For years the internal workings of the Liberal Democrat party have not been known to many party members. Thousands, in fact. I did think, stupidly as it now turns out, that the election of Ros Scott, who I supported as President and still support wholeheartedly, may make a little change to that. From my PC there seemed to be a chance that I would be able to start to understand what the heck the Federal Executive (FE) does and what the heck the President does.
The ideal opportunity then came along. Our Chief Executive was accused of expenses irregularities. He then resigned. Several of our parliamentarians had and have allegations standing against them.
In short, it all got exciting and rather worrying, which it still is. So when Ros Scott blogged (on her now extinct blog) that a crucial FE meeting was coming up which would discuss all these matters, I was naturally extremely interested. I put some comments for the meeting on Lib Dem Voice, and sent an email to a member of the FE who I know.
I then waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Nothing on Ros’s blog except something about housing in the House of Lords. I posted some comments there which disappeared into a cyber hole.
Nothing from my friendly FE member.
Nothing from any FE members.
Nothing on the LDV members’ forum.
Then we got Lord Rennard’s announcement of him standing down. Then the announcement of the process for looking at parliamentarians’ expenses.
I still don’t understand the background or rationale to those events (What chief executive of a party announces his departure two weeks before major elections for purely “health and family reasons”? Join up the dots as you will). I still don’t know what the hell the FE or the President do. In fact, I am even more confused and baffled now because Ros seems to be saying that she and the FE don’t have any powers at all. (Except, of course, the power to give party members the impression, up until now, that they have some power!)
So I have pressed my “reset” button. I shall forget that there is a Federal Executive and certainly forget any idiotic ideas I had of having any sort of conversation via the internet with our President. I shall go back to cretinously delivering leaflets and canvassing voters and stop being so idiotic as to believe that I can be involved in internal party matters without actually being one of the 0.000001% of party members who are actually on these mysterious committees.
Ho-hum.
* Paul Walter blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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14 Comments
Well, Paul, I’ve just delivered my last leaflet, received EARS backups from all my target divisions. Printed a back-up Shuttleworth. 40 odd County Council Candidates are facing the music tomorrow.
So I’ve time to look at your posting and turn to this matter.
My conclusion. As I said during the presidential campaign, I was no more sanguine about a President from one House than I was from the other. Until we have the guts to have grassroots activist Presidents and accept that the odd maverick like Clem, Cyril or David P is no bad thing…
The reason why lots of Lib Dem party members do not know what their Federal Executive is supposed to do is because we have not made the effort to find out.
Some party members, not many, are interested and make an effort to find out. It is perfectly possible to do this if you are so inclined.
I do not know what momentus decisions the FE were expected to take when they met. I do not know what scope they had for making any. I find it hard to conceive that they could take such decisions, even if they wanted to.
However what is true is this. The party has not come through unscathed by this, which is regrettable. But I do think the party has come out very well indeed under the circumstances.
So I am inclined to think that the FE and the party leadership have done a very good job and should be congratulated for it. Maybe Ross should not have built up expectations in her blog, but that is a small matter and I am sure she deserves credit for how the party has presented itself during this campaign.
So – can anyone tell me?
Has an independent external assessor been appointed to examine Lib Dem expenses and allowances in the House of Lords, as we were told nearly a fortnight ago was going to happen “immediately”?
If so, who is it? And when will he or she report?
It is coming up to four weeks since the allegations about the party’s chief executive were published. It would be nice to know whether any progress at all has been made in getting them properly investigated.
I suggest you get in touch with Ross Scott. I don’t know why anyone here would know the answer to that, I certainly don’t.
Geoffrey
My question wasn’t particularly directed at you. That’s why I phrased it “can anyone tell me?”
Then again, I’d have hoped the answer would be in the public domain, so that all the people who generally tell us what’s what would have known the answer.
There doesn’t seem to be much point in publicly announcing an independent inquiry, if the identity of the inquirer is subsequently kept secret.
This is clearly, and understandably, a very angry post. Quite apart from the immediate issues surrounding Chris Rennard’s departure, it raises more general points about transparency and bureaucracy in the party.
At the Conference last Presidential elections, I asked several people to explain succinctly what the President’s role is, since I wanted to be able to choose the best-sounding candidate for the position. Very few people could tell me; a few people angrily told me to “read the Constitution”. I must admit that after the first few cross-references, I gave up – and I’m probably more of a constitutional nerd than most party members.
The same goes for many elected positions in the party, from the Federal Exec to my local party’s conference reps – with no clear guidance as to what many position holders are supposed to do, and no objective to rate their performance in post, can we really be proud of our party’s democratic structure?
As my constituency’s Membership Development Officer, I’ve recruited a few people into the party recently. They’re now asking me questions about structure and policy, and I’m embarrassed that I don’t know the answers. Neither do many other people to whom I speak.
I was hoping to prepare a “bluffer’s guide” to the party, helping new members to get the most out of the party, but it’s proving terribly difficult…
The FE is not all (or even many)made up of remote people in my experiance. I have a member of the FE sleeping on my sofa tonight ready to do good mornings and help run a double committee room operation today.
Of course its an elite body. That is understandable. The problem is that is London centric and dominated by the same names. It needs to be taken to members- open meetings across the country maybe?
Matt. Too right. Surely it wouldn’t defy modern technology to have online voting from local party meetings in between conferences?
I was a member of the Federal Executive for several years and I still do not know what it was for. It certainly did not exercise any effective scrutiny of the leadership or the party management. In fact it was more a rubber stamp for anything they wanted.
It is both worrying and fraustrating that a party that is supposed to be campaigning for transparency and less red-tape in government can’t get it’s own house in order.
I’d really really love a “Lib Dems for Dummies” guide, explaining what I can do as a mere member (apart from the usual donate cash, cold call strangers in by-elections, donate more cash, donate more cash again, deliver some leaflets, deliver more leaflets, donate cash, donate cash, donate cash, start a pointless facebook group, donate cash), what an MP can do within the party, what my local party organisers can do and what the various comittees and working groups do.
You know, if more time was spent on informing members of what was going on, and how they can get involved instead of weekly cold-calls begging more cash, you might end up with more donations and more volunteers.
Finally, yes – why was the FE so slow, and if they don’t have the power to do anything – then who did, and why didn’t they – it’s not as if most of us proles aren’t as angry about accountability and transparency as other voters – and people like us are the ones defending MPs etc to normal people in conversations with friends and family – from what I’ve seen and heard the Lib Dem’s did much too little much too late, only being a “little bit dodgy”, or “not as bad as the others” is no excuse when the 3rd party has to be different.
Many thanks all for your comments. I particularly enjoyed Peter’s. 🙂
It would appear that that might be changing. It was definitely a stated objective of Ros’s to achieve during her term in office, but it’s not something that can be done overnight.
I specifically asked Ros about the FE and the accountability of the Chief Exec before I committed to voting and campaigning for her, and was very happy with her answer.
We need openness and transparency. We need to work with those that want that. I think we also need to understand that not everyone in the current hierarchy either wants it or understands why it’s needed. And that, because of this, not everything can be openly discussed. Yet.
I suspect, one who’d rather go gracefully than face a damaging-to-the-party fight to stay in place.
So for that, I thank the noble Lord Rennard for his years of service and for leaving when it was inevitable. I hope his replacement(s?) will be able to assist in the move towards a transparent and open party machinery.
The conclusion seems to be – The only disinfectant that works is sunlight.