Really, what is the point of the Lib Dems?

The Paul Richards column

Here’s a question: who is the only member of the Liberal Democrat frontbench with any experience of government? The last Liberal Government ended in 1922, and the last Liberal to serve as a minister of the crown was Sir Archibald Sinclair in 1940. Even Ming Campbell hasn’t been around that long. The answer is Vince Cable, who was a special adviser to John Smith MP, when he was secretary of state for industry in the Callaghan government. Fetching John Smith’s mug of tea does not equip you to run the economy.

The rest of the Lib Dem ‘shadow cabinet’, as they are grandiosely self-described, have no more experience of running the country than the legions of barbers, taxi-drivers and pub landlords who seem to always know how it should be done. And barring a coalition government which brings Lib Dems into a Conservative-led administration (never gonna happen), the Lib Dem front-bench will pursue their careers in the sure-fire knowledge that they will never drive their policies through parliament, see the inside of a red box or run anything more significant than a bath.

You have to wonder about the psychology of politicians who know they’ll never be in power. Even a Lib Dem councillor knows they may end up as chair of planning or children’s services. In the darkest times for the Labour or Tory parties, their MPs knew one day the sun would shine on them once again. But the Lib Dem parliamentary party wakes up each morning, makes speeches, drafts manifestos and policy statements, gives interviews to the Guardian, delivers Focus, and goes to bed after a constituency fundraiser without advancing by an inch the likelihood of Liberal Democrat government. Without the prospect of power, of actually doing something for people, surely all you’re left with is egotistical, preening self-regard?

They blame the electoral system, of course. If only Britain had proportional representation, they say, then British Liberals would be in government as they are in other European governments. On Sunday in Germany the liberal ‘Free Democrats’ may well give Merkel the extra numbers she needs to form a coalition without the SPD, even though they are polling at only around 15%. One of the arguments deployed against electoral reform is the ‘Genscher Factor’: the phenomenon named after Free Democrat and former Nazi Party member (joining in 1945, a little late to be fashionable) Hans-Dietrich Genscher who served in successive coalition governments from 1969 to 1992 because his small centrist party held the balance of power. Imagine a Clegg Factor – no matter who you vote for, you always get Nick Clegg in the Cabinet.

I blame the media. This week in Bournemouth, journalists have been reporting the policy announcements, Clegg’s Big Speech, the behind-the-scenes spats between Webb, Cable, Clegg and Huhne as though they mattered. For one week a year, they can pretend to be important and get on the TV. It’s unfair. It gives them a false sense of their own worth. It leads to them saying daft things such as ‘go back to your constituencies and prepare for government’. I seem to remember one delegate to the Lib Dem conference in the build-up to the Gulf War declaring from the rostrum: ‘Saddam Hussein, the Liberal Democrats are watching you…’ which must have sent seismic shock waves through the Republican Palace.

Individually, some of them are talented, intelligent and good company. We share many of the same concerns. They’re not the Tories, after all. But as a party the Liberal Democrats represent the worst aspects of politics. They seek office, but not power. They offer criticism, but take no responsibility. They parade principles, but play the dirtiest political games locally you can imagine. They claim the high-ground, but operate in the gutter (Ashdown’s answer-phone reputedly said ‘please leave your message after the high moral tone’). They will do and say anything to get elected, no matter the contradictions and inconsistency, even within the same council’s boundaries. Their MPs pretend politics is about blaming someone else, and thus contribute to the denigration of democracy as self-government.

The Liberal Democrats are like eunuchs at an orgy: filling up space and eating all the crisps, but unwilling and unable to do anything useful.