Actor Steve Coogan and presenter Carol Vorderman have backed Liberal Democrat pledges to reform how the UK’s general elections are run.

  • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    I would. I live in the south west, where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and Labour typically won’t even acknowledge that we exist. There’s a perception here that Labour only care about the cities and the Red Wall. The Lib Dems, for all their faults, have an active presence and a much deeper awareness of the issues that affect the south west, and are therefore a much more viable option to vote for if we want to oust a Tory.

    • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Same here, although I grew up in Cheshire & now live in London… Even within the cities, Labours local policies seem very copy paste when what people want in (eg.) Westminster is going to be different to what they want in Hounslow, which will be different to what people want in Dagenham.

      Lib Dems seem to have a far better understanding of their constituencies/local areas than either of the major two parties (there are some good Labour MPs and slightly fewer good Tory MPs, but as a percentage they’re way lower), eg what Tim Farron is up to now in parliament, every speech is standing up for his constituency rather than hiding away in a large party letting the frontbenchers do the talking.

      • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think this is why the Lib Dems do so well in by-elections but struggle at general elections. When they’re only fighting one election, they can put all that local knowledge to good use and make a really tailored campaign that resonates with the electorate in that constituency. But in a general election, it’s much harder to put across a broad, national-level campaign, but that’s what general election campaigning has to be, because you have to speak to the whole country not just a small subset of it.

        It’s a shame, because I actually think they’re a very under-appreciated option. They’ve struggled with their branding after the coalition, and I think to an extent it was unfair given that they were very much the junior partner in the coalition and didn’t have as much power as people think they did.