There is sometimes a sort of boy scout-like naivety about the Liberal Democrats, and this week they put on a gang show. To be charitable, we might call it an attempt at last night at the Proms. But down at the Muckrakers Arms, one of the wisest of our number watched a clip of all those dutiful LibDems, dutifully waving their little union flags. She put her hands over her face and exclaimed: “Oh lordy! How embarrassing!’
Embarrassing indeed. It was as though an entire political party had got its skirt caught up in its knickers. Let’s be honest, dear reader: Nuremberg Rally it was not. More like a teddy bear’s picnic. But what excuse (other than being terrified of the right) made them do it? They would no doubt claim earnestly that there is no shame in patriotism, but we all know that’s fatuous nonsense.
‘Land of hope and glory’? ‘Wider still and wider, shall our bounds be set? God who made us mighty, make us mightier yet’? That kind of patriotism? We’re all colonialists again now, are we? Though instead of bending the knee to a bunch of foreigners, we bend it to our own home-grown fascists.
*
Ed Davey claims his party is the only hope in standing against “the forces of darkness”. Well, at least he is talking the talk, unlike some parties one could mention. But there is no point in telling us how tough they are. The idea is to show that toughness to the aforementioned FoD. Perhaps in his next stunt Mr Davey will dress up as Gandalf.
It is fair to say that the Liberal Democrat conference has not been well reported, for all Daisy Cooper’s pzazz and that splendid smile, reminiscent of the kind of thing that turns up on the front page of a Christmas number. But if they leave Bournemouth ignored by the millions of floating and frustrated voters who had hoped the party might show a little chutzpah, they brought it on themselves.
It’s not only the news media who want fireworks. Most voters would quite like some too. They are looking for a somewhat more gladiatorial approach to knocking the bejesus out of Reform. All those votes were up for grabs, and all the party needed was a small voice at the back crying that the emperor has no clothes. We are not racists and fascists. We do not hate foreigners. We have had enough of being taken for pussies by every billionaire and privatised utility. And we want to be back in Europe.
Ed Davey mentioned Europe, but here is the challenge. Don’t just throw a tarpaulin over Europe till the next Ed Davey speech. We will believe the party’s commitment when they are arguing about in TV interviews or talking about it on the doorstep.
*
The FT tells us what they think will be the Liberal Democrats’ strategy from hereon: “It’s that combination of ‘Labour has failed, the Conservatives are no longer the party you used to support, let’s not have Trumpism in Britain’ that will form the big underlying theme of much of what Davey says throughout the parliament.”
Mr Davey may well choose this strategy, but if so it would qualify as winning the Palme d’Or of stupid political decisions. It deliberately denies his party any identity at all – just ‘none of the above’. If the voters were aware of what the LibDems stand for, and approved of it, then all those don’t-knows out there would have moved to them in their millions. But they haven’t. So more of the same does not seem the shrewdest move.
As it happens, a YouGov poll this week tells us. The biggest reason why they don’t consider the LibDems is because they “don’t know enough about them”. In which case, a strategy which goes out of its way to tell as little about the party as possible may be construed as a mistake.
*
Last week Pecksniff mused on how the possible resignation of Andrew Gwynne, a Manchester MP, might present an opportunity for Andy Burnham to return to the Commons and make him the ready-made challenger to Keir Starmer. Your diarist wondered how No.10 would deal with that possibility, and this week came an answer. Mr Gwynne made clear his intention after all not to resign, thus closing off that option.
That may have nothing to do with any plot, of course. It may just be coincidence. But we should not be surprised if, in the coming weeks, the delinquent and thus presently suspended Mr Gwynne is reinstated as a Labour member.
But the waves have already been made and the ripples spill outwards. This week Mr Burnham confirmed that he has been approached by a number of Labour MPs to challenge Keir Starmer. He has also angrily criticised the two-child benefit limit and the government’s fiscal rules. No.10 immediately launched a pile-on from its supporters, belittling Mr Burnham and carefully focused on drawing comparisons with the Liz Truss debacle. (When every critic of Burnham cites the same example, it’s not coincidence. It’s because they all got the same memo.)
This will not go away and could lead to open warfare very quickly. So, where does the membership’s loyalty lie? With the Labour Party conference just around the corner, we shall soon find out. Whatever is officially on the agenda, it doesn’t need a sage to know what every conversation will be about in the bars.
*
Andy Burnham is not the only one criticising the two-child benefit cap this week. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is seen as ‘No.10’s candidate’ in the Labour deputy leadership elections: their trusty. So it came as a surprise to hear her criticising one of her own government’s policies. She described it as “spiteful” and said it had “punished and pushed children into hardship”.
We must assume she had No.10’s agreement to make the charge, but even so, calling one’s own government ‘spiteful’ hardly accords with cabinet collective responsibility. She also criticised the culture in No.10, claiming the cadre around the PM had been briefing against her, and implying it is a testosterone-driven boy’s club.
The fact of their shadowy doings being dragged into the light of day sounds as though they may already be beginning to lose their grip. Can we imagine a few months ago a member of the cabinet criticising the No.10 operation?
Meanwhile, with Andy Burnham on manoeuvres, we can probably expect other names to begin to jump into prominence in circumstances not entirely to No.10’s favour.
Does anyone know what Wes Streeting is up to these days…?
*
It is clear that people are out to get Morgan McSweeney now. Though no doubt he is safe in his Downing Street fastness and no doubt the PM would swear his condottieri is going nowhere, the likelihood is that he is, perhaps sooner rather than later. MMcS’s fallmight in itself represent regime change, since he is credited with having chosen Sir Keir, rather than the other way round.
All the seamy realities around Labour’s ludicrous and gaslighting position on Europe, and all the terror of upsetting the racists in the Red Wall, are put down to MMcM. Keir Starmer himself is much more of a manager, a tinkerer, a man who believes all we have to do is mend a few things, be a bit more efficient. Wrong call. So without his minder, what kind of PM would remain? For a man without his own ideas – the “vision thing”, as George Bush called it – where would be the point in Keir Starmer?
Would the PM be looking for a new adviser, or something much more fundamental? A parrot, perhaps, looking for a new shoulder to squat on?
*
In recent weeks, Pecksniff has been dismissive of Jeremy Corbyn’s latest: Your Party. In response, one reader wrote a considered and gracious letter to the editor, for which East Anglia Bylines is grateful. It called into question some of your diarist’s observations. In particular, the gentleman takes exception to the idea that the 10,000 who wanted to join the as yet non-existent party are deluded.
But their only delusion was in putting their faith in such a ramshackle bunch as Corbyn & Co, as your diarist hoped he had made clear. The monumental causes of the left have been grotesquely misrepresented in recent years by those who tend to lead the charge. But though socialism may be a fine creed, there are millions of voters for whom the word holds little appeal. Britain doesn’t need socialist triumphalism at the moment: it needs serious political activists of all stripes on the left to listen to the voters and, together, find a way out of our present morass.
Our esteemed reader suggests the wise men at the Muckrakers might wish to consider constructively what next, but then the 10,000 should surely have their voices heard too. It would be a bit of a squash in the saloon, and there would be competition for the stools at the bar, but no doubt George could be persuaded to put on another barrel if he thought 10,000 new topers were likely to enter his portals.
It is however a crucial subject, which comes up in this diary every week, and East Anglia Bylines tries to be as inclusive and open-minded as possible. We should discuss it further.
*
It had been your diarist’s intention not to mention Your Party this week, other than to respond to the letter, but my dears, really! It is a party which doesn’t exist, has no objectives, no members and not even a name. Yet already in an initiative almost of Cartesian dualism, we are told of a putsch by activists to wrest control of this chimera and return it to the grassroots. With all due respect to those who had placed to their faith in these people’s hands, as Oscar Wilde observed: “You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh”.
*
Nigel Farage (Clacton) under various guises has been leading the charge to the right for some years, and now it is apparently our only news narrative. Behind Reform in the queue we find Labour, tut-tutting about foreigners and refusing to acknowledge any of the many reasons immigrants should be embraced. Then the Liberal Democrats who clearly want to be nice but are reluctant to say so.
But Pecksniff has pointed out how the revolution always eats its children, and so now the momentum is such that Reform stands in danger of itself being eaten. Nothing will ever be far enough for the far right malevolents, and from leading the charge, Reform is now trying to keep up. So the policy of chucking out all immigrants is not Reform’s idea: it’s just where the racist braying of its core vote has led them, and so they embrace it to avoid appearing soft.
So Mr Farage is in danger of losing control of his own narrative. Behind Reform’s surge in the polls, their support is gossamer thin, based on fresh air and the voters’ frustration. It only takes one of the other parties to remember where they left their cojones and Reform’s support tumbles. So the YouGov findings this week should come as no surprise.
For a while the Reform figures have stalled, and this week they fall by three points, while Labour’s have risen by the same three points. It is very little, and more or less within the margin of error, but it will nonetheless unsettle Mr Farage, and perhaps send Labour’s delegates to their conference with just a hint that things may be changing.
*
And by the way, let us hear no more nonsense about the dangers of Britain falling prey to the cult of Trump. His only appeal is to a very small group with hate in their hearts. There is nothing in Trump to appeal to the British voter. This week, Pecksniff had the opportunity of speaking to an unknowing but all-seeing guru of public opinion: your diarist’s hairdresser, who spends every day listening to the gripes of the man and woman in the chair.
What are they talking about at the moment? “They all talk about Trump.” What are they saying about him? “They all hate him.”
*
This diary began by recording the peccadillos and worse of politics in East Anglia. But it has too often been overtaken by national political events which seem impossible to ignore. So there is little room for the extraordinary goings-on at Basildon or Peterborough councils, the new accusations against Basildon MP James McMurdock or the latest on the Epping thugs. For which, many apologies.
*
With Pecksniff’s grateful thanks to those who do much of the work: this week Malcolm Lynn, James Porter, Karl Whiteman, Celina Błędowska and Liz Crosbie.
<<< Previous Pecksniff’s Diary
More from East Anglia Bylines
