“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’