Where do we go from here - Cllr John Marriott reples to Richard Kemp

Richard,

I read your article with great interest. Like you I have not as yet succumbed to the blandishments of Sarah Gidley and her malcontents. However, despite your defence of our decision to get into bed with the Tories after the last indecisive General Election and the obvious achievements accruing from it, even you must surely accept that some major errors occurred both before and after the 'Union', and I don't just mean the pledge on tuition fees.

I get the impression that our leaders at Westminster are being badly advised. Who, for example, sold them the idea of a referendum on AV and then allowed them to be hung out to dry by the "No campaign", which shamelessly used the image of Nick Clegg about to enter Number 10 as the main reason for opposing a change?

Who wrote Nick's 'script' for the debates with Nigel Farage with excruciating phrases such as "we are the party of IN; his is the party of PutIN"? Then, when asked how he envisaged the EU in ten years' time, his answer was "more or less the same". With that one answer he lost the pro EU movement thousands of votes and missed a golden opportunity of articulating the concerns that many citizens of Europe, myself included, share.

We can never again be the party of protest. We now join the ranks of other Liberal Parties in Europe, with core support ranging between 5 and 10% (sometimes less in the case of Germany's FDP). With core support for Tories and Labour at around 30 and 25% respectively, we start from further back in our attempt to woo the remaining 35% who are classed as floating voters - and that assumes a 100% turnout, which is never likely to happen.

I have no doubt that Nick Clegg is sincere and even brave; but, like the David Steel puppet in David Owen's pocket, he is for ever tarnished in the eyes of many voters. Can he ever be rehabilitated? The only relief is that things could have been so much worse. Had the Royal Mail been more on the ball with those postal votes that fateful weekend, we could have ended up with Chris Huhne as our Leader. Do you get my point, or should it be points?!

Can we claw ourselves back? Only if we rewrite our script. With the same Leader? That is the $64,000 question. One thing is certain, the age of multi party politics has arrived and all of us had better get used to it!

We have District Council elections in Lincolnshire next year as well as the General Election, not that we have many seats to defend, let alone gain. If we are to keep what we already have we need some good news from Westminster. Whether having a new Leader would help is not up to me to decide. However, we cannot afford any more cock ups, both political and personal.

Yours,

Cllr John Marriott
Lincolnshire County Council