Lib Dem internal documents leaked to the Spectator warn that the party has no branding strategy, staff 'lack research literacy' and campaigns are based on 'received wisdom' rather than any evidence that current tactics are working. I've been passed a presentation seen by aides close to Nick Clegg, staff at Lib Dem HQ, MPs and SpAds over the past few months which is damning about the party's preparations for 2015.
Vince Cable’s speech yesterday setting out how he thinks there’ll be another hung parliament was a significant moment. It was clear last night, that it had placed in peoples’ minds the question of whether Cable was more likely to hold Lib Dem seats than Nick Clegg and whether he would be able to better exploit a second hung parliament. This has added to the importance of Nick Clegg’s speech tomorrow. I understand that on Wednesday Clegg will be forceful rather than apologetic, it will be a book end to his sorry over tuition fees. He intends to use it to set out where he is taking his party.
Andrew Mitchell's future as Chief Whip is not looking bright thanks to two stories in today's papers. The first is from the Times, which reports (£) that Mitchell went for two expensive outings on the 'long and hard day' the incident occurred. At lunchtime, the Chief Whip visited the Cinnamon Club - a £50-a-head Indian restaurant in Westminster. Later on, after Mitchell rode off from the Downing Street altercation, he visited a Tory private members' club — the Carlton Club in St — as a guest speaker at a private dinner. Neither will chime with most people's perception of a long and hard day. The second story comes from the Telegraph, which has obtained the official police log of the incident.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dem president, underlined his popularity with grassroots as he jogged up to the stage at the Independent's fringe event to the fervent cheers of activists. They were eating out of his hand as he answered questions for an hour with Steve Richards. Farron threw his weight behind Nick Clegg as leader, praising the Deputy Prime Minister's ability to remain a warm and engaging man in spite of the trials of his job. But he blew pretty cold on his leader's tuition fee apology, emphasising that it was a 'totemic' issue, and arguing that Lib Dems would be wrong to expect this to be a 'turnaround' for the party's fortunes as reneging on the pledge had damaged their standing for a 'generation'.
One of the areas Conservatives and Lib Dems are more than happy to distinguish themselves on is Europe, although the issue always gets far less attention at Lib Dem conference than it does at Conservative gatherings. A Conservative might find this odd: surely a party so wholeheartedly in favour of Britain remaining within the European Union would want to make the case for why Europe is so wonderful. Instead, senior figures today attacked Conservatives who want Britain to leave the European Union as 'potty'. In a fringe this lunchtime, Lord Oakeshott told the audience that a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU was not necessary as the electorate could express its view through the ballot box at general elections.
Polls don't and shouldn't matter to Liberal Democrats, so says Paddy Ashdown. The ex-Lib Dem leader managed to whip activists into a yellow-tinged frenzy this afternoon at a packed out polling discussion. Ashdown refuted that his party has been smothered with an 'atmosphere of political gloom' and ordered the rank and file to 'ignore these polls and get on with the politics'. However, an overview of Times/Populus polling on voting intentions presented at the discussion highlighted how the Lib Dems' fortunes have changed since the election: Ashdown insisted this is nothing to worry about, citing Margaret Thatcher as an occasionally unpopular leader who was still able to win elections.
Never a man to avoid confrontation, Vince Cable decided to tackle gossip about his conversations with Labour head on when he appeared on stage at the Lib Dem conference this lunchtime. He has 'excellent communications with politicians across the spectrum', he joked, then reached into his pocket for his phone, joking that he had a message from Ed. He followed the same pattern as Tim Farron in criticising Labour's record in government, just to make clear that the Lib Dems are fervently independent, rather than hankering after partnership with one party or another. But it was interesting that the majority of mentions for other parties in the Business Secretary's speech were limited to criticism of Conservative 'head bangers'.
Danny Alexander had reason to be very chuffed this morning when his party gave its overwhelming support to a motion he tabled, praising George Osborne's Plan A for the economy. The motion also welcomed the recent infrastructure announcements from the government, underlining that these investments were possible as a result of the government's 'hard-won fiscal credibility'. This motion was about reminding Liberal Democrats of the cause the coalition had united over, and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury took care to present Labour as the villains in this, insisting that 'Labour is wrong on the economy'.
The Liberal Democrats are a party facing an identity crisis. During their many years in opposition, they had a slight all things to all men quality. But now they are in government, they are rapidly becoming defined in the public mind. How to respond to that is a question that they have been grappling with for the past two years. In a packed and over-heated fringe meeting last night, Nick Clegg’s former director of strategy Richard Reeves provided his answer—which is, although more starkly stated, the leadership’s. Reeves’ argument is that the party should become a Liberal party of the radical centre. In other words, he wants to take off the Social Democratic hand brake. Reeves makes this case with verve and one can see the political space he’s talking about.
I've long believed that Boris is a particularly powerful blond jellyfish, swimming along under the radar, looking quite harmless, before delivering a series of painful stings to an unsuspecting victim. Normally the poor recipient of these verbal stings is David Cameron, whose face now forms a classic mask of horror whenever the Mayor approaches, knowing that not only will he be upstaged as Prime Minister by the Mayor, but also stung in the process by a sugary yet deeply patronising reference to 'Dave'. But today it's Nick Clegg, treading water at the Liberal Democrat conference, who gets stung. Boris' column this morning in the Telegraph is full of praise and flattery, while managing to undermine the Deputy Prime Minister rather spectacularly.
'I've apologised to the police, I've apologised to the police officer involved on the gate, and he's accepted my apology. I hope very much that we can draw a line under it here.' Andrew Mitchell hoped that his public apology outside those Downing Street gates that caused him such grief last week would mean Gategate would start to fade away.
Distinctive not destructive — that's Tim Farron's view on how the Liberal Democrats can redefine themselves within government. Speaking to the New Statesman after his muted conference speech today, the Lib Dem president blamed the media's narrow perception of the coalition for a misunderstanding of their partnership with the Tories. Tantalisingly, he made reference to a potential partnership elsewhere: 'We're either seen as cats in a sack or having a love-in. No one seems able to understand that this is a just a business arrangement...a relationship that could exist with another party' Sadly, Farron made no reference to whom exactly that might be with.
The big joke at the Social Market Foundation and TUC fringe this evening was that two of the panelists could have delivered one another's speeches. Those panelists were Oliver Letwin and Danny Alexander, who were both speaking about the government's economic plan, its infrastructure policy and how to achieve growth. When Danny came to speak, he told the audience that he agreed with and could have delivered all of Letwin's speech, and that the only thing the pair disagreed on was Europe. Alexander being so wonderfully cosy with Letwin might be a good thing for the coalition - and Letwin is know for being a Lib Dem-ish Tory. But it's a strange thing for the chief secretary to the Treasury to admit at his own party conference.
There is something very Liberal Democrat about Nick Clegg’s Q&A session with party members at conference. There’s a distinct mix of familiarity, fondness—the loudest applause came for the announcement that today is Nick and Miriam’s 12th wedding anniversary and policy debate. In response to a questioner who claimed that Danny Alexander was more right wing than ‘Peter Osborne’, Clegg was keen to stress to members that the coalition’s fiscal plans were more flexible than they are given credit for.
Day one of the Lib Dem conference, and the Tory jokes have started. At a lunchtime fringe event, of Labour and Lib Dems, the lights suddenly faded out and the room was plunged into darkness. 'This must be the Tory cuts!' said Ming Campbell, and the panel discussion continued by the gloomy light of the fire escape signs. It was a fairly jovial affair, but the mixture of names – Sir Ming, Jon Cruddas, Jo Swinson and Andrew Adonis – raised the deadly serious proposition of a Labour-Lib Dem coalition after the next election.
Though it was never going to make the earth move, Ed Davey's speech to the Liberal Democrat conference highlighted the party's push for differentiation on the green agenda. The Energy and Climate Change Secretary was clear that installing Owen Paterson, as the new Environment Secretary, would not stop the Lib Dems fighting for a green future and a green economy. 'Our Coalition agreement to clear up Britain's mess, wasn't an agreement to turn the clock back. For business as usual. To rekindle Thatcherism - or Blair-Brown. It was for a fairer, greener Britain - and we must fight for that. Earlier today, I moved the motion to pledge this party's backing for a global deal to stop climate change.
Tim Farron's speech to this year's autumn conference was rather muted compared to his effort in Birmingham last year. The Liberal Democrat president did take the opportunity to attack both Labour and the Tories, of course, because that is his job, but he did not talk about Conservatives speaking 'drivel', or about divorces. He described Labour's record in government as '13 years of a Labour government: what a mandate, what a disappointment', and delivered the obligatory Liberal Democrat attack on the banks.
The opening act of any party conference is the interview for Sunday morning TV and Nick Clegg made clear to Andrew Marr that the welfare budget is ‘not immune from further savings.’ He also said that he was confident that he could persuade the Tories to agree to further ways to make the ‘rich’ pay more. But under pressure from Marr, he couldn’t provide any details on what form this new tax might take. In an attempt to damp down the continuing chatter about Vince Cable’s conversations with Ed Miliband, Clegg said that he was in regular touch with both Milibands, Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson.
David Hall-Matthews is the chair of the left-leaning grassroots grouping within the Liberal Democrats, the Social Liberal Forum. He explains his qualms about the way Nick Clegg is currently handling the coalition relationship to Coffee House readers, and calls on ministers to be bolder in calling for 'adjustments' to the government's economic policy. As the coalition agreement was hammered out between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in May 2010, the grassroots machinery in the party was swiftly cranking to life. Four leading members of the Social Liberal Forum, then just a small group within the party comprising over a hundred members, raced to London to discuss their strategy as their party joined forces with an old enemy.
One of the striking features of the opening rally at Liberal Democrat conference was how it was figures from the left of the party who attacked Labour most vigorously. Simon Hughes, the deputy leader, scolded those who think that governing with Labour would be easy; pointing out that the parties are at odds on nuclear power, Trident, civil liberties and a whole host of other issues. While the party’s president Tim Farron demanded that Labour apologise for the expensive failure of the NHS PFI projects, the Iraq war and a whole host of other issues. Nick Clegg himself was on fairly confident form. He began with a couple of gags about his unlikely chart success.
