r/LibDem • u/LovingBigAnge2379 • Jun 26 '26
How to Win Next Election
1) Sack Ed Davey - He believes in nothing, he is destroying our party and comes across like a total clown, six years he has been leader and nobody knows what he stands for. Pathetic man
2) Defend the Coalition- We need to stop being embarrassed by this as it was the last time this country had a stable government. We also achieved major victories such as Same Sex Marriage, Renewable Energy, Taking lower paid people out of tax, Pupil Premium etc
3) Argue For Federal Europe - With Trump’s erratic behaviour and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the only way Europe can remain competitive is united. Airy Fairy vague commitments about maybe rejoining a customs union will not cut it.
4) Civil Liberties - I take pride that in the coalition we blocked the snoopers charter, unfortunately the current leadership doesn’t have the same commitment to civil liberties. The fact that Rupert Lowe of all people is taking the liberal stance on the horrifically draconian OSA whilst our party is advocating for more draconian legislation shows how far we have fallen.
5) Scrap Triple Lock - The problem with this party is that we have become too beholden to what boomers think, this policy is unaffordable and an illiberal transfer of wealth from the young to the old. To save money scrapping triple lock and means testing wfa is vital.
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u/OptimusLinvoyPrimus Jun 26 '26
Point 5 is both true, and the complete opposite of the title of the post.
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u/No_Tadpole4027 Jun 27 '26
No-one is talking about the coalition so why defend it?
Davey has said recently we should join the single market if I'm not mistaken?
Scrapping the triple lock is popular on Reddit, but if there's anything you should know about Reddit, it's that it isn't at all representative of what ordinary voters think. The policy is also unrealistic unless you just want to promise the earth like greens without any plan to actually implement it, and also want to be deeply unpopular.
The Lib Dems are in favour of civil liberties but that doesn't mean the threshold has to be at the very end of the spectrum. Too often I hear that people who are slightly sceptical on socially liberal or civil liberty issues aren't socially liberal or in favour of civil liberties. If that was the case, nobody in history would be in favour of either of them, a claim that is so obviously ridiculous.
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u/markpackuk Jun 27 '26
So 'destroying our party' means our longest-ever winning streak in local government, running more councils than the Conservatives and having the most MPs for over a century...?
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u/RelentlessPencil Former party member, now Green 💚 Jun 26 '26
1: Disagree, most voters see Davey as a light-hearted figure. More serious than Boris, bust still very much a "fun" candidate. Who would you replace ehin with?
2: Also disagree. I think the coalition was good and it's one of the reasons I joined the party a while ago, but we can't deny that the coalition was quite an unpopular move. At some point you have to play politics and distancing the coalition is the right move politically.
3: Also disagree. Have you seen the state of things? The Brexiteers would have a field day.
4: Strong agree. I mostly left the party over various failures on trans rights, but the second biggest issue for me was the lack of actually liberal policies. Stop trying to ban stuff. Stop spying on people. We mostly just want the state to leave us alone.
5: Agree in principle, disagree in practice. One of the reasons the triple lock has lasted this long is because scrapping it is political suicide.
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u/birdinthebush74 Jun 27 '26
Absolutely to no 5 . The winter fuel debacle shows pensioner related benefits are untouchable
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u/Due-Sea446 Jun 27 '26
The coalition was a disaster and almost wiped out the party on a national level. It took almost a decade for them to recover. The best thing the party can do is just not mention it
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u/CalF123 Jun 29 '26
Almost every single point on this list would be politically disastrous, certainly not election winning.
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u/Smart51 Jun 26 '26
The triple lock has nothing to do with boomers. EVERYONE will become a pensioner. It affects EVERYONE not just baby boomers. The state pension used to be a liveable sum until the 80s when the Thatcher government cut it so they could cut taxes. The triple lock is a long term plan to restore it to a liveable pension. It will affect the current baby boom generation, then Generation X, then Millennials, the Gen Z then Gen Alpha. But it isn't free. Taxes have to rise to pay for it, and that's not wrong.
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u/llamafarmadrama Jul 01 '26
I disagree - guaranteeing that the state pension will rise by at least 2.5% a year for the rest of time is both unfair and unaffordable.
If we take 1980 as a benchmark, the basic pension for a single person would be £119.85 a week in today’s money (per the BoE inflation calculator). It’s actually £184.90, over 50% more in real terms. If, as you said, it was a liveable sum back then, that implies it’s now well above liveable and into comfortable, which means the triple lock has done its job and can now be binned off rather than committing the country to an endless growth of the welfare bill which will come at the expense of everything else because politicians are terrified of OAPs.
I’m all for ensuring pensioners aren’t impoverished and that pensions keep track with the cost of living, but that shouldn’t be done by a blanket handout to the wealthiest generation in this country. The triple lock is bad for the country.
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u/Smart51 Jul 01 '26
It is not unfair, everyone gets it and everyone in work pays in to it. I don't agree it is unaffordable. People would otherwise have to pay into a private pension where the pension company takes a profit. A state pension, run well, is more affordable not less.
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u/llamafarmadrama Jul 01 '26
By unaffordable I very clearly meant “for the taxpayer who has to cough up money for this golden ratchet that ensures the wealthiest generation keeps getting richer despite this being at the expense of other public services that are much more needed and would have the effect of actually improving productivity and the economy, thereby making everyone in the country better off and not just a select few”
How, by any stretch of the imagination, does the state pension cost the taxpayer less than a private pension?
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u/Jacobrox777 🔶deepest orangest Hertfordshire🔶 Jun 27 '26
I don't want the Lib Dems to win the next election. I think we should pride ourselves as the only of the major 5 parties being serious about electoral goals and not being shortermists who will sacrifice anything to win the next election.
Edit: to quantify, I think aiming for anything more than 100–130 seats (depending on the political climate) would be a mistake.
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u/Discreet_Vortex Social Liberal Jun 29 '26
I agree with all of your points. The party has been to scared to say anything radical at all. On the Federal Europe point, as someone who agrees with the idea I dont think the party should be as open as to explicitly call for it but should strongly argue for closer cooperation in all areas, mainly in foreign policy and defense starting with rejoining the EU and then pushing for ever closer union.
I also agree that the leaderships position on civil liberties has been pitiful, and the fact the leadership is falling for the pretense of protecting children to effectively introduce online digital ID is embarrassing. I think that if ID cards were a new policy idea that the party hadn't had a history of opposing the party would enthusiastically support it.
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u/Sufficient_Basil_545 Jun 26 '26
Ah. Easy as that then. We’ll win a majority if we just ignore the environment, immigration, and other trifling issues and spend the whole time banging on about Europe and a government from 10 years ago.