*Record scratch*
*freeze frame*
Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.
Well yes, Lib Dems, that’s exactly what I’m wondering. How has a party descended from the Liberal and Whigs, once one of the two major parties in Parliament, come to this? How have you ended up with only twelve MPs and Vince Cable as your leader?
How has the party that claims to inhabit the centre ground, whose raison d’être was to be the foil to the two extremes either side; the cooling yoghurt raita bringing balm to the nation after an ill-advised vindaloo and heavy night on the beer, ended up with VINCE CABLE as leader?
“Maybe no one else wanted the job… But still. Vince. Sodding. Cable.”
Vince Cable—the man so incompetent he sold off Royal Mail for a grand total of £3.3bn, only to see the share value bounce up to £5.9bn within 3 weeks (and that’s not even mentioning the ethics of selling off yet another public asset).
Vince Cable—the man that Twitter can only describe as dull. The man whose most popular attribute is that he’s not a Brexiteering homophobe (which is, let’s face it, an extraordinarily low bar).
Maybe no one else wanted the job. I can understand that-it’s a thankless task being in politics at all at the moment, let alone taking on the singularly thankless task of being Lib Dem leader. But still. Vince. Sodding. Cable.
“If you ask me to predict what happens next, I’d have to say: nothing much.”
It pains me to say so, but it seems like the Lib Dems are treading water; just putting off the inevitable. The party in its current incarnation has inherited a legacy of snatching disaster from the jaws of, if not victory then at least a positive outlook, and it has been decimated and grown again so many times I’m not even sure that it has the strength to overcome this latest setback. A giant tree falling in the forest creates the space for those waiting in the wings to come forth and show themselves–but Tim Farron was hardly a giant overshadowing his fellows, and Cable, yet another middle-aged white man, isn’t exactly diversity personified. Nor does he have the necessary charisma to really push the party forward into a new era.
If you ask me to predict what happens after the freeze frame ends and the action starts again, I’d have to say: nothing much. This feels much more like a damp squib than an action movie.
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Image provided by University of Essex
