Category Archives: Op-eds

One of the social highlights of Lib Demmery in Edinburgh is the Edinburgh South Burns Supper, an annual evening of mirth celebrating Scotland’s national Bard Robert Burns.

Previous highlights include, and I kid you not, Alex Cole-Hamilton, dressed as a mouse acting out the part as To a Mouse was read out.

The evening usually starts with the top table being piped in. Then we have the address to the Haggis. The “great chieftain of the pudding race” is piped in and, this year, Rebecca Wright gave a spirited rendition of Burns’ To a Huggis. I’m a bit of a heretic here because I much prefer white pudding to haggis, but never mind.

There are three main speeches in the traditional Burns Supper. The Immortal Memory is a personal tribute to Rabbie Burns, this year delivered by Susan Murray our new MP for Mid Dunbartonshire who had found out that she had a distant relationship to Burns.

The Toast to the Lassies at Burns Suppers used to basically be a riot of misogyny. In fact, at one time the only women allowed near a Burns Supper were the ones serving the food. In modern times, however, the Toast and its reply (now made by a woman) has become genuine comedy.

The Toast to the Lassies was made by Andy Williamson. He has said that he’ll send it over and when he does, I’ll put it up.

The reply was delivered by Scottish Party Convener Jenni Lang and it celebrated the men in our party who she had loosely divided into four general categories. She’d really like your help in identifying some more. Her speech is reproduced here with her permission.

I actually had to go before she started speaking or I’d have missed my train home so I read this for the first time on Monday and laughed so much I feared for my ribs. I found myself categorising my friends who were there. This includes Jenni’s husband Kevin, whom I am sure many of you will know.

Anyway, enjoy, and please feel free to add some more. But remember this is a celebration of our colleagues. Be as generous and funny as Jenni has been.

Good Evening, and firstly, thank you so much to Andy for his kind words, and thank you for inviting me to make the reply of behalf of the lassies tonight.

I have been giving a great deal of reflection over the past week to what I would say tonight in response to the laddies in the room. I realised that this year will be my 25th anniversary of becoming involved with the party. In that quarter of a century, I have been a member of staff, seen us be part of two different Government coalitions with varying success. I’ve sat on committees, chaired committees, and now I’m Convener of the party. 

And I started thinking about the types of Liberal Democrat men I have met over the years, and I realised, that there were some distinct groupings that many of these men fall into, tribes if you like. Or if I was channelling my inner Meghan Markle right now, archetypes….

So I thought tonight I would highlight a few of my favourite Lib Dem male archetypes. Now, this isn’t an exhaustive list because I only have a few minutes. But ladies, you can feel free to add more later.

First up…..

The Liberal Gentlemen

I have a very soft spot for this group of men. The elder statesmen of the party. The ones who originally joined the Liberal Party long before the merger and who, even now, only begrudgingly accept the fact we still have those pesky Social Democrats hanging around. Always polite, unfailingly charming, deeply liberal to their core.

These gentlemen can still remember bringing more chairs into the Liberal Assemblies of yore. They have an elephantine memory of the history of the party and will happily pass on this knowledge to all who will listen. 

The song ‘Lloyd George knew my father’ was not so much written for them….but more written for their children written for them, and one or two of them may have met Lloyd George themselves!

We often talk about national treasures, these gentlemen are our Party Treasures, often the Party Treasur-ers making them one of my favourite archetypes. 

Next up…..

The Policy Geek 

Yes, the policy geeks. They may have a niche issue they are keen to get through as party policy. Even better if it gets into the  manifesto. Maybe they have personal obsession with nuclear proliferation, or decriminalising drugs, or protecting bees, or the structural funding of local authorities to tackle potholes. 

These are the guys who will dedicated their time to causes which would likely result in a march and with with a mantra – “What do we want? An asymmetrical of federalism. When do we want it? – in due course!

They are the people who keep the party’s policy gears ticking over, and without some of their far out proposals, conference would just be a slew of top down edicts from the leadership. And as Liberals, none of us want that.

A sub grouping of the Policy Geek is the  Party Constitutional Wonk, which is even more niche. Vitally important to the correct functioning of the party, but can be irritating when they point out that whatever you are trying to get done is constitutionally unsound. 

They are the detail guys. The ones who can tell you exactly what is in Section K, paragraph 2….without even having the constitution in front of them. The ones who would put in an amendment at conference to say ‘On line 42 delete ‘ampersand’ and replace with the word ‘and’’.  And yes friends, that’s a true story….

The constitutional wonks, are the next level – they are the upper class who look down on the mere policy geeks. As someone who regularly chairs conference debates, there is occasionally a heart stopping moment when one of these guys rises in their seat saying ‘Point of order chair’ before invoking a niche part of the standing orders. Irritatingly they are often right.

What I would say is that these wonks can be particularly effective in council chambers in using the standing order process to derail mad motions. So I can highly recommend you putting one or two up as council candidates, and they can really scratch that itch in a way that is helpful.

Next, the one that no local party can do without….

The Local Hero

Now, every local party has, or should have a local hero. Someone who really – perhaps showing the ultimate wisdom – has no interest in ever getting elected, but who turns out to every action day, or on canvassing sessions. Maybe they get stuck into office clerical work, printing and distributing leaflets to deliverers. They are readily identifiable by constantly smelling of riso ink. They are the backbone of our party and we could not function without them.