In an article for the current edition of the Parliamentary monitor, Matthew Taylor argues that Labour’s focus on crime and security reveals a lack of ideas for domestic issues.

"A tired Queen's Speech from a tired government…and it begs the question – what has this second term really achieved?"

These were Charles Kennedy's words, responding to the 2003 Queen's Speech last November. Twelve months on, just months from the likely general election date, and the question is becoming all the more urgent: What has this second term really achieved? Student top-up fees? The war in Iraq? Spiralling council tax? Millions of pensioners still in poverty? Millions more worrying about their future retirement income?

People who voted for Tony Blair in 1997 and 2001 did so believing that New Labour offered them new hope – and a government they could trust. Instead, people have seen their hopes and trust worn away by a government that has too often put short-term expediency ahead of long term change.

Blair’s first term arguably started (but failed to complete) one genuinely historic change: constitutional reform. But that has stuttered and stalled: on Lords reform, electoral reform, and most recently over regional government. It’s hard to see what Labour’s "big idea" for the third term will be – it certainly hasn’t emerged in the second term. Spending more on public services may have been necessary (and welcome) but it is hardly historic.

When national leaders become uncertain about their place in history domestically, they seem inevitably drawn to the world stage. Iraq has defined Blair’s second term more than any other issue. Over-spun spending pledges weakened people’s trust during the first term. The war in Iraq has broken it altogether in the second.

This probably best explains the twin themes of this year's Queen's Speech: security and fear. The New Labour high command is all too well aware that the government's credibility has plummeted. In response, a new strategy has been formulated to distract attention from the obvious policy failures. Bush brought Blair the misjudged war in Iraq. Now he brings a new strategy for re-election: a "strategy of fear", clearly voiced by the leader of the Commons in his recent claim that people in Britain would be "safer" from terrorism under Labour. This newfound ploy to play politics with terror and security is disturbing.

More practically, the government’s belief that ID cards are an obvious solution to the terrorist threat is baffling. £3 billion seems like an awfully big price tag for a policy that has failed abroad to protect people from crime, let alone terrorist attack. Does the government seriously believe it will work here?

Bush’s strategy of fear mixed Saddam with al Qaeda – Middle East policy with domestic threat. Our own government now mixes the terrorist threat with problems of domestic disorder in the mind of the public. But distinct problems require discrete solutions. The most effective direct way of tackling terrorism is through renewed investment in our security and intelligence services. The most effective direct way of tackling crime is through bolstering police numbers and freeing police officers from unnecessary form-filling. ID cards will not only fail to address these problems effectively, they also set a dangerous precedent as a threat to civil liberties. As history has shown, once liberties are removed, they are not easily regained.

Focus on fear, batten down the hatches and sit it out until after polling day. This, it seems, will be the government’s approach through to the next general election. By contrast, while Labour resorts to the politics of fear, Liberal Democrats want to offer hope and, not surprisingly, the result is a very different set of priorities. Take top-up fees – Labour broke their promise and now want to charge the students. Liberal Democrats want to scrap top-up fees and ask those earning more than £100,000 a year to pay a little more in tax instead. Or take council tax – people are crying out for change. Nationally, the poorest 10 per cent of people (many of them pensioners) pay over four times more of their income in council tax than the richest 10 per cent. That cannot be right. Only the Liberal Democrats will abolish council tax and replace it with a local income tax based on ability to pay. Or consider pensions – only the Liberal Democrats offer free personal care with an extra £100 per month for the over 75s. Or law and order – tackling crime absolutely is a priority for the Liberal Democrats. Labour wants to waste £3 billion on ID cards. Liberal Democrats will use the money to fund an additional 10,000 police officers instead.

These are Liberal Democrat priorities – and all with a strong green thread to put environmental concerns at the heart of policy-making. While the Conservatives flounder and the government continues to tire, the Liberal Democrats are getting on with the serious business of setting out a fresh, viable and credible alternative.

Matthew Taylor is Lib Dem MP for Truro and St Austell and chairman of the parliamentary party