Tag Archives: liberal youth

Caron Lindsay

The New Liberal Youth team for 2013-2014

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th May 2013 - 8:32 pm

So, all the postal ballots have been entered, the buttons have been pressed, the candidates informed. I can now give you, for the first time, all the results of the Liberal Youth Elections in one place.

First of all, though, I will take advantage of my position as Returning Officer to thank all the candidates for standing. There were a good number of them too, with many of the positions being contested. You normally have to use significant powers of persuasion to get candidates for treasurer of anything – yet Liberal Youth had three.

The lively campaign and the move to an …

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Sam Barratt

An open letter to Tim Farron on unpaid internships

By Sam Barratt | Fri 24th May 2013 - 4:00 pm

Dear Tim,

We are writing to you to express our feelings on the subject of unpaid internships.

There can be all sorts of barriers for people who wish to undertake internships and it is crucial that the Liberal Democrats, and our Parliamentarians, do all we can to make sure that the internships we offer are as open as possible. This is about minimising barriers, one of which is affordability. Some of us have worked in the past as unpaid interns; we know that sometimes people are happy to work for free, or feel they have to in order break into a profession.

…

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 24 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Only one week left to vote in the Liberal Youth elections #lyelects

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 22nd May 2013 - 11:30 am

You only have a week left to vote in elections  to elect the Liberal Youth Executive for next year. All members of the party under the age of 26, or who are students and those between 26-30 who aren’t students but who have opted to stay as members of LY have the chance to vote. You must cast your vote online, or it must have been received by post, by 12 noon on Wednesday 29th May.

If you fall into these 3 categories you should have received:

a) An  email from me telling you about the elections and where you can find …

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Caron Lindsay

The Queen’s Speech from a Liberal Democrat perspective

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th May 2013 - 9:16 pm

So, the tiaras are back in their boxes, Alistair Carmichael’s wand is back in its cupboard and the Queen’s Speech has been delivered. There is plenty to make Liberal Democrats cheer, but also areas where more details are required  before we can breathe that sigh of relief.  There are, also, a couple of areas where I was hiding behind a cushion.

First, though, the truly extraordinary. We Liberal Democrats are kind of used to playing “stronger economy, fairer society” bingo every time one of our ministers opens their mouths. But we weren’t quite expecting this:

My government’s legislative programme will continue to

…

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The Voice

Paddy Ashdown: Liberal Youth are absolutely fantastic

By The Voice | Tue 7th May 2013 - 7:55 am

Liberal Youth’s Gold Guard effort during the local election campaign saw them campaign vigorously all over the country. There were action days from Berwick to Cambridge to Somerset and every night an hour was set aside to call for a specific candidate.

Some of the party’s most treasured figures put together this video to thank them, and it was emailed to their members last night. Well, Paddy said a little more than thank you, but he’s allowed, because we are obliged to obey his every instruction between now and 2015.

We thought you might like to see it.

Rumour has it, by the …

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Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Finance Officer: Rory Roberson

By Rory Roberson | Fri 3rd May 2013 - 4:00 pm

Writing this in the wake of running an election campaign in Worcestershire I can say with little doubt that money is absolutely vital for the smooth running of a campaigning force and Liberal Youth desperately needs to become a better campaigning force.

But first a little about myself, I have been involved in politics for a number of years now and have been involved in a full campaign a year since joining the party at Aberystwyth University in 2009, a trend that looks as if it will not finish anytime soon. As well as this I have …

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Liberal Youth Elections 2013… England Convenor: Stuart Wheatcroft

By Stuart Wheatcroft | Fri 3rd May 2013 - 3:30 pm

I have been a member of the Liberal Democrats since the end of 2005. Despite this, I had no serious involvement with Liberal Youth until early 2012. Liberal Youth was not an effective organisation nationally, and in my area it was non-existent.

A huge amount of progress has been made. Liberal Youth’s contribution to the campaign in Eastleigh has been widely recognised. The momentum has been continued through the Gold Guard project, with action days in key seats around the country and a huge membership engagement push at every level of the organisation. More must be done, but there has been …

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Richard Clare

Liberal Youth Elections 2013…England Convenor: Rich Clare

By Richard Clare | Fri 3rd May 2013 - 3:00 pm

Rich ClareIt’s that time of year again – time for the young Liberals to choose their executive. I’m standing for Convenor of LY England and I have two main aims: to protect and expand Liberal Youth’s resources by promoting us within the Federal and English parties, and to turn us into more of a campaigning force across the country. Although I have two years’ experience as branch chair in Sheffield Hallam, I am not part of the LY ‘clique’ – if I become the new Convenor, I will be a fresh …

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Callum Leslie

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Chair: Callum Leslie

By Callum Leslie | Fri 3rd May 2013 - 2:30 pm

Callum Leslie reclaim the nightFor the past 18 months, I’ve been wrestling with the possibility of leaving the party. As the party leadership continues to ignore party policy and members’ wishes, we have to sit through the bedroom tax, secret courts, the NHS debacle, shares for rights, tuition fees and more. The position of conference as the sovereign body of the party by which all are bound is all but extinguished.

About two weeks ago, I came to a realisation. Having been a party member since I was 14 and a candidate …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged and | 5 Comments
Sarah Harding

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Chair: Sarah Harding

By Sarah Harding | Fri 3rd May 2013 - 2:00 pm

Liberal Youth have worked hard this election. Across the country, young Liberal Democrats have been phoning, delivering and canvassing to ensure as many Lib Dem councillors as possible were elected.

In 2015, our party will face a bigger challenge, and Liberal Youth can make a huge difference.

My candidacy for Chair is based on what we need to do to help win in 2015: plan, recruit and train.

Plan: I will work with the membership to lay out our key goals up to 2015, liaise with the Federal Party and Strategic Seats to plan our on-the-group campaigning and expand the Gold Guard.

Recruit: I will widen recruitment avenues and …

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Tommy Long

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Finance Officer: Tommy Long

By Tommy Long | Tue 30th April 2013 - 3:00 pm

Supposedly Liberal Youth’s funding is under threat. I’ve never seen anything official but I’m always being told by one person or another that our donors aren’t overly impressed with our performance and are seriously reconsidering whether to let us manage our own finances any more.

This has to stop. Uncertainty means that we cannot properly plan our spending. Perhaps it’s fair to say that we haven’t always done an incredible job with our money-management in the past but as liberals don’t we accept that people do their best when they’re trusted and supported to make their own decisions?

I strongly believe that …

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Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Finance Officer: James King and Robin McGhee

By James King and Robin McGhee | Tue 30th April 2013 - 2:30 pm

Neither of us have ever had much to do with Liberal Youth. We are experienced activists and party officers who were impressed by the potential of Liberal Youth next year and thought we’d have a punt at being Finance Officer. We hope our experience and total lack of ambition will mean we can serve the organisation humbly and well, protecting and improving its finances as we have done together in our student branch.

We met at Oxford University where we eventually ascended to the co-chairmancy of the university branch of the party. In those dim and distant years (2011) Oxfordshire didn’t …

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Daniel Lewis

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Non Portfolio Officer: Daniel Lewis

By Daniel Lewis | Tue 30th April 2013 - 2:00 pm

I am running for NPO because I believe I have the skills to help the rest of the exec out in a wide range of areas. My pitch runs on three themes: commitment, experience and ideas. For full details visit my website.

Commitment

Throughout my time in the party I have shown myself willing to help out at short notice on all manner of tasks. From getting up at 5am one Sunday a month to make sure an entire ward was delivered in a day to upping sticks to Eastleigh for 2 weeks this February I have a record of …

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William Dyer

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Policy Officer: Will Dyer

By William Dyer | Mon 29th April 2013 - 4:30 pm

Over the last twelve months, as Liberal Youth’s Policy Officer, I served under four different Liberal Youth Chairs, on two Federal Policy Committee terms,  though 3 different sets of Liberal Youth elections and worked with over 20 different executive officers.

It is fair to say that Liberal Youth has been through a turbulent time over the last 12 months but look what we have achieved.

Our increased involvement in major by-elections and the up-coming local elections, (which has not gone unnoticed by our minsters in government), an increased turnout at Liberal Youth elections and for the first time since I have been …

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Morgan Griffith-David

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Policy Officer: Morgan Griffith-David

By Morgan Griffith-David | Mon 29th April 2013 - 2:30 pm

Picture - MorganLiberal Youth can campaign. Liberal Youth can recruit. Liberal Youth can train.

But Liberal Youth cannot forget our crucial Policy portfolio.

Solid policy forms the backbone for all other work we do; our innovative policies attract new members to our cause, our campaigns endeavour to change policy and we get our candidates elected to implement liberal policy. This is why I am utterly committed to making Liberal Youth policy comprehensive, professional, and engaging; to provide us with strong foundations in the run up to 2015.

Liberal Youth’s policy independence from the federal …

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Linden Parker

Liberal Youth Elections 2013…Non Portfolio Officer: Linden Parker

By Linden Parker | Sun 28th April 2013 - 3:00 pm

My main reason for standing to be a Liberal Youth Non Portfolio Officer is that I know I can be a great asset to the rest of the executive. I want to ensure that all members have a big say in the way Liberal Youth is run – something which the current executive have been particularly strong on over the past few months.

As one of Liberal Youth’s two Non Portfolio Officers, I want to help support the rest of the executive in all areas, but particularly with campaigns, communications and events. I am keen to help with the organisation and …

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Andrew Emmerson

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Non Portfolio Officer: Andrew Emmerson

By Andrew Emmerson | Sun 28th April 2013 - 2:30 pm

When you get your vote for the Liberal Youth elections, please use it wisely, don’t just vote for friends. Liberal Youth in the past few months has taken some real strides forward. If we want a strong vibrant and attractive youth wing, then there are clear choices. One of those is voting #1 Andrew Emmerson for Non-Portfolio Officer.

For many years I have sat on the side-lines being vaguely critical of Liberal Youth, but not done a whole lot about it. Now is time to change that.  I am the candidate in these elections whose experience is varied and wide. This …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , and | 11 Comments
Charlotte Curry

Liberal Youth Elections 2013… Non Portfolio Officer: Charlotte Curry

By Charlotte Curry | Sun 28th April 2013 - 2:00 pm

I am a caring, thoughtful teenager who has fought against unfairness, bullying and for those who have lacked the confidence to speak up for themselves. This is one of my strengths according to my form teacher.

I am currently on a recruitment drive in Darlington to increase the number of youth members. This will greatly reduce the average age for members in Darlington and hopefully increase the number of active members. This will also give the youth of Darlington a voice that can be heard. In 2013 I plan to set up the first Lib Dem Youth group in Darlington for …

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Samuel Fisk

Liberal Youth are making a difference – can you help this weekend?

By Samuel Fisk | Wed 24th April 2013 - 1:58 pm

Liberal Youth are making a difference up and down the country this month to get more Liberal Democrats elected.  Just as in Eastleigh, we’re showing the potential for Liberal Youth to be an election winning organisation as well an internal policy pressure group.

We’ve already had national action weekends in Sheffield and Cambridge, as well as national phone banking events with our shiny new connect account.

But we’re only just getting started.

This weekend we’re urging Liberal Youth members with no elections in their region to head to key target areas.  We’re holding action weekends in Somerset and Northumberland this weekend.  …

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Kavya Kaushik

The importance of new faces in Liberal Youth

By Kavya Kaushik | Thu 18th April 2013 - 6:02 pm

Every incarnation of Liberal Youth has had the exact same problems: egos, an unnatural obsession with constitutions and a party-within-a-party mentality. Members of the Liberal Democrats almost expect Liberal Youth to fail at some point, which isn’t a healthy foundation for us to build upon.

I believe these recurring problems are the result of a very easily fixable problem. There is a narrow pool of people interested in standing time after time: The Liberal Youth Clique. There are many people who want Liberal Youth to succeed and become a vital campaigning and recruitment force within the Liberal Democrats.

I do believe in …

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Sam Fisk and Kavya Kaushik

Opinion: Liberal Youth petition Nick Clegg on immigration

By Sam Fisk and Kavya Kaushik | Mon 25th March 2013 - 2:06 pm

The Liberal Democrats are committed to building a stronger economy in a fairer society. We might be sick of hearing that phrase but it does sum up our party’s values pretty well.

Yet Nick Clegg’s speech on Friday would damage the party’s plans for a stronger economy in a fairer society.

If Nick Clegg truly wants to enable everyone to get on in life, he should re-consider this new illiberal stance on immigration.

Liberal Youth oppose Nick Clegg’s ’security bonds’ policy, which will stifle foreign entrepreneurship and investment in Britain. We should be encouraging people to start up businesses in here, which create jobs and economic growth.  We …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 46 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Conference Rally: Confessional, motivational and defiant

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th March 2013 - 8:29 pm

A conference rally without Tim Farron is a bit like strawberries without cream. When he wasn’t there telling his bad football jokes, I wondered if he’d been put on the Naughty Step for his interview earlier. But, no, he hadn’t even arrived in Brighton.

What we did have was a sense of almost cleansing, confessional, cathartic and heartfelt speeches tackling the pain of the last few weeks head on.

Nick Clegg made clear that he wanted to change the culture in the party. What he said is not new for him. He’s always been very pro equality, but this was a new …

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Paul Walter

Team EastLY – making a difference

By Paul Walter | Mon 25th February 2013 - 12:53 pm

Some rights eserved by Helen Duffett

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Posted in Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged and | 5 Comments
Stephen Tall

Eastleigh by-election: your essential round-up of the week’s campaign news

By Stephen Tall | Fri 15th February 2013 - 3:45 pm

Mike_ThorntonIt’s only just over a week since the Eastleigh by-election was called. But this first Lib Dem / Tory by-election battle of the parliament has attracted a lot of interest. One aspect that hasn’t been noted much in the media is the level of enthusiasm within the Lib Dems to fight this by-election, and fight it to win.

As the party’s weekly briefing itself noted, Mike Thornton’s campaign has broken the party’s by-election records, with “more volunteers, more money raised and more campaign literature delivered in the opening days of the Eastleigh by-election campaign than any other”.

Here a few of the stats:

  • Well over 1,000 Lib Dem volunteers have visited the by-election HQ since it was officially opened on Saturday morning.
  • On Thursday alone, 2,200 phone calls were made to prospective voters and activists knocked on 1,700 doors.
  • More than 650 individual donations have been received through the party’s website and through email appeals in the last six days.
  • 21 of the party’s 57 MPs have already visited: Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander, Ed Davey, Vince Cable, Sir Malcolm Bruce, Sir Nick Harvey, Tim Farron, Jo Swinson, David Laws, Duncan Hames, Andrew Stunell, Simon Wright, Sir Robert Smith, Stephen Gilbert, Tom Brake, Roger Williams, Don Foster, John Leech, Tessa Munt, Mark Williams, John Pugh and Adrian Sanders.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Youth elect Sam Fisk and Kavya Kaushik as joint chairs

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 17th January 2013 - 12:45 pm

Liberal Youth have recently had a set of elections for executive posts and you can see the results on their Libertine blog.

For the first time, they have elected two job-sharing co-chairs, Sam Fisk and Kavya Kaushik who are now putting in place their Six Month Plan which aims to:

ensure Liberal Youth can be a community which is positive and wanting to make a difference in anyway possible – either through election campaigning or raising awareness of youth issues. We want to show Liberal Youth can make a positive difference not only in our party but our communities.

Sam is …

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Lee Dargue

Opinion: Liberal Youth has changed for the better and I see promise of more

By Lee Dargue | Sun 13th January 2013 - 4:45 pm

Following Sean Davey’s thought-provoking post on the upcoming elections of new Liberal Youth officers, I wanted to offer support and some further thoughts. In agreement, Sean is right to point out that LY cannot allow its incoming officers, along with the existing ones, to indulge in coasting or long-winded bickering and risk over-shadowing the hugely important work of LY in campaigning.

Sean also raises the issue of LY’s lack of diversity as a problem. I totally agree that we can’t allow things to stay as they are, and after some initial concerns I back the Candidate Leadership Program. However, …

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Sean Davey

Opinion: A New Year, a new direction for Liberal Youth?

By Sean Davey | Fri 28th December 2012 - 12:45 pm

Liberal Youth action dayWith nominations closing on January 4th, Liberal Youth will be electing a new Chair, and several new members of the Exec team leading it forward in 2013. Thanks to the hard work and diligence of Acting Chair Harry Matthews these elections (and positions) will be online and open to all Lib Dem members who are aged 16-25, or registered students.

The New Year offers an opportunity for renewal and a new direction for our youth wing, but equally there is a risk of simply “rearranging the deckchairs …

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Posted in Op-eds | 4 Comments
Mary Reid

Chris Rennard: Youth is not a barrier to being anything in our party

By Mary Reid | Tue 27th November 2012 - 2:31 pm

Chris RennardChris Rennard spoke to the Liberal Youth Conference at the weekend. Courtesy of The Libertine here is an extract from his speech:

Party youth groups were always crucial in the key by-elections that I was involved in during the 1980s and later when some of the great by-election wins that I helped to deliver rescued our party and helped it to gain many more parliamentary seats. Active Liberal youth helped to make the difference in many of the seats that we now hold at different levels.

I often talk

…

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Helen Duffett

Blog of the Year Awards 2012: The Winners #LDBOTY

By Helen Duffett | Sat 22nd September 2012 - 11:20 pm

What’s loosely termed the awards “ceremony” for the 2012 Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards has just drawn to a glittering close. As the last firework fades in Brighton’s night sky, I’m delighted to announce the winners:

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Paul Walter

LibLink: Proof that politics is for young people

By Paul Walter | Tue 17th July 2012 - 2:23 pm

Well done to Councillor Victor Chamberlain who has had an article published in the Manchester Evening News entitled “I’m proof that politics IS for young people” with the byline “Manchester’s youngest councillor aged 22”. Here is a taster:

Many friends think I was mad to get involved in politics at a young age, but in fact it was inevitable after the Iraq War. I felt strongly that the action being taken in my name was completely immoral, and I wanted to find a way to voice my opposition. In Manchester, effective opposition came only from the Liberal Democrats. When I joined

…

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