Heated atmosphere

[pjc50]

I have another half-formed thing to write, about loyalty and belonging. It would have been called "Loyalty: the most dangerous of the virtues", because I see it taking more and more of a role in people's conversation. Are you with us or against us? But the tone of online discussion has got a lot nastier just now

Comments

[rmc28]

Immediate answer: tired

Flippant-but-also-true answer: like people have been punching me for four years (and I honestly appreciate you personally pulling punches directly at me, but the entire media and most of the internet have not been so kind). Both Conservative and Labour parties seem to hate the LibDems for being jumped-up little upstarts who somehow ended up with government power that rightfully belonged to the two big parties, and both big parties and their media supporters have been busy trying to make sure it never happens again. Everyone else has been blaming the LibDems for doing the wrong things with that power.

I think you are too generous to me about my attachment to the party. Yes, I grew up with parents who were Liberals and then Liberal Democrats. I was literally in a cot under the table while my mother chaired the Young Liberals. I grew up helping to leaflet and tagging along when my parents when canvassing, but I didn't actually join the party until I went to university (where I became friends with Julian Huppert). I was a relatively low-involvement activist doing a regular leaflet run and doing more on election days until early 2010 when Cambridge had a candidate selection and chose Julian, and I didn't get more seriously involved (going to conferences, trying to influence policy) until later that summer.

My attachment to the party is partly the principles in its preamble to the constitution "the Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society in which none shall be enslaved by ignorance, poverty or conformity". I realised over the last year or two that it is much more about individual people, yes my mother but also my stepsister, my MP, the other people I worked with on IT & IP policy, LGBT+ campaigners, the activists in my ward, the activists in Cambridge, the activists across the country that I've met and talked with and tried to change the world with, just a little bit.

What drew me to get more involved? It's definitely not a contingent assessment of the manifesto, but a sense that I personally, working with others, could actually change that manifesto. Could try to make it flow more obviously from the principles in the preamble. The trouble is, what happens when you do change LibDem policy? Does it actually change government policy? (Apparently the answer is sometimes, very slowly, and with horrible prices demanded in exchange. More often, not.)

I feel that whoever gets elected, you have millionaires on the front benches talking about austerity.

I feel that the Labour party has spent the last four years being more concerned about making the Labour party look good and squashing the LibDems forever, than it has with opposing things that are bad for the country and especially bad for their supposed base of the working class.

For the last year or so I've been cutting way back on political activism, because of other concerns (my own health, my children). I still think Julian is a better MP for Cambridge than anyone else on offer, and I'm directing what time/money I do have to give accordingly.

That got long. I'll stop now. Ask more questions.

[pjc50]

I'm glad you can see the problems from the inside. And it's very wise to look after health and family first. I've long had to watch my own energy levels and husband them carefully. I can see how disappointed you are with the party.

As a counterpoint, what are you most optimistic about in the future?

[rmc28]

Several things:

1. Shared parental leave, which will probably come into being next year (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shared-parental-leave-and-pay-draft-legislation)
The more "care of children" becomes a problem for parents rather than a problem for women, the better.

2. Ecotricity cutting their energy prices slightly-but-symbolically, and holding a price freeze until later this year.

3. Pensions changes, the sort of dull-but-worthy changes that are coming in, so that a state pension will actually be enough to live on, and all workers will default into saving towards retirement.

4. The way citizen's income seems to have gone in the last five years from completely way-out idea, to semi-respectability and multiple different studies showing benefits.

5. Cycling campaigns near-but-not-in Cambridge (http://www.accesswalden.com/ & http://bhddmadcycle.com/) that seem to be actually achieving consensus and change (and will directly benefit me in the latter case because I will be able to run or cycle further afield)