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The Lib-Dems have been in my city for their annual conference. Things should be looking as sunny for them as the sunny weather that’s been enjoyed down here throughout the summer.

They’ve got a new leader. Traditional Labour and Conservative voters are unhappy with respective parties, so lots of protest voters to entice there. It looks like there won’t be a large majority at the next General Election, possibly even a hung Parliament with the Lib-Dems in a favourable position. They might even have a ‘remarkable’ by-election win in the meantime.

But hold on a minute, haven’t we been here before? Not once, but several times? Yes, things should be looking sunny for them, but just like the turning seasons, the summer sun is always followed by winter rain for the Liberal Democrats. They seem to be in a perpetual rut of being the minor third party, and a rut that follows a circular course at that, leading them back to where they started.

The problem they have is that they are addicted to chasing the protest vote. Every other election or so, when the level of dissent rises against either Labour or the Conservatives, they sponge up the disgruntled protesting voters in so called "Historic Victories". Vulnerable seats are targeted in this way and all their resources are thrown at them. Yet these gains are meagre – perhaps half a dozen seats at a General Election or a by-election win in the midterm. No matter what slant or spin they put on it, the overall effect makes no difference to the balance of power. Eventually the protesting voters return to the fold, the Lib-Dems lose the seat and are back at square one.

Compare their fortunes to that of the Green Party. Ten to fifteen years ago Green Party members were ridiculed as a bunch of muesli eating crackpots who lived in Hippy communes. Today they are respectable party, with an increasing membership (particularly with the young) whose policies are hitting the global mainstream and have influenced the manifestos of the major parties. Instead of chasing the short term solution of protest votes, the Green Party has focused on spreading its message to those people potentially amenable to their point of view. Slowly but steadily they have brought more and more people around to their way of thinking. A core vote, not temporary supporters whose votes depend on the current fortunes of the Labour and Conservative parties. It’s a method that hasn’t been lost on the BNP either.

The great irony of the Liberal Democrats is despite proclaiming themselves as the ‘party of change’ they have become the agents of stagnation. They act a political buffer solution, sopping up the votes of the discontent and rendering them innocuous. With no serious threat to the dual monopoly of power, it’s a situation the leaderships of both main parties use to their advantage. It is what allows a government to throw a deaf ear to the cries of the public on individual policies that the whole country is unhappy with. They know that the majority of their traditional voters would never vote for the opposition over a single issue, and the ones that are seriously discontented will waste their vote on a party that has no influence on the balance of power.

Just by existing Liberal Democratic Party is adding to the disengagement between the public and politics. The two main parties are strengthening their central leadership control over their MPs with the unwitting help of the Lib-Dems. Isn’t it time the Liberal Democrat leadership stopped pursuing the protest vote and started basing their election strategies on the strengths and weaknesses of their people and policies?

Nick, I take note of both Jason’s and Trevor’s comments. Whether or not protest votes go the way of the Lib Dems or the Protest Vote Party at the next election is not the issue here.

The point I was making was that the Conservatives and Labour make full use of the Lib Dems strategy of chasing the short term protest vote (much touted at the last election even though they did not manage to get the Tory ‘scalps’ they were hoping for). My beef with that strategy is that it allows the Labour/Tory government of the day to follow individual policies that the whole country is against without the drastic effect it should have. The 20% vote share may be steady but I would argue that the individuals that make up that number vary greatly year on year, depending on the popularity of the two main parties at that moment in time. My appeal to the Lib Dems was to grow as a party and use their resources wisely, to build strength not temporary victories.

The comment I made about the Green Party, and the BNP for that matter, was not an endorsement of either but a review of their methods of increasing their support. They are the two parties in the UK with the strongest growth over recent years, with the Green Party’s policies affecting the manifestos of Labour and the Conservatives, and have just this week become the cornerstone of Lib Dem tax policy. Surely something can be learnt from that?

Yes I did stand at the election, we entered the process late and it was a huge learning curve for a small number of people. Speaking at the hustings and had delivering leaflets by hand (circumstances stopped us utilising the free mailshot) I perhaps made contact with 1000 people – 313 votes was 3 times what we expected to get. This was our first effort, time will tell.