults exchanged. After all, politeness is a Liberal Democrat virtue. Davey carried on in his post, and the majority of his MPs fell in line, opting to keep their leader in place, unwilling to even entertain the possibility of Daisy Cooper taking charge of the party. Unlucky chaps, you’ll get ‘em next time.
It really is a shame that nothing came of the whole ordeal. Hacks sat there with bated breath, hoping that Davey would be shown the door. But alas, no. The rebels were plagued with performance anxiety, unable to muster up the courage to put the boot in and rid themselves of their centrist daddy overlord.
Yet in doing so, what many in the party fail to recognise, is that they have cemented their image for months – or indeed years – to come. As Davey continues to be the figurehead for the party, they will never be perceived as a serious contender for government by the electorate.
Because while he dawdles around the country, banging on about how the Lib Dems are the real alternative to Labour and the Tories, voters will simply point and laugh, ridiculing him for his childlike antics. They don’t want a politician who makes a tit of himself for the sake of media coverage. Nor do they want a politician who cosies up to Burnham at every opportunity. They want a politician who is willing to face up to the problems in Britain and offer proper solutions.
And so while there will be many who will continue to chuckle at the party’s demise, there will be some of us – the saddos who obsess over history – who will develop a feeling of despair over this whole episode. Because when one compares the Liberals of days gone by to the party it is today, it is almost impossible not to feel something tugging at the heart.
The party of Gladstone and Bannerman, of Asquith and Lloyd-George
This was once the party of political titans, of figures so consequential that their statues now line the halls of Westminster. The party of Gladstone and Bannerman, of Asquith and Lloyd-George. The party that led us into the first world war. The party that laid the necessary groundwork for the modern welfare state as we know it today.
Today it is the party led by a bumbling buffoon who wouldn’t look out of place in a roadshow circus act.
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