Kennedy: Lib Dems will be the ‘real alternative’
The Liberal Democrats will win votes at the upcoming election by claiming that they – not the Conservatives – are offering a ‘real alternative’ to a Labour government, party leader Charles Kennedy said on Saturday.
In his keynote speech to the party’s spring conference, Mr Kennedy said the party would remind voters that they had been the only ones to ‘stand up’ to the Government over the war in Iraq, control orders and immigration.
“The Liberal Democrats have emerged as the real opposition to Tony Blair’s Labour Government. The real opposition to an illegal war in Iraq. The real opposition to Labour’s authoritarian instincts. The real opposition against student top-up fess, against poverty pensions, against the council tax, against false choice in our public services,” he said.
Mr Kennedy told the audience of party activists: “They [people] want a real alternative to Labour. At this general election, the Liberal Democrats will be that real alternative.”
He admitted the party had had to work hard in the last parliament to be taken seriously as a political force, but insisted they had not just done that but also overtaken the Conservatives and Labour in many areas.
The Tories were “out of the race” in Scotland, Wales and most of urban Britain, and voters ‘tired’ of Labour had turned to his party in Liverpool and Newcastle at the last local elections.
The Liberal Democrats would appeal to people who had marched against the war but felt ignored by the other parties “standing shoulder to shoulder in defence of George Bush” and who wanted a “truly independent” political party, he said.
And Mr Kennedy told his audience to aim for “more votes, more seats – and beyond that no glass ceilings to our ambitions”.
The need for the Liberal Democrats’ ‘principled’ opposition was shown by their success in helping force a change of heart from the Government over control orders, he added.
“All too often with this Government, when presented with a genuine problem the instinctive response is an authoritarian one.”
Mr Kennedy said he would not enter the row over pensioner Margaret Dixon – whose cancelled shoulder operations have dominated this week’s headlines – claiming that such campaigning was demeaning to politics.
“So far this campaign has had all the hallmarks of the kind of spin that turns people off,” he said.
“The slanging match between Labour and the Conservatives – as they both scrabble for headlines – demeans our politics.
“What people want are positive solutions to sustain and strengthen our National Health Service.”
