As they lined up to tear chunks out of their Tory coalition partners, at first glance it might appear the Lib Dems were using their annual conference to spark an early coalition split. Calling the Tories “ideological descendants of those who once sent children up chimneys”, “witless”, and “utterly appalling”, the Lib Dems made little effort to hide their disdain.
But as the party big guns set out their policies, made speeches, and did interviews at the conference in Birmingham, the overall message became clearer: we don’t like the Tories, but the country needs this coalition.
Gone were the attempts last year to underline the political and ideological common ground with the Conservative Party. In their place was a message of apparent pragmatism, of national interest, and the story of a Lib Dem Party positioned to temper the wild policies of the Tory Party through a strictly business-like arrangement.
The conference, which started on Friday 16th and was due to finish on Wednesday 21st, is the first since the Lib Dems took a hammering in the polls last May after joining the Tory Party in the coalition government.
The Lib Dem leaders stood by the government’s deficit reduction policy, but with increasing talk of the need to stimulate economic growth as global financial waters turn choppy again.
In a centrepiece speech on Monday, September 19th, Business Secretary Vince Cable – the poster-boy of Lib Dem economic prudence famed for his prediction of the global banking crisis – dramatically likened the current economic crisis to times of war.
Invoking the spirit of war-time Britain, he compared the current situation to one of only two successful coalition governments: that which was formed to take on Hitler.
“When I joined up I had very mixed feelings about this coalition, like many of you I looked for good precedents. I thought of Attlee and Bevin working with their Tory opponents – Churchill and Beaverbrook – setting aside their political differences in a common cause.
“Now, you could say: that was war; that’s different. Yes, it is different. But we now face a crisis
that is the economic equivalent of war. This is not a time for business as usual; or politics as usual.”
“It has required courage from our Party to withstand the tribalism which is British politics at its worst. And it has not been possible for the Party to get its own way on everything. My big regret this year is that we did not secure tighter control on bank pay and bonuses. A bad message was sent: thaBt unrestrained greed is acceptable.”
But the business secretary’s gunning for the bonus culture was criticised by business leaders.
John Longworth, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), said in a statement: Now is the time for [Mr Cable] to focus on the core issues, rather than hobbyhorse projects. Business needs real deregulation, access to capital, better infrastructure and a more productive public sector, and it is down to the government to deliver these.”
Miles Templeman, director general of the Institute of Directors, said in a statement: “The Business Secretary should be using all his keynote speeches to promote the competitiveness of British business, rather than dwelling for political reasons on executive pay.”
Deputy Prime Minister and Lid Dem leader Nick Clegg said in a Question and Answer session at the conference: “We have had a really, really tough year, a really tough year, the like of which I think many of us could not have predicted. But we have got to stop beating ourselves up about it.”
The Lib Dem leader said the party had a clear conscience and needed to stop looking over its shoulder.
“I remember looking in the rear view mirror at all the people ranting, saying, why did you do this? The supporters we lost. But at the end of the day, when you explained to them calmly over and over again why we did what we did and that our conscience is clear on the big judgements – not on individual decisions – we have nothing to apologise for.”
Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, on Tuesday denounced “the Tea Party tendency” of the Conservative Party’s right anti-European stance. Vince Cable meanwhile in a separate speech claimed some Conservatives are “descendants of those who sent children up chimneys”.
