Skip to main content

Carpe Diem

Ming Campbell has a great opportunity to push the Liberal Democrats to centre stage. The Liberal Democrats have always stood up for the socially liberal agenda. The clarity with which we express opposition to the political might of the state is part of the very bedrock of what we do well. The commitment to international law and to the social limits of the state have been two things that have made the Liberal Democrats stand out over the past five years. The opposition to the war in Iraq and the "war on terror" has marked us out as principled and brave.

The next step is to show that our Liberal Democrat vision embraces economic freedom too. The taxation pot is not limitless, and the micro-management of Gordon Brown has created enormous fiscal drag. Even were it desirable (which I strongly dispute), it is just not possible to continue to tax and spend. If Lib Dems get tax right this time- which means setting clear limits on tax rates and tax takes- then there really is a great prize for us. Liberals, by definition believe in limits to state power. The fact is that we have not expressed our economic Liberalism nearly clearly enough. We grew confused- sometimes preferring the producer interest, instead of defending consumer choice. Now we have an opportunity to escape these past mistakes.

We do not need to break with our past- as Labour did, and the Conservatives still do- we need to show why a smaller state, more localism, a bonfire of quangos, and free trade, (domestic and international) are such strong Liberal Democrat traditions- and what that means.

Comments

Tristan said…
Absolutely.

Economic freedom is necessary (but not sufficient) for any other kind of freedom.

Unfortunately, too many people view economic freedom in the light of Thatcher and are conned by the likes of 'War on Want' and other socialistic advocates of economic serfdom under the state.

We need to show that greater economic freedom can spur on the other freedoms and the aims of social liberalism (even if not through the welfare state so much as some wish).

Popular posts from this blog

Liberal Democrats v Conservatives: the battle in the blogosphere

It is probably fair to say that the advent of Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by our Conservative opponents. Indeed, it would hardly be wrong to say that the past few weeks has seen some "pretty robust" debate between Conservative and Liberal Democrat bloggers. Even the Queen Mum of blogging, the generally genial Iain Dale seems to have been featuring as many stories as he can to try to show Liberal Democrats in as poor a light as possible. Neither, to be fair, has the traffic been all one way: I have "fisked' Mr. Cameron's rather half-baked proposals on health, and attacked several of the Conservative positions that have emerged from the fog of their policy making process. Most Liberal Democrats have attacked the Conservatives probably with more vigour even than the distrusted, discredited Labour government. So what lies behind this sharper debate, this emerging war in the blogosphere? Partly- in my ...

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop...

Are the Liberal Democrats Libertarian?

A few days ago Cicero met with one of the better known figures in the Libertarian Alliance, Brian Mickelthwait . Brian writes for various blogs that I enjoy reading- including Samizdata . Ahead of our meeting Brain expressed "scepticism" about the Libertarian credentials of the Liberal Democrats: "My charge was that when you meet a Liberal Democrat you never know what he will believe. The one who talks to you is likely to say what you want to hear. But the others will simultaneously be telling other people with quite different views what they want to hear. So don't vote for these lying creeps." Political parties- all of them- are coalitions of people who quite often disagree with each other. Apparently we are not supposed to "air our dirty linen in public", but actually one of the reasons that the Liberal Democrats appealed to me was that they were prepared to talk about issues and policies amongst themselves in public. The eclipse of the Liberal Party...