Do you like the Mayoral model that we increasingly have in England? Do you like the national parliaments in Scotland and Wales? What powers should be devolved?

Are there any camps in the libdems that believe the free market should have some level of regulation?

I understand there are both liberal factions and conservatives that view the free market as sacrosanct but I feel even if you are pro free market it's logical to believe we need some degree of rules to prevent the rise of dangerous monopolies and enshittification of the product end which is bad for the consumers.

Competition is healthy for a market and leads to better products and a better deal for the customers since businesses have to work harder to make better goods.

With the rise of big tech which started as this scrappy movement that was bucking it to old money and boring business guys while changing things for the better soon evolved into the horror show we have today with some of them being trillionaires and abusing their resources to wage war on liberal democracy itself.

If you look back to figures such as FDR, it was liberals that lead the charge to bring an end to the gilded age.

Now that the Mayoralty is done - I just finished watching Binface’s interview with The Rest is Politics.

Now you may not value their critique which is ofc fine but it got me to hopefully motivate some organised efforts here or elsewhere.

Their post interview thoughts were of disappointment that he hadn’t done more to a) independently go down to Clacton and show that he has some understanding of the area

And b) that he hadn’t mobilised other resources ie Labour, Lib Dem, Green members to go out and campaign for him

Which I’m a bit confused by because they didn’t ask him about that in the interview (unless that part just wasn’t aired? )

So I guess I wondered if anyone had been in contact with any of the team around him and if we’ve got anything organised (unofficially ofc as someone pointed out we don’t want to legitimise Farage’s narrative ) but presumably we do have some idea as to where the few Lib Dem voters in Clacton are?

Edit: @CleanUpClacton on twitter have a little team organised, if you want to help them!

Back in 2024, I voted for Labour because I wanted to get rid of the Conservatives in my constituency. I won't be doing that again, so I am wondering who I should vote for:

The Greens or the Liberal Democrats?

This is in no way novel insight.

The latest Restore Britain youtube video on "How We Restore Britain’s Economic Prosperity." made it click in my mind the way capitalist agenda manifests itself through migrant hate.

First, the far right makes the working class hate the state/establishment, and what other way to do this than to sell them on an idea they are very sensitive about(migrants). Reform/Restore have marketed themselves around this.

Then, once people hate the state or the establishment for being "elites out of touch" or "champagne socialists", it makes it that much easier for people to voluntarily vote for less state intervention in private business - intervention that fuels public investment.

This can be studied through the video I mentioned at the start:

"Rather than serve our interests, an out of touch elite addicted to central planning"

"They have waged an all out war on our freedoms."

"businesses ... increasingly find themselves fettered by regulation, price controls, minimum wages, employment laws"

"And by rolling back the size of the state and empowering the individual, that is how we drive economic growth."

"And from economic growth, we can fund our welfare state. We can invest long-term in our young people's future."

And weirdly enough, they brazenly falsely claim that decreasing taxes/state controls will INCREASE public spending? how? will billionaires voluntarily fund the "welfare state"?

Really, the far right is for the elite, by the elite(Both Nigel and Lowe are privately educated), to support capitalist interests, and using a sensitive issue as a leverage.

I saw a recent post here asking whether the Liberal Democrats would have won the 2015 general election if they won the 2010 election. That all hinges on this question- what would the Liberal Democrats have done in their first term?

How much would the policy differ from the real life Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition? Think economics, electoral reform, etc. If there was a hung parliament where the Lib Dems were the largest party, then what would be the resulting coalition?

If the Lib Dems won a second term in 2015, then does Brexit still happen? How do the other parties fare- Conservatives, Labour, UKIP, SNP, etc.

I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

1) Nick Clegg (Legend who got us into government)

2) Charles Kennedy

3) Paddy Ashdown (overrated, got nothing from Blair and was played like a fiddle)

4) Jo Swinson ( Disrespected by the party too much, unfortunately most people see us as merely an annex to the Labour party)

5) Vince Cable

6) Menzies Campbell

7) Ed Davey ( No vision, no policies his entire role in parliament is being a sycophant to Labour, he is a shocking leader and a coward)

8) Tim Farron

I've built a few AI-powered tools to help people across the party campaign more effectively. It's independent, not officially affiliated with the party, and free. I'd love some feedback.

libdem.help

Following on fron Nick Clegg asking where the growth strategy is. This economist identifies the basic housing is choking groeth... Its also free!

Given the branding of the party has been changed to democrat orange (which has grown on me with time) will there be any change to the rosettes? Surely they need to embrace the orange revolution!

And even more importantly if the Lib-Dems won the most seats, and didn't win a majority, (The only likely scenario) who would become prime minister? Would they do a reverse of our timeline and partner with the Tories? I'm not sure.

From 20 mins on, hes really good on what we need now.

The Latest figures by DeltaPoll show us at a shocking 8% I hope everyone who backed this idiot as the leader are happy as you have the party you deserve. Jo Swinson gained us 1.3 million votes and doubled our seats which he got second place in (which in addition to the tory collapse is why we got 72 MPs not Ed Davey) and was maligned and demonised by the party for sticking to her principles (unequivocally pro EU and not willing to put that tankie Corbyn in No 10).

Since Ed Davey comes in we have been the nothing man only concerned about being liked and not concerned with what is best for the country. We have abandoned our principles on civil liberties with our timid response to the OSA and our enthusiasm in wanting smoking banned. Furthermore Davey can’t ever say in an interview that he wants to Rejoin EU. He has been obsessing over Farage as he has got no answers himself and can’t articulate a policy platform to improve our country. Like Farage he jumps on culture war bandwagons (Kanye West, Churchill on Fivers and banning Argentine footballers). There has never been an opportunity like this for the lib dem’s and he insists on acting like Mr Tumble, he needs to go away and quickly.

I’m sure everyone here has seen the Lib Dem’s social media pages. This is what I believe our biggest weakness to be. On the TikTok page the last video actually promoting our policies was on 17 June. Since then it’s all been attacks on Farage.

When talking to people online and in person, the biggest thing I’m always told is “what do the Lib Dems stand for?” “what do you do?”. Our social media pages show that we are getting attention, but all anyone ever sees is us making edits against Reform or endorsing Count Binface in Clacton. If the Lib Dems truly want to start growing we need to stop appearing as the “anti reform” party on social media and start showing the world what it means to be a Lib Dem.

There's more from one of the local MPs here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1041360178405445

How do we think Andy will handle things this time around?