In which I get on the Lib Dem Federal Executive....Thank you so much

Well, I'm truly gobsmacked!

Along with all other candidates for the Federal Committees, I received an email yesterday evening from the Returning Officer telling me that the results would be published on the party website at 9am today. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't get on. There were so many good candidates who were better known than I am.

So, it was an enormous surprise to find that I had, in fact, been elected. I am truly grateful to everyone who voted for me. I really want to play my part in getting this party ready to fight the European and Westminster elections and am looking forward to the challenges of the next two years. All of the results are available here with the detailed breakdowns over at the wonderful Colin Rosenstiel's site.

What I need from all of you who are party members is to talk to me. Tell me what you think the FE's priorities should be. Tell me what's happening on your patch and how the Liberal Democrat world looks to you. Tell me what's working and what isn't. If you aren't getting enough information on things, ask me. If you want to email, do so on caronsmusingsATgooglemailDOTcom, If you want to talk to me, I will give you my phone number, but I don't really want to put it on here just in case some drunken cybernats fancy having some middle-of-the-night prank calling fun.

Election results always bring bad news as well as good. Personally, I was absolutely distraught that Candy Piercy was not returned to FE. She is one of the wisest, most practical heads this party has and I hadn't in my wildest nightmares thought she wouldn't be re-elected. I actually cried when I saw Arnie Gibbons wasn't voted back on to Federal Conference Committee. He's pretty much always done the right thing. He, Jon Ball and Jeremy Hargreaves going means that the Committee loses a whole load of experience. It has six new faces who will have a steep learning curve. Of course, Gareth Epps, who led the charge against accreditation, has been on before.

Another surprise was the departure of Linda Jack from both FPC and FCC. It goes to show, I think, that her stance of direct opposition to the Coalition is not widely supported within the party and that Liberal Left doesn't have that much of a fan base.

I have to say that, having heard her passionate speeches on welfare reform and equal citizenship, I am absolutely delighted that Kelly-Marie Blundell has been elected to both FCC and FPC. She'll be a robust and constructive presence on both.

Social liberals, whether within the Social Liberal Forum or not, are going to be well represented, taking a majority of the directly elected places on FPC. There's a gain on FCC, too and 6 SLF candidates that I know of were elected to FE, including me. There will be interesting discussions to be had on exactly what we present to the electorate in 2015 in terms of fiscal policy. Danny Alexander has intimated his view that further deficit reduction measures will be necessary. I can't see many of the new FPC being happy about that.

The Liberal Democrat Voice team did quite well - me on FE, Mark Pack on FPC and Mark Valladares on the ELDR delegation. Although the latter will probably be called the ALDE delegation now that they've changed their name in Dublin today. I have to say, I'm never very keen on the idea of dropping the word reform from anything.

I do think we need to review the way we do these elections though. The electorate is voting reps to Conference, roughly 10% of the membership and even amongst those the turnout is nowhere near as good as it could be. My instinct tells me that all members should have a vote, both at Conference and in internal elections. Some think that if you give all members a vote, it'll actually weaken the party democracy because it makes it vulnerable to infiltration by people with a specific agenda. This was very much an SDP-led inclusion in the make up of the party. They'd seen what the likes of Militant had done to Labour and wanted to put up barriers to stop it happening in the new party. I'm not sure that's enough of a reason to deny such a huge proportion of your members a say in these elections. Certainly, all members choose the leader and President, but we should be looking at extending our internal democracy. The power in this party has to be with its members.

However, the power can only be with members if we engage with them more. We have to be aware that, unless we're very careful, those whose names are known for being Great and Good may have an unfair advantage. That could weaken, rather than strengthen, democracy, concentrating power in the hands of too few people which would be just as bad. That is no excuse not to do it - we have to be innovative. For the first time, candidates have been allowed to campaign in these elections, but I think we need to take it further.

The party needs to create a space where candidates can be questioned. Apart from the sterling work put in by Jennie and Andy Hinton, there's not been a chance to find the candidates' views on anything not in their manifestos. We need to think about how we can use technology, at no cost to candidates so there are no financial barriers to taking part, to engage the electorate.

I don't want us to be having the same conversation in two years' time, so I'd like to see some fast movement on this. We should consult widely within the party during the first few months of next year - have sessions at state, Federal and regional conferences, get local parties involved and  make online submission not just possible but welcome. We then need to listen to what we're told and make changes in time for the next elections in 2014.

Extending the franchise always has a cost implication, but, in my experience, these things pay for themselves if you include an appeal with them. We've now had two all member elections for the Scottish Party Exec and office bearers since we changed our constitution in 2009. We also gave all our members a vote, which I think has helped with attendance at Conference. It's much more of a motivation to go to Conference if you know you have a say. We also need to find some way of allowing people who can't go to Conference to participate in it.

What I don't want to happen is for us to disappear into our own belly buttons to talk about internal and process to the exclusion of all else. We can't allow ourselves to be distracted from the job of winning elections - County Councils in 2013 alongside other local elections, Euros in 2014 and Westminster in 2015. Every single thing we do between now and then has to have an eye to winning as much as humanly possible in those polls.We need a more engaged, involved party to help us with that and there are things we need to do to enhance the whole experience of being a member, not just change the election procedures.

The next two years starts here. For party members, my door, phone line and inbox are always open so please talk to me. I can't be a good FE member without you.

The Conference Accreditation row slumbers no more

Remember that stooshie we had over the blatantly illiberal and actually discriminatory Conference Accreditation system for last year's Autumn event in Birmingham? For a refresher, have a look at the speech I would have made in the debate about it had I been there on time.

Well, that can of worms has been opened again by way of a BBC behind the scenes programme which followed the Police as they provided the security for the Conference. We saw a policeman fill and charge 2 stone worth of armoury before she went out on her shift. We saw the Police helicopter in action. We saw police in the water feeling the hulls of boats and going down the drains, all 750 of them. While we accept the need for physical security - after all, we do have some sense of self preservation, there was something quite sinister in that this programme, in the words of its presenter, was sending a strong message to Al Qaeda and their mates not to mess with our Conferences.  'Cos, obviously, BBC daytime TV is quite big in the terrorist training camps. You can watch the programme here.

You can tell where Liberal Democrats get their information from, because it the programme concerned was broadcast on daytime TV last Friday, yet it's only once it's reviewed in Private Eye that we notice.

It still upsets me greatly how easily our Federal Conference Committee buckled to what were unreasonable Police demands. Benjamin Franklin had a point when he said: Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.


Both Gareth Epps and Jonathan Calder have already posted about this and I agree with their comments. That programme sent the message to people in this country that political activity can be dangerous and must be heavily protected. That's not an altogether healthy message. Getting that balance right, making sure our liberties and values are not compromised, being sensible and proportionate is really, really important. We allowed our eye to be taken off that ball last year and it must not happen again.


There are FCC elections this year and I'm sure this issue will come into play. What I would say, though, is that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Only one person, Justine McGuinness, voted against accreditation. There are lots of good people on that Committee who took a different view but who can be relied upon not to buckle to the Parliamentarians on policy motions. We need to keep that balance in mind when we're voting and not throw good people off just because of this.

Leadership programme hopefuls and new MEP among signatories of candidates' plea to Clegg on Welfare Reform

Today's Guardian carries a report that more than 50 Liberal Democrat candidates at the last election have written to Nick Clegg to ask for a rethink on welfare reform.

This shows that many within the Party are unhappy with measures like the withdrawal of contributory Employment and Support Allowance after one year, something I've written about many times.

And this is not just Gareth Epps being awkward, either. Among the signatories to the letter are Greg Judge, Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Shas Sheehan and Layla Moran, four of the  participants in the much vaunted Leadership Programme as well as Daisy Benson, who darned well should be on it. We also have our newest MEP Rebecca Taylor who takes over Diana Wallis' seat after Stewart Arnold decided against succeeding his wife.  Stephen Glenn also told me where to find the actual letter rather than just the Guardian report so thanks to him.

The letter says:

Dear Nick

As you are aware the House of Lords voted in favour of 3 amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill, protecting important benefits for sick and disabled people.

The amendments, regarding contributory Employment and Support Allowance (cESA), were:

• The amount of time a person can receive cESA will be extended to at least 24 months, instead of the Government’s proposed 12 month limit.
• Cancer patients will be exempted from the time limit.
• The ‘youth provision’ of the benefit will be protected, meaning that young disabled people who cannot work will still be entitled to cESA without having made National Insurance contributions.

The amendments were passed with significant majorities, but they must still be approved by the House of Commons.

Contributory Employment and Support Allowance is a benefit given to people who have had to stop work due to ill health or disability, but who are well enough to return to work at some point. It is only given to those who have paid sufficient National Insurance Contributions during their working life.

Some disabled people will be able to return to work, but many will need more time and support to do so. The Department for Work and Pensions estimate that 94 per cent of disabled people will take longer than a year to find work. This means that many who remain unemployed after these 12 months will lose all benefit support. That would mean that, by 2015/16, 700,000 people would be affected and 280,000 would lose their entire benefit payment – currently £94.25 per week.

We are deeply concerned that the Minister, Chris Grayling, has already indicated he intends the Welfare Reform Bill to pass without the amendments on cESA when the Bill returns to the commons.

At Federal Conference we passed a motion which said we should not have an arbitrary time limit on cESA. Although the amendment extends the current proposal from one to at least two years, we do not believe we should let the best be the enemy of the good.

We, including many who stood as Liberal Democrat candidates at the last election, some who have been selected on the Lib Dem leadership programme, councillors and selected 2012 London candidates believe you and Lib Dem Parliamentarians should uphold party policy and principle and only support the Welfare Reform Bill with the amendments passed in the House of Lords.

It's clear that this isn't a north south thing either - this letter has the support of candidates from Linlithgow to Poole, from Coastal Suffolk to Wirral West.

I had precious few replies from my e-mails to our Peers, but Shirley Williams told me she had had over 500 e-mails on the subject of the ESA time limit.

This isn't enough, though. A letter from candidates trailed in the media won't make the difference. Our MPs need to hear that we want them to get the Government to pull back from the brink and not to overturn the Lords Amendments.

It's time for Liberal Democrat members to start contacting MPs in much larger numbers. The crucial votes take place next Wednesday. Will you do your bit in trying to persuade our MPs to oppose the measures that our Conference voted so strongly against? In fact, if you have a Lib Dem MP, tell them how strongly you feel about these changes. They will take notice if their inboxes and mailbags are full of correspondence on this issue.

Please contact our MPs yourself and spread the word to ask others to do the same if you feel that these reforms are way too harsh on sick and disabled people.

People should not go to jail for unfurling a banner!

Gareth Epps tells how student Edd Bauer has spent the last week in prison for the unfurling of a banner decrying us for being traitors at our Conference in Birmingham last weekend.

Now, unfurling banners doesn't actually hurt anybody. If Mr Bauer had been released on bail and unfurled a banner every day of our Conference, the worst that would have happened is that Conference attendees would have looked up and thought "what a prat".

He has a track record for doing this sort of thing - but he hasn't as far as I know, ever harmed anyone. It was that form that led to him being remanded when his co-accused were freed on bail so long as they kept out of Birmingham City Centre.

So we have a situation where somebody has been locked up for over a week when they actually pose no danger for the community. As well as the obvious implications for civil liberties, it costs a fortune. In Scotland, the annual cost of keeping someone in prison is something around £31000, or around £85 a night. So, nearly a grand of public money has been spent on locking this guy up for no good reason.

The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental part of a liberal society and I think we should be looking again at the laws which enabled this guy to be held in custody. What's happened here has been a completely disproportionate use of the law and we need to have a presumption against locking non violent protesters up.

Keeping Conference Liberal and safe: Gareth Epps must be there

A couple of years ago I wrote a few posts around the farcical arrangements the Labour Government were putting in place regarding those working with children, including parent helpers. Thankfully Lynne Featherstone got rid of this excessive and ineffective vetting and barring scheme.

It breaks my heart to see our Party meekly accept a system for accreditation of Conference representatives, whose right to be at Conference is enshrined in our Constitution which is similarly disproportionate, discriminatory and downright daft.

I have a really strong vested interest in making sure that nobody comes to harm at our Conference. As I've said many times before, some of the people I care most about in the world are going to be there. I'm going myself and I want to return to my family in one piece, thank you very much.

I have no problem with the airport style security and scanners which will greet us at the doors to the ICC. They are an unfortunate necessity in this day and age - but that should be sufficient.

Our Federal Conference Committee have effectively ceded power to the Police to decide who goes to Conference. That is absolutely and utterly wrong. The Police should not have the right to exclude people on the basis of an arbitrary CRB check. Some people have not even put themselves forward for accreditation because they fear that they would not pass. I wish they had done, because I feel that the outcomes of those applications would have either confirmed our fears, or given us more confidence in the system. I mean, it just defies any sort of logic that the author of Spiderplant Land a woman photographed with Nick Clegg as part of her Council campaign this year and who was deemed safe enough to meet Prince Philip last month has been told she would fail and be denied access to Conference. I actually wish she would apply and really test the system out.

Conference starts 2 weeks on Saturday, and some people have not even had the results of their accreditation through  while some have been refused. It's to be seen whether the FCC will show resolve and overturn those exclusions.

As it now seems to be common knowledge, it's fine to say what I've known for a few days now, that Gareth Epps, former FCC member, former Councillor, former Parliamentary candidate and  pain in the backside to every leader of the party since it was formed (which I hope he'll consider a matter of pride) has been denied accreditation. The reason is a technical one - that his photo doesn't comply with the exacting standards set by the Police. Something to do with his fringe, apparently. Gareth, understandably, isn't happy and the Federal Conference Committee have so far, as I understand it,  refused to over-rule the Police, despite him submitting a different photo. While the appearance of a fringe on a photo or not is not going to make Conference one tiny bit safer, I'd say to Gareth that his attendance at the event is vital and if he needs to have a new photo taken and get the brylcream out to tame his fringe, then just do it, and I'd say to FCC that they need to take the temperature down and find a way to resolve this.  I vaguely remember something about Tim Farron at the time saying he'd step in if people were being arbitrarily excluded.  I am sure that if given the chance, he'd come to the rescue and bash heads together if need be.

This isn't about Gareth and his photo, though. And I don't want the debate to come down to that. It's about us  being told by corporate interests and the police that we need to take action which will make absolutely nobody safer. The Police should not be able to over-ride my constitutional right to attend my conference. While I am too much of a peace-loving hippy to ever cause harm to anybody, anyone with  malevolent intent would be sorted by those scanners at the door Actually, the queue for those scanners is probably the most dangerous place to be because you don't have to have accreditation to stand there.

We need to make the argument that everyone involved in all the big terrorist attacks in recent years have had the correct accreditation. Where is the evidence that such a draconian system is needed? The Police are always over-cautious and they're not naturally liberal. There are times when they need to be stood up to and this is one of them. They told the last Labour Government that they needed to detain terrorist suspects for 90 days, way more than other countries in Europe and they just rolled over and had their tummies tickled until they were forced back by the strength of the opposing argument.

The argument made by FCC is that no venue would allow them to hold Conference if they didn't follow police advice - which amounts to these draconian security measures - because our public liability insurance would be invalid. I find that argument incredible. Are they really telling us that nobody would offer the right insurance without these sorts of security checks? How far did they look? Did they just ask the usual company and go no further? It just defies logic that the huge festivals we all see over the Summer, from T in the Park to Glastonbury to Reading all function without everyone having to be police checked and our conference can't. There are A-listers who are arguably at as much risk as our Cabinet ministers from unwanted attention, wandering around these events freely, too. Maybe that's what we should do - turn Conference into a massive Festival. It would certainly be different and our civil liberties would be protected.

While I was writing this, I checked what security arrangements had been in place for Nick Clegg's members' only visits in Scotland last week. We all had to book our space in advance and bring photo ID with us, and I'd wondered if we'd gone through any formal police check. We hadn't - and the only threat to anybody came from the random paint thrower outside the hall.

The Cabinet go on Ministerial visits every day - and I'm not aware of people who attend these visits having to be police checked. If there's physical security at the event, then that's safe enough.

On the Sunday morning of Conference, at 9am, the following motion, to be proposed by Stephen Gilbert MP,  will be debated.

Mover:  Stephen Gilbert MP
Summation:  David Grace

Conference accepts the need for physical security measures to protect those attending but does not accept that such measures can interfere with the democratic decision-making processes of a political party. 

Conference affirms that Liberal Democrats have always defended and promoted the fundamental rights of freedom of association and assembly, protected by Article 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights, by Article 12 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and by Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 

Conference recalls that:

a)  The preamble to the party constitution states that "We will at all times defend the right to speak, write, worship, associate and vote freely...". 

b)  The party's general election manifesto specifically proclaimed "The best way to combat terrorism is to prosecute terrorists, not give away hard-won British freedoms". 

Conference therefore condemns the system of police accreditation adopted for this conference which requires party members to disclose personal data to the police and which is designed to enable the police to advise that certain party members should not be allowed to attend. 

Conference therefore calls upon:

1.  The Parliamentary Party and Liberal Democrat Ministers to question the current police guidance on accreditation and to seek to persuade the Home Office to change guidance on current practice to reflect the rights of association and assembly and the internal democracy of all political parties.

2.  The Federal Conference Committee to negotiate security arrangements for future conferences which protect the privacy of members' personal data and which respect the party's constitution and internal democracy. 

3.  The Party President to ensure that conference arrangements respect Article 6 of the federal constitution which provides that Local Parties elect representatives and that no other body within or without the party has the power to exclude in advance their attendance at conference.

This now seems to be quite tame a response. There are a number of people who have not gone through the accreditation process because either it's too stressful for them, they are worried that they wouldn't pass, or they are a transgendered person who doesn't want to be outed by it, or their objection in principle is just too much. I wonder if we need to have some sort of appreciation event/vigil type thing at Conference for them - the people who should be there.

It is ridiculous that Conference is 2.5 weeks away and some people who may already have spent hundreds of pounds on travel and accommodation which they won't get back still don't know whether they will pass accreditation and be able to enter the Conference. This is completely unacceptable.

Two further points: Nick Clegg was the guy who stood up and said he'd go to jail rather than be forced to carry an ID card. The Party is letting him down by showing less resolve than he did on an issue of civil liberties.

Benjamin Franklin had it right when he said: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."