Here’s our second look at tweets from SLF Conference covering late morning and early afternoon. It’s a great day. Remember you can watch live below:
First up a session on how the Lib Dems rebuild featuring Sal Brinton and Mark Pack:
.@salbrinton says PR a red line for any coalition & no “nonsense about a referendum, it has to happen straight away.” #slfconf
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) July 4, 2015
.@markpack says building a Lib Dem core vote is a priority – around 20% share our values & can help us do well. #slfconf
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) July 4, 2015
But at the end…
So @markpack’s and @salbrinton’s private conversation still being broadcast from #slfconf
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) July 4, 2015
Sadly nothing too controversial. The most surprising thing was that Mark didn’t mention chocolate once.
And elsewhere the Huppertmeister and Kelly-Marie Blundell talked about liberty:
Great start from @KellyMarieLD – quoting Cameron on obeying the law not being enough- govt will intervene in your life anyway #slfconf
— Tom King (@KingOfTwickers) July 4, 2015
Michael Steed: Much lauded "British" Magna Carta was English compact between Anglo-Norman king francophone Barons & Italian Pope #slfconf
— Dr Evan Harris (@DrEvanHarris) July 4, 2015
And Positive Money were questioning our approach to the money markets and showing up the ignorance of MPs (not just ours).
When surveyed only 1 in 10 of MPs in the last parliament could correctly identify how liquidity creation through bank loans works #slfconf
— Katherine Bavage (@Bavage) July 4, 2015
In the early afternoon, Daisy Cooper and Chris Nicholson took very different approaches to idea of reforming governance. Daisy wanted us to use it as a campaigning issue, and talk about concentration of power in hands of the few and how we would hand it back to people:
.@libdemdaisy: We need to learn to use this language to capture voters' imagination. Think about harnessing idea of power. #slfconf
— Tom King (@KingOfTwickers) July 4, 2015
Chris Nicholson, former Special Adviser to Ed Davey, gave the perspective from inside government and said something that many people will consider quite controversial:
.@ChrisANicholson: LD back bench committees should have been more focused on campaigning rather than second guessing Ministers/MPs #slfconf
— Tom King (@KingOfTwickers) July 4, 2015
Some might see this as the Westminster Bubble blaming the party for our lack of success.
Federalism was on the agenda elsewhere
At roundtable discussion at #slfconf on whether #Federalism can work in the UK to make decisions closer to the people #devolution
— Merlene for London (@merleneemerson) July 4, 2015
And a discussion on community:
Michael Meadowcroft #slfconf Communities need a focal point to thrive, face2face meetings, shared culture & value driven politics.
— Mr PL (@rjdio1974) July 4, 2015
Community & identity #slfconf old communities destroyed by redevelopment, new communities of interest are formed and nurtured by Internet.
— Elisabeth Wilson (@elis_wilson) July 4, 2015
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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18 Comments
Wrong to call MPs ignorant about money creation. Positive Money and the Bank of England both admit that banks delete money too, but Positive Money don’t really talk about the latter.
PR as a red line no nonsense about a referendum? When I ask why this wasn’t done in 2010 I’m told because it would be futile as none of the big parties would ever agree to it. If that was the case then why isn’t it the case now?
It might well be the case now, and if it is then that means no deal as far as the Lib Dems are concerned. I think there are signs that Labour are supporting PR on some levels, but their leadership candidates are not interested.
Geoffrey Payne, judging by history it looks like it might take another 20 or 30 years until Labour back PR then!
Later’s better than never though.
Voting reform is not going to happen for a number of reasons.
-Voters aren’t interested and it never comes up as a voter concern in polls.
-We had a referendum only 4 years ago when it was massively rejected.
-The two major parties aren’t interested.
-With only 8 MP’s (same as the DUP) it’s a very long road back to have sufficient numbers to make a difference
I am struggling to see how a party with the word “Democrat” in it’s name can possibly justify bringing in major constitutional change, like changing the voting system, without either a referendum or at the very least a parliamentary majority under the current system.
PR by STV should have been a LibDem ‘red line’ in 2010. Thanks to LibDem weak leadership, PR is off the table for another 50 years at least.
Some people can learn from their mistakes! Sal is absolutely right that there must never be a coalition again with a change in the voting system being implemented. For me that has to be STV with no compromise.
Why no referendum? We live in a representative democracy, where we elect representatives to take decisions for us. Then if we don’t like the way they are working for us we chuck them out. Parliament has been undermined systematically over many years and referenda have contributed to that by essentially stopping MPs to do the job they were elected for.
The big problem with a referendum is that people don’t vote on the question but on some hot political issue. The farcical referendum on AV became a referendum on Nick Clegg not on the voting system.
Ooops. without not with
“The big problem with a referendum is that people don’t vote on the question but on some hot political issue. The farcical referendum on AV became a referendum on Nick Clegg not on the voting system.”
Agree with the former not with the latter. The AV referendum was the ‘Yes’ side’s to lose. The ‘YesToAV’ campaign was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. ‘Yes’ were out campaigned by the ‘No’ side on every measure.
RE: Sara Scarlett 5th Jul ’15 – 1:17pm
I agree!! with bells on.
The N2AV campaign was slick, ruthless and hard-hitting. They worked out (not very difficult) that Nick Clegg was toxic, and just banged away . . . ‘Nick Clegg/tuition fees’ became the subject of a referendum on a voting system.
By the by, Cameron also stabbed Clegg in the back by not very subtly supporting the N2AV. If Clegg had had any significant experience of local campaigning against the Tories, he would have expected and would have adjusted his behaviour accordingly.
Oh, and the Y2AV was comically incompetent, though as an activist I met some amazing people through it, and from outside the LibDems.
“By the by, Cameron also stabbed Clegg in the back by not very subtly supporting the N2AV.”
I don’t think he “stabbed him in the back.” The Tories were overtly supporting No2AV. Why wouldn’t they? The FPTP system has made them the most electorally successful British party. They behaved exactly as they were always going to behave in that situation.
The Yes2AV campaign was just the worst. They talked to themselves. When they did talk to the electorate they talked down to them. They didn’t engage with the Middle Classes properly. They didn’t make any effort to make allies even unlikely ones. Sounds just like the 2015 LD GE Campaign…
Yes, the Tories were never under any obligation to back AV. They agreed to give us the referendum, but that’s all. They always made it clear that they would campaign in that referendum for no change, and we (LibDems) accepted that. So there was no ‘backstabbing’. The Tories behaved perfectly honourably on that one.
The main problem with AV was that many people like me who have been wanting electoral reform for many decades just could not work up an enthusiasm for such a half-hearted measure, plus only the Lib Dems thought they would benefit from it so it did not get the backing of the Greens etc..
Be grateful you lost the AV vote. AV would mean 1 UKIP MP, zero greens and <3 lib dems. Why they campaigned for such an unrepresentative system I'll never understand.
@ Mr Wallace
9 lib Dems, 1 UKIP and 1 Green actually!
But don’t let a report by the Electoral Reform Society based on a survey of 40,000 people post election get in the way of your usual random speculation!
AV is pretty rubbish though, as I said already
Evan Harris is right. Magna Carta did nothing for Jews, women and serfs, as the director of Liberty said on the Andrew Marr Show.
@Andrew. So parliament would look pretty much exactly as it does under FPTP as under AV then? Did report say how the Tories and labour would have done under AV? I read that it results in a more disproportionate parliament than FPTP does most of the time, and that in the only comparable country that uses AV (Australia) there is even less room for small parties than there is here?