Love and Liberty

The Liberal Democrats are twenty years old today. Back then, I was an enthusiastic then-Alliance supporter, still at school, and I sent off an application to join the new party as soon as I found out where to send it. Since then there have been plenty of ups and downs, but whenever there’s a panic about the latest opinion poll I yawn and remember the party’s first couple of years: 4% in the polls; our shiny new Leader the fourth most popular; near-bankruptcy; at 6%, a very distant fourth in the Euro-elections; no-one knowing what our name was (including us)… So when we’re rising closer to 20% in the polls today and people grumble progress is too slow, of course I’d like us to be soaring – but I remember what collapse was like, and this ain’t it.

I’ll admit it’s a relief that – with one major exception – Nick’s had a hugely better start to his Leadership than Paddy did (at times it felt like every millimetre of progress was from Paddy dragging our rating up with his teeth). And it’s disturbing to realise I’ve now been a member for more than half my life, though it’s often felt like the Liberal Democrats have been more than half my life at any one time! Still, I’ve never regretted joining, I still believe we can change the world, and there’s only been one day in the last twenty years when I’ve felt like resigning.

Oh, and I’ve managed to get quite a few of the issues that got me motivated twenty years ago written into party policy and three separate General Election Manifestos, so that’s not bad, is it? Like many Liberal Democrats, I didn’t grow up in a family of members (though I did sign my Dad up and get him to take over my Focus round when I went off to uni), I didn’t grow up wealthy, and I grew up two hundred miles from London – but in our party, you don’t have to tick boxes to get along. You don’t need to be the ‘right’ class, you don’t need to know people, and you don’t need to toe the line.

The first time I ever met Paddy Ashdown, I had an argument with him. And when I was first elected to the Federal Policy Committee, I was aged 21, and ten years younger than anyone else on there – and I’m pretty sure I’d never have been elected if I hadn’t been forthright about my views, rocked the boat and then said ‘Give me a chance to change things’ rather than sitting in the corner and whingeing. I’m also pretty sure that, back then, I had more determination than talent, but I think I’ve shown a bit of talent since. Either way, I’m still happy to be in a party where determination, talent and a desire to make a difference count more than an old boys’ network.

I’m still passionately interested in issues, but I find them more interesting to write about at length than writing about me. So rather than start my memoirs, I’ll finish with two important ways I’ve got involved. I’m middle-aged now, but in my late teens and twenties there was one bit of the party that was absolutely invaluable.

The Liberal Democrat Youth and Students

The Liberal Democrat Youth and Students (which went through their own rather less traumatic merger while I was involved) were brilliant for me. Sometimes we were a great success, sometimes we cocked it up completely, but for me LDYS was an essential training ground, giving me the chance to learn how to campaign, meet lots of other young Liberals and argue with them, and enough opportunities to speak that I turned from a stammerer terrified of speechmaking to the gobby person you can’t shut up. They appear to be in the throes of yet another name change at the moment; good luck to them. And to fellow middle-aged Lib Dems – I know that LDYS has always been strapped for cash, and they are particularly today. So if you ever feel like making a donation, they really are one of the best places in the party for getting people off the ground, as well as for getting the rest of the party to be a bit less boring.

Blogging and the Bloggers’ Interviews

The other way to get involved that I’d encourage is, of course, blogging. It’s easy to start off, and, er, not all that difficult to keep going – though I’ve not always blogged every hour on the hour, this is my three hundredth post. And of course blogging is something else where talent and determination pay off: there’s no approved list of bloggers, and no secret cabal decides who reads you. If you want more people to read you, rather than whingeing you just have to get better (or make up more outrageous headlines!).

If you’re a Lib Dem with a blog, or if you’re willing to share your experiences with the readers of Lib Dem Voice, you also have the chance to interview some of the party’s leading MPs from time to time. Last year, the people short-listed for the Liberal Democrat Blogger of the Year Award were invited to interview Ming. I was one of them, and so was our elephant Millennium. Since then, at Millennium’s behest, my beloved Richard has done a huge amount of work organising more interviews (more time and effort than you might think!), and he and the rest of us also decided to get more people involved than the half a dozen of us the judges chose last year. So look out for invites like the one to interview Ed Davey last week; each time, there’ll be a mix of some of the original ‘panel’ so there’s some consistency, and new people – including YOU, if you get in fast enough – on a first-come, first-served basis from the Lib Dem Voice open appeals.

Obviously I think Richard’s fantastic anyway, but really, this is a fantastic example of bottom-up, do-it-yourself Liberal Democracy in action. He doesn’t hold any special posts in the Lib Dems, but is just an ordinary member who’s decided to do something, and it just wouldn’t happen without him organising it all and pestering MPs’ diary secretaries for dates. Though now there have been a few of these interviews, more of the MPs themselves are looking quite keen! And if you aren’t fast enough to volunteer for the ones Richard organises, why not organise an interview with a top Lib Dem yourself? Ask yourself – how many MPs turn down free publicity? Either way, I think they've worked really well so far, both in terms of giving our MPs the time to get their ideas across in more than just a soundbite and in pressing them harder when a soundbite would have let them off the hook (see, for example, an interview with Nick Clegg last year where he was generally very impressive but I didn’t think he was up to scratch on my question because there was little behind the soundbite).

And if you have a better idea of how to get these interviews working, go to Lib Dem Voice right now and make a positive contribution. You can see what was getting me rather combative last night and argue with me there, too.

The message of twenty years of the Liberal Democrats is that sitting with your arms folded and whingeing that somebody else should do something gets you nowhere, but that if you positively get involved, we can all achieve more.


Since I started writing this earlier this morning, that Chris Rennard’s put up a piece on Lib Dem Voice, too. He’s both an inspiration and a bit terrifying in terms of how the party can become your life, isn’t he?

Update: Hywel Morgan makes some particularly good points about the political as well as the strategic reasons for the party’s survival under Chris’ post. He also brings back memories when he mentions the “5% days”. I remember in the post-Newbury, pre-Mr Blair 1990s opinion poll high point of the party, when we were flush with optimism and with rising membership (at one point just topping 100,000), I’d just made a hardcore Liberalism speech of some sort at a Conference that many members thought was a bit too exciting… But a regional chair I liked came up to me, slapped me on the back and told me that next time we were in the doldrums and all those new members had gone off to another party, I’d still be with him in the “five-percenters”. I think he’d be right, but fortunately I can’t see us back at 5% any time soon.

I saw a Daily Torygraph front page the other day, incidentally, that made me wonder whether journalists are actually interested in communication at all. The lead story was about a poll, though I forget on what, something along the lines of “50% Say…” Except that it didn’t use “%”. It was “pc”. Let me get this straight… “%” means “percent”. While “pc” means personal computer, police constable, politically correct, postcard, Privy Councillor… What idiot decides that it would be more comprehensible to use two letters with a multitude of meanings than a symbol with one?

Labels: Blogs, Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, Personal, Richard, Top Tips