Recent years have seen a consistent stream of conference reports on ‘splits’ within the party. With Coalition, and more interest in the party than ever before, has the media finally learned how to read our public disagreements? Do the media now ‘get’ conference?
Whilst Labour and Tory conferences are stage-managed affairs, with policy arguments taking place behind closed doors, the liberal approach is to discuss and debate in the open. The way Liberal Democrats make policy – and the power we members have to shape our movement – is reflective our commitment both to transparency and to democracy.
But public debates lead to public disagreements. Unthinkable at other conferences, such disagreements are to be expected at Liberal Democrat conferences: it’s how we do business – whether in power or in opposition.
Misunderstanding of this, for whatever reason, has led the media down an easy and familiar path each year: where public disagreements are overblown out of all proportion. The story is always about how the party is about to split into two or more factions: ‘yoghurt-knitting poshos’ vs ‘beardy-weirdies’.
Fortunately party members don’t pay too much attention to this kind of lazy coverage, and it would be dangerous if we did. For one thing most of us would be forced into an identity crisis: I for one am decidedly a ‘beady-weirdi’e when it comes to Trident, but perhaps more of a ‘yoghurt-knitting posho’ on welfare reform.
So are things different this year?
Of course, it’s hard to compare across years, in different circumstances, at different points in the electoral cycle, so this can only ever be an overwhelmingly subjective view.
It would appear that, at least in part, the media’s collective myopia continues. This afternoon our ‘public-service’ broadcaster was so desperate to pursue the old splits agenda that BBC 2’s Daily Politics lined up party members to ask them how they would feel if there were ‘… a number of high-profile defections to Labour’. Such hypotheticals deserve ridicule.
In general, however, I do perceive something of a shift. Barring the evidently deliberate misinformation of certain elements of print media, it seems that conference has so far been reported far more professionally than previously. Public disagreements have not been overblown – let’s hope it lasts!
Monday’s vote on Free Schools, for example, has been reported not as a direct attack on the leadership (which it was not) but for what it is: a statement of the party’s independence and a gentle reminder to our leaders as to whom they are accountable.
It’s not all roses though. All over the media Liberal Democrat members at conference are referred to as ‘delegates’. This needs correction – delegates do what they are told to do (such as the unions at Labour conferences) – Liberal Democrats do not!
* Tom Paul is a party member from Battersea, and a former parliamentary aide.
12 Comments
I think Lib Dems could set an example here by not using the term from the rostrum. Almost every speaker I listened to did.
Some local parties – including mine – might need this explaining too. There was much talk at a recent event of having to agree a “line” on behalf of the borough party.
Actually, my preference would be to get rid of the position of conference reps entirely and just allow any party member who registers for conference to vote at conference. I’m not sure whatever imbalances existed to originally require this system are still there now – some local parties are stronger than others, but we usually seem to get a good turnout of members from weak and strong local parties.
@Benjamin – The problem with all member voting is that it means that you can flood conference with votes, possibly even with bringing people in from outside. It also reflects the fact that the federal party is theoretically just an alliance of local parties and SAOs/AOs etc
I think all party members should be able to vote too. I thought they were, subject to minimum time in the party.
This year I was at conference for just one day. Despite being a Representative I had no voting rights at conference… apparently members have to be registered for the whole conference to get any voting rights at all. It’s disappointing that a democratic party can so easily disenfranchise those of us who can’t take extended periods of time off work!
Benjamin – on the face of it it’s worrying that any local party would seek to bind its Representatives at all. There was a bit of a move within Liberal Youth (who also have voting Representatives) a few years ago to do this, but people soon realised how dangerous it could be.
John Richardson – I’m not sure how re-education of our MPs and fellow members can be achieved, but i do think it’s neccesary!
You need to be a minimum time in the party to vote on local candidate selections, and elections for the Leader and President. Other internal elections (i.e. FPC, FCC, FedEx) are amongst Representatives only.
time has nothing to do with it as I could have been a voting rep (I regretted having turned it down once there) despite only having joined in May.
My understanding was the time-limit only applies to PPC selection (and exec members too maybe?)
I thought the coverage of conference was about as good as we could have expected.
When I’ve attended conference, the bias of newspapers has really irritated me. But what matters is not the papers, but the TV news.
The TV news has essentially said, the Lib Dems are pensive, but supportive of the leadership. Frankly, faced with measures to deal with such a serious financial crisis, it would be a bit worrying if we weren’t pensive.
Some predicted that the Lib Dems would be in open revolt at conference. Which, of course, meant the news story became the fact the Lib Dems aren’t in revolt.
Politics today is full of paradoxes, and this conference was no exception. Normally, I’ve worried that conference would undermine the message of the leadership. But this time, a mixed message may have been helpful.
From the vantage point of watching TV, it seemed to me that delegates were supportive of Nick Clegg, but determined to send a message to the country that we are fighting for the cuts to protect the poor as much as possible. I’m pretty happy with that message.
@Benjamin, @zeonglow
I wouldn’t want all members to be able to vote. We need votes to be relatively representative of the cross-section of the party, not of those who can make conference.
I still think the media are trying to misrepresent the Lib Dems at our conference. Several times I was asked banal factional questions by journalists, such as “are you for or against the Coalition?” Nuanced responses like “It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was probably the best option following the General Election” didn’t get reported or even heeded.
The Daily Politics yellow balls to indicate whether cuts are “too deep” or “just right” was again a set-up. If the balls went in “too deep”, there was a split between the party and the leadership; in “just right” then we’re Tories in disguise, and half-and-half shows a split in the membership between the Orange Book and Social Democrat “factions”.
The media narrative surrounding our party and our conference was downright misleading, and I will have a hard time countering it locally.
Lib dems need to stop whining about the ” Media “. What next, the BBC are biased against the Lib Dems?
Lib dems have sold out to Murdoch and I am not surprised to see ads for that oaf, Iain Dale on this website.
Dave Page – that Daily Politics yellow balls thing was ridiculous, i agree. On the general thrust of reporting though, it was a lot better than it could have been.
Perhaps a comparison to the Pope’s visit is useful. In advance of and during the visit the media was full of arrant anti-faith propaganda and mischief-making. In the event the visit was a success, and even the Guardian appeared to grudgingly accept this.
By contrast it was pretty soon into LD conference the media realised that there just wasn’t a story about ‘splits’.
@Tom Paul
Sorry about this being “off thread” but I can’t let your comment pass.
In advance of the visit, the serious problems and issues surrounding the Pope’s visit were given a thorough airing. Once he was here, however, he was given nauseatingly sycophantic wall to wall coverage, with religious affairs correspondent Robert Piggott even dismissing the demonstration against the Pope as being a “couple of thousand” and a “tiny minority of secularists”, when in fact there were around 20,000. I know, I was there, and we filled most of Piccadilly.
Having seen the helicopter view of Hyde Park, I would have said there were about double the number of Catholics there for the Pope as there were on the demonstration, yet no-one chose to question the figure of 80,000 that was given.
As for biased coverage of the Lib Dems, I note that the Telegraph has been resoundingly negative. Good! Keep up the great work, fellow Lib Dems!
Perhaps a comparison to the Pope’s visit wasn’t useful! I was trying to draw the analogy between pre-event and post-event media coverage. In the case of the Pope’s visit there was a massive difference in coverage, which I think made the media look pretty foolish.
In the case of LD conference the media started going down one route, but quickly corrected themselves and i think on the whole coverage wasnt too bad.