This is a difficult article to write. I’ve already written more than one full draft which had to be discarded because I didn’t think it put it quite right, and I don’t think this version will win me any friends either. But at some level I think this has to be said, because it’s so important for our party and for our politics.

There are two key things to say.

The first is that the under-representation of ethnic minorities within the Liberal Democrats is an ongoing near-scandal which we have clearly not really begun to make any serious inroads into tackling. If it were just a question of under-representation in a few scattered council groups, or at one tier of government, we could perhaps put it down to particular local factors in those cases. But it isn’t: it’s a failure across the country and across the board of our elected representatives - so it isn’t just an incidental issue, it’s clearly a systematic problem.

This problem is first and foremost one of ensuring government which is fully representative - a principle which is not only fair, but one on which the contract of peaceful governance depends.

But it is also a hard-nosed question of political pragmatism for us as a party: quite simply we can’t expect people to vote us if they don’t think we look like them.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am of course delighted that Nick Clegg has won the race to be our next Leader - obviously I’d rather it hadn’t been quite so close (if the contest had lasted another week, I think it’s pretty clear that Chris would have won it), but as Dubya has shown us, an extremely tight victory doesn’t necessarily have to detract much from strong leadership (though I hope and trust Nick’s leadership will be rather more intelligently directed than Bush’s!)

But it isn’t just that I’m glad the distractions of the internal contest are now over, and I’m glad my guy won: it does feel like a really new start for our party, for a few reasons:

Read the rest of this entry »

Liberator magazine has published in their latest edition an article I have written, looking again at whether we could shorten the party’s existing policy process, and the separate question of whether we would be wise to do so.

Having argued in the past for changes to our policy process (and won some as a result), I am not convinced that dramatically shortening the process in the way I outline would serve us well. But this kind of issue does seem to be coming under discussion again, so if we are going to talk about it then I thought it would be as well to give us some idea of the sorts of changes we would be talking about - so I’ve set them out.

There isn’t a facility to comment, on the link to the article where it is published, so please feel free to comment on its proposals here.

Even more than usual I would very much welcome views on what I’ve said. As I say, I’m not convinced, but I’d like to know what others think.

There’s been a lot of heat and light generated over the last few hours over the contenders’ appearances today on The Politics Show and The World This Weekend - and it does indeed seem to have been less than our party’s finest hour. (Though in the midst of it I have been enjoying the grounding effect that the aggregator, Lib Dem Blogs, brings to it all, so that furious posts like Huhne - now he has really cooked his goose are also interspersed with ones of much more local interest with titles like Lib Dem appointed Camden Cycling Champion!).

But even leaving aside that little spat it’s been increasingly clear to me over the last few days that momentum is again increasingly behind the Clegg campaign. Now of course most readers will scarcely be surprised to hear that that’s my view, given I have been backing him from the start. But I hope you’ll hear me out before deciding whether to dismiss my view on those grounds.

Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently Hillary firmly put and Barack and John Edwards back in their place after some heated personal exchanges in their televised debate in Las Vegas last night.

But over on our side of the pond, the Lib Dem leadership Question Time special was much more civilised.

I keep reading that it was the pivotal moment for the contest, as most Lib Dem members would not receive much direct contact from the candidates so would use it to decide their vote when it arrives in next week’s post.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s some quite heated debate going on about whether Huhne is attempting to ’smear’ Clegg by alleging that he is supporting unpopular policies which he is in fact not advocating.

So here’s the evidence, so you can decide for yourself if you think that’s what’s going on.

The facts are:
Read the rest of this entry »

It was the chap in the wing collar and spats who started all the trouble. He asked a question at last night’s meeting at the Royal Society for Arts (RSA) about nuclear policy - and what until then had been a reasonably interesting but fairly predictable debate between the leadership candidates, suddenly turned into something really quite interesting.

As Clegg said in response, this is an area where the two candidates really do disagree. Clegg backs existing party policy on this (which was agreed, let’s not forget, by party conference after extensive internal debate less then seven months ago) which would halve Britain’s nuclear capacity, and then promotes further nuclear disarmament on a multilateral basis.

Huhne is saying something different from that. But just exactly what it is that he is saying becomes less and less clear every time he answers a question about it - and I’m afraid it has now reached the point where I think what he is saying is totally confused and makes pretty much no sense at all.

The basic question that I am unclear about is whether Huhne supports unilateral nuclear disarmament by Britain, or not.

Read the rest of this entry »

Right, now it’s starting to get interesting!

According to the Guardian Nick Clegg has declared that if we do all end up being required to carry ID cards around with us, he will personally break the law and refuse to do so.

He compared it to the civil disobedience campaigns against the poll tax and other things - and of course it also is very reminiscent of the person he keeps talking about: Clarence Willcock, who ended Britain’s ID cards regime in the 1950s by refusing to carry one, with the words to the policeman “I don’t believe in that sort of thing - I’m a Liberal”

Lib Dems are against ID Cards, of course we all know that.

But I’m sure I’m not the only party member who has found myself having conversations with other small ‘l’ liberal friends who agree with us on this and much else but don’t vote for us - because they say they think we need to go much harder on this kind of issue, and really make the overweening approach to the state of Labour, much more of an issue. “Less bleating, more hard action” seems to be their message - and of course capturing these liberals actually to vote Liberal Democrat is a key task for us if we are to break through.

Well here is one of our leading members - and hopefully our next Leader - doing just that!

It’s moments like this, when one of our leading members finds a punchy and genuinely meaningful way of putting one of our core beliefs, that really makes me feel optimistic about the future of our party!