PoliticsUK

Charles Trevorrow today spoke at a town hall in Bootle, the seat with the highest Labour vote-share in Britain. Lib Dem HQ had briefed the media that the new leader was undertaking a tour of the country’s safest constituencies, pitching to those in deep red, deep blue, and strongly nationalist areas his party’s anti-establishment message - The Breakthrough Tour.

He took to the stage, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, with a wide grin, to an audience primarily comprised of the public. Press attending had been briefed that he would answer questions from anyone who wanted to ask, without vetting, as part of truly trying to hear local voices. The hall was full.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all so much for attending. It is an absolute pleasure to be up here today, and I hope, on my end, a bit of a statement of intent. Britain is a country with a corrupt political system. Politicians feather their own nests rather too much in this country. And one of the most egregious examples of that failure of a system is represented in the concept of a safe seat. For far too long, in our politics, there has been a void of leadership in breaking past that barrier, that concept, that some seats are a fiefdom for one party, and that some areas will only ever have one representative.I’m here today because I feel that is an artificial and undemocratic system. And I want to pitch an alternative.

“Labour have not delivered on their promises. That reforming spirit, that desire for change, that landslide to kick out an unpopular and scandal-ridden Tory government, that has left the Labour Party. They are a soulless version of that ambition all those years ago. There is no desire to change, just a desire to deflect, and to govern without purpose. The tolerance of cronyism and corruption is no better than what we had before on that front. And I am sick of it. We need reform, but we also need a fundamental shift in our treatment of individual politicians. To that end, I am calling for a proper background check on all MPs, with publicly available information on their interests, expenses claims in detail, criminal records, and tax records. People should know who they’re voting for, as well as what - we can’t have another Mandelson incident.

“Also, it is a fundamental principle for me that every single vote should count the same. Whether you be in the farthest reaches of the Isles of Scilly, the heart of London, or on Merseyside, a democratic system is one which treats everyone equally. Where there is no pride or prejudice instilled in our voting system. I am aware that for years and years the Lib Dems have gone on about proportional representation, but you know what, it matters. In Bootle, last election 88% of votes made zero difference to the outcome. 88%. Whether you are Labour, Liberal, or even - perish the thought - Tory, round here, the system the main parties have imposed totally devalues your vote.

“There’s a common misconception that I hear from time to time about voting reform. The idea that it’ll hurt you if you back one of the bigger parties. In a seat like this, that could not be farther from true. Seats like this are frankly ignored at the moment. It is shameful how little attention is paid in Westminster to parts of Merseyside, and believe me, as a Cornishman, of a strong local identity, I know what being ignored and far from Whitehall feels like. We don’t have to put up with this. But as I form my policy platform as leader, you know, I don’t want to do what I abhor - have it come from my little office in London - I want it to come from you, the public. If we are going to breakthrough in every single seat, we are going to have to listen, and be the only party that does so.

“So that is what I plan to do. This is the first visit on my tour of the country. The safest Labour seat, the safest Tory seat, and the safest nationalist seat in Britain. These are the places where voters are robbed of a real say by our electoral system. Where politicians can’t be bothered to come most of the time. I don’t want to lead like that, and to hide from the public like Labour and Tory politicians have spent years doing. I want to listen, but more than that, I want to hear. And with that said, I will now happily chat to anyone here and go around the room, before me and my team are going to go out and knock doors in a patch we’ve never done it before. Let’s win people over with human, decent politics. Let’s break the mould of British politics once and for all.”


Trevorrow stayed in the hall for 90 minutes, answering questions and keeping the public entertained with witticisms. Him and his team then went on a tour of the local high street and businesses, before knocking doors on a renowned local council estate, with a gaggle of local press following closely behind.

The next visit on the tour is scheduled for Huntingdon, the Conservative seat with the largest vote-share, followed by Banff and Buchan, the highest nationalist vote in Britain.

Let me do a little arithmetic before I start. In the 2001 General Election, the Liberal Democrats secured 4,124 votes in the Bootle constituency. If we were to be generous and say that 20% of those were paid up members of the Liberal Democrats, that leaves you with a total membership of 825 people in the entire Bootle constituency who are members of the Liberal Democrats. Let's say that 80% of those people wanted to come out to this speech and made it. That leaves you with 660 people in the audience. Now, of course, you might have some non-affiliated people coming out to hear what you have to say, but in a non-election year, in a seat like Bootle where everyone and their mum is a Labour voter, this would be, largely, the number of people you have attending.

I say all of this to illustrate a point: the Liberal Democrats are at an all-time high in terms of national support and, in a lot of seats, are sitting just on the precipice of victory. Bootle is not one of those seats. Had you gone, say, to Wiltshire North, or Cheadle, or, even, Sheffield Hillsborough, then that would make sense. If the Liberal Democrats want to repeat their stunning 2001 performance, and grow off its back, these are the places they need to be targeting. Not f***ing Bootle.

On to the speech itself.

Similar to what was said previously, when you're in the heart of Labour country, slagging off Labour is not necessarily the thing to do. You may want to show how you're similar to, but better than, Labour, but slagging them off is probably not the right tact. You very much did choose to slag them off and the people in the crown who are not Lib Dems were probably very much unhappy. In fact, I foresee them, in their glorious Scouse way, interrupting you frequently to make fun of your crisp suit and "southern" accent.

Another point about this is that, under a PR, Bootle's Labour vote share is so immense that they would still only elect Labour MPs. If I were choosing a location to talk about proportional representation, it would be in one of those seats I mentioned previously, where the vote share is very close between all three parties, but only one party gets the biscuit. Not somewhere where the majority is so big, it could be halved and the winning party would still win. I know that you tried to pre-empt this critique in your speech, but the reality of the situation is that people in Bootle are pretty happy to have a Labour MP. You did hit on a good note when you talked about the safety of the seat meaning that Bootle is way down the priority list for public investment, and that did earn you some cop with the locals.

To be fair to Trevorrow, the press had been briefed and some of them did come to watch so the speech will have some impact on the national stage. But it is difficult when there are two leadership elections in the major parties going on to get your slice of the national attention. So while leadership acclamations are good as a show of unity, they do have a downside.

Overall, this speech was decent, but it was in such a brain-scratcher of a venue that it has had little to no overall effect. As I said earlier, my advice is to focus your efforts on those seats where you are just a hair's breadth away from winning (note: they're almost all Tory seats), and nevermind your country-wide crusade to bring reasoned argument and civil discourse to the great unwashed masses. They don't want it, and they aren't going to take it from you.

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