Perhaps not the best of years: Lord Bonkers in 2015

January

An article by Paddy Ashdown in which he spoke of his love of the poetry of John Donne led Lord Bonkers to remember the first Liberal Democrat leadership election:

Many though Alan Beith was the frontrunner, but Ashplant began his speech to the first hustings by looking his opponent in the eye and declaiming: 

Beith be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so. 

This was widely counted as something of a zinger, and poor Beith's campaign never recovered from the blow.

February

Looking forward to the general election, Lord Bonkers was confident that our leader would hold his seat:

Some reason that he has upset the student vote because, after waving that wretched pledge of his at everybody last time round, he stung them for a small fortune when he got the first whiff of power. 

However, given that the polls closed as early as 10pm, one has to question how many students actually made it into the booth to vote for him last time.

March

Lord Bonkers reacted to the news that the police were taking an interest in Harvey Proctor, secretary to the Duke of Rutland, in characteristically measured tones:

A quiet day on the Bonkers Hall Estate. 

In particular, I don’t have the police turning over the cottage of one of my employees – unlike another Rutland aristocrat I could mention. 

Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh my! Oh my!

April

The reburial of Richard III in Leicester Cathedral was beamed around the world:

I won’t pretend to have agreed with every detail of the celebrations: whilst I agree it was a nice touch to give the old boy a ride round on the Sunday, I couldn't help feeling that taking him back to the battlefield at Bosworth was a trifle tactless. Couldn't he have gone to Twycross Zoo or Foxton locks instead?

June

The Revd Hughes was determined to undertake missionary work among the tribes of the Upper Welland Valley:

he tells me he has arranged for a locum vicar to take Divine Service and visit the sick whilst he is away. “He’s young and keen and believes every word of the Liberal Democrat manifesto is the literal truth.” I eye him levelly: “It’s not Farron, is it?”

The next day Lord Bonkers' fears were confirmed:

It is Farron. I find him in St Asquith’s taking down the signed photograph of Leicestershire’s 1975 County Championship winning team from behind the altar. 

"Let me make a few things clear from the start," I tell him. "We are not going to sing 'Shine, Jesus, Shine,' you are not removing the pews from the church and I am not going to kiss the person next to me – unless it’s Alan Beith, of course."

August

Relations with Tim Farron remained a little strained:

This morning, when I pass by St Asquith’s to make sure that no more gargoyles have fallen, he stops me to ask why I insist the choirboys have rifle practice every week. 

What a question! He wouldn’t be asking it if a snap by-election were called.

And Lord Bonkers also met Alex Carlile:

"I hear you’ve been asked to serve on the committee that is going to review freedom of information legislation," I say brightly. 

He looks at me suspiciously: "Who told you that?"

September

As the Revd Hughes returned to St Asquith's we learnt more of Lord Bonkers' involvement in the film industry:

Today I attend the Oakham premiere of a film I helped finance: ‘Straight Outta Nick Compton’. It tells the story of an opening batsman who is unjustly treated and records the controversial single “Fuck tha Selectors” as a result. I see from its evening edition that The High Leicestershire Radical (which I happen to own) has given it five stars.

While his foreword to the new Liberator songbook referred back to the general election:

I don’t know about yours, but here in Rutland our election night party Fell a Bit Flat. It was barely past midnight when the band struck up the Dead March from ‘Saul’ and things did not get much more cheerful after that.

November

Complaints about 'political correctness' on The Great British Bake Off led Lord Bonkers to spill the beans on Mary Berry:

I can exclusively reveal, ‘Red Mary’ has been behind every politically motivated strike, every violent demonstration and every act of industrial sabotage in Britain for decades. And who do people imagine baked the macaroons for the Angry Brigade?

December

The tradition of decorating the domestic staff for Christmas was maintained at Bonkers Hall.

Lord Bonkers opens his diary to Jonathan Calder.

Is there any longer a point to the Liberal Democrats?

A question many people are asking after the rump of 8 Lib Dem MPs agreed they would all vote to prop up David Cameron's latest attempt to bomb Syria.

As a Liberator Collective colleague put it.... ' I have no idea where to start - I fluctuate from anger to despair.  Even if you put the arguments about Syria themselves to one side...'.  And on the basis of the tests by which the Lib Dems said they would decide whether or not to back air strikes in Syria, they have absolutely not been met.  In particular, there is no post-Daesh plan that would even fill the back of a fag packet, and no sign of British efforts to lead an international diplomatic consensus.

Both Farron and Clegg have changed their tune in barely two months.  Take Clegg (no - please, please do.  Preferably to his natural home.) In October he wrote in the Evening Standard that 'dropping bombs on a country without a workable military approach on the ground made little strategic sense.  On the substance on which we based our collective decision in 2014, nothing has changed. If anything, the evolving circumstances make air strikes less justified. All there is on the ground in Syria is chaos, blood and anger. We would simply be throwing more bombs into a furnace..... playing catch-up with other people’s bombing raids is hardly the most effective way of doing so.'  Yesterday he jumped the gun on the whole party by blurting out to Sky that it would back the Tories, as if he were still leader.  I am told that colleagues were furious.  My response is that his behaviour is at least consistent for him.

The damage to the Liberal Democrats, however, is political.  "The Conservatives... with support from the DUP and the Liberal Democrats..." is what the media will record of today's debate and vote.  The toxic accusation that the Liberal Democrats are simply propping up the Tories will still apply.  Not a single Lib Dem MP is recognising that almost three to one Lib Dem members currently, as it stands, oppose action at this stage; the party is the only one (apart from the DUP) whose name is absent from the counter-proposal on the order papers today.  While we should not be fooled by claims about the late Charles Kennedy's actions in 2003, the public will see the Liberal Democrats trashing the political legacy on intervention and Iraq, while backing action that repeats the same mistakes.

It seems Liberal Democrat MPs have learned nothing of the mistakes of action in Iraq and more recently Libya; nothing of their mistakes from the Coalition Parliament; and have understood nothing of the gaping chasm in opinion between them and the party members that have worked hard to get them elected.  The reaction of those members - many of whom didn't receive a single email from the party on how it would approach the issue - is of utter dismay.

It is no surprise so many party members are asking: what's the point?

Glee Club: 'the best night ever' (Sky News)

This week's Glee Club was a great success, with the biggest attendance ever.  Our supply of the Liberator Songbook sold out in record time.  Onlookers seemed to enjoy it.  Even a journalist from Sky News called it "the best night ever" (and on being challenged she did not say she was being sarcastic).

We have remembered two good friends at Autumn Glee Clubs who have recently departed us.  Simon Titley was on the front cover of the 2014 Glee Club Songbook and Charles Kennedy was remembered on the front page of the 2015 Glee Club Songbook.  Charles was remembered fondly.  We spoke to his family to see what their view was about the many songs about him before printing the songbook.  They said that he would have wanted us to keep on singing about him.  We did sing the song "Song in Praise of Charles Kennedy" although we did not sing any of the other songs.   We did remove the Skye Boat Song from the songbook we did not get a response from the family before the songbook went to press.  The "Song In Praise of Charles Kennedy", written by another dear, departed friend (Harriet Smith) was sung with passion and genuine affection.  Charles was always 'more singed about than singing'.   He will be sorely missed.

Members of the Glee Club will now find a Facebook group they can join.  There will be more - much more - in 2016 as a certain famous song celebrates a significant birthday!

Those after a copy of the 26th and biggest ever Liberator Songbook should click this link for details.

London Lib Dems reveal Assembly shortlist

Those with connections to the more enterprising candidates may already have noticed this, but the party in London has released the shortlist of candidates to be London Assembly members in 2016.  Liberator understands this was due to a delay after one excluded candidate was reinstated on appeal.

The list is:

Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett

Annabel Mullin

Ben Mathis

Brian Haley

Caroline Pidgeon

Dawn Barnes

Duwayne Brooks

Emily Davey

Marisha Ray

Mark Platt

Merlene Emmerson

Pauline Pearce

Rob Blackie

Stephen Knight

Teena Lashmore

Zack Polanski

It includes at least 6 candidates from a BAME background and the gender split is 50/50: two encouraging signs.  Most of the names will come as no surprise including the two incumbent AMs.

Notable by their absence are libertarians who have been making a lot of noise about policy in the London Assembly about the stance to the taxi business Uber. It will be interesting to see whether this becomes an issue.

Guest post: How To Win The Fightback

What a depressing time for Liberalism Thursday night was. I believe strongly that we as a party should now all get behind Tim Farron to be the new leader and begin the fight back.

However, the first step must surely be to admit where we went wrong. Going into a coalition in itself was not a mistake as it showed we were prepared to put our money where our mouths were. But we voted through so many awful policies, such as tuition fees and secret courts that we should have blocked, while allowing the Tories to veto all the key reforms we proposed - electoral reform, Lords reform and minor changes to the treatment of drug users.

Giving up our historic position as a party on the centre left who back well-funded public services along with a strong commitment to individual freedom, and swapping it for a vague, mealy-mouthed, neither one thing nor the other approach was also intellectually weak and tactically inept. When I spoke to voters on the doorstep over the election period, many naturally Tory and Labour voters who had previously lent us their vote said they would be unable to this time for fear that we put the other ‘lot’ in. To regain the trust of voters we must be prepared to stand up for what we think and what we would achieve in Government, not just what we would try to block.

Our current obsession with cutting taxes must also surely now come to an end. Not only does it go against the fundamental principles of progressive liberalism to continually want shrink the state, it is economically illiterate. By continually ‘taking people out of tax altogether’, not only do we take away people’s stake in the public services they use, but we have also punched a huge hole in the UK’s income tax take, thus worsening the structural deficit that those supporting tax cuts claim to want to cure.  The misguided Tory pledge to enshrine 'no tax rises' in law naturally creates the space for this debate.

We must also reverse the process of watering down our policy commitments; if the swing to UKIP tells us anything, other than a huge dissatisfaction with modern politics, it is that voters like politicians who say what they think, rather than say what is acceptable to focus groups. The Liberal Democrats used to back the legalisation of prostitution and of soft drugs, for the obvious reasons that it is not the role of Government to ban personal activities, but merely to regulate them properly to reduce harm. But the former is now never mentioned at all and the latter has been replaced by a commitment to stop treating drug users as criminals and start treating them as patients.

The road back to relevance and power will clearly be a long one, but rediscovering our soul and purpose must be the first step. I dearly hope that under Tim's leadership, the points I make above can be addressed. If they are not, I fear for the future of our party.

Nic Bourgueil is a Lib Dem member and former member of staff in London, writing under a pseudonym for work reasons and expressing a personal view.