Oh, what an illiberal bunch the SNP are. Holyrood, where they are in the minority, very clearly consigned their unfair, discriminatory and completely unnecessary plans to ban under 21s from buying alcohol in off sales to the dustbin. The Nats showed their disrespect for the will of Parliament by deciding to carry on with their plans anyway. They persuaded their conference to back their plans, albeit not overwhelmingly.
There is a glimmer of hope, though - their youth wing put up a spirited opposition to the proposals.
If I were them, I'd be wondering if independence would be all it was cracked up to be if I had to live under such an illiberal Government.
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Oh, come on, Caron! One policy where we have a disagreement with the party at large, and you see it as a case to abandon all the other policies and ideals, like independence, which we do share? Do you agree with every LibDem policy? Would you quit the party over any you disagreed with?
We're disappointed, but we did the right thing: we stood up and put the case for young people where other parties' youth and student wings may have tried to act as apologists for the policy (I recall, in particular, LibDem students in Edinburgh having to explain to their classmates why their 2005 Westminster candidate produced an illiberal proposal to place restrictions on the availability of student-suitable flats was a good thing, to say nothing of Labour students attempting to defend tuition fees).
And to be fair, the wider Party engaged with us, and listened to our concerns. That's what we wanted, that's what we got. We didn't get the result, but we got the chance to put our view across. This could have been swept under the carpet, but the Party chose to discuss the issue and have the debate.
Both the YSI and the Party as whole did the difficult thing - us by challenging the view, the Party by responding to the challenge - but in both cases, it was the right thing and we can be proud of that.
You talk about the fact that you got to have the debate as a major victory. That's quite sad, really. I'm obviously used to the Lib Dems, but good quality, honest debate is usually at the heart of our conferences. Maybe not as much as it used to be, but it's still there.
If the Lib Dems came up with such an illiberal policy, I wouldn't be quite so motivated to spend so much time working for them.....
I didn't say it's a major victory... I said we made our point, made it well, and that we can be proud of our efforts despite not getting the outcome we wanted - how is that the same as saying that this was a major victory?
And it's for the people with the word 'liberal' in their name, the Liberal Democrats, to come up with liberal policies - like restricting the availability of student flats.
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