Fair point Mike but 1. I was housebound and 2. Even if i wasnt I think leaflets are probably the most ludicrous method of communication imaginable in the 21st century.

In light of 1 and 2. Airing my concerns here and hope someone who matters listens.

Really ? I’m very much is favour of change, I’m also in favour of realism.

I happy for the party to rebrand, I wouldn’t even object to a change of name, and of course I would like the party to communicate clear messages and reach out to people who aren’t members.

To coin a phrase – it’s bleeding obvious.
None of these are even vaguely new ideas and all have the devil in the detail.

More than 20 years ago we had effectively supporter instead of memebers schemes with people signed up for £1, which they didn’t actually pay themselves.

Far from being partisan, I haven’t even decided who to vote for.

“In the SDP, David Owen defeated Roy Jenkins in 1983 by claiming to be the more “radical” and even “socialist” candidate.”

David Owen never defeated Roy Jenkins. When both men contested the leadership in 1982, Jenkins won. In 1983, Owen was the only candidate.

It is perfectly correct to point out, of course, that Owen presented himself as a “radical” but ended up praising Mrs Thatcher and calling for the return of the Press Gang.

Was it mentioned at all, in fact?

It seems very clear to me that Mouse and Dody Cahedron are never going to be convinced that any change is necessary.

The rest of us can clearly see that it does. Lets hope sanity prevails.

Ironically, the parties who have made this work best for them are the parties who adopted one-man-one-vote (or a diluted version thereof) later than we did. Cameron’s leadership, whatever you think of it, would surely have run into trouble within his own party if he had been selected by the old-style “men in suits in smoke-filled rooms”. He gained legitimacy by making it clear that he stood for a new approach, and winning endorsement for that approach in the leadership election.

The system breaks down when a leadership candidate fights a dishonest or misleading campaign which fails to reveal a new leader in their true colours. In the SDP, David Owen defeated Roy Jenkins in 1983 by claiming to be the more “radical” and even “socialist” candidate. Once elected, he adopted policies that were in no way either radical or socialist, with the deliberate aim of engineering a split with the Liberals. We all suffered very badly from Owen’s hidden agenda.

A year into Nick Clegg’s leadership, it now seems that our strongest policy line is to cut taxes. As best I recall, this subject was hardly mentioned during the leadership campaign. A retrospective “endorsement” at Conference cannot compensate for the lack of a proper choice in the first place.

I don’t believe that wild schemes to abolish membership are any sort of answer to this problem. I do think our new President should warn of the dangers that can arise when leadership is not sufficiently consultative, and when a Party is deliberately divided against itself, in much the same way as Owen split the Alliance, all those years ago.

I re-iterate that i wished i lived in your area.

You said…”I think there’s a lot of strength in the argument that if you can be trusted to vote for leader you can be trusted to vote on policy at conference – and that specific selected “representatives” are unnecessary. As Mark says, a lot of this is down to the histories of the predecessor parties.”

My answer is well then its surely about time we brought it up to date? Your points about “making more of online consultations, perhaps video-streaming and voting” are where i am definately at.

Secondly the rest of your email seems to highlight the fact that SOME local parties are doing a monumentally better job than the national one. So i hope the President can “kick-ass” and drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Thanks for making me feel better about being a member as well.

TO MArk Valladares.

Wow No wonder Lib Dems membership is falling. Not even sure I would have joined if i had realised it was this complex.

Federal Policy committees, Regional policy committees …and after all that they come up with a policy that is so complex to communicate only those who have proved to their local party that they are across all the detail get to vote on it?

Is this how we ended up with a tax policy a couple of years ago that NO ONE could explain without getting into knots, let alone understand? A nurse and a doctor would be worse off , a nurse and a fireman would be better off (or was it the other way round?)……

Jeez.

I have now looked at the Presidential election sites of all three candidates. I think Chandila Fernando has the best ideas on this. So he gets my first vote. But i think he doesnt stand a chance of winning. So my 2nd preference is what really matters I suppose. I guess that should be Ros Scott but i really really dont like all those endorsements from the big-wigs. I stand by wanting an arms-length president – and there is no way she can be that…so that leaves Lembit – but he has not really said anything on this – at least not yet. So will watch and wait.

I suppose the arguments against it are it would favour those members who have the good fortune to live near the conference locations, and those who have the time and money to attend. Conference representatives are at least de jure accountable to their local parties (in that you don’t need to vote for them next time) but then again there is nothing wrong with encouraging people to turn up for a particular vote if that’s what they’re interested in. I’m a conference rep for my local party and I’m by no means interested in everything that was debated at the recent conference.

You would also work to reduce some of the disadvantages by making more of online consultations, perhaps video-streaming and voting – so people can listen/read the debate in real time and vote appropriately and easily. You could also perhaps devolve more to regional conferences, so the debates and votes could take place around the country, and then the results added up across the country.

As for supporters’ lists, locally we have compiled one in the last two years, and although we’ve concentrated on only two wards, we now have more supporters in those two wards than we have members across the entire constituency. If people agree to deliver or display a poster at election time, we automatically add them to the supporters’ list and they then get our regular newsletter and invitation to events etc.

The short answer is YES I think it would be make me much more likely to carve out the time to go to conference if i did not feel like a second class cistizen when i got there.

I dont see any logic in saying I have sufficient wits to vote on who the Leader of the party should be (pretty damn important) – but I somehow incapable of understanding and voting on whether we should change our policy on tax or tuition fees.

I also question whether i should really have to go to conference to vote. Elsewhere i can pass my vote by mailing -and indeed for one of the charities i support i can opt only to receive information (and vote) by email (which is convenient for me but must also cut the costs massively for the charity).

On a wider point I think EVERY organisation should consider what the member benefits are. I am a member of a couple of charities – I am a member bcause i support their causes – but i do also get tangible benefits from being a member as well that include (according to the charity) a house magazine, a vote on a range of issues at their AGM, discounted tickets to events, free admission to others …i could go on.

I suspect the people like those in my local party will see this as a diminunition of their power. But i think there would be much wider engagement and MORE members if we had a fairer system.
I also really like the idea of having supporters database as well. My partner would definately be a supporter – as would some of my family and friends i am sure. And I would happily invite them to be supporters if such a thing existed I just dont see the point of ALL of us being members.

One final thought – why not incentivise members to get their friends and family to become supporters. That would massively increase the mailing database, Then it would be up to whoever is in charge to convert supporters to members by explaining the benefits of doing so?

The Liberal Party’s view of policy making was based on the perhaps naïve approach that people turned up, argued the case, and voted a policy through or down. As access to Party Assemblies was comparatively relaxed, if you wanted to get involved you could… as long as you could turn up, that is. It was a strongly held belief that listening to the debate was vital to good decision making.

The SDP was different. The traumas that led to them leaving the Labour Party drove them towards ‘committees of experts’. A much more formal ‘top down’ approach prevailed, with policy groups at the core.

It is the latter ethos which prevailed after merger and our policy making, whilst opened up to some extent, is still founded on the work of policy working groups. There is a vote at Conference, although it tends to be based on a summarising motion which leaves little scope for amendment of bits of the policy paper which trouble conference representatives.

Getting involved was a bit mysterious, although policy groups are now advertised through Lib Dem News. However, unless you’re connected to the Party more centrally, there is no doubt that it is difficult to penetrate the policy making machinery.

The role of the President is, as already stated, comparatively unrelated to policy, indeed, the Leader chairs the Federal Policy Committee. However, if members have concerns about the ability to get involved in policy making, one of the roles of the President is to relay and represent those concerns to the Federal Policy Committee.

Our formal policy making does require some commitment of time, attendance at meetings, and time for research. You do need to be able to argue your case, and none of this encourages a ‘as time permits’ involvement.

However, there is nothing to stop an individual or group of individuals developing their own policy proposals for consideration, be it at local, regional or State/Federal level.

Martin, I don’t know where you are, but if you’re in London, I’m happy to put you in touch with our Regional Policy Committee, and I’m sure that they’ll welcome your participation. If you’re in another Region, if I can point you in the right direction, I happily will.

“But the reason I think I SHOULD have A RIGHT to have a say on party policy is because I pay my dues and am a member. Surely ??????

Otherwise what ARE the benefits of being a member? And any candidate that thinks that the current system of voting on policy needs, at the least, INSPECTION gets my vote.”

It’s certainly not right that your local party failed to respond to you – and I hope that that’s an oversight rather than deliberate [I wondered what my response to a member that wrote in and asked if they could be a conference rep would be. We actually had a similar situation last year, when a new-ish member enquired about it. I ensured that this chap had the nomination papers, and that he should come to the AGM, but also chatted to him about the role and what it entailed.]

Your post also made me think of the “benefits” of being a member. It never really occurred to me that there were or should be any benefits – I joined because I broadly agreed with the Party’s direction and because I wanted to support them in that. I suppose the benefits of membership are a say in the party’s direction: a member gets to vote for leader, certain other national party positions, to speak at conference, to stand to be a candidate for the party, to stand for local or national office (including as a conference rep), to vote for local party organisation (including conference reps), to take part in various consultations.

All of these things take time, however, and for those of us who don’t have much time, it is very frustrating.

Martin, what change do you think should be made to improve membership? That any member should be able to vote at conference?

A typical local party has around 100 members, of these 10 might be core activists who are actually willing to take on responsibility, another 10 occasional ‘activists’ who will help out, and a further 20 who might show up for a fundrasing dinner with an MP or at election time.

No one is paid, all are volunteers, almost all have busy other lives.

Half a dozen core activist will be Councillors, and have even more pressure on their time, the PPC if there is one will know they are going to come third or a distant second at the most.

There is little use in arguing that this or that ought to be done to make the pary more welcoming without saying who will do it.

In terms of policy formation, the party has a hugely open structure, it must be very rare to have a competition for voting conference reps.

Apart from a pointless Conservative style referendum – do you support this 80 page document or reject it, the other alternative seems to a policy council elected by the membership – that would be great for people on the policy council and would provide some clarity and quicker response times, but it wouldn’t be as open as the current system.

Perhaps we could have an answer to a straight question about how many members/supporters and much funds Liberal Vision has? So we can judge how successful their suggested membership model is.

My hunch is that the party is quite “unwelcoming”.

It’s okay for me. I’m a middle-class, straight, Oxbridge-educated, affluent, white man with an obsession for politics.

The fact that it’s so obviously okay/natural for me probably means there’s a problem.

This isn’t just about form-filling or unreturned emails, it’s actually systemic.

The system suits people like me. That’s a VERY good reason to be against the present system!