Liberal Vision

Liberal MPs should be applauded

So the full coalition deal has passed the scrutiny of MPs and Federal executive. Comments from those leaving was that MPs gave 100% backing – that is what is needed and congratulations to each and every one of them. All for one. One for all. What ever the future holds, backing the leader and putting the countries interests first is right.

From the sideways comments from those leaving the meeting, there seems to have been some dissent from the Federal Executive…. but not enought. I have had no news on that yet though….

Onward and upward.

FEDERAL EXECUTIVE MEET

The Lib Dem Federal Executive met last night. The contents of the meeting will (if they have any sense) be made public in double quick time.

This will be a big test for the group AND for its chair Ros Scott. Will this have been (1) a useless talking shop about do-nothing-unimportant side issues – or will they have (2) tackled the serious and important issues facing this party regarding expenses & allowances ?

I am of course, expecting clarification on what is happening with regard to the Lord Rennard, who was/is the Party’s Chief Executive – employed by the Federal Executive  and who recently resigned claiming ill health. Co-incidentally he also still has serious fraud accusations  (relating to allowance claims) hanging over him that, until now, the FE has been unwilling to deal with.

It now seems generally accepted that he is in fact away running the Lib Dem Norwich North by election campaign. IF TRUE, then how can we face the electorate with any seriousness at this or any other election? If we are willing to continue to employ somebody who has such serious question marks over them – that we leave unaddressed – we will face the consequenses sooner or later.   If it is NOT TRUE , well it just highlights how important it is for the FE to get a grip on this.

Investigate him and either clear his name, or take sanctions against him as an employee of the Party. Surely this is the ONLY option available to the FE ? And should have been item 1 on last nights agenda (if not the previous meeting).

The clock is ticking as we wait for the report from the Party President. And if it turns out that they have ducked this issue again, the clock might just start ticking on the FE itself and perhaps more importantly, its chair.

Or maybe, they will surprise us.

President goes into hiding

Reports of the president’s assasination have been greatly exagerated. Not dead just gone into hiding. Why? we are told on Lib Dem Voice today its because “…the existence of my blog seems to have led some people into thinking that it is possible to keep up a running commentary on what is going on” .

Well hell yes! We need a running comentary on what is going on. Now more than ever. The reasons why have been lain before our eyes over the last couple of weeks. And the idea that by closing down her blog she will somehow stop the “running commentary” is just nonsense.

So now we are promised that “In future, minutes of FE will be published here on LDV, within the one month required by the Standing Orders”. Batten down the hatches lads the natives are restless.

Ps. Ros Scott has now admitted herself that the FE has only limited powers. That may be true. And that may be the most powerful argument we have heard so far for sorting out the Party organisation. BUT what about powers it does have ? Surely it has some powers over employees of the party? And if so why were they not used? Sadly it looks like we will never know.

Sort out the party and do it now

Just when we were all getting fatigued with stories of the Commoners raiding the cash box, The Sunday Times brings us fresh tales of skulduggery in “the other place”. One Labour peer and one Lib Dem peer are accused of some serious fiddling of allowances.

Lord Clarke of Hampstead makes some sort of a fist of it. A true Labour peer, (starting out life as a postman before climbing the trade union pole to the top) Lord Clarke does a full mea culpa in the paper. His admissions are simply toe-curling. He admits to regularly falsely claiming overnight allowances, pocketing around £18000 a year and, more shockingly, that he was told to do it “as a way of getting remuneration in the absense of salary”. Worringly he ranked as the lowly 169th highest claimant for overnight expenses across 2007-2008. The cat, as they say, is well and truly amongst the pigeons.

The Lib Dem peer Lord Dykes of Harrow Weald is an altogether a different matter. The paper states that Lord Dykes has claimed £66,000 since 2004 by claiming his main home is in Normandy – despite one Normandy neighbour stating that “they are here only one or two weekends a month. It is a second home”. Lord Dykes response to the paper thus far has been only to say that his main home is in France.

Maybe his neighbours are mistaken. Maybe he does live in France and can, as Agent Orange identifies, easily explain how he clocked in 139 days in the House of Lords in the year 2007-2008, and maybe he was too busy (or in France?) to clarify his position with the Sunday Times more fully.

But the question must now be, who within the party is advising Lord Rennard and Lord Dykes to stay quiet? And if they are not being advised by the Party to  stay quiet, if indeed, they are defying the party by their refusal to explain themselves, then why is no action being taken? This is doing the party harm.

I am not sure why it took 4 days for the Federal Executive to issue a lamentable 5 point plan on expenses that I could have written in ten minutes. I am also not sure why we as a party are so forthright on our suggestions for reform of the  system, and so backward at putting our own party in order.

But action must surely be taken now by the party, or it will be the party itself that will have to face reform.

So, what did you actually decide to do?

Pictured above are the members of the Liberal Democrat Federal Executive Committee.

Few of them are household names, but they are – by and large – committed and hard-working LibDem activists and they have been successfully elected (in most cases) to the party’s most important committee.

The committee met on Monday night at 5.30pm in the midst of the most enormous political and constitutional crisis our country has faced in a generation at least.

Newly-elected President Ros Scott predicted a full and frank exchange of views.

Exchanging views is all well and good, but what have the FE actually decided to do about the collapse in faith in British politicians and some of the allegations against our own Parliamentarians? Two days after the conclusion of the FE meeting, many members are waiting with bated breath to learn of the outcome.

Ros Scott emailed me on Tuesday morning saying the FE’s conclusions should be available in the course of the day. But there’s obviously been a hold-up. An insider tells me that members might be receiving an email from Ros later today or tonight. Let’s hope it’s a bold and forthright statement and the party can move on to the wider issues of cleaning up and reforming British politics.

P.S. We were not able to track down photos of all members of the FE – and we may even have got one or two of them wrong. A full list of FEC members is available here. English Party Chair Brian Orrell was one such member for whom we could not track down a photo. Brian’s a top bloke and as all true fans of Doctor Who will know, he played the role of a Cyberman in the 1985 classic story “Attack of the Cybermen”. We include a picture of a Colin Baker-era Cyberman in tribute to his contribution to British science fiction.