John Pugh MP: “The party has got to recover its base in cities like Liverpool”
SOUTHPORT MP John Pugh said he believes his party has “iron in its soul”, during the first public seminar in the Ideology and Contemporary Politics series entitled, Where next for the Liberal Democrats?
John Pugh, who has represented the historically Conservative Southport seat since 2001, told an audience of staff, students and the general public that “finding myself in coalition with the Tories was a little bit odd for me – I’m used to the Conservatives as the enemy”.
The former teacher, and leader of Sefton Council, faced tough questions from self-proclaimed Liberal Democrat voters who said they were disillusioned with the party’s direction of travel, alongside general criticism of its support for unpopular Conservative policies such as the so-called Bedroom Tax.
Recalling his experience becoming part of a Sefton Council administration with no overall control, John Pugh said: “When we became part of a coalition government, I thought, this is my game, I can play at coalition. But it wasn’t what I particularly wanted because whoever was coming in would be faced with a huge financial crisis.
“Really, the last election was the one to lose, because whoever won it was going to have to introduce a series of unpopular measures, and wouldn’t necessarily get the credit.”
But the Southport MP said the chance of a referendum on a new electoral system – the alternative vote – made any deal worth it, even if it meant supporting Tory measures like, Police and Crime Commissioners, which he described as “one of the silliest things I voted for”.
The Liberal Democrat MP took questions on the party’s role in Government, his views on equal marriage, the bedroom tax and electoral prospects
Now, almost three years later, John Pugh said the landscape has changed and the “naí¯ve, misplaced faith in the benefit of markets” has been challenged.
He said: “We’ve got to the stage now where I think this market philosophy is busted, and isn’t going to deliver us where we need to go next. The Conservatives are agonising over this to a certain extent, and that’s why the legislative programme has slowed down. If you look at Andrew Lansley and his health reforms and Michael Gove and his academies, the pace has slowed right down. People are thinking long and hard about where we are.”
But he said that doesn’t mean the party is anxious to jump straight into bed with Labour: “It’s all very well Labour saying Government is cutting too far and too fast, but how far and how fast? I don’t think ‘the two Eds’ would have got it any more right.”
The Southport MP said he believes the Lib Dem vote will “hold up much better than people will expect” but struck a cautious note on future prospects.
John Pugh added: “The party has got to recover its base in places like the North and North West, and cities like Liverpool. We’ve got to move in that direction and if we don’t move in that direction, we’re simply not going to recover. There would be a genuine danger that we would just become a party of the regions, like the South West and Scotland.”
The next seminar in the Ideology and Contemporary Politics series, Labour and the Future of the Welfare State: A Discussion is free to attend and takes place in Seminar Room 5 of the University of Liverpool Management School on March 8, from 2.30pm – 4pm. Speakers to be confirmed. For more information, email k.hickson@liv.ac.uk
