Partisan politics makes us all blind...

I've been a member of the Party for quite some time now. I joined the Union of Liberal Students in 1984, and have paid an annual subscription ever since. And I've been fairly robust in my belief that my cause is a just one, and that any other political stance is, if not wrong, then just not as good. And we, as political activists, tend to paint our rivals as 'the other', someone to be opposed, beaten, bested, whose arguments should be shot down, in part because they aren't us, even when we sympathise with their stance.

That easy generalisation tends to prevent us from interacting with our political opponents, thus building the barriers a little higher. But I was reminded recently of the futility of taking such a simplistic view of politics. I met a young man recently, a keen activist in another political party. I assumed that there would broad areas of disagreement between us, on the basis that if there weren't, one of us was in the wrong Party. And it wasn't going to be me, was it...

As we talked, it became clear that we didn't actually disagree on very much, indeed, on those issues where we perhaps thought that there might be a difference, we found ourselves agreeing not just on the ideas but the philosophy of why they were good ones. It was all slightly perturbing, or at least, it would have been had it not been for the fact that he seemed like a really nice guy. He cares about his community, he wants to do things properly, he seems genuinely intrigued by the experiences of others, all of the things that I might be impressed by in a Liberal Democrat. It's just that he isn't one.

And afterwards, I reflected on our meeting. The media in this country has created an image of three political parties, filling three discrete parts of the political spectrum, and without crossover. For if there is crossover, the Parties risk losing their identity, and what would be the point of them then? It must be us versus them, red versus blue, yellow versus blue (or red), Orange Booker versus social liberal, whatever, anything that creates an easily reportable sense of competition.

And yet, in a pluralistic political arena, building coalitions of interest on specific issues is the key. Liberal Democrats working with Conservatives, as we are now, or with Labour, as we might in the future, or even now, working with those on all sides who share our vision on one subject, seems to be more likely to achieve real change. Sometimes, that coalition of interest might even work against us, or exclude us. We aren't, after all, always right.

So, perhaps we ought not to play the media's game, and just get on with trying to change our society in an way that invites everyone to talk to us, to build the relationships that allow us to gain each other's trust. And that way, we might see ideas for what they are, and not for the nature of their exponents.