Tag Archives: liberal youth

Liberal Youth: It’s time to think about Freshers

By Callum Morton and Ben Richards | Wed 11th July 2012 - 10:25 am

As the academic year draws to a close, most young people are thinking about the summer ahead – not us though. At Liberal Youth we’re already planning for the next academic year and we want this year’s Freshers (the inaugural party / join-a-society week at the start of the academic term) to be the one that puts us back on the map.

The Freshers period is incredibly important to our organisation, more so now than ever. We’re not naive, we know the Liberal Democrats’ reputation on campus isn’t the same as it was a few years ago, but we’re working hard …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , and | 8 Comments
Sean Davey

Wanted: the next generation of Community Champions

By Sean Davey | Mon 11th June 2012 - 3:54 pm

Most young people aren’t interested in politics. So how do we build Liberal Youth branches, bring new members into the party, and engage the next generation? I believe that one way we can start is by getting back to community politics.

The art of politics, in so far as it is electioneering, is of obvious importance to what we do as a party, but it shouldn’t be everything. If we only focus on getting the next Lib Dem elected then we will only ever attract a narrow pool of talent, which, however bright, will be made up of those young people who see themselves with a future in politics.

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Posted in Events | 1 Comment

Opinion: Youth Careerism – A Problem or an Opportunity?

By Callum Morton and James Potter | Thu 31st May 2012 - 3:56 pm

I’m currently sat at the pub with fellow young Liberals, young Labourites and young Conservatives. Now, we all face the same problem: how do we engage with voters? The young Labourites and the young Conservatives are bankrolled to success, they have media and policy training and, more importantly, they are made to be the future leaders of their party. But what do young Liberals get?

For a long time the Liberal Democrats has been a party that has seemed to make its young members campaign fodder, instead of supporting their personal development. Lib Dem members are fantastic in supporting young people, …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | 36 Comments
Sean Davey

Liberal Youth storm Spring Conference

By Sean Davey | Wed 14th March 2012 - 10:56 am

Last Friday night Liberal Democrat conference was blown away by 19yr old Londoner Yahaya Kiyingi’s heartfelt and incredibly delivered rally speech about Liberalism, opportunity and the next generation.

Yahaya talked about his family moving from Uganda to London, growing up in one of the poorest areas of his borough, but aspiring to where he is today through the principles of opportunity and empowerment which define our Liberal identity.

Everyone, starting with Nick Clegg wanted to meet him and sing his praises afterwards, and as Simon Hughes told conference “You are why we are in politics Yahaya”.

But Yahaya’s narrative wasn’t just a …

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Henry Vann

Question: Big or small government? Answer: effective

By Henry Vann | Fri 27th January 2012 - 3:00 pm

One prominent member of Liberal Youth hits the nail on the head when she says ‘ frankly sick of all this I’m a social liberal so I’m a better Lib Dem; no it’s Orange Bookers that are real Lib Dems… we’re in the same party ffs.’

And the contrasting Economist correspondent missed the target by a mile when he wrote – following our last conference – that ‘the Liberal Democrats are still in denial about their innate dividedness.’

You see according to this correspondent – quoted again in The Week – he has had a brilliant insight: ‘You cannot be both for, and against, the Big State.’ But whilst his truism is logically …

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George Potter

Opinion: getting the welfare reforms right

By George Potter | Fri 27th January 2012 - 9:00 am

Today an open letter, signed by well over forty of our parliamentary candidates from 2010, will be sent to Nick Clegg. And, on Monday, a meeting, organised by the Social Liberal Forum, will take place in the Palace of Westminster in Committee Room 18 (made infamous by the story about Sir Bob Russell MP allegedly pulling the door off of its hinges).

The subject of both the letter and the meeting will be the recent voting record of our peers on aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill ranging from sickness and disability benefits, to the household benefit cap and child benefits.

The …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 13 Comments
Harriet Ainscough

Opinion: Postcards to Political Prisoners and the disturbing case of Mikael Nabil

By Harriet Ainscough | Thu 12th January 2012 - 2:28 pm

On 14th December, the decision of Egyptian student and pro-democracy activist Mikael Nabil’s retrial was announced; his sentence was reduced from three years to two. The result of this retrial, leaving little room for further appeal, shows a serious miscarriage of justice, particularly when considering that despite being a civilian, Mikael was sentenced by military tribunal.

Even before the Arab Spring began, Mikael was taking an active role in promoting democracy in Egypt. He was part of the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) delegation to the 2009 Liberal International congress in Cairo. Since 2006, Mikael has used his blog to …

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Harry Matthews

Can’t host the Olympics? Host Liberal Youth Conference instead!

By Harry Matthews | Fri 2nd December 2011 - 10:25 am

It’s an exciting time for political activists. The Eurozone is melting down, the economy is stagnating and people are getting angry about pensions. Well, that last one perhaps doesn’t affect Liberal Youth members as much, but Liberal Youth Conference is a chance for young people to meet up, discuss policy and (perhaps most importantly) have fun along the way!

Hosting Liberal Youth Conference is a great opportunity for your local party: 30, or even more, willing young activists to get out there and help you on a delivery round (at the last Liberal Youth Conference in Colchester, delegates delivered 2000 …

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged and | 3 Comments

Opinion: Why Liberal Youth is worth funding

By Tom Wood | Fri 25th November 2011 - 4:53 pm

On Saturday morning the English Council will debate their budget for the year ahead which, for the first time in at least ten years, will not include a rebate for Liberal Youth membership.
 
The English party is the Youth party’s single largest source of funding. Immediately cutting off this funding with such short notice will leave our organisations unable to meet its most basic operating costs and permanently cripple our youth party.
 
I know, like everyone else, these are tough times financially for our party; however Liberal Youth performs a vital role for young people and for the party

…

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Posted in Op-eds and Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , and | 16 Comments
Harry Matthews

Join the Liberal Youth invasion

By Harry Matthews | Fri 30th September 2011 - 12:26 pm

After a very successful Federal Conference earlier this month, Liberal Youth will hold its Autumn Conference on 22nd & 23rd October. It’s in the Roman town of Colchester* (home to the UK’s oldest market on record).

Conference, as all Liberal Democrats know, is a fantastic opportunity for party members to shape policies and hold elected officers to account – and Liberal Youth is no different.

Along with all the usual reports from officers (and the odd constitutional amendment), there will be policy debates on the Arab Spring, MMR jabs, Women’s Rights & Bank Shares. As we have seen from this year’s conference with the Employment and Support Allowance motion, Liberal Youth policy can become federal policy – and might now even become Government policy. This is a brilliant opportunity for young Liberal Democrats to get involved with policy making and gain experience in public speaking!

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | Also tagged , , , , and | 1 Comment
Harry Matthews

Opinion: Votes at 16 – let’s follow the Isle of Man’s example

By Harry Matthews | Thu 29th September 2011 - 2:29 pm

It is great news to hear that, after extending the franchise to 16 year olds in 2006, the Isle of Man is going to the polls today – and for the first time including 16 & 17 year olds!

However, (and it seems almost always) we are rather slow in enriching our democracy, whether it be changing the voting system, reforming the House of Lords, or extending the franchise to 16 & 17 year olds.

It is something both Liberal Youth & the British Youth Council have campaigned hard for. Even our Leader, Nick Clegg, who holds special responsibility for …

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Helen Duffett

Observer spots Lib Dem teen talent

By Helen Duffett | Mon 12th September 2011 - 4:43 pm

Yesterday’s Observer had a piece on future stars from the youth wings of the three main parties: Liberal Youth, Conservative Future and Young Labour.

The young people from all the parties are an inspired and inspiring bunch, but it’s striking from the magazine article’s photos that Liberal Youth are the huggiest and most diverse. Ranging from “crisp-shirted” to “he of the elongated fringe”, the Liberal Youth contingent are a mixture of ages and backgrounds. Sadly the Liberal Youth photo only made it into the print edition (magazine front page, no less) so the online version features the …

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Opinion: ‘Activate’ – Liberal Youth’s annual renewal

By Tom Wood | Thu 7th July 2011 - 6:52 pm

This weekend was Liberal Youth’s Activate event which, as the new chair of Liberal Youth, meant a weekend of hard work and no sleep; but one stuffed full of inspiration.

Although on paper Activate is our simply our annual training event for young Lib Dems in actuality it’s much more than that.

I see Activate as the annual renewal of our movement, firstly because it’s when our newly elected executive will meet face-to-face and begin setting priorities for the year ahead, and secondly (and most importantly) because this is when we welcome all our newly recruited members to the organisation and give them the skills to become real activists for the party.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 5 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Youth promote intergenerational fairness for Bank Shares

By Tom Wood | Thu 23rd June 2011 - 3:52 pm

Nick Clegg’s innovative proposal to give the public shares in Lloyds and RBS is enthusiastically welcomed by Liberal Youth: but we believe that these reforms can go even further. Young people are bearing the brunt of the recession caused by the banks both in a lack of jobs and lost funding for education, and because it is the next generation that will be paying off the government’s debt for years to come. It is only right the government should give something back to them.

While Nick’s proposal represents exactly the kind of fairness that Liberal Democrats seek to bring to …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 22 Comments

Opinion: Talking about my generation

By Anonymous Lib Dem | Mon 6th June 2011 - 2:48 pm

Today something a little bit interesting will happen to me. I will become a member of a new generation of Liberal Democrats. Because from today, I will have spent longer as a member of the Liberal Democrats while they have been in Government than when they were simply the ignored party in opposition. When I first became involved in April 2009, a Liberal Democrat Government was unthinkable. Today it is reality. And it is a reality that some of us are now getting used to.

Many of the older members of the Liberal Democrats will have spent decades being ignored and …

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Posted in Op-eds | 29 Comments
Helen Duffett

Liberal Youth elects new Executive Committee

By Helen Duffett | Sat 4th June 2011 - 3:53 pm

This week Liberal Youth elected its Executive Committee for 2011-2012.

The new Executive Committee is as follows:

Chair: Tom Wood
Vice Chair: Charlotte Henry
Financial Officer: Chris Jenkinson
Campaigns Officer: Cath Smith and Chris Ward
Communications Officer: Bobby Dean
Events Officer: Thomas Hemsley
International Officer: Sam Fisk and Harriet Ainscough
Policy Officer: Sarah Harding
Non-Portfolio Officers: Robson Brown and Aidan Flood
England Convenor: Harry Matthews

The following have been elected for the Regions:

Regional Chairs:

  • North East: Hannah Claytor
  • North West: Neil Darby
  • East Midlands: Keiran Harley
  • West Midlands: Rory Roberson
  • South East: Jon Bates
  • South West: Dave Cope
  • Scottish

…

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Posted in Party policy and internal matters | 8 Comments
Thomas Hemsley

Liberal Youth: appealing to Lib Dems everywhere

By Thomas Hemsley | Mon 30th May 2011 - 5:23 pm

Conferences are a foundation stone of being a Liberal Democrat. There have been some really huge and important ones – Brighton, 2002, where we laid out a principled position on Iraq; Llandudno, 1981, where Shirley Williams and David Steel spoke passionately in favour of an alliance; Sheffield, 2011, when we opposed the NHS reforms. Conference is the best way for the membership to exert their influence over the leadership. Past leaders, from Steel to Ashdown, from Kennedy to Clegg, have often feared Conference for the skill and passion with which it has put its arguments. And so the tradition of …

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Sarah Harding

Sarah Harding writes… Fairer Votes: young people are leading from the front

By Sarah Harding | Sat 19th March 2011 - 11:55 am

On the 5th of May, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to effect a change 100 years in the making.

This is our chance to finally fix the broken system that has failed the people of Britain. And Liberal Youth will not waste it.

Young people are leading from the front in the fight for fairer votes. University and college campuses across the country are coming alive with a new wave of political participation. Young people from all political parties and none are uniting to fix our political system, and to give us a electoral system fit …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
Helen Duffett

Don’t let Liberal Youth get away with murder

By Helen Duffett | Wed 2nd March 2011 - 7:21 pm

Liberal Youth have sent the Voice news of Spring Conference’s most intriguing fund-raiser: a Murder Mystery evening.

All actors are Liberal Youth volunteers and funds raised will be invested in on-the-ground youth campaigns:

No one knows it yet, but murder is afoot.

Donald Trevithick, MP for Crapstone-under-Tamar, is holding a birthday party for his wife, Mary at their home in Drake’s End, Devon. John Maldon, the MP for Scruffton and Lairy North, however, is late…

Inspector Timothy Farron, of the Devon and Cornwall constabulary, has been notified and is on the case, but can you get the bottom of the matter first? Before tragedy

…

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Posted in Conference | Also tagged | 8 Comments
Charlotte Henry

Opinion: Young Liberal Democrats – Life After the ‘F’ Word

By Charlotte Henry | Sat 12th February 2011 - 7:24 pm

The last year has obviously been a rather interesting one in which to be a Liberal Democrat, particularly a young one. Sadly, as a result of some coalition decisions, notably the increase in tuition fees, some young people have chosen to leave the party. More worrying are the people that may now never join. I have always believed that the Liberal Democrats are the party that best advocates policy for young people. However, the question remains, how do we engage more young people in our party after fees?

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 29 Comments
Helen Duffett

Charles Kennedy MP responds to tuition fees open letter

By Helen Duffett | Thu 18th November 2010 - 1:05 pm

Chris Mills has blogged Charles Kennedy’s reply to the open letter organised by Sophie Bertrand asking all MPs to honour their pledge on tuition fees.

Former Liberal Youth Executive member Sophie Bertrand wrote last month on Lib Dem Voice:

We all know that the review is merely a suggestion for how the government should approach this situation. Yet the fact that Nick and Vince seem to be jumping on the Browne bandwagon leads me to expect the worst. It would seem that they need reminding of the slogan we fought with during this year’s General Election

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , and | 57 Comments
Sophie Bridger

Opinion: Gentlemen! A little less bitching, please

By Sophie Bridger | Wed 10th November 2010 - 11:57 am

For a party that prides itself on its stance on gender equality, we still have a lot of work to do. Sure, we campaign for greater and more flexible parental leave, and an end to unacknowledged airbrushing. We rightly refuse to acknowledge patronising all women shortlists, both in the party as a whole, and within Liberal Youth. We’ve certainly got a lot better at representation – a third of our target seat candidates in the last election were women. But women make up more than 50% of our population, and around 45% of our membership. A third is simply not …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 18 Comments
The Voice

Liberal Youth support Farron for Prez

By The Voice | Sun 26th September 2010 - 10:57 am

The Liberal Youth Executive has voted to support Tim Farron in his bid to become the next President of the Liberal Democrats. Tim’s campaign was launched in the wake of the announcement by current President Baroness Ros Scott that she would not be seeking re-election.

Commenting, National Chair Martin Shapland said: ”On behalf of the Liberal Youth Executive I am delighted to declare our support for Tim Farron. He is a first class campaigner, a fantastic public speaker, and is an entirely approachable character. He understands the fundamental importance of youth participation in politics, and has a strong desire to work …

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Posted in News and Party Presidency | Also tagged and | 34 Comments
Sarah Harding

Opinion: Getting rid of ContactPoint – a great day for liberalism

By Sarah Harding | Sun 8th August 2010 - 2:25 pm

I would imagine Liberals throughout the country breathed a collective sigh of relief this past week when they opened their newspapers or turned on their computers to find the intrusive ContactPoint database was to be switched off at noon on 6th August.

28th February 2010 was the beginning of the end for ContactPoint.

On this day, an emergency motion submitted to Liberal Youth Spring Conference found its way through the ballot and ended up for debate on the final day of our conference. During the debate, we acknowledged the good points of ContactPoint and, whilst we understood its flaws and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 16 Comments
Catherine Smith

Liberal Youth’s Activate weekend – a review

By Catherine Smith | Tue 13th July 2010 - 3:20 pm

A Liberal Youth training sessionThe weekend of the 3rd of July saw the first Activate training event of the new Liberal Youth term roll into Peterborough. With the annual membership-training course being held just 2 days after the elections, new executive members could have been forgiven for feeling a little out of their depth. If that was the case for anyone organizing the event, it certainly didn’t show! In spite of a few issues with advertising, the event itself ran very smoothly indeed. There was …

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Alan Belmore

Opinion: The real issue in the Liberal Youth elections

By Alan Belmore | Mon 31st May 2010 - 12:40 pm

Liberal Youth action day

There have been many debates in these Liberal Youth elections, many of them, dare I say it, ill-informed. The situation Liberal Youth is in is an interesting one. The vast, vast, vast majority of our members never chose to join the organisation. Due to the very nature of the system where you are automatically a member if you are under the age of 26 or a student people don’t choose to be a member of Liberal Youth, they just are. There are around …

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Posted in Op-eds | 11 Comments
Richard Wilson

Opinion: Let’s not ask why we need Liberal Youth, let’s ask why we don’t have Liberal “Youth” in the first place

By Richard Wilson | Sun 30th May 2010 - 9:15 am

Richard Wilson is a candidate for Chair of Liberal Youth.

Yes, I’m going to say it. We don’t need Liberal Youth in its current form. We really don’t. I’m not leading a call for dissolution. Just for it to be labelled what it currently is – Liberal Democrat Students. No more and no less.

Let’s look at the evidence – Of the candidates at this election, the vast majority are students. Of the campaigning Liberal Youth does, well, it’s mainly about student issues, and of the money Liberal Youth spends on campaigns…well, I’m sure you’ll be surprised to hear that it …

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Posted in Op-eds | 7 Comments
Damien Shannon

Opinion: We must not blame Party Leaders for acquiescing to the demands of Governance

By Damien Shannon | Sat 29th May 2010 - 3:50 pm

Damien Shannon is a candidate for Vice Chair (Finance) of Liberal Youth.

It is a dispiriting sight to see the swell of twenty Liberal Democrat Ministers of the Crown – five of whom have taken on Cabinet roles – abandon with gusto the free thinking policies that secured the popular approval of twenty three percentiles of the voting public just a few short weeks ago. Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, David Laws, Chris Huhne and Danny Alexander will all have had a stark realisation of the tremendously constrictive machinery of government awaiting them when acceding to their respective offices. They will all …

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Posted in Op-eds | 3 Comments

Opinion: Why do we need Liberal Youth?

By Martin Crosby | Sat 29th May 2010 - 9:20 am

Since getting involved in the party almost nothing has disappointed me more than Liberal Youth. At times it appears remote, unaccountable and to have little to say on policy outside of the tuition fee debate. Given its elections are going on, I thought it was the right time to ask, why do we need Liberal Youth? Because working regularly with enthusiastic students (and being a young person myself) I’m not sure we do, for the following reasons…

1. As ‘young Lib Dems’ do we actually need a single voice?

I would argue no. Unlike a student body …

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Posted in Op-eds | 27 Comments
Martin Shapland

Opinion: the challenges facing Liberal Youth are not of policy, but of delivery

By Martin Shapland | Fri 28th May 2010 - 11:40 am

The following article is written by Martin Shapland who is a Candidate for Chair of Liberal Youth.

In an article on Wednesday, Richard Heinrich and Phil Jarvest – two of my competitors for the Chair of Liberal Youth – sought to open up a policy discussion about our Higher Education funding policy.

For the record I do fully support our current policy to abolish fees. I believe that education is the great driver of social change and individual liberty. I believe that widening access to quality education is fundamentally important, not just at higher education, but at Primary and …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 15 Comments
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