Thursday, May 14, 2009

Liberal Vision: moving beyond simple attention seeking?

I wasn't wildly impressed by Liberal Vision's first incarnation, and its subsequent total lack of activity. It did look like a simple attempt to attract attention, after all.

But now it's back, from outer space, I just walked in to find it there with that look upon its face. There are more people involved, there's a blog. They claim to be in favour of the sort of things that I'm broadly in favour of - lower taxes, smaller government, more freedom.

And yet, and yet, I'm not going to join. Why not? Because I have a sneaking feeling that there's another agenda here. I could be wrong but, ladies and gentlemen, it's up to you to prove me wrong. The first effort was poor, the follow up worse still, so you've got a bit of catching up to do.

Good luck, all the same, as I always enjoy a meaningful debate...

6 comments:

Haribo said...

Thanks Mark, in true Scout fashion we'll do our best!

Oranjepan said...

I've got no problems with different agendas, what I want to see is results.

LV want LibDem success. Good.

Neil Stockley said...

What do you think the "other agenda" is?

Mark Valladares said...

Neil,

Fair question and, since you ask, I'll answer it.

The chronology of events led me to believe that the agenda was to promote the personal interests of individuals rather than their ideas. The timing of the launch, and the subsequent 'deafening silence' made me suspicious.

So I need to be convinced. Nothing wrong with that, and the consequence of a botched launch, methinks.

Mark Valladares said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Left Lib said...

What LV want is for the Liberal Democrats to be a libertarian party. They believe that that is what the Liberal Democrats by definition stands for. They believe that libertarianism and liberalism are fundamentally the same.
The policies proposed by the frontbench treasury team of the Liberal Democrats, with Vince Cable at the forefront has recently included nationalising the banks as an emergency measure. Libertarians believe in the opposite, the banking crises was caused by too much regulation rather than not enough. It is essentially the same as those US Republicans who opposed GW Bush's efforts at an economic stimulas package.
It also goes further than the British Conservatives in their opposition to the stimulas package in this country.
Up until now they have not had the guts to confront Vince Cable on this. But if they were running the treasury team, the Liberal Democrats would be a very different party to how it is today.