The Liberal Democrats will meet in Bournemouth this week in high spirits. The party has advanced steadily in the opinion polls over the past 12 months and is well placed to exploit Tony Blair’s strained relationship with his comrades. The by-election results achieved in Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South in July were quite, if undeservedly, spectacular. Party strategists hold out hope of performing similarly well in Hartlepool at the end of this month. The results of the Populus poll published in The Times today indicate that voters generally view the Liberal Democrats in a positive light. Almost half of them think that they would do a “good job running the country” if given the opportunity. Not bad for a party that last won a majority in the House of Commons 98 years ago.
Charles Kennedy might thus be tempted to play it safe, place emphasis on a few populist themes with obvious appeal to certain sections of the electorate (for example, the elderly) and make the most of his opposition to the war. The pre-manifesto that he issued last week, although tougher in some respects than previous documents, did not take many risks. He should be bolder in the general election campaign. For as the Times/Populus poll also shows, the proportions of the public who believe either that the Liberal Democrats are “basically a protest party” or that “their sums probably don’t add up” are understandably high, 62 per cent and 69 per cent respectively, and those figures have increased over the past year.
This impression might erode over time if the agenda of the modernising wing of the Liberal Democrats were adopted. Its approach has been set out recently in The Orange Book, a collection of essays by younger MPs and candidates. The most controversial article was written by David Laws, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman. Mr Laws did not pull his punches. He chided his colleagues for their tendency to embrace “nanny-state liberalism” rather than sticking to the core principles upon which the Victorian Liberal Party was established. He also insisted that economic liberalism will have to be rediscovered in full by the Liberal Democrats and that they must abandon any attachment to “forms of soggy socialism and corporatism”.
Mr Laws has not made himself a universally popular figure with his candour. Yet he and others willing to challenge what have become sacred cows for the Liberal Democrats provide them with their best chance of being more than a “protest party” and of producing sums that do add up. Spokesmen such as Vincent Cable on Treasury matters and Mark Oaten on home affairs have pursued a more robust liberalism in the House of Commons. They remain, though, fairly unfamiliar to most voters. Charles Kennedy is one of the Liberal Democrats with a truly high national profile. It is he who must, to borrow from one of his predecessors, march his troops towards the sound of (political) gunfire and provide plausible policies and not mushy platitudes.