I would suggest ‘Middle-class Ineffectual Nobodies in Government and Economics’, but I fear more scurrilous types would condense the name to ‘MINGE…

Brands stand for values, so the name does matter.

Parties or websites or companies can describe themselves as all sorts of things but it they don’t resonate with the wider public audience then support declines.

‘Labour’ is in decline because they have consistently denied the value of labour, while the inability of the Conservatives to poll at a level to see a swing required to gain a secure majority stems from suspicion about how Camerons ‘progressivism’ denies conservative values. All this can be seen in how it results in a leaking of membership, donations and support to other parties.

For all the hoohah from the libertarian and left-liberal wings about how the LibDems don’t represent liberalism it seems this is denied by their steadiness at all levels.

My worry about this site is not that the brand is bad, but it isn’t accurate enough and this is holding it back from doing better. The criticisms about how the stated values aren’t consistently represented in practice should therefore be a serious cause of concern.

Are the attack posts philosophically coherent with these values? Do they offer enough scrutiny and balance, or are they in fact too polemical?

I’d be interested to see a series of articles discussing what liberalism means today so that participants can tease out these brand issues and help move this site forward.

LC has a built a platform from which it could have a much more significant influence, but the pessimism about the potential for reaching a mass audience is effectively a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Q: When will we see progress?
A: When so-called progressives start putting their words into action.

We ALL know he thinks we need LOTS more!

I took the title to be ironic. The Right always accuse the media of being part of a ‘liberal conspiracy’.

‘Labour conspiracy’ doesn’t have the same currency.

I think it’s a great title. I mean, what does ‘pickled politics’ mean?

Scrapping trident, or ID cards or various forms of tax relief are not “spending cuts” per se. They are policy changes, and large ones at that too.

Policy changes which, absent any other policy change to increase spending in other areas, would result in an overall spending cut, surely?

“Spending cuts” can, do and will manifest as policy changes but it is usually a code word for shrinking the welfare state, cutting benefits, and stigmatising those in receipt of aid from the state.

This would all be a lot easier if we used words and phrases to mean what they actually say, rather than what they might be ‘code’ for. You’re almost saying that we can’t even discuss cutting Trident because it will somehow end up harming benefit recipients.

It’s difficult to discuss, because although there is a lot which could be cut that should be, this is not usually being discussed when someone mentions “spending cuts”

This puts me in a bit of a pickle, because I want to discuss spending cuts without people assuming I want single mothers to starve.

I’m sorry if I’ve misinterpreted what you mean, but I think it’s one of the following:

1) There are ‘good’ cuts that could be made, but even admitting the possibility of cuts cedes rhetorical ground to those who want to make ‘bad’ cuts, therefore we can’t do it.

2) There’s no need for any overall reduction in government spending at all, and therefore it’s wrong to call cancelling Trident a ‘cut’ as it would simply be a ‘policy change’ that results in the Trident money being spent on something else, with the overall spending level staying static or rising.

I’m not sure that I agree with either. I’m not an economist, but the need for some cuts in public spending seems inevitable – though I’d like to hear some arguments about why that’s not the case (and if we don’t have to cut spending in the next few years, under what circumstances would we have to cut spending? How bad would the public finances have to get?).

Given that, I’d rather focus on identifying those things that should be cut anyway. What happens to the money gained by cutting spending on the things I identified (most of which is taken from Vince Cable’s list) is a matter for debate that should be made by people who know more about economics than I do. If it really isn’t necessary to cut the national debt then I’d like to see the money directed towards education and welfare reform (uh-oh, I’ve used another code word…), but I assume we’re going to have to start reducing the debt at some point, if not now then at some point in the future.

That’s ‘progressive’

Lib Dems, Sunny, as you well know, simply disagree with the left’s most frequent definition of the word “liberal”, which is “things we like”.

So let them waffle. Probably better for the collective blood pressure of we few remaining left-wingers that read the Guardian, bearing in mind just how much in love with Cameron that bunch of numpties have become.

Yes Alix, Rob said “As James says above, none of this is new.” and above in this thread I ask, rhetorically, whether this is a new development. This leads me to believe that he was referring to my comment, but I could be wrong. Let us see what Rob says.

I think we have some wires crossed. My comment is totally irrelevant to the discussion you’re having with Alix. That discussion is:

1) Original post by Dave
2) Alix questioning whether the site can still be called ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ and run articles debunking liberalism
3) Paul Sagar responding to Alix saying that LC also runs pro-Lib Dem pieces
4) Alix responding to Paul by saying that the piece
he was referring to – by James Graham here is relatively unusual and doesn’t prove anything much

Neither my comment nor yours really had anything to do with it. I think you might have got the wrong end of the stick in assuming that Paul and Alix were talking about your comment, when in fact they were talking about James Graham’s post.

A case in favour of threaded comments, I think!

First, 90% of people who challenge it are Libdems who think the word ‘liberal’ should only apply to them. Secondly, it’s successful in the sense people know of the site – whether they agree / disagree with editorials is an entirely different issue. Some people wouldn’t see me on the left either because I’m not anti-capitalist. And lastly, it’s a brand-name that’s stuck. I’m not changing it despite however people keep coming here to make smart-alec remarks.

Scrapping trident, or ID cards or various forms of tax relief are not “spending cuts” per se. They are policy changes, and large ones at that too.

“Spending cuts” can, do and will manifest as policy changes but it is usually a code word for shrinking the welfare state, cutting benefits, and stigmatising those in receipt of aid from the state.

It’s difficult to discuss, because although there is a lot which could be cut that should be, this is not usually being discussed when someone mentions “spending cuts”

LeftOutside – you’re dead right, the “People’s Republic” bit is completely tongue in cheek. It is directly ironic in a way that “Liberal Conspiracy” isn’t, because I am in favour of anything but a People’s Republic and all that that entails. Liberal Conspiracy was chosen as a mischievous response to the perpetual right wing cry of “There’s a liberal conspiracy running Britain”. It wasn’t chosen because you are in favour of anything but liberalism (or so you keep telling me). That’s not irony. The equivalent to PRoM would be if you were calling yourselves Liberal Conspiracy but were actually all right-wing fascists.

You’re also dead right in saying that there are liberals posting on LibCon. But the common denominator between the contributors here is not liberalism, and it’s not Labour either, it’s being on the left. That’s why it still puzzles me. Why not Lefty Conspiracy? That would genuinely link all the contributors. I wouldn’t contribute to a site called “Fascist Conspiracy” if the editors told me, it’s ok, we have some liberal contributors here too.

Sunny, I’ve seen this particular defence from you – “it’s just a brand name” – before. It also puzzles me, because I would have thought you would collect from the large numbers of people querying it/not understanding it/arguing about it that it’s not a terribly successful brand name on some level.

Agreed. I’ve never argued there should be a blanket policy on state intervention. One of this site’s regular contributor is the small-state Chris Dillow. Yet I’ve never seen Alix (or other Libdems) come here when he writes and say this site is now a Libdem supporting site.

No, state intervention isn’t out of fashion – and the polls will prove that. But I do think there’s an argument to be made that state intervention in many cases and targets has been pretty ineffective.

Certain kinds of intervention are out of fashion. Micro-managed targets and incentives for schools and hospitals are out of fashion and for good reason. Intervention in the economy is more fashionable now than before. Intervention in foreign countries is becoming increasingly unpopular. And so forth.

This reminds me a bit of the debate about spending. A lot of people argue in principle against spending cuts, even thought there is lots of wasted spending (Trident, ID cards, regional development agency budgets, pension relief for high-rate tax earners, tax credits/fuel allowance for people who don’t really need them) which should be cut even if there wasn’t a recession on. In the shouting match that follows, we often forget the simple solution of cutting back ruthlessly on those elements of spending which are unnecessary and protecting the core operations of government (which includes fully funding healthcare and education).

Likewise, it’s not sensible to have a debate about the overall levels of state intervention. Instead we should decide which individual interventions are worth keeping and which are to be ceased. Only extremists on either side would make a blanket claim about what we should do.

But when did the two terms become mutually exclusive?

New Labour’s record on civil liberties has been reprehensible but people like Sunny Jeremy Corbyn or Sunder can easily be described as liberal as well as labour leaning or supporting.

Labourism is part of Liberalism too.

(I appreciate it’s tongue in cheek, but are you going to change the People’s Republic of Mortimer’s name? commie!!!)

You say: I just don’t know why you’re so quick to leap to the defence of the word “liberal” as a part of your identity.

I’ve explained this like a million times – it’s a brand name. An ironic one, and one that people can choose to project however they want. I don’t know any other website where so many people come just to tell us purely we’re not sticking up for their version of liberalism while not accepting the point of why ‘liberal conspiracy’ was actually chosen.
Isn’t that ‘why haven’t you guys started calling yourself ‘Labour Conspiracy’ schtick getting a bit repetitive now?