This week they launched their flagship plan to raise the income tax personal allowance to £10,000, lifting more than four million people entirely out of income tax. Their economic spokesman, Vince Cable, has become an economic prophet and, it is reported, even Conservative voters trust him more than they do George Osborne. However, proposals for ‘savage' cuts, the suggestion of flip-flopping on tuition fees and a new ‘mansion tax' quickly sent the party into confusion. As a result, the inexorable hope that is characteristic of Liberal Democrats seemed to falter. Even Vince's sagacity was questioned as the old split between the party's economic liberals and social democrats came again to the fore over the mansion tax.
The problem for the Liberal Democrats is that they have been unable to translate a collapsing Labour government and an unconvincing Conservative party into better electoral prospects. Their vote share lingers stubbornly around 20%. This is despite having had the more detailed and popular policies on many issues.
From the Ghurkhas to the banking crisis and from Iraq to their proposals for constitutional reform, the Liberal Democrats have long been far ahead of the main opposition in terms of having coherent and detailed proposals for change. Proposals to provide tax credits only to those on lower incomes, thus ending the age of universal benefits, and plans for 19 months' paid parental leave to be shared between both parents are further examples of radical changes that the Liberal Democrats promote. Also of note are their plans on work-based learning that would provide employees with a right to time off for training and require a statement from employers on training in their annual reports submitted to Companies House.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg (pictured) managed to rescue the week in Bournemouth with a decent speech that galvanised the activists and attempted to position the party as the main challenger to the seemingly dominant Conservatives. However, on the train back from Bournemouth there was the sense from many party members that they had not used their week of free publicity as well as they could have. Some suggested that perhaps they shouldn't have scheduled their leader's speech at the same time as US president Barack Obama's address to the UN and, athough the sombre mood of earlier in the week had dissipated, they weren't on their way home to prepare for government, or indeed main opposition.
The frustration for those in the party is that despite being bold and ‘right' on so many issues their best hope for being in government comes from the possibility of holding the balance of power in a hung parliament and having to choose the lesser of two evil coalitions: with a Labour party that has lost credibility or a Conservative party that Liberal Democrats see as superficial and untrustworthy. Furthermore, a socially liberal, pro-European party like the Liberal Democrats would have a hard time working with many traditional Conservatives, and recent battles over civil liberties and the war in Iraq would make propping up a dying Labour Government unthinkable for many Liberal Democrat activists.
But within this difficult position, there is hope for the Liberal Democrats. With Labour's continuing decline and Conservative popularity a mile wide and an inch deep, there may yet be an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to confound expectations and sell their agenda. The Conservatives require a 7% swing to achieve a single seat majority and, although Clegg's ambition to be prime minister is probably out of reach, the party's relevance could be in its role as an informal power broker in a split parliament. The Liberal Democrats may finally have an opportunity to demand implementation of their ideas; all they need to do now is find a way to make the public pay attention.
Mihir Magudia, Westminster Advisers
