“I would urge anybody interested in the [LibDem] future direction to read it….”

Liberal Democrat blogger Matthew Green (not to be confused with former MP, Matthew Green) has a very thoughtful piece on the core votes strategy which I’ve laid out with David Howarth.

It is a piece that I don’t fully agree with – but that is praise, not a criticism, for we need a lively debate to flesh out and improve the core votes strategy David and I have proposed.

Here’s a sample:

I would urge anybody interested in the party’s future direction to read it…

The authors point out that a core vote strategy is hard, and that the party has failed in its many past attempts. That tells me that something big has to change; a lot of received wisdom has to be put on the scrapheap, and a lot people in the party are not going to like it. It is not just a matter of adding another strand of campaigning, and then tweaking the party’s internal processes here and there. The danger is that everybody will assume that all the changes in behaviour apply to other people, and they will continue to do what they have always done, with a bit of judicious relabelling…

The party is obsessed with winning electoral contests; that obsession must be loosened if a core vote strategy is to take root. It must recognise the idea of good losers – candidates who did not come first but built up members and long term voters.  This concept is so alien to the party’s campaigners that they will not take it seriously. This is why the idea of these values campaigns being led by an elected official with a separate mandate (whether or not Deputy Leader) is a critical element of the overall plan.

Read Matthew Green’s piece in full here.