Liberty Alone

Chris Huhne has successfully been painted as the radical candidate, yet he’s run an incredibly conservative campaign.

I can’t help feeling that this reflects the state of the ‘radicals’ in the party. The so-called radicals I’ve come across seem to be incredibly conservative and formulaic.

Its a shame, we need radicalism in the party. I try to provide some from the market liberal and social libertarian viewpoint, I see some others giving some radical positions from other directions too, but those who are most readily identified as radicals just seem to be saying the same things as they’ve been saying for years, many of which are just the status quo (and havn’t worked out that well) or things which are widely accepted in the party (localism is the prime example).
Others seem to be more ‘Radical Tories’ than liberals, or socialists in their radicalism (state socialism took much from the radical Tories).

There are many issues today which could do with some radical thinking from the party, many which would benefit from a really good liberal, individual based approach. How can we empower individuals? How can we ensure that people can form communities and support each other voluntarily? Why are our institutions failing and what can we do about it?

Its not all bad news, last time round Chris Huhne was fairly radical (within the contexts of UK politics anyway) and has got some good policies through. Nick Clegg has had some good things to say at Home Affairs as well.

There are too many areas of comfort though, too many where people dare not tread for fear of upsetting the party*. We need radicals to shake this up, even if they’re wrong they will start a debate. That’s the only way we can improve policy and create a very distinctive, liberal vision to take the party forwards.

(* in my view this is why Clegg hasn’t taken the party out of its comfort zone in this campaign, it would be leaped upon by Huhne and possibly upset too many party members)

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