May I first of all begin by thanking Lib Dem Voice readers for indulging us, and to the editors for letting me write a response to Mark Pack’s post, Jury Team: so far, it’s a flop.
You won’t be surprised that I disagree with some of Mark’s points – the idea that all of our media coverage was friendly, and this strange accusation that we were ‘going out of our way to solicit anonymous donations’. Neither are true – our press officer did well to get as much coverage as possible, but that didn’t stop the knives coming out.
Similarly, our position on donations is (I think) more open than any of the other parties. We have committed to restricting donations to £50k per donor, and felt telling people who made small donations that we needed to harvest extensive personal information under the auspices of reporting to the Electoral Commission would have been dishonest. Paypal allows us to prevent abuse, and we are not inclined to take lessons from a party that accepted a £2.4m donation from Michael Brown.*
On Twitter – I’d prefer to reach 750 people and have the same number ignore us, than reach 100 people and have a great ratio. We’re a campaign on a budget, and trying to get a message out quickly and cheaply, so no apologies there.
We’ve had over 500 people begin the forms to stand as candidates, and will this week have sufficient candidates to fill the lists in each of the 12 regions. More have said they are waiting for Westminster.
We’ve had a couple of thousand votes so far, and in the remaining couple of weeks expect that our Open Primary will have seen more people involved in the selection of our candidates than any of the other parties. With more money and more time, I think that the proof of concept we were seeking from the European elections could mature into an interesting campaign for Westminster.
We cannot possibly know after only four weeks in the public eye if the project will be as successful as we would hope, but I think we’ve started an interesting conversation about what we should be expecting political parties to do with respect to open primaries and engaging the 98% of people who aren’t members of those parties.
It amazes me that with so much distrust of both Labour and Conservatives, that third parties such as the Lib Dems should not have capitalised on that antipathy – in spite of the ample resources provided by groups such as the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.
I don’t know how many candidates the Lib Dems will run for the European elections, or how they were chosen, or how many applicants there were for those places, but it is a little rich to criticise a month-old start-up for failing where you too have failed, in spite of greater visibility and resources.
I would hope that a belief in re-engaging a lost voting population and espousing greater democracy, transparency and accountability were things that Liberal Democrats would be able to at least treat charitably. I respect the party for its stance and actions over expenses and sleaze. In fact, other than the inexplicable three-line whip to abstain on offering a referendum on Lisbon, I find much to admire.
However, for as long as the unprincipled powerhungry join Labour and the Tories, and the sanctimonious hinterland belongs to the futile efforts of us political purists, I’d like to think that avoiding petty hostilities was the least we could expect of each other. Truce?
* Morus is an active member of Jury Team and regular contributor to PoliticalBetting.com.
Editor’s note: * this sentence originally read, ‘Paypal allows us to prevent abuse, and we are not inclined to take lessons from a party that the party that solicited £2.4m illegal donation from Michael Brown.’ As Lib Dem Voice has constantly pointed out, the Electoral Commission’s verdict that it was “reasonable for the Liberal Democrats – based on the information available to them at the time – to regard the donations … as permissible. It remains the Commission’s view that the Liberal Democrats acted in good faith at that time, and the Commission is not re-opening the question of whether the party or its officers failed to carry out sufficient checks into the permissibility of the donations.”
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14 Comments
There are two different issues we could debate.
One is the purely factual issue of whether or not Jury Team (or the Lib Dems) is successful.
The Lib Dems are a reasonably successful political party with 10% of MPs, millions of votes etc.etc. Not as successful as Labour or the Tories, it’s true, but a long way ahead of the 300+ other registered UK political parties.
How Jury Team fares, we’ll see. Good luck with the slate.
But the other issue us Jury Team’s 11 policies. As I posted at http://tinyurl.com/cwy2xq I agree with some, but strongly disagree with others, including your opposition to whipping which I believe to be anti-democratic.
(I guess I should also mention some inaccuracies in your piece: the Michael Brown donation wasn’t illegal; the Lib Dems will probably have more people than Jury Team involved in selecting our candidates – at least 5,000 – and you could easily have found out exactly how they were all chosen as the party doesn’t keep it secret).
Costigan – how is opposition to whipping undemocratic? I have a constituancy MP in a safe Labour seat, who has consostently voted against local public opinion, following his party’s line on issues like ID cards, Iraq, terrorism etc. He cannot even begin to pretend to represent his constituency on these issues, and his response to letters, petitions etc is to merely reiterate the party line – yet his majority is so huge that the local LibDems aren’t hardly bothering to leaflet the local area. The Whip, in his case, means that democracy is betrayed. What’re your reasons for thinking otherwise?
Why is Lib Dem voice giving a platform to a party that will be contesting elections against us in 6-7 weeks time?
Matt – Safe seats are just as bad – for me Proportional Representation isn’t about fairness for parties so much as for voters.
People should be able to hold their elected representatives to account (one reason why the appalling Euro list system is nearly as bad as first-past-the-post).
(So I was a little surprised that Jury Team seemed to have no policy on electoral reform).
Have a look at my blog post (the link I posted) for my full argument but, essentially, without parties and whipping there’s no way for a voter to support a proper manifesto and then hold the governing party to account if it isn’t delivered.
Without parties and whipping, voters choose which well-meaning individuals are going to do whatever they think is best. With it, imperfect as it is, voters at least have a chance to say which policies they want the country to follow.
Same thoughts here, Hywel – ‘truce’ is certainly not the word for a party who could be the difference between 1 and 2 LibDem MEPs in the regions they contest.
Also, how can you criticise the selection process in our party to have “failed” when you admit scant lines earlier that you don’t know “how they were chosen, or how many applicants there were for those places”? More people DID take place in those processes than have done (and dare I say will, in spite of your predictions?) in the Jury Team primaries… and afaik at least in Yorks&Humber any party member was able to have some input into who made it on to the list, meaning that from Bradford we have a councillor and a PhD student who made it on.
I will say one thing – I do like your ads. Even if they are a bit studenty in the way they’re blatant rip-offs… they are catchy.
Hywel – two reasons:
(i) right of reply;
and
(ii) as per here: “Lib Dem Voice is also committed to publishing opinion articles from non-Lib Dems which we think will be of interest to our readers.”
(i) suggests that you would publish a piece from Dawn Butler or (reductio ad absurdem) from John Howell (Tory MP for Henley) 5 days before polling day.
If that’s so it’s a silly policy.
Is this going to be a new Thursday feature, allowing a comedian to write a column? Because, if so, you need to find one with newer material and whose punchlines don’t fall quite so flat.
Regarding the issue of a manifesto pledge – the reality is, we have little idea of how an elected party is going to govern. Only a tiny number of the elected members of a Party form the active core of government, and they are free to ignore their manifesto pledges, as they are not binding. Did we know New Labour was going to make photographing the police illegal? Or that it would set up a surveillance society to rival that in force during apartheid-era South Africa, including such lovely things as house arrest, and extended detention without trial?
Jury Team and Europe was never going to be big, as European elections do not arouse much electoral interest. We shall have to wait for June to see what eventuates. It is still too early to call the selection process a ‘flop’, as it will, inevitably, heat up as the deadline of 24 April approaches. Jury Team’s campaign has not yet kicked off, so it is too early to resort to contumely. Jury team represents a way for ordinary people, who are not part of the Party system, to get into politics. Most people I have spoken to, are disillusioned with the political class, having the overwhelming feeling that people in most political parties have succeeded in climbing the greasy pole within their party, but few have achieved much in the real world. I think Jury Team’s concept is good in principle. Jury Team could represent a paradigm shift. Only time will tell.
I applaud the Liberal Democrats for, after writing a rather caustic piece on The Jury Team, giving them the right to reply.
I also sympathise with the argument of giving space to an opposition party.
However, if you criticise someone, surly it is part of the great English tradition to give that person the right to reply?
Well done the Liberal Democrats.
Parliament is the voice of the people and any action by those elected to represent the people of which deprives the people of a voice is a violation of trust and mandate of those elected.
How many elected representitives (MPs)deprived the people of their right to a voice?
How about an example with Lisbon treaty and the right of the people to Referendum on EU.
Paste Referendum.List.com into google and find out how your local MP voted on Referendum on EU issue.
Edit: ReferendumList.com
What Hywel says.
If any of Jury Team’s members want a ‘truce’ they should join the Liberal Democrats and not one of our opponents.
I can only speak of my experiences of the effect the Jury Team are having. I decided to put my name in the hat last week. I have sought votes through close family and friends, if I get enough to go through there will be quite a few new faces turning up at the ballot box to support me in the June elections. Proof, on a small scale that the Jury Team are bringing more people to the table.
Big business has got a big hold on the way our Governments govern. After all it makes business sense.
Not been party to any of this, as Independents we can raise issues such as free public transport, getting rid of a pointless nuclear weapon and halving class sizes.