Reading on, though, it does look as if we may all need PhDs in mathematical topology if we are to understand precisely what shape of turn our policy is going through. Comments such as “perhaps it is the wind direction that has gone through a 180 degree shift with us in exactly the same boat moving in exactly the same direction” add to the intellectual challenge. Well, I shall cop out here, and fall back on common sense. If it’s really so difficult to describe where the boat is going, then perhaps it’s just going round in circles and getting nowhere. And, perhaps that’s just as well.

Are you listening to us all, Captain Apollo, I wonder? Being an incorrigible optimist, I shall take heart from your recent and much more inspired comments on energy policy, and conclude that … perhaps you are!

Nuff said.

In any case I am only prepared to sell a product I believe to be, at least to a significant extent, desireable. At the last election I voted for my local SNP candidate, not because I believe in separation but because they were the closest, not very close, to liberalism.

The point I was making about Ireland was that there are structural differences between economies which mean uniformity of policy would be damaging as any strict doctrinal approach.

Similarly it must be expected that every branch has its own idiosyncracies, however my resolute feeling why we lag in the polls and the reason why we don’t win is because we don’t campaign enough (which means primarily delivering leaflets), because where we do campaign we do win seats.

Even if you only offer to help out with a hundred focusses a couple of times a year that can make anywhere up to a hundred votes difference on election day. And for that you don’t even need to be a member!

As regards holding my nose & fighting from within to support the liberal wing of the party – I recognise that all parties are broad churches & that is what I was doing. It is possible that things are not quite so bad in England but my expulsion proves that, at least in Scotland the liberal wing of the party is no longer permitted even to speak. I think that is not unrelated to its recent spectacular decline from 2nd place in Scotland at the last election to 4th now.

I agree that there are eco-fascists out there who’d ban all cars at the drop of a hat (or even worse), but there is also a liberal wing to the thing which we must ensure we support in all our long-term interests. In fact the liberal contribution to the environmental debate is precisely about developing technologies and raising efficiency levels while reducing the harm of our collective behaviour.

Similarly on energy, foreign or any other policy it is important to recognise there is a difference between debating positions and policy positions, so there is never any reason or excuse to get exasperated, at least not with a party which is truly liberal and democratic at its core (as we are).

The Irish economic question is interesting, but my feeling is that it is a bit of a red herring, partly because it can’t be considered out of its’ context as an off-shore hub off the shore of the UK which has enabled the Irish to profit at our expense to a not insignificant extent. However this is not to say that their historical context hasn’t enabled them to operate a significantly more liberal economy than Consecutive and Labour party governments have operated here or that we can’t look over there as a potential inspiration.

I sometimes struggle to contain my enthusiasm in my desire to be more forceful in condemnation of opponents to liberty and have been almost reckless at times, but it’s important to remember that even if we are each flawed as individuals we can put our stengths to good use by combining for greater shared effect.

Having done the platitudes specific policies (& I have hundreds on my blog – you should check) which I think would be popular & distinctive are going deliberatley for 7% Irish style growth by the method that worked there – low corporation tax & reduced regulation, particularly in housing. If you remember Clintom got elected on the uncharming but true line “its the economy stupid”.

I would also say it is neccessary to acknowledge that without new nuclear we are going to have blackouts & that even Labour, with their newfound conversion, are saying that before spending 4 years building reactors we should spend 5 on the paperwork. The probability we are going to have blackouts is a really scary one that politicians of all parties are refusing to talk about. A free market in electricity would almost certainly go nuclear because it is cheapest, though coal is a contender (I would also prefer nuclear on genuine environmental reasons but we can disagree over that).

On foreign policy I think we should make the support of & impartiality of international law the cornerstone of any truly liberal policy. I think this would also command widespread agreement. Personally I would like to see an admission that we did the opposite to Yugoslavia & an attempt to make amends, insofar as one can make amends for what we did, however I can recognise that might not be, in the short term, popular.

It is clear that Labour are very deeply unpopular. The Tories present popularity is entirely cosmetic as shown by the fact that their lead drops so much when people are asked how they would vote if Bliar came back. Nobody really trusts or respects Cameron. In the circumstances the LibDems should be doing very well indeed & I am convinced they would be if they were presenting a progressive alternative which was economically sane & did not rely on the theory that it will be possible to run the economy on 100% windmillery.

I just wonder which faction you’d consider yourself an adherent of and whether you actually think that your interests are advanced by continuing old and interminable disputes or by putting aside difference to work on matters of mutual concern.

I’d be interested to know, because for any liberal or Liberal party to grasp the nettle and become the party of government again we must somehow unify all possible support behind our agenda, and your experience is an exemplification of our challenge.

Second your comparison with disciplinery action at works falls since this was not “disciplinery action” but firing. On reconsideration you might agree that the comparison does not reflect well on the party. The reason I made my defence public was because the party had decided I was not to be allowed to see the charges. I think an employment tribunal presented with an “employer” who fired somebody & refused to say why would give short shrift.

In any case the claim that making public the undisputed facts of how the party has behaved is “bringing the party into disrepute” implies the party is aware they have behaved disreputablty.

Oranjepan what your post amounts to is saying that the party’s principles are no longer what was meant when the word “liberal” was coined but are now some sort of mixture of middle of the roadism, nanny statism, Ludditism & “what works”. I accept that this is quite a common position & you are perfectly entitled to stand for it. You are just not entitled to call yourselves liberals, One of the most fundamental problems of politics is that people adopt populr language to cover the fact that they are doing something completely different. The communists were doing this when they called themselve “People’s Democracies” & you are doing the same when you call these positions “Liberal”.

In any case I dispute that what you are standing for is “what works”> Ireland, with its 7% growth since 1990 has amply demonstrated that what works, certainly on the economic front, is liberalism.

Of Ashdown you say “You may argue from a purist ideological position that any connection with genocidal murderers makes a person beneath contempt”

Well certainly a knowing & strongly supportive one involving lying about the Nazi antecedents & genocidal commitments of those friends does it for me. Saying that national aspirations are of no account when compared to the borders established between the Ottoman & Austro-Hungarian Emperors Mr Ashdown was opposing the entire history of traditional liberalism which says boundaries should be drawn on ethnic lines. If you consider the present situation in the non-nation of Bosnia & Hercegovina is “what works” I would again suggest that traditional liberalism would work better.

Asd regarding helping out as a non-member I think this is a foolish suggestion. As a blogger I have reason to believe I have considerably more influence on politics (even indirectly the position of the Scottish Lib Dems) than I ever did as a member. However I now consider the party to be one of the problems in the competent & civilised goveranance of this country rather than the solutions.

I would certainly work for a liberal party (in the traditional meaning of the word) but the LD’s aren’t that.

The transition from being the ‘Liberal Party’ to the ‘Liberal Democrats’ was painful for a number of reasons which can be highlighted by your example.

Strategically and theoretically the political debate moved on at the end of the cold war as the West proved resilient and the singular liberal argument merged with the pluralist democratic argument – centrism exploded and reconfigured to become decentralisation, even if we are still continuing to fine-tune our new balance. Elsewhere right and left-wing ideology imploded as they became associated with division and conflict – Thatcherism was the victim and Blair the immediate product of this change.

Where there had previously been objectively ‘right and wrong’ answers (definable according to one’s politics) there were now only infinitely debatable subjective methods aimed at discovery of ‘what works’.

Where calling Paddy Ashdown a ‘Nazi’ might once have been the ultimate put-down, it suddenly became unacceptable as it was drained of all coherent intellectual content (though it still remains emotive). Such attempts to smear with allegations of guilt by association were truly an admission of failure and an acceptance of the inability to influence conditions on the ground.

You may argue from a purist ideological position that any connection with genocidal murderers makes a person beneath contempt, but the reality is that through his actions in doing as much as he could to minimise the harm and suffering Paddy has become a hero of the peace by engaging the real enemies in the trenches, while you harp on from the sidelines only to be caught in the crossfire.

We need all the help we can get (especially in building up our leafleting cult), so I’m sure we’d welcome you back with armfuls of focusses if you truly want to pull in the same direction and are both willing to participate to the internal debate and prepared to represent the side of our party in the external debate.

Don’t take exception, take part.

In particular, your post of 8 March 2006 entitled “CASE FOR PURGING ME FOR BEING “ILLIBERAL” DROPPED, i AM NOW TO BE PURGED FOR OBJECTING TO BEING PURGED FOR BEING ILLIBERAL” [sic]

You quote from the letter you received. I repeat it here:

“. . . [T]hey were also extremely concerned that, despite the paper being
made available to you on a confidential basis and your agreeing to
maintain confidentiality, your response was sent to senior politicians of
other political parties thus breaching that confidentiality.

The Executive took the view that by doing this you had brought the party
into dispute.”

Nothing in that letter supports your claim “reason they wrote a document & voted to expel me was because they alleged I had already made that document public.”

Lastly, most _companies_ let alone membership organisations have rules about employees bringing them into disrepute. I would expect that if I was in the middle of disciplinary proceedings at work, and I started publishing information about those proceedings in public forums and, particularly, trying to generate interest in the proceedings before the outcome, that I would get fired for bringing the company into disrepute.

There’s certainly a reason that employment disputes tend to only get in the press once they become a matter for employment tribunals, rather than when the employee is still in the midst of the disciplinary process.
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Martin – I agree about the blogsphere; a number of things occur to me as possibilities. (A) Being thrown out of an organisation that you’ve given your time to, is always going to lead to hard feelings whether the reasons for it were good ones or otherwise. This slur on their character will niggle people and they are going to want to make sure people know how they feel. The internet and blogs enable people to put their viewpoint across whenever the opportunity arises. (B) Most people harbour some views that others would describe as slightly odd. Bloggers have the opportunity to make sure that everyone knows about their slightly odd views – in a public forum and in a way that leaves a permanent record. ( C) Dare I say it, but some people blog because they feel they need an outlet for their strongly-held views, and the traditional channels are just not interested. Such people are more likely to get into heated debates and end up saying things in a public and permanent forum that get them ‘into trouble’. (D) Lastly there’s something about the medium that encourages people to say things they never would in person, and in a way that’s inherently public.

I did no such thing. I ask you to prove or withdraw that lie.

I only went public with my objection to being expelled as a result of being told that although I was, under the rules, entitled to put my defence to the charges, the party would not allow me to see these charges. I believe I was justified in objecting to such Kafkaesque behaviour even by “Authority legitimated by the democratic balance of opinion”. Perhaps objecting to being mugged does not make one a “team player”

Purely as a result of my going public & criticism from other bloggers they ultimately let me see the charges & subsequently asked me not to make them public. I did not do so & have not done so. This obviously hindered my when making public my own reply but I showed them that courtesy.

A little thought will show that it is anyway impossible that the reason they wrote a document & voted to expel me was because they alleged I had already made that document public.

I suspect your “vast” reading has not been thorough & probably done by someone else. The contention that charges against a party member are “confidential documents” shows a basic contempt for the rules of justice which, even of itself, means your party cannot honestly make any claim whatsoever to being liberal.

I accept that, within voluntary organisations “Authority is legitimated by the democratic balance of opinion” Stalinist though it sounds. I accept that this authority & balance of opinion is such that it is forbidden to support traditional liberalism within the party. Indeed that was my point.

I do dispute that, if words have any meaning, it is possible for anybody to honestly call the LD liberal nowadays. I accept that many in politics behave as if they don’t & by definition, this includes almost all members of the LD party now.

It seems you are unable to agree to disagree.

Authority is legitimated by the democratic balance of opinion, it is not objective – which explains why you still seek affirmation of your position.

http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/2005/12/i-was-purged-by-liberal-democrats.html

There is no exageration & my concept of democracy does not include not being allowed to to suggest that a successful economy, achieved as the Irish did it, would be worth going for. A “team player” is one who wants the team to succeed & in fact the SNP, at least nominally, subsequently adopted such policies & it played a major part in their success.

Iain Dale (a different one) who had been one of those who expelled me, attacked me on a previous thread. I invited him to deny the factual accuracy of anything I said & he didn’t reply. I assume nobody involved will this time either.

Really, you exaggerate to say that talk is ‘forbidden’ within our party and anyway I doubt you speak with authority invested on behalf of anyone.

It sounds to me more like you didn’t like being a team player. I hope you’ve reconciled yourself to more democratic behaviour in the intervening period.

Oranjepan I was expelled from the formerly liberal party for suggesting such policies. The bits I put in quotation marks are specificly from the charges levied against me. While low taxes & economic freedom are the basis of traditional liberalism I can thus say with authority that they are forbidden in the LDs now.

A pretty big logic breakdown. At least some of that 5% will be replaced each year and in any case the cost of the Civil Service isn’t all of government spending.

There is a tabloid/saloon bar attitude about spending cuts that they would be easy to find (the classic “cutting waste” line). However the Tories in 2001 and 2005 couldn’t find cuts on this scale and they weren’t advocating additional spending of the sort we are proposing.