Zoe Williams’ sympathetic interview with Ed Davey ‘We didn’t show we cared enough. We won’t make that mistake twice’: Ed Davey on love, loss and the Lib Dems, 16 May) asks many pertinent personal and political questions, but omits the vital issue of whether the Liberal Democrats are a viable electoral force with an identifiable political philosophy. Is there such a thing as “Liberal Democratism”? It is now 35 years since the Liberal party voted to merge with the SDP. It is surely time to examine whether or not it was worthwhile.
At the 1987 election, just one year before the parties merged, their combined vote was 22.6%. Now, opinion polls since the party’s recent local election successes show a voting intention of around 10%. The party’s overall gains in the 4 May elections in England were certainly very noteworthy, but they hid poor results in the 16 largest cities; in these councils, the Liberal Democrats gained just six seats and only hold 113 out of 1,193 councillors. The difference is quite simply that to make and sustain a significant vote in the large wards involved in these cities requires a high core vote rather than just incessant local campaigning. The Liberal Democrats simply do not have a viable core vote.
