Best Of

Personally I would prefer that we sought a consensus with other European countries in relation to ECHR and in the UN on the Convention for Refugees. A unified approach recognising the changes since 1952 and 1967 which make the current Convention unworkable would be better but the timescale for this is probably unacceptable. It is something our government should have been working on for more than a decade.

Unilateral action, such as contemplated by Reform, risks a lot of uncertainties, not least because it is likely to have knock on consequences for other countries which may well invite retaliation in ways we will not appreciate. What is increasingly clear is the live and let live attitude of our civil service, courts and political class is simply unacceptable to the majority. I am nervous that Farage will use this issue to propel himself into Downing Street unless the liberal consensus amongst the other parties breaks in a material way.

His and the LDs lumbering oafishness is one of the untold great political stories.

Clegg is partly to blame, having crashed the car and run off from the scene, but the main blame is on the UK public. Talk about a bad break up!

You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your analysis too seriously. As a Conservative, it must still annoy you lost 250 seats in July 2024 and the result for your party in terms of seats and vote share was the worst since 1832.

Even now you’re in a statistical tie with the LDs for third place with YouGov having lost a quarter or more of those who did vote Conservative in 2024.

In the local by elections in the once solid heartland of Surrey last week, the Conservatives lost seats to both Reform and the “lumbering oafishness” of the Liberal Democrats with vote shares down a third to a half from 2021.

It does annoy, you're quite right.

I am, or more accurately was, a lifelong Tory.

I think you can judge my political views most accurately if I say that I'd have voted coalition rather than Tory in 2015.

As such I would really quite like to have a possible vote that was an alternative to my longstanding Tory one. There should be a degree of comfort for that with the LDs. There's not though, and it's been a while since that was true.

I sympathise to an extent.

The brief philosophical convergence of Cameron’s “liberal conservatism” and the Orange Bookers made the Coalition possible but the political cost of the arrangement killed off the Liberal Democrats as William Hague correctly surmised in the aftermath of the 2010 GE.

There are many in both parties who enjoyed the old adversarial relationship and preferred that to what could have been a political realignment. The emergence of “Europe” as an issue further fractured a relationship which had become strained by 2012-13. It didn’t help Conservative activists started working Liberal Democrats seats hard and that work paid dividends for the Conservatives in 2015 though that victory turned out to be the epitome of a poisoned chalice.

Could Cameron and Clegg have sold Coalition 2.0 to their parties and on what basis? Running as Coalition candidates would have smacked of the 1918 Coupon election - had the two leaders tried, would one or both parties have split?

It’s easy for me to see 2024 as revenge for 2015 but the party won seats last year it never got close to between 1997 and 2010 - Chichester being a good example, Surrey Heath another. Such gains would not have been possible but for thousands of disillusioned Conservatives feeling comfortable enough to vote Liberal Democrat or staying home relaxed about a possible Liberal Democrat win.

Perhaps the relevant question for you is where has your old Conservative Party gone and why did it choose to abandon ground on which it had enjoyed electoral success over decades to chase a populist chimera?

"The emergence of “Europe” as an issue further fractured a relationship which had become strained by 2012-13."

Except it was the elephant in the room in 2010. The LibDems made it a condition of Coalition that "though shalt not" discuss European membership. A referendum in 2011 supported by Cameron and Clegg would have locked us into ever closer union - eternally. Silencing the matter allowed Farage to run with it, then Boris to see it as a way to the Top Job.

Epic failure by the LibDems - that ultimately gave us Brexit.

Blaming the Lib Dems for Brexit seems a bit ... harsh?

Own up PB. Who signed this?

His and the LDs lumbering oafishness is one of the untold great political stories.

Clegg is partly to blame, having crashed the car and run off from the scene, but the main blame is on the UK public. Talk about a bad break up!

You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your analysis too seriously. As a Conservative, it must still annoy you lost 250 seats in July 2024 and the result for your party in terms of seats and vote share was the worst since 1832.

Even now you’re in a statistical tie with the LDs for third place with YouGov having lost a quarter or more of those who did vote Conservative in 2024.

In the local by elections in the once solid heartland of Surrey last week, the Conservatives lost seats to both Reform and the “lumbering oafishness” of the Liberal Democrats with vote shares down a third to a half from 2021.

It does annoy, you're quite right.

I am, or more accurately was, a lifelong Tory.

I think you can judge my political views most accurately if I say that I'd have voted coalition rather than Tory in 2015.

As such I would really quite like to have a possible vote that was an alternative to my longstanding Tory one. There should be a degree of comfort for that with the LDs. There's not though, and it's been a while since that was true.

I sympathise to an extent.

The brief philosophical convergence of Cameron’s “liberal conservatism” and the Orange Bookers made the Coalition possible but the political cost of the arrangement killed off the Liberal Democrats as William Hague correctly surmised in the aftermath of the 2010 GE.

There are many in both parties who enjoyed the old adversarial relationship and preferred that to what could have been a political realignment. The emergence of “Europe” as an issue further fractured a relationship which had become strained by 2012-13. It didn’t help Conservative activists started working Liberal Democrats seats hard and that work paid dividends for the Conservatives in 2015 though that victory turned out to be the epitome of a poisoned chalice.

Could Cameron and Clegg have sold Coalition 2.0 to their parties and on what basis? Running as Coalition candidates would have smacked of the 1918 Coupon election - had the two leaders tried, would one or both parties have split?

It’s easy for me to see 2024 as revenge for 2015 but the party won seats last year it never got close to between 1997 and 2010 - Chichester being a good example, Surrey Heath another. Such gains would not have been possible but for thousands of disillusioned Conservatives feeling comfortable enough to vote Liberal Democrat or staying home relaxed about a possible Liberal Democrat win.

Perhaps the relevant question for you is where has your old Conservative Party gone and why did it choose to abandon ground on which it had enjoyed electoral success over decades to chase a populist chimera?