What about Chris Rennard?

What about Chris Rennard?

I ask this question because while everyone is concentrating on Labour's fifth place, I think the Liberal's performance in Henley is actually more interesting.

A tepid second place in a seat so promising that the Tories were worried about calling the by-election in the first place.

I understand that the relationship Chris Rennard enjoys with Nick Clegg is not as close as that he has had with previous leaders and - though this rumour may be wrong - I've been told there was a disagreement over the choice of candidate in Henley with Clegg insisting on the man from out-of-town over Rennard's protests.

Rennard's a talented guy who has made a big difference. There are people who'd pay good money for him. Maybe now for the first time he might think of saying yes.

Could this be the end of an era?

Comments

[Revolting Peasant]

Lib Dems did bad as they're LaBoor in disguise. Yellow communists.

[Julian Fountain]

I'm not sure the LibDems have that much to feel bad about: if the Labour vote round the country collapses like it did at Henley what are they looking at in terms of council and Westminster gains? Has anyone done the figures yet?

[SK]

The Lib Dems will only have power when the Tories have been in for a term, have mucked things up worse than Labour and people dont know who to vote for. The only thing they have ever been consistent on is not going to war in Iraq, but they never offered alternative action.

[Sweet Pea]

The Lib Dems turned on the people, and the people are now turning on them.
They PROMISED a referendum on the EU constitution/treaty but only 10 of them were honourable enough to keep their promise.
Why on earth would any vote Lib Dem? Just like Labour, they can't be trusted.

[Henry]

This looks like mischevous nonsense from an ex Tory hack. Given that in most polls the Tories are around 10 points ahead of where they were in 2005, their performance in Henley was pretty modest. And the LibDems did advance...

[Chris Rennard]

I have posted some of my own comments on the post Henley debate within the Lib Dems on Lib Dem Voice:

http://www.libdemvoice.org/chris-rennard-writes-about-the-henley-result-2935.html

In relation to Danny's personal point, he shouldn't be taken in by Tory mischief making !

Our candidates are actually chosen by our members - and there was certainly no disagreement between Nick and myself about any aspect of this campaign.

As for the result, fighting the Tories in a very Tory seat when the Tories are very high in the polls should be compared with when we had to fight Labour in by-elections in the mid 90s.

Both Crewe and Henley show that the Lib Dem vote is rather more robust these days than was the case then.

Henley showed us holding our own against the Conservatives - with the possibility of us making progress against them in some seats at the next GE.

But the overall pattern of May 1st, Crewe and Henley shows that the Lib Dems are extremely well placed to make large numbers of gains from Labour at the next General Election (just as we made 28 gains from the Conservatives in 1997).

I intend continuing to drive this process - and am working as closely with Nick on this as I did with Paddy then !

[Simon Stephenson]

SK

Iraq

The one thing you can be absolutely certain about is that if the Lib Dem vote against the war had had any chance of being successful in preventing our participation, they would not have voted in this way. It's only in the certain knowledge that we were going to war come what may that they decided to seek a few Brownie points from those who were not prepared to evaluate the potential economic and strategic consequences to this country of denying the USA our support at this time. However many reservations we may have had about doing so.

LibDem only promised on constitution because of the daft ideas like EU-flag waving. With that out most LibDems were satisfied with a treaty which brings in more transparancy and less bureaucracy to Europe.
LibDems did vote, however, for an InOut referendum, which Tories wimped out on.
Also, pro-proportional representation, strong green agenda, potential voting for 16yr olds...there's plenty there which explains why so many of us vote LibDem. Clegg is not an effective leader, however and is not held in as high regard as Rennard, who is reponsible for the strong by-election results over the years.However, I think the Henley results are quite promising for LibDems considering the hysteria engulfing politics at the moment which LibDem haven't played stupid games with compared to the Tories (I will agree that election strategy can be snide, but that's the same with all parties, let's face it). This is falling on deaf ears though, isn't it, to people who think we're yellow communists? hmm.