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 original Coalition Programme the Government will have met through policies already announced, where the gaps still lie and where it needs to do more to deliver.
The process is about looking to see what should be a priority during the rest of the Parliament; not about starting over again from scratch.
Given the nature of this exercise which is not about developing new policies, the FPC and FCC have decided that it is not suitable for a formal debate at conference. Instead, Danny Alexander MP will be leading a Q&A session at the Brighton Conference to present the key issues for the Government review and to give conference representatives an opportunity to raise questions and concerns.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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Hmm. One wonders how much this is about avoiding an embarrassing debate at conferences, rather than not being “suitable for a formal debate”. Avoiding the opportunity for ordinary party members to stick their oars in looks weak to me.
Top book Mark – ‘ve read it now. Well done!
Now to put it into action. đ
When I went to the 2010 post election Conference in Birmingham to vote for the Coalition agreement, I voted for it for 5 years. I’m rather heartened by this post, it demonstrates the qualities of toughness and consistency that we’ll need going into the next election. Parties don’t win by getting everything right, they win by getting enough right and showing the qualities needed to govern.
William: the “next election” for some of us was held in May 2011, and there will have been several more before the next parliamentary elections…. The political world does not begin and end in Westminster.
Of course we don’t stage manage our conferences like the other two parties do, but will conference committee be filtering the awkward questions as usual.? – will we have to use the Trojan horse tactic again? – will they allow supplementary questions?
Of course Nick Clegg and chums don’t want a wide-ranging debate on the record and performance of the coalition at conference. It seems equally obvious that there is no point raking over whether going into the coalition was the right decision (I think it was, in principle) or whether the terms were right (I think they weren’t in one crucial respect, the nature (not the existence) of the commitment to deficit reduction above all else or whether we should quit it now (if only because there is plenty of evidence that very few members take that position). It’s also true that without some guidance, a debate on the coalition’s record would be too unfocused. But there was nothing to stop the FPC focusing the debate on a few key issues.