Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Nick Clegg.........my hero!

Well. For those of us who campaigned hard against Trident, today's news is just the best! The frustration so many of us had about the debate, the resultant motion and the fudge we ended up with, has now been replaced with pride and relief. Throughout his leadership bit Nick often made reference to our need as a party to be "risky and radical" something that on FPC I take every opportunity to remind him, here is a demonstration, if one were needed, of his preparedness to do that.

However, I do trust we will have a motion to conference, however happy I am with Nick's decision, the fact remains that our official party policy is made by conference and I can hardly bleat about other policy being made on the hoof and not expect that Nick ensures he has the backing of the party. It is one of our USPs that our membership still has the final say on party policy - long may it remain!

5 comments:

Susan Gaszczak said...

I too am over the moon, but I am concerned of the lack of regard shown to FPC and Conference when this 'off the hoof' policy decision is made!

Edis said...

It shows great strength for Nick to say on TV news (when asked about his position during the last LD leadership election) 'I changed my mind'.

A thinking leader is a good thing.

But as Lindy says it is Conference that sets out the boundaries of party policy. Despite the demands of the press for a leadership dictatorship in each party. We need a motion at next Federal Conference for sure.

Apart from anything else our defence spokespeople need a chance to evaluate their briefs in the light of these developments, taking Conference findings into account.

If those of us who agree with this shift give the leadership a pass on this can we complain if Nick makes a 'hard choice' in another area which causes more internal costernation and makes that 'choice' LD policy by default.

Paula Keaveney said...

really pleased that Nick said what he did. It would be great now if we could have a conference vote to re inforce this. I would like the decision to be on principle rather than based purely on money (although money matters obviously!)

Nich Starling said...

It could also be one of our weaknesses that the whole policy debate can be hijacked by those who are in jobs that allow them to attend a summer conference whilst those of us who can't attend in September are saddled with policy that we may not support and cannot do anything about.

I am not saying it is wrong, but just playing devils advocate, this point could be argued.

Linda Jack said...

Nich,

You are right of course. I think we need to think more carefully about access to conference - in this day and age if we can't hold them out of school terms then at least we ought to be able to allow members to have a virtual vote.