THERE'S NO POINT TO A THIRD PARTY...:

The Lib Dems need to show distinction to avoid extinction (New Statesman, 16 September 2010)

Before the general election, we were attracted by the idea of a "progressive alliance" between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. With Labour badly beaten under Gordon Brown, however, Mr Clegg opted for coalition with a Conservative Party that is ideologically committed to rolling back the enabling state. The Lib Dems' national poll ratings have fallen from 23 per cent on election day to just over half that - 12 per cent - according to a YouGov poll published on 15 September. One in five people who voted Lib Dem in May say that they will vote Labour next time, according to another recent poll.

The third party's fortunes have long depended on a sense of distinctiveness - what Mr Clegg, before the general election, called its "equidistance" from Labour and the Conservatives. The challenge for the Lib Dem leader is how to make coalition politics work and ensure that this parliament lasts the full five years, while at the same time demonstrating that his party remains an independent force. He will be well aware that the Liberals failed to do so in previous coalitions and were instead subsumed, on more than one occasion, by their Tory partners.

...when a major party is always Third Way.

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Posted by Orrin Judd at September 16, 2010 6:29 AM