Yes, there's a question about how long does it remain sensible to continue saying "I won't ever vote Lib-Dem again" (or Labour. or Conservative) when the event that turned somebody against them is several years back and most of the people responsible for the decision are no longer in politics. We have to vote in today's situation and on today's issues.
I really wish there was a ‘like’ button on this forum.
It's almost impossible under FPTP because a third party is pretty much condemned to win no more than a handful of seats and very rarely holds the balance of power. Unfortunately when that happened Clegg played it badly, and Swinson didn't do much better when she had a chance to grab the anti-Brexit vote in 2019. However, such is the disillusion with the Tories that the LibDems may be back in quite a big way after the next election.
For that to work, there has to be an acceptance that, whichever is the larger party, coalition policies must tend towards the centrist. Far too boring for our tabloids and yah-boo politicians. Good for stability when things are going well - trickier when they’re not.
That applied to most of our governments under FPTP, as most parties recognised that the voters on their own side of the spectrum didn't have anywhere else to go and the voters that were theirs to gain or lose were in the centre. This is less true nowadays, possibly because party members have much more of a say in policy, and pretty much by definition tend to be more radical than the average person voting for that party. With a proportional system the seats gained by a more radical party (left or right) compared with its more centrist counterpart gives an indication of what the public might actually want, free from the distortions caused by FPTP and tactical voting.
There was the attempt by Chukka Umunna, Anna Soubry and various MPs from both Labour and Conservative when they formed The Independent Group, later the Respect Party. All sorts of things were not in their favour, starting with a lack of funding and organisation, compounded by the anti-semitism in sections of the Labour party which had led to at least one of the defections and Umunna's strongly- felt desire not to have his past comprehensively raked over by the media when his name was put forward as leader. Whether if, say, Starmer and Gauke had gone over too, things might have been any different I don't know, though I suspect not.
Point of Order: Respect was a party started by the delightful George Galloway.
I was going to say Reform, before realising some other bunch hijacked the name. Should have looked it up - apparently Change U.K. was the forgettable name. I must apologise to Chuka and co. for libelling them by suggesting a link with GG.
