We’ve written here before about the Federal Policy Committee’s ‘Agenda 2020’ exercise – a major consultation within the party on Liberal Democrats’ basic beliefs, values and approaches. Our political philosophy is the backbone around which we build our policies on specific issues, and a vital part of our fightback.
A short consultation paper, Agenda 2020, and an accompanying set of essays setting out the personal opinions of a range of individuals within the party are both available on the party website.
The paper sets out a brief description of the Liberal Democrat philosophy and outlines the policy challenges the country, and the party, will face over the next five years. Responses to the paper can be submitted via the website, but we are also discussing it at two consultative sessions during the Bournemouth conference. Each of them will give you an opportunity to give us your thoughts on what’s in the paper, what you like, what you don’t like, and what’s missing.
It’s not terribly obvious from the conference agenda how the sessions will be run, so we thought it would be useful to outline them here.
The session on Sunday (0925–1120) will be the more informal of the two. The session will be opened with an introduction from a panel drawn from the FPC. Participants will be able to respond, with brief thoughts and comments, simply by sticking their hands up; stewards will have a number of roving mikes to get to them. The chair of the session will switch back to the panel for responses every so often, and for a brief summary at the end.
The session on the Tuesday (0945–1050) will be rather more structured; you’ll need to fill in speakers’ cards in advance, as you would for a normal debate, and speeches will be limited to three minutes. But again, the session offers you the chance to tell us your responses to the paper.
In addition to these sessions at conference, we’re also organising an essay competition, open to any party member, on the theme of ‘What does it means to be a Liberal Democrat today?’. We hope you’ll be stimulated by the discussions at conference to contribute! The deadline is 2 November (put back from an earlier deadline); for more details, see here.
* Duncan Brack and Julie Smith are the Vice Chairs of the Federal Policy Committee
One Comment
Thanks for this. I had been trying to find these documents (in vain) on the Party website yesterday as it happens! I shall be giving them a thorough read. Cannot unfortunately make it to Bournemouth myself but shall certainly be following closely on the BBC Parliament channel (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcparliament/programmes/schedules/2015/09/21). Best wishes for a highly successful conference to all involved!