The Liberal Democrat's Perpetual Crisis

So Labour's won a by-election. Fuck-a-doodle-doo. It's only a seat that they've had since 1997 - which is also the year when this particular constituency was created. Honestly, you crazy labour types - you're going to have to do better than this at the next General Election if you want to win back Number 10.

But what amuses me is the Lib Dem response to this by-election defeat (man alive, Elwyn Watkins must be massively tired and hacked off by now). We have had Nick Clegg attempting to achieve great new things in the realm of platitudes by noting that "it's a challenging time for Liberal Democrats". Well yes, yes it is. For the first time ever, you have political power. And it hasn't been as easy as it looked to be when you were carping from the sidelines, eh?

But then again, when haven't the Lib Dems been facing challenging times? The drop in support owing to their coalition with the Tories is only the latest in a long line of crises. In fact, since the Ginger Drunk resigned, they've had nothing but crisis after crisis. There was the post-Kennedy leadership debacle contest that ended with the election of the least charismatic man in history as Lib Dem leader. The fall of Ming the Merciful so soon after his election allowed the party to choose Nick Clegg as their new leader. And, lest we forget, Clegg said and did nothing as Lib Dem leader until he was allowed to debate with the big boys (well, both Brown and Cameron are a little portly) on TV. And as a result, his party was lucky not to lose a large proportion of their seats at the last election; any chance of a breakthrough was simply hype.

Pretty much since the Ginger Drunk jumped on a populist bandwagon by (quite rightly, in retrospect) opposing the Iraq War, the Lib Dems have been in crisis. So these may be challenging times for Britain's perennial third party, but that is nothing new for that party. They've lurched from crisis to crisis for the past few years like a political version of Gordon Brittas; this election result is nothing more than business as usual for the ever amateurish Lib Dems.

Labour's "Resounding Victory"

You can tell when a party is really down on its luck when a win that should be taken for granted is hyped as a "resounding victory." Put simply, Glasgow North-East would return an over-ripe turd to Parliament if it was fighting the election under the Labour banner. After all, they sent a pig in a suit to Parliament many times simply because he claimed to be a socialist.

This isn't a victory for Labour and for Gordon Brown; it is a victory for inertia and the inability of the people of Glasgow North-East to work out that things don't get better, no matter how many times they vote Labour.

However, I'm not going to carp on too much about this. Let Labour claim their "resounding victory"; let them have their moment of tenuous glory. Because come the next General Election, I don't think they will be in a position to claim any sort of a victory, resounding of otherwise...

LPUK and Norwich North

The votes are in and counted. And, let's be honest, Norwich North was not a good result for LPUK. To come 11th out of 12 with just 36 votes makes me wince slightly. Actually, it makes me wince a lot. 

Yet, realistically, this sort of result was inevitable. It wasn't down to the candidate - who proved to be an eloquent spokesperson for the party. It wasn't down to a lack of funding, or poor organisation. Sure, there will be things that the party can learn from this defeat, but in retrospect the result does have the air of inevitability to it. Basically because an untested and - outside of introverted and introspective world of blogging - largely unknown party was contesting an election with an absolute plethora of candidates. As brutal as this sounds, I reckon the results show that few people in Norwich North knew who we are. And of those that did know us, even fewer cared. 

So LPUK looks at a steep, uphill battle to not just win Parliamentary elections, but to actually overcome the first hurdle of becoming credible candidates in those elections. Norwich North suggests that the party isn't going to be allowed any shortcuts, and it will be the long haul if it wants to become a player on the national stage. Which kind of makes sense as well. After all, it took the Tory party - the dominant force in UK politics throughout the 1980's - nearly a decade to become a credible alternative to Labour after the Tory defeat in 1997. And how long did it take for Labour to go from fledgling socialist party in the valleys of Wales to the landslide winning behemoth of 1945? Yeah, Norwich North and the lessons of history show that it is going to take some time before the UK's Libertarian Party becomes a credible political force in this country. 

But you know what? It isn't just bad news for the party. Because whilst bugger all people in Norwich North put their "x" in the right box for LPUK, it is still a massive step forward for the party. Before now, we were a party that hadn't fought a Parliamentary election. Which is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard. Now, we are a party that has done very badly in a Parliamentary election. Soon enough we'll be doing ok at a Parliamentary election. And so on. Until we are actually in a position to win one of those fucking things. 

Baby steps in the long road to power, to be sure. But fuck it. As small as those steps are, at least the party has started to move in the right direction. 

The Norwich North "Debate"

Norwich North candidate Craig Murray has got himself into a tizzy about not being invited on to a BBC debate between the "main candidates" in the Norwich North by-election:

The local BBC are broadcasting a live TV debate between the "Four Main Candidates" - none of whom has anything interesting to say - on 22 July at 22.15. I am excluded lest I say something voters might actually care about.

Of course, there's nothing quite like a would-be parliamentarian being slightly petulant to win the voters over. I wonder what Mr Murray will do next - perhaps sit in the corner and rock back and forth, muttering that they are all against him.

However, despite the tone of Murray's post, there is a real problem highlighted by Murray. Firstly, out of 12 candidates, the BBC have selected four to be the main candidates. Why four though? Why not five? Or six? And what selection criteria did they use? Something about past and present electoral history in the area. But what if Labour wasn't in the main four parties most likely to win this election? Would they not be invited to the debate? And what if the BNP or UKIP were one of the four parties riding highest in the polls/electoral history? Both scenarios are a possibility in some areas, but I suspect that Labour would still be in the debate whilst other parties wouldn't get the invite. 

Because these aren't the "Four Main Candidates". These are the representatives of the Four Established Parties. The Four Mainstream Parties. Three of those parties represent a simple maintenance of the status quo with minor tweaks, whilst the Green's represent a mad yet strangely fashionable combination of communism and environmentalism. They are not the future - they represent the past and the really rather crappy present. Whilst the focus on these parties might discount the loopy candidates, it also discounts other small parties who have a valid point to make and who are just starting to contest elections.* Besides, in the interests of free speech, shouldn't the loopy candidates be able to have their say in debate as well?

The grudging concession on the BBC precis of the programme that there will be "comments" from the other candidates in the broadcast does nothing to dispel the gross favouritism shown to the parties of the status quo. You could argue that the BBC is in charge of its own programming, and therefore can decide what to stick on our screens. But the BBC is a public service funded by those who pay the licence fee. And their clear bias in their "debate" creates the perception that there are only four real candidates contesting this election. The reality is somewhat different, and if the people of Norwich North really want a change, then the BBC should be prioritising the views of the lesser known candidates rather than burying beneath the bland statements of the parties of the status quo. 

*Yep, I'm talking about one party in particular here. Obviously.