Political

What Vince Cable actually said about the party’s name

Speculation about plans by Liberal Democrat leaders wanting to change the name of the party is a long-running favourite of the media and, for those who remember the post-merger years of pain, a source of angst for activists given how long it took for the party to get its name right.

The headlines today suggest another round, such as PoliticsHome‘s, “Vince Cable: Lib Dems could change name in push for new centrist movement”.

But what Vince Cable actually said was rather more tepid than the use of ‘could’ in the headline implies:

Changing names is a superficial thing. Maybe because I am not a marketing person I don’t understand the importance of it.

This new enlarged movement that we are creating – if the membership of it wants to change its name, it can change its name, I am not pushing for that…

In two words [with the party’s name, Liberal Democrats] we capture the group of values – we are liberal people, a lot of us are social democrat as well.

If someone wants to stick ‘new’ on the front – I have an open mind on it.

Likewise, a few days previously he told Sky News:

I wouldn’t rule it out, but really it’s for the party to decide.

I think the present name is perfectly satisfactory, I like it, it conveys in two words what we are. But it’s not something we are going to be precious about.

Vince Cable added on Facebook:

Personally, I like our name and think it represents who we are and would prefer to keep it. But it’s important that it isn’t a barrier to the centre ground transformation of British politics that we need and want.

As New Labour demonstrated, a change of name can be a crucial party of a political party’s recovery. It is also, though, a tempting shortcut – we need a new name, we need a new slogan – when the most successful name changes and the most successful slogans are but a small part of a much bigger programme of work, as was the case with New Labour.

That bigger programme of work has started in the Liberal Democrats, on which if you missed it see Lib Dem Newswire #115: the new party slogan.

 

4 responses to “What Vince Cable actually said about the party’s name”

  1. I really don’t want to be a member of a ‘centralist’ party. Centralists are defined by their oppositions’ position. Liberal Democrats is an accurate definition of most of the party’s members. When we joined the Tories in the coalition we surrendered our natural position of being ‘non-socialist radicals. We are still suffering from that decision.

  2. Vince was strongest in his clarification in one of his conference speeches, we can’t be defined relative to the other two, we are not between them we are fundamentally different. But what he hasn’t grasped is that the media treat us as they treat them, ie they expect our Leader to make decisions and decide direction, they do not understand our democracy, so anything Vince says is assumed by them to be a directive to the members. He has to stop wasting valuable coverage time in responding to their agenda of distraction stories – whenever he speaks to them he must make sure that he sticks to OUR agenda and promotes US.. anything else allows them to keep playing their two party game.

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