Tag Archives: citizens

What might a “Citizens’ Britain” local election campaign look like?

By Jon Alexander | Thu 4th February 2021 - 6:51 pm

At the end of last year, Ian Kearns and I published a short report called Citizens’ Britain: a radical agenda for the 2020s. The title was in homage to Paddy Ashdown’s book of the same title from 1989, and the core of the approach remains exactly the same: we see the task of liberalism today as being to put more power in more people’s hands. We quote Paddy to start the report:

“A society cannot be free and is very unlikely to be successful for long unless the men and women in it have real power to determine their own destiny. The one thing that unfailingly gives me satisfaction in politics is to watch those who have been taught they are the subject of others’ power, rise to meet the challenge of power in their own hands – and then be unbelieving at what they are able to do.”

With elections coming up all over the country, I wanted to share an idea as to what it might look like to put this spirit at the heart of Lib Dem communications. I reckon it would look something like this…

Now, obviously this footage is a bit out of date, but I reckon you’ll get the idea. It’s taken from interviews I did with three Lib Dem activists about their activism during the first lockdown last spring: Josh Babarinde of Eastbourne Lib Dems; Jo Conchie, now standing for Police and Crime Commissioner in Cheshire; and Liz Barrett, recently elected as a Councillor in Perth.