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Agenda for the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference 2013
No comments on Agenda for the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference 2013The agenda for this year’s Liberal Democrat Federal Spring Conference is now available online. I won’t be going to Brighton in March for the conference, so this is largely of academic interest, but a brief glance at the agenda suggests I won’t be missing too much. I would highlight three things: The, rather silly, constitutional amendment that would make it easier for the party to chuck out its leader. I’d be very surprised if this was passed.…
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On “not” going to conference
I wasn’t going to conference this year. As part of my whole “giving politics a rest for a bit and focusing on other stuff” gig I thought it would be wise to give it a miss. Then there is the current state of my finances. So this years event was going to be the first Liberal Democrat autumn federal conference that I had missed in, oh, at least 10 years. But then I was asked…
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LDHG Meeting: Peace, Reform and Liberation
I was disappointed to have missed the Liberal Democrat History Group‘s fringe at the September conference this year as I was at the Love Luton fringe meeting instead. However, yesterday I was able to catch up on it thanks to the wonders of the internet. I’m glad I did. It is a bit special. A strong and well balanced panel gave a set of fascinating contributions to a discussion on the full sweep of the…
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Random Thoughts 11: Conference round-up edition
I’ve been working through my list of things to follow up on after last weeks trip to Birmingham for the Liberal Democrats’ Autumn Conference, including writing up various blog posts. To speed things up a bit I thought I’d use this edition of ‘Random Thoughts’ to round-up all those things from conference that I want to note but that don’t really deserve a blog post of their own. A summary of the formal business of…
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The return of the poster boy for Lib Dem misery
One of the things that people were ‘kindly’ reminding me of during my time at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Birmingham last week was my experience of becoming a poster boy for Lib Dem misery following this May’s elections. Something which I have written about here and here. Thanks guys for the support! This wasn’t helped by the Daily Politics using the footage in its review of the year for the Lib Dems on the…
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RNIB “A stitch in time saves nine”
Without doubt by far the best exhibition stand at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Birmingham last week was the one from the RNIB. They had created with great imagination and attention to detail a little old fashioned haberdashery shop. It was so realistic that at first I had mistook it for a real shop and was tempted browse and buy some yarn! The attention to detail was carried through to the publicity material they were…
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The Lib Dems are “determined and purposeful” – me on WinkBall
While I was at the Liberal Democrat Conference in Birmingham last week I was asked to do a quick Vox Pop by WinkBall.com which you can see below. I think I sound remarkably “on message”! Source: This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.
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What I got from the Liberal Democrat Conference
Looking back over my preview of this year’s Liberal Democrat Autumn Federal Conference held in Birmingham I am quite pleased to see that my week mostly went to plan. I did miss a few of the debates in the hall that I had intended to be at, but I went to some extra fringe meetings that I hadn’t planned for. I will try to sum up the big picture political stuff that came out of…
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Previewing the Liberal Democrat Conference: my week ahead
We are only a couple of days away from the start of the Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference, this year to be held in Birmingham. So I have been busy leafing through the agenda, juggling my schedule, and deciding on my plans for several days of wall to wall Lib Dem style politics. This is what my conference looks like so far. Saturday I won’t be getting to Birmingham until after lunch on Saturday so I…
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Luton at the Liberal Democrat Conference
I was somewhat surprised when planning my diary for this years Liberal Democrat conference, being held in Birmingham, to find that one of the fringe meetings is to be dedicated to Luton. The Love Luton Campaign, the campaign behind Luton’s bid to get city status for the town, has arranged a meeting on the Monday evening (19 September) which they have called “Celebrating DiverCity”. The event will be hosted by my good friend Lord Hussain…
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Reflecting on the 2011 Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in Sheffield
The Sheffield conference shows that the Liberal Democrats are starting to find their feet as a party of government. I spent the weekend in Sheffield attending the Liberal Democrats spring conference. As usual the conference generated an awful lot of things that I wanted to write about and comment upon alongside ensuring that it was almost impossible to do so at the time. So it is afterwards that I can sit down and try to…
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A preview of the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in Sheffield
In eleven days time Liberal Democrats from across the country, including myself, will be gathering in Sheffield for the Party’s Spring Conference. I thought I’d preview what we will be discussing. In the main hall I would hope to be in the hall for the debate on the new policy paper on the voluntary sector early on the Saturday morning. Later that morning is the first of the potentially controversial items as conference debates a…
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Video proof that I was in Liverpool
To prove that I actually did attend the Liberal Democrat’s conference in Liverpool here is a video of my talking about ‘the three most important issues facing the government’. The video was taken by the people from Winkball who were hanging about the conference filming the views of attendees. I don’t think the video makes me look terribly attractive, but I was suffering from the effects of the night before and squinting into the sun…
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On not blogging conference
The last few weeks, for various reasons, have been rather disrupted and unsettled. There has been a lot going on but, somewhat unusually, I have not been very certain about what I think about it all. As a result there hasn’t been much blogging going on here. Keeping a regular blog going I find, aside from the issue of time available, requires a level of certainty and confidence in oneself and ones opinions which when…
