Whipping Boys May Be Right
Prolific blogging Labour MP Tom Watson writes a lot of entries having a go at the Liberal Democrats like this one, and this one, and this one.
Now, I like Tom for lots of reasons so this is nothing personal but it does still amaze me that the other parties get so excited about kicking mine. Labour and Conservative politicians at all levels will say “well, we don’t like each other much, but we can join forces to really hate the Lib Dems together”. This even extends to Parliamentary delegations which have several Tory and Labour members and a token Lib Dem which usually turn to “let’s all have a go at the Liberal” at some point (and of course we all have senses of humour so take this in good spirits).
But a set of comments on Tom’s blog is curious in this context.
Mark says:
The real way to beat the BNP is for the mainstream parties to to get back to the pavement politics the BNP have tried to adopt. If councillors can sort out the small issues that cause a lot of problems at a local level (dumped cars, vandalism etc.) then people won’t need the option of a BNP protest vote.
And Tom replies:
I’ll be plugging your local Labour Rose community team at an appropriate point, have no fear 
I couldn’t agree more about the importance of “pavement” or community politics, but what is ironic is that this is precisely what the others have been attacking the Lib Dems about for years. They repeatedly said “oh, those Lib Dems are just obsessed with litter and dog mess rather than serious politics”. Are we allowed a wry smile when we see our detractors now saying that they should have been paying attention to these local issues all along?
You’re absolutely right. When I was breifly in Brent last year I was delivering Focus in a street and a man was standing at his gate looking at a car dumped in the road. When I got to his house I gave him the details of the Brent campaign headquarters and told him to ring them as they may be able to help shift the car.
His face lit up and whatever Tom Watson et al may say I knew that as a party we were tackling the issues that really mattter to people on the ground.
Its a shame Tom always has to resort to attacking us. For a while his blog promised to be an innovative project in voter commuincation. Sadly no longer.
The argument over a number of issues (not only the problem of racism), and the perception of politicians as a whole is being lost in this country. The launch of the ‘big conversation’ was, as one friend phrased, “offensive because Blair shouldn’t get credit for what is his [and his M.P.s] job already.” Rather than a step in the right direction it worked merely to show how far we had wandered off the path.
The Guardian today showed statistics that suggested that the majority of all party members are close to or over retirement age. It’s an oft repeated truism that the young (and the survey today seems to suggest not so young) feel isolated from their politicians and whilst spin and lack of ‘plain speaking’ is the cause most cited it doesn’t provide the answer.
Why does local activity have to restrict itself to “dog poo and litter”- having accepted that most people do not trust what comes out of the television in regard to politics the public will only be sold on difficult issues (going to war or not, raising taxes to fund service improvement, immigration and so forth)if they are met face to face and spoken to in terms that they can relate to and understand- on a regular and commited basis- not just for Paxman’s cameras, nor merely at times of election.Politicians must surely start going to the people to engage with them, not asking the people to come to them. And whilst engaging with issues which are important to people is part of that step so is convincing people that issues that may not directly effect their local communities demand equal attention within that community.
Otherwise the demagogues speaking on any of these issues are always going to increase their power.
With the greatest of respect the full ICM poll also showed the Lib Dems 8-12 points behind both other parties across the board (and more worryingly between a 1-2 point drop from last year). The local touch is only part, all be it an important part, of the solution.
Given recent news do you think the reason why Labour and the Conservatives seem to gang up on the Lib Dems is purely because you wont share previews of your manifesto with them?
Cut yourselves a break- email it over!
I think the LibDems have got the balance right. As well as local issues the party has took a prominent stance on national and international issues, most prominently the war in Iraq and University top up fees.
As for manifestos, if you think you’ve see the Labour or Conservative manifesto for the general election I’d like to know where. Parties don’t launch election manifestos till nearer the election.
Apologies for my last flippant comment.
I had been led to believe that the Conservatives accidentaly emailed their manifesto to Labour. I didn’t check and in light of that not being true the above comment doesn’t actually make any sense.
Sorry.
I think the reason that Labour and Tories round on the Lib Dems is your inconsistency. It is tricks like in local elections misleading the electorate by claiming one thing in one ward, and the opposite in another, depending on if you are trying to unseat a Tory or Labour councillor.
Labour has always cared and done something about ‘pavement politics’. But usually we were doing the work, while Liberal Focus teams claimed the credit. Now the only difference is that when we sort out the dog muck and adandoned cars we tell people about it.
claiming one thing in one ward, and the opposite in another, depending on if you are trying to unseat a Tory or Labour councillor.
And are these things contradictory, or merely different?
I think what Iain is saying is right.
People in different wards have different priorities. The LibDems like an other party have to address these. Its not that we say different things, just talk about different things. We are not going to talk to a ward full of elderly people about student fees, we are going total to them about free care for the elderly.
SteveBruce – You critise the Lib Dems for “misleading the electorate” by promising different things in different wards but you forgot to mention how your own party promisedi n its manifesto to legislate against tuition fees but introducted them anyway.
The criticism of the LibDems was that pavement politics was ALL they did. Of course, what we need is a balance…
At the risk of “going off on one again” it is precisely Councillor Bruce’s comments and the tone of this discussion that I suspect has forced many people, especially the young, and specifically myself away from active politics.
You do not get points for doing the basic requirements of your job:and it does you little credit to squabble over the kudos.
Are we to say that the ability to secure crap free streets is a serious qualification for our community leaders? As important as it is surely we set the bar higher.
Any of the political parties will get my vote, support, money and membership by coming up with the brave ideas that improve our society and by showing the courage and intelligence to first gain support for them and then by successfully implementing them.
I entrust in a teacher the duty to inspire our children: and praise and reward him for that- not for turning up to work on time, clean and sober.
And I will not vote for anyone because they boast of basic competency in their position of leadership (be it councillor, MP or PM). Equally I suspect that those party membership figures will not rise until someone gets a better pitch than “we’re less crap than the others.”
> Are we to say that the ability to secure crap free streets is a serious qualification for our community leaders?
Yes.
Creating and maintaining a clean street environment is consistently one of the top priorities of local residents, here in Cambridge at any rate. It can also be a very challenging thing to achieve. The Liberal Democrat council in Cambridge City has made significant advances in cleaning up the local environment, through policy initiatives such as setting up a network of neighbourhood rangers, introducing a dedicated helpdesk line, setting up a system to remove abandoned vehicles in a timely fashion, liaising with the police and the primary care trust to tackle a range of issues, of which the most pressing is probably discarded needles, identifying graffiti hotspots and treating them with graffiti-resistant paint, instituting a novel system of promoting responsible wheelie-bin use by taping up offending bins with a notification that they are causing an obstruction, introducing an environmental enforcement officer to take action against persistent offenders… I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture. There is a lot of complex work, and a lot of imaginative political leadership, involved in keeping the local environment clean. Even all of that isn’t enough, though, and we’re currently working on a new set of initiatives to tackle some of the persistent outstanding problems, and to meet challenging recycling targets, while keeping council tax rises to a low level.
All of this requires exactly the kind of intelligence and leadership that you’re demanding. And if you still think clean streets are trivial to achieve, you should have seen how mucky this place was under Labour.
I think that the fact that LibDems view the solution to graffiti as graffiti-proof paint is one of the sadest things I’ve heard for a long time. If only the LibDems would start increasing the funding again for those community development schemes they’ve been starving of cash perhaps the youth of Cambirdge would be a tiny bit less disaffected.
But then what do you expect of a party whose narrow middle-class vision is one where clean streets (though self-evidently important) are more important than the misery-inducing crack dens, poorly maintained social housing and crime. But hey, those things only happen in North and East Cambridge.
Muppets.