The Scotman's Political Editor Fraser Nelson writes this insightful piece on The Spectator Blog...Bookmakers back Sir Menzies Campbell as the logical choice – but logic is a poor weapon when seeking to second-guess LibDem voting patterns. Here is a better guide: last year, 71 per cent of them voted Simon Hughes as president. He is the favourite to win, and he would start by moving the LibDems to the left of Labour and attacking Tony Blair from this position. How will this go down with the smaller-state, classic liberal Orange Book LibDems? David Laws, and Vince Cable are sober, sensible – and the kind of people likely to be purged by leftie Hughes' LibDems. If Mr Cameron wants to score the ultimate coup, he could offer them prime Shadow Cabinet positions should they defect – thus sending a recruiting notice to any “classic liberal” that the Cameron Conservatives is their natural home. Sounds crazy? Sir Menzies privately claims the Major government offered him a job twice, and that he considered it. The LibDem tree is being shaken, and there are several million Tory votes to come falling out if Mr Cameron plays this situation right."
Go on Dave, try it.
Oh, please take David Laws, that would make my year.
ReplyDeleteWhy would any Orange Book Liberal, particularly David Laws want to join David Cameron now he has rejected public service reform? Frankly his comments on social insurance and school vouchers show him up as an opportunist lightweight social democrat. We already have one of those as PM what's version two got to offer people who want real reform.
ReplyDeleteIn response to 'liberty bell'...when did David Cameron decide to reject public service reform? Do you therefore not class the NHS as a public service?
ReplyDeleteIain: I can't find the Orange Book on the politico's website and the LibDems are out of stock. Are you planning to get more in? Harriett Baldwin
ReplyDeleteHarriet, can't get any more at the moment. email me your email address and I will let you know when we have more - if at all! iain@iaindale.com
ReplyDeleteThe Tories are now far too left wing for the likes of David Laws ;)
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, he has given a good explication of why he wouldn't defect in today's Guardian.
Furthermore, Hughes is not as popular as is touted (he only won such a huge majority in the presidency election because he was standing against that tw@t Opik!). He also knows where the talent in the party lies (reinforced by tonight's Newsnight) - the economic Liberals are not going anywhere.
Interesting that the blog piece left out the rest of Fraser Nelson's "Business" article...
ReplyDeleteThat article posited that a Lib Dem move to the left, which may drive the Orange Bookers to the Conservatives, would allow Cameron to realise Maude's ambition to break from the Conservative right and rebuild the Conservatives as a centrist movement.
Any thoughts on that, Iain?
Fraser is one of the most original thinkers in political journalism as well as a nice guy...but this is surely taking an imaginative leap too far!
ReplyDeleteIn any case, it ain't going to happen. Hughes (if he stands) will lose again, though probably more narrowly than in 1999, and Laws and Co will finally be in the ascendancy. If we're talking breakaways, it is much more likely, in my view, that the social liberals will go off and join Gordon Brown when he finally becomes PM.
As for Cameron breaking from the right - why would he need to? He will simply take them for granted in exactly the same way Blair has always taken the old left for granted.
In which case he'll suffer precisely the same disconnect Blair has done, and find his core vote starts staying at home.
ReplyDeleteThe difference is that because Conservative policies weren't disproved as Labour's were, his activists are going to make a fuss an awful lot sooner than Blair's did!