We are a Centre-Left Party, now let’s get out there and prove it!

I for one am very proud to consider myself on the centre-left of British politics. I believe that three years ago I joined the party of the centre-left. And I also believe that as a party of government, this party promotes a centre-left agenda and enacts many of its centre-left policies. Surely, goes the conventional wisdom this party must be the Labour Party. However it is not the Labour Party; I became interested in politics due to my opposition to what was then an authoritarian Labour government. No this governing party of the centre-left is the Liberal Democrats.

How can you say that? Many people will ask. Surely the Liberal Democrats are a Tory leaning party of the centre at best. Surely they can't be described as centre-left; after all they are in coalition with a centre-right Conservative party. They will say. No I'm adamant that many of the policies and principles of the Liberal Democrat supporters, members, MPs and government ministers are those of a genuine party of the centre-left.

I would argue that examples of such centre-left policies promoted by the Liberal Democrats include the following. Restoring the civil liberties lost under the last government. Helping the poorest pupils through the pupil premium and restoring the pensions link to earnings. Being the first party of government to genuinely focus on tackling climate change. Limiting the role of private companies in the controversial NHS reforms and ruling out the profit motive in our schools. Presenting a measured reasonable response after the summer riots. Ending up front fees for part-time students. Having a referendum on changing the voting system, pledging to democratise the House of Lords and planning to clean up party funding. Finally, we have maintained the top 50% rate of income tax, while ensuring that the poorest 880,000 people have been taken out of paying any income tax altogether. These are all policies that anyone with a slight centre-left sympathy would agree with. Now of course these outlooks will be counted by accusations of enacting harsh spending cuts. And indeed it cannot be ignored that the Coalition is implementing a harsh deficit reduction strategy; however Labour are hardly an anti-cuts party, since seven out of every eight pounds cut last year were agreed to by Alistair Darling in his last Labour Party budget. If Labour had won the election they would be cutting much of the same things as the Coalition is. For evidence of this just look at local Labour councils, many of whom shut sure start centres prior to the last local elections; whereas every council run by a Liberal Democrat kept the sure start centres open. If you like we are in the honest, responsible centre-left party outlining our programme of austerity simply because we have to do because we are now a party of coalition government. The same would be true if Labour was still in power and not behind the comfort blanket of opposition.

The truth is that the Liberal Democrats are the most left-leaning party of government since James Callaghan's Labour party in the 1970s. We as a party have a great centre-left message to promote. Centre-left voters in Britain should not be turning away from us and voting for an irresponsible centre-left party like Labour or for a divisive separatist party like the SNP; they should be voting Liberal Democrat. Ed Miliband’s Labour Party continues to be committed to erosions of this our civil liberties like a CCTV surveillance society and the DNA database. They are certainly taking an increasingly illiberal stance towards immigration. They remain unwilling to introduce a proportional voting system or elect the House of Lords. They remain unwilling to scrap Trident. And this is before we mention some harsh things Labour did in government like eroding civil liberties, illegally invading Iraq, privatising parts of our NHS and abolishing the 10% rate of income tax. None of these things would be supported by anybody of the centre-left.

We as Liberal Democrats shouldn't be complacent with our centre-left voters running off to other parties. We shall be doing our utmost to sell our centre-left message and get them back to voting for us. Poll ratings between 8% and 12% are utterly dismal. We should not have UKIP nipping at our heels. We should not let Labour claim the centre-left with anti-progressive policies or with collective amnesia of their 13 years in government. This centre-left message needs to resonate from the leadership of the Liberal Democrats right down to the grassroots. It needs to go from Great George Street to your street. And this message is simple; "we are a centre-left party, we are enacting centre-left policies, we are restraining the right-wing elements within the Tories and we are not going anywhere until the lack of freedom, fairness and justice in our society is tackled." Now let's get out there and reclaim the centre-left ground where we so rightly belong.