Night of the Living Lib Dems: lessons from the conference

The Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre sits outside the city, with a petrol station to one side and a lonely McDonald’s to the other. 

It is isolated. It is vaguely unsettling. It was the perfect setting for the Lib Dem conference. A party not so much left out in the wilderness (the natural home of the Greens) as abandoned next to a service station on the outskirts of Bridge of Don.

And between the setting and the members, the conference took on a post-apocalyptic theme – like the aftermath of a zombie attack. In this case, though, the zombies were inside the building.

The Lib Dems shuffled around inside, neither alive nor dead – able to mumble plans or, like Danny Alexander, announce fictional alternative budgets, but with no real idea of what they were doing. 

"Of all the party conferences to be killed and eaten at, the Lib Dems would definitely be the worst"

There is no easy way to say it – but Danny Alexander appears to have Stockholm Syndrome. His speech, opening proceedings, even used the same lines on the SNP as David Cameron.

He said: “Why would you let a party that not only wants to break up Britain but bankrupt it at the same time take control of the UK? It’d be like putting Jeremy Clarkson in charge of the Foreign Office, or Nigel Farage in charge of the European Commission.”

This was confusing (who knew Clarkson wanted the Foreign Office disbanded) but Alexander saved his best line for last, advising us, “Don’t believe those who write off the Liberal Democrats. Let me tell you. I’ll be back. We’ll be back. And because of us, our country will be back too.”

This was basically the message in every speech for the next three days – everyone thinks we are dead, but we are not. We are the undead.

The Deputy PM appeared on the Friday afternoon, despite having promised he would, continuing attempts to resuscitate his loyal zombies. A flu-ridden Nick Clegg announced: “I’ve heard the predictions. I’ve seen the polls. But let me tell you this: we will do so much better than anyone thinks.”

Which is a reassuring if apparently baseless claim. 

Willie Rennie came on the Saturday, likening the Lib Dems to a part of the body which sits “somewhere in the middle and out in front”. 

He meant the nose.

Next, he boasted of the Lib Dems’ role in the Smith negotiations. He said: “This is a Liberal Democrat agreement. When nationalists wanted to go too far, we held them back. When Tories did not want to go far at all, we pulled them along. And when the Labour Party were divided, we showed them the way ahead.”

The reaction was good, even if there were only a hundred or so there.

But then conferences are odd things. While the grandstanding speeches are often the political equivalent of a dry heave, with lots of noise but little substance, there is also opportunity for normal members to  shine. 

One of the most disturbing moments came when one delegate, apparently on the verge of tears, asked the audience, “how would you feel if someone came and just locked the doors to the hall?”

Well, not good. Not good at all. He meant it as a point about illegal detention, but who knows how far they would take it? 

In fact by that point there was no sign of the leadership. A chilling moment of realisation ran through the audience. What did they know that we didn’t?

Imagine it – an eternity, locked in a weirdly warm, slightly sweaty hall, full of Lib Dems, with Willie Rennie grinning as he announced the “fairest, strongest” way to decide who would be eaten first.

Of all the party conferences to be killed and eaten at, the Lib Dems would definitely be the worst – who knows what they would do with your body? You can run, but you can’t hide from Paddy Ashdown. Especially not a zombie Paddy Ashdown.

Your only hope would be that Nick Clegg would turn up, give a cast-iron promise to eat you, then get confused, set you free and end up buying you lunch instead, all the while denying there had been a U-turn.

"There is no easy way to say it – but Danny Alexander appears to have Stockholm Syndrome"

But at least Ashdown did his best to insert some energy into proceedings, colourfully describing Alex Salmond’s new book as the “longest exercise in literary masturbation since politics began”. 

He qualified this by adding he was expressing his view “not as a political leader in any way” – though to be fair, this could apply to anything any Lib Dem ever said.

All in all, it was pretty gross. But finally, Sir Malcolm Bruce was left to insert some dignity into proceedings. 

Taking the audience through the changes he has seen since being elected in 1983, he said: “Scotland is frontrunner to be the location for the UK’s Spaceport. This will mean that the SNP will have direct access from Scotland to whatever planet they live on.”

The members are obviously fond of Bruce, and he did a half decent job of rousing them from their slumber. He ended by telling them: “It is our job to win through for Scotland, for Britain and for Europe. I know we can do it. Let’s get on with it.”

Zombies – attack!

Tory sketch here

Labour sketch here

SNP sketch here