As Bruce would have said:
"didn't they do well?" No, no, they did not Bruce. The Lib Dems took
one hell of a beating in the local elections, waving
goodbye to over 300 councillors and falling to their lowest level since the
party formed in 1988.
It seems like forever ago when orange-and-white "Cleggmania" swept the country. Everyone agreed with Nick, including then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who seemed to nod along with everything Clegg said, perhaps forgetting who it was he was fighting an election against. Maybe the combination of bright lights, Cameron's forehead glistening and Alistair Stewart's bark confused Brown and threw him off his game - a game he did not really have to begin with. Cut forward two years and the scene is very different. Cleggmania is a lot like Fenton the dog. It has run quickly into the distance whilst the party chases after it, desperate to have back in its grasp, screaming its name in the hope it will come sprinting back.
There is one difference:
Fenton came back, Cleggmania will not. Lots of reasons have been thrown about
for the Lib Dem-olition. The main one from the party is "mid-term
blues". And to be fair, this is a factor. Mid-term elections act as a
referendum on a party's performance in government, a reminder that the
electorate is still here and watching (made awkward with a 30% turnout).
Another argument is the "we are an austerity government and people won't
like us". Again, there is some truth here. The harsh economic climate has
resulted in a higher cost of living, unemployment and cuts which people tend
not to enjoy, so they make their feelings known at the ballot box. But these
two arguments have a flaw: we have a Coalition. The Conservatives also got a
kicking, but it was the Lib Dems who bore the brunt of our boot up their ass.
One Lib Dem spoke to the BBC
and defended this, saying where the Conservatives were not standing; it was the
Lib Dems who were beaten. But this is not true. The Lib Dems were beaten
everywhere. They gained just 16% of the national share of the vote, light-years
away from the 34% the Lib Dems were polling after the first television debate
of the 2010 general election. This raises a question. Yes, it is normal for the
polls to turn against a government but why the Lib Dems? And why so much?
To quote my own dad, it is
"that bastard Clegg who sold the students out". Tuition fees are the
Lib Dem's kryptonite and something the public has not forgotten. It looked so
promising when Clegg
appeared in a video, pledging to battle against any increase in fees before
abandoning that pledge.
Now it is fair to say that
not all of the public disagreed with Nick. But if you throw shit at a wall hard
enough, it will stick and the label of the "traitor" Lib Dems has not
disappeared. In fact it has stuck so well that when it does eventually peel off
the wall, a lovely brown mark will be visible. The good work of the Lib Dems in
government, such as the increase on the rate of income tax, cannot paint over
the sticky mark on the wallpaper until it gets a good painting over.
Ridiculous analogy aside, it
will take some time for the Lib Dems to shake off their tag as the
"traitorous bastards". But heir main problem is who they
decided to alienate. Whilst it is typically known that students do not turn out
in their droves to vote, when they grow up, marry, have children and start to
take a bigger interest in who they pay their taxes to, they will look at the
Lib Dems with an air of distrust. Like the older generation of today, who still
see Conservatives not for their green policies but for Thatcherism and
privatisation, the Lib Dems will be seen as the party who traded ideology for
power. For a party that wishes to brush off their time in Coalition and fight
independently in 2015, it is not a good sign. It is hard to imagine the Lib
Dems play the role of an honest, genuine third party like they did in 2010.
When this generation turn out to vote, they will look down the ballot, see
Liberal Democrat and think just one word: "bastards".
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