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Nick Clegg Was A Bad Leader

By Sara Scarlett
May 20th, 2015 at 5:20 am | 3 Comments | Posted in AV referendum, coalition, Liberal Democrats

I feel that someone should just say it. Despite showing a great deal of dignity in the End, here are my brief impressions of where Clegg went badly, badly wrong:

1. Clegg did not reform the party structure.

The party machine is a useless maze of committees and associations. In order to free himself from this labrinth of dysfunction, Clegg’s office appeared to separate themselves from the main party. This put distance between him and the members and he became more and more out-of-touch. A good leader would have reformed the party structure not treat it as an inconvenience to be managed.

2. Clegg did not get rid of Rennard sooner.

To his credit Rennard is gone. But how much better would it have been had Rennard been gone sooner? Lord Rennard clearly did not have the party’s best intrests at heart and any meaningful reform was impossible whilst Rennard was still sat upon his throne. Nick Clegg only got rid of Rennard when he had to. The damage was already done.

3. Clegg surrounded himself with amateurs.

Angela has already comprehensively addressed this one.

4. Clegg sold the LibDems too cheaply.

The price for the LibDems going into Coalition should have been PR by STV. Not a referendum, but a constitutional agreement that all future elections were to be contested this way. Without this Clegg wrote the LibDems suicide note. Pehaps the lure of power was too tempting. That should have been the ultimate LibDem red line.

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Lib Dem review into why we lost the AV campaign is out now!..sort of…

By Angela Harbutt
September 4th, 2011 at 6:39 pm | 2 Comments | Posted in AV referendum, Electoral Reform, Liberal Democrats

The Lib Dem interim report into why we lost the YES to AV campaign  (by James Gurling) has been published.  Who knew the report had been been released? 

I picked up on the fact by a small report in the Sunday Telegraph last Sunday . I did not notice any announcement on Lib Dem Voice …did I miss it?Possibly. I did not receive an email from Tim Farron who commissioned the report. Have I been struck off the email list? Maybe. I was on holiday for a good three weeks so maybe the notifications ended up in my spam box and I failed to notice…. 

Having read the “interim report” I would not be terribly surprised if the apparent lack of publicity was deliberate.  It was hardly worth the effort of finding it. A nine page report, of which one and a half pages are dedicated to why we lost AV. It was the Labour party’s fault for not supporting it. It was the Conservative Party’s fault for getting “too” behind the No campaign. It was the media’s fault for not questioning the No campaign lies. It was somebodies fault for running it when they did (not clear where James is laying the blame from the report). Oh yes and there were “structural problems with the campaign” . (More of that in a later post).

But at least we have an interim report. What now ?

What now is that the James Gurling report will be presented at a” consultative session” at Conference. Finding out where and when the  “consultative session” is to be held has also taken a bit of work. Yes it is in the guide under “Consultative sessions”.. “May 2011 Elections”  But it certainly isn’t signposted anywhere obvious and again I do not appear to have received an email from the Party President highlighting where and when it will take place.  

So, as far as we can tell (and unless they change it at the last minute…) we are pretty sure that the “consultative session”  is to be held at the Hyatt Hotel on Saturday 17th September 10.00-1230.  Yes to be clear..

WHY WE LOST THE AV CAMPAIGN will be discussed at Lib Dem conference on Saturday 17th September 10.00 – 12.30 at the HYATT HOTEL (Andante suite)

 The report says that the Conference consultative session will form part of the final report. Unfortunately right now we don’t know exactly who will speak or be invited to speak (other presumably than James Gurling) at the session – but according to party papers we should expect to “hear contributions from party members and in some cases outside speakers” … Consultative papers are scheduled to arrive with the Directory mailing (which has yet to arrive here). So perhaps all will become clearer in the days ahead.  

I have to confess I am a bit surprised that a consultative session on such an important report should be scheduled so early on the first day when we know many delegates are yet to arrive. The scheduling of the event (and the apparent lack of notification of the report itself) might lead you to suppose that they don’t actually want anyone to turn up. That can’t be the case surely?

In any event the good news  is that  if you want to contribute to James Gurling’s review of the disastrous Yes Campaign you don’t have to turn up to the crack-of-dawn-before-conference-starts consultative session.

 The interim report states that you can make your submissions to the review by email via a dedicated email address ccc@libdems.org.uk  (by 23rd September).

(Who knew that either?).  The bad news is that you are asked to state your Lib Dem Constituency Party or membership number when emailing them. That implies you have to be a Party member to make your submission – but that would exclude those non-party members who worked on the campaign and have valuable insight to impart or donors to the Yes campaign whose experiences may well be of importance. So perhaps it is a request rather than a demand…..?

PS : For those that don’t know, the James Gurling review, the interim report and the consultative session at conference consider two items. Why we lost the national AV referendum and why we did so badly at the local elections.

UPDATE : Mark Pack has put up a post on this over on Lib Dem Voice read it here.

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What will the YES campaign inquiry deliver? Furore, fizzle or farce?

By Angela Harbutt
June 28th, 2011 at 1:56 pm | 3 Comments | Posted in AV referendum, Liberal Democrats

Yesterday’s Guardian reported that “Liberal Democrats start investigation into AV referendum defeat” . Either the Guardian is well behind the times (we reported this fact  a month ago ),  or Tim Farron has taken a very long time to get round to doing anything. Considered he maybe – dithering he ain’t. And if Tim really has only just got round to ordering an inquiry then it will be a very shallow one indeed, given that the inquiry is apparently due to provide an interim report (to the executive) next week. No. Tim is infinitely more competent than this …

I am betting that the truth of the matter is that the Guardian is just a tad behind the curve on this one. A slow news day and old news re-hashed. To highlight just how late the story actually is… The Guardian reports that Tim Farron has called the inquiry ..

“ as angry accounts of the mistakes by the Yes campaign have begun to appear on the internet from campaign staff and those involved in efforts at the grassroots” .

Reports have not “BEGUN TO APPEAR” .. they appeared within days, hours even, of the election result.We ourselves wrote a post on the humiliation of the Yes campaign on May 8th and were inundated with comments – many from outraged Lib Dems who worked on the campaign. Around the 12th May (or thereabouts) Simon McGrath created the brilliant “why we lost av” website ..and about that time, Andy May posted the jaw-dropping “The Yes Campaign – What lessons need to be learned”  (from which – as far as I can tell – most of the Guardian piece was culled).

The Guardian does appear to have one bit of “news” at least” … Tim Farron is quoted as saying

“A report will be published. Clearly we were not in total control of the Yes campaign, but it is clear lessons have to be learnt. A large amount of money looks like it was wasted and the whole thing has set back the cause of constitutional reform a long way. It would be very odd if we did not review what went wrong and what went right.”

“published” implies that it will go public. If true, this is excellent news. Hats off to the likes of James Graham, Andy May – and all the other “insiders” who raised their heads above the parapet and came out bravely and boldly to tell of the “living nightmare” that was the campaign.

Hats off too, to Simon McGrath – who led the call for an inquiry (and set up the previously mentioned “whywelostav” website). He urged myself and others to write to Tim Farron to call for one. I understand that quite a lot of us did just that.

So here we are waiting on one James Gurling (chair of campaigns and communications committee and member of the Federal Executive) to pronounce. James is a big fish in the Lib Dems and goes back a long way. There is some concern that James is too much of a Lib Dem insider and too close to Nick Clegg to do a proper job. Is he there to get to the truth?.. or to do a decent cover up job to shield Nick from any embarrassment over his  choice of director of the Yes campaign?

Cries of “whitewash” may be premature – after all, James is a serious man with his own reputation to uphold. And if it is true that Tim Farron has gone on record saying

“A large amount of money looks like it was wasted and the whole thing has set back the cause of constitutional reform a long way.”

– well that sounds like a man intent on getting to the truth.

But Simon Mcgrath over on lib dem voice  raises a good point. Who IS being interviewed as part of this inquiry? Are the likes of James Graham and Andy May going to be questioned? IF the inquiry is to make an interim report NEXT WEEK as reported in the Guardian, and IF the likes of May and Graham have NOT been interviewed, then all sorts of questions must be asked.

So what will it be Furore, fizzle or Farce. Will this incisively identify the errors made and name and shame those responsible? Will it fizzle out with a bland report stating that a few minor errors were made, but it was largely the fault of others (the nasty no campaigners, the right wing press etc). Or will it be a total farce – no mistakes, no errors, all the money spent immaculately and John Sharkey IS a campaigning guru.

This now rests in the hands of James Gurling. But not entirely. I had thought that we could reach James through his councillor email – but sadly he is no longer a Southwark councillor. So I suggest that we contact Tim Farron with any suggestions for people that should be interviewed. I am sure he will pass on recommendations to James.

This is not over. Not by a long way.

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The YES campaign: there is a Lib Dem inquiry

By Angela Harbutt
May 26th, 2011 at 12:29 am | 5 Comments | Posted in AV referendum, Liberal Democrats

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago (May 8th) we posted an article examining the disastrous YES campaign. We were inundated with readers, and even we grizzly old souls at LV were quite taken aback by the level of support we received from all quarters of the party (and the wider YES campaign) both publicly and privately. We had certainly hit a nerve and there was (and still is) a lot of anger out there about the whole sorry venture.

So when Simon Mcgrath called for an independent inquiry into the whole debacle, I silenced the cynic in me that said any investigation, if it did happen, would be done by “the usual suspects” who are themselves mates of those responsible for the campaign and would be conducted behind closed doors ……….and allowed the optimistic (some might say naive) Angela to believe that Tim Farron was a different kind of President and that under his leadership we would see some real action. 

I duly sent an email to Party President Tim Farron stating the reasons why I believed a public, independent inquiry into the YES to AV campaign was necessary.

Imagine my dismay to receive this reply from Tim:

 Dear Angela,

Thank you very much for emailing me.

I can confirm that there is currently an internal investigation going on – but as I’m sure you’ll understand, I can’t give out any more details than that.

Funnily enough, I don’t understand why no details can be given out.

At the very least, right now, some basic information regarding the inquiry should be in the public domain :  WHO is conducting the investigation?  WHAT is their remit? and WHEN are they due to report? Why this information cannot be given out is totally beyond me.

It is conceivable that the eventual findings are so embarrassing, the levels of incompetence so appalling, the errors made so huge, that Tim may decide that he can’t possibly put the full unexpurgated review into the public domain. But to be very clear  – the very least we expect is to be told what ACTION the review has recommended (and presumably will be taken by the party).

If the entire inquiry is to be shrouded  in secrecy as currently seems to be the case, I am afraid we can probably expect little more than a very long silence, followed, if pushed, by a short note stating that it wasn’t really any one’s fault and a promise to try better next time. That is simply not good enough.

I have today written to Tim ( tim.farron@libdems.org.uk ) asking him to reconsider his position on this matter.

Hat tip: Check out Simon McGraths brillliant “WHY WE LOST AV” website here.

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Things you wished you’d never said…

By Angela Harbutt
May 10th, 2011 at 1:07 am | 4 Comments | Posted in AV referendum, Liberal Democrats

Nick Clegg said on July 5th 2010, in response the appointment of John Sharkey as chairman of the Liberal Democrats’ Fairer Votes Campaign

“I am delighted that John Sharkey has accepted this role.”

“This is a vital campaign for the country and I can’t think of a better person than John to run it for the Liberal Democrats.”

Ten months later, the website promoting fairer votes now looks like this http://www.yestofairervotes.org/

How did that one work out for us, Nick?

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