For those who haven’t been following the Lib Dem leadership race (and I don’t blame you if you haven’t, it was pretty dull) the election came down to a choice between two candidates: former coalition minister Sir Ed Davey and relatively new MP Layla Moran.
Ed probably started out as the favourite. He’s been an MP since 1997, our only remaining MP who actually served in government, and he managed to attract far more endorsements from within the party. Layla, by contrast, was the dark horse. The “change candidate”. She promised to deliver us a fresh start, to champion a bolder policy program and to draw a clear line under both the coalition government and the “stop Brexit” era.
The 2019 general election was a disaster for my party and it’s clear that if we’re ever going to be successful again, we need to change the way we do things in a big way. So I actually ended up voting for Layla in the end for this reason.
So despite this, am I happy that Ed won? Although he wasn’t my first choice, I remain hopeful about his leadership. I also think there is a lot about him for free market inclined folk to like.
Liberals outside of our party may be familiar with him as one of the contributors to The Orange Book, along with Nick Clegg, David Laws and other figures associated with the “right” of the party. But Sir Ed’s liberal beliefs are not merely theoretical. In coalition, while serving as minister for energy and climate change, he oversaw the largest shake-up Britain’s energy market has ever seen. These reforms deregulated what had become a bloated sector under Labour, made it easier for consumers to switch, and allowed new smaller firms to enter the market and break up the monopoly of the big six.
We have many politicians that are happy to wax lyrical about the benefits of competition and free enterprise, but Ed was able to harness the power of the free market to achieve a genuine impact. He didn’t just talk about these values, he put them into practice and millions of people benefitted from it.
Ed’s record on LGBT+ issues is also excellent. He introduced the clause that led to the abolition of section 28l, and he looks set to fearlessly defend trans rights in the face of the right’s silly culture war (as a true liberal should!) He has also spoken out against “nanny state” measures in the past, and although he’s mellowed a little since his Orange Book days, he has consistently advocated fiscal responsibility and growth instead of reckless spending. With this record, the Lib Dems are looking like the party to back for both economic competence and personal freedom next time around. Nobody else even comes close.
With all that said, however, I still have my doubts. I stated at the start of my last article for 1828 that it would be a mistake for the party to “carry on exactly as we are”. Yet, by electing Ed, our members appear to have chosen to do exactly that.
Ed has already been acting leader since December. So he has had eight months to demonstrate his suitability for the role. It’s difficult to argue that he has succeeded in doing that. We are currently stagnating at around six per cent in the polls (for context, that’s nearly half of what we got in the general election). I don’t think this is entirely his fault. As an acting leader without a democratic mandate, he probably hasn’t felt comfortable making any sweeping changes. But if these polling figures are any indication of what we can expect from his leadership, then they certainly aren’t encouraging.
His leadership pitch itself was also somewhat underwhelming. During the campaign, he went out of his way to put distance between his platform and the Orange Book and regularly described himself as a “centre-left” politician. This was probably a tactical move to win over the more left-wing Lib Dem membership, rather than a true reflection of his beliefs.
However, the fact that his born-again leftie persona differs so much from his actual political record presents a problem. “Why are you calling for more support for carers, when you voted to cut carers allowance in coalition?” is just one example of the sort of question we’re going to be asked again and again. This was a huge problem for Jo Swinson and served as an unnecessary distraction, so I can only hope that Ed’s camp will have a plan to deal with this.
Sir Ed is also, for lack of a better word, boring. As a smaller party, we need to make sure we stand out from the crowd, or we won’t get media coverage and voters will not know who we are or what we stand for. It’s not clear yet how Ed, who isn’t the best media performer, intends to accomplish this. He’s certainly no Paddy Ashdown or Charles Kennedy. He isn’t going to win us seats on his own through sheer force of personality.
But perhaps that’s an impossibly high standard to set. Ed probably isn’t the next Paddy, but he is a nice guy, a hard worker and a passionate liberal. Those are all great qualities for a leader to have. With the Tories led by a man who can barely dress and Labour still struggling to shake off the preconceptions of Corbynism, maybe boring isn’t actually the worst thing we can be. In these uncertain times, voters in our top target seats like Cheltenham and Winchester might welcome a more stable and credible option.
When the result was announced, Ed gave a speech which was refreshing and to the point. He said that we need to “wake up and smell the coffee” and try to get in touch with voters’ true concerns again, which is the sort of thing I’ve been waiting to hear from a Lib Dem leader for years. It’s no secret that we’re often portrayed as middle class, sneering and out of touch. In Davey however, we might finally have somebody at the helm who is willing to listen.
I sincerely hope that he keeps that promise because if we don’t start listening, we are never going to recover. In these tough times, a truly liberal vision which encompasses economic prosperity, internationalism and aspiration is needed in Britain now more than ever. Ed isn’t perfect by any means, but I think he is definitely capable of delivering that.
The Conservatives are drifting further away from liberalism every day, and Keir Starmer doesn’t really seem to stand for anything. So it still seems there is a gap in the market for an economically and socially liberal party.
Could the Liberal Democrats under Ed Davey be that party? It’s perhaps too early to say for sure, but I am quietly hopeful that we can.
