Liberal Democrats are rightly proud of the fact that we remain the only major party to be internally democratic. Party policy can only be decided by the vote of the representatives of the party membership, after debate at the party conference.

Despite this, however, the number of policy motions submitted to conference has steadily fallen over the last ten years or so – down by about half between 1997 and 2007. This makes it more difficult for Federal Conference Committee (FCC) to select an agenda full of topics people actually want to speak about and debate. In addition, we are more and more reliant on the Federal Ppolicy Committee (FPC) and Parliamentary Party for topics for debate; motions submitted from all other sources have fallen in number significantly.

Possibly, of course, it doesn’t matter all that much. After twenty years of policy-making, the party now has a comprehensive body of policy, and there are relatively few gaps or seriously outdated areas. There’s also no real evidence of many substantial disagreements over major issues.

In any case, federal conference has always been about more than policy debates. The agenda has always featured set-piece speeches and the business sessions necessary for the running of the party, and in recent years we’ve introduced a series of innovations, including Q&A sessions, presentations, and discussions without votes, such as ‘urgent issue’ discussions.

In addition, a huge range of events take place outside the conference hall: consultative sessions, fringe meetings and training. Questionnaire feedback indicates that at present people think we’re getting the balance broadly right.

Nevertheless, FCC remains concerned about the possibility that the systems we use for the submission of motions for debate make it too difficult for people to come up with good topics. There are a variety of measures we could take, including simplifying the motions timetable, and we’ve set them out in a short consultation paper.

The paper also asks some more general questions about why you think fewer people are submitting motions, and what – if anything – we should do about it. You can download the consultation paper from http://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/consultation.html; if you’d prefer a paper copy, write to Conference Office, Liberal Democrats, 4 Cowley Street, London SW1P 3NB, and we’ll put a copy in the post to you.

The deadline for responses is 10th May, to give the Committee enough time to discuss your thoughts and decide on actions before the autumn conference. Please take the time to let us know your views on this issue.

* Duncan Brack is Chair of the party’s Federal Conference Committee.

Editor’s note: please feel free to submit your comments in response to this article - I’m sure Duncan will be reading what you have to say. However, I know he’d be grateful if those who really want their views to be heard where it matters filled in the form.

I’ve submitted an amendment to the motion accompanying the health policy paper we’ll be debating this weekend at the Lib Dems’ spring conference in Liverpool, and our esteemed editors have asked to me to explain its reasoning.

The amendment aims to add to the list of things we want to do: ‘Concerted action across government to tackle the root causes of ill health and inequalities in health, including high levels of income and wealth inequality, poverty, poor housing and environmental pollution’.

The thinking behind it was triggered by listening to Nick Clegg’s comments when the paper was launched. He used the statistic – familiar from his leadership campaign, and a good illustration of the problem – that someone born in the poorest ward of Sheffield would have a life expectancy of fourteen years less than someone born in the richest ward. ‘And’, he added, ‘the NHS has to do something about this’. Read more »

The party’s UK-wide spring conference is fast approaching – the first we’ve ever held in a major city run by the Liberal Democrats, and, indeed, the first party conference ever held in Liverpool.

The agenda is available on the party website and printed copies should be arriving during the coming week for those who’ve registered.

The main debate will of course be on the Federal Policy Committee’s policy paper on health, Empowerment, Fairness and Quality in Health Care (also available on the website), kicking off first thing on the Saturday afternoon. It contains several new developments of party policy which we will think will generate controversy; note that the deadline for amendments to the motion accompanying the paper is 12 noon Tuesday 4th March. Read more »

As we have done in each of the last two Liberal Democrat leadership elections, in 1999 and 2006, the Liberal Democrat History Group has asked both candidates for the Liberal Democrat leadership to write a short article on their favourite historical figure or figures – the ones they felt had influenced their own political beliefs most, and why they had proved important and relevant. Their replies are being posted up here, and are also posted on our website. Earlier today, Nick Clegg’s were posted up; now it is the turn of Chris Huhne.

Chris Huhne MP – David Lloyd George

My hero is David Lloyd George. An outsider, with none of the benefits of inherited wealth or education, he became one of the most dynamic and brilliant politicians ever to lead the Liberal Party.

He was a radical to his bones. His early prominence came partly through his campaign against the Boer War. He helped to build an anti-war coalition including not merely the advanced elements of the party, outraged by imperial aggression, but also some of the most conservative and rural elements, who identified with the independent qualities of the Boers.

In government, Lloyd George had a passionate belief in his own ability to cajole and persuade, amply demonstrated during labour disputes as President of the Board of Trade. He was a great speaker, but also a great listener. The two are connected: great speakers have to be ever-sensitive to the moods and motivations of their audiences. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was the kingpin of the government’s attempt to force through social welfare and overcome the opposition of the House of Lords.

The old age pension is his most durable domestic achievement, and a testament to his New Liberal thinking. The roots of this tradition are the wellspring of Liberal Democrat thinking today, whether coming through the New Liberal – or ‘social liberal’ – tradition or the social democratic tradition that rejoined us in 1981.

I also find Lloyd George’s style as a politician appealing. He was an optimist who believed in the power of ideas to persuade and change the world, and he was always prepared to throw himself into the political battle even when the odds looked stacked against him. He was an anti-metropolitan politician: a believer that the best and purest instincts were to be found in the misty valleys of his beloved Wales, from which he drew emotional strength. Combined with this optimism was a great sense of mischief, captured for me in the marvellous Low cartoon, a copy of which I have on my study wall. Lloyd George is sitting, elfin-like, on the green benches, hugging himself with mirth; never pompous, always able to see the folly and the ridiculousness of power and position.

In the 1930s, he was the only mainstream politician who understood John Maynard Keynes’s analysis of the causes of mass unemployment and the only statesman with the vision to banish it. It is the country’s loss that he was never given the chance to do so.

Lloyd George remains a figure of controversy, but he had a real and lasting impact, both on the country and on the party. He has the strongest claim to be the father of the British welfare state and he was a great war leader at a time of desperate national need. He brought Liberalism into the twentieth century, adjusting successfully to the new politics of a mass industrial democracy and ensuring that it stood for radical social and economic reform. He has been dead for sixty years – but his record should inspire us all.

As we have done in each of the last two Liberal Democrat leadership elections, in 1999 and 2006, the Liberal Democrat History Group has asked both candidates for the Liberal Democrat leadership to write a short article on their favourite historical figure or figures – the ones they felt had influenced their own political beliefs most, and why they had proved important and relevant. Their replies are being posted up here, and are also posted on our website. First off, here are Nick Clegg’s.

Nick Clegg MP – Harry Willcock and Vaclav Havel

In recent weeks I’ve made it clear that I’d be prepared to go to court rather than be forced to give personal information about myself to a compulsory Identity Cards database. So it’s probably no surprise that the first of my liberal heroes is a North London dry cleaner, Harry Willcock.

When stopped by police in 1950 and asked for his ID card he refused, with the now famous words: ‘I am a Liberal. I am against that sort of thing.’

Harry was an active Liberal, having been a councillor and parliamentary candidate. Thanks to his stand, which was supported by Liberal MPs and Lords at the time, the ID cards programme was first challenged in the courts and then finally scrapped. He showed that one man willing to take a stand can change the system.

The liberal argument put forward by Harry and others in opposition was a fundamental one; it was an argument about liberty and the relationship between the individual and the state. For them, the imposition of ID cards was intolerable because of the power it gave to the state, a power which was inevitably abused.

I was moved recently to see the plaque in the National Liberal Club in Harry’s honour. He died while participating in a debate at the Club, and it is said that ‘freedom’ was the last word to pass his lips.

The arguments of Willcock and the liberals of his day remain relevant. The Liberal Democrats continue to stand against an over-bearing state and are willing to take a stand for what we believe.

My second hero is Vaclav Havel – a man who married high art and high politics. His leadership of the Charter 77 manifesto group and then the Velvet Revolution was an inspiration to people of my generation who witnessed and admired his courage, and that of other freedom fighters behind the Iron Curtain such as Lech Walesa. He showed that men of principle and character truly can change the world.

Havel spent many years in prison and even when released was kept under surveillance and constantly harassed. Yet his determination to change the government of his country for the better did not falter. He put at the cornerstone of his activities a belief in the importance of non-violent resistance. Few politicians can ever hope to move people in the number of ways that Havel did with his words and deeds.

He is also a particular hero of mine because many years ago I met him in his presidential palace in Prague. At the time I was working on the Czech Republic’s application to join the European Union and he gave a small group of us a considerable amount of time. He is a small, quiet man, with a compelling intensity about him.

What Havel and Willcock share is a willingness to take a personal stand on issues of freedom and liberty. It is, quite simply, the essence of liberalism – and that is why they are my political heroes.

The deadline for Policy Papers and for Constitutional and Standing Orders amendments is Wednesday 21st November (noon). All motions should be sent to the Policy Projects Team on , or at 4 Cowley Street, London SW1P 3NB.

Any queries, please contact the Policy Projects Team on 020 7219 2576

(The deadline for policy and business motions is 9 January.)

William Ewart Gladstone, David Lloyd George, John Maynard Keynes, John Stuart Mill – who is the greatest Liberal of all time? All Lib Dems coming to the autumn party conference will be able to cast a vote.

The poll for the greatest British Liberal in history is being run by the Liberal Democrat History Group. In the first stage, in July, readers of the Journal of Liberal History voted between 15 potential candidates (plus an eclectic collection of write-ins).

We chose not to define what we meant by ‘great’ – leaving that up to our voters – but our criteria for candidates were that they must have been active in the Liberal Democrats, or its predecessors, or influential on Liberal thinking; they must have been British, or active in Britain; and they must be dead.

The final four to emerge were:
Read more »

To all conference reps and local parties - please note that 12 noon on Wednesday 12 September is the deadline for:

The first two in the list can be submitted by any 10 conference reps, local parties, SAOs, etc; the last two by any one conference rep.

Just to remind people, because the procedure is still relatively new - ‘urgent issues’ are topics suggested for a general discussion without a vote at the end. There are two slots reserved for them at conference. They’re suitably for very topical and quite broad issues on which the party may not yet be ready for a decision - previous examples have included issues around citizenship in multicultural Britain; gun crime; and peak oil.

Emergency motions, and amendments, should be send to ; questions to reports to ; and urgent issues to .

Thanks,

Duncan Brack (Chair, Federal Conference Committee)

Federal Conference Committee is consulting party members about the timings of the autumn federal conference, from 2008 onwards. The present timing sees conference starting with consultative sessions on the Saturday afternoon and ending with the leader’s speech just before Thursday lunchtime. The main business of the conference generally takes place between Monday and Thursday.

We would like to know your views on possible changes to this pattern. There is a case to be made for making more use of the weekend, allowing people who can’t come for a full week to be able to participate in more sessions. So conference could start with consultative sessions on Saturday morning, and then main sessions from Saturday afternoon onwards. The conference could finish with the leader’s speech on Wednesday afternoon, ensuring that conference-goers would be free for any by-elections on the Thursday.

There are drawbacks to this proposal, including making it more likely that people will have to travel on the Friday, which is generally more costly. FCC has prepared a short consultation paper which sets out the pros and cons for this change in timing and an accompanying reform of conference registration. It contains two simple yes or no questions and leaves plenty of space for addition comments – so let us know what you think.

You can find the consultation paper on the party website at http://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/. If anyone would like a copy sent to them in the post, send a stamped self-addressed envelope (normal (DL) size will do) to Conference Office, Liberal Democrats, 4 Cowley Street, London SW1P 3NB. The consultation period closes on 23 May.

Duncan Brack

Chair, Federal Conference Committee

Do you want to run the Rally at Autumn Conference?

Federal Conference Committee has reopened the tendering process for the autumn 2007 conference rally. This process is open to any party body or group of members who wish to organise the rally.

The deadline for bids has been extended to Monday 14th May and a decision will be made at the beginning of June.

The organisation that wins the bid will get support from the Conference Office and FCC but needs to be prepared to put the time in to make it a good event. It is a great way to raise your organisation’s profile in the party.  The rally is:

• The highest attended meeting of conference
• Prime-time scheduling with no clashing events
• An excellent profile-raising opportunity

If you are interested in submitting a bid to run the rally please contact Jane Stainer, in the Conference Office () for the tender document outlining what is required. Please contact Ruth Polling () to discuss any specific questions.