When even Evan Harris and Tony Greaves desert you.........

Well, all over bar the shouting - actually, no shouting whatsoever. Today's special conference, while spawning arguably one of the best conference speeches ever, delivered by Simon Hughes, proved to be more of a triumphalist rally rather than a serious examination of the potential pitfalls of sleeping with the enemy.

The nine amendments to the motion, all of which I supported, I hope will go some way towards dealing with some of the concerns of the activists. However, the very genuine concerns about our MPs abstaining on the issue of top up fees, were not dealt with satisfactorily either by Chris Huhne or Nick Clegg.

But, in all conscience, I was one of the 12-35 (numbers are disputed) who voted against the motion. OK, so my political heroes, Evan Harris and Simon Hughes lead the progressive charge to support it. Even Tony Greaves was persuaded. Maybe this is the point I should concede defeat? Seriously, I wish I could. I was one of the standard bearers for Nick in the leadership election. I had a look back at my "10 Reasons to Vote Nick Clegg" my last reason was that "I would trust him with my life so I know I can trust him with my party". Well, I would still trust him with my life, I now need him to prove I can trust him with my party. This is a high risk strategy, which could make our party irrelevant for a generation. And I am a Liberal Democrat because I honestly believe liberal democracy offers the best hope for us to renew our society, to make it fairer, freer, more equal and more just. Without us there is a vacuum.

So, called as the first speaker after the amendments were moved (I understand there was a bet on FCC about when I would be called!) it seemed the idea may have been to get the awkward squad out of the way. Despite my fear that this new marriage made in heaven may be the Hammer Horror version of Pride and Prejudice - the adorable Mr Darcey turning into Count Dracula, my fellow delegates were far too smitten to give a damn.

But I was gratified that one of my fellow delegates came up to me afterwards to say that my speech (also calling for those of us who I regard as the backbone of our party to stay) had persuaded him that he should not resign, but like me, stay and fight.

When Labour became New Labour I felt so much for my Trade Union pals who felt they had to leave with no home to go to. This week I have really come to understand how they felt. Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning felt like a bereavement. I watched the nuptials on Wednesday morning as if in a daze, surreal. This is the moment I should have been shouting from the rooftops, overcome with excitement, OUR Nick in No 10! But it passed me by, I was too devastated.

Yes I understand all the arguments (more than well rehearsed in 4 hours this afternoon), but however much I understand them, I can't at the moment change how I feel. I am angry with the Labour dinosaurs who blocked a truly progressive alliance, I understand we were backed into a corner, that this is more about damage limitation than a true meeting of minds and ideologies........but I can't change how I feel.

I am genuinely relieved that our involvement in government is already mitigating against the worst excesses of the Tories. I understand why Labour may uncomfortable......A Tory majority government would have been likely to be so unpopular they would have romped home next time, a Lib Dem coalition makes that less likely. It also, I hope, means less people will suffer and even die, because of a right wing Tory government.

Who knows what the coming months will bring. Vince Cable lifted the lift on Pandora's box, telling us that things were far worse than Labour had let on and that it was going to be "bloody awful", but that we could make it less so. That is the best I can hope for.

Oh, by the way, for those of you who were there - I have a pair of pink fluffy handcuffs, one careful owner, never used - free to the person who can demonstrate they will have some use for them :-) or maybe I should auction them on Lib Dem Act????

Be Careful What You Wish For

Emerging from an interesting contest with the Tory Party's "pinup" (?) Nadine Dorries I am only just getting my thoughts together on what happened. In Mid Beds even Nadine was worried we would halve her majority (I heard this from two independent sources) and we really thought it was possible. I was even invited to meetings with ex Tory activists who were so disgusted with her they wanted to help me. Everyone was impressed with Nick's performance, everyone seemed up for something different, the polls, even at the last minute seemed to be in our favour. I fully expected to see Bridget Fox, Ed Fordham, Sal Brinton et al, easily elected on Friday morning. I certainly did not expect the shock of Evan Harris, Susan Kramer, Lembit Opik, losing their seats.

So, at some point there will be a post mortem, but not yet. Locally we did at least increase our share of the vote and open up the gap between us and Labour. Right now we have what we wished for, a hung parliament. Interestingly Cameron's dire warnings didn't work, we have what the public wished for, a hung parliament. But now, having had a very idealistic perspective until the early hours of Friday morning, I find myself feeling rather queasy. As others have commented, if we believe in PR we have to believe in coalition governments - so we have to be prepared to work with others.

In principle there are issues I think we could work with the Tories on, in practice I wonder how possible that would be. Cameron has exhibited his characteristic arrogance on the issue of a referendum on PR. He has a place for us all in government, so long as we do as we are told! He will listen to us, so long as we are saying what he wants to hear, as soon as we say we want to make the electoral system fairer - he puts his fingers in his ears and turns his back. He is the Daddy (sorry Richard and Alex!) and we will do as we are told - however much we whine, don't we know that STV cookie is not good for us and we can't have it! Cameron also displayed his approach to partnership working by pulling the eminently reasonable Andrew Lansley out of the cross party talks Norman Lamb instigated on tackling the huge problem of how we pay for care for the elderly. And there is the little matter of the commitment to clean up politics, interestingly he was quick to call for the whip to be taken away from Labour MPs accused of false accounting, but not a murmur about Nadine Dorries?

So do I think we can really do any kind of deal with the Tories? I absolutely accept that Nick has had to talk to them as they do have the biggest share of the vote, but lets not forget, more people voted against them than for them. I accept that there has to be compromise on both sides, but if we are genuinely putting the country first can we really sign up to an approach to tackling the deficit that flies in the face of our policy, that we believe will threaten the future security of the country, not secure it. And the problem, even if we get support on everything except electoral reform (which 62% of us want), we run the risk of being part of what can only be a decidedly insecure government.

So what of the alternative, the "Rainbow" alliance? Clearly with Brown in the loop this is likely to be strangled at birth, and even if he wasn't there it would still be a risky strategy, to be seen to be propping up a Labour government. And would Labour be prepared to curtail and row back their attack on civil liberties? Could we ever sign up to their unenlightened approach to tackling crime and dealing fairly with asylum seekers? What would it look like if we ignored the verdict of the country on this moribund and clapped out government?

Yes, indeed, be careful what you wish for!

So what would I do? You shouldn't have to ask :-)

Shadow Cabinet, FPC and Virgin Trains!

Ooops! Blank post courtesy of Virgin Trains - back in Bromsgrove now so let's hope this works.................

I’m just on my way back from FPC, on the train to Bromsgrove hoping that the train isn’t as late as it was last night, causing me to miss my connection with an hour wait for the next one! Anyway last night I was at Shadow Cabinet where, with Lynne Featherstone being the only woman, I was overwhelmed by the distinct white maleness of the brood. OK, a few women were missing, but it doesn’t take many to result in none.............Let’s hope this Speaker’s Conference really does do something to redress the balance...........but that really wasn’t my point – will return to this favourite theme in the future.

Now I may be accused of many things, but leaking isn’t one of them, so I will resist the temptation to dob Vince in about something quite amusing, or someone else about something not quite so amusing.

Last night and this evening Lynne and I were presenting the Youth Policy Paper – with many radical and fresh ideas, some of which will hopefully become policy, others which will fall victim to the fall out from “savage cuts”.

I turned up yesterday having just read an article in Children and Young People Now about the truly savage cuts that as ever, many youth services across the country are being faced with. In Nottingham it amounts to around £700,000, in Birmingham £1 million and in Oxfordshire they are consulting about a staggering £2.7 million in cuts. This is what truly does my head in. All the parties nationally make commitments about preserving frontline services – BUT – when it comes to the crunch it is the non statutory services that suffer, in particular youth service. I have lived with this for most of my youth service career – year after year of cuts –when we got rid of the Tory government I naively thought things might change. Did they? Did they heck! I used to manage a youth service where once I had paid all the fixed costs (salaries, buildings etc) I had £2,000 a year to spend on work with young people - £2,000 – that equated to about 10p per young person per year!!!

The Youth Policy Working Group has been united in the need to invest more in services for young people. So we have been arguing long and hard for additional youth workers – 10,000 to be precise. There is a reason for this.........a few years ago we had two expert witnesses to our Crime Policy Working Group who both said – what we need is not 10,000 more police on our streets but 10,000 youth workers. One of the arguments our party has for investing in police rather than youth workers is that this is what the people want. They want the police to cut crime. The fact is that young people are not only disproportionately the perpetrators of crime, they are also disproportionately the victims of crime. When I was in Bedford the crime people were most worried about was abduction.....this despite the fact that no one had been abducted for 20 years. There is a notion that more “bobbies on the beat” will help cut crime. But the truth is that a police officer actually comes across a crime once every 8 years!

Anyway, excepting a few notable parliamentary supporters, Lynne, Simon Hughes and Evan Harris – we have failed to convince the parliamentary party, or FPC of our case.

My frustration, whilst I appreciate the need to have some popularist policies, is that they must be evidence based. Also, while it may be true that people are worried about crime, if you look at the results of most citizens’ panels you will see that facilities for young people is also a hugely important issue, often topping the poll!

A few years ago my local authority commissioned a report into youth crime. An academic study was carried out by the local university. The study convincingly demonstrated that in one particular area (an area I managed) of high youth crime, the crime rates went down markedly on the evenings our youth club was open. The report was never formally published because it didn’t say what the politicians wanted it to say – I wonder how many other unread, unpublished reports would say the same thing? Actually, its not rocket science is it? “The Devil makes work for idle hands” hmmmm yes – innit?! If we actually listened to young people for a change we would hear this, again and again, but unfortunately it seems we have lost the ability to think long term or strategically, to recognise that we must invest to save. The real tragedy of this recession is that something that should have been seen as an opportunity will doubtless be squandered – and that squandering will result in yet another generation of young people who have been totally let down by our society. A society that bleats about “feral youth” but then is prepared to allow the environment to exist that reinforces their so called “feral” ways. A society that has not made the connection between effort and reward – that wants everything on a plate and doesn’t see why it should pay for it – a malaise that is being passed on to our children.

OK, I am in rant mode, but I want our party to tell the truth. Tell the truth about what the consequences are if we don’t invest in services now. Tell the truth about how the obscene inequality that exists now has resulted in our children being the unhappiest of all OECD countries, us having the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Western Europe, close to 1 million young people unemployed, us locking up more children than almost anyone else and the equally obscene human and financial cost of this.

Despite my rant, and my passionate belief that we really should be investing in our young people’s futures – I do think we have come up with a great policy paper. It will be launched soon and hopefully will get through conference without too much flak (especially since it ain’t gonna cost much!) It is head and shoulders above anything the other parties have come up with and is rooted in our core belief that "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity"