LIBERAL DEMOCRAT campaigners learnt more about the water of life … thanks to an MP.
Last Tuesday, Wokingham members gathered for a whisky tasting event, where the special guest was Alistair Carmichael, the MP for Orkney and Shetland.
“I’m born and brought up in Islay, which is one of the biggest whisky producing areas of Scotland,” he said.
“They have very distinctive single malt whiskies.
“I represent Orkney and Shetland, which has two exceptionally famous single malts, Highland Park and Scapa.”
Mr Carmichael also spoke about his work as an MP, and current events – however, it was before Liz Truss resigned as prime minister.
He told Wokingham Today that the current atmosphere in Westminster has been febrile.
“In all the 21 years I have been a member of parliament, I have never seen anything like the last few weeks,” he said, adding that it was “utterly bizarre” that the leader of the house – former University of Reading Students’ Union president Penny Mourdant – was sent to answer questions instead of Liz Truss.
“If you go to 70,000 feet and get the bigger picture, I think in Westminster a lot of chickens are coming home to roost and what I would call the laws of political gravity are starting to work again,” he continued.
“Boris Johnson was famous for talking about cakeism, having your cake and eating it, but we all know you can’t. This government since 2016 is so underpinned by the sense of entitlement that they think they can have it.
“When you see Conservative ministers like Jacob Rees Mogg briefing against the Bank of England ignoring the Office For Budget Responsibility, and reacting to the market reaction as if this was something nobody could have foreseen, when it was obvious what was going to happen, it is quite a remarkable time.”
And with the opinion polls suggesting the Conservatives are losing ground, “It’s good for anybody who’s not in the Conservatives,” he said.
“But there is a wider national interest at play here. We have a war in mainland Europe, we have a cost of living crisis that has been made worse by, for example, mortgage rates on their way up.
“If evere there was a moment when you needed a government to act in the national interest, and do it effectively, this is it. And we just don’t have it.”
Mr Carmichael said that when he was in the 2010-15 coalition government, “difficult decisions that you really didn’t want to take” were needed to “reboot and stabilise the national finances again”.
“We paid a heavy political price for that,” he said. “But the Conservative have indulged themselves and, as a consequence, have thrown away the good work that had been done to get the economy back on track.”
In an interview with the BBC’s Chris Mason on Monday, the then Prime Minister Liz Truss apologised for the events of the past few weeks.
“I wanted to act to help people with their energy bills, to deal with the issue of high taxes, but we went too far and too fast. I’ve acknowledged that. I put in place a new chancellor with a new strategy to restore economic stability,” she said.
But she resigned on Thursday.
Mr Carmichael said the Liberal Democrats was now a party on the up after several years in the wilderness.
“I was part of the coalition government for five years. That was about taking decisions in the national interest – difficult decisions that you really didn’t want to take, but you knew it was necessary and in the national interest to reboot and stablise the nation’s finances again,” he said.
“We paid a heavy political price for that. But that Conservatives have indulged themselves and, as a consquence, have thrown away the good work that had been done to get the economy back on track.”
He was optimistic that Wokingham could change hands at the next general election.
“This is a seat that has been strong for the Conservatives for decades. As a consequence, they have taken it for granted,” he explained.
“If you go back to the Brexit vote, it was a strongly pro-EU vote, but John Redwood thought he could just disregard the views of the electorate.
“It is one of the consequences of the electoral system we have that parties can sometimes take constituents for granted. That’s when politicial disaffection sets in.
“But when people see there is a real prospect, as I think they’re probably seeing here now, change is possible – they are engerised, and they’re excited by it.
“I’m pretty sure that’s what you will be finding here.”
Mr Carmichael said such a vision made him feel quite excited as well, and quite optimistic.
“When people say to me, come out to Wokingham on Tuesday night and talk to local party members, and support our campaign, I say, ‘yep, what time’s the train?’”
He also had concerns over local government spending powers, saying central government had salami sliced budgets since 2015.
“AS a consequence, we have a situation where it feels that local councils are left with responsibility, but without power,” he said.
“Cuts are not to a council’s budget, it’s a cut to schools, it’s a cut to social care, youth services, roads, streetlighting … you name it. That’s where it’s felt more sharply.”
