Deja Vu in the British Election
AUTHOR: Peter Dunne
Nick Clegg’s and the Liberal Democrats successes in the British General Election campaign so far offer some interesting insights for UnitedFuture.
It is hard to escape the parallel with UnitedFuture’s 2002 campaign where, on the back of a television debate, we too came from nowhere to hold the balance of power.
In both instances, the success was due to the parties’ filling a perceived vacuum in the political environment of the time. In 2002, UnitedFuture succeeded because of our message about families and a commonsense approach. Nick Clegg’s success today is due to apparent public fatigue with the old politics of both Labour and the Conservatives.
As UnitedFuture found after 2002, however, such vacuums can be short-lived. Once Labour’s Working for Families package came along, UnitedFuture’s professed concern for the well-being of families became a little passé, and we failed (partly because of the narrow pre-occupation of some of our MPs of the time on should constitute a family, rather than how we might we make New Zealand the best place in the world to raise a family, as per our 2002 aim) to move on to the next phase of building a family friendly society and filling the perceived gap. Similarly, if the Liberal Democrats do achieve the balance of power, they will need to be mindful of both Labour and the Conservatives stealing their political reform clothes, and leaving them on the sidelines.
What Nick Clegg’s rise has shown –again – is the importance of a centre party being able to fill a political vacuum. Looking ahead to 2011, the challenge for UnitedFuture will be to determine where our political vacuum lies, and how we should fill it. I think that vacuum will be amongst both conservative Labour voters who think their party is unlikely to win, and liberal National voters who are confident National will win again, but who both worry about National being too beholden to ACT’s extreme right wing agenda, and therefore wish to see National with a more centrist partner in the next Parliament.
In Britain, the Liberal Democrats, who have not tasted political power since 1922 and who have been written off frequently ever since, stand on the verge of historic achievement. In New Zealand, UnitedFuture, similarly written off and equally frequently dismissed, stands ready to pick up their mantle next year.