Since she became Party President 14 months ago, Sal Brinton has clocked up thousands of miles travelling around the country going to various Liberal Democrat events and helping our candidates in election. I’ve been amazed at the number of times she’s been in Scotland – at our conference, to our Executive twice, campaigning during the General Election. In fact, in the short campaign last Spring, she covered 4000 miles in just 6 weeks. In the aftermath, she had to comfort a shocked party and play a high profile role as de facto leader for two months.
She’s also been involved in two massive pieces of work – the General Election and Governance Reviews – which have taken up huge amounts of time. She’s doing her best to improve internal communications within the party, doing reports about what the Federal Executive’s work and blogging and setting up monthly webinars for party members.
She’s a great voice in the media for us. Last month she took apart UKIP’s Paul Nuttall on Question Time in great style. I look forward to her appearances on these things the same way I look forward to Shirley Williams’.
Members appreciate her energy, her ability to respond to concerns – extending the deadline for Conference reps and ensuring that members’ concerns over the decommissioning of the party’s email server were acted upon, for example – and her support to campaign teams the length and breadth of the country.
And of course she has a full workload in the House of Lords, too. Last year she did much to speak out against Theresa May’s plans to curb freedom of speech on university campuses in the name of counter-terrorism.
Her commitment to diversity and leadership of the Diversity Engagement Group has led her to speak up for people who are often marginalised. She spoke in the Transgender and Intersex equality debate in Bourmenouth this year, calling for measure to tackle transpohobic bullying in schools. It is incredibly important for particularly young people struggling with their gender identity to see a member of the House of Lords speaking up for them.
So why am I saying all this now? Well, dear readers, you know how upset I get when “senior Liberal Democrat sources” hide behind anonymity to put the boot into someone. It used to happen all the time to Tim Farron and Vince Cable from sources close to the former leader and it was horrible. I’m still hyperventilating from an utterly vile example of such briefing about Sal which appears in the Atticus column in today’s Sunday Times (£).
With so many former MPs looking for a job, you’d think there would be a long queue to challenge the little-known Liberal Democrat president Sal Brinton later this year. But some of the party’s big names are apparently reluctant. Baroness Brinton uses a wheelchair and potential rivals fear they will look heartless if they try to oust her.
A senior party source reveals: “There are two or three high-profile candidates who’d love to throw their hat into the ring, but they know they’ll be portrayed in a bad light.
“It’s a shame because, as nice a woman as she is, a higher-profile president would help us get our message across more effectively, which is desperately important.”
Ouch! Not that reluctant to stick in the knife then.
It’s the sort of patronising attitude that belongs in the dark ages and it’s shocking that any member of this party could be so crass. Perhaps they should be putting more energy into working for this party’s resurgence and less time doing hatchet jobs on their colleagues to journalists. I hope that seeing their words in print will make them reflect on their attitude.
There is not much we can do about this individual because we don’t know who they are. They would never have the guts to say such a thing openly. What we can do, though, is show support for Sal, by thanking her for the things that she does. So feel free to counteract the negativity by showing appreciation for her work in the comments.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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56 Comments
Pathetic comment in the Times. The role of President has always been mostly behind the scenes (as with the equivalent roles in the Conservative and Labour parties) and Sal’s done a fantastic job so far.
“veracious”?
The disrespect shown to Sal is horrific from many quarters, and illustrative of the fact that no matter how high up a woman gets or how hard she works some people will still be orifices to her for no good reason.
(Great choice of photo though)
Absolutely outrageous. Sal is an excellent President.
If someone thinks they can better her then stand. I expect they will lose and disability won’t enter into it.
If you’re not prepared to put your name to a comment, should you make it at all? Especially about a fellow Lib Dem. Lowlife.
Given who owns the Sunday Times I wouldn’t lose much sleep over the comments. Using a wheelchair didn’t do FDR much harm and what about German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble?
Only a commenter, but I’ve got no problem with Sal as president. I don’t think there is a big messaging problem, but I think Tim could improve his messaging. I’m not 100% sure who the Lib Dem target market is, but I hope it doesn’t go down the traditional core vote route, and it is also questionable whether Tim is the person who can deliver under that strategy anyway because he is actually quite different to someone like Caroline Lucas who could probably delivery that strategy no problem.
This may sound naive, but I’d have a little more respect for anyone who had the guts to attach their name to a comment like this – they’d still be loathsome, but at least not cowardly. And of course it blackens by association other senior Lib Dems who haven’t come out with this patronising sexist, ableist nonsense.
Jennie, I’m not sure where that veracious came from. I suspect an autocorrect failure that I didn’t notice before I pressed publish. Amended now to various, which is what I’m sure I meant.
I think whoever spoke to the Times should have the courage to admit who they are & apologise. Sal has been an excellent President, she works incredibly hard, she speaks sensibly & with authority & passion in public, & she shows genuine concern for members by following up issues which are raised with her quickly & efficiently. As a first time PPC in 2015 I was very touched that she took the time to phone me prior to the election to see how I was feeling & to prepare for the sense of dissapointed to that I would feel standing in a derelict seat. After the disastrous results not only did she write to PPCs she encouraged other Peers to contact us all by phone to ask how we were & to offer support. I’d very much like to know what else we could expect from our President
I can’t see how Baroness Brinton’s disability can be of any importance at all. We chose her to be our President – which she is doing very well, not a Olympic athlete.
It’s a cowardly act. I agree with Caron – what energy we have should be directed towards fighting the Tories & re-building our own party, not crass back-stabbing… Which this appears to be.
Igor, remember that you can have disabilities and still be an athlete. And the stamina that you require to do the President’s job in the way Sal does it is enormous.
It’s not beyond possibility that a journalist just made this up. I think a lot of anonymous quotes are.
Two days. Two stories from Caron that make it hard to see what the point is bothering with the Lib Dems (the other being Willie Rennie declaring himself Lord High Everything Else).
Get your party sorted! 🙂
Caron, I will be a bit sceptic about athletic abilities (although there are exceptions), but I am absolutely happy with what Baroness Brinton does as our President, want her to continue her work, support her 100% – and I currently respect here as the best of our leaders.
Sal Brinton is a major asset to the Party, and was on outstanding form when I saw her at Bournemouth last September.
@ Caron, “It used to happen all the time to Tim Farron and Vince Cable from sources close to the former leader and it was horrible”.
I think you’d do the party a favour if you outed these characters – or if you preferred challenge them at the Federal Executive. They soon squeal when anyone has a go at their precious former leader.
This is absurd. Sal is truly exceptional. The way in which she stepped into the breach when we were between leaders was deeply impressive, and left me greatly regretting that she was not an MP because she would have been a strong candidate for leader.
Igor, have you ever watched the paralympics or Prince Harry’s Invictus Games? Of course disabled people can be athletes and very good ones too.
Baroness Brinton is not only terrific in her role as President of our party, she is an excellent Peer, in a House, as underrated as she is !
These sort of briefings are garbage , just as is the gutter of the so called journalism that feeds it and off it , tabloid or not , it is spin ,dressed up as fact , hiding behind a mask !
Actually , so good is Sal Brinton , we should at long last be paying the President a good salary, how, with no Peerage or parliamentary salary, would a future President, put in a fraction of those hours for our party !
@Eddy Sammon. Sure, in Paralympics. If you read my initial post, I mentioned Olymcics.
@David Raw: If I knew which of the people in the former leader’s circle were doing it, I would, believe me. It was atrocious then but this nonsense takes it to a whole new level – and it seems to be more personal when it’s women on the receiving end. Catherine Bearder was also subjected to a hatchet job last year. Nasty stuff.
I am horrified to read the news! Sal Brinton has been a great asset to the party as its President. She is NOT a career politican, she certainly puts the party first, empowers us to believe again for the future, I have high respect for Sal! I don’t want to say more but simply she did “action louder than words”
As someone who knows more about the Party Presidency than most, I can offer some very good reasons why there might be a lack of willingness to run against Sal;
1. The job is nowhere near as glamorous as outsiders think.
2. It involves a lot of hard work, mostly unrecognised.
3. There’s no salary and precious little budget.
But perhaps the most obvious one is that Sal has done a damned good job, and not just at home but at Liberal International and ALDE too.
If it is the case that so-called ‘senior figures’ think that a higher-profile figure is required, perhaps they might like to do some team building and promote some of the talented people on our benches in both the Commons and the Lords, plus Catherine Bearder, rather than undermining one of the people most responsible for rebuilding our Party’s structures and capacity.
“A higher-profile president would help us get our message across more effectively”
This is wrong on so many levels. Firstly, it is a cowardly act, second, they have made her a target and patronised her because she is disabled but most importantly, what this anonymous person says is patently untrue. There is no “high-profile” LIb Dem who would be listened to more than Sal is. Quite simply because the ” high profile Lib DemsI can think of were discredited and distrusted from their time in Coalition and thrown out by their electorate less than a year ago. Sal is not only very able and a great communicator but she also has very clean hands.
I didn’t vote for Sal as president, but since then she’s done so much to prove just why she was a great selection. Her energy is fantastic, her speaking impressive, her committment to the party obvious and enormous. Without her work the party would be in a noticeably worse state.
Any commentator, senior or not, who thinks that the reason they’d lose if they challenged Sal for the presidency is some mystical sympathy vote because of her physical condition is utterly deluded. They’d lose because Sal’s been a great ambassador for the party for the last 18 months and – if she wants it – deserves a second term.
Reading between the lines on this story I would say, as with the others that were mentioned ie Vince Cable that this is a Tory paid anonymous reporter stirring it. They know who can cause them trouble.
Like Greg, I didn’t vote for Sal in the presidential election, but she’s done a fabulous job in extremely tough circumstances, and she’s made me really proud to be a Lib Dem.
The joy of anonymous sources is that we just have to take the journalist’s word for them and what they said…
@Nigel – yes it’s entirely possible that this is a made-up story from a newspaper that has always hated us and wishes us only harm.
I’m appalled by this. If you think someone has done well, praise them. If you think someone hasn’t, criticise them. This suggests from behind a screen of anonymity that were Sal re – elected it wouldn’t be because she’d done a good job but because she’s disabled. I cannot reconcile that with the core values of our party. If this did come from a party member, they need to reconsider whether they are in the right party.
Happy to join in the chorus of praise for Sal – I know I’m biased because I voted for her, but in my view exactly the wise head the party has needed in the trauma of the past year. Her work rate is phenomenal and she’s rock solid in the media.
Maybe we could have some more ‘appreciation’ threads – not sure we need a snarky Times article to take time to value some of our best people.
Sal won her first presidential election against two worthy opponents. She has been an excellent president, and all should welcome her standing for a second term , which is all that the constitution allows. She is also no stranger to unwarranted opposition tactics – see the following report from 2008 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/2504952/Former-Tory-candidate-Ian-Oakley-faces-jail-over-hate-campaign.html
Atticus is a gossip column – which means it deals in stories which are (ahem) hard to substantiate; it is apparently written by one Roland White who is apparently only known for writing the Atticus column!!!
Hywel,
Your remarks (yesterday at 8.17pm) about Caron Lindsay are a bit unfair. From what I know of her, Caron does wear her heart on her sleeve and is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in. It may not be to everybody’s taste but, in an open party like ours, I would prefer that to some of the airbrushing that goes on elsewhere!
I was more criticising the events that Caron was reporting than her doing that. But blimey this party is in a mess. One poll now has the party on 5% – OK its from a pollster without any real track record so grab the salt pot. But that is a pollster that had the party on 10% just before May 2015.
Has anyone considered that this ‘source’ is NOT a Lib Dem ….. just some made up rubbish. I think it can be judged by the massive number of comments above the satisfaction with what our President is doing 🙂
Hywel might be stating the obvious when he says the party is in a mess, but it’s still true. The article tells us what a good job the party president is doing, but Carol and many others have said the same about Nick Clegg, Kirsty Williams, Willie Rennie, Tim Farron, Caroline Pidgeon etc. If they are that good why did Clegg lead the party to disaster after disaster in election after election? Why are the Lib Dems in Wales and Scotland running at 5th place in the polls and heading for a complete wipe out? Why is Caroline Pidgeon currently polling 2% – joint 5th/6th with Respect party – in the race for London Mayor? Standing up at conference and giving a decent speech isn’t enough, these people are supposed to attract votes to the party and they are falling short.
Ah, polls. Dont look at individual polls in isolation. Since The Election the vast majority of the polls have put us between 5% & 9%, just like most of the polls in the months before The Election. No-one elses poll ratings have shifted much either, which is normal in the year after a GE.
The news on polling is that there is no news.
I have known Sal for many years. She is an outstanding example of honest politics and like
Vince Cable “Gives politics a good name”. Thus, the inadequate and by-passed will snipe at her, and the second rate, who have never achieved anything or worth, will repeat the sniping. We all experienced this in the school playground, where the jealous students sought to appear worthy by sniping at those better than they were.. When those “also-rans” grew older (but not wiser) they became Daily Mail and Times readers.
the party president doesnt get paid-our former mps need to work-cant do this-a peer can is the more prosaic answer
Thanks to the determination and efforts of Sal, Tim, Kirsty, Willy, Caroline and many other local and national leaders – there is a growing confidence in the party. Like other opposition parties we have re-formed and are moving forward again. Thank you Sal and everyone in the UK teams. We now have new opportunities:
* to bring members together in team-building
* to be heard in local elections and the referendum
* to field candidates in every election and increase our profile
* to add more local and national heroes as we campaign
We are through the period of resolve. Carry on the fight. Thanks for all you do Sal and team. I wish everyone a great 2016
I did vote for Sal, but she has done a great job and has my full support.
Very happy for heavyweight or indeed Bantam weight LibDems to contest elections as choice is good.
This nonstory seems to be coming from someone stirring somewhere and to my mind has only served to embed Sal in grassroots affection. Any sort of void in the Westminster bubble because of focus and activity outside Westminster, is something I can certainly live with, the North remembers.
Does this Party never learn. Internal fighting will not improve election prospects. Tim Farron is so weak that the civil war goes on and .
This anonymous briefing, like all anonymous briefings, is disgraceful, cowardly and not worth wasting time over. We don’t know if there really a “senior party source” or if the Sunday Times made it up. But, assuming such a briefing was given, I was once in a job where we were told we weren’t doing it properly if no one was complaining about us (and people were). On that basis, this gutless, outrageous and worthless briefing is a back-handed testimony to Sal’s dedication, hard work and solid achievements as president of our party.
Thank you, Sal. Please keep up the good work.
Anonymous spineless “senior party source” briefer of the Sunday Times, if you exist, resign from whatever party positions you hold, apologise and then crawl back under your stone and stay there.
“Since The Election the vast majority of the polls have put us between 5% & 9%, just like most of the polls in the months before The Election.”
Sorry just not true. ICM had the party on 11% in Jan 2015 and 10% in Feb 2015. The equivalents for 2016 are 6 and 7. Until Feb 2015 ICM never had the party in single digits. There hasn’t been a single ICM poll with the party in double figures since May. Similar for YouGov – 9 and 10% just before May 2015, nothing better tha 8 since. If there is any trend it is slight but is downward not upward. And I was always taught that if your not going up in politics your going down.
(All that said I would expect the Lib Dems to make gains in May but that will be a bit of a mask to underlying issues)
Well, not to be too conspiracy-theorist about it, we do know, do we, that the Sunday Times didn’t make up that “senior party source” because it is a pretty lame quote. I can’t believe anyone credible in the LibDems would talk like that in the first place. Also, Sal Brinton is doing a first rate job. A much-needed first rate job.
These people were in the Kennedy ‘inner circle’, the Cambell ‘inner circle’ the Clegg ‘inner circle’. They were probably in the Ashdown ‘inner circle’ and they certainly were in the Steeel ‘inner circle’. They should be better described as ‘(been on the) sauce’s close to’ {insertnameofeader} than ‘sources close to’ the same. They are largely people who like to feel important by association but could no more do anything useful to help this Party win anything than I can hang-glide from the top of the shard using only my ears.
I was not a supporter of Sal Brinton during the elections for party President. But Sal has impressed me during the past months with both her depth of knowledge and her presentation.
Those who would inflate themselves into thinking they (or their mates) would do a better job than Sal are as poor in this judgement as they are at other things.
@Hywel
” I would expect the Lib Dems to make gains in May but that will be a bit of a mask to underlying issues”
Hywel is totally right. What will happen to Lib Dems in May will be a great polarisation within the country. There will be a few places which stand still, a few more which make significant gains and a large number where we disappear completely off the map. Some within the central reaches of the Party will then try to concentrate purely on the first of these three, trying to imply that they show signs of resurgent faith by the nation’s electorate in the Lib Dems. The truth will be far from that. The places where we move forward will be those where a strong local team with a coherent local message is able to finally cast off the electoral shackles of the Coalition years. Despite the excellent work being done by Tim Farron & co, the party’s national impact will continue to remain low due to the way that the media feels about a mere 8 MPs.
I’m one of the relatively new people who don’t know much about the actual structure of the party, so I don’t know how genuine the concern about “high profile” people is.
If it is important, then maybe Tim could just start mentioning Sal more in his public speaking, to build a better image that we’re a team, not just one (or eight) blokes.
That said, I can see it doing nothing but harm, I mean if the party president were to become a high profile role, could the person doing it do as good a job while the press are harrying them for comment?
I strongly suspect this was fabricated but I don’t like the suspicion and finger-pointing it has triggered. The source should own up. Sal Brinton is doing an excellent job, and the fact that she is doing it from a wheelchair Is neither here nor there. Franklin D. Roosevelt did it too (rated by scholars to be one of the top three POTUS). By the way, as a working peer she is in the legislature helping to make a difference, as well.
Nothing has been done about it in the past. The culprits were well known. The issue could have been dealt with. These sources are all part of being “a party of Government” and copying the worst behaviours of other parties. When one of our MPs is caught giving false briefings about the SNP, he stays on, so scared of we of doing the right thing.
I would be surprised if we make any gains in May, certainly the polls are looking dire in Scotland and Wales. The last time many of the Council seats were fought was in 2012, when the estimated Lib Dem share of the vote was 16%. This is dependent partly on the profile of seats up and local factors so is not to be confused with our 7% poll rating, but in many places the other parties will be doing a mopping up operation of Lib Dem seats they thought they couldn’t win in 2012 and now realise are marginal/.
Having attended Parliamentary Party meetings after which the press have reported events happening during those same meetings which didn’t actually take place, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if quotes had been made up, distorted or taken out of context. Anyone who works with Sal knows she does a great job.
Let’s deconstruct this “quote”.
“There are two or three high-profile candidates who’d love to throw their hat into the ring…”
Obviously true. It’s a responsible job, and if you’ve just been chucked out of parliament, you’re very likely to hanker after a responsible job.
“…. but they know they’ll be portrayed in a bad light.”
Obviously true. The ex-MPs can no doubt see that to chase after this job would be carpet-bagging, which of course would be seen in a bad light. So they probably won’t try to carpet-bag. Disability isn’t the point.
“It’s a shame because … a higher-profile president would help us get our message across more effectively, which is desperately important.”
Obviously a plausible kind of argument. Might it perhaps have been carefully constructed by the journalist, who would simply seek to gain the interviewee’s (victim’s) agreement to statements that: (a) we need to get our message across more effectively, which is desperately important; then (b) higher-profile people could help in that regard; then (c) yes, the president is someone who can put our message across and build up a high profile.
Once the journalist has gained agreement to points a, b and c, the “quote” can be written and printed. If the “senior party source” points out that the “quote” was never actually spoken verbatim, the journalist can say “Shut up, or else I’ll release my transcript, which proves that you more or less said what I said you said.”
Conclusion – Ignore gossip journalism, it’s rubbish!
Tom Brake
More insights from you welcome , you talk good sense !!!
I didn’t vote for Sal, but describing her as “little-known” is ignorant or mendacious. She’s extremely well-known within the party; and even in the wider world, I suspect she’s better-known than at least a third of the beaten ex-MPs. I suppose it means “I hadn’t heard of her and don’t want to bother to find out about her”.
As for getting over the party’s message to the wide world, we have a leader for that.