Author Archives: Sue Doughty

Opinion: One member, one vote: What’s not to like?

By Sue Doughty | Mon 3rd March 2014 - 8:55 am

As many members will be aware, votes on policy, and for members of the committees who run the party are in the hands of the conference representatives elected by local parties. In other words, your ability to vote depends on your contacts back home. There were good reasons for this once but in this day and age it is time to take a fresh look which is why the Internal Democratic Reform Group of the Federal Executive wants to hear your views.

At present the only all member votes are for the Party Leader and the Party President, and we hope …

Opinion: Time to step back from the brink

By Sue Doughty | Sun 19th January 2014 - 7:00 pm

Recent events have shown us that. Like many other similar organisations including other political parties and trades unions and some charities we are good at telling others what should be done and then falling short ourselves. Partly this is due to the fact that money and resource available to tends to go straight to campaigns and partly because when you count a large number of volunteers as part of the party, it is harder to have a clear structure. Whatever. We haven’t covered ourselves in glory despite the high quality of many of the individuals concerned. Employment law didn’t do …

Posted in News | Tagged chris rennard and house of lords | 24 Comments

Party Reform: The Interim Peers List, is it fit for purpose?

By Sue Doughty | Tue 27th August 2013 - 11:52 am

Tim Farron, our Party President has long championed concerns about how democratic the Lib Dems really are and how can we do better. Federal Executive has now set up the Democratic Reform Group which I chair. Our first task has been to take a hard look at the Interim Peers List and we have published a consultation paper on this together with organising a meeting at Glasgow to consult members about improvements to the process. The Interim Peers list is an group of people elected by Conference Representatives from which the Party Leader can make nominations to the House of Lords.