A year has now passed since the Lib Dems cack-handedly thrust a hemp-handled dagger into Charles Kennedy’s back. One year on, how is his successor, Ming Campbell, performing as Lib Dem leader?
After a series of extraordinarily limp performances in the Commons and relatively poor poll ratings, it didn’t take long for the whispering campaign against him to start. However, despite the inevitable Westminster chatter, it would be unfair to blame Ming for the Lib Dems’ woes.
It was, in fact, under Kennedy’s leadership that the Lib Dems’ poll ratings took a downward turn, falling from the mid-20s after the general election to an average of just 19 per cent in the last two months of 2005 – the same figure they have averaged since Campbell took over. Indeed, Kennedy was sent his P45 partly in response to this poor performance, coupled with his inability to devise a strategy to counter the Conservatives’ ‘Cameron effect’.
Campbell faces some huge challenges. The 2005 election was relatively easy for the Lib Dems. True, they faced a level of scrutiny which was new to them, but Labour was not reaching out to the voters the Lib Dems were wooing on the disaffected left. Furthermore, Michael Howard gave no indication of wanting to encroach on the moderate centre-right territory that the other half of the Lib Dem MPs were attempting to claim.
Next time things will be much tougher. Not only will the Lib Dems face an inevitable squeeze if the election is more hotly contested. Polls also show them losing around one-in-seven of their voters if Gordon Brown takes over. More worrying for them, with David Cameron projecting himself as more centrist than his predecessors (whatever the reality), there is a real prospect of the Tories hoovering up Lib Dem votes in the south and south-west – their own heartlands. So Campbell is doing the right thing in attempting to shuffle the Lib Dems rightwards, back to their natural home in the centre.
With a clamour of voices in the media predicting a hung parliament, the Lib Dems’ positioning will take on significance, not only in terms of how they fight the campaign, but also in terms of whom they would side with in a parliamentary stalemate.
Of course, as a traditionally centrist third party, the headline question will always be whether the Lib Dems move to the left or the right. The best strategy for them should still be to turn on the Tories, restoring the two-against-one strategy that characterised the 1997 and 2001 general elections.
Some Lib Dems are contemplating the possibility of a coalition with the Tories. This would contain massive risks for them. For, despite a tendency toward pragmatic anti-Labour arrangements in local government coalitions, the activist base the Lib Dems rely on to get their candidates elected remains pretty leftwing. Indeed, in many parts of the country, their survival depends on posing as a progressive party.
Beyond issues of political positioning, a key question is how Campbell will perform as leader in the heat of a general election campaign. For Kennedy’s many faults, at times he brought an undeniable energy and vigour to his party. Campbell is a different sort of politician, and only he can know how far he can push himself in a gruelling election campaign. Much will also depend on the professionalism of his political machine. At the last general election we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of Kennedy scrabbling about in interviews attempting to explain or disown whole tracts of his party’s stated policies. From votes for convicted killers to an impossible list of uncosted spending commitments, when they came under scrutiny, the Lib Dems were often caught short.
To enable Campbell to sell a clear package of policies to the electorate, the Lib Dems must define the relationship between their leadership and their grassroots much more clearly, and shed the aura of earnest-yet-hapless amateurism which hangs over their Cowley Street HQ like a thick yellow mist. The confusion over proposed changes to Lib Dem tax policy last summer was not promising, but there is still time.
Finally, will Campbell still be in place for the next general election? Almost certainly, unless he chooses to stand down of his own volition. Remember those agonising weeks last year as Lib Dem MPs infuriated their rank and file by grinding their gears and drawing out the political assassination of Kennedy. There is no appetite for a repeat performance.