Rebranding
The International Monetary Fund was set up to deal with temporary liquidity problems created by a system of fixed international exchange rates. When that system fell apart, the IMF was left without a job. Rather than close shop, the IMF rebranded itself as essentially a second World Bank. Government agencies change their markets and rebrand themselves just as businesses do. So too do political parties. A case in point.
The Liberal Democrats are the outcome of a merger between the barely existing Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party in 1988. The SDP was founded by elements of the Labour Party who had rebelled against the left wing radicalism of the Labour Party. It was, in short, originally a party trying to position itself between the conservatism of Thatcher’s Conservative Party and a Labour Party that was dominated by the party’s left wing, people such as Tony Benn. (I mention Benn not because he was necessarily a leader, only because his views are better known than some other members of what is now called old Labour.) But Tony Blair and his confederates put a stop to that by putting a leash on old Labour. So the Liberal Democrats looked for a new market. And Charles Kennedy, the current leader of the Liberal Democrats, makes the rebranding as clear as can be:
I have the opportunity, when I meet President Bush this week, to put to him the concerns of millions of people in this country about the war in Iraq and the tragic consequences which have followed.
Presumably he means an end to the attacks on the Marsh Arabs. Or maybe he is bothered about all the uncovered mass graves, you know, grave desecration and all. No, no, that isn’t it. I’ll bet it is the loss to Iraq of Uday and Qusay. That must be it.
With Tony Benn marginalized, and George Galloway kicked out, the Labour Party is not as welcoming a place for the “let’s lie low and appease them, while we pretend to be moralists” crowd. So the Liberal Democrats are rebranding themselves as the party that welcomes the appeasers. How charming.