The Liberal Democrats were surprisingly upbeat at their annual conference, given the appalling year they have had, says Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Their dream of electoral reform was shattered by May’s referendum and the same day they were “pummelled” in the Scottish and local elections. Nor are things looking up, says The Sunday Telegraph. The party is averaging 10%-11% in the opinion polls and Nick Clegg’s reputation is at an all-time low. So why does he seem so secure within his party?
Clegg is playing his coalition hand “extremely skilfully”. The Lib Dems are, as he boasts, “punching above their weight”. In his opening conference speech he pointed to research showing that 75% of their manifesto is being delivered and with just 8% of the MPs in Westminster. This is amazing – “and puzzling”. What power does he wield over Cameron? If his party stood down from the coalition there would be a general election and Clegg would commit “electoral suicide”. Yet still he waves his fist: the Lib Dems have made it clear that they will not ‘tolerate’ interference with the Human Rights Act, will block any attempt to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe, and fight to keep the 50p higher-tax rate.
Some ‘rows’ with the Tories are not all they seem, says Matthew D’Ancona in The Sunday Telegraph. On the NHS, Cameron let Clegg claim credit for a climb down they knew they would have to make. And Clegg’s recent declaration that free schools should not be profit-making was made with Michael Gove’s blessing. “The smarter Tories know that, for the coalition to last, the Lib Dems must be seen to… have an impact upon policy.” As for Clegg, “though he would never admit it”, he is attempting to build an entirely new party that appeals not to “the Labour supporter outraged by Iraq, but to the centre-ground waverer”. His Lib Dems must also show not only that they can “restrain the instincts of the main parties”, but that they can “energise them into action”. To avoid reverting to a movement of “ragtag protestors”, they must “champion coalition government”.
So far, the Lib Dems have acted as a brake on Tory policy while falling to come up with ideas of their own, says Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. This “intellectual timidity” is curious given their achievements: nudging the NHS, the universities, school grants, penal policy, energy policy, Europe and abortion “in directions not normally associated with Tory governments”. But “why have they been so silent on Cameron’s wars? Where are they on the planning reforms?” Why has Vince Cable failed to make his “acerbic” attacks on bankers bite? “The Lib Dems have pulled off a remarkable political coup, offering the country stable leadership at a time of economic turbulence. But as to finding a way out of that turbulence, they remain intellectually barren. They are wasting a great opportunity.”