The Young Liberals are delighted to finally announce the dates and preliminary agenda for our Online Conference, which will take place between Sunday 19th and Sunday 26th July.
We’ve had over 150 people pre-register and near 40 submissions, making this by far the largest conference we will ever have held! The conference will be totally free for Young Liberals members, including those between 26-30 who have opted in (which you can do here). This is a really exciting opportunity for policy debates, socialising with other Young Liberals and some great speakers.
You can sign up to Conference here!
There are plenty of ways you can still get involved with policy at conference, including submitting amendments, making speeches and some opportunities to propose/summate motions. The deadline for amendments to motions and constitutional amendments is 1pm on the 5th July! Please direct all amendments or any other questions to me at [email protected].
Additionally, we are looking for some people to help in the Chairing and Aiding of debates, you obviously have to be a Young Liberals member to do this and it will be very selective in who we choose, but if you would be at all interested in doing this, please contact me at the above email.
Take a look at the preliminary agenda, which includes all the motions and constitutional amendments.
Finally, for a guide to Young Liberals Policy, including how to draft an amendment, please take a look at our policy guide.
See you at Conference (sort of)!
* James Bliss is the Secretary of the South Central Liberal Democrats, the English Young Liberals Policy Officer and an activist in Oxford West and Abingdon.
8 Comments
I notice the first item on the agenda is about minimum pricing on alcohol.
Why not just increase the excise duty on alcohol if the motivation is to decrease alcohol consumption? We don’t discourage cigarette smoking by forcing the tobacco companies to have a minimum price for cigarettes, so why do it differently for alcohol?
It’s apparent that whoever drafted that particular motion isn’t familiar with the evidence compiled by Sheffield University. Not impressed.
Back in 1970 Bob and Marcia had a hit record with a Nina Simone song written in the 1950s called “Young gifted and black”. The second line runs; “Oh what a lovely precious dream”. I suppose that could equally be the next line to James Bliss’s heading.
On MUP, YL has a long history of opposing it on principle and now the new motion obviously seeks to pair that with the lack of evidence of it working. I’m not going to get into the debate on this myself here, since it’s a motion before conf, but I don’t think it’s quite as simple as just “oh well look at this one study”. The opposition is in significant part down to the principle and who it hits the hardest, ontop of it not working.
I’d also just politely point out this wasn’t “James Bliss’ heading” and was one given to the article by LDvoice and not the one I had in mind…
We should have a minimum price for cigs.
Evidence gathering is time consuming. Not always got the patience to do the research.. For the young these are lessons they have to learn and achieve.
‘Young gifted and black’ (and white, yellow and any other you can think of). The young do dream of a better life, nowt wrong with that.They are the future and will learn lessons in life. After reality steps in does not mean that those dreams have to go. We have to regain that radicalness for the party.
Have you actually read the long established published evidence by Sheffield University, Mr Bliss ? It would be as well to do so before you dismiss it. Here are some links to help you :
New research on impacts of minimum unit pricing and …www.sheffield.ac.uk › scharr › sections › research › alpol
SARG’s new report on the income specific impacts of minimum pricing. … ([email protected]) or telephone the University of Sheffield media team on..
Minimum pricing for alcohol effectively targets high risk drinkerswww.sheffield.ac.uk › news › moderate-effects-on-high…
10 Feb 2014 – Minimum pricing for alcohol of 45p per unit [1] would reduce deaths and hospital admissions among high risk drinkers who purchase large quantities of low cost alcohol, but would have negligible effects on low income moderate drinkers’ alcohol consumption and spending, according to a new modelling study from the …
New research shows alcohol minimum unit price could save …www.sheffield.ac.uk › news › sheffield-research-backs-…
28 Feb 2020 – … Evidence from the University of Sheffield’s Alcohol Research Group shows a minimum unit price (MUP) would cut drinking by nearly twice the …
Excellent news about the conference James. Some of us old fogeys welcome being challenged by youthful radicalism. Please carry on the good work.