Sometimes, you know, I wish I could. Then the Liberal Democrats come along to remind one how difficult it is to support them. But, in theory, could one vote for a truly liberal party? Of course one could. And would, if only one were so available. In Massie’s Better Ordered Political Landscape the Liberal Democrats would, roughly speaking, be the equivalent of Germany’s Free Democrats*.
It’s true that there are some liberals** in the Lib Dems – one thinks of the gang at Liberal Vision and other bloggers such as Charlotte Gore – but they’re a minority within their own minority. As Mark Littlewood says, a new BBC poll confirms this: asked who the party should support in the event of a hung parliament, twice as many Lib Dem councillors favour a coalition with Labour as would support a Tory-led coalition.
Doubtless this reflects the number of Tory-Lib Dem battles in English councils but it’s still a telling result, not least because in the event of a hung parliament the electorate will clearly have rejected Labour.
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