I know it’s the media which treats every announcement by leading politicians as actual party policy. I know it’s the media which treats actual debate over policy as splits and disunity. However, let’s be clear. The Lib Dem Pre-Manifesto which members were finally allowed to see on Monday is NOT agreed yet, not until the fat lady sings, i.e. the Party Conference endorses it – with amendments I hope.
The document majors on economics followed by environment. It still comes across as “We’ll manage things better than the other guys. Look how well we’ve done so far“. I’m not seeing the vision thing, the narrative of how a Liberal Britain would be very different.
What does it say about my own particular interests, Europe and Security ? It does reaffirm support for UK membership of EU, mainly on economic grounds. I see no mention of the environment or peace. The commitment is accompanied by the usual vague words on the need for EU reform but as usual WITHOUT specifying which reforms. It also recalls the need for a referendum if more powers passed to EU. In other words it’s the usual half-arsed endorsement of the EU with weasel words to please Daily Mail readers. That worked well in the Clegg / Farage debates, didn’t it ? I also checked the section on “Britain in the world: global action for security and prosperity“. Whichever SPAD or other functionary put it together chose the following picture to illustrate the title. Let’s just say not the tradition Liberal view of security and prosperity. We have work to do.
Disgruntled Radical 