WHEREVER Tim Farron leads the Liberal Democrats, he will struggle to leave the party in a worse electoral state than the one in which he found it. The party conducted its leadership contest, which culminated today with the announcement that the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale had taken 56.5% of the votes, in something of a daze. At the polls on May 7th Lib Dems lost 49 of their 57 parliamentary seats; roughly one for every five weeks of the coalition’s five-year duration. Nick Clegg, the architect of that electorally catastrophic gambit, resigned immediately. Whether Mr Farron or his rival, Norman Lamb, won the contest, either would now face the hard task of recovery and reconstruction.
Mr Farron, an amiable former university administrator on his party’s left-wing, divides opinions among Lib Dems. There are two main schools of thought on what his leadership means. His fans start by arguing that Mr Clegg was disastrously close to the Tories in government and picked too few fights with them. The party, they argue, needs shock therapy: a highly charismatic leadership concentrated resolutely on reviving its campaigning ability. Mr Farron,...Continue reading
via Brian Rushton, But what is it for?
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