The Guardian view on the Lib Dems: missing their moment | Editorial
One side-effect of the ideological mania gripping the Conservatives is to put a retrospective gloss on the 2010-15 coalition government. There is not much to cherish in the legacy of the administration that set Britain on an ill-judged course of austerity. But the unleashing of a more fanatical rightwing Tory impulse since 2015 testifies, in hindsight, to the restraining, if limited, influence of the Liberal Democrats in government. That isn't much use to Vince Cable, a coalition cabinet minister three years ago, now leading a party parked on the margins. A reconfiguration of British politics - with Jeremy Corbyn's Labour moving leftward and a radical rightwing Tory agenda - ought, perhaps, to leave room for a third-way English party. Yet the Lib Dems haven't expanded into the space.
Their desultory performance has many causes. To protest against New Labour governments from a liberal-left position, only to then join forces with the Conservatives, was too violent a lurch for many of the party's natural supporters. It looked craven in pursuit of power and the brand never recovered. Britain's electoral system doesn't help, squeezing smaller parties. The Lib Dems find themselves defined more by what they are not (neither Labour nor Tory) than by what they are. To articulate a positive identity will be Mr Cable's most challenging task at his party's annual conference next week. It should be added that the task is the same one that faced his predecessors, Tim Farron and Nick Clegg. When a mission goes unaccomplished for so long the question arises as to whether it can be done at all. The Lib Dems have been written off in the past and recovered. They are a resilient bunch, but no party has an inalienable right to be relevant.
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