One of the most important aspects of our party’s accountability is the ability to question its powerful people.
Every Conference, there are sessions where members can put their questions to the committees who run the party and to our parliamentarians. These are usually poorly attended, with just a few of the Usual Suspects turning up to ask awkward questions. Actually, the more people who turn up and the more awkward questions asked, the better the party will be.
Everybody who holds power within an organisation should expect to be rigorously held to account. In our party, the main committees are:
The Federal Board – responsible for setting party strategy
The Federal Policy Committee – responsible for developing policy and writing election manifestos
The Federal Conference Committee – responsible for organising Conference and making sure that the agenda is interesting and reflects the desires of the membership
The Federal Communications and Elections Committee – responsible for running election campaigns.
The Federal People Development Committee – responsible for membership engagement, training, diversity, candidates and generally making sure that our members get the most out of the party.
The Federal Finance and Resources Committee – tasked with sorting the money out and overseeing the party’s budget
The Federal International Relations Committee – responsible for managing the party’s links with international organisations.
So, this weekend, have a read of the reports to Conference and if you have anything you want to ask, submit your question by Tuesday at 1pm.
If you think one of the committees should be doing something it isn’t or isn’t doing something it should, now is your chance to find out why and see if it is something they might consider in the future.
You don’t have to be at Conference either. The questions you submit will be published in the Conference Extra. If you are there, you will get the chance to ask a supplementary question when the relevant Committee chair answers it.
It can be a good way of making your first intervention at Conference.
Remember you only have until Tuesday at 1pm to submit your question.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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4 Comments
Apologies in advance to my favourite federal board member for the questions I am about to submit.
I am confused!
There are ten candidates for the Lib Dem party for the EU election.
How do I vote?
Sheila Lyons – you vote for the party, not the individual candidates. Each party will already have decided the order in which each of their candidates will be successful; so, if the LD’s have one candidate elected from a region, the first name on the list will become a MEP, if two then the second name on the list will also become a MEP, and so on.
Back in the middle of April LD members in each region voted on their preferred candidates and the result of this internal election generated the final list; here in the South-West there are 6 MEP positions up for contest, so most of the parties including the LD’s will have chosen a list of 6 candidates (in the highly unlikely event that all 6 are elected).
Hope that makes sense.
Sheila – when you go to vote the options on the ballot paper will have the LD list, the Labour list, the Tory list, etc. You simply vote for the LibDem list (one cross in the LD box).