OPINION

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The disappointment of the election of 2015 will fade in time and the reality of a lone Conservative leadership will reveal its true blue. The previous benefits of mixing yellow with blue allowed great green achievements, like raising environmental concerns up the political agenda - where policies about sustainable living became part of ‘everyday conversations’. In contrast, without ever knowing the Conservative’s policies in detail, they have received the majority of seats to fill the House of Commons. Thus, they form our government for the next five years. On top of our very personal defeats, this political landscape presents us with an enormous challenge.

As a first time PPC, engaged in intense Hustings in Bethnal Green and Bow, against the incredible backdrop of an accounting firm running the local council, residents where unashamed in their criticism of democracy. Furthermore, the national ‘ConLibDems’ relationship damaged the party’s values and over time many LibDem supporters in London headed over to the Green party - chasing‘hope’. At a time of political anger and hopelessness, with extreme gentrification pushing local people out of the London, hope is a safe place to run to.

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Members of the SLF Council share their tributes to Charles Kennedy

Charles Kennedy was leader when I joined the Party as a student at Leeds University. David Hall-Matthews, a former Chair of the Social Liberal Forum, was the Leeds North West candidate in the 2001 General Election, and so I was fortunate to meet Charles when he came to a dinner in the constituency. He was very late - something about a delayed train - but all I really remember was his warmth and the ease with which he connected with everyone, from the new student members, to those who had been involved for decades. He made me want to campaign. 

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It is with immense sadness that we awake today to the news that former Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy has died. Tributes will follow, but for now, he will for many be best remembered for his work in trying to prevent the war in Iraq. We have reproduced below, his speech to the Anti-War Rally in Hyde Park in February 2003. He was a unity figure for those who opposed the war. He remained a fierce critic, and until very recently was still using his position to call for the immediate publication of the Chilcot Report. This must now happen. Our thoughts are with Charles and his family. May he rest in peace. 

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Since the general election, I’ve been awaiting the inevitable analysis of Lib Dem second and third places. But as I haven’t seen one forthcoming, I thought I would compile my own. Liberal Democrats stood in 631 constituencies – every one of the UK’s 650 constituencies, except the 18 Northern Ireland seats, and the Speaker’s seat. The one figure I have seen bandied about was that there were 335 Lib Dem lost deposits; or 53.1% of candidates put up by the party.

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In his latest article, Ryan Coetzee has said that, despite our humiliating losses, we made a coherent liberal case to voters - offering them a stronger economy and a fairer society. Did we? I missed it. What we did talk about, however, was the records and offers of the other main parties, rather than discussing our own. "The Tories will cut far too much" and "Labour will spend far too much". All true, yes - but where are we in that? I fear, when you look at the results of areas where our data was horribly wrong, our campaigning did something awful. We activated the other parties' voters.

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I have been trying to make my thoughts coherent, and they refuse to budge beyond a certain stage, so perhaps my readers can help me out.

For a long time I have been uncomfortable about the divide, constructed by people on both sides, between social and economic liberals. Two camps have emerged, not through the deliberate doing of any one person or group but through the manifold actions of many different people constructing barriers out of debating points. In my view there should be very little difference between social liberals and economic liberals. Both seek to maximise the good of ordinary people and to limit the power of the elite. Of all the simple statements about liberalism I have read in the last few days, and there have been many, I still find Conrad Russell's the most persuasive: standing up to bullies, of all kinds and everywhere.

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At many a hustings meeting it was my Tory opponent – a Government Whip - who was ‘generously’ trying to ‘big up’ the ‘wonderful contribution’ of the Lib Dems to the Tory led Government, whilst I was fast peddling in a different direction trying to differentiate and distance myself from the Tories. I was also trying to use the hustings meetings to explain that I was just as, if not more, concerned as the other progressive candidates (Green and Labour) with the implications of another right wing Government programme, such as the follies of renewing trident, extending benefit cuts or healthcare competition, and delaying Climate Change action (as the only Party with a practical plan to do so with our 5 Green Laws and Minister willing to argue for a 50% target at the forthcoming Paris summit). It seemed to perfectly encapsulate the Lib Dem dilemma and challenge of differentiation, and the struggle to change public perceptions that we were anything other than Tory lite – which has little appeal even to soft Tories as it makes them more likely to vote for the real thing, rather than for an alternative.

But the challenges did not stop there. I was standing in a seat where we had built up to a strong second place in 2010, but with an increasingly withering local organisation – and trying to run an integrated campaign of local and national messages, but with serving councillors only re-standing on condition that they could put as much distance between themselves and the Party with the Lib Dem logo almost invisible on their literature. Training on connect (which unhelpfully crashed on election day), e-campaigns and other methods of voter connectivity have never really percolated down as far as Suffolk.

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