This post will be regularly updated with links to recordings of Ed and Layla at the many hustings events that are taking place.
I’ll update it and re-post it whenever there is something new to add.
First up, the very first formal hustings, with the Social Liberal Forum on Saturday 11th July.
The most recent hustings took place on 1st August – the Norfolk County
Also this week, the Yorkshire and the Humber event
And a themed hustings – the Green Agenda, from Wednesday 29th July
The first of the party’s big set piece hustings, on jobs and the economy took place on Wednesday 15th July:
More events under the cut. First South Central from 11 July
The economy and jobs national debate from 15 July
The job interviews
Ed
Layla
Devon and Cornwall – 18 July
Sunday 19th July – East of England hustings
On Wednesday 22nd July, the two candidates debated Britain’s place in the world:
London Region hustings on 25th July
Here’s Scotland ably chaired by the artist known as Ruth of the Women, Scottish Lib Dem Women Chair Ruth McElroy
And the North East, just a few hours later
Here’s the East Midlands from 27th July
You can find links to upcoming events here.
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10 Comments
It will be very disappointing if neither candidate tries to democratise the electoral system.
Lots of organisations use the Single Transferable Vote, such as trade unions.
Even the Tories recognised that they might want to get rid of an over-powerful leader and asked a former leader, a Scottish hereditary peer, to design an electoral system for that situation. When Mrs Thatcher resigned there were three candidates, Heseltine, Major and Hurd, but two of them withdrew when they had the count of MPs votes.
A scandalous female Tory MP said “Proportional voting in the Conservative Party!!” which showed that she did not understand their own policy. Nothing to do with eggs.
I will vote for the candidate who has the most coherent plan for constitutional reform.
@Richard Underhill “It will be very disappointing if neither candidate tries to democratise the electoral system.
Lots of organisations use the Single Transferable Vote, such as trade unions.”
STV for all elections has been Lib Dem policy since the party was formed, and Liberal Party policy before that. Indeed, we use it internally. I doubt very much that either Ed or Layla oppose it. (as a party, including Ed, we moved an amendment to the 2011 Referendum act to change it to STV)
It seems that both Layla and Ed want to down play electoral reform, they do not see it as a mainstream concern, though it obviously is for members.
This is surely a mistake, whether or not electoral reform is mainstream, it is at the heart of our critique of Westminster politics and is a signature policy. Moreover, cooperation with any other party is bound to hang on the issue. It did in 2010, but we got it badly wrong, we should never have accepted an offer from the Tories of a referendum on a policy that only some in the Labour party supported – utter madness, really, but it is what swung the argument. Tim Farron cited it as the key factor for any agreement in 2017, knowing full well that it basically ruled out coalition at that time. This approach was effective in closing down media challenges (what a pity he was not so willing to close down a very different issue).
Our contenders need to sharpen up on this issue and present clear proposals for party policy, My observations are based on the two hustings I have so far seen.
“I will vote for the candidate who has the most coherent plan for constitutional reform.”
What does this mean. A theoretical plan or one to get it actually in to law?
Hywel:
I cannot speak for Elizabeth Bain, but a “coherent plan for constitutional reform” should be both practical and one that is reasonably fit for legislation, not far off a white paper, a plan that has considered the problem areas of the country for electoral reform.
An abstract plan that has not considered how it could be put into practical effect would certainly not be good enough. The danger of putting the issue on to the back burner is that it would remain as a theoretical abstraction, allowing it to be mangled at the point at which we need to be able to stand our ground.
@ Elizabeth Bain “I will vote for the candidate who has the most coherent plan for constitutional reform.”
It may surprise some Lib Dems in England, but with one exception we already have constitutional reform in Scotland : local government is in unitary authorities elected by PR, and the Scottish parliament is elected by PR but without an un-elected second Chamber with a continuing hereditary element).
The one significant exception is the first past the post House of Commons where the ruling UK majority Government has 365 seats (but only 6 in Scotland).
“a “coherent plan for constitutional reform” should be both practical and one that is reasonably fit for legislation, not far off a white paper, a plan that has considered the problem areas of the country for electoral reform.”
Not really what I was talking about. The LIb Dems have volumes of that sort of stuff. How do you actually get it into law. Suppose PR had been front and centre of the LIb Dems campaign after 2005 – could it have been as easily sidelined in 2010?
Electoral reform was crushed in the referendum. It was opposed by the mainstream media and easily weoponised by the Tories and Labour. Yes it should be policy, but it will take the long haul to get any change. The liberal dems need to focus on policy areas that have meaning to voters, while highlighting those areas that are important for the future of the uk and the world.
The referendum on electoral reform (in fact to a system unsuitable for a representative assembly) failed not so much because the voters were against reform as a retort to Nick Clegg who was identified with the issue and was easily attacked by both the Labour and Conservative parties and their supporting press. There were two lessons to be taken from this. (1) A referendum we hope to succeed should only be held after a period of, one would hope, enlightened discussion of the issue and the benefits to the public – the voters, in fact – and a build up of public support to a good starting level. (2) It should be promoted by someone (or a number of people) seen as not strongly partisan, preferably popular, public personalities, not obviously political. It was good to have John Cleese giving a witty and entertaining film about STV (a while ago), for example.
I think there was a recent period when the public were indeed showing some support, following the disgraceful results in 2015 for the Greens and indeed UKIP. Those results were so obviously unreasonable that the need for reform did cut through. We should keep the subject in view, without over-obsessing about it, or showing the slightest complaint about how it affects us. We have plenty of material about how the present system affects the Greens, for example, and the argument should be about fairness, valid representation, voter freedom of choice, health of democracy, and so on. We should also promote STV as the best system overall – not for us, but for the voters as a whole.