PARTY REFORM COMMISSION: LIB DEM NEWS ARTICLE
Nick Clegg has set out his exciting ambition to significantly increase
our representation at all levels of government. Yet to achieve 150 MPs and more
within two parliaments requires us as a party to think and act in new ways.
There are some significant changes happening in society. The power of the internet and the opportunities it gives to interact with people in a myriad of ways; the mobile phone with its messaging capabilities; the shift in newspapers from impartial reporting to partial campaigning and the vast array of choices facing individuals makes the challenge of engaging effectively with potential voters more complex than even a decade ago.
At the same there are large numbers of people, especially younger people, who find politics and politicians irrelevant. They are engaged with the need to change society; fired up by the challenge posed by climate change, by famine and aids in Africa, and by the attack on civil liberties here at home. Yet many don’t see any of us or what we might want to do as offering solutions.
To succeed we have to address these challenges. We have a leader who is capable of reaching out to both those who vote for other parties and those who do not vote at all. What we need to develop is the organisational capability to support him, his parliamentary colleagues, and those in local government, to ensure that we are addressing their concerns and coming up with radical solutions.
Fortunately we start we many impressive capabilities. Our staff in the current organisation have done an outstanding job. We set the standard for local campaigning effectiveness and in by-elections. We have demonstrated how to win significant numbers of votes and seats with very limited resources.
But we must not stand still. Our effectiveness is now being replicated not just by the Tories and Labour, but also significantly by the smaller parties such as the Greens. We have to find new ways of doing things so we stay ahead of the competition.
It is in this context that Nick, Simon and Chris have asked us to review the organisation. Our job is to come up with a change plan that builds the organisation capable of delivering a seismic shock to British politics and we believe that to do our job well we need your insights, your ideas and your experiences just as much as we do the insights and experiences of those running the party and its organisation today.
As a party we have to think very differently and we need to be prepared to consider some radical solutions and approaches to how we do things. My colleagues and I want to encourage local, regional, state parties, SAOs, AOs, individuals, members and staff to debate ideas and submit them to us. To use their experiences and suggest ways in which we could change things in order that we do them better.
To be as accessible as we can we have set up an email address to receive your submissions (reform@libdems.org.uk) and have put our terms of reference and some more information on who we are and how we are approaching the task on the party website.
Please keep submissions down to a couple of pages and we need your ideas no later than 8th February 2008. We have suggested some questions on the website to help you structure your response, though we will take note of all submissions. Those submissions we feel are particularly pertinent we may ask to discuss face to face during February or March.
Our timings are deliberately tight, after all we have local elections to fight in May and we don’t want to distract ourselves. At the Spring Conference we will run a session highlighting what are emerging as the key areas for debate and by the end of March our enquiries should be completed with the report published in May. There is no doubt in our minds: if we can build the capability then we can change the face of British politics.
