They were slaughtered at the general election for three reasons. The first was that the young could not forgive them for breaking their solemn pledge not to increase tuition fees. The second was that their former Labour supporters who voted Lib Dem in 2010 could not forgive them for joining up with the Tories. Finally the Tories said to their people ‘ you will get us anyway so why not vote for the real thing?’<\/p>\n
Since WWII the \u00a0Liberals have struggled to break through.\u00a0They began to advance when Tory voters, who felt their party \u00a0had imploded in the post Thatcher era, could not bring themselves to vote for Blair. In 2005 they reached their high water mark of 62 seats because many left wing Labour voters stopped voting\u00a0 for Blair, having seen that New Labour was little more than pink Thatcherism. The number of potential voters who believe in ‘Liberalism’ has not for decades been sufficient to get even the reinvigorated party anywhere on its own.\u00a0It needs at least defections from\u00a0one or the other of the two main parties, preferably from both, together with a favourable voting distribution.<\/p>\n
The challenge is made the more daunting with the unstoppable rise of the SNP, the improving image of Plaid Cymru, the shift of the centre\u00a0to the left and of the Tories to the centre, UKIP and the Greens and what looks like a re-energised\u00a0Labour movement\u00a0under Corbyn. Their feisty new\u00a0leader, Tim Fallon, will fire them up to go, but exactly where may have to wait upon events.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem of all, but also the biggest opportunity, lies in the disconnect between seats and votes for a third party. Here are the voting figures for the last ten elections\u00a0and the seats won.<\/p>\n
1974 \u00a0 5,346704\u00a0 13 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1979 \u00a0 4,313804 \u00a0 \u00a011 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1983 \u00a0 7,780949 \u00a0 \u00a023 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01987 \u00a0 7,341651 \u00a0 22<\/p>\n
1992 \u00a0 5,999606 \u00a020 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1997 \u00a0 5,242947 \u00a0 \u00a046 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02001 \u00a04,814321 \u00a0 \u00a0 52 \u00a0 \u00a0 2005 \u00a0 5,985454 \u00a062<\/p>\n
2010 \u00a0 6,836198 \u00a057 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 2015 \u00a0 2,415888 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a08<\/p>\n
Study the figures and you will see how the party can increase seats and lose votes at the same time. It is all in the distribution. Between 1983 and 2005 the Lib Dems (starting as the SDP\/Liberal Alliance) lost 2 million votes but increased their seats from 23 to 62. Their\u00a02015 tally was the lowest Liberal vote since 1970, when they won six seats. Wishful thinking will lead them to hope for\u00a0defections from Corbyn’s Labour in parliament. It is unlikely to happen but when it did in the Foot era, almost all of them lost their seats. Dissident New Labour MPs would be better advised to cross to the Tories, with whom they have much if not most in common, \u00a0especially if they want to advance their careers.<\/p>\n
For Tim Farron this is an opportunity to shine. It can only get better, since if it get’s worse there will be nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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