Remember Cleggmania? That brief period pre-2010 general election when slogans of “I agree with Nick” and Obama-esque placards of his face with the word “Hope” emblazoned next to it were the Facebook cover photo of students across the UK?
The days of a Tory-Lib Dem love-in with laughing and joking in the rose garden are over. And it looks like, short of a minor miracle, Nick Clegg, and his party in Scotland, are about to face near wipe-out.
Scotland’s political compass has been shaken to the core and the post-indy ref repercussions are only now starting to become clear.
Much of the spotlight has been focused on the rise of the SNP and fall of Labour in Scotland, but we shouldn’t forget about the Lib Dems. It’s easy to forget they were not so long ago a major political force in Scotland and in the last general election won 57 seats with 23% of the vote across the UK, making them the third-largest party in the House of Commons.
In Scotland they became a party of coalition, going into government with Labour twice at Holyrood, but that all changed in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election. Then the party won one fewer seat than in the two previous Scottish elections the first parliamentary election for 28 years in which the party’s parliamentary strength in Scotland was reduced.
But then, as history has shown us, coalitions don’t always increase your popularity.
It’s a little known fact that the Lib Dems have actually never won a parliamentary seat from the SNP, and the SNP won almost every one of theirs in the 2011 election. The same thing is about to happen in 2015 if the SNP continues to work hard to deliver on the public mood.
Yesterday’s Lord Ashcroft poll analysing 16 key Westminster seats showed the SNP winning 15 of them.
Two of these are seats currently held by Lib Dems, chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander’s seat in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, and the seat of Gordon.
Nick Clegg can almost be forgiven for not remembering his Gordon candidate’s name he referred to Christine Jardine as ‘Justine’ given the Ashcroft poll shows she doesn’t really stand much of a chance against Alex Salmond.
He, in turn, has described the Lib Dem seat of North East Fife as the “fulcrum” of the general election where their former leader Ming Campbell is standing down.
A former colleague of mine, Stephen Gethins, who was also a special adviser to Alex Salmond, has been selected for the seat, showing a serious statement of intent from the SNP.
When asked about his party’s prospects in their traditional strongholds in Scotland Nick Clegg described polls as “fake science” saying: “It’s not going to happen. These predictions of Lib Dem wipe-out it’s nonsense, it’s just patent nonsense.”
Apparently the Lib Dems view the polls as an indication they are best placed to stop the SNP in Aberdeenshire and the Highlands. An interesting theory, but it sounds like they are reaching for anything to give them a glimmer of hope.
As we know, ignoring the problem doesn’t help the situation. You need to face your reality to overcome it.
The truth of the matter is the first post-war coalition at Westminster hasn’t worked out for the country or for the Liberal Democrats.
In the State of the Nation poll in the Sunday Herald on Westminster voting intentions, the Lib Dems had the highest proportion of people saying they would never vote for them again at 66 %, even higher than the Tories who were at 64%.
It takes a lot of work to become even more unpopular than the Tories in Scotland. But it seems as a party the Lib Dems have lost their way.
People just don’t know what they stand for anymore. There was a time when they stood for personal liberty, for social responsibility and for electoral reform. They were not beholden to the trade unions like the Labour Party or to big business like the Tories.
They held seats across Scotland, from Gordon to Argyll, but that is about to end.
As did, abruptly, their flagship policy of not raising tuition fees, on which all 57 of the current Lib Dem MPs signed a pledge, but which was one of the first casualties of their coalition deal with the Tories.
It’s no wonder people in Scotland have lost trust in the Westminster parties. And who can blame them? Failing to deliver on the Vow, then a Vow Part Two sequel which will also bomb at the box office, has made them look unbelievable.
So get your felt tip pens at the ready. If the SNP can transform the public mood into votes at the polling stations, the colour of the political map of Scotland is about to seriously change for this upcoming Westminster election. The Lib Dems will be one of the first casualties, and may even see themselves practically wiped out in mainland Scotland.