Lib Dem destruction kills appetite for coalitions, says Norman Lamb
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Version 0 of 1. Britain’s smaller political parties will avoid forming future coalitions under the current “first-past-the-post” electoral system, Liberal Democrat leadership contender Norman Lamb says, following his party’s hammering at the polls. In a searingly frank assessment of the “massive experiment” of the coalition years, the former care minister said small parties were punished by the “brutal and arbitrary” nature of the electoral system if they served in government. Lamb pointed to the party’s horrific election night, which saw three Lib Dem cabinet ministers lose their seats, and said that had made it likely small parties would avoid coalition government until a form of proportional representation was introduced. Speaking to the Guardian, Lamb argued that the coalition meant that the Lib Dems were appealing to voters to be their second choice, which meant inevitable defeat under the current winner takes all system. Lamb said: “We were all participating in a massive experiment. Could you, under a first-past-the-post system, be both a minor party and participate in government? None of us knew the answer to that question. Well we do know now what the answer is and you can’t. It destroys you.” Lamb spoke as the battle for the Lib Dem leadership intensified. Tim Farron, the former party president, confirmed that he would also be standing, with a stark warning that the party had no “God-given right” to survive. The contest between Lamb and Farron means a quarter of the parliamentary party are standing for the leadership of the Lib Dems. The party saw its number of MPs shrink from 57 to eight at this month’s election. Lamb scored something of a coup when Dappy from N-Dubz said he was backing him. The grime singer is managed by Lamb’s son Archie, who founded a talent agency and record label with money the MP raised by remortgaging his house. Farron is seen by some as the candidate best placed to revive the party from its grassroots up in the wake of a traumatic five years in coalition. He spurned the chance of ministerial office under David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Farron launched his campaign on Thursday in Otley, in the Leeds North West seat of his campaign manager, Greg Mulholland. But the Lib Dems retain great affection for Lamb, 57, who fought his way into parliament in 2001, at his third attempt, to win the safe Tory seat of North Norfolk. Comparisons have been drawn to the way in which Paddy Ashdown abandoned his career as a diplomat in the 1970s to fight the apparently impregnable Tory seat of Yeovil, capturing it on his second attempt in 1983. Lamb was sufficiently well regarded in Lib Dem circles that he was dispatched in 2005 to advise Farron, then the newly elected Lib Dem MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, after he narrowly unseated the Tory frontbencher Tim Collins. “When Tim [Farron] arrived in 2005, I was his mentor and I talked him through the things that he had to do to build up his majority,” Lamb says of the man who is now his rival. In his interview, Lamb added: “Tim has, he says, the 10 top tips still on his wall in his office that I went through with him in 2005. So we’re carved out of the same stone in terms of campaigning, we both got here through the same root, both in rural constituencies.” The tireless work of the two rivals in their respective seats meant that they resisted the surge to the Tories last week which wiped out so many of their parliamentary colleagues. But there the comparisons between the two men end. Farron is seen by some as the darling of the grassroots after resisting the lure of ministerial office. Lamb, on the other hand, was a member of the coalition “payroll” from the start, firstly as a whip and parliamentary adviser to Clegg and then briefly as a business minister in 2012 before becoming care minister later that year. But Lamb said: “I am very much not a continuity candidate, or a safe pair of hands. It’s just not what I’m about and, although I have a lot of admiration for what Nick did in government, I’m a different person and I have my own set of priorities and values and it will be an overtly liberal campaign and will focus on the things that I feel are at the core of my sense of modern liberalism.” He says the coalition notched up major achievements, highlighting his championing as care minister of personal budget for people on long-term NHS continuing care. But he is blunt about the Lib Dems’ failings, saying all the party’s senior figures bear collective responsibility for the “stupid” decision to sign an NUS pledge to vote against “any increase” in university tuition fees. Lamb said: “We were never going to be able to implement it, so signing that pledge was just very stupid. We got the politics disastrously wrong and trust is completely central to progress in politics. If people don’t trust you, it’s fatal, and I think that proved to be the case.” |