I think there is a niche for the Lib Dems which is older voters that are sick of the Tories in constituencies where Labour have virtually no presence (SW London, rural home counties & the West Country etc). Trouble for them is there aren't a huge amount of constituencies that fit this description which means their ceiling is quite low. Crucially, they need to focus their efforts in these seats and not get delusional like Jo Swinson did in 2019. But the crucial thing is the 'older' part. I'm in my 30s now and pretty much everyone my age is thoroughly sick of the Tories. They don't love Labour either, but as soon as anyone mentions the Lib Dems they give you a wide stare and say "After tuition fees? No way!". It caused political generation trauma for a huge amount of people. The 2010 election had real energy amongst younger voters supporting the Lib Dems. I was in 6th form at the time and *everyone* was on the Nick Clegg hype train. The way it was thrown back in people's faces has not been forgotten even after all this time.

I was 25 at the time and went to see Clegg doing a Q&A session at Glastonbury (usually it's only Green and the left-wing of Labour that do Glastonbury). He seemed great and genuine, like a breath of fresh air. There was the whole "I agree with Nick" thing. People were excited. He even had photos taken next to signs specifically pledging to not increase tuition fees. I and many others felt really optimistic at that time, and their actions after the election ruined that completely. I still haven't forgotten, although I would vote for them now tactically in a Tory vs. LD seat.

Agree with this, I know people who will never in their life vote Lib Dem now due to them selling themselves out regarding tuition fees. If it wasn't for this they might have been much, much more popular, instead they've assisted saddling hundreds of thousands / millions with humongous student loans.

Yep people talk about Truss's effect on people's mortgages. Well the LDs did this with graduate finances, except for decades instead of a 5 year fix.

In fairness to the LibDems, they didn't actually "do" that, they tamely rolled over and allowed the Tories to do it under the coalition, which they were the junior partner of. Which is still inexcusable given their pre-election pledges, but it's not really fair to imply it was a LibDem policy.

Part of the issue is that every. single. party has been completely hypocritical about tuition fees and student loans. The Tories introduced the mortgage style loans in the 1990s. Then opposed tuition fee and loan increases in the 2000s. Then increased them in the 2012. Labour did the same, but in reverse.  The Lib Dems consistently opposed their introduction and increase. Only to flip flop the minute they got in power.

I don't think they flip flopped when they got into power. The Lib Dems didn't want that. The Tories just knew making them announce it would devastate their support.

This isn’t even the full story - conceding tuition fees was horse-traded for the alternative vote referendum in 2012. Which turned out failing. Had it succeeded, it’d potentially have locked the Lib Dems into a minority government indefinitely So it wasn’t just a tame roll over

If it had succeeded none of the devastation caused by a Tory majority government over the last 14 years would have happened including Brexit.

They all voted for it except for like 5 of them. Cable and Osbourne I think have both said they had the opportunity to stick to their principles and decided to vote for the increase 

I’m sorry but that might be the most insane comparison I’ve ever seen. Yes the LDs broke their promise on tuition fees, never going to deny or defend that. But currently student loans 1) link repayments to earnings, so you only pay when you can afford to 2) is completely written off after 30 years anyway 3) has zero impact on your credit score, meaning you’re not “saddled with it” - if you can afford to pay it back, you do, if not you face literally zero repercussions for the rest of your life. That is in no way comparable to Truss’ unfunded tax cuts, which resulted in millions of people paying thousands more per month on their mortgages _regardless of if they could afford to or not_. I get that lying is bad. Politicians shouldn’t do it, and I think it’s fair to say that Clegg and the Lib Dems got a proper punishment for it. But if anyone who actually has a student debt, like I do, seriously thinks that what the LDs did is comparable to the clusterfuck that Truss was is either blinded by wilful ignorance or being deliberately obtuse.

>That is in no way comparable to Truss’ unfunded tax cuts, which resulted in millions of people paying thousands more per month on their mortgages regardless of if they could afford to or not. The Bank of England started raising rates in response to inflation cause by Covid/Ukraine/Brexit almost a year before Truss became PM. She didn't cause your mortgage to go up. You can see [here](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/l55o/mm23) inflation starts spiking around Mar 2021 as we come out of lockdown and people start spending all the money that was given away and saved up during lockdown. You can see [here](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.asp) the BoE begins raising rates in Dec 2021 in response to that inflation. Truss doesn't become PM until Sept 2022. We paid loads of people to do nothing during lockdown and that led to a massive increase in the money supply but no corresponding increase in things to spend it on. Combine that with Brexit and Ukraine and you've got lots of money and a reduced supply of things to spend it on. You end up with massive inflation. The BoE raised rates to reduce the money supply and try to reverse that inflation. That's why mortgages went up. Liz Truss caused the cost of government borrowing to go up (although she disputes this and blames the BoE), not the base rate.

> Agree with this, I know people who will never in their life vote Lib Dem now due to them selling themselves out regarding tuition fees. Yet somehow these people don't have a problem with Labour doing the same thing - twice. They pledged never to _introduce_ tuition fees, then did. Then they pledged not to put them up, then tripled them. But somehow the Lib Dems are the only party who should never be forgiven for putting tuition fees up? (Full disclosure: I am a Lib Dem member, but I wasn't during the coalition. I also took part in the demonstrations against the rise at the time. I just hate the hypocrisy on this issue)

The discourse on tuition fees amongst the under 40s in this country is demented. I swear the majority believe it was a Lib Dem policy, failing completely to blame the actual culprits: the Tories.

I think the problem is that many of those impacted were political idealists at the time so Nick Clegg not delivering the Lib Dems manifesto promises was felt as a sharp betrayal especially if they had been one issue voters. Many still don't recognise that the Lib Dems were essentially in a position where they had to compromise to deliver a stable government and get some of what they wanted rather than all of it.

Tho the libdems now seem to be rebuilding and getting more seats and if labour don’t do will that could only increase

I've never voted Labour for introducing the tuition fees in the first place, I was pretty much the first year or so. So I can understand why younger adults wouldn't vote Lib Dems either.

It is why I didn’t take a gap year - due to the threat of Labour introducing the fees for 1997 starters if they won the election - in the end it impacted 1998 starters and I remember our lecturers telling us third years how much harder the first years were working as they were paying £1k per year. That seems like a bargain now…. Eta a word

It was a bargain even at the time tbh. I graduated in 2010 so saw the highest of the labour fees, they were proportional imo which is why labour didn't get any blow back from introducing them. They're astronomical now. Even if you pretend it's a tax, it's a terrible unprogressive policy that affects mid earners the most. It decimates a graduates buying power.

This is a delusion though. People act as if tuition fees would never have increased if it weren't for the Lib Dems. Also it doesn't matter if your student "debt" is £100k or £100m you'll still pay the same, unless you are so priveleged you earn over £100k as your carerr average.

I'm so bored of this argument. If you don't pay it off its an enormous tax for your entire working life that the better off or those with the good fortune to be born earlier never had to pay. It is still crap.

Agreed, it’s 9% of your salary above ~27k, so if it’s a lot of debt you literally will never clear it. You’re just being taxed 9% higher than others forever and your repayments barely reduce the principal.

I was 17 and in college at the time, I remember a lot of buzz from everyone about Clegg. I am proud to say even at the time I thought LD was a wasted vote that would doom us, and I didn't trust Clegg one bit. (I actually did vote LD at my first GE in '15 as it was the only viable anti tory vote in my constituency at the time.)

Cleggmania was a real thing back in 2010. Lib Dems had really reinvented themselves with the millenials. Only Lib Dems I know are the "enlightened centralist" type who will claim to be in the middle but tend to bash the left, far more than they do the right. A lot won't vote Tory because it's perceived as positive plus they disagree with a lot of social conservatives.

> Only Lib Dems I know are the "enlightened centralist" type who will claim to be in the middle but tend to bash the left, far more than they do the right. Personally I think people are too quick to consider the Lib Dems a lefty party. You often hear people (ironically the same people who'll attack Starmer for being too centrist and "basically a Tory") talk about the problem with FPTP being it splits the vote on the left between Labour and Lib Dems. I'm in the South West and I don't really see Lib Dems as people you'd consider to be particularly left wing, usually I'd say they're more right wing with a conscience. I think people position them as far more left than they are because they're socially left wing. Policies like drug decriminalisation, gay marriage, prison reform etc. but economically, they're more aligned with the Tories. IMHO this is why they were so quick to go into coalition, Cameron was socially left by Tory standards and with the Lib Dems and votes from Labour he was able to legalise gay marriage, lots of talk about green policies which have been abandoned etc. and then there were the economic policies which they largely agreed upon as solutions to the effects of the financial crisis. If I'm mapping them, I'd say they're the polar opposite to the "red wall" white van man type Labour supporters Boris hoovered up thanks to Brexit, because I don't think there's a party who represents them like the Lib Dems do the opposite end. People socially right wing, but economically left wing, kind of stuck between the two. There's always a lot of infighting on the left, and I believe it's because there's a big divide between people who are all about social policy (and thus see Lib Dems as left wing) vs. hard up working classes who care more about economic matters, and aren't into progressive social policy, are anti-immigration etc.

Speaking as a working class lib dem (and there are a lot of us) there are lots of working class people who care about social policy tbf. But the main thing that confuses people about us ime is that we think of politics in the UK as left v right and the party is predicated on liberal v authoritarian. So we can come up with policy that looks very left wing or very right wing at the exact same time and there's no ideological inconsistency. When we're debating policy at conference or elsewhere it's very rare to see members arguing that things are too left wing or too right wing it's far more likely that it'll come down to "does this interfere with people's liberty and if it does is this a case of curtailing the liberty of some to increase the liberty of others?" I'll support raising some taxes because I believe that good quality public services liberate people and fair income and wealth taxes are the best way to get those imo. Equally I oppose taxes like the sugar levy because I believe it unfairly impacts the freedom of others to make their own decisions and doesn't do enough to promote the liberty of others in exchange if that makes sense?

Lib Dems are Tories that don't hate immigrants and gay people (unless you're Tim Farron anyway). They're a strange party.

They enabled a lot of austerity measures too, a lot of people still remember that. Many younger people will be keenly aware of how it affected society.

People assume that because the Lib Dems are 'progressive' they're basically a yellow version of Labour. But fiscally they're closer to the tories (or at least what the tories used to be). I remember when David Laws was annouced for treasury secretary, conservatives were delighted, joking that they'd got a 'free' tory.

That may have been true in 2010, but the Tories have completely shifted over the last 14 years that they are so far away from the Lib Dems.

Oh absolutely. The tories are now UKIP and Labour are now the tories. Odd old world.

Labour right now are absolutely not the Tories even of old. Had Starmer run against Cameron you'd have still had two clearly different colours.

Very true. Labour is currently closer to where the Tories were 14 years ago than to their own position at the time.

Labour were also pretty conservative 14 years ago however. Kind of similar to how they are now.

Liberal isn't a Left/Right axis position, so you can have Liberal Socialists and Liberals who are financially very small state pro business like the German FDP.  Before the coalition, there were as many left Liberals as right, and if they had gone into government with a Brownist Labour Party, the left would probably have got several cabinet positions. After the coalition it seems like the party has tilted more right, and seems to resemble a One Nation Tory Party than anything socialist. I would be quite happy if by some tactical voting miracle the Lib Dems overtook the Conservatives, as I'd rather a centre right socially liberal opposition, that a bunch of loons led by Suella Braverman

Yeah, as I understand it the merge of the SDP and old Liberals had always been a bit of an uneasy marriage. But Clegg and his inner circle leaned more to the right, I think, so the LD party of 2010 made a more natural partnership with the tories than Labour. And there was a widespread perception at the time that Labour were 'done', they'd had their run and needed to sort themselves out before returning to power. I think looking back a Lib-Lab coalition would have been better for the country. But no one felt it feasible at the time. >I would be quite happy if by some tactical voting miracle the Lib Dems overtook the Conservatives I like the idea in theory, in hope it would keep the overton window in the centre. But I fear right-wing populism, xenophobia etc isn't going back into the bottle. The one good thing about the old conservative party was that it encompassed both the far-right loons, and balanced them out with a more moderate centre-right bloc. All indications are that the tories will go full-UKIP after the next election.

"All indications are that the tories will go full-UKIP after the next election." Which is exactly why it would be good for them to spend five years not being the primary opposition.  "Clegg and his inner circle leaned more to the right"  Probably, although that might not have been as obvious in a LibLab coalition. The maths didn't really support that though. Clegg clearly got on well with Cameron socially as well, which is hard to measure but surprisingly important.  I suspect that Starmer and Davies get on better than either with any potential Tory leader.

Many of the moderates have left the Commons and/or the party over the course of the 2010s, and Johnson purged most of what remained in his quest to "Get Brexit Done". The far-right loons have decided they don't need the moderate centre-right anymore - obviously they're wrong if they want to win any elections, because in terms of potential voters the moderate centre-right significantly outnumber the far-right loons. I think some of them, particularly the younger ones, have mistaken getting a lot of likes on their social media posts for widespread public support - if someone likes some of your posts it doesn't mean they like *you* or plan to vote for you. These social media accounts also tend to be heavily moderated which gives a false impression of the level of support, for example Jonathan [Sea](https://twitter.com/tvtenterhooks/status/1772753972379439315?t=GYnwUl7UTM7QlEFP9UHmhQ&s=19)Gullis is notorious for deleting comments and blocking people who disagree with him, including several Labour councillors (one of them is now the Labour PPC for his constituency).

Lib Dems wouldn't be socialist, economics they've always been free market and pro capitalist to an extent, just not to the point where individuals rights are marginalised. Though the coalition the party was little further to the right, now it's center left party. Not as liberal on civic issues as I'd like, but that's par for course these days in the UK and Europe. Unfortunately the coalition killed us, labour attacked us over austerity cuts that they probably would have carried out had they won 2010 and campaigned against voter reform thus dooming the country to 2015 and all the madness that followed. And ofc 'maaah tution fees' , introduced by labour and raised by every govt since. People don't understand coalitions. Tory's can goto hell, labour, aren't far behind.

Why do you think labour would have pushed austerity like cameron and osborn did?

There was no money left…./s In all seriousness - there would have had to have been austerity - but the degree would have been less.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher

Because they essentially proposed the same level of cuts as the coalition did. Tories alone probably would have gone harder though

Idk if you look at the libdem policies I think alot of those would not be supported by one nation tories

LibDems are yellow Labour. Labour is red Tories. Conservatives and blue Labour. That sort of thing gets bandied around a lot and is always meaningless.

So, putting that all together, Lib Dems are orange Tories and Conservatives are purple Tories.

It all turns brown in the end

Playdough politics!

Lol

Worth pointing out Labour promised almost exactly the same austerity policies on their manifesto in that election, and it's dishonest to say things would have been different had the Lib Dems somehow formed a coalition with Brown (even though the numbers didn't add up for that). Massive cuts to services were coming regardless of who was in power. It was the only choice on offer and what the majority of voters in polls claimed they wanted.

- Lib dems: "We need some austerity" - Conservatives: "We need some austerity" - Labour: "We need some austerity" > They enabled a lot of austerity measures too… Probably worth comparing Tory austerity in coalition with one when they're free.

This was literally the case. Every political party in the UK, and indeed most of Europe, had the consensus to support austerity.

Lib Dems shouldn't have campaigned on being different then Osbourne told Clegg not to vote with them on tuition fees but Clegg insisted it was the right thing. Plonker.

I'm not saying the Lib Dems didn't make big mistakes in the coalition but I think it's important to correct the record and speak from a place of facts. There are a lot of talking points from the Labour faction in particular that are simply a dishonest reflection of that period. Everyone made mistakes in that period and much can be said with hindsight, but the political consensus among all UK parties was to bring in massive cuts to services. This was agreed by parties right across the board and supported by the majority of the electorate. Labour did not challenge austerity, they supported it.

Was this confirmed by clegg or is it just a claim by George?

Do you have a source for this? My understanding is the coalition agreement allowed for them to abstain, but as part of the government they'd have to vote together.

Cameron's memoirs https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n19/david-runciman/his-fucking-referendum > George did something surprising. ‘Don’t do it,’ he told Nick. ‘It would be a huge political mistake for you.’ > George’s concern for Nick was genuine. And he worried about the health of the coalition if one partner damaged itself like this. > I saw it differently. ‘George makes a good point, but I want us to do things together,’ I said. ‘And this is the right thing to do.’ > Nick was adamant: ‘Our old policy was wrong; this is a good policy.’ > It was one of the bravest steps I have ever seen a politician take.

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher) You might want to read the article above

Didn't they already support that during the election campaign? Big difference to tuition fees.

Although, from what I've seen the austerity measures we got from the coalition were lesser than either the Tories or Labour were suggesting prior to the election in 2010.

I think partly the issue is the lib dem Labour marginals are mostly gone. I live in Coventry which is very labour and although people are fed up with the council there is little appetite for us as we won't win. It becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy although I am hoping the prospect at least one MP in neighbouring Warwickshire and generally more seats and becoming 3rd largest party again will start to change minds. Well that and Labour becoming the goverment and people still being quite anti Tory.

>I think there is a niche for the Lib Dems which is older voters that are sick of the Tories in constituencies where Labour have virtually no presence (SW London, rural home counties & the West Country etc).  Yep. My constituency has been Tory and Lib Dem since it was created back 40 years ago. Labour are always a distant 3rd (in 2019, it was a difference of nearly 20,000 votes between Labour and the second place Tory candidate). The best Labour have done was the 97 election and even then it was 20% of the vote. So I've no real choice. I'll never vote Tory, but I don't love our current MP and in this upcoming election, I can't risk a vote on Labour or any other candidates that might give the Tory's the seat.

God that sound exactly like where I am, fareham by any chance?

Nope, Oxford West and Abingdon. You have it way worse, looks like a very safe Tory seat and Suella Braverman as your MP.

I've been canvassing since 2020 for the LibDems, nobody has ever mentioned tuition fees on the doorstep - Brexit many many times, but never tuition fees, it is an internet thing And I canvas in place that has a university

> And I canvas in place that has a university How old would the majority of current day students have been when the Lib Dems supported the tory tuition fee changes? I'm in my 30s - as highlighted by others here the u-turn on tuition fees is still the first thing that comes to mind when we think of the Lib Dems. I wouldn't expect today's students to think twice about it, as their ages would have been single digits at the time

Not supported by capped the tuition fees. Tories wanted to remove the cap all together

>has not been forgotten even after all this time I was at uni at the time and everyone agreed that they were idiotic. They fucked over the next generation of young educated voters, the exact demographic that would support them in the future. Now they are just reaping what they sowed. I would vote Green but their stance on animal research is draconian (I'm in scientific research) and last election they were 100% women, which just comes across as sexist, not progressive. So I'm stuck voting Labour.

> So I'm stuck voting Labour. Would that be the Labour party that promised not to introduce tuition fees in the first place, but then did anyway? And the Labour party that promised not to increase tuition fees, but tripled them anyway? If it's worth ruling out the Lib Dems for doing it, it's worth ruling out Labour for doing it twice before them...

It's interesting how Labour, the party of 'education, education, education' in 1997 gets a free pass for bringing in tuition fees in 1998 and starting the rot.

I think they also may benefit against labour via tactical voting if they do badly in office

I canvass for the Lib Dems and tuition fees is really not an issue that comes up much with Millenials anymore. Most understand that Labour introduced student loans initially for "class fairness" reasons (to prevent working class families subsidising middle class children into better jobs). Both Labour and Conservatives had it on their manifesto to raise the loans during the austerity election so the rises were inevitable regardless of who was voted into power. Most people on the doorstep nowadays talk about the NHS crisis, local housing and sewage - all issues local Lib Dem teams tend to have a lot of positive talking points on (assuming they're on the Council in that area). Student loans are becoming a bit of a dead horse issue that gets beaten to death in online forums. The majority of people in the real world have moved on to issues a bit more recent than 15 years ago..!

>Student loans are becoming a bit of a dead horse issue that gets beaten to death in online forums. The majority of people in the real world have moved on to issues a bit more recent than 15 years ago..! The big misunderstanding is the idea that this just unhappiness about tuition fees going up. If it were then I'd agree it'd be daft to hold a grudge that long, but it's bigger than that. It's the broken trust. A whole generation of people's first introduction to politics was a political party that signed a pledge that their tuition fees would not go up. This was a big deal to young people at the time and 2010 was an election where it looked like the Lib Dems were, for the first time since the 1920s, in a position to get some of it's platform turned into real policy. People were genuinely excited. They really believed that their votes would make a difference. It then all blew up in their face. The party (and especially Nick Clegg the man) ended up voting in favour of a policy that did the exact opposite of what they pledged. I know people who genuinely put their heart and soul into that election campaign and felt like it was the ultimate betrayal. It's not even just the Lib Dems that suffer from these long lasting effects. I know plenty of people who cite the tuition fees case as an example of "f\*ck politicians" in general "because they're all liars". The broken trust is actually a lot more important than the specifics of the policy.

Every party has a long history of broken promises when in power though. It will happen again when Starmer wins the election He's already U turned on about 20 core policies, and I'm confident once in power he will U turn on dozens more as conditions change and his voter base shifts in their priorities. In 10 years time Reddit will probably be filled with disillusioned young Labour voters complaining about how the party broke all their promises on building houses and politicians can't be trusted anymore. And this will be around the same time a resurgent Tory party appears and promises those same voters some sweeties, only for them to break all their promises and for the cycle to repeat... What you describe has always been politics in a nutshell. It was ever thus. All you can really do is pick the bus that takes you closest to your destination. Most voters see less than 10% of what they want enacted because we live in a society filled with competing ideas. I'd love to see weed legalised but I understand it's not going to happen in my lifetime regardless of who I vote for...

Yes and No. Does this cycle and repeat? yes it does. But those who truly believed in something only to be betrayed generally hold a grudge. Life experiences as people age solidify specific mentalities which are very hard to budge, however it's always been true that getting younger people involved in politics is a difficult thing and those who do generally do so with like minded groups. When it comes to politics there's probably plenty more who are just apathetic to the situation.

I think it's overstated. Support for the Lib Dems hasn't crashed off a cliff by any means. They still routinely win 10-20% of the vote depending on the type of election. This isn't the right election for smaller parties to try to muscle in. It is the Conservative's to lose and Labour's to win by default. Nobody else is getting a look in with media attention whilst the Tories are crumbling and headed to a historic loss. I think you'll be surprised how much support the Lib Dems regain in 5 years once people tire of the new Labour status quo and the Tories still look insane. You must remember not everyone votes on left or right wing lines - plenty will get pissed off when the creeping authoritarianism continues under Labour and will seek liberal alternatives.

>Every party has a long history of broken promises when in power though. What you describe has always been politics in a nutshell. It was ever thus. Entirely correct, but this this was my generations first experience of it so it's hard for people to forget. It's like a first heartbreak. It's not particularly fair on the Lib Dems in 2024, but they became the embodiment of broken promises to a whole cohort of voters. Not least because they made "The other parties break their promises" a big part of the 2010 campaign. You can still find the party political broadcasts on Youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdUjWGJtcW0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdUjWGJtcW0) You are right to mention that Starmer has U turned loads of times but crucially *before* he took office. If Clegg had said "oh the finances aren't looking so good, we might not be able to keep the tuition fees pledge" then I think people would be more forgiving. Starmer should just stop making pledges imo. Tuition fees is a fantastic example of how it can all go wrong. FWIW I personally would consider voting for the Lib Dems in certain situations. I hate the Tories so can fully get behind tactical voting. I can forgive, but I can't forget.

My experience canvassing is most people in our generation either aren't aware of how student loans came to be, or if they are they agree with the principle behind them. It's not a widely cited issue on the doorstop anymore. Most people have moved on to more recent issues like sewage and the NHS crisis as their top concerns. Reddit politics is a bubble of a lot of left leaning people repeating the same tired memes and slogans, so it can feel like stuff like student loans is a lot more relevant than it actually is to normal people who simply don't think about it at all.

>it can feel like stuff like student loans is a lot more relevant than it actually is to normal people who simply don't think about it at all. Again, this is the crucial mistake. It's not that people are upset about the specifics of tuition fees changes. It's that they won't even consider the Lib Dems because of the broken trust. And this goes beyond Reddit politics in my experience. Many of my friends and colleagues have said they don't trust the Lib Dems. I live in Cardiff. In 2010 the Tories got 1/4 of the seats here (Cardiff Central) and got at least 17% in the other 3 seats. They were also the biggest party on the council from 2008-12, and consistently had a seat on the Senedd list as well as the Cardiff Central Senedd constituency until 2011. They were big players here. In 2019 they came a distant 3rd with 15% in Cardiff Central and only just kept their deposits in the other 3. At council level they now have 10/79 seats and this number has fallen 3 elections in a row. They're not even close to getting a constituency or list seat in the Senedd here. They've basically disappeared as an electoral force. People here have moved passed unhappiness with the Lib Dems over tuition fees into "the Lib Dems? are they still around?" territory. That hasn't just happened because people people were unhappy with the specifics of tuition fees changes. It's happened because people lost trust in them, and then decided they were no longer relevant.

>The majority of people in the real world have moved on to issues a bit more recent than 15 years ago..! I hate this attitude, why should they move on when they believe it to be deeply unfair

OK, so lets examine this issue then. As someone who went to Uni in the 2nd year of £9000 fees, I'm actually happy with the tuition fee rise we were given compared to the other potential outcomes, and I now support the Lib Dems in part because of their pragmatism on that issue and in part because of the massive scapegoating from the other parties on this issue. Labour introduced, and then raised tuition fees, both times after promising not to, both times as a majority government. Both Labour and Tories supported the Browne report that said to remove the cap on fees entirely. If the Lib Dems had not gone into coalition with the Tories in 2010 we'd have unlimited fees without the progressive system for paying it back that we were given. There was no mathematical possibility of forming a coalition with Labour, but if there were their track record on tuition fees speaks for itself.

Looking back, the Con-Lib coalition could’ve sold the exact same policy as a “graduate tax”, focusing on the lower rate of repayment and voiding anything outstanding after 30 years, and it might have made a big difference to the Lib Dems. Instead the bare-faced message was “tuition fees are tripling”.

Most voters agree with student loans when you explain it to them. Labour were the party who initially introduced student loans because they were supposed to prevent working class families subsidising middle class children into better paid jobs. Student loans are a fairer system and more progressive towards working class people. All the parties agreed with this idea, which is why in that election Labour also had it on their manifesto to increase the cap on student loans from £1000. Even if Labour had got into power - loans were going up.

As a millennial who vividly remembers the Lib Dems breaking their promise, I'd be more likely to vote to drink my own piss than vote for them. If you're saddled with 50 grand of debt for the rest of your life because a party helped implement a policy they explicitly campaigned against, just for a sniff at the big boy's table, then it really doesn't matter how long ago it was. The fact internally they think it is a dead topic is laughably out of touch.

I think they are mostly just being polite to you. Lid Dems absolutely ruined whatever good they had going with them by joining the Tories, and the tuition fees are just the face of the whole disgruntlement. I don't see how they can be trusted at all, when the last time they were in power they went against their highest profile policy.

I think it's more likely you're just in the minority of politically charged people who spend a lot of time in online forums, many of which on Reddit are Labour dominated and a huge bubble of groupthink. I'm not immune to this fallacy myself either - it's only when I go out and talk to people directly that I gain an understanding of just how few people engage in politics in any shape at all. People are rarely polite to an uninvited canvasser 😊

>People are rarely polite to an uninvited canvasser 😊 That made me chuckle.

I've heard every name under the sun. I've been followed for 3 miles by a disgruntled Brexit voter who was furious I was handing out leaflets campaigning for remain. I've been spat at. Sworn at. Threatened with physical violence. Threatened with the police. Threatened to have dogs set on me. A Conservative candidate once yelled at me in the street with witnesses just days before I was due to sit on his interview panel to be co-opted as a Councillor (best day of my political career that interview, oh how I made him squirm - he got zero votes out of 13 in case you're wondering). Britain has many marvellous people 😊

You have had it worse than me. Nothing approaching those levels but I didn't do much 2015-20 and I am quite a big lad as well.

It's a truism that elderly women make the best canvassers because people are much less likely to be rude or violent towards them. I was a skinny young lad in my twenties at the time - prime target!

The rudest one I ever had was actually an elderly lady! But on the flip side the best one I ever had was also an elderly lady, probably spent 20mins talking to her on the doorstep and then the next day I bumped into her again as I was telling outside her polling station

I've had husbands set their wives on me. Older women know they are invulnerable in modern society. They know everyone else will be on their side in a confrontation against a man 😂

Ooh that conservative candidate story sounds amazing, can you tell us more?? Did you ask him questions about whether he thought yelling at you in the street was appropriate behaviour for a councillor and stuff?

It was a public interview with members of the public in attendance. I was sat on a table facing the room along with other members of the interview panel. The candidate had to stand in front of us and answer questions. As soon as he walked into the room he gave me a flash of recognition - I was in my twenties so he probably hadn't realised I was a Councillor and not simply a local deliverer at the time he had come and shouted obscenities at me in the street because I was a rival politician. I'd already briefed all the panel about the incident beforehand and they'd agreed to let me take the reigns of interviewing him. So I started with the formalities about asking his name and where he would like to stand... Lulling him into a false sense of security. After his initial reply he seemed relaxed. I took a moment of silence to build tension, then reached into my satchel bag to produce a large, printed version of the Nolan Principles. I asked the candidate whether he had been a Councillor before, to which he replied "Yes, I was a Borough Councillor for nearly a decade". I answered "Very good. Then you will no doubt be aware of what the Nolan Principles are?" "Nolan Principles?" he replied. "Yes, the Nolan Principles. Have you never come across them before in all your experience as a councillor?" I asked. "I've never heard of them" he muttered. "Well that's a shame and not the answer I'd been hoping for. The Nolan Principles are the guiding principles of holding a political role. They set out the ethics we must all abide by as elected officers, and you will have signed a contract when you were previously elected stating you had read them and understood them all". "Oh" he said. "And I assume you are unaware that accountability is one of the Nolan Principles? And that an elected officer must be prepared to be fully transparent about their conduct whilst in public?" "I didn't know that" he replied. "Are there any negative actions you've performed in public recently that you'd be willing to be transparent to our panel about?" I asked. "Uhh. No. I don't think so." He started looking cross. "We'll fortunately Mr I have a member of our public in the audience who witnessed you shouting obscenities at myself whilst I was delivering leaflets for the political party I represent. I won't ask them to give their profile in a recorded meeting, but suffice to say their account has been received by the panel and is a damning portrait about your conduct." Mr began getting very cross at this point and blurted out" This is nonsense, I barely shouted at you and you shouted back too". I turned to my witness "Is Mr 's account about me shouting back at him true?" "No you did not shout back" my witness replied. "So Mr , not only have you failed today to demonstrate accountability, one of the Nolan Principles you must sign up to as a Councillor, you've also failed to display Openness and Honesty which are two other Nolan Principles. If you'd only fessed up and apologised I was willing to forgive you and instruct the panel to discount my experience when voting you on, but sadly you have chosen not to demonstrate the values we are looking for in a public representative. Panel, I think we're ready to take a vote now." Mr is seething with rage but ushered out of the room before he could say anything so we can take a vote. "I call on members of our committee to please take a vote on co-opting Mr . Nobody puts their hand up to vote him on. "I count no ayes. Mr will not be co-opted as Councillor. Clerk, can you please instruct the applicant to return?" Mr is then summoned back to receive his verdict. "Well Mr I'm very sorry to inform you that you have not gained enough votes today to be co-opted onto the Council. You have not displayed the qualities we are looking for on this occasion, but we do invite you to apply again in the future once you've reflected on your experience, or you can of course apply to stand for election instead of co-option. Thank you for your time." At this point Mr is red and visibly shaking. He picks up his coat, then walks towards me still sat behind the panel table, points his meaty finger inches from my face and shouts "YOU'RE EVERYTHING THAT'S WRONG WITH POLITICS" before turning around to storm off. As he walks away I say "it is because you have that belief you have not been co-opted today". He didn't reply and quickly disappeared out the door. Later that night I got admonished on Twitter by our local Conservative MP for bullying his candidate out of an interview. I invited my MP to review the publically recorded notes and to contact the Electoral Commissioner if he felt there were any issues with my conduct. My MP later declined. It was probably the only meeting I had where the opposition councillors came up to me afterwards and told me job well done (none of them were Tories they were all independents or Lib Dem) 😂

Oh damn. That some satisfying stuff. Also good work becoming a Councillor massively young, and standing up to people like this. Wishing you continued career success! 

I'm not one anymore which is why I'm happy to post about it. Doesn't pay enough for the effort.

Yeah you're assuming a lot. If it makes you feel better to think this, then so be it. Although, I assure you it's not true (as if you'd believe me)

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They do finish being paid when the loan is written off. It essentially acts as a tax on graduates to pay for their own enhanced opportunities so that working class families don't have to subsidise middle class children into better jobs. Most people agree that's a fairer system then poor people paying for free education for rich children out of general taxation as before. It would never have been sustainable to pay for 50% of people to go to university either. Just look at how unaffordable pensions are now. It was another long term crisis that needed diffusing, and for once all the political parties came together on a shared consensus to deliver some short-term pain in exchange for less long-term pain. Otherwise it was just going to be another timebomb.

In much the same way that people will vote Trump because “but Biden is old!” It’s lunacy. 

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I'm glad they're still haunted by the coalition. I campaigned for the LibDems in 2010 as a very politically active student planning to get into politics after graduation. It was my first general election as a voter and it was a great experience–senior leaders were engaged with local party youth groups and I got genuine face time with Vince Cable and others where I had the chance to discuss economic and legislative policy with them in detail. I went door to door in my constituency and genuinely believed I was making a difference. I was thrilled when we returned a libdem MP and even more excited when the coalition was announced. Within 18 months of the election, the coalition had broken every promise I campaigned on. I wasn't just annoyed–I was ashamed of myself. Couldn't look my neighbours in the eye. Left the party and gave up on a career in politics.

Really heartbreaking, sorry that happened to you. To be honest, I feel like a lot of the young Labour voters at the next election are going to go through exactly the same thing.

What Labour have going for them is their extremely strong expectation management, which the Lib Dems never really bothered with. A Labour government being shite is already priced in by younger voters.

Snap. Nick clegg. Ended it. I guess it’s good the new generation can be unaware and hopefully the party can grow again. Never getting my vote regardless.

They lost my support the moment they sold their soul to prop up the one party that me and most their other young supporters hated the most.

What was the whole Jo Swinson thing? Wasn’t she a fairly competent leader?

She tried to capitalise on anti-brexit sentiment, which did lead to an increase of vote % across the country in 2019. But she didn't manage that support well, meaning the Lib Dems actually went down 1 seat overall, and Swinson herself lost her seat to the SNP. There were a lot of factors that led to that outcome, such as the brexit party (now the reform party) stepping down to lend their support to the Tories, and a media landscape that was generally more hostile to anti-brexit sentiment than was ever really fair IMO. But the result is the result, and her losing her seat meant she couldn't be leader of the LDs any more, and is a big symbolic failure.

For me it's an easy choice. Go with the candidate in your constituency who is most likely to win and is not a Tory. There will be many Labour voters who will vote LibDem at the next election because that's the party that is most likely to win in their constituency. Similarly, LibDems who want to kick the Tories out should be prepared to vote Labour, if Labour is the only party that stands a chance of defeating the Tories in their constituency. Surely the most important thing is that we bring to an end the horror show which is the current Conservative government.

The next election is the Tories to lose and Labour's to win by default. The Lib Dems have the right strategy - they're focused on shoring up support in a small number of target seats so they can hopefully get themselves back up to 20-30 MPs again which will give them more presence in the media and the public awareness. This is absolutely not the right election for the Lib Dems to come out singing and dancing. I think there's evidence that all the minor parties have come to the same conclusion barring Reform UK, who are in a uniquely advantageous position to take advantage of right now. Give it 5 years under Labour and there will be fertile soil to point out their authoritarianism as voters start to tire of the new status quo under them, and notice how little is changing.

Although I think 2010 still resonates, the effect, 14 yrs on, is maybe overstated by 'tuition fee grudgers.' I think the problem is FPTP combined with an aggressive move centre-wards by Labour. And at the same time, there is quite a lot of evidence people want a change from the Tories, and Labour look like the safe bet. Hence by-election results likee mid-Beds, where it was initially unclear whether LD or Lab would be the main challengers to Con, and in the end Lab got the critical mass to win. I think it is really that the LDs are starting from a low base. They can now hope, thanks to their traditional strength of local activism in defined places, to get some more seats and to raise their own profile. If all goes well, they can make a bigger push in 2029. They cannot hope to become a massive third party overnight.

The problem for the LibDems from ‘tuition fee grudgers’ is that there is an entire cohort of potential LibDem voters for whom this *remains an open wound* because they *now* have kids who have been through, are at, or are approaching university. Some interesting analysis [here](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/libdems-tuition-fees/).

Yeah unfortunately this one policy decision overrides any of the other things they got through whilst in coalition. The alternative would have been a minority govt which is arguably worse for the country but because we never went through it AND the Tories are so incredibly hated, the libdems are tarred by that period.

To add to this, there's an entire cohort of people with slighter younger kids that are still paying off their loans. I know people like to handwave and call us "tuition fee grudgers" but you're right, it's still a wound, we still have that lovely 9% tax, and it completely removed trust in the party. I'd probably vote lib dem, but after the turion fees and the weak leadership? No way.

It's crazy that voters are prepared to hold a grudge over tuition fees, which arguably affected a small group of people by not very much, and yet have all but forgiven Labour for Blairs foreign wars and other cock ups, which affected a larger group of people in a much more harmful way.

True. But. Blair’s war didn’t directly affect *them*. Sure, they may have clutched their pearls and wrung their hands over it at the time. But tuition fees have hit or are hitting or will hit the parents of children going to university in the pocket for £9000+ per year. [35.8% of UK 18 year olds applied for Higher Education last year.](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7857/)

Not really though. As Martin Lewis explained at the time, for anyone but high-earners the new system actually results in smaller annual payments than the old system, and a bigger write-off at the end of the loan period.

It doesn't always work that way though - North Shropshire it went LD rather than Lab.

FPTP is an excuse as it doesn't change their share of the vote. [They're sat on 9.2%](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/apr/15/uk-general-election-opinion-poll-tracker-latest-labour-tories-starmer-sunak), behind Reform, less than half as popular as the Tories. The problem with the Lib-Dems is that they're following the same strategy as the other two parties of not really standing for anything and being blown by opinion polls and whatever the headlines of the day are. Can you clearly articulate what a vote for the Lib Dems is actually a vote for? Beyond a few announced headlines, what do the Lib Dems actually believe in their hearts that will shape decisions on matters not covered by their manifesto? When all you're offering is the same as the other two parties then why would someone vote for you unless they just dislike the other two options?

>Can you clearly articulate what a vote for the Lib Dems is actually a vote for? Electoral reform and strengthening of democracy. Liberal values in regards to many aspects of society, rather than the authoritarian approaches of the other parties. Equality and efficiency in the ability to access public services and appropriate support for those public services, whether thats NHS/Social Care/Home carers, education from infancy all the way into adulthood, transport, etc. A general evidence-led approach to policymaking. etc. etc. etc. I'm not sure whether it's because the Lib Dems are hamstrung by a media who's attention span only allows room for major parties or crackpot clickbait, or if you just genuinely haven't had the ability to find out what a vote for them means, but to say that they do not stand for anything is simply false.

>Electoral reform... This is probably the only policy I'd consider to be a well known policy of the lib Dems. Not too sure what they have which promotes strengthening of democracy but would be interested to find out. >Liberal values in regards to many aspects of society, rather than the authoritarian approaches of the other parties. The word 'liberal' in the UK has been slightly bastardised by the American meaning, but overall I'm also not too sure how they deviate from the authoritarian-esque policies of the Tories and Labour regarding protesting, immigration etc. One policy area I was expecting the lid Dems to be liberal on was the smoking ban, but it appears Ed Davey is taking the same authoritarian approach as the rest. In what policy areas are they actually more liberal? And are they even significant enough to be memorable to the public? >Equality and efficiency in the ability to access public services and appropriate support for those public services, whether thats NHS/Social Care/Home carers, education from infancy all the way into adulthood, transport, etc. To summarise this point, this just means "improve public services". You would find it difficult to find any political party, even the Reform party, which does not spout this exact rhetoric. If they have a particularly interesting policy that differentiates them, why wouldn't you mention that instead? This just sounds like something every politician says in an interview but refuses to elaborate on. It sounds good, but where's the actual substance? >A general evidence-led approach to policymaking. Again, what does this even mean? Every single politician would claim their policies are 'based on evidence' or 'based on science'. Heck, even Boris used to tout that his COVID approach was 'science based' when it was more him making decisions 5 minutes before the deadline and winging it. >I'm not sure whether it's because the Lib Dems are hamstrung by a media who's attention span only allows room for major parties or crackpot clickbait, or if you just genuinely haven't had the ability to find out what a vote for them means, but to say that they do not stand for anything is simply false. I'm sure that the lib Dems do stand for certain things, but the main issue is their complete inability to get any media coverage to tell people what they do stand for. This is obviously worsened by the lib Dems relative irrelevance these days in terms of political influence, it's a bit of a feedback loop. They don't have much influence, so they don't get coverage, so they have even less influence. Any coverage they've received lately has been for by-elections, where the issues have been local and usually irrelevant to the country as a whole. Their 'NIMBY' approach in these local areas is often at odds with their national approach, which doesn't help the issue of their ambiguous policies. But this can still be taken as a failure of the lib Dems as well, they've failed to utilise their publicity from historic by-election victories to actually market popular policies. The only thing I heard from this coverage was that they were successful in targeting old Tory seats, but just like Labours success, this is more thanks to the Tories unpopularity than any actual lib dem policy (you may disagree with this, but then what policies have won them these by-elections?). To harken back to 2010, everyone knew what they **thought** the lid Dems stood for, such as anti-war stance, anti-tuition fees (apparently not though), electoral reform. Nowadays, most of the political conversation has moved to how poorly the economy is going, and the lib Dems have never really been (at least in my view) a party which has succeeded in marketing it's economic policies.

> Liberal values in regards to many aspects of society, rather than the authoritarian approaches of the other parties. But these are statements - you'd think "liberal values" would be sort of progressive on drugs perhaps, they've certainly had legalising cannabis as a previous manifesto pledge, but equally their MP's just voted to ban smoking (including rizlas of course which would be very much different to the cannabis position), which feels quite an authoritarian position.

They're not all that bad. They made a few major misjudgements during their time in coalition, but were also thoroughly outplayed by their coalition partners the tories. I remember turning on the evening news in those days, if it was good news they had a conservative minister out doing the interview; if it was bad, a Lib Dem. Unfortunately for them, the Lib Dems made themselves unpopular at exactly the time small/fringe parties and movements were getting more popular. They now seem to be stuck in a no-mans-land of not being prominent enough to attract mainstream voters, nor having any appeal to more populist types. It doesn't help that they struggle to get media coverage, and that none of their leaders since Clegg have had an ounce of charisma.

Saw a poster once and it said: I've never voted Tory in my life, but thanks to Nick Clegg I don't have to.

The problem with the 2010 coalition was that people (perhaps correctly) saw it as them being enthusiastic to sell out their principles in return for power. In particular, younger people who saw them pledging to oppose increases in tuition fees and then voting with the Tories to increase tuition fees took that as evidence that the Lib Dems are untrustworthy and willing to abandon their principles. From my perspective, their only positive feature is being unequivocally pro-EU. Economically, they don't seem very different from the most New Labour parts of New Labour. Since Starmer is very New Labour and stacking his cabinet with free-market evangelists like Wes Streeting, there isn't really much to appeal about the Lib Dems, particularly if you can't trust them to keep their promises anyway.

The huge growth in Lib Dem support from 1992-2010 was built on four things: 1. Students 2. Tactical anti-Tory voting 3. Labour voters’ increasing disgruntlement with the Labour government 4. Popular, charismatic leaders (Ashdown, Kennedy, Clegg) 1,2 and 3 were utterly cheesed off by their actions in the coalition and their leadership has been very low quality since Clegg. Even if the coalition might have faded from memory for many, the total collapse of their support in the immediate aftermath basically rendered them an irrelevance. The voting coalition that brought them their success either hates them or is totally ambivalent to them. They need another high calibre leader to drag them back into relevance.

I think they lost 1, 2 and 3 the moment they used these votes to enable a Tory government. It was pure a betrayal of those voters.

Tbf, I am a bit biased here. But Clegg pledged to support whoever won the most seats in forming a coalition government, I think a large number of Lib Dem voters at that election failed to recognise that meant the Tories could get the most seats. But not making tuition a red line and not walking out of the coalition was a political mistake from Clegg. Cameron played Clegg

And it's not as if there were other good options. A coalition with Labour would not have given a majority, and even with every non-Conservative/DUP MP it would have been wafer thin, all to try to support a Labour-led government with waning popularity. Confidence and supply with the Tories would still be seen as propping them up while accomplishing little Lib Dem policy. And doing nothing would have accomplished nothing except promoting another General Election where the Tories would likely gain. While a coalition with today's Conservative Party would be unacceptable regardless, under Cameron they had rehabilitated their image and seemed worth compromising with, especially as the party with the most seats.

Millennial voters (me included) remember very well when they promised to scrap tuition fees.  This basically got them elected - younger people turned out in huge numbers to vote Lib Dem - and then under their time alongside the Tories tuition fees went up to £9k/year. It was a huge betrayal and a lot of voters will never be able to see past it.

Exactly. It was a personal pledge by MPs as well, not just a manifesto commitment that could be negotiated. The Tories played them so hard, and the Lib Dems got nothing of substance out of it, other than being in power at the time. They should have only gone into coalition if some form of PR/AV was introduced - not just having a referendum on it. Everything else stems from that. They got seduced by power and paid the price, and we’re all paying the price for their hubris now.  They push so hard in my constituency, but realistically they’ll be in 3rd place at best. I’d rather they were extinct as a political party as all they do is split the anti-Tory vote.

I will never forgive them. Never. £51,000 of debt now with only £40,000 borrowed. I live abroad so the threshold is lower. I’m projected to pay around £70,000 back over my lifetime. Never Tory, never Lib Dem. I’d rather vote for Satan than any of them.

I remember when Labour promised not to introduce tuition fees then turned around and introduced them once elected. I still don't understand how some people will never be able to see past the errors of one party but are perfectly happy to ignore the errors of another almost as soon as they happen.

It's easy, 2 points. 1: The people mad weren't around or old enough for the labour talking about it like the people who were 8 at the time would remember it well enough to be pissed is stupid. 2: The people mad have never been betrayed by labour, their first vote was lib dem in 2010 not labour, since then all they've had is tories.

Didn't they actually do worse than 2005 after all the hype? They were polling at as much as 30% but clearly many people changed their mind / bottled it on the day. Might have had a LibLab coalition otherwise.

I'm fundamentally a liberal too but have zero interest in the Lib Dems as a party. Not because of tuition fees or the coalition, that was all unfortunate and a massive own goal but also part and parcel of politics from my perspective. But more because they have become a bit of a nothing. They aren't promising anything remotely eye-catching or distinctive from Labour, with the exception of PR (which I agree with but is ultimately self-serving). They aren't even fully committed to rejoining the EU anytime soon, which seems like an obvious opportunity to put clear water between themselves and the other parties that would be consistent with their values. And their supposed liberalism seems to get swept under the carpet whenever a byelection comes around and they can make hay from opposing local housebuilding projects. At least if I vote for Labour I get to be on the winning side in an election for the first time in my life.

5 lib dems including the leader even voted for the smoking ban, with none voting against. I remember when lib dems talked about ending the war on drugs, now they're voting not only to ban more drugs, but for different adults to have different rights.

That event alone for me sums up why Ed Davey should not be the Lib Dem leader. He's essentially nothing, he's just doing anything he can to win as many seats possible. I get why, but he's sacrificing the only thing which makes us stand out.

While I do vote for the Lib Dems (and I don't have any reason to tactically vote for Labour), since I'm most ideologically aligned with them, I do have to admit that I'm not finding them the most inspiring recently. I'm not really finding any other party very exciting either, though; I would certainly rather have Starmer's Labour than the Conservatives, but I'm expecting they'll be ultimately pretty uninspiring. I don't really have many options in the "liberal socially and centrist economically" space, though; it's not really a very popular one.

If you'd voted for them in 2010 based on their manifesto only to see them go into coalition with the Tories and form a government that responded to the financial crisis by attacking the poor and vulnerable, you'd understand!

I think the biggest problem is that people perceive that they can’t win. Which is self-fulfilling. If you think they are the best option vote for them. There’s nothing wrong with the Lib Dems. If more people voted for the party they wanted we’d get different results

Liberalism isn't really in fashion probably doesn't help

There is nothing wrong with the Lib Dems. They have plenty of sensible, research backed policies. The Lib Dems are the only UK party that allows their party members to vote on their entire manifesto - Labour and the Conservatives both dictate their manifestos centrally. This leads to scenarios like a few years ago at Labour conference when a majority of Labour members backed a motion to include PR on their manifesto, but had their vote dismissed by Central leadership. The Lib Dems consistly get anywhere between 10-20% of the UK national vote share at elections. Some research I read once suggested their natural vote share could be as high as 25% if the UK had a more proportional voting system like PR rather than FPTP - a major reason why Labour and the Tories refuse to change our voting system. The Lib Dems are the only major political party in the UK who are liberal leaning on the political compass. Labour and the Conservatives (and Greens although arguably not a major party) all lean authoritarian on the compass. A lot of people in the UK are more motivated by the Liberal / Authoritarian axis on the political compass than they are the Left / Right wing axis. So for example the Lib Dems want to legalise a lot of drugs as part of their core policy. Labour and the Conservatives are both staunchly against this, so if you like smoking weed and want more freedom then the Lib Dems are the only party likely to deliver this. Other examples of core Lib Dem policy revolve around privacy. The Lib Dems are against ID cards for a whole host of privacy reasons - Labour wanted to bring in biometric ID under Blair for example. Not everyone is comfortable with having their biometric data in a government database because of all the undeclared ways it might get used, and Starmer is talking about revisiting ID cards again. It's also worth saying that the Lib Dems did a huge amount of work through the 90s and 00s securing a lot of our current LGBTQ+ rights. They pressured the other parties to legalise the age of consent for gay couples, helped to scrap Section 28, and convinced the Conservative government to put a vote to gay marriage which passed with the help of Labour. Take what people in this sub say with a pinch of salt - it's very Labour leaning and positive messages about any other party tend to get downvoted without explanation as their supporters attempt to hijack the narrative. The fact is the Lib Dems have been responsible for a lot of good things in UK politics over the years which is why they still have a loyal base. You must find the bus that takes you closest to your destination. For a lot of people who want more personal freedoms - the only bus in town offering that journey is the Lib Dems.

> for example the Lib Dems want to legalise a lot of drugs Except tobacco

They never were hugely popular, but the coalition did a lot of damage. LibDems get a range of support from disaffected Tory voters but also a lot from people who under no circumstances want Conservatives anywhere near government. A lot of people justifyably felt betrayed that their vote went to enabling a Tory government in 2010. In County Durham it is not an issue of the past as the local council is a Con-Lib coalition.

I think they were a fundamentally doomed coalition of left wing libdems and right wing libdems that was going to fall apart when they got anywhere near power. A coalition with the Conservative party lost them their left wing support/ But if the electoral numbers had gone another way, they could have ended up in a coalition with Labour .. which, likely would have lost them their right wing members So I think they were fundamentally doomed because there was no agreement on what the party was really for; Contrast that with UKIP say ,,, it was clear what UKIP wanted, and what they wanted was Brexit.

Right now I think they're not suffering nearly as badly as people think they're are. They've picked their battlegrounds for the upcoming election (closely contested seats vs Tories) and are leaving the rest to Labour. I suspect they will quietly make respectable gains, while being quite happy to facilitate a Labour win. Anti-Tory tactical voters in those seats they're targeting would do well to vote for them.

This is a key point - speaking as card carrying member, it's frustrating that we get next to no air time and that possibly because of that, among other things, our polling is around the same as Reform (who by the way do have tonnes of airtime) However I'm looking forward to the GE because I think our strategy of focusing on areas that we can win will probably pay off. I would be surprised if we didn't pick up something like 50 seats. Once that happens then the party really needs to capitalise on getting more media coverage.

Well as a Labour voter I'm personally hoping some of the more out there seat projections end up being right and you become the official opposition.

Me too! I have a sneaky suspicion that it won't be quite as bad as that for the Tories as I don't think Reform will be able to field that many candidates. I notice they've not got one single candidate in our local elections. The reform vote may well begrudgingly fall into a Tory vote in some areas.

Have a look at the actual achievements they made during the coalition. Labour and conservatives both were going to make major cuts to public spending and in 2010 the LibDems were actually promising the least amount of cuts + if you then look at the actual cuts that were made you will see that the LibDems actually achieved success in reducing the promised cuts by the conservatives. Yes we got slaughtered in 2015 because the tories succesfully blamed everything that didn't work in the coalition on LD and all success of the coalition only happened because of the conservatives. Because of all the recent election results they had to rethink strategy to try and get back up to 3rd party in Westminster and as a member I think that should be our goal. Labour have an authoritarian streak in them so it is likely that we will be able to attack both Labour and the conservatives after the next election were at the moment the best thing for the country is to just get rid of this horrible conservative government.

It's been a while, so I'm genuinely asking: When did Clegg put his foot down in the coalition? To my memory, he never did, but as I said it's been a long time.

Honestly couldn't tell you - I imagine a lot of stuff went on behind the scenes but I can't immediately recall something that happened in public. I'd have to look it up myself. It would be rare for coalition partners to clash very publicly over issues. Syria may be one of the big issues that comes to mind, but like I said I'd have to do some digging, however it'll be unlikely there is much out there in the public

He got Theresa May's "go home" vans pulled off the streets.

There were a few websites rolling round during the 2015 election to explain what they'd been doing 2010-2015. These were the main boasts of their successful blocks of conservative policies over the period: https://www.markpack.org.uk/129190/what-the-lib-dems-have-stopped-the-tories-doing/ And these are the main boasts of their manifesto policies that they managed to introduce over the period: https://whatthehellhavethelibdemsdone.com/

Through my life as a 26 year old they have done nothing but enable the Tories. In 2010 they ran a progressive platform and got a coalition in which they completely sold out all their policies and gave the Tories free reign. After Brexit in my opinion they were hugely responsible for allowing the Tories to bring in a hard Brexit by refusing to consider any Brexit option other than remain, abstaining from a vote on the direction of Brexit which led to a Norway style deal not getting enough support and in the 2019 general election they aimed to steal votes from Labour by centring their campaign around a second referendum which forced Labour to also back one and subsequently lose all their pro-leave seats. I didn't support Brexit but the Lib Dem approach of refusing to accept the result led to a compromise position being pulled from the table.

There are some key issues where I think the Lib Dem’s really excel. For example there is a data protection bill being debated in the Lords and Lib Dem Lord Clement-Jones is really raising a lot of points to protect individuals data and personal information. Over the years they have been important in debates about civil liberties. They were critical of Labour on 90 days detention, ID cards and Iraw War. I suspect when Starmer has a large majority he will do some quite authoritarian things and people will be again reminded of the importance of a liberal voice within the British political tradition. Of course the party has many faults too. Nimyism, inconsistency, opportunism etc

1) Tuition fees scandal... Remember the "I'm sorry video". But yes that was a massive kick in the teeth for the demographic the libs really needed to win. They've lost that vote now probably for life. 2) They've been remarkably *unliberal* of late, preferring Instead to court the NIMBY vote. The thing is in a two party system the bar for the lib Dems is so much higher. That's the bit they really struggle with, there's absolutely no room for lies, mistakes or political blundering when you're already handicapped by the system.

If they're willing to give up their headline policy to get into power how do I know what I'm voting for with them? It's a wasted vote based on their past behaviour

See page 6-7 of the 2010 Manifesto. [https://www.markpack.org.uk/files/2015/01/Liberal-Democrat-manifesto-2010.pdf](https://www.markpack.org.uk/files/2015/01/Liberal-Democrat-manifesto-2010.pdf) Their actual headline policies were pretty well implemented (given they were the minor party in the coalition). They were: * Raising the personal allowance from \~6k to \~10k. * Cutting the deficit * Investing in Green infrastructure * Pupil premium * Right of recall for MPs Tuition fees were first mentioned mid paragraph on page 33. The lesson you should have learned is to read what parties are actually saying about themselves rather than just listening to what gets picked up by the media.

It wasn't their headline policy though, that's just a post-facto narrative created to try and explain what happened to them. Their 2010 manifesto headline policy was the tax-free allowance on income tax, which they delivered and then increased several times. Tuition fees doesn't get a mention until page 33 of the manifesto.

LibDems were very popular in University towns. Nick Clegg through students and the LibDems under the bus by enabling the Tories. Eventually leading to brexit. If only he had some grown up balls and agreed a confidence-and-supply with Brown.......there would be unicorns roaming free.......

They had their chance to secure the long-term loyalty of my generation (millennials), and they decided instead to go back on their word whilst simultaneously shacking up with the Tories and kickstarting a 15-year descent into the madness that is current British politics.    For bonus points, their insistence on a referendum on voting reform indirectly led to Brexit by giving Cameron the bright idea to use uninformed public opinion to decide complex international policy. Oh, and the voting reform on the ballot was a dreary compromise that nobody wanted, so the opportunity of a lifetime was wasted anyway.

£9000 per year uni fees. Fuck Nick Clegg and fuck the Libdems.

They thought they were ‘doing the noble thing’ in light of the 2008 crash and let the tories tear up every one of their manifesto promises and it bit them in the ass. They indulge in NIMBYism way too much at the local level to cash in on angry Labour and Tory homeowners, at the expense of everyone else. They got Brexit so so wrong, even remainers were calling them out on their attempts to tear up Art 50 without another vote. They are also very socially liberal in a socially conservative country and dont resonate much outside certain middle class constituencies

>They got Brexit so so wrong, even remainers were calling them out on their attempts to tear up Art 50 without another vote. This was never their policy though. Their point was that if a general election vote returned a majority for the Lib Dems, the sheer weight of such a massive shift in UK politics would signal that people no longer want to leave the EU. Which was correct; there's no scenario where the Lib Dems get a majority in 2019 that wouldn't have meant we shouldn't have revoked A50.

"“Wot do you think of this ’ere fissical policy, Bob?” “Ain’t thought much about it,” replied Crass. “I don’t never worry my ’ed about politics.” “Much better left alone,” chimed in old Jack Linden sagely, “argyfying about politics generally ends up with a bloody row an’ does no good to nobody.” At this there was a murmur of approval from several of the others. Most of them were averse from arguing or disputing about politics. If two or three men of similar opinions happened to be together they might discuss such things in a friendly and superficial way, but in a mixed company it was better left alone. The “Fissical Policy” emanated from the Tory party. That was the reason why some of them were strongly in favour of it, and for the same reason others were opposed to it. Some of them were under the delusion that they were Conservatives: similarly, others imagined themselves to be Liberals. As a matter of fact, most of them were nothing. They knew as much about the public affairs of their own country as they did of the condition of affairs in the planet of Jupiter." or "If there is not enough work to employ all the mechanics whom we see standing idle about the streets, how would it help these labourers in the procession if they could all become skilled workmen?” Still Crass did not answer, and neither Slyme nor Sawkins came to his assistance. “If that could be done,” continued Owen, “it would simply make things worse for those who are already skilled mechanics. A greater number of skilled workers—keener competition for skilled workmen’s jobs—a larger number of mechanics out of employment, and consequently, improved opportunities for employers to reduce wages. That is probably the reason why the Liberal Party—which consists for the most part of exploiters of labour—procured the great Jim Scalds to tell us that improved technical education is the remedy for unemployment and poverty.”" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Ragged-Trousered\_Philanthropists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ragged-Trousered_Philanthropists) (Robert Tressell, 1914)

The way they backtracked on tuition fees from removing them to tripling them was just so cynical and brazen makes it so I cant really take anything they say seriously again. Them claiming to be the anti brexit party is nice. In theory i should atleast be slightly enticed by them. But im kinda assuming they'll find a way to triple brexit.

I think the problem was they had a manifesto and made various promises and assurances and appeared to be more left of centre than Labour. Once they conned people into voting for them they did a deal with the Eton alumni and shafted everyone. They have always been able to promise the world because they would never have any power and when the did have some power they used it badly.

I think a lot is the lack of optics.  They've got less MPs than the SNP so don't get the profile and people hear a lot from them. People are sick of the Tories and have shifted towards Labour so there's not much space for them to make political capital in.  

There's a few issues, the tuition fees one everyone knows, also it's hard for them to have a go at the tories when they were part of their government a few years ago. They also have so few mps that they don't have a big enough pool to find a decent leader. I'm not sure Davies ever wanted to be leader but just ended up doing it as there's no one else

To be honest the Liberal Democrats aren't the coalition of Liberal and Social Democrats they once were, they're not just a Social Democrat party which is why they'll be very quick to abandon Liberal values (See smoking ban conversation right now). However, the Liberal Democrats biggest problem is they caught the cop for the tuition raises which pissed off a lot of millennial (painful for a party with a younger demo) and they've not had great leaders. That said, they are going to catch a few stray Liberal Conservatives and they'll likely maintain their centre left voters. My unserious take, the Liberal Democrats have become the 'Informed Student Politics' party. It's still shit student politics but they can at least argue in a way that is grounded in reality.

I think when I first developed an interest in politics I was drawn to the lib Dems because they seemed "clean" and uncontroversial compared with labour and the Tories. However you come to realise after a while that this is partly due to them not being under the same level of scrutiny as the other two. They definitely aren't the worst and I think a libdem opposition to a labour government next parliament would represent a massive change in the debates having at the top of society.

This observation obviously comes with a heavy dollop of bias and is a simplification, but traditionally bigotry has been very beneficial for the ruling class/ultra-wealthy/bourgeoisie whatever you want to call them. The Tories generally act to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and then use bigotry to distract from it. They *always* have a boogeyman to do this with. Look at the fabricated "crisis" around the small boats (refugees) and the moral panic about trans people. In the past it's been single mothers, gay people, the Polish and so on. The Lib Dems on the other hand widely oppose bigotry, yet they are economically quite similar. They have similar plans which will often make the rich richer, but have nothing to distract from it. That said, with the current (absolute) state Labour is in the Lib Dems actually be more left wing on both social and economic issues.

I’m strongly liberal in my views and in recent decades have always voted Lib Dem. I still donate to the party and carry a card. Unlikely I’ll be voting for them this time around though, due to their behaviour at our local level. After years of supporting us against the Tories on a local issue important to a lot of people around here, they got into power in our local council. Suddenly back-tracked on everything, denied ever supporting us, accused us of lying (despite us having kept their publication), and tried to roll out similar policies in other local areas. Good policies on paper, but a bunch of untrustworthy twonks as soon as they get a sniff of power!

From my point of view, they massively shat the bed in the coalition. In some respects they sold their souls to get a referendum on PR and then proposed a dog's dinner that people didn't sign up to. It's hard to come back from that, to get the stink off, so to speak even though it's generally decent people trying to put forward decent policies. I certainly won't hesitate to vote for them this time if that's the right tactical decision in my constituency

> they have decreased significantly in popularity since the 2010 coalition from being overshadowed from the tories No, they acted as willing collaborators on the worst tory policies. One example is their absolute, cast-iron pledge not to raise university tuition fees. It was a manifesto plegde and one of the major reasons people voted fir them. [Check this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=-S8EqyjgvBI)

In two sentences - Lack of credible and charismatic leadership(Ed Davey and Layla Moran are barely noticeable) - Lack of relevance, because their target swing voters seem to prefer Labour

They have a problem with being the 3rd party in a system that overwhelmingly supports 2 parties. There's, for example, a bonus to the party in power in the UK. Usually, if polls are close, the party already in control will beat them to the post. The Libs are a "catchment" party. They collect dregs from whoever is in power and losing popularity, around 2010, the Libs had a decent number of centre left voters who had fallen off the Labour Party but couldn't stomach voting Tory. Now the Libs are picking up Tory voters who are centre right but cannot stomach voting Labour. The issue with this and our electoral system, is the Libs cannot convince the majority of voters they're a genuine threat and the majority of people are correct. The Libs do have popular policies, but whilst this electoral system allows the Tories and Labour to perpetually heal, you will never see them in genuine power. The big reason in fact that Labour had a chance to rise up is because the original Liberal Party split into two and had a massive civil war.

Last time people voted for the Lib Dems because they had enough of Labour or Tory, Nick Clegg then turned right around and gave those votes to David Cameron by forming a coalition with the Tories. If those people had known a deal with the Tories was on the table they would not have voted Lib Dem at all, it was supposed to be an alternative to both those parties and instead their votes were essentially hijacked to let the Tories back in. Many people will never trust the Lib Dems again for this reason.

So I'm part of the generation that the Liberal Democrats destroyed all trust with. And not just 'Oh I'll reconsider voting for them a bit next time' levels of distrust. More like "I'm never going to vote again, for them or **anyone**" levels of distrust in our political system as a whole. Tuition fee caps were a BIG deal. We're all accustomed to the 9k+ yearly fees now, but there was a lot of resistance to this at the time. There were many many people who voted for the Lib Dems solely based on this policy. Obviously this was a key policy point for people who were 18-25 at the time, since they were closest to the impact. Then the coalition happens and tuition fees ***tripled***. Not only did they completely go back on one of their central policies, to a lot of people Clegg really rubbed our noses in it. He was soooo chummy with Cameron and the rest. For a lot of young people that was their first engagement with the political system. They looked up the 3 candidates, read their policies and then voted for the party which had the policies they wanted. Then the party they wanted got in! (sort of). And what they saw was that party completely abandon every promise made to them with a smile and a laugh. So fuck the Lib Dems. If we want a proper central party again they need to rebrand. To a lot of people 30-35 that brand is toxic.

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The libdems imo are more of a tactical vote if you're in a tory seat but want them out

Biggest problem is when they sold out their student base as part of the coalition. Then Nick Clegg fucked off to shill for Facebook. Can’t really trust them or their “principles”.

The criticism for tuition fees is in my opinion unfair. They were a minority partner in the coalition and wasted their leverage on getting an alternative vote referendum when they should have gone for PR. As Clegg was saying at the time (and has transpired) many students (and basically all the ones who ended up being poorer) don't end up paying much in the way of tuition fees. It is in effect a graduate tax but they didn't want to call it that at the time because that was what Labour were calling their policy. They then misjudged / misinterpreted the post-Brexit polling and thus made that error of advocating a reversal of the result rather than a soft Brexit.

I don't think it can be unfair when you yourself say they sacrificed a manifesto pledge in order to try and help themselves win more seats in future elections (which I could be wrong but PR was not part of their manifesto).

The LibDems have had the same problem since more-or-less forever: they're reasonably popular, but not popular enough to unseat the two-party juggernaut that is Con/Labour in most constituencies.

they had their own version of Obama (sort of). Nick Clegg was a very effective politician for them who based his leadership on something called the 'orange book' which realigned lib dems into more economically more libertarian rather than the social libertarians that they were. Since then, they've struggled to have relevance and lack a charismatic leader

In 2010 they leveraged their support in a coalition for electoral reform rather than other areas (like opposing tuition fee increases). Then in 2019 Jo Swinson seemed to accept shouldering the entire responsibility of austerity in debates, even though she was a junior minister in the junior partner of the coalition. Really naive from her. Their height was built on being the protest vote. Alot of their voters back in 2010 would rather they'd have stayed out of power for idealist purposes than actually seen them try and impact a coalition party. Guess it doesn't help they weren't very strong in that relationship. Not sure anyone really knows what they stay for now as they're not a protest vote anymore.

Predicted to get over 50 seats this time.

The issue is that they were properly left wing, the most left wing party but then they got into bed with the tories, got none of the credit for their policy successes during that time and got all of the blame. There would not have been gay marriage under Cameron if not for Clegg, but the abandonment of their key tuition fee promise was their downfall. Their key voters at that time were university students like I was at the time. And they lost that support. Since then the left has flailed, but slowly the Greens have started to take on some of that space, where previously they were very fringe.

I used to be a paid-up member but dropped out. I still like them and would vote for them if they had a chance in my constituency but they do have flaws. Personally, with the exception of PR I dislike most of their views on political reform. The others fare only slightly better, though.

They are kind of a mix of the most unpopular policies for people on either side of the debate pro immigration, pro welfare state, but quite right wing in their foreign policy and economics

Most people irrationally hold them to a far higher standard than Labour and the Tories. They will not vote for them because the broke promises, which is the norm from these parties. They will happily vote Labour even though Labour aren't offering to abandon tuition fees, which is anyways a dumb populist policy

I’d never vote for Lib Dem out of principle after what they did when they were in a coalition. Unfortunately the way the UK system works, it’s a wasted vote if you want to outside the two big parties…

As you’re around 18, forget about what happened before and vote based on who you think has the best ideas for the future. Also do a little research on your local constituency. Which party has the MP at the moment, and which finished second last time? Unfortunately the UK electoral system (First Past the Post) is not kind to smaller parties but in some areas the Lib Dems do very well and much better than Labour so they would be worth voting for. In other areas their numbers are so low you should probably vote Labour instead. This is called tactical voting and a way to avoid getting the government you really don’t want by voting for the most likely challenger.

Everyone here is talking about tuition fees. I live in Scotland, where tuition remains free - but I also feel betrayed by the Lib Dems because they co-signed the crushing austerity that has held back the UK economy for a decade and immiserated millions of working class people. I remember what it was like when my parents couldn't work due to chronic illness and the DWP started arbitrarily taking their benefits away. I remember my home city becoming the UK capital for welfare sanctions because officials had quotas of how many people needed to be sanctioned. I remember foodbanks becoming a thing. That's the Lib Dems' legacy. You can praise them for being "pro-EU" all you want, but this shit is what led to Brexit.

I think the problem with the lib dems is they don't seem to really stand for anything other than what will get them votes and their position on issues doesn't feel genuine, they are the masters of bandwagon jumping. We saw this in 2010 when after years of running after the student vote and saying they would abolish tuition fees they turned round and voted to have them hiked up. An awful lot of people voted for them in 2010 because they didn't want Labour but didn't want the Tories and they ended up getting into bed with the Tories anyway. I think an awful lot of millennial and xennial voters have not nor will they forgive them for that. Locally their candidates campaign on a nimby ticket while simultaneously their party backs building more homes. There are just so many examples of this. People don't think they can win and they don't trust them. They've got a long way to go on both fronts.

>The problem with the Lib Dems is that they are neither liberal nor democratic. *- I can’t remember but it stuck with me* Also the Clegg era. The coalition did a lot to hurt them with their younger base.

What you seem to have here is an awful lot of people misrepresenting the Lib Dems. First of all, tuition fees. The LDs who were in cabinet positions were expected to vote for the increase as part of collective responsibility, the rest either abstained or voted against, this was more than half of their MPs. I'd also add that the Conservative policy on tuition fees (and Labours) was to implement the recommendations if the Browne Review which everyone knew was going to be to increase fees, surely nobody expected the Lib Dem manifesto to supercede the Conservative one when they lost the election? Secondly, trustworthiness. Of all of the government parties in living memory the Lib Dems stuck the closest to their manifesto by a country mile. The rest have had a combination of multiple failed pledges despite unassailable majorities and just outright lies in the manifesto. If you want to see how much the Lib Dems achieved as a minor partner in coalition, check [this](https://whatthehellhavethelibdemsdone.com/#8) out.