What Is The Point Of The Liberals?

“We’re making it clear that we are completely equidistant between Labour and the Conservatives”

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson on ‘The World This Weekend’, BBC Radio 4, 20th of September

Seriously, what is the point of the Lib Dems? I know lots of people are asking the same question at the moment, driving it to become a cliché, but it’s a question I have to ask. I’m not basing this question on the assumption that British politics should be a two-party affair, but since it is, there seems to be no point at all in having the Lib Dems as they currently stand.

I should declare before I go on that I’m sympathetic to liberalism; it’s my political background and where I would be if environmentalism didn’t exist, so I want the Liberal Democrats to be a decent party at the UK level, and I’d love to have a proper liberal government (lets face it, the Greens aren’t going to be able to form a government in Britain for a long time, if ever*). So it pains me to hear statements from senior Lib Dems such as the one at the head of this post.

Just as I think Labour needs to rethink what it really is, so I think the Lib Dems need to forget about trying to maintain an equidistant position between the other parties, practicing the worst campaign tactics imaginable, and selling their souls for power at every opportunity, and come up with a proper sense of liberalism, domestically and internationally, that can be applied through a coherent set of policies to tackle the problems that we face, from climate change to the financial crisis and everything in between. Carrying on as they are now can only help the mediocrity of British politics.