Remember May? Remember those existing days between the election and the birth of the coalition. David Cameron’s conservatives were scuttling into government but I didn’t matter because the Liberal Democrats were going with them. They were going to stop the Estonians from tearing down the state.
Since New Labour swept to power in 1997 political parties have become brands. Before May the Liberal Democratic brand was clear, it was yellow and it stood against nuclear weapons, the Iraq war, and tuition-fees they also wanted to change the voting system. Now that the Iraq war is over and the Liberal Democrats are in power all they had to do was haggle with conservative agenda to live up to their public image. It seems that only area in which they done this is in changing the voting system. In return for a seat at the top table they got a referendum on this subject, however if the polls are to be believed it will fail rendering Liberal Democrats useless.
Not only are the Liberal Democrats now seen by the public as useless but since they started actively campaigning to increase tuition fees they are also seen as hypocrites and lyres. In April every single Lib-Dem MP signed a pledge promising to vote against any increase. Nick Clegg himself described raising fees to £7000 a year as “disastrous” and only seven months later is set to vote to raise them to £9000.
All this has rendered the Lib-Dem brand on a par with BP, if this carries on then by the next election it could be as highly regarded as Enron. They have always been seen as irrelevant but not they are also seen by many as deceptive, spineless and two-faced.
The only way from Liberal Democrats to save their brand (and any chance of re-election) is to rebel against the tuition fees hike. The party is currently closer to power then any time since 1922, with PR disaster this bad they might have to wait another 88 years to get it back again.
