Thoughts on Rennard

When I saw the word "Rennard" in the headlines, after the week we've had, I inwardly groaned. But I was delighted when it emerged he had apologised.

Some good work had obviously gone on behind the scenes to get to this position. We now need all parties to accept the statement and move on. The only harm dragging this out will be to Lib Dems.

Chris should be re-integrated into the party. I say this for several reasons: 

Firstly he has done what was asked of him in the report. He has apologised for his conduct. As a party we do believe in due process, Chris has not been charged let alone convicted of any offence. He has engaged with a report into his behaviour and (finally) accepted the conclusions of the report. We would think it would be wrong to punish someone who has not been convicted of any offence - so why should Chris be any different?

Secondly Chris has spent most of life working for the good of the party and this should not be forgotten.

Thirdly, there is a quid pro quo - if we keep moving the goalposts then our already dubious internal procedures will simply fall apart, opening us up to legal challenges. If this happened we may be unable to kick out people who really need to be kicked out.

The rumours I heard about Chris's actions were not of the illegal type but rather of actions unbecoming of a Lib Dem Chief Executive. But the fact I heard rumours makes me think that the party failed to act and supported the powerful over the weak. We must never allow this to happen again.

To this end the party have appointed an pastoral care officer - I've been less than impressed so far. My first contact with the officer was an email requesting I fill in a survey a few weeks before polling day. The timing was completely inept. I didn't fill it in.  I ran out of time, like many other organisers.  It seemed a bit too like a hatchet job - nothing's wrong with our staff because we didn't receive any complaints. That's rubbish we were all working too hard.

I've seen in the past few months a number of examples of bad working practices. What would be good would be a booklet sent to all elected Lib Dems about inappropriate behaviour with staff. Explaining what is bullying, homophobia, sexual misconduct, harassment etc. It may get laughed at but it is important.

We must always act in accordance with our beliefs even if it costs electorally or damages a senior 

party figure. There must be no repeat of Rennard.

Et tu Oakshott

Okay I thought that my latest blog would be called "How not to carry out a coup" but instead went for something a bit more pithy. Although to be fair Oakshott didn't stab Clegg in the back, more likely he tried to stabbed him in the front and missed.

The LibDems4change/Oakshott group made several mistakes.

MISTAKE 1 - CAME OUT AFTER WRONG ELECTION

Firstly it started after the wrong set of election results. For London it must have been a terrible shock to lose all your Councillors, but for most of us we expected the defeats (actually there was a warm glow of success for some of us). It was nothing new and for lots of us we were actually quite chuffed with the results. The despair hadn't set in.

In addition it was obvious that a lot of the plotting happened on polling day. When these people should have been trying to elect Lib Dems.

The European Elections were the right moment to do it. Many of us were shattered and terrified after these set of results. We'd never experienced only having 1 MEP under the D'hondt system. This was the time to go.

MISTAKE 2 TECHNICAL ISSUES

Caron Lindsey pointed out about legalistic things like where did they get emails from, where was the address was registered. I happened to think these things are unimportant but others do not. It made it look a bit amateurish.


MISTAKE 3 WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

The failure to get any substantial figures to back the coup was a real problem - I didn't see a single MP (not even Sarah Teather) stand up and say Nick out. Surely if you are plotting to replace our leader you need to get some important people on board first.

MISTAKE 4 THE POLLS

I suspect Lord Oakshott thought he could remain anonymous and leak his polls. But the British Polling Institute rules meant ICM  had to release who commissioned these polls. The problem with the polls is that they seemed sneaky, underhand and damaged the prospects of the MPs in the specific seats. It's not going to be easy for Ian Swales to squeeze UKIP after the results of his seat poll.

Anybody who looks at the way the polls are done can see that it is a hatchet job. They were unweighted and furthermore ICM didn't prompt for candidates which basically makes the point of a constituency polls irrelevant.

MISTAKE 5 NO NEW STRATEGY

It was never properly outlined what the proposal post Nick would be. Would we stay in the coalition?Would Nick still be deputy MP? Who would be new leader? How would our policy/direction differ?

Libdems4change never outlined their preference. Which meant those of us on the fence like myself never had the chance to weigh one option (keep Clegg) against a post Clegg world.

I'm not going to sign the Libdems4change letters - they've cocked it up but what I now want is the Lib Dem leadership to come out say they are listening and what we are going to do about it.

Shooting the UKIP fox

So the UKIP fox is in the Westminster henhouse - well it's not - they haven't got a single MP.

But that's not what you'd think if you beamed down from Planet Zog. The media and politicians from all three parties cannot get through an interview without talking about UKIP.

The only two political issues that seem to matter are Europe and Immigration. No wonder UKIP have just topped the poll!

There is a very human element to this - the anger most politico's feel about UKIP is understandable. They're a bunch of racists and homophobes whose policies are simplistic and treat the voters intellect with contempt. Yet they keep picking up votes. These people need to be made to understand. That's actually how I feel...until I put my campaigning head on.

UKIP have strong basic values which they communicate effectively. Their views on immigration and Europe are popular (but obviously absurd). But the number one rule of politics is to fight campaigns on your turf. Yet in 2014 all three political parties have fought on UKIPs turf and unsurprisingly they've lost.

All three parties have strong reasons to want the UKIP surge to recede. Both the Conservatives and Labour may lose seats to UKIP and the Tories may lose seats to Labour because of UKIP. For us, UKIP stands for everything that we are diametrically opposed to. The more they shift the debate away from our views the less we can push forward with our agenda.

So what can be done: Firstly it's time to draw to a close to the European and immigration debate. That means shut up about it. There is part of me that winces when Tory bankbenchers move motions for an early referendum.

Both coalition parties have good reasons to want to talk about the economy. Start talking about it - in great detail. Have debates about tax, services, deficit reduction etc. Because on all these points UKIP score badly when people know their policies. Simon Hughes comically destroyed UKIP's tax policy on Question Time a few years ago. Fundamentally I'm pretty sure UKIPs' confused Libertarian policies are not going to go down that well with the electorate.

Likewise Labour should be making points about UKIP reducing benefits and privatising the NHS. I'm not sure the UKIP voters in Rotherham would be that enamoured with these policies.

At the moment UKIP will start to die off sometime after the next General Election. Literally, most of their voters are old. But to stop a new generation of UKIP voters coming along we need to do something we haven't done in this country in a very long time.....

Build houses.

UKIP blame immigration for house prices (and rent increases), longer life expectancy is the real reason, but we can't be blaming the OAPs for the fact that most of my generation will struggle to get on the property ladder and therefore we will continue to get ripped off for rent.

This is why I'd advocate a national house building programme. Government directed to build millions of homes and fast. Green Belt, Tax incentives and planning regs would have to be looked at properly but I think the Government need to take charge. The housing market in the UK is classic example of market failure and it needs to be sorted.

A few post election thoughts

Wow - it's nearly two years since I blogged - lots of catching up to do!

We had a good election ,,,,

Local Election that is, and only in Yorkshire. I'm really pleased that we held our leader in Leeds and a myriad of other Councillors. It's the first time since 2010 since I've left a count not feeling distraught.

We had a very bad election.....

The European Election results were not just bad, they were appalling. They were far far worse than I expected. We have finally answered the perennial question - should we as a pro European party fight a European election on Europe? Er no.

Mark Park explained the mistake in an interview with the BBC. He basically said that as a radical reforming party we seemed to be defending the status quo. I'm Pro European, but I'm also not blind to the EU's numerous faults. I want to see greater democratisation of the EU, I want it be more cost effective and less bureaucratic (It's sad that Edward McMillan-Scott will no longer be able to fight to ditch Strasbourg) I'd like proper reform of the common agricultural policy and much more. The problem is that by saying we were the party of IN we were often left defending things we didn't believe were right. The EU needs reform and people (even supporters of the EU) know this.

This is why the majority of the population, while supporting our membership, are at best lukewarm about the EU. We made the mistake of thinking the EU was popular amongst those "Inners." it's not, most think our membership is the least bad option. So our Pro- European message was not going to appeal to the Inners at all.

Cack handedness abounds...

The day after the results I got an email from Annette Brooke. I'm sure the email was not from Annette Brooke, I'm sure she wouldn't have being so dumb to send something so flagrantly offensive as the tripe the party decided to unleash on it's members.

Fundamentally it said that the Local Election results were good where we worked hard. For those who lost this implied their defeat was down to their own deficiencies and had nothing to do with the national mood.

While undoubtedly we had some shit Councillors and candidates who frankly got what they deserved. The vast majority I know who lost, worked bloody hard and it is a tragedy they lost. That email can only have pissed of these people and their teams. Losing is an extremely emotional experience, for some it was a kick they really didn't need.

The parties top brass need to stop rolling out the "where we work we win/were doing well where we have MPs" line as
A) It's not true - ask Manchester, who properly worked hard and still got wiped out.
B) It pisses activists off
C) Who do we think is going to pile in in 2015 to our held seats? it's going to be the teams that Councillors in wards outside the parliamentary seats. If we abandon all hope in these areas we are damaging the activist base that may save MPs
D) It ignores reality, places are bucking the trend... but we do need to do something about the trend.

However I also received an email from Libdems4change asking if I would  sign their letter trying to get Nick Clegg out. Carl Minns articulates why many of us were more than little perturbed about this http://carlminns.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/a-question-to-fellow-lib-dems-what-were.html
It reminded me a bit of the great Shed 7 song  - Where have you been tonight? You should have been electing Lib Dems not fannying about with a letter.

Anyway they should have waited more people would have been pissed off on Sunday night than Friday morning!

I won't be signing the letter.

But....

We need to talk about Kevin Nick

At the European Election when I saw the figures from Calderdale,  a place that frankly is the most naturally Lib Dem place in the region (we got 4.6% of the vote) I thought that's it NICK HAS TO GO.

A day of mulling it over has left me feeling conflicted.

On the one hand I feel that Nick is toxic and that people simply have stopped listening to him.
But the argument that Cleggigista are putting forward that we risk going through all the pain to throw it away just as we are about to reap the rewards of the economic recovery is powerful.

The best blog on Lib Dem voice I have read in the last few days is this one by Iain Roberts http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-we-need-to-stop-helping-the-other-parties-and-change-our-message-40339.html

It expounds something I've felt for a long time. We need to sharpen up and stop being so nice. Sod collective responsibility - we need to say some of the Government's policies such as bedroom tax are shit and we are putting up with them so we can get x,y or z.

A few years ago I listened to Chris Davies MEP rattle off a whole raft of things we had stopped that I'd never heard of. We must get these messages out there.

Ryan Coetzee is putting lots of time into branding. I fully agree with the Stronger Economy, Fairer Society stuff. But we have to back this up in Government.

A fairer society does not impose the prisoner book ban or marriage tax breaks. I know we can't stop everything but lets stop more things.

The end

Mad Tory backbenchers will want to push through a more right wing agenda to counter the UKIP threat. Simply we mustn't stand for it. Even if this means leaving the coalition early. It may even do us some good to quit over a point of principle.