Liberal Reform’s first publication – The Coalition and Beyond : Liberal Reforms for the Decade Ahead is an interesting, thoughtful and practical guide to ideas the party needs to be looking at the next few years, through the rest of the coalition and beyond.

We’ve had some really great contributions, from people within and outside the party with liberal credentials. It’s been remarked already how many different levels of the party have contributed to this – from Parliamentarians, to PPCs and ordinary activists and members. We did have this aim in mind, so are pleased with the result.

Lib Dem Voice’s co-editor Stephen Tall took on the mighty task of editing the publication, he’s done a fantastic job and we are very grateful to him for it.

Some of the contributions have been shared already at the Liberal Reform website.

These include

• Stephen Tall’s Introduction
• David Boyle being thoughtful – and thoroughly liberal – on what choice actually means to the users of public services.
• Kirsty Williams discussing Wales and greater devolution powers
• Baroness Kramer bringing her experience and understanding to an essay on banking.
• Paul Hunt taking another look at academies

We believe that the party needs to be thinking of the future, and to that end there are pieces on our policy making process, and what future generations of voters (and doubtless politicians will be amongst them as well) think of the role of the state in our future society. We’ve covered education, health, housing, international development amongst others, and with a foreword from Nick Clegg, we hope this starts a lot of conversations at conferences, in local parties, both now and in the future. We hope, that whatever your political leaning, and the issues that you find yourself most passionate about, you can find something of interest to read about here.

The Coalition and Beyond will be available in online and paper versions. We are, as ever, very interested in feedback and analysis, and hope to meet as many of you as possible in person at conference – we’ll be in the bar! (at 9.30 every evening).

Happy reading!

* Louise Shaw is a member in Hazel Grove, a board member of Liberal Reform and a member of the working group on the OMOV proposals