Norman Lamb shows why he should have stood for the Liberal Democrat leadership

Embed from Getty Images

Norman Lamb contributed an article to the Guardian website under the headline 'Why I won’t be the Lib Dems’ next leader'.

The odd thing is that, beyond the opening observation that Norman has "just fought a gruelling campaign to win my North Norfolk seat," the article read as though he was announcing his decision to stand for the Liberal Democrat leadership.
He writes:

We need to understand why so many people get frustrated with remote power – something that Liberals should understand. The European Union is too often dysfunctional and sclerotic, yet progressive internationalists have been reluctant to admit this. While we have always recognised the need for reform of the EU, the Liberal Democrats have been perceived as being too tolerant of its failings.

And:

I want the Liberal Democrats to use our potentially pivotal position in parliament to force cross-party working on the profound challenges we face: not just the Brexit negotiations, but how we secure the future of the NHS and our care system.

And:

In my work as a health minister in the coalition, I became more and more outraged by the way people with mental ill health and those with learning disability and autism are treated by the state. So often I heard stories of people being ignored, not listened to. 

The dad of a patient at Winterbourne View (the care home where abuse of residents was exposed by Panorama), who told me he felt guilty because there was nothing he could do for his son: no one would listen to his complaints. The teenage girl with autism held in an institution for over two years, treated like an animal. No one would listen to her family’s pleas. I helped get her out and she now leads a good life – but one minister can’t intervene in every case.

I suppose the reason Norman is not standing is that he feels his views on Europe are too far from the party mainstream.

But there is a lot in his article I agree with, while Norman's difficulties over Europe seems to me symptomatic of a deeper problem for the Liberal Democrats.

Our revival on councils and then in parliament was built on the voters' perception that Liberals (and the Liberal Democrats) were the ones who would stand up for local people - perhaps particularly in wards and towns that tended to get the rough end of political decisions.

More recently, we have also rather fancied ourselves as the party of the liberal establishment - the party of technocrats and lawyers.

There is an obvious tension between these two identities and one that is most apparent in the traditional Liberal strongholds in the South West and in Norman's own North Norfolk seat, which has much in common with them.

If Norman had stood, we would have been more likely to face up to our split identity. I am not sure I would have voted for him, but he would certainly have made for a more enlightening contest.