Aptly named, but Mr Lamb merits a toot of admiration
sees the Lib Dems rise to their sandals to salute a decent man
WAS ever a politician more aptly named than Norman Lamb? He appears so innocent and tender. His bleat is piteously gentle. You may look at Norman Lamb and think ‘I bet he’d slip down sweetly with some crab apple jelly’.
Yet I come not to tease Norman but to toot a whistle of admiration for this mildly-spoken Lib Dem MP. His speech yesterday, murmured through a smudged pair of boffinish spectacles, was a model of decency. When they rose to their sandals at the end, he blinked with surprise.
In July Mr Lamb was beaten to the leadership of his party by Tim Farron. It was probably a wise choice. Mr Farron has more fizz than a half-pound bag of sherbet lemons – and some of the acidity, too. You need that to have any chance of cutting through as a party leader.
Despite having binned Mr Lamb as leadership material, the activists in Bournemouth yesterday rewarded him with an opening ovation. They like him. They may even have felt a little guilty that they did not vote for him. ‘I bear no grudge,’ he said.
He declared ‘total support’ for Mr Farron. From anyone else, this would have led to ‘oh yeahs’ and ‘just wait for the plotting once the leader hits trouble’. Remember how comically, cadaverously uncooperative Vince Cable used to be? Chris Huhne? Simon Hughes?
Look at the Labour Party, where the Brothers are stabbing wax dolls of Jeremy Corbyn. Look at the Tories where David Cameron’s onetime leadership rival, David Davis, has never quite swallowed defeat.
That man Ashcroft demeans himself with a bootie-kicking tantrum because Mr Cameron did not offer him a sufficiently grandiose ministerial position. Diddums.
Mr Lamb became a junior health minister in the Coalition (there was no ‘I’m too good for such a lowly berth’ caterwauling from him).
As a minister he persuaded the System to take a more enlightened attitude to mental illness. Okay, he seized some of the credit for that policy yesterday. Politicians need not be complete, jellyfish altruists.
However, his speech was constructive. He told Lib Dems they must be realistic and cooperate with the Tories. He did not demonise other parties. The tone he found on mental healthcare was sufficiently urgent to catch our attention.
Avoiding slogans, he spoke of his experience of overseeing health budgets. He had a good little detail about the way the NHS – bizarrely – still uses fax machines, even after all those billions we have spent on an NHS computer network.
While Mr Lamb was speaking about mental health, touchingly, a man of about 20, clearly with behavioural problems, danced and played on the conference floor near one of the exits. In any other party this youth would have been ushered out. The Lib Dems, to their credit, left him to his innocent devices.
In many ways they’re a funny lot, and certainly no less eccentric, even after the recent influx of members. In an earlier debate, when the party was supposed to be moulding its vision for 2020, we heard yarny contributions about the Great Reform Act, the Whigs, Lord Shaftesbury and the Dictum of Kenilworth of 1266. A secularist moaned about the religious nature of Remembrance Day. A splendidly unusual Dutchman (bearded) spoke up for Mrs Pankhurst’s husband, saying ‘no one ever mentions the poor guy’.
One activist started citing Leonard Cohen poems. Another said proudly it was his 76th party conference – and he was one of the less creaky contributors.
For all this quirkiness, a party that manages to retain a Norman Lamb cannot be all bad. There have not been many reasons for being optimistic about our public life in the past week. David Cameron’s big tent may not suit Lord Ashcroft but the PM should make sure it has room for some sort of dialogue with Mr Lamb.