What do the Liberal Democrats need from the current leadership election?
I’d say it’s, above all, a good debate about the future of the party between candidates who offer clear and contrasting visions for it. We also need to see how those candidates perform in debate and when faced with difficult questions.
Well, we have two candidates with contrasting visions, but
will we have the debate? At present the party is encouraging people to nominate
one of the candidates by publishing
running totals every afternoon.
So, of course, the two camps are doing all they can to encourage
Lib Dem members to nominate their candidate. As both are a long way past the
200 nominations they need, this seems to me unfortunate.
Because it means the campaign will open with a significant percentage
of the electorate already having committed themselves. Of course people can change
their minds, but committing yourself in this way makes it less likely that you
will do so.
Which leaves the danger that the campaign will become more about cheering your candidate on and less about the future of the party.
That may sound too idealistic, but we need to do some hard thinking because it's by no means guaranteed that this party has a future.
But then I always seem to be disappointed by our leadership
elections.
Before the last contest (which turned out to be a
coronation) I wrote a post under the title Forget “the Lib Dem family”: Let’shave proper leadership elections itemising how previous contests, from John
Pardoe’s wig to Tim Farron’s religion, had failed to live up to my hopes and
concluding:
It looks to me as though we Lib
Dems are too scared of rocking the boat to have really informative leadership
elections.
Some like to talk of the “Lib Dem
family,” but in my experience happy families are those that can have lively
discussions, even rows, and make their peace afterwards.
We Lib Dems, by contrast, resemble an unhappy family where everyone is sat around the dining table on their best behaviour and terrified of saying the wrong thing.
5 comments:
As members haven't had any communication from the candidates (at least, this member hasn't) it's hard to understand just what is driving the somewhat over-enthusiastic cheerleading for both of them.
And as for publishing the running total of nominations - frankly I'd rather that once the required minimum was reached then no more nominations for a candidate should be recorded. Turning the nomination process into a proxy election seems unhelpful.
Out of interest, what percentage or number of members did you have in mind Jonathan when you wrote, "the campaign will open with a significant percentage of the electorate already having committed themselves"?
The reason I ask is that less than 2% of party members have nominated a candidate. The numbers involved are, as far as I know, much higher than candidates got to in previous contests. But even with record numbers participating in this way, that's still 98% of members who haven't nominated a candidate. For every one member who has nominated someone, nearly 50 other members have not.
Of course, those numbers will change, but I find it hard to see how they'll change in a way that gets up to a large enough chunk being committed to a candidate such that it reduces the debate and volatility of the electorate before the contest really kicks off?
We ask potential candidates to gather 200 nominations from party members. I am happy with that and do not see what is to be gained by allowing them to submit more.
In other words, I'm with A Rambling Ducky on this one.
There are three possible gains from publicising the numbers, in my view.
First, as a liberal party we should always err on the side of transparency and freedom of information. So the default really should be that the information is published unless there's a good reason not to do so.
Second, the more ways there are for candidates to show early momentum, the more chance there is of a perceived outsider being able to breakthrough. This isn't relevant to this particular contest, but is an often under-appreciated part of what makes for a good, healthy democracy: providing ways in which the established, favoured, early front runner (whether that's an internal candidate, a constituency candidate or a party, depending on the type of contest) doesn't get *too* much benefit from that position.
Third, all candidates try to show their breadth of support. Usually, that's done via touting endorsements from big names. Adding in a show of grassroots support tilts that in a more liberal direction by making the voice of an individual member count for more.
Yes Mark, but as is the case far too often, you identify the upside, without even mentioning the downside, which even at a superficial level are not difficult to identify.
1) You say 'as a liberal party we should always err on the side of transparency and freedom of information ...' but why? Liberals support Freedom of information because making better and more relevant information available helps to ensure that people are better equipped to make better and more liberal decisions. A raw count of people who have sent in nominations tells us absolutely nothing about what sort of a leader either candidate is likely to be. What benefit do you see in promoting a race by both camps to maximise their candidates’ nominations, when what we surely all need (especially those who have nominated candidates already) is some decent information about what issues each candidate thinks are vitally important and what they would do about them, so we can compare, contrast and maybe even form an opinion as to how they personally try to balance those three fundamental values we all hold dear.
2) You say 'Second, the more ways there are for candidates to show early momentum, the more chance there is of a perceived outsider being able to breakthrough.' But on the other side is the view that giving more ways there are for candidates to show early momentum, the more ways there are for the perceived favourite with a better organisation being able to squash any hope of a breakthrough. You don't even mention this even more likely scenario.
3) You say 'Third, all candidates try to show their breadth of support. Usually, that's done via touting endorsements from big names. Adding in a show of grassroots support tilts that in a more liberal direction by making the voice of an individual member count for more.' But you are going wrong from your second sentence. Very few Liberals are so silly as to consider endorsements from a big names shows anything other than some people, who have a reputation in the party and may be perceived as being in a good position to judge, favour one person over another. Surely you don't think liberals are that naive?
Sadly, your post looks too much like the party establishment defending a decision it has taken, rather than a reasoned liberal argument as to how it will help us reach a better decision.
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