During the election campaign Liberal Democrat policies were reduced to a mantra of: fair taxes, a fair chance for your children, a fair deal in politics and a fair future in a greener Britain. Like motherhood and apple pie it is difficult to oppose any of these, but the aspirations were not distinctly different to those of the other parties and, when exposed to critical examination were found to contain little meat, or meat of dubious quality (eg the £700 tax cut).
In education the pupil premium was and is a good idea, but is was not and is not clear who is going to get it. We proposed reducing SATS, slimming down the national curriculum, and phasing out university tuition fees but did not have the courage to propose abolishing any of them. Nothing to set the educational world on fire.
In the reform of politics we stressed proportional representation but failed to hammer away that it should be by STV, and agreed with the Tories both on the reduction of the number of MPs (hardly compatible with improving the quality of our democracy, and making STV more difficult to operate)and in the questionable policy to allow groups of special interest campaigners to attempt to demand the recall of any MP who upset their prejudices.
Local income tax, reform of company law to give workers rights similar to shareholders, positive engagement in the European Union and other great Liberal causes (three cheers for a land tax) seemed strangely absent. As one commentator put it, once the media and electorate started to listen to us, the Liberal Democrats didn't seem to have much to say.
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"In education the pupil premium was and is a good idea, but is was not and is not clear who is going to get it."
ReplyDeleteEr.. I thought it was pretty clear. The Lib Dem policy was for it to attach to the same people who are entitled to free school meals, an easy pre-existing way to sort it. I don't know if the coalition is going to do it that way or not, but it seems sensible.
"We proposed reducing SATS, slimming down the national curriculum, and phasing out university tuition fees but did not have the courage to propose abolishing any of them."
We did propose abolishing university tuition fees, just over six years, not straight away, which it was felt would be unaffordable in the current climate. The other two, I'm not sure many people would have thought it was a good idea to abolish them completely.
"In the reform of politics we stressed proportional representation but failed to hammer away that it should be by STV"
So let me get this right: You're arguing that we should have banged on about different systems of PR?
"the questionable policy to allow groups of special interest campaigners to attempt to demand the recall of any MP who upset their prejudices."
You'd need a lot of special interest campaigners to get the number of signatures proposed, and anyway the proposal always included the "where they have been shown to have committed serious wrongdoing" clause, which presumably will mean it wouldn't be possible to just re-call an MP apropos of nothing in particular in the way you suggest. Plus in that situation, the electorate would presumably return the MP to parliament without a problem, so it would reflect badly on the special interest campaign in question for wasting public money on an election. So all in all, I don't think there's much to worry about there!
"positive engagement in the European Union and other great Liberal causes (three cheers for a land tax) seemed strangely absent"
Are you kidding? Clegg giving a full-throated argument to be positively engaging in the EU in the relevant TV debate (I forget which) was one of the best bits of the campaign!
Overall, I think you're in danger of losing sight of the reasons the vast majority of people vote. I honestly don't believe it's about the things you suggest. Yes, there are people out there who are pretty serious about their politics, who will make the sort of judgements you are doing now, but most of them don't. For most people, I think it had more to do with the traditional two-party squeeze, and the media onslaught against our Trident and immigration policies putting doubts in people's minds.
Thanks for your correction(on the pupil premium) and your detailed criticism of my other comments, which I hope to defend later.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I thought the best bit of the campaign was Clegg's robust and vigorous defence of our policy for an amnesty on illegal immigrants after 10 years of "clean" living.
Back to education, Peter Downes's blog on
ReplyDeletehttp://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-the-coalitions-education-policies-are-seriously-flawed-19852.html
confirms that the coalition's policy on the working of the pupil premium is not yet clear, and gives an excellent deconstruction (other than his support for the National Curriculum) of coalition education policy as proposed so far.