Three months ago, we all got terribly excited about 'Liberal Vision'. It was all about freedom, removing the dead hand of government from the lives of the people. Not a concept that, in itself, that I was particularly troubled by.
On the other hand, they did feel it necessary to mark our MPs for liberalism - their 'poster boy' promptly calling for a ban on the sale of cheap alcohol by supermarkets - using a set of criteria heavily weighted towards lifestyle-related issues and thus somewhat distorted. They also suggested that most of our MPs would lose their seats unless we pledged tax cuts. As a form of attention seeking, it worked very well, even if such an open display of disloyalty made it difficult to attract public support.
However, they had made an impression, and attracted media interest. Indeed, Mark Littlewood got plenty of air time to perfect his impression of a critical friend of Liberal Democracy. Since then, nothing, nada... not so much a thinktank as an accursed castle, asleep for a hundred years.
Of course, a cynic might suggest that the launch of Liberal Vision was merely a means to gain a platform, and that two rather weak papers were sufficient to fool the mainstream media into giving a 'wannabe' a higher profile than his record merited. Indeed, we've been here before. Ben Ramm, whose almost mythical publication, 'The Liberal', gained him a notoriety arising solely from an uncanny ability to use media opportunities to denigrate the Party.
Liberal Vision's sole asset is Mark Littlewood. He has, regardless of what one might think of his politics, a proven record of attracting coverage. What else might help Liberal Vision to develop a veneer of credibility is yet to become apparent, presuming that it aspires to be anything more than a vehicle for personal vanity...
5 comments:
I don't think its a vehicle for personal vanity.
I think Mark really does want the party to do well too.
I think, like many efforts, it did have a spurt of enthusiasm to begin with, only for other things to attract the attention of its main movers.
(I agree with the assessment of their papers however, they seemed more calculated to get attention than to move any agenda forward).
Spot on, Mark. I am still waiting for MArk Littlewood to say anything of note or benefit to anyone outside the Mark Littlewood Party.
It may in fact be a clever pension plan. I myself have only had an acknowledgement of my £20 membership payment in the course of a discussion/argument on another blog in which Mark wa participating in the comments...:)
So far as I can recall anyway.
The beating handed out to Chandila shows that there's no appetite for "libertarianism" within the party, apart from a tiny number of unrepresentative bloggers.
They have aroused the ire of not only social democrats (who are angered by everything & can to an extent be taken for granted), but also the liberal & green wings.
I won't be shedding any tears over their eclipse.
The beating handed out to Chandila shows that there's no appetite for "libertarianism"
In IT, the technical term for such a statement is "bollocks".
As a libertarian, I didn't vote for him for a start. Apart from anything else I don't personally believe he is.
Mark maybe, but I doubt his strategy if what they are trying to do is promote "libertarianism" within the party.
Besides, libertarianism is built in to our preamble...:)
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