Liberalism? It’s been tweaked and polished and sold by the Tories

This election showed something precious may be going from our nation

Nicola Sturgeon, Angus Robertson, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron commemorate VE Day anniversary

Nick Clegg was grief-stricken as he delivered his valedictory statement. It was both personal and burningly political. His leadership had been bullwhipped, the party roundly thrashed; voter fears and grievances had been encouraged and exploited, “liberalism” was waning, possibly expiring here and across Europe. A worthy speech, genuine, and, as ever, well enunciated. But his views on liberalism are, frankly, bunkum.

This weekend, the Tories and their many journalist chums gloated and sneered at “leftie liberals” who do not understand the needs of “the people”. So are the Tory leaders and their supporters illiberal? No, no, they would say. Old and new conservatives fought (and would fight) wars for liberty, for the right to live as one chooses, not to have an interfering, domineering state. These days they even tolerate gays, don’t you know?

Liberalism is like a beige scarf which can be worn with any colour or outfit, to make different, sometimes contradictory statements. One version of liberalism, ardently supported by the Lib Dems, gave the Tories victory; far from dying away, it has been renewed in this savage election, polished up and sold to millions. Britons were told over and over that under the Tories they would have fewer rules and laws stopping or tempering what they wish to do. The exit from the EU so many seem to want comes from this desire. No more planning permission, no more industrial tribunals, no more political correctness, no more anti-discrimination laws, no more human rights laws, down with health and safety. What bliss awaits them. The rewards for all this deregulation would be piles of cash.

Think of David Cameron, pumped up and promising low taxes, more money in our pockets, so we can spend, spend, spend; and George Osborne enabling pensioners to cash in their pensions so they can do the same. In Toryland, there is no such thing as society, and citizenship is obsolete. Economic liberalism casts Britons as consumers and money-makers, or losers and scroungers.

One online business dictionary provides this useful definition of liberalism: “A concept that government should not try to control prices, rents or wages, but instead let open competition and the forces of supply and demand create an equilibrium between them, that benefits the vast majority of citizens.” So when Ed Miliband announced rent controls and mansion taxes, it was spun by the Tories into an assault on essential, nay, defining British rights and liberties. Liberty has tremendous resonance for most Britons. It is their identity, a deep folk memory of the Magna Carta, resistance to tyranny, the small person against the big state. Modern Tories cleverly use liberty and liberalism to justify unbridled capitalism: go aspire, make profits, the government will not bother you, it is your birthright in this free and liberal nation.

Some aspects of social liberalism are also alive and doing rather too well. Society has become more permissive. Sex toys are sold on high streets and nobody minds. Commuters read Fifty Shades of Grey without embarrassment and the objectification of females is seen as smart, cool advertising. Young feminists are skilfully using online networks to protest and stop such adverts. They got pernicious billboards showing the perfect “beach body” banned from Tube stations. Those enraged by the campaign accused the feminists of Stalinist tactics and crimes against a liberal society. Voters who abandoned Labour and the Lib Dems included millions of such economic and social liberals.

These same liberals, I reckon, are wary of an entirely different brand of liberals who emphasise the greater good and campaign to protect equality and civil rights, a tradition that arguably goes back to the anti-slavery movement. This liberalism is an optimistic creed. It enhances human generosity, virtues and tolerance, expects the state to protect vulnerable citizens and to respect autonomy. Our anti-discrimination laws would not have been passed were it not for that greatest of liberal politicians, Roy Jenkins – a committed, true egalitarian, an ardent European and human rights champion. That benign, corrective, caring, sharing liberalism may indeed be dying. If that was Clegg’s warning, it wasn’t clear and, in the end, not persuasive. He is partly responsible for what has happened.

Edmund Burke warned that when the fabric of a state is ripped, society soon gets disconnected “into the dust and powder of individuality”. Selfishness has been embedded in British society; the rich live by their own rules while the poor are reduced to subhuman status. The revolution started by Mrs Thatcher was completed by the Coalition. Lib Dem figures who had been in government attacked Tory policies during the election, policies that were patently unfair. We saw this turnabout and laughed bitterly. Vince Cable confessed it bothered him that new regulations and charges made it harder for workers to take up cases against bad employers. Why did he not speak up earlier? Clegg similarly could have but didn’t leave the government when Tories decreed the state could spy on us all, have secret trials and stick innocent migrants into detention centres. Liberalism for Nick and Co was a flexi-loan.

This election showed something precious has gone or may be going from our nation. Not liberalism – some species of which are overactive – but social democracy, which had moral purpose and was, for decades, the basis of the state’s obligations to the citizen. It tamed the market, strove for equality and a just society. Even Adam Smith, guru of the free market, saw the need to offset self-interest with a benevolent instinct which would “produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole race and propriety”. There is no harmony of sentiments any more. Divided we are and divided we will fall.