Tiverton and Honiton - an impressive Lib Dem victory powered by deception, misogyny and personal attack?

The by-election result in Tiverton and Honiton is a truly "well done" achievement for the Lib Dems. Hats off to them for their single point of focus on achieving this by-Election coup. My interest was stirred because I wanted to start looking at alternatives to the treacherous Mark Harper in the Forest of Dean and, while I may hope that Boris turns the country around in the next two years and wins a glorious second term, it is necessary to plan for all eventualities. I wanted to find out what voting for a Lib Dem candidate would mean and where it might lead me when the time came for a return to "better politics".

What did I find?

First thing that became apparent was that even having a Lib Dem candidate involves means receiving a lot of paper and putting up with a load of road side signs scaring the horses. Probably worse was Ed Davey always referring to Boris Johnson as a liar. That became "yes ok we've got the point" and was in my opinion childish and wearing.

The candidate himself, Richard Foord, seemed like a nice guy and, as much was made of his military career (having achieved the rank of Major) together with the leadership qualities that would allow him to bring to Westminster, that was the area I decided to look at first.

A Military Career?  

I've written a bit about various leadership styles but I can honestly say I have never worked for someone schooled in the art of front line command and control, so I was intrigued how such skills would transfer to the totally different world of consensus management. I put the question directly but never got an answer. A bit of digging revealed an unsubstantiated mention of Richard's role being more "educational" than combat. Of course I needed to investigate that so I started to refer to the "military acumen of Mr Chips", inspired I think by the image of Chips sending the boys off to war never to see them again, wasn't challenged and started to accept it was true.

This was confirmed a few days later with a video interview Richard did in a noisy garden centre tea-room; we've definitely got plenty of those in the Forest of Dean. The military role was described as educational but no further detail was given although it was clear that he had at least been in the same country as the combat troops. Better still this gave me my best moment of the whole two weeks.

Richard was asked to give three things that were of interest about himself - the sort of question I hear the equestrian media people ask when they want add a bit more depth to the person they are interviewing. One of the things he mentioned was that he was with the "Desert Rats" while he was in Kosovo. On the video you can see the journalist's face light up and they quickly came back and asked "do you mean those little mine seeking rats?" Richard had to patiently explain the significance of the "Desert Rats" to British history. I know it's not the journalist's fault but you do wonder.

They also managed to report that Richard was the grandson of a minor and not a miner (his grandfather mined lime). I wasn't going to go anywhere near that one!

So why the apparent deception about the Military career? Not wrong but not quite correct either in a "no rules were broken" kind of way. Why not simply say he was an Instructor if that's what he did? What was the spin?

As I became a bit more disillusioned with the LD campaign I realised that what they were trying to create was some sort of re-incarnation of Paddy Ashdown, the number one Lib Dem and a man who really had seen active service. Ultimately I came across a photo of Jo Swinson where she was reported as taking a senior role at a Management School so my strapline became

"You thought you were getting Paddy Ashdown but ended up with Jo Swinson"     

Farming in an Animal Free Plant-Based diet environment

Given the work I've been doing on the public license to operate question in equestrian sport, I've inevitably come into contact with some of the vegan green ideas about animal products in the food chain and the concept of animal ownership (as a sin) in general. So again I asked, given that this is a rural constituency, what is the LibDem approach to animal farming?

I wanted to know if they supported dairy, and were prepared to upset their Guardian reading, vegan, free all animals, soya latte sipping London LibDem elite, or were they in fact proposing a plant-based diet future?

Their policy when I found it was really trying to be all things to all men. Of course we have to protect the environment and watch discharges into rivers etc but when it came down to feeding the nation there was nothing to say this would be plant-based but that animals in the food chain needed to be respected (which is a given).

The plant-based animal free future is very much the future seen by the Green Party. So there is definitely some daylight between the parties there. Strange then that Devon Greens, led by the now vegan Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (last time I saw him he was stuffing pork sausages at River Cottage), were turning up on Twitter to vote for the LibDems in small numbers. Hugh stated that the chance of removing a Tory MP was worth sacrificing his Green Party commitments for. Very ethical.  

I expanded some of my thoughts in the following string of tweets: 

"I accept farming, especially for those with smaller farms, is feeling the pinch. Under the EU small quota became worthless, subsidies disappeared and environmental stewardship schemes became compromised because unfortunately “size mattered”. I can also accept that things haven’t moved as fast as people would have liked due to the last two years. However the fact is that the closer you are to power then the more likely you are to be able to influence the decision makers.

If T&H aligns itself with the LibDems (this was written Thursday morning) then it will have moved itself from the leading party at Westminster to the fringe fourth party. Richard will spend two powerless years, twiddling his thumbs waiting to be voted out at the next GE, and farming will be “levelled up” at the pace set by the Government - in other words nothing is gained, Devon farmers have lost influence, and you’ve spent the last week upsetting the good yeoman folk of Devon with your endless leaflet litter and annoying yellow signs.

Faced with this my throw away comment was that with their situation having been made worse farmers would choose to sell up (give up) and move on. They won’t because they’re made of sterner stuff, but nobody would blame them if they did.

Frankly I have been disappointed by the Lib Dem campaign of deception, misogyny and personal attacks, I had expected better.

We need to get back to better politics, and that applies to all parties."

Overall I was left without answers on my questions on Farming, other than this aspect of loss of influence. Whether they will be drawn towards a greener, vegan, plant-based future waits to be seen and will come down to where the balance of power sits in the party; a little bit like our next topic, Europe!

Europe

You don't have to spend much time on Twitter amongst Lib Dem voters to know that they are still hurting about Brexit. I knew Sir Keir Starmer thinks Brexit should not be reversed but I wasn't sure on the official Lib Dem position. This seems to be the domain of Layla Moran and her two conference papers, 2021 and 2022, show a slight watering down of a proposed realignment with Europe but resulting in strengthening trading ties. So more divisive times ahead, setting back the progress that has been made since 2020, and no clear sense of where this will end. (The Labour Party are similarly afflicted with in-fighting suggesting things are not settled there either).

To understand where they stood I asked the direct question "is it Lib Dem policy to take us back into Europe" - I got back two answers, one a forthright NO and the second a joyful IT MOST CERTAINLY IS. You don't get a much clearer answer than that!

Deception, Misogyny and Personal Attack

We've spoken about deception, this shadowy "military" career, misrepresenting the loss of influence for farmers, no clear picture for the future of animal farming and the disconnect between what they say on Europe and what they think. If you've voted for Brexit or shown any support for Boris Johnson you are used to personal attack for simply carrying out your democratic duty.

But the word I never expected to come up in a blog about the Lib Dems was misogyny. They have systematically gone out their way to attack the Conservative candidate Helen Hurford, closing in on any slip up or misspoken word with 4 second clips and cutting comments. She was asked for a plain jargon free answer, gave a plain jargon free answer and was then criticised for it. Ultimately you have to feel sorry for both candidates in this high pressure situation, but the way the Lib Dems singled out Helen for personal attack felt well out of order and unnecessary.

A credible effort

At the end of the day you have to accept that this was an excellent campaign by the Liberal Democrats and is not untypical of other by-Election results we have seen from them in the past. The advantage of being wiped out every General Election is that it gives you more time to prepare your candidate for the next election and if that is a by-Election, and you can mobilise your limited but enthusiastic support behind one candidate, throw in some tactical voting then you can win. The problem for the Liberal Democrats is that come the General Election they get squeezed out between the other parties as first past the post kicks in and tactical voting is not such an issue.

Will people still be having to vote against what they truly believe in at the next General Election?    

In conclusion

My level of knowledge has improved, I've had a few funny moments and I understand more about the Green agenda and what it will mean for my part of England. I think I knew that all politicians lie to the electorate to gain power, whilst claiming the ethical, moral high ground, and nothing has changed that perception. Clearly we're going to be swimming round the Brexit buoy for years to come so no hope of a period of stability to rebuild unless it is under the Tories, and that seems increasingly less likely. 

Somehow I don't see a return to the grey men and women of politics or better politics for some time to come.

Let us return to our sheep
©Harveywetdog

Misogyny Footnote

Liberal Democratic responded unfavourably to the suggestion of misogyny. It would appear that they have spent so long venting their hate speech against Brexit voting, Boris supporting Tories that it has become a new normal for them as such people don't count in their world. But hate speech against a man is a form of bullying and hate speech against a woman can be seen as misogynistic bullying.

As with all things there are degrees of severity but this is what I saw.

Author - David Robinson  

David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring

He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation

He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents

David is currently recovering from blood cancer but refuses to be a victim

All views are his own but might be influenced by the drugs he's currently having to take