Liberal Vision

GUEST POST: My 1st LibDem conference – libertarianism, late nights and luscious Lynne

I am on the National Executive of Freedom2Choose, a pro choice smoking group was a guest of Liberal Vision at this year’s Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth. Last year I had gone to the Conservative Party conference for the Free Society fringe meeting but needed a pair of binoculars to see the podium. I assumed this was the norm.

So, it was with a certain amount of incredulity that stumbling back from dinner I walked into Paddy Ashdown and Nick Clegg sharing a beer and having a chat on the steps of the conference hotel. I can’t imagine bumping into Gordon Brown or David Cameron in the same informal way. This set a pleasant tone of informal approachability for my two days in Bournemouth.

Another positive was that I don’t think many Lib Dems have heard of Sir Liam Donaldson (or perhaps they just don’t listen to him). The bar at the Highcliffe Marriott was packed until 5.00 am, and there were plenty of people smoking (shock, horror) on the terrace.

An early start at 9.30 on Tuesday, meant I had five hours to hand out leaflets outside the conference hall, promoting that evening’s Liberal Vision fringe.

I am sure the MPs and delegates get harangued all day long with people thrusting flyers into their hands – but most who declined were polite and many received them enthusiastically. The most hostile cpmment of the day was “the last thing we need is libertarians”, but I never feared that I was in danger of being hurled over a wall by an itinerant Liberal backbencher.

An audience of over sixty at the LV fringe seemed to indicate that lifestyle freedom is high up the agenda for many Liberal Democrats.

An outstanding and stimulating panel had been assembled including Tom Clougherty of the Adam Smith Institute, Simon Clark of Forest/Free Society, Lib Dem blogger Charlotte Gore, Colin Eldridge a Lib Dem councillor and PPC for Liverpool Wavertree and Dr. Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Psychologist and Lib Dem Councillor. The event was chaired expertly by Liberal Vision Director, Mark Littlewood. In the audience were the libertarian blogger Dick “no breakfast” Puddlecote and author Chris “call me at 5.00 am” Snowdon. It was refreshing to hear so many Lib Dems support liberalisation in a wide range of arenas – from drugs to the sex industry.

The exception to the general libertarian love-in on the panel was Colin Eldridge who defended proposals to restrict the depiction of smoking in films watchable by under-18s. He was articulate and had a vaguely coherent case but the room was not on his side. Colin however more than saved himself when he mentioned that Liverpool council had introduced tolerance zones for sex workers and that he would personally like to see an amendment to the smoking ban. He was also great company in the bar afterwards.

I also got the chance to meet two Lib Dem MPs, Lembit Opik and Greg Mullholland. Not only were they engaging to talk to, they listened intently to others’ views and were also open to possible amendments to the smoking ban. Although Freedom2Choose are not party political affiliated, I wish them both well in the next general election.

It appears that many Liberal Democrats identify with the rising tide of resentment against the nanny state. If the party leadership followed suit, they could be on to a vote winner.

I came away with a pretty positive view of the Liberal Democrats – and enjoyed many great conversations and lively debates. A final delight was seeing Lynne Featherstone in the flesh (so, to speak) looking gorgeous.

Dave Atherton is on the National Executive of Freedom 2 Choose

Do the LibDems lack a distinct message – or even a purpose?

An interesting article by David Herdson on politicalbetting.com asks if the party now lacks a unique selling proposition.

I agree with him when he says “Third parties trying to sound like governments end up sounding deluded (because no-one expects them to win) and / or irrelevant (because the bigger parties are likely to be saying something similar).”

Our messages still amount to a policy shopping list – not an understandable narrative.

UPDATE: I agree with a lot of what Simon Jenkins says in his biting article on Tuesday. I missed this at Bournemouth. Thanks to those who have brought it to my attention.

LibDem conference: It started with ambition, but ended in confusion

This should have been a defining week for the Liberal Democrats. Our last conference before a General Election. A chance to showcase our (relatively unknown) leader and to get across to the electorate one (or, at a stretch, two) clear, simple ideas.

But a conference that began with an assertion that we could replace the Labour Party, quite swiftly descended into a rapid volley of mixed messages.

The truth is that the wider electorate will not have received a positive impression of the LibDems from our activities this week. And much of the media pack were rolling their eyes in the sort of way that I’ve seen before. Most begin with a fairly open-minded view that they haven’t quite grasped what the party is saying, but fairly swiftly move to the conclusion that we don’t either.

I wasn’t wholly persuaded by the narrative in Nick Clegg’s DEMOS pamphlet – however, he was at least saying something vaguely interesting. But if you want to assert that you’re going to replace Labour on the eve of conference, to have as your first big  story that you’re willing to make savage cuts in public services is a little bewildering. More worryingly, to try and row back and explain that Nick meant “serious” or “severe” and not “savage” is nuanced beyond credibility. (He was intending to say “severe”, but said “savage instead)

None of this would matter much if we had a draft script to work to. But sometimes it seems as if we’ve called in the cameramen, the producer, the director, the make-up artists  and the lead actors and are asking them to make up the plot  as they go along.

This might – conceivably – lead to the creation of a cult, surrealist masterpiece. But more often than not it just ends up with a lot of very confused people saying “Sorry, that’s bollocks”.

All is not lost – by any means – but if we want to put on 4% or 5% in a General Election campaign, we will need to make sure  our communications strategy and our message are much better than this.

GUEST POST – Real women have balls

What is the most pressing issue affecting women today in Britain and the world over? If you attended Lib Dem Conference on Saturday, you would have been told that a leading candidate must be the way we are constantly bombarded with female images of unattainable beauty. Apparently, a cruel and insidious pressure is being applied to young girls by a cynical and manipulative fashion industry to look physically attractive – at least according to Jo Swinson’s policy document, “Real Women.” Following on from last week’s TUC motion taking a stand against high heels, you might be forgiven for thinking that the entire political establishment has comprehensively lost the plot.

Was there ever a more embarrassing and self-indulgent debate at Conference? I feel sure someone will tell me about it. But for me, as the afternoon progressed, the proceedings became increasingly conspicuous for what was not being discussed – a glaring and yet entirely predictable omission. In the context of a debate about the subtle (or not so subtle) coercion experienced by women to get them to conform to some expected body image required by an external agency with its own evil agenda – was anyone, anywhere, going to mention . . . the Islamic Burka?

I simply loathe the Burka. It insults and indeed harms women who are forced to cover themselves from head to toe in the hottest weather. It is an instrument of oppression and a symbol of female subservience. It even manages to insult men who, the logic goes, might turn into sex maniacs if men and women were allowed to mingle freely. But the cosy liberal consensus that prevails in Britain places this topic strictly off limits. Not so in France however. In my wildest political fantasies, I hear Nick Clegg taking his cue from what President Sarkozy said earlier this year: “We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity.”

Responding to this issue on BBC Question Time in June, Julia Goldsworthy said something which now sounds absolutely hilarious. “There is an issue about whether women have the freedom to choose whether or not they wear [the Burka],” she said. “The problem is if you start with the Burka, where do you stop? Are we going to end up with a fashion police?” Fashion police!!! Who would have thought that only a few months later, official party policy would effectively require fashion police to trawl adverts and magazine articles, rooting out the signs of excessive airbrushing and retouching that are making young women today so miserable.

If this debate has served any purpose, apart from making us look foolish, it is to highlight yet again the astonishing double standard that still seems to shield religious and cultural issues from excessive criticism. Arguing against the Burka is always going to be tricky. The reason is that there is no shortage of strong independent-minded Muslim women who insist that they are perfectly happy to wear it. Some even claim that the Burka is a sort of feminist symbol for Muslims (don’t make me laugh). But the point is that for every such strong Muslim woman, there is a Muslim woman (or maybe two, three, or four) who has been coerced into the Burka after years of religious indoctrination which began pretty much as soon as she could walk.

Saturday’s Conference debate proved that Liberal Democrats are perfectly capable of articulating this kind of argument – after all, nobody is forcing any girl to go on a diet. But liberals know instinctively that individuals need protecting, and not merely from the state. There are also corporations and of course the media, all ready and able to exploit the young unformed mind to further their own deeply vested interests. And then there are . . . religions – no hang on, what a clanger, please forget I said that, we can’t possibly criticise people’s beliefs, religion is bloody marvellous, don’t you know? Thus at Spring Conference, we nodded through our support for faith schooling; while at Autumn Conference, we are all in a twist about subliminal advertising messages.

The debate came dangerously close to self-parody at times. The policy paper, printed in lurid pinks and greens, resembled more the type of teenage magazine I thought was supposed to be the enemy, than a serious policy document. And given the nature of the discussion, it was impossible not to pay at least some attention to the physical appearance of the delegates themselves. The BBC had the same idea as they ironically focused upon Elaine Bagshaw’s bright red heels before slowly panning the camera up her lovely legs – easily the high point of the afternoon for me watching at home. There should have been much more stuff like that.

The overall motion (including a vital amendment to include netball in the London Olympics) was approved overwhelmingly with only two against. But I don’t believe Saturday’s debate is going to help a single woman anywhere, except of course for those delegates in the conference hall who got to feel really good about themselves. Certainly there was no help on offer to any vulnerable Muslim woman who might presently be cowering under the Burka – that horrid garment of fear and oppression with which we have allowed the entire beauty and identity of a woman to be airbrushed, and all without so much as a squeak of protest from Liberal Democrats.

Real women would not stand silently by. Real women would have more balls.

Laurence Boyce is a member of the Liberal Democrats

+++ Liberal Vision on Newsnight and The World Tonight +++

Mark Littlewood appeared on last night’s Newsnight and Radio 4′s The World Tonight, questioning whether the newly proposed “mansion tax” was a sensible policy for the LibDems.