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The death of the Focus leaflet

By Editor
March 14th, 2015 at 3:52 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Uncategorized

Voters up and down the land will be overjoyed to discover that Focus leaflets will no longer be a feature of the Lib Dem election campaigns. At least that appears to be what they are saying…?

focus leaflet HAT TIP Carl Minns for spotting this one at Lib Dem Spring Conference in Liverpool earlier today.

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What are the Lib Dems for?

By Editor
March 14th, 2015 at 12:12 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in conference, Liberal Democrats

HAT TIP:  In case you missed it Mark Littlewood (former Lib Dem spin doctor and co-founder of Liberal Vision) had an interesting article in the Telegraph yesterday, to coincide with the start of the Lib Dem Spring conference. Kind it is not. Accurate it is undoubtedly is.

The essence of Littlewood’s point is that the Lib Dems have no message to the voter – other than to promise to be less mean that the Conservatives and more financially hard-headed than Labour… “to water down the convictions and ideals of our main political opponents“. This is certainly borne out by speeches being made up and down the country by Lib Dem MPs, highlighting what the Lib Dems have stopped the Tories doing over the past five years and why Labour can be trusted to go it alone for the next five.

And that is the problem, he says, no one knows what the Lib Dems are for.

“Obviously, there is nothing intrinsically immoral or wicked about such a proposition, but it certainly doesn’t get the pulse racing. There simply aren’t going to be millions of voters trooping to polling stations in May because they are passionate about injecting just a dash more moderation into our government. On the big questions facing Britain, the LibDems don’t sound radical at all. Is the overall tax burden too high or too low? Does the state intervene too much or too little in our lives? Is our relationship with the EU too close or too loose? Very often, the Lib Dems seem to believe that we have the balance of everything more or less right and just need a very small tweak here or there.”

[Agreed. Whether you like them or hate them, you have to accept that the parties on the rise, UKIP, Greens, SNP have conviction and passion by the bucket-load and none of them are in any doubt that things need to change for one reason of another].

Littlewood suggests that even if 20 or 30 Liberal Democrat MPs do make it back to Westminster, and by some chance find themselves back in coalition “it is hard to be at all sure what on earth they would do with it”.

Quite. So, what is the point of voting for them? – it’s like ticking the “don’t know” box on a multiple choice question. Perhaps Liverpool will provide some answers.

You can read the full article here.

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Good luck to Liberal Reform at conference

By Angela Harbutt
March 8th, 2012 at 5:50 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Liberal Democrats

Well congrats to Liberal Reform for a pretty awesome start in life – over 100 party members signing up, and lots of buzz and noise about the blogosphere.  Still a way to go to prove their spurs – but very nice start.

For those of you planning to attend this week’s conference in Gateshead it might be worth your while going and meeting these guys and gals.

DRINKS RECEPTION : They have a drinks reception that everyone is welcome to attend on Saturday evening in Room MEC 2, The Sage between 6.15-7.30 – drinks provided – how can you refuse ?

FRINGE EVENT: No sooner started than rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous!  Liberal Reform’s co-chair Mike Bird will be taking part in a fringe event on the much-discussed topic of youth unemployment, alongside the not-so-youthful Vince Cable (and others obviously) –  Room MEC 7 in The Sage at 1pm in Saturday.

MOTIONS AND AMENDMENTS: Liberal Reform are apparently proposing and supporting a number of amendments to the motions being voted on over the weekend. Here is one you should definitely support (there may well be others – just not had chance to look)..

F21 Civil Liberties, Sunday, 10.45am: an amendment expressing regret at the slow movement and apparent watering down of the Freedom Bill and concern about other infringements on liberty happening under the government’s watch.

Good luck.

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Liberal Vision fringe event at conference

By Angela Harbutt
September 16th, 2011 at 6:48 pm | Comments Off on Liberal Vision fringe event at conference | Posted in Liberal Democrats

Liberal Vision is pleased to announce that it will be co-hosting a fringe event at Lib Dem conference. In association with the Institute of Economic Affairs we are running  the session: “Coalition and the Changing Liberal Democrats”

Our discussion panel will consider how entering government has changed the Liberal Democrats. Has deficit reduction meant the party has embraced a new economic direction? Are the days of the LibDems making high public spending pledges over? Is the LibDem leadership now decisively “free market liberal”?

Our speaker line up is as folows:

Jeremy Browne MP

David Laws MP

Mark Littlewood (IEA)

Peter Oborne (politcal commentator)

Simon Goldie (LV)

 Michael Crick (Channel 4 News) will chair.

The event is on Monday 19th September, 20.00 – 2115, The ICC, Hall 10b.

Inevitably the speaker line up is attracting quite a bit of attention, so do plan to get there promptly to guarantee a seat. See you there….

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Cops to require compulsory security info from all Lib Dems

By Angela Harbutt
December 15th, 2010 at 6:08 pm | 1 Comment | Posted in Liberal Democrats

Just got an email from the Liberal Democrats reminding me that conference early bird rates expire tomorrow evening. Always one for a bargain, I duly went onto the site to register for Spring/Autumn conferences.  Imagine my surprise at having to agree to the following in order to register ….

“I confirm that I understand I will be contacted after Spring conference to submit compulsory security information required by West Midlands Police to complete my autumn accreditation. I understand that until that information has been supplied, my registration for autumn conference cannot be completed”.

How times have changed….I thought it was bad enough that Lembit Opik was unable to prove he was Lembit Opik (even though the security guy knew he was Lembit Opik) at this year’s conference. Who knows what delights are in store for us in Brum next year.

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