Can the Grand Old Duke of York March Back up Again? the Importance of Local Government for Liberal Democrats
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CAN thE GRAND Old DUKE OF YORK MARCH BACK UP AGAIN? THE IMPOrtANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT FOR LIBERAL DEMOCRAts As Liberal Democrats recover from the worst local election losses since the formation of the party, Matt Cole examines the place of the coalition years in the quarter-century of the Liberal Democrats’ life, and finds that these are not the first local losses, nor did the decline start with the coalition. The fall in local representation began before 2005, and the party’s peak of local success lies as far back as 1996. Nevertheless, local politics remains at the front line of Liberal t was asserted in the first poisonous element. Torbay MP Democrat politics: the major study of the Liberal Adrian Sanders complained in the IDemocrats that, for both prac- run-up to the local elections of 2011 most vulnerable to tical and ideological reasons, ‘the that: importance of local politics to the attack, the first to suffer Liberal Democrats cannot be over- We have irrevocably damaged losses, and yet the most stated.’1 Recent setbacks in local our public image. We now face council elections are therefore seen the brutal realisation that we essential to the heart and by some as more significant than have fractured our core vote, the usual cyclical losses of gov- lost a generation of young vot- to the recovery of the ernment parties, and the reputa- ers and alienated thousands of party. tion of the coalition is seen as the tactical voters in seats where it 16 Journal of Liberal History 83 Summer 2014 CAN thE GRAND Old DUKE OF YORK MARCH BACK UP AGAIN? THE IMPOrtANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT FOR LIBERAL DEMOCRAts makes the difference between From the 1960s onwards, Liberal The Liberal Democrats’ electoral success or failure. The achievements were underpinned fortunes message on the doorstep before by the party’s commitment to local The formation of the Liberal Demo- the election was often ‘I support government. A Local Government crats showed that their strength in another party, but you seem to Department was established at party local government was an asset at a have more integrity and do more headquarters in 1962, the Association time of turbulent national leader- for local people so you have my of Liberal Councillors first emerged ship. There was considerable con- vote.’ Now it is ‘I used to vote in 1965 and was officially recognised tinuity in the core organisation for you, you still work hard for in 1969, and the decade saw a series of Liberal Democrat councillors, your local area, but you are dis- of parliamentary election victories – largely because the ALC dominated credited and lied just like the rest including those at Orpington, Colne its Social Democrat counterpart, of them.’2 Valley and Birmingham Ladywood the Association of Social Demo- – at least in part built upon success in crat Councillors, both numerically Analysing the position in 2013, local politics. and in terms of leadership, experi- author of the Local Elections Hand- In 1970 the role of local govern- ence and resources. SDP councillors book Professor Michael Thrasher ment in the Liberal Party’s profile were outnumbered by five to one even warned that Liberal Dem- was confirmed by the Assem- before the merger, and a proportion ocrats ‘need resurrection, not bly’s adoption of the community of these declined to join the Lib- recover y’; 3 and the losses of 2014 politics strategy, and by the addi- eral Democrats, leaving their erst- prompted pressure for a change tion of environmental concern while colleagues in an even smaller of leadership. However, a longer- to the existing focus on localism minority. The Association of Liberal term view of the Liberal Democrat and regionalism, to form a policy Democrat Councillors had its head- record in local government shows agenda particularly suited to fight- quarters in the Birchcliffe Centre that the party’s participation in the ing local elections. In 1977 the and the rallying cry for the party’s coalition is not the only factor in ALC’s strength was visible with first electoral test in May 1988 was Liberal Democrat local election the opening of its headquarters in given by former ALC General Sec- performance, and that local politics the Birchcliffe Centre in Hebden retary Maggie Clay.7 At a joint ALC remains vital to the Liberal Demo- Bridge, where its identity as what and ASDC conference in June a crats’ future fortunes. one supporter described as ‘the Lib- From the timetable was established (after what eral Party in exile’5 was expressed was acknowledged as ‘some hard in a programme of publications and 1960s bargaining’) leading to a launch of Liberals and local government4 campaign meetings, as well as in the joint organisation in November.8 The Liberal Party was born from criticism of the Liberal leadership onwards, Lib- The first two years of local elec- the municipal campaigning of over pacts and alliances with other tions were difficult as the Liberal Joe Chamberlain, built strength parties and departures from distinc- eral achieve- Democrats dealt with the fall- through the campaigns of Lloyd tive Liberal policy positions. ments were out from the merger, and the 1989 George’s rate strike in Wales and From a few hundred councillors county council elections saw the E. D. Simon’s plans for develop- (some of doubtful association with underpinned loss of 20 per cent of the seats won ment in Manchester and found even the party) in the 1950s, the Alliance in the big advance of 1985. There- in the dark days of the 1950s, when in 1986 passed the 3,000 mark, of by the par- after the party re-established and the party’s MPs could be counted whom 524 were Social Democrats.6 expanded its strength, though on the fingers of one hand, that On the eve of the merger between ty’s commit- national circumstances halted and council chambers provided the last the Liberals and Social Democrats, even sometimes reversed the pat- redoubt of Liberal power, the party the Alliance controlled dozens of ment to local tern more than once (see Fig. 1). remaining in control of a small councils and took part in adminis- By 1992 there were 3,800 Lib- number of local authorities. trations on dozens more. government. eral Democrat councillors;9 and Journal of Liberal History 83 Summer 2014 17 THE IMPOrtANCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT FOR liBERAL DEMOCRAts Figure 1: change in Liberal Democrat seats held at contests 1989–2014 national image only determine the shorter-term and most extreme swings in Liberal Democrat strength in local government. The long-term pattern is more complex. Functions of local representation As well as carrying out their own work as representatives, councillors and their campaigns can play three types of wider role in a party – an electoral function; a communica- tion function; and a recruitment function – and for the Liberal Dem- ocrats these have been especially important. Council election success is par- ticularly important in giving cred- ibility to the Liberal Democrats as the third party nationally. The slogan ‘Winning Round Here’ is in 1996 the figure was over 5,000 elections saw net gains, sometimes often held aloft on photographs and the party controlled over fifty of 8 or 12 per cent, in council seat in Liberal Democrat literature by councils.10 This partly resulted numbers. Significantly, these led to well-known councillors support- from the disintegration of Con- the capture or retrieval of north- ing parliamentary candidates, and servative support during the sec- ern, former Labour, administra- many Liberal Democrat MPs owe ond Major administration, but tions such as Newcastle and Pendle their seats to the confidence given had also been growing since 1990 – adding to Liverpool and Sheffield, to voters to back them by preceding because of the effective targeting which the party won in 1998 and local election success for the party. of scarce resources on winnable 1999 respectively. By 2007 the num- One MP noted that ‘most of the wards, referred to eight years ear- ber of Liberal Democrat Council- ’97 intake have seats built on local lier in Maggie Clay’s exhortation lors had returned to 4,700. government success’12 and this was to activists to ‘get on your bike’ to a This was, however, a peak. quantified by a study showing that target seat. Every year except one since 2006 eighteen of the twenty-eight new The ‘soft’ victories handed by has seen a decline in the number of Liberal Democrat MPs in that par- the national image of the Conserv- Liberal Democrat councillors and liament represented areas governed atives, including the near-doubling councils.11 Though heightened in by Liberal Democrat local authori- of the number of Liberal Demo- 2007 by the party’s national leader- ties. ‘For the Liberal Democrats, crat county councillors in 1993, ship difficulties, this pattern clearly local election success has been vital proved hard to defend as Tony Blair predates the formation of the coa- to their improvement in parliamen- replaced Major as prime minister lition and is reflected in the three tary representation since the 1990s’ in 1997, and consequently almost case studies below. This strengthens concluded Russell et al. ‘Building all of the 392 gains made four years the conviction that Liberal Demo- a strong local base has been one of earlier were lost in net terms. The crat performance at local elections the main mechanisms the party has whole of the first Blair premiership is only partly a result of national used to bridge the electoral cred- was a period of damage limitation events, and that on occasion the ibility gap,’ they continue, adding for Liberal Democrats in local gov- causal relationship can be the other that ‘the Liberal Democrat cam- ernment, each round of elections way around.