Forget about Farage, will the Liberal Democrats destroy the Conservatives?
Nothing is impossible now
The UK media is obsessed with Nigel Farage and the war on the right. And you can see why. Farage will split the right-wing vote and make it easier for gthe centre-left to win.
But missing from the analysis is a rather telling point that right-wing activists do not like to face. They are happy to tell the Conservative establishment to make more concessions to Farage, to abolish the Human Rights Act and bring in a half-baked and wholly authoritarian system of national service.
Of course they are. They want to see extremist policies promoted. They have no interest in suggesting that Tories should make concessions to the millions about to vote Liberal or Labour because such concessions would not suit their prejudices.
They do not understand that by moving ever further to the right they are further infuriating centre-left Britain and helping to build an iron determination to destroy the Conservatives by any means necessary.
Farage’s party will win one seat, maybe three or four. The centre-left is about to win by a landslide. If I were a Tory, I know which would scare me the most.
There are extraordinary polls going round that appear to fulfil the most ecstatic of anti-Tory hopes.
Not only do they predict a stupendous Labour majority. They go further and raise the possibility that the Liberal Democrats might win enough seats to supplant the Conservatives and become His Majesty’s official opposition.
For readers outside the UK, I should explain that the Liberal Democrats are the UK’s nice party. Their policies, in as much as anyone can work them out, are centrist. They flourish in the old-fashioned parts of the country: market towns, the borderlands between England and Wales and England and Scotland, and the pricier suburbs.
In 2010 they entered government with the Conservatives and the experience nearly killed them. Instead of offering well-meaning, mushy policies, that no one thought they would ever be in a position to implement, the Liberal Democrats were tied to a ruthless Tory government that slashed public spending.
After being almost wiped out in the 2015 general election, they have slowly rebuilt.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is a serious man in private. But he attracts attention by charging around in tractors, falling off paddle boards in the Lake District and zooming down water slides at theme parks
In most of the world his stunts would disbar from serious consideration. In the UK, they appeal to the electorate by proving that he is “a good bloke”.
But to concentrate on the policies and the performances is to miss that the main point about the Liberal Democrats, their first and foremost attraction, and the one essential thing about them we must remember above all else is that….
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Writing from London to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.