Liberals should combine compassion with aggression

Liberal parties taking on the hard right across the world may need to harden their approach

- RAHUL JACOB

Some months ago, Canada's ruling Liberal Party was 25 percentage points behind the Conservatives, the country's right-wing opposition, in pre-election opinion polls. Then, Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England as well as Canada's central bank, took over the party leadership and responded to US President Donald Trump's verbal barrage, which included musings about taking over Canada, with an aggression of his own. He caricatured the Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre as someone who would "kneel before" Trump.

Canada's ruling Liberal Party not only turned its negative ratings around, but ended up winning 25 more constituencies than the Conservatives did.

Half the world away but less than a week later, on 3 May, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese trounced the opposition Conservative Party. The latter's leader, Peter Dutton, had aligned himself with some US Republican positions and even lost his own parliamentary seat. One of Dutton's shadow ministers had borrowed the political rhetoric of Trump's election campaign, promising to "Make Australia Great Again."

The US administration's controversial positions on free trade and the Trump camp's anti-woke statements likely played less of a role in Australia. Unlike Canada, which shares an almost 9,000km border with the US, Australia has the luxury of viewing the perpetual news cycle of Washington DC as if it were from another world.