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Category Archives: Party policy and internal matters

Anything to do with Lib Dem internal business, including policy development, consultations, rules and constitutions.

10 ways to make your local party AGM better

By Mark Pack | Tue 11th September 2012 - 3:25 pm

The nights are getting shorter, the football has started and the first few “x days to Christmas” signs are appearing in shops. Yes, it all means that the local party AGM season is approaching.

To help local parties get the most out of them, here then is a reminder of the simple factsheet giving 10 tips to lift an AGM from being a boring, business meeting that no-one comes to into an interesting and successful event. Though written in conjunction with London Liberal Democrats, the tips are applicable across the country.

Hope you find it useful – and of course please do share this post (or this pdf) with whoever is involved in organising the AGM in your own local party.

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Also posted in Campaign Corner | Tagged featured | Leave a comment

What does the Federal Executive do?

By Alison Goldsworthy | Tue 11th September 2012 - 10:48 am

This is the first in a series of articles about the work of party committees, written by current members. Each will provide insight into how a specific committee functions. We hope these articles will encourage party members to consider putting themselves forward for election.

The Party’s Federal Executive is responsible for directing, co-ordinating and implementing the work of the Federal Party. Right now, that makes it a pretty big job so if you have ideas on how we should be doing that, think about standing.

The committee has certain constitutional obligations from reports to conference to overseeing our accounts, you can read …

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Tagged federal executive | 4 Comments

Reports to party conference: two good things

By Mark Pack | Tue 4th September 2012 - 11:50 am

In amongst the paperwork for the Autumn 2012 Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton is the bundle of reports from various party committees and bodies. The idea of the reports, and the ability to question them, is a great one. The content of the reports can have a tendency to be a little too banal or general to make for a meaningful report back from committees to people who elected them.

Take this shock news from the FCC report, for example:

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Also posted in Conference | Tagged Federal Appeals Panel, federal conference committee, federal executive and tim farron | 2 Comments

Mid Term Review: not much to show for it in the end

By Mark Pack | Mon 3rd September 2012 - 4:25 pm

As I predicted, the Mid Term Review is peetering out into a Q&A session as the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton. As the report from the party’s Federal Policy Committee explains, glossing over a little how the plans have changed from the original ambitions:

The Coalition Government has stated its intention to have a Mid Term Review of its programme, which will be published in Autumn 2012. However, this will not be a general re-opening of the Coalition Programme for Government. Instead, it will essentially be a progress assessment exercise to identify which of the goals set out in the

…

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Also posted in Conference | Tagged Danny Alexander | 7 Comments

Tim Farron MP writes… Pledge me 10!

By Tim Farron MP | Wed 11th July 2012 - 2:24 pm

I want you to make a pledge. Don’t worry; it’s got nothing to do with fees or abstinence from alcohol. I want you to make a pledge to do something you know you ought to be doing any way.

Will you pledge to recruit 10 people to join the Lib Dems this summer? They could be 10 completely new members, 10 lapsed members or a mixture. But I need you to make me that pledge today and to fulfil it before we get to our Brighton conference in September.

The most important thing to me is that our Party grows and thrives …

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13 Comments

Selection of European Parliamentary candidates for 2014

By Jonathan Davies | Fri 6th July 2012 - 9:22 am

The English and Scottish Liberal Democrats are now inviting applications for selection for the Liberal Democrat Party lists for the English Regions and for Scotland for the next European Parliamentary elections (which take place in 2014). The formal advert has been published in Liberal Democrat News. The closing date for applications is 6 p.m. on Friday 27 July.

Potential applicants should contact the Returning Officer for the region(s) in which they are interested for an application pack. Applicants can apply for as many Regions as they wish, but must obtain a separate application pack and submit a separate application to …

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Also posted in Europe / International, News and Selection news | Tagged european elections | 2 Comments

Tim Farron MP to restand for Party President

By The Voice | Mon 2nd July 2012 - 8:30 pm

Tim Farron MP announced at tonight’s Federal Executive meeting that he is to seek re-election as Liberal Democrat Party President this autumn:

Being our party’s President is a wonderful honour for me. Together our party is achieving so much – taking two million people out of tax, driving the pupil premium to give a better start to our most disadvantaged children and helping to create the green economy of tomorrow.

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Tagged federal executive and tim farron | 25 Comments

Three ideological things to do with your members and helpers this summer

By Mark Pack | Thu 28th June 2012 - 4:50 pm

You have a pothole in your road. You suffer from a council like mine and fixing it becomes a long-running saga. You involve a local Liberal Democrat campaigner. They get it sorted. You like them and as a result end up joining the party.

That sort of sequence is pretty common, especially amongst those who then end up being local activists and councillors. But if this is the route you’ve taken, how do you end up finding out what the party actually believes and why?

You get a membership card with part of our constitution’s preamble, a new member pack including …

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Tagged dawn barnes | 2 Comments

Reporting back from the English Council

By Andy Strange | Thu 28th June 2012 - 1:58 pm

The English Council, the governing body of the Liberal Democrats in England, meets twice a year to consider matters of importance to the English Party. The first of its meetings for 2012 took place at University College London last Saturday.

The meeting was brisk and business like — it ran a little over time but not unreasonably so — and had something of a studious atmosphere. This might have had something to do with the impressive environment of the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre.

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Tagged english council | 2 Comments

English Party warms to Lib Dem candidates in Police & Crime Commissioner elections

By Mark Pack | Wed 20th June 2012 - 8:25 am

The original moves in the party to pass up (mostly) on fighting Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections generated heated debate and many local parties have made use of their say in the process to push for the party to fight the election in their area. As a result, a steady trickle of adverts have been appearing as selection processes start for many of the Commissioner posts.

In his report to the forthcoming English Council, English Party chair Peter Ellis has confirmed the party’s official warming to the idea of fighting the elections:

With the introduction of the mayoral and PCC elections

…

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Tagged elected police commissioners and peter ellis | 18 Comments

Changes to your local party boundaries are coming

By Andy Strange | Sun 3rd June 2012 - 11:25 am

Next year all Liberal Democrats in England are going to have to get used to new local parties. The coalition government’s plans to change the boundaries of parliamentary constituencies across the UK, assuming they get passed into law, will have implications for how we organise ourselves at a local level.

Traditionally Liberal Democrat local parties have been organised on a constituency basis. The local party would cover one or more parliamentary constituency. More recently a change was made to allow local parties in London to be based on borough boundaries, but for the rest of England local parties remained tied …

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Tagged english council and parliamentary boundary review | 18 Comments

Tim Farron MP writes… Exemptions to accreditation for Transgender colleagues

By Tim Farron MP | Sat 26th May 2012 - 3:27 pm

Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron MP writes to update members on the accreditation process for Autumn Conference:

Dear friends,

I am instinctively against accreditation. As a liberal, the whole notion unsettles me, although FCC and the FE have accepted FFAC’s advice that there is a serious financial threat to the Party if we were to disregard police advice.

I want to thank everyone for getting in touch in the last week to share their views on the accreditation issue. Whether it was via email or twitter, or even those who have commented on the Lib Dem Voice article (I did read all

…

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What does the English Council do?

By Andy Strange | Tue 22nd May 2012 - 2:52 pm

Liberal Democrats who want to understand how the party runs can easily become confused by the range of offices, executives, committees, subcommittees and working groups that they encounter. Some have grand sounding names and are made up of “the great and the good”. Others are little heard of with powers unknown. One of the most obscure is probably the English Council.

I confess to being a bit of a nerd when it comes to matters of party organisation, but even I have found myself asking – “what on earth does English Council do?”

Last year, through my regional party, I was elected …

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Tagged bureaucracy and english council | 13 Comments

Federal Committees approve Conference accreditation

By Andrew Wiseman Duncan Greenland and Tim Farron | Mon 21st May 2012 - 8:48 pm

We are writing to confirm the decision of FFAC, supported by FE, that there will be a system of police accreditation for members attending this year’s Autumn Conference.

This decision follows an extensive member consultation and debate by the Federal Conference Committee, Federal Finance and Administration Committee and the Federal Executive.

As Liberal Democrats we would prefer it if accreditation were not something we had to consider. Many of us have concerns surrounding individual privacy and personal freedoms and none of us want to put any member who …

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Tagged federal conference committee, federal executive and federal finance and administration committee | 118 Comments

Tim Farron MP writes… Send in your nominations for Party Awards 2012

By Tim Farron MP | Fri 18th May 2012 - 3:53 pm

Each year at Autumn Conference, the Party President presents three awards to party members who have gone above and beyond for the party for longer than most of us can remember. There are three awards available:

President’s Award – this is an award for those party members who have been elected to public office at one point or another – for those who have been councillors or council leaders; for ex-MPs and MEPs. It rewards members who have given an overwhelming amount of time, effort, and support to the Liberal Democrats, and was last year won by Doris Ansari who

…

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First of the new style Federal Policy Committee reports published

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th April 2012 - 11:25 am

Following the series of questions from me to the party’s federal committees at the party’s Spring conference, all the major committees promised to provide written reports in future after each of their full committee meetings.

The first such Federal Executive report has been posted up in the members-only forum on this site (see the Party Organisation section), but the Federal Policy Committee has instead gone for publishing its first report via the main party website (see the foot of this page), which I have reproduced below.

Although the report is fairly minimalist, it does provide the key information about which policy groups are likely to be reporting when. That is important information for anyone wanting to influence the party’s policy decisions as working with the grain of the administrative calendar where possible makes things easier and more likely to be successful than ignoring it.

Federal Policy Committee Meeting 21 March 2012

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Tagged federal policy committee | 1 Comment

Federal Policy Committee welcomes careful thinkers

By NewsHound | Tue 27th March 2012 - 9:53 am

It is almost certainly a complete coincidence but, having published some thoughts on how the Party might develop policy in future, news reaches us that Federal Policy Committee are looking for volunteers (Party members only, I’m afraid) to form Policy Working Groups on the following subjects;

One might almost suspect that work on the 2015 Manifesto has begun…

For an application form for these working groups, please contact the Party’s Policy Unit on 020 7340 4989, or e-mail lucymcdonaldlibdemsorguk.

The deadline for applications is …

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Also posted in News | Tagged federal policy committee | 6 Comments

Keeping Party policy fresh, relevant… and ours

By Mark Valladares | Fri 23rd March 2012 - 5:52 pm

Yesterday, I outlined some of the issues that impact on how we make policy as Liberal Democrats, and some very interesting comments came from that, for which I am grateful. Today, here are some thoughts of my own, which build on those comments and on my own thinking…

Whilst Federal Policy Committee has been attempting to reconcile the variety of tasks to be addressed, the Party has seen the emergence of a number of ginger groups. Added to the long-established, but increasingly dormant, Liberal Vision, which appears not to have developed much beyond being a small group of libertarians with …

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Also posted in News and Op-eds | Tagged federal policy committee and policy making | 5 Comments

Two useful steps forward in party business at conference

By Mark Pack | Sat 10th March 2012 - 10:05 am

Despite a resurgence in recent years, the tabling of questions to party committee reports at Liberal Democrat conference is still very much a minority sport. So much so that 100% of questions to the Federal Policy Committee came from a certain North London Doctor with an penchant for chocolate…

The questions do however provide a good opportunity to ferret out information or push for a decision where you know the door is half-open. In my case this morning at Gateshead that resulted in questions to both the Federal Conference Committee and the Federal Policy Committee asking them to start publishing reports …

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Also posted in Conference | Tagged andrew wiseman, federal conference committee, federal policy committee and jeremy hargreaves | 2 Comments

Breaking News: Federal Conference Committee announce details of the emergency motions ballot

By Andrew Wiseman | Fri 9th March 2012 - 7:59 pm

Federal Conference Committee has just met, and the following emergency motions met the Standing Order criteria and will go into the ballot:

1) Violence in Syria
2) Withdrawal of the Health and Social Care Bill
3) Protecting our NHS – the Shirley Williams motion
4) Behind closed doors – Justice and Security Green Paper

These motions will all be on a ballot paper at the back of Saturday’s Daily Announcements. To vote (by STV), please take your completed ballot paper and your Voting Rep badge to the Steward with the ballot box by the Stewards Table in the Hall, between 9 and 1pm. The announcement …

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Also posted in Conference and News | Tagged federal conference committee | 17 Comments

Liberal Insight: new think tank launched

By Tom Smith | Fri 9th March 2012 - 3:25 pm

Today we are announcing the launch of Liberal Insight, the new liberal think tank. Liberal Insight will contribute radical, progressive and innovative ideas to a vision of liberal society. Our advisory board is being chaired by Party President Tim Farron MP.

Liberalism has seen a resurgence in Britain in recent years, culminating in almost 7 million voters at the last election for the Liberal Democrats, a place in the Coalition Government and a long-awaited opportunity to implement distinctly liberal policies.

This rise in electoral success has come against a trend of the liberal gains of the last century being eroded by the deliberate actions …

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Also posted in Op-eds | Tagged liberal insight | 11 Comments

Lib Dem spring conference: a quick guide to the highlights

By Mark Pack | Fri 9th March 2012 - 1:50 pm

The traditional pre-conference rally at Liberal Democrat conferences seems more lively and informal than the main set piece speeches during conference, so expect even more football references than usual from Party President Tim Farron this evening when he speaks in Gateshead.

Nick Clegg’s speech rally speech will feature an attempt to set a different message for the party, looking much more positively to the future:

We’re in Government, and it is a better Government for it. Fairer, freer and greener.

Lower taxes for working people. Fairer chances for our children. And the beginnings of a new, green economy that benefits everyone in

…

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Also posted in Conference | Tagged jenny tonge, NHS, nick clegg, tim farron and welfare reform | 1 Comment

Andrew Wiseman writes… How FCC and voting reps select emergency motions to conference

By Andrew Wiseman | Fri 9th March 2012 - 1:25 pm

Federal Conference Committee meets this afternoon to select amendments and separate line votes on the policy motions already published, and also to look at the emergency motions submitted.

Over the last 24 hours, there seems to have been some confusion on Twitter and other Social Networking sites about this process, which is still firmly in the hands of Liberal Democrat voting representatives. I thought it might be helpful just to set out what will happen when.

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Also posted in Conference | Tagged federal conference committee | Leave a comment

Erlend Watson replaces James Graham on the Lib Dems’ Federal Executive

By Helen Duffett | Tue 6th March 2012 - 12:24 pm

James Graham’s resignation from the Liberal Democrats on Sunday created a vacancy on the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Executive committee.

The Electoral Commission has now recounted the votes from the original internal party election in 2010 and named Erlend Watson as the winner. Party President Tim Farron phoned Erlend this morning to formally welcome him back to FE.

Erlend told the Voice:

I regard myself as a critical friend of the party leadership, we agree on our destination although the precise route to get there is up for discussion.

I was previously on the FE from 2006-2010 including the post General Election

…

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Tagged erlend watson, federal executive, james graham and tim farron | 6 Comments

The really important issue at Gateshead is a Constitutional Amendment

By Simon McGrath | Fri 2nd March 2012 - 8:44 am

Discussion about the Gateshead Spring Conference has mainly focused on the potential row about the NHS Bill, but the Agenda also contains a Constitutional Amendment which could have a huge impact on our ability to work to with either the Tories or Labour after the next election. The Amendment is called “Support for a Government which contains other Political Parties” and can be seen here.

This is an update of the “Triple Lock” dating back to 1998 after Paddy was thought to be getting too close to Blair’s Labour Party. (Mark Pack has a history of the Triple Lock

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Also posted in Conference | Tagged constitution | 21 Comments

Tom Brake writes… Free food and invigorating campaigning in Carshalton and Wallington

By Tom Brake | Mon 20th February 2012 - 10:23 am

Following the boundary review, the current seat of Carshalton and Wallington will cease to exist, and will be replaced by two separate constituencies, Croydon Central & St Helier and Purley & Carshalton.

Last year we celebrated 25 years of political control of Sutton Council and these changes provide us with an opportunity to work with Croydon Lib Dems to spread the Lib Dem message into their borough. It is vital that we start to build up our presence and activity early in these new areas if we’re to win these seats in 2015. The run up to this year’s London elections …

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Tagged tom brake | 1 Comment

Is your local party taking part in the Mid-Term Review?

By Geoff Payne | Sun 5th February 2012 - 3:50 pm

It is hard to believe but we are shortly to approach the half-way point in this Parliament. It seems a very long time ago that the Coalition Agreement was negotiated and voted on at the Special Conference at the NEC in Birmingham. That document articulated several goals including deficit reduction and being the greenest government ever.

Having been in government for a little under two years, the time has come to take stock and consider what has been achieved thus far and what more there is to be done.

At Federal Conference in Birmingham, Norman Lamb MP ran a consultation session on …

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Tagged norman lamb | 7 Comments

Have your say on our Rural Policy paper

By Tessa Munt MP | Tue 31st January 2012 - 3:53 pm

It is my firm belief that local people know the area they live in best, village to village, town to town.

I have been asked to have a think about what policy changes should be made so that people in rural areas get a fairer deal and the resultant rural policy paper will be presented at Autumn Conference. Clearly, we must be realistic – none of us expects to have major services (such as hospitals) on our doorstep. However, it seems to me that there are some areas of Government policy which could reflect rural needs more effectively.

I chose …

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Also posted in News | Tagged rural and tessa munt | 16 Comments

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