James Thompson

I have decided not to continue compiling a Lib Dem links page. I started off with tons of enthusiasm but did not realise how time consuming it all was. I was then informed about an excellent links page that is already in existence and is pretty much what I was trying to achieve and more.

The site is here

Lib Dem Links

Thank you for this brilliant resource!

At last some good news!! Willie Rennie has won the formerly ’safe’ Labour seat of Dunfermline and West Fife for the Liberal Democrats. I’m not sure whether I should cheer or breathe a huge sigh of relief, I think I did both.

Labour and the Tories were hoping our recent problems would mark the beginning of the end for our party, it feels good to prove them wrong. When the attention is on policy, we win hands down- with or without a permanent leader.

We are now back on track and we must take advantage of this. If we can win in a seat like this, at a time when we have so many internal problems, then Labour are not safe anywhere.

I have been away in India for the past couple of weeks and purposely avoided British news. I would have driven my partner crazy with talk of the leadership contest!

I came home late Thursday night to be greeted by a Tory friend on my voicemail. The message informed me that ‘your party are the new conservatives’. I was too tired to check the net for news so I went to bed with the suspicion that the contest had become bitter and split the membership on policy issues.

The next morning still blissfully unaware, I prepared my coffee and sat down to read the news. So Simon Hughes has had relationships with men? Hardly shocking news. But, further down the article, it mentioned the Mark Oaten situation. No wonder Charlie turned to drink!

But seriously, they are hardly scandals. My Tory friend is wrong; this is nothing at all like the ’scandals’ of the Tories. Unlike the Tories, as a party we have never attempted to preach to people how they should live their lives. A main strand of our thinking, as liberals is that a private life is private. What angers me is the press reaction to all this, implying that their conduct was immoral. Maybe that’s the case, but it’s not really any of my business to judge two men I have never met and I certainly will not be given lessons on morality by the likes of ‘The Sun’ and‘ The News of The World’

I was a bit suspicious of Mark Oatens ‘Orange Book’ credentials but warmed to him during the campaign- He has an ambition for the party which I admire. I hope Oaten can resolve this with his family and return as a fighting force for the party. His ambition and talent is needed.

With regards to Simon Hughes, it must have been a hard decision to make. After years of being ‘in the closet’, I suspect it was not very easy. Those who say he has lost integrity because he lied are wrong. It is more worrying that in this day and age public figures still feel unable to be open about their sexuality (and are still asked about it!). Maybe society is not as liberal as we think.

I’m starting the process of building a compehensive Lib Dem links page (follow the link below for the first few links). It’s not exactly state of the art, but it will do the job.. It will probably take a long time to build up and will be an ongoing process. Other than links to the main party sites, I have included links relevent to the Leadership election, including the candidates campaign sites and some video feeds of news reports. More to follow…watch this space…

Liberal Democrat Links Page

The 4 leadeship candidates took part in a debate earlier this evening on Sky News and for me I found it very interesting. Whilst it re-affirmed my backing for Simon Hughes, it did leave me unsure as to where my second preference vote will go to. I was extremely impressed with all 4 candidates. Whoever wins the contest, I will be happy for them to lead my party.

Chris Huhne impressed me, I had never heard him speak before. But, I do think at the moment my second preference will be Mark Oaten. I was not happy with his views on the NHS, but I did admire his ambition for the party. we should stop all this talk of no glass ceilings and should be ambitious and confident that we can form a government. In the next election, lets try and get as many votes and as many seats as possible. Our priority in a general election, needs to be the general election. But I feel many people in our party are more obsessed with local election success than gaining credibilty as a national political force.

Many Liberal Democrats were hoping for a breakthrough in last years election. I was personally expecting 100 + seats. Unfortuanatly this did not happen. The ‘decapitation strategy’ failed miserably and we wasted far too much time and resources chasing the Tories in their heartlands. The message we must learn is that it’s impossible to push the Tories below the 30% mark. So where do we go from here?

The previous strategy was to try and replace the Tories as the second political force in the country, an option that many in our party would like to continue with. So, we could go down the route of promoting smaller government and offer a more ‘economic liberal’ set of policies. But, this option is not one I feel very comfortable with and I do not believe this will result in significant gains from the Tories. Michael Howard fought the election largely on the issue of immigration. This played very well in the Tory heartlands of the south. So in order to beat the Tories in places such as Surrey and Kent we would likely have to provide a set of anti-immigration, low tax, anti-Europe and public service cutting policies. This is not why I and many others joined this party.

What we did seein the election was massive swings to us from Labour. Labour voters have become very disillusioned with Blair swinging the party to the right. So harsh has Blairs repositioning been, that many now see us as to the left of Labour. This should not scare us, if we are to the left of Labour it does not stop our policies from being more in touch with the people.

Labour have a dismal record on public services, fairer taxation and civil liberties and we must hold them to account. Labour have left us no choice but to attack them from left. We need a coherent set of policies that address these issues and then take them to Labours heartlands. People vote for Blair because they feel there is no alternative, we need to show them that we are the alternative Labour and It is our parties policies and traditions that will best inable the free and fair society that they were hoping Blair will deliver.