Last week I wrote about the event that Lib Dem Voice is running with the local government think-tank Localis, and we’d love it if some of our readers could join us.
It will take place at 6.45pm on Tuesday 24th March at The Ideas Space, Clutha House, 10 Storey’s Gate, Westminster, SW1P 3AY, which is just round the corner from HQ.
Under the title “The local offer: what should the Lib Dems offer on devolution in their manifesto?”, Stephen Williams, Minister for Communities, will lead the speakers. He will be joined on the platform by John Shipley, (advisor to the Government on cities from the House of Lords), Caroline Pidgeon (Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the London Assembly) and Tony Greenham (New Economics Foundation). I will be chairing the session on behalf of Lib Dem Voice.
There are still places available. It’s free to attend but you do need to book your place in advance on the Localis website.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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12 Comments
SW1P at 6.45 on a weekday to discuss devolution. We have a long way to go.
Sorry Stephen but Peter’s comment say it all really.
A North West England regionalist.
What the previous two comments have said. I live only 45 minutes from London by train but it’s still not really practical for me to get to a conference at 6.45pm on a weekday.
Also, let’s look at the speakers: a government minister, a veteran peer, a London assembly member and someone from a thinktank based in London.
Yup, that’s really getting outside of the London bubble there. God forbid a conference on devolution should involve speakers from various pro-devolution groups across the country or even speakers from civic society or local government.
The 4 comments so far say it all.
Incidentally, I live in a London Borough but it would still take me almost as long as George Potter to get there and slightly longer to get back home afterwards because George has the advantage of a fast train from where he lives. 🙂
When an English parliament has been established it can then decide what powers are devolved to the English regions .
Cheer up chaps – it’s nice for Lib Dem Voice readers to receive an invite and it’s free! But you have to book. I’d go if I were in London.
Whatever is devolved, there needs to be a directly-elected body to devolve it to. Full stop.
No combined authorities, mayors, commissioners ……
Personally I would support unitary authorities within directly elected regions.
I live a long way from London, but if you want to get parliamentarians on a weekday evening, (because at the weekend they are all in their constituencies), then that’s where you have to go. It takes me 4.5 hours to get to London from Edinburgh. It also takes that long to get to Manchester or Birmingham, so I’m not particularly bothered about the venue.
Surely the most important thing is that these issues are being discussed and are moving up the agenda.
Caron
In another thread Mary Reid extols the virtues of digital democracy.
The excuse that we can only have meetings in Westminster because that is where the important people are seems to smack of the 19th Century or even earlier.
Skype is not my favourite form of communication but it is cheap and easy and available.
I expect there are other cheap and easy bits of technology that could be used that i have no knowledge of.
It is almost four years since I retired but for fifteen years before that I was regularly involved in video conferences enabling a discussion to take place between participants in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London.
It was a technology from the 1990s.
Is this another Poldark moment in LDV ?
Just to put this in context – this is a one hour seminar proposed by a think-tank based in Westminster, to appeal to their audiences, and in their premises. They had also arranged similar ones with the Tories and Labour. They asked us to help them put together the Lib Dem one, and we specifically wanted to invite Stephen Williams as the relevant Minister. I really don’t see why that is inappropriate. Let’s get our message out wherever opportunities present themselves.
The “veteran peer” is the former leader of Newcastle-upon-Tyne city council, which must be about the farthest city (and regional capital) from London in England.
My daughter’s employer tends to hold what we might call federal meetings somewhere on the A1/East Coast main line. Mind you those are all day meetings, some most delegates will have one or two overnights.