The Voice’s Mark Pack has a post over at Total Politics, discussing the issues likely to dominate the upcoming Lib Dem Spring Conference in Gateshead.

The first thing to note, says Mark, is that some of the most contentious political issues of recent weeks such as the reforms to the NHS and to the welfare system don’t appear on the conference agenda as it was drawn up some time ago:

There is a slot for emergency and topical issues to cover this eventuality, but with only time for one motion, not all of the controversies can be aired. Unless a procedural trick is pulled or events change markedly, I expect that an NHS motion will win out in the ballot of conference representatives for that slot as the people behind it have the bigger, more organised network to mobilise the vote.

Mark does pick out one of the items certain to be debated in Gateshead:

proposed changes to the party’s so-called “triple lock”, which procedural experts know in fact contains four steps and governs how the party should go about making decision on going into coalition in a hung Parliament.

Although seen to have generally worked well in May 2010, it was not a perfect mechanism for party democracy and an update version to account for those lessons and a ruling of the party’s Federal Appeals Panel is being presented to conference.

The rest of Mark’s article can be read here, in advance of what promises to be another Spring conference full of lively debate.

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