One of our neighbours turned 16 last night. He had a party. His mum, who I’d met earlier while we were walking our dogs that there was going to be no alcohol at this party. As I listened to a large group of teenagers making a hell of a racket in our street at 11pm last night, it seemed that they had taken no notice.

Anyway, I took advantage of that disturbance to finally do something I had been meaning to do for ages.

For a wee while now, a growing number of  Lib Dems have put an orange diamond next to their Twitter name.

I’ve been wondering how to do it but have never had a clue how to do it, nor the time to look into it.

It didn’t take me long to work it out.

Welcome to the 11,000 who have joined the Liberal Democrats in the last few weeks, and a special mention to the 1500 who joined yesterday.

Okay, this is getting quite addictive now.

8pm and we’re closing in fast on 1,500 new members today!

This (by my reckoning) makes it the best single day of recruitment this month.

Join the 🔶🔶🔶 surge: https://t.co/SP9wfaiYUd pic.twitter.com/hDkCgErYkg

— Greg Foster 🔶🇺🇦 (@CatDadGreg) May 31, 2019

It’s actually been really heartwarming to wake up every morning for the last few weeks and see a whole rush of “I just joined the Lib Dems” posts on Twitter.

Every so often I roll out this post, which is basically a rehash of an article that I first wrote in May 2015 when many joined the party in the wake of the General Election result. I thought it might be useful to tell you a little bit about how our party works and give you a bit of an idea of the opportunities open to you. If you are not yet a member, if you like what you read, sign up here.

What do we believe?

Before we get into the nitty gritty of organisation, the best statement of who we are and what we’re about can be found in the Preamble to our Constitution which underlines how we believe in freedom, opportunity, diversity,  decentralisation and internationalism. Here’s a snippet:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.

We look forward to a world in which all people share the same basic rights, in which they live together in peace and in which their different cultures will be able to develop freely. We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms. Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject allprejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.

We have a fierce respect for individuality, with no expectation that fellow Liberal Democrats will agree with us on every issue. We expect our views to be challenged and feel free to challenge others without rancour. We can have a robust debate and head to the pub afterwards, the very best of friends.

Obviously, our priority at the moment is to stop Brexit, but there is so much more to us than that. That bit about no-one being enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity shapes everything that we do.

Your rights as a member