“It will no longer be credible for Liberal Democrats to appeal for votes, as so often we do, on the basis that we would be better managers. It will no longer be credible to campaign, as sometimes we do, on a disparate series of populist gimmicks… Our party has been guilty of such populism at all levels of government. Other parties can repair cracked paving stones or improve local eyesores as well as we can, and campaign on a platform of doing so just as effectively.”

So says Graham Watson MEP, the leader of Liberal Democrats and allied groups in the European Parliament.  He mentioned also that the Liberal Democrats, “had relied upon populist gimmicks for too long and failed to put forward a coherent policy agenda.”

I should remark that had the Liberal Democrats not said one thing to one set of voters and something completely different to others elsewhere, their party could not have been anywhere near as successful during the course of the past fifteen years. How else are Lib Dem candidates going to appeal to Labour voters in the north and Conservative voters in the south?

‘Out of touch’ Campbell attacked by senior Lib Dems -  Sam Coates

“But I really dislike both their smugness and the way they tailor their electoral appeal to smugness. The Liberal Democrats are far too self-satisfied. They don't just think they may be right. They know they're right. They look down on other parties as ignorant, corrupt or both. They believe without question that they alone occupy the moral high ground. There is nothing they like more than to sneer at Labour or the Tories.  At times it can be insufferable. They are the dinner party party.”

Martin Kettle

According to Greg Hurst in The Times today,

“Sir Menzies Campbell signalled a shift in strategy to target disaffected Labour voters yesterday ….taking votes and seats from Labour will now form the overwhelming thrust of the Lib Dems’ election planning as the party positions itself to gain from bitterness and divisions over Tony Blair’s departure plans.”

It was not so long ago that the Liberal Democrats were seeking to convince us that the Conservative Party was finished and that they were the only viable opposition to New Labour. It was upon this platform that they wrested successfully from Conservative control numerous seats in the south of England and elsewhere.  It is now conceded by the Liberal Democrats that they might lose a handful of seats to the Conservatives led by David Cameron in the next general election.

We can rest assured that the Liberal Democrats will seek to retain as many formerly Conservative seats in the south as possible, but it will not be “a handful” lost if they represent themselves as the alternative to Labour.  A slight of hand will be necessary; otherwise that handful might have to be counted not only upon the fingers of both hands, but the toes of each foot, too.  As has happened so often in the past, the Lib Dems are going to have to present themselves as being “all things to all men”. This is completely unprincipled. Such chicanery must not go unpunished. It is incumbent upon Labour and the Conservatives henceforth to spotlight  Liberal Democrat duplicity and question what the “third party” party really stands for.