Category Archives: Op-eds

Gordon Lishman

Opinion: “Values” and Party

By Gordon Lishman | Thu 14th May 2015 - 10:46 am

There has been a lot written about the importance of “values”. I’m not convinced.

Talk about values reinforces the idea that one can pick and mix principles and ideas – just as with policies, one can put together a package which suits your pocket or your likes and then decide which party at any one time best meets your need to vote. Or, indeed, you can just campaign on one or two which happen to strike you as most important.

This view encourages the idea that party is an outdated concept and often inconvenient if there happen to be some bits of your party’s policies which you don’t like – which there always will be in an open and democratic community. In this world of values, party affiliations are worn loosely and are often transient. I want to proclaim the importance of both party and philosophy.

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Bobby Dean

Opinion: Mental health support is for everyone – we all have brains to look after #MHAW15

By Bobby Dean | Thu 14th May 2015 - 9:02 am

I’m not having a life crisis. I’ve never suffered from depression or any other clinically recognised mental health condition. I’ve taken ownership of things that have happened to me in the past, the way they have affected my behaviour and made changes. Yet I still regularly visit a counsellor – why is that?

Is it because I wear a top-knot, work for a charity and hang out in bars in East London? Just another hipster tosser who cares too much about his own existence?

Well, maybe. But I don’t feel that way.

My backstory isn’t the point here, so I’ll only touch upon it briefly. As a kid in a working class setting, my young parents struggled to bring me and my brothers up and the stresses that came with it destroyed my relationship with them. I ended up kicked out at the age of 15, moved in with my grandparents and spent the best part of the next ten years shutting them out of my life.

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#New Members’ Day: Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #7

By Anna Ovsyanikova | Wed 13th May 2015 - 8:55 pm

Elaine & Anna campaign in Tower HamletsOriginally from Russia (actually born in the last years of theSoviet Union), since moving to the UK I for long time didn’t join any political party. The concept of joining a party in my mind wasn’t a voluntary thing, as it was compulsory in my parents’ day in the USSR and there was only one party one could join. However while finding out more and more about different parties in the UK the shock of actually being able to choose who to join brought me to realising what it is I care most about.

I care about democracy, again a word that doesn’t apply to Russia even in the present day. I care about equal opportunities for everyone, Human Rights and liberal values. The choice was obvious.

I deeply regret that when I first joined the Liberal Democrat I didn’t do much else – I went to one conference, that’s about it. I think it was more like a gesture, sort of saying “I cannot vote for you (because after 9 years and 8 months that I’m living in the UK I still can’t vote) but I join the party to show that if I had the right to vote, I would vote for you.”

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Mike Hewitson

#NewMembersDay Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #6

By Mike Hewitson | Wed 13th May 2015 - 7:55 pm

Like many of my generation I have always been liberal, but it wasn’t until I first heard Nick Clegg talk about liberal values, that I began to suspect that I was a Liberal Democrat. Although I have always been interested and indirectly involved in politics I could never commit myself to any party. Through my professional career, I almost (accidentally) became a Conservative, co-authoring a policy paper for the oldest conservative think-tank, attending party conferences, but never feeling at home or at ease with the polarity of a party that houses rabid eurosceptics, social conservatives, libertarians and economic free-marketeers. The 2015 General Election has done nothing but confirm that I am, in fact a Liberal Democrat to the core, and damn the consequences.

Since polling day I have read and heard commentary questioning the point of the Lib Dems, mainly from Conservatives, cynically attempting to lock up their electoral majority for 2020. When I look at the alternatives I couldn’t disagree with them more. Politics is increasingly about what…what policies, and what benefit they bring to individuals or interest groups, the politics of self-interest. Almost no consideration is given to the more important question of why. When I think back to first hearing Nick talk about liberal values: about freedom, fairness and equality these fundamental principles resonated with how I live my life, they were my why.

It is all too easy to get caught up in the dogma of Left and Right, but the truth is that very few normal people fall exclusively into either camp, we agree with some things, and disagree with others to varying degrees. Our next leader must resist the conformity of defining our party in terms of left or right, as our fundamental principles of liberty and social justice cut across both sides. Already an unshackled Conservative government is talking about reducing liberty in the name of security, for employees and repealing the Human Rights Act, which is why liberals need to act, and now.

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#NewMembersDay Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #5

By Simon Gilbert | Wed 13th May 2015 - 6:55 pm

The weekend after the election I surveyed my generous Surrey garden that I have acquired despite my Georgist Liberal views and decided that, partly in the spirit of national austerity, and mostly as the previous gardener had given up this commission, I would mow the lawn myself.

I started in the middle and mowed longitudinal strips up and down the lawn. After the first few lengths of concentrated mowing I took a step back to admire my progress and was shocked to find the expected pleasing straight lines were in fact ugly wavy wobbles.

Of course many of you will be thinking what I was thinking, that this is an obvious allegory for the Liberal Democrats in recent years. You see there is great temptation when mowing to look down at the line of the previous pass, and to follow a path with the cut lawn directly to the left and the unmown lawn directly to the right. This feels good at the time yet is ultimately unproductive. The key to a straight lawn is to ignore what is going on to the left and right of you, but to travel towards a fixed point in the distance, a strategy that will happily lead to a lawn to be proud of!

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Opinion: If cockroaches can survive a nuclear bomb, Liberal Democrats can survive the election #NewMembersDay

By Graeme Hurst | Wed 13th May 2015 - 5:55 pm

Clegg and Cameron standing next to each other in the Downing Street Rose Garden felt like a new era in British politics. I joined  soon afterwards, excited at the prospect of an economic and socially liberal government for the first time in decades. Despite the abuse it got me, I was happy to constantly defend the government, fully believing (which I still do) that the Lib Dems were reining in the worst of the Tories.

Around mid-2014, my own views started to shift from classical liberal to, as Clegg has called it, the “radical centre”, as well as a move towards intersectional feminism. While the Lib Dems still matched me ideologically, I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with politics altogether as I underwent an ideological identity crisis. I thus left the party by not renewing my membership later that year.

Fast forward to May 2015, and the polls are predicting the Lib Dems will receive around 25 seats, and potentially more due to the famed incumbency factor the Lib Dems rightfully enjoy access to. Then the exit poll came. At 4am I was beginning to run out of gin to drown my sorrows in and to make matters worse, Lynne Featherstone lost her seat. I do not live in her constituency, but the work she has done for LGBT+ rights and campaigning against FGM was being systematically erased as the electorate voted her out. I found myself on the verge of tears that such a terrific woman had been rejected, and with this, I emotionally re-joined the party I’d recently left.

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The Voice

#NewMembersDay Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #4

By The Voice | Wed 13th May 2015 - 4:55 pm

Here are some more new members who responded to our request on Twitter to tell us why they are one of the 10,000 people who have joined the Liberal Democrats in the past few days.

Here’s what Thomas Liebers told us:

I was already politically minded but the Lib Dems best represent my  views on equality and rights,healthcare, business, relationship with
the EU and constiutional challenges in present day UK;
I’m a professional with experience in healthcare, science and business and I believe that i can contribute my skills and knowledge to the Lib Dems policy discussions;
I want to take an active part in local politics where I live (Richmond, Surrey) and there is an active local Lib Dem party presence;
I’m serving in a voluntary capacity in the community already which gives me a degree of credibility;
I want to take part in the leadership elections for the new Leader of the Lib Dems;
and…
I want to take my part in shaping policy and politis for the entire United Kingdom!

Luke Tibbitts lives in Nick’s constituency. In a long post on his own blog (which, by the way, we hope he and others registers on Lib Dem Blogs, he explains why he was motivated to join up. Here’s a snippet:

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Caron Lindsay

#NewMembersDay: The Lib Dem Lowdown – what you need to know about our party

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th May 2015 - 3:57 pm

Welcome to the thousands of people who have joined the Liberal Democrats since the polls closed last week.  We have already heard from some of you about what inspired them to sign up and we will have more such posts throughout the day. I thought it might be useful to tell you a little bit about how it works and give you a bit of an idea of the opportunities open to you.

What do we believe?

Before we get into the nitty gritty of organisation, the best statement of who we are and what we’re about can be found in the Preamble to our Constitution which underlines how we believe in freedom, opportunity, diversity,  decentralisation and internationalism. Here’s a snippet:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.

We look forward to a world in which all people share the same basic rights, in which they live together in peace and in which their different cultures will be able to develop freely. We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms. Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject allprejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.

We have a fierce respect for individuality, with no expectation that fellow Liberal Democrats will agree with us on every issue. We expect our views to be challenged and feel free to challenge others without rancour. We can have a robust debate and head to the pub afterwards, the very best of friends.

Your rights as a member

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The Voice

#NewMembersDay Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #3

By The Voice | Wed 13th May 2015 - 2:56 pm

Some more new members respond to our tweet and tell us why they are part of the many thousands who have joined the party in the last few days. We asked people on Twitter to tell us why they had joined. Here are some of the responses:

Lee Wright:

In 2010 I voted for the Liberal Democrats. I believed and bought into Nick Clegg and his party’s vision. When the party became the third-largest in the House of Commons and entered the coalition I was hugely disappointed that is was the Tories they would be working with. However, I paid close attention to the party’s progress over the past five years and could see the positives that the Liberal Democrats were making. The huge loss of seats last week was nothing more than I expected. The moment Nick Clegg put one foot in the door of number 10 with David Cameron, the party was doomed to fail next time around. The public, and some supporters of the party, had had their fingers burnt. Once bitten, twice shy. Nick Clegg was never going to survive another day as leader after May 7th. He took a bullet for the party, which has taken five years to hit the target.

But anyone who thought that the Liberals were dead, should have watched Lord Ashdown on the BBC’s Question Time programme last Friday. He won me over. His passion and determination for the party to continue was all the persuading I needed to pay and become a member of the party for the first time in my life. Now Tim Farron says the party must “turn our anger into action.” Nothing truer has ever been said. With Labour at sea, and a majority Tory government steering the ship, anyone in the country who values a fair, free and open society will need a Liberal to fight their corner. And I’m up for it.

Chris Buckett

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Jennie Rigg

#NewMembersDay: A Liberal Democrat Reading List

By Jennie Rigg | Wed 13th May 2015 - 1:55 pm

I, famously, don’t write for Lib Dem Voice. But on a day like today, how could I not? Apparently, there are like ten thousand of you guys now. Welcome! Genuinely, really, welcome. In order to help you acclimatise to the culture of the party there’s a few things you ought to be reading. A version of this was originally posted on my blog, and this one has been amended to reflect the comments there as well as my original post. YAY crowdsourcing!

The back of your membership card* is the first and most important thing for you to read as a new Lib Dem. The front will have some sort of pretty picture on it, and your name, and your membership number. The back will say on it:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

which is an extract from our Constitution and is something that is graven on most of our hearts. Regardless of the fact that I have recently called for a constitutional convention, and I genuinely think that we should rebuild from the ground up (hopefully with your help), the idea that the words “no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance, or conformity” won’t be a part of whatever comes out of that process is unconscionable.

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. You can read this online, but my favourite version** is this 1912 edition which also contains two more of Mill’s essays – on running the government and on feminism – and an Introduction by Millicent Garrett Fawcett. You might be a bit put off the idea of reading a dry work of Victorian philosophy, but I promise you, it’s worth it. If you really can’t bear all that beautiful Victorian verbiage, though, there is a Spark Notes for On Liberty*** too.

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The Voice

#NewMembersDay Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #2

By The Voice | Wed 13th May 2015 - 12:25 pm

This time a selection of new members tell us their reason for joining after we asked them on Twitter.

First up, Dagmar Mackett from Bewdley in the West Midlands

I joined because I felt the LibDems received no credit for its record in Government. Yes, mistakes had been made, but punishing the party in such a way means putting liberal Britain as a whole in jeopardy. Voters will realise this once they understand the full extent of what the Tory government will push through in forthcoming months, and a new strong LibDem “movement” will be required to try to counter balance this.

Now David Luton-Brown:

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#NewMembersDay: Why I joined the Liberal Democrats #1

By Phoebe Demster | Wed 13th May 2015 - 11:25 am

My first few elections were easy – I knew I liked the LibDems, and they were the only ones who stood a chance of beating the Tories in my hometown. A no-brainer, you might say.

It wasn’t until I moved to Scotland that I had to wrestle with tactical voting. SNP v Labour, and not a LibDem in sight. I talked it over with my partner at the time, and we both decided to vote LibDem regardless. But lo, suddenly I found myself in the polling booth, ticking a Labour box in a moment of blind, tactical terror. It is the only time I have voted out of fear rather than hope. I regretted it almost immediately. Turned out my partner had done the same.

I made a resolve never to vote tactically again and so, when the Holyrood elections rolled round a year later, I voted LibDem (to little avail).

To little avail, did I say? It’s true that my vote did not count for much, and I knew in advance that it would not. My previous Labour vote had “made a difference”, by which I mean it had picked a person and policies I disliked over those I disliked even more. My Labour vote mattered in Westminster. But it also made me feel sadder, smaller, a little more cynical.

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Gareth Epps

Opinion: 10,000 reasons to be cheerful

By Gareth Epps | Wed 13th May 2015 - 9:55 am

Different people adjust to adversity in different ways.  Some were unwittingly preparing for 8 May for months.  Some didn’t see it coming.  Others may only be starting to sense it now.

All three groups were represented at the informal catch-up I had in Yorkshire last Friday, and all were present at Liberator magazine’s post-election drink last night.  The welcome set of thank-you receptions and new members’ parties will provide the opportunity for catharsis and preparing this fightback.

And it really is a positive thing.  For whatever reason, we have an unprecedented and totally welcome surge in membership.  Some relishing a new future; some doing what I did in 1992 and joining this great party so a shock general election result like that doesn’t happen again.  And many of the rest of us who have had our grumpy moments in recent years are feeling curiously optimistic too.

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Opinion: Human Rights Reform – where the nuance could be more dangerous than the headline

By Eilidh Dickson | Wed 13th May 2015 - 8:55 am

The Conservative Majority government has recently announced the Michael Gove is to be our new justice secretary, and that part of his agenda is the Conservative manifesto promise to scrap the Human Rights Act. The Conservatives claims this would

Break the formal link between British courts and the European Court of Human Rights

in order to

imit the use of human rights laws to the most serious cases,

a promise that turns the stomach of most Liberal Democrats I know committed to universal rights.

Perhaps if the plans did not, as former Attorney General Dominic Grieve described, contain “a number of howlers” the Conservatives would be less convinced by the need for reform or even the prospect of their success. I don’t claim to be more than a law student (and a procrastinating one at that) and but here I’m going to contribute some brief comments taken from a year of public law essays.

Firstly, the Human Rights Act has been fundamentally significant. It lets us in the UK rely on our rights in the European Convention on Human Rights in UK courts for the first time, increasing human rights cases significantly including detention, immigration, privacy, voting and so much more. Until the Act, these cases had to exhaust UK courts and then if UK law prevented judges from upholding these rights they could take their case to the European Court of Human Rights – a process than took about 5 years.

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Opinion: The Liberal resurgence – a time to spread like wild flowers

By Ben Maitland | Tue 12th May 2015 - 3:47 pm

Like many Lib Dem voters, supporters and sympathisers, I spent much of the weekend lurching between disbelief and despondency, and genuinely worried whether the party could or would ever recover. In an effort to cheer myself up I went for a walk in the countryside only to encounter an ironic sea of yellow dandelions. Initially, it felt as if nature itself was mocking me, but in retrospect the vivid spring flowers seem provide a wonderful analogy of what the party needs to achieve if it is going to pick itself up and thrive again.

Traditionally, the Liberal Democrats have punched …

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb MP writes – Trust in People: Why I’m standing for party leader

By Norman Lamb MP | Tue 12th May 2015 - 1:22 pm

NormanLambThese are devastating results for the Liberal Democrats. All of us are completely shell shocked.

All party members must have a say in our future strategy and new leader. I have clear views on what we need to do and am intending to stand for leader.

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Rebecca Plenderleith

Opinion: This is our #LibDemFightBack

By Rebecca Plenderleith | Tue 12th May 2015 - 12:06 pm

Fightback54kAs a long-time supporter of the Liberal Democrats I decided to join the party about two weeks before polling day. I was a member of the BBC project “Generation 2015” which was giving young people aged 18 – 24 the chance to get their voices heard and put across what matters to them when it comes time to cast their – or should I say our – votes and I came across so many passionate people my age and some a lot younger than me who were members of the parties they supported. Even though those who had the most influence on me were members of the Conservatives and the Labour party their support was one of the main reasons I wanted to join my party and make a difference.

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John Pugh

John Pugh MP writes: Getting Back on Track

By John Pugh | Tue 12th May 2015 - 10:01 am

Railway trackLooking at the wreckage of our electoral hopes, the defeat of MPs of massive talent and commitment who have served their constituencies well, it is hard for all of us not to feel angry. A lot of that anger spills through in the post hoc analysis as we seek to distribute blame and identify the critical errors made.

I suspect that in years to come people will still argue about what went wrong and when, but certainly at the moment its all too raw to arrive at objective,dispassionate conclusions that all will accept.

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Paul Walter

LibLink: David Steel – Six ways Nick Clegg steered the Liberal Democrats to disaster

By Paul Walter | Mon 11th May 2015 - 9:21 pm

On the Guardian Comment is Free, David Steel has a must-read article with remarkably perspicacious observations:

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Tom Morrison

Opinion: Human Rights – A call to arms

By Tom Morrison | Mon 11th May 2015 - 6:53 pm

“David Cameron will launch a 100-day policy offensive…” states the Sunday Times, reporting on the Conservatives’ predicted assault on Europe and Human Rights just days after they secured the most surprising election victory in living memory.

While Liberal Democrat and Labour Party opinion-formers are calling for internal debates on the future of their respective parties, the Conservatives are moving in and preparing to push through legislation that is dangerous, destructive and most of all, frightening.

The Human Rights Act (HRA) should be esteemed as highly as the NHS. Receiving Royal Assent in 1998, the HRA is, in my view, the cornerstone of …

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Bernard Aris

Opinion: The LibDems will bring consistency in an unstable British political landscape

By Bernard Aris | Mon 11th May 2015 - 5:22 pm

A view from the Dutch Social Liberals (D66)

Before I dive into my analysis of the present British political instability, my commiserations with all the LibDem activists (& dogs), cadres, councillors and parliamentary candidates who got caught in the pincer of

  • Labour seeking revenge for their well-deserved ousting in 2010, and
  • the Tories repeating the betrayal of their coalition partners of the Electoral System referendum.

We in D66 got clobbered in the same way when we participated in our first government coalition (1973-’77; D66 was founded in 1966), but that was because we simultaneously attempted a realignment of Dutch progressive politics via a merger …

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Mark Blackburn

Opinion: It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it

By Mark Blackburn | Mon 11th May 2015 - 4:29 pm

Only four days after the cataclysm, already there’s a rosy (garden?) hue about our ignominious performance – martyrs to the cause of the Coalition, country before self-interest, fallen heroes. History will be kinder to us than the electorate. If we are ever going to recover from our nemesis, this is a very dangerous mindset.

Of course it was always going to be tough being in Coalition with the Conservatives, and a price was always going to be paid. But as Lord Steel said right after Nick Clegg’s moving farewell speech, it wasn’t the Coalition itself that destroyed trust in us and …

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Mark Valentine

Opinion: Starting from ‘the Other Place’

By Mark Valentine | Mon 11th May 2015 - 3:50 pm

 

Where can the Liberal Democrats start to rebuild? How can they reassert their identity as a party with a distinctive philosophy? How do they remind voters that they can make a real difference? The answers can in part be found in an unexpected place.

It’s worth remembering that there are two Houses in Parliament. And, treating cross-benchers as neutral, the House of Lords now has an opposition majority of something like 90-100. Every single piece of legislation that Mr Cameron wants to introduce will not only have to negotiate his own wafer-thin majority in the Commons, but this hurdle in what MPs call “the other place” too.

Here’s where the 101 Liberal Democrat peers can make a difference. Now they are no longer shackled to the compromises of coalition, they can act entirely on the basis of liberal and social democratic principles. They can also be watchdogs for the “one nation” principle that Mr Cameron says he wants to honour.

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Gareth Giles

Hello. I am a coward

By Gareth Giles | Mon 11th May 2015 - 1:25 pm

I am one of the many who quit the party in 2010, and for what I felt were good reasons. I could not conceive that my party – who stood for true liberalism, who I believed fought for the downtrodden and the exploited – would go into a coalition with a partner who was so against my core beliefs.

I regret that now. I regret not staying and fighting what I saw as the inevitable descent. I regret not becoming one of the few party members speaking out against a coalition deal. I regret not attempting to convince our party against …

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28 Comments
Maelo Manning

Opinion: It’s my Party and I’ll cry if I want to

By Maelo Manning | Mon 11th May 2015 - 12:35 pm

 

Since 10pm on election night I have been in utter despair. I joined the party five years ago at the age of 10 and I was told that the Lib Dems would never be in Government. I was overjoyed when Nick Clegg walked into Downing Street in 2010. By contrast, I was in tears when Nick resigned. Since then I have been thinking about how the party can learn from mistakes and move on.

My starting point is what Nick said in his resignation speech, ‘Fear and grievance have won, and liberalism has lost.’ The first thing the party has to do is to rehabilitate the concept of liberalism because it has been stolen by parties of other persuasions. This can only be done by defining our core voter base. Our liberalism was not differentiated from the politics of austerity and the scare tactics of the Tories. The Tories evoked a Hobbesian scenario which seems to have worked. Nick is absolutely right in saying that liberalism is not faring well against the politics of fear.

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Alex Paul Shantz

Opinion: Predictions for a new Parliament

By Alex Paul Shantz | Mon 11th May 2015 - 11:45 am

 

As the dust settles from Thursday, one key question is what will David Cameron do with his unexpected Conservative majority? Here are a couple of predictions for the upcoming Parliament.

Where the £30bn of proposed cuts will fall is largely unknown until the autumn. Health spending is protected though – which means bigger cuts elsewhere, such as £12bn to welfare. The only bright spot could be the linking of the personal allowance to the national minimum wage – raising it to around £13,000 pa.

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Kirsty Burton

Opinion: What England really voted for – how we ended up here and where we’re going

By Kirsty Burton | Mon 11th May 2015 - 9:55 am

Throughout his campaign, David Cameron argued that the success of his government was evidence that voters should continue to support the Conservatives.

Want more of the same, to continue on this path? Vote Conservatives, he said.

And voting Conservative was exactly what English voters did, giving Cameron’s party a completely unexpected majority. With fear of what Labour had done to the economy in the past, and the threat of the SNP and the Greens at the extreme Left, this promise rang as hope, security and comfort in the ears of moderate-thinking voters.

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Duncan Brack

Opinion: Rebuilding the party – lessons from history

By Duncan Brack | Mon 11th May 2015 - 9:05 am

I’ve already had journalists ring me up to ask when was the last time Liberals did so badly. The answer is 1970, when the Liberal Party won six seats on the back of 2.1 million votes, 7.5 per cent of those who voted. Last week’s result was similar: eight seats from 2.4 million votes, 7.9 per cent of those who voted.

There are other parallels. The opinion polls in 1970 had pointed consistently to a victory for Harold Wilson’s outgoing Labour government; Ted Heath’s win for the Conservatives came as a considerable surprise. On the other hand, then the polls underestimated …

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Nicola Wilson

Opinion: Dear Nick…

By Nicola Wilson | Sun 10th May 2015 - 8:33 pm

Dear Nick

Can I start by saying that possibly unlike the rest of the party right now, I actually feel a surge of optimism.

I have been a LibDem voter since the last election and an active supporter for all of 18 months.

I started off sceptically. My husband had found a party that mirrored his values and so had divorced Labour and set his sights on the LibDems.

I was a little overwhelmed.  I hadn’t been indoctrinated at my mother’s knee so felt something of an outsider who didn’t know the history, in jokes, culture, or people.

However when I attended conference and actually experienced policy making first hand things started to change.  Here was genuine debate, all angles considered and joy of joys voted on by party members!  I had a voice!

So I supported my husband when he took the decision to stand against George Osborne, despite him already having a demanding full time job, 3 hour commute and not a hope in hell of winning!    

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Lauren Jones

Opinion: My post election promise

By Lauren Jones | Sun 10th May 2015 - 6:40 pm

We’re really struggling right now, and I know that. Even the sorry few who managed to keep their seats are looking at a pretty rough time over the next 5 years. 2015 has been a bad year for us, as liberals, so what can we do to fix that?

One of the best things about the Lib Dems is that we know we can bounce back in the face of adversity. Yes, it’s not been as tough as this in a long time, but we’re made of sterner stuff. We’re not going to roll over and let this be it.

I spent far too many hours out on doorsteps recently, in the gorgeous sunshine and the pouring rain, chapping on doors and persuading lovely people to vote for us. And I learned a lot. I learned that there are some die-hard supporters out there – some who will not change their vote, the vote that their fathers and even grandfathers made all their lives. And sometimes that works in our favour (yay – a life-long Lib Dem) and sometimes it doesn’t (“I’ll vote Labour like my father before me”, a favourite line from my grandmother of all people). These people are never going to change, although my gran has reliably informed me that she would vote for me if I ever stood as a candidate, even as a  liberal!

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