Lib Dems: Backlash, meltdown, backlash

By David Beeson

It’s always an interesting phenomenon to watch a backlash developing. And even more when you get a backlash to the backlash.

The present instance goes like this: the backlash is against the Liberal Democrats who seem to be melting down faster than the Fukushima nuclear reactor. The backlash to the backlash has been caused by the obvious advantage to Labour from the collapse in Lib Dem support, leading to accusations that we’re all a bunch of evil exploiters of other people’s misfortune, cruelly taking delight in someone else’s pain.

I want to state clearly – and I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this way in the Labour Party – that I take absolutely no delight in the implosion of the Liberal Democrats.

From time to time, I think back to the Blair-Brown governments. Ah, what idyllic days they seem now, don’t they? In those times we’d get upset because we felt that the government was tarnishing its own reputation by over-indulgence in spin. We had yet to weigh the consequences of seeing them replaced by a government that does nothing but spin, and not even very well.

In amongst the nostalgia, however, I do remember some of the flies in the ointment of that time. Those strange departures from basic Labour principles that would put my loyalty to a severe test. They’d often make me think that it was tremendously useful to have the Liberal Democrats there to remind us that there was a better way to deal with certain issues. Civil Rights. Education. And top of the pile, of course, Iraq. Why, there were times when I looked at the Lib Dems with admiration, even a little envy.

Now if we could get AV in place, so that the vote wouldn’t be split when Lib Dems and Labourites stood against each other, you could feel that having a strong Lib Dem presence to keep Labour on the straight and narrow would be a boon for us all. I still think of the Lib Dems as our cousins – sometimes a little irritating in their inclination to be a bit holier than thou, but nonetheless with their hearts in the right place and some interesting ideas in a number of areas.

So I look at their present miserable state and I feel nothing but sorrow. Now, I know it was important for Clegg to get his backside on a seat at the cabinet table. Important for him, that is. But I’m not sure anyone else gains anything at all from his having achieved that ambition by backing what is surely emerging as one of the most incompetent governments for a generation. Ironically, its incompetence is the only thing that gives me any optimism for the short-term future: they make such a pig’s ear of anything they undertake – e.g. healthcare reform – that it may prevent them pushing through some of their most lamentable policies – e.g. healthcare reform.

However, if the lasting price of the trail of destruction that this government is cutting through our public life turns out to be the eclipse of the Liberal Democrats for a generation, it will be a high price indeed. If that’s what it takes to get Labour back to start on the task of reconstruction, it will only have made that task more difficult still. Not a cause for celebration then, but more for mourning.

After all, if your cousin is in intensive care, the least you can do is forget your differences and forgive him his occasional airs of superiority. The fact that his wounds were self-inflicted shouldn’t make you any less sorry for him.

No, the damage Clegg has inflicted on his own party is no reason for joy in the Labour Party. Now, if the Tories went the same way, on the other hand, that would be a different matter…