For years the internal workings of the Liberal Democrat party have not been known to many party members. Thousands, in fact. I did think, stupidly as it now turns out, that the election of Ros Scott, who I supported as President and still support wholeheartedly, may make a little change to that. From my PC there seemed to be a chance that I would be able to start to understand what the heck the Federal Executive (FE) does and what the heck the President does.

The ideal opportunity then came along. Our Chief Executive was accused of expenses irregularities. He then …

Saving the local Post Office from closure, and the Royal Mail from privatisation, has long been a serious issue on the campaign trail for traditionalists and progressives alike.

At this time – when private banks have ceased lending to sound customers and many urban and rural areas are excluded altogether from essential public utility services – these causes take on a more acute tone. At the risk of schadenfreude at Labour’s calamitous handling of these essential institutions, let’s examine just how the government’s proposals for the postal service fail to deliver (apologies, I couldn’t help it!).

Hardly anyone would deny that the Royal Mail faces pressure to modernise and to compete with commercial services, and that to keep pace with an ever-changing communications landscape some restructuring is required. The question is how this is best achieved, how to prioritise disparate facets of the service from universal postal coverage to banking and civil services.

According to the accepted Westminster doctrine, established some 15 years ago and remaining today, competition is the key. Ask the Royal Mail to compete for business with private sector providers and its efficiency will increase, the customer will win.

The problem is, private sector providers are able to cherry-pick juicy corporate contracts and profitable speciality deliveries, leaving the public sector to ensure that Mrs. Jones’ birthday card gets from Weston-super-Mare to Wick on time and intact. Not only this, the underfunded Royal Mail has little capacity to invest in modern infrastructure and facilities.

As befits the current administration, their response is to part-privatise the Royal Mail and sell off hundreds of Post Offices, hoping that the private sector will still serve communities whilst turning a handy profit. Unsurprisingly this is not a popular proposal; so much so that as many as 150 Labour MPs are expected to vote against their own party’s policy, risking turmoil for an already beleaguered leadership.

As far as the Conservatives are concerned Labour’s policy doesn’t go far enough, some Tory MPs favouring a complete sell-off; however they may still support a part-privatisation in the knowledge that they can always complete the job themselves in a few months time.

To avoid the embarrassment of relying on Tory votes to pass this reform into law, a desperate Downing Street scramble has unfolded in the last few days, with Compass chair Neal Lawson apparently failing to get the rebel MPs to agree on a not-for-profit model for the Royal Mail along the lines of Network Rail. Without this compromise the government must steel itself for defeat, potentially scuppering the chances of both postal reform and of Gordon Brown lasting until next June as PM.

So what of the Liberal Democrats – how would we do things differently?

I went to the one-day Lib Dem policy conference at the London School of Economics at the weekend. As a fairly new member of the Lib Dems (I joined a few months ago) I was curious to see what happens at these sort of events and was also looking forward to it. I attended with Darren, a fellow member of my local constituency branch in Bracknell, who has been a member for a while longer than myself.

The first thing that struck me was how open everything was. The 300 or so people who were there, who included councillors, …

Following the debate for and against university fees, LSE lecturer Tim Leunig gives his take on that contest.

What are the benefits of going to university?

Going to university is profitable for individuals, on average, and for any given A-level grades. Although a handful of degrees (e.g. medicine) are particularly profitable, once you take into account A-level grades, most subjects are equally valuable (classicists earn more than media studs grads because classicists generally have better A-level grades).

Second, the “profitability” of going to university remains even as graduate numbers have increased. This tells us that demand for graduates is elastic: if …

Earlier today, Julian Astle laid out Centre Forum’s new policy paper about student finance. We asked Paul Holmes MP to respond.

On behalf of Centre Forum Julian Astle makes a very superficial and flimsy case for joining the New Labour/Conservative club and welcoming the free market into Higher Education.

First Julian sets up a straw man by making the claim that “Liberal Democrats hope that making tuition ‘free’ will draw more students from low income families into higher education.” Really? I don’t actually remember that as being central to any of the Parliamentary or Conference debates that I have ever …

The key policy declared at the Lib Dems’ Bournemouth conference last month was not the famous ‘Tax Cuts’. It was that the State should shrink. In the run-up to conference, argument raged as to how big the tax cuts might be, and who should receive them. Only one decision appeared to be cast in stone: State spending should shrink, by a hefty £20 billion.

This stance was bolstered by bold new policy declarations on education and health. Our ‘free schools’ policy would put large sums of public money into support for privately-run schools. Meanwhile, the National Health Service should be reformed to require ordinary NHS patients to pay for some of the most expensive drug treatments – or else go without. This last step outflanked the Tories’ Andrew Lansley, whose perceptive comment was, “If the NHS could simply exclude treatments and expect patients to pay up, the values of the NHS could be progressively undermined.”

Today, these policies lie in ruins. Not – or at least not yet – because Lib Dem members across the country have woken up, recognised a betrayal of the Party’s long-held principles, and rebelled en masse. Instead, events have taken charge.

We have seen a massive growth in State power – as the only effective means of preventing financial meltdown. Bemused neo-con Bushites, so long accustomed to treating government as the humble servant of global business enterprise, found themselves forced to let government take control. In the UK, Treasury civil servants became the new masters of the financial universe. Tony Blair, who so fretted that Brown might spoil his precious legacy, had probably not actually feared the return of Clause Four socialism. But that is effectively what has happened.

The Liberal Democrats made a significant step forward at their Conference last week when we passed the Make It Happen policy paper.

The main issue of the debate revolved around Nick Clegg’s pledge to cut billions of pounds from the income tax of low and middle income families. The party has broadly welcomed this, though many have accepted it only as long as it is accompanied by a promise that the overall tax-take will remain the same, and that richer people should shoulder more of the tax burden.

This redistributionist error was sadly reinforced by Clegg himself in an …