Blogging Conference 08: Sunday

Sunday started slowly and with a screw up. I wanted to see the new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Tavish Scott MSP, give his speech, but because I mixed up the time I missed it. Something to catch up with online.

At lunchtime I was being an uber-geek. Sitting in for the AGM of Liberal Democrats Online. This was a really positive meeting but one which made what some would think of as a rather odd decision. More on this at another time. I was one of the founder members of LDO, so, after a period of non-involvement, it was nice to rejoin its executive committee.

I was in the hall for the Q&A with the Leader. On the tax issue he didn’t really deal with the contradictions between his interviews that had so annoyed me last week. But it was a good confident performance with some great lines. The Cameron as cuddly toy line and his description of trickle down economics are two that I hope to use when I get an opportunity.

The crime debate was a good one if a somewhat frustrating one. Much of the debate was almost a copy of the debate we had at the Spring conference over the policy of establishing separately elected health boards to run the NHS instead of passing responsibility to local councils, except this time it was directly elected police authorities. I was on the side of the losing argument in both cases and am concerned that our approach to local government is becoming confused and disjointed. I was annoyed at repeated references to councils being responsible for “political interference”. One persons “political interference” is another persons “democratic accountability”.

In the evening I was at the Radio 4 fringe on “the Lib Dems and the voters” where polling data from Ipsos MORI formed the basis for a very interesting discussion. More on this in another post.

Then on to the LGLC Next Generation reception to catch up with colleagues from cohorts 1 and 2 and meet the new cohort 3. Then, as is traditional the bar and, after a lengthy interval, bed.

This content was originally posted on my old Process Guy blog.