This is quite long - but bear with it, because every word is worth reading. It's the thoughts of former MSP and Scottish education minister Robert Brown who was in May elected as a Councillor in Rutherglen, near Glasgow.
He sets out what he sees as the way forward, to recovery by looking for new people to develop our policy in line with our principles and talks of the challenge of setting out a left of centre stall for 50 years and then going into coalition with a centre right party.
I feel that I shouldn't try and say any more - just let Robert speak for himself.
Tackling
the Policy Problem
At last year’s Social Liberal Forum event, I spoke
about the lessons of our catastrophe in the Scottish Parliament elections. I
said that there was no substantial reason to vote Liberal Democrat in those
elections, that the central strategy and the messages were not up to the job –
indeed that there was no obvious strategy, no big ideas, no narrative as to our
vision of Scotland, and no grounding in the core values of the Party.
It is true to say that I was hurting – as we were
all hurting - from defeat, but I stand by that analysis. In a small way since
then, I have tried to do something to change things. Nigel Lindsay and I
co-edited a book of essays - The Little
Yellow Book – which many of you have been good enough to buy. Some of you
have even read it. I have gone back to grass roots, stood as a Council
candidate and been elected. This was good for me personally and in
demonstrating that Liberal Democrats can relate to local people in the West of
Scotland and can win. But, nevertheless, I fear that Liberal Democrat
Councillors ought to be declared a protected species.
The Party remains rooted in what one commentator
described as “steady pain” in the opinion polls, registering between 7% and 12%
on a UK basis since the beginning of 2011. In the local elections in May we
registered 6.62% (12.7% in 2007) as compared to 5.2% in 2011(11.3% in 2007),
hardly a robust revival.
Politics is hugely unpredictable and very much at
the mercy of events. Those events include the independence referendum which I
believe the SNP will lose, perhaps quite badly. They include the outcome of the
euro-zone crisis, and the progress of the UK economy, but they may include
other things totally unforeseen. We sometimes forget that Mrs. Thatcher was
done for until the advent of the Falklands War, that Gordon Brown would
probably have won an election a year earlier, and that Paddy Ashdown had poll
ratings within a margin of error of zero.
But, on any view, it is clear that we have a long,
hard, haul ahead, and what I want to talk about today is how we inject more
vigour into our strategy, how we prepare ourselves for the big opportunities
when they come, how we find the magic bullet of future political success – how,
in the title of this session, we “tackle the policy problem”/
Political success comes, in my view, from the
application of political and organisational/resource drivers to events. Money
is a great help, so is favourable media, but the absolutely indispensable
things are people and ideas – strongly rooted in a vibrant core set of
principles which inspire and motivate.
We badly need to talent spot – to recruit
Liberally-minded people to be our Parliamentary and Council candidates, our
activists, our ideas people, the bearers of the Liberal Democrat flame. We need
to go out and find them in community and interest groups, churches and family
contacts. We need to give much more attention to how to attract them, what
would motivate them to join, perhaps to the opportunities available to discuss
politics and ideas and the future of the world.
Let
me put forward some central propositions for consideration:
1. The
first is that attracting new people, and developing a grassroots policy dynamic are
two sides of the same coin. The more we are a Party which has exciting
ideas, where the membership can influence the agenda, where people feel they
count and can make a difference, the more we can appeal to and attract new
people. Is this not the essence of what a participative Liberal Democracy is
supposed to be about?
2. The
second is that it is time that we ended the tyranny of the spin doctors in our
Party – of the pseudo-newspaper, of the Focus leaflet, of the blue envelope, of
the massaged campaign slogan. I don’t mean that we should stop campaigning, or
not harness proven techniques, far less cease the community politics style of
campaign, but that we should pay far more attention to what we are campaigning
about. The Party must ultimately be about ideas and leadership – substance more
than style.
3. The
third is that we need to restore trust and consistency to our political reputation.
This is not just about tuition fees or the NHS. It is about positioning too. We
have learnt the hard way that you cannot spend 50 years positioning yourselves
solidly on the centre-left, as the radical anti-establishment party, as the
party of the future and young people, only to suddenly decide that you really
belong in a different part of the political firmament. Should it really be any surprise
that a large chunk of our support has upped stumps and left us?
4. And
the fourth proposition is that we absolutely must be able to be in a place
which is relevant to people’s big concerns, where our ideas and
contribution are central to the debate. Many of us no doubt support electoral
reform and House of Lords reform for example, but is it at all wise, after all
our other problems, to let the first define our image for half a Parliament and
the second for the time that remains?
What are the challenges for us?
Since
1999, in particular, there has been a heavy reliance on Parliamentary staff for
policy development, Conference has perhaps had a reduced role and status, we
have emptied our policy cupboard and have a dearth of new big ideas.
Firstly, we should note the obvious – that the
objects of the Party are to develop and promote policies that lead to the
realisation of the values and principles contained in the Preamble – in short,
to promote Liberal Democracy.
The Party Constitution also provides for 3 very
specific rights -
o
The right of every member to participate
in the policy making bodies of the Party
o
The right of the Conference to make
policy relevant to Scotland, and
o
The right of the Conference to debate
and express opinions on matters of federal policy
So let me make some specific suggestions of what we
might do to reinvigorate the Party’s policy mission:
Locally:
·
We should give far greater weight to
encouraging and supporting grass roots debate and policy discussion at local
level – Policy suppers or dinners, Moot Groups in someone’s house, pizza and
policy nights, debates and resolutions at Local Party meetings
·
The Policy Committee should look at the
best ways to make such events successful, exciting and worthwhile. Proper
planning is key. This includes how to identify and attract in outside
sympathisers, academics with ideas, local opinion leaders, local business
people. Maybe one or two Local Parties with experience could be asked to deal
with this.
·
The Party should develop training of its
membership in how to handle policy development – how to debate, procedures,
resolutions, education in the core philosophy of the Party.
It has been my view over some years that the
standard of Local Party resolutions, with some honourable exceptions, has been
not just bad but woeful. Reinvigoration of local political debate along these
lines is surely the main way to improve this.
Nationally:
·
I serve on the Board of a Voluntary
Sector body which has recently brought in business advice called Pilotlighters
to challenge and improve the focusing of their business, its clarity of mission
and its effectiveness. I wonder if we need something like this for the Party.
·
Conference should take seriously its
right to debate federal policy, not least in the current situation of being in
Government, and allocate at least one slot at each Conference for an effective
debate on key Coalition issues. Some of these may from time to time be awkward
for the leadership but it is far healthier to have these things discussed than squashed.
·
The Office bearers should establish a
permanent Strategy Group – a National Vision Board - to advise the Leader and
the Party on the area falling between policy and campaigning which covers
positioning, mood music, the development of big ideas, etc.
·
There might perhaps be a Policy
Development Plan covering say the next 3 years which tackled key areas of
policy systematically, and used the diminished resources of the Party
effectively to do this. For example, while groups like the Social Liberal Forum,
Liberal Futures, ASLDC, or the Green Liberal Democrats all have their own roles
and priorities, they might be agreeable to taking on particular policy areas,
perhaps under the direction of a remit from the Policy Committee.
·
There must be a much greater priority to
attracting, supporting and training young members in the Universities in
particular. It is astonishing how many key activists of today began as Young
Liberals years ago. This is a major undertaking, covering Freshers’ fairs,
support of Liberal Youth Scotland, perhaps the idea of a Liberal Youth Summer
School, and talent spotting and mentoring.
·
We must identify and draw in the talents
of sympathetic academics and successful practitioners. Some of these people
will be Party members but a function of our ageing membership can be
professionals with hobby horses which are 20 years out of date. We must access
the best talent but we need the expertise and political nous to challenge and
extract from it. Often this needs to be
matched with the political understanding to turn an academic idea into
political practicality. I think there is a lot to be said for either a dinner
with key people to strike sparks off each other, or asking people to produce
papers on discrete topics as a basis for discussion.
·
The start point for policy development
should perhaps be to identify the key questions of highest importance to people
and our country in the future – not as easy as it sounds. A few starters for
ten:
o
Tackling obscene levels of executive pay
o
A programme to eliminate fuel poverty
o
Developing the successful Colleges
campaign issues
o
The future of town and suburban centres
o
Developing Scotland’s competitive
advantage
o
A Liberal programme for community
empowerment
o
Putting Scottish education back on top
o
Returning to Industrial Democracy
o
A Scottish solution to public sector
reform
o
Reclaiming the underclass
o
Equal opportunity for children in care
o
Creating a work and responsibility ethic
in our society
o
Security and care in old age
o
Restoring the general interest
·
I am not sure if we now have a proper
resource where people can access party manifestos, policy papers, Conference
resolutions and the like over say the last 10 years. Local Parties and others
need to be able to find out what the current state of play is on a particular
topic.
This whole issue of
policy, politics, debate and motivation is central to our current challenge. We
need to find a new generation of key activists and to re-motivate members and
supporters as to the worth and mission of the Party.
At the core though
there must be the idea that Liberal Democrat politics are worthwhile, that
increasing the influence of people like Willie Rennie is important, and that
the whole thing is exciting, enjoyable and stimulating to do. I sometimes feel
that the relentless pressure of elections, of leaflet delivery and campaigning,
of jumble sales, fundraising and Committee meetings has taken the joy out of
politics. We will perhaps all be more appealing if we get it back!