Nick Hollinghurst has just returned from a 4-day self-imposed media blackout to discover the Liberal Democrats have a new Leader.
“And about time too!” he remarked. “Once again we were asked to chose between two first-class candidates, though this time noticeably different emphases and attitudes emerged. The election process was fair and thorough – and it certainly gave the two candidates sufficient time to set out their views and programmes.”
“At times, though, it seemed never-ending and it has taken us nearly 8 months to get to this point. There was even some talk of prolonging the whole thing by another whole year, such was the rumour. However, I’m sure many people are grateful that we now have a resolution and, for once, a decisive result.”
“However,” he added, “it is to be hoped that due consideration will be given to the views expressed by the unsuccessful candidate, since these are legitimate proposals which have the support of a significant minority of our members.”
Now that the Liberal Democrats have a new Leader, with this uncertainty resolved, they have a chance to gain greater media coverage and win back the support that was lost during the unfortunately long political campaigning hiatus.
The Liberal Democrats believe in parties working together, either in campaigning during election campaigns, or afterwards, if appropriate and given favourable electoral arithmetic, in coalition governments.
They believe in electoral reform to make election results fairer and constitutional reform to improve the accountability of the government to people and Parliament.
They believe in strong and relevant local government, checks on executive power and the protection of civil liberties, social and economic justice that fairly distributes the prosperity that all of us work to generate and social mechanism to mitigate the effects of sickness and misfortune on disadvantaged individuals.
From the Preamble to our Constitution