For the Lib Dems, the 2010 TV debates were a boon. Although they couldn’t sustain the dizzy heights of “Cleggmania”, the party won a million more votes than in 2005, despite the fading of the Iraq factor and the close contest between the Conservatives and Labour (making it theoretically easier for the big two to squeeze them). True, the Lib Dems won five fewer seats but they would likely have performed even worse in the absence of the debates.
Should the face-offs be repeated, however (and David Cameron remains notably equivocal), the Lib Dems will now likely be among the losers, rather than the winners. The proposed 7-7-2 format is perhaps the worst outcome they could have hoped for. As Cameron somewhat cruelly noted during a recent session of PMQs, the Lib Dems, despite their role in government, are now being treated as a “minor party”. Rather than taking his place alongside the PM and Ed Miliband in a repeat of 2010’s three-way (as he hoped), Nick Clegg will now be one among many in the two proposed seven-ways (featuring the three main parties, Ukip, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru).
For the Lib Dem leader, this is a baleful fate. His party’s election pitch has been defined by splitting the difference between Labour and the Tories, vowing to gift the former a “spine” (through greater fiscal conservatism) and the latter a “heart” (through greater social justice) in the event of another hung parliament. Had Clegg won a place in the proposed three-way, that moderating message may well have resonated with voters who don’t trust Labour with their money, or trust the Tories with public services.
But it is far harder to deliver on a stage crowded with seven participants. Next to Ukip, the Greens (currently eating into the party’s base) and assorted nationalists, the Lib Dems will struggle to stand out. It is precisely this lack of distinction that has troubled figures on the party’s left, such as Tim Farron, and on its right, such as Jeremy Browne, both of whom, in different ways, have called for a more radical affirmation of liberal values. As Browne told me when I interviewed him last year: “I don’t think you want to stand up and say, ‘Vote for us, we’ll split the difference between the two parties. Vote for us, we’ll modify them.’ I don’t think that is a compelling pitch … If you go to church, you might be happy to hear a bit about the fundraising appeal to mend the roof but you go to church because you want to hear about God.”
Sidelined in the seven-way, and locked out of the two-way, the danger for the Lib Dems is that the debates would leave them looking more irrelevant than ever.
Content from our partners
Related
