Lancaster University Liberal Democrats Annual General Meeting Speech 2014

This is the speech I gave to the Annual General Meeting of the Lancaster University Liberal Democrats on Wednesday 5^th November 2014.

Check the speech against delivery.

Lancaster University Liberal Democrats

It’s great to be here at the Annual General Meeting at Lancaster University Liberal Democrats. In six months time will we will be having a general election. It's safe to say that this one will be quite different from the one in 2010. In 2010 every other window on campus had an orange diamond poster in it.

However despite recent setbacks, LU Lib Dems must be a campaigning society and must be unafraid to put the case for liberalism and the Liberal Democrats to the students at Lancaster University over the next few months.

Lancaster Local Elections

On the same day as the general election we have the local elections taking place in Lancaster. It is very important that students from the Society have the opportunity to stand in the local elections especially here on the University ward and in the Ellel ward that encompasses South West campus.

Locally we should aim to get as many Lib Dems elected and potentially once again hold the balance of power on Lancaster City Council. To do this, it is very important that we rediscover community politics and we should start right here on the university campus.

General Election 2015

The next general election will be the toughest since the merger of the Liberal Party and the SDP in 1988. Things will be very tough in Labour leaning areas however don't be surprised if we make gains against the Conservatives.

Locally for example we should aim to regain the Lower Lune Valley Ward from the Conservatives. Nationally too we stand a very good chance of taking marginal seats off the Conservatives; seats such as Bosworth in the East Midlands, Watford in Eastern England and Camborne and Redruth in the South West.

A Free and Just Society

We Liberal Democrats must not forget our historic objective of creating a free and a just society.

The Labour Party cannot be trusted with our liberty. New Labour sought to erode our civil liberties with ID cards and 90 days detention without charge. Furthermore let's never forget their illegal invasion of Iraq.

The Conservative party cannot be trusted to achieve social justice. Our party has been absolutely right to oppose housing benefit cuts for young people, the Tory fire at will proposals and our party conference has voted against free schools and the NHS reforms.

We should also congratulate Andrew George for introducing a bill to protect the most vulnerable from the worst aspects of the bedroom tax.

In government, we've protecting civil liberties by scrapping ID cards, limiting detention without charge and by removing innocent people from the DNA database. Furthermore, we were absolutely right to oppose Theresa May’s Snoopers Charter.

We have also helped to create a fairer society. We have lifted low paid workers out of paying income tax. We have helped the most disadvantaged children in the country through the pupil premium. And Steve Webb has ensured the fairest and most generous pensions system in a hundred years.

Also we must not forget that we have done much to create a more equal society. It was Liberals who abolished slavery and who gave women the right to vote; and we must also be proud that we have introduced equal marriage giving gay and lesbian couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. Thanks to Lynne Featherstone.

We are also going to tackle inequalities in health care. One of our priorities at the next general election will be to ensure that mental health issues receive equal care and have equal waiting times with physical health issues. This will save many lives and help many more.

The Green People’s Budget

In 1909, David Lloyd George gave his People's Budget, which laid the foundations for the welfare state. In the 21st century, it is time for a new People's Budget. A Green People's Budget is needed to tackle three of the big issues facing modern Britain; climate change, unemployment and housing shortages.

This Green People's Budget would directly stimulate the building of new houses and green infrastructure such as wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal and tidal energy sources. Britain desperately needs new homes and to ensure a safe future, we need to be doing a lot more to tackle climate change. The Green People's budget would aim to achieve both, and in the process will grow the economy and will create thousands of new jobs in the housing, environmental, and science and technology industries.

Now I know what you're thinking how is this going to be paid for?

Firstly, I'm not sure why we spend billions of pounds every year on an outdated Trident nuclear defence system, which heaven forbid we will never use. At the very least we should cut back the number of nuclear weapons and downgrade to a cheaper weapons system; or potentially consider scrapping our nuclear weapons entirely.

Secondly, the original People's Budget placed great emphasis on land value taxation and I think it's about time that land taxes were introduced on wealthy estates and on wealthy land owners.

Tim Farron often talks about creating a new consensus. I hope that the Green People's budget will be a central pillar of the new consensus that we Liberal Democrats want to create.

Freedom from Authoritarianism, Freedom from Poverty, Freedom from Climate Change

In the next few months, in places like this campus our party will begin the road to recovery.

We must always be a party that will stand up for the social justice of the most disadvantaged members of society; and be a party that will stand up for the civil liberties of everyone in society.

We must have no time for the politics of nationalism wherever it comes from UKIP or the SNP. We must always remain proud to be a pro-European and a pro-immigration party.

British politics needs radical reform; we need to reform our voting system, start electing the House of Lords and ensure federalism for the whole of the UK, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Cornwall and the English regions too.

Above all, we must reject the authoritarianism of the Labour Party, the Thatcherism of the Conservative party and the xenophobia of parties like UKIP. Britain faces many challenges in 2014 and only the Liberal Democrats have the answers to them.

Liberals are the champions of freedom; freedom from state authority, freedom from poverty and freedom from climate change. Young people must be the vanguard of this Liberal Movement.

Now, let’s get out there and build the freer and fairer society that we all want to see; and let’s ensure that no one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

The Coalitions Governing Lancaster

It's been a while since I did my last blog, due to me finishing my second-year exams at Lancaster University. Before I move on to discuss what’s been happening in Lancaster locally, I would like to thank Ryan Cullen for highlighting this blog in his list of new Liberal Democrat bloggers on Liberal Democrat Voice. Thanks Ryan. (http://www.libdemvoice.org/welcome-to-the-new-bloggers-31-24465.html).

          Over the past weeks the new executive of Lancaster City Council has been sworn into office. Lancaster has a long history of strange and relatively rare executives being formed between numerous political parties compared to many other local councils. This is because there are five main political parties that stand locally in the Lancaster area. Obviously there are the three main parties, the Liberal Democrats, the Labour Party and the Conservative party. There is also a very strong Green party in Lancaster, which is arguably the strongest Green presence in the North of England. Furthermore there is a local based Morecambe party called the Morecambe Bay Independents (MBIs). And it is also worth noting that Lancaster City Council has a large number of independents and a group of Free Independents who are independent of the independents and who are also independent of the Morecambe Bay Independents. So there are a lot of independents in Lancaster; if you're still following me. So due to there being so many different political groups on the council, there exists the possibility for many different political outcomes.

          The 2007 local council election had resulted in Labour having 15 seats, the Conservatives and the Greens both having 12 states, the MBIs having 11 states and the Liberal Democrats and the Independents both having 5 seats. Hence the 2007 election created a massive hung council with it being impossible for even two parties to form the council executive. Initially, a three-way coalition between Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats was formed. This was followed by a new executive led by Liberal Democrat councillor, Stuart Langhorn, which was formed by the use of a proportional representation cabinet. This meant that the Liberal Democrats, Labour, the Conservatives, the Greens, the MBIs and the Independents were offered seats on the council cabinet. This all party executive (which was subsequently boycotted by the Conservatives) reflected the fact that no party had the ability to govern by itself.

          This changed however following the 2011 local council elections, which ended in Labour having 24 seats, the Conservatives having 16 seats, both the Greens and the MBIs each received 8 States and the Independents received 4 seats. Unfortunately we lost all five of our seats meaning an end for now anyway to any Liberal Democrat representation on our local council. This was surely not a reflection on the efforts of local Liberal Democrats and what we have achieved locally but more a reflection on national issues regarding the Coalition in Westminster. Following the results of the local election a new administration in the council was formed in a coalition between the Labour Party and the Green Party. There are currently six Labour seats on the cabinet compared to only two seats for the Green Party. It'll be interesting from a political perspective to see how a Red-Green alliance delivers for the people of Lancaster and Morecambe. Stereotypically, this new executive may become an alliance between authoritarians and hippies, although it's sometimes difficult to say which party those labels best apply to. Going from the fact that I know a few Labour councillors personally and a few former Greens candidates personally, the calibre of those on the council is potentially a very high one. It'll be interesting to see over the weeks and months to come how a national Coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will impact on a local Coalition between Labour and the Greens. One thing is for sure; that considering the transition from a PR cabinet to contrasting coalitions between national government and local government, local politics in Lancaster is surely to remain one of the most interesting in the country.

I’m Still Proud To Wear My Yellow Rosette

It is hardly an understatement to say that the last few days have been very hard for any supporter of the Liberal Democrats, due to the very bad election results we received on Thursday. Some political commentators were even commenting that it was the worst election result since the merger of the Liberal Party and the SDP in 1988. Indeed, with the defeat of over 700 councillors in England and obliteration across the map of Scotland, it was hardly a great night in the annals of Lib Dem history. However the Welsh party was able to buck the trend finishing the last session of the Welsh assembly with five seats and maintaining five seats by the end of the Welsh election.

Considering the bad results on Thursday, some may be wondering whether or it is time to hang up our yellow rosettes (a fact further hammered home by the incredible no vote in the Alternative Vote Referendum). In Lancaster, where I was running as a Liberal Democrat candidate for the Ellel Ward, the results for our party mirrored the national picture. Of the five seats we held prior to the city council election we lost all of them on results day.  That even included the Liberal Democrat council leader Stuart Langhorn, who narrowly lost his Lower Lune Valley seat to the Conservatives by just over 100 votes. Earlier in the day when I had done some tallying it looked possible that we may retain Lower Lune Valley. However the final result was not as close as I had hoped. In the council Ward where I was standing, Ellel, I never had any illusion about what the result would be considering that this particular council seat had a relatively strong Conservative presence. In the end I received 174 votes narrowly surpassing my Liberal Democrat running mate by 10 votes.

However after us Lib Dems received a mauling locally, I am still quite proud to wear my yellow rosette and certainly have no intention to change the colour of it this side of infinity. Oddly in the wake of my Party’s disastrous results, I am relatively confident that we can regain much lost ground in four years time. This is due to one reason in particular; for decades Liberal Democrats have seen local community politics as a speciality of ours. The next four years will give us an opportunity to excel locally and build strong local liberal foundations. It is time to prove over the next four years that indeed we are the masters of local politics and that we can recoup many of the losses dealt in the local elections this year. I personally would love to run as a candidate again in 2015 (with hopefully a much better result than I received this year). The whole experience of campaigning and going to the count was quite exciting and exhilarating if only our efforts as local Lib Dems had borne fruit. Hopefully there shall be much fruit to harvest in 2015. Perhaps I should leave the last word of local Liberal Democrat optimism to the now former leader of Lancaster council, Stuart Langhorn who was reported in the Lancaster Guardian as saying, "we have to listen to people, we have a great country with a strong liberal tradition and a great party." (http://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/lancaster-and-district-news/lib_dems_wiped_out_in_poll_1_3358632).

Painting The Red Rose County Yellow

This is my first ever blog, so I assume it would only be polite to apologise in advance for any spelling mistakes or inaccuracies in grammar. I hope that you enjoy reading my blog and that you take many insightful things from it. I suppose I should start by introducing myself. My name is Paul Hindley, I’m 20 years old and I’m a student at Lancaster University who is studying politics. In my blog I intend to express my opinions and comments on contemporary current affairs issues locally, nationally and globally.

As no doubt you will have realised by now I intend to blog about social liberalism especially from the perspective of the British Liberal Democrats. I suppose my liberal use of the colour yellow (forgive the pun) in the title header and the words centre-left Liberalism would have been quite a giveaway. I first became interested in politics at the age of 12 in 2003, this was during the most controversial period of Tony Blair's New Labour government, when this country was taken to war illegally against Iraq in a neoconservative mission topple Saddam Hussein by means that were unlawful according to the international community. My outrage at the war in Iraq was swiftly followed by my outrage towards the Labour Party's authoritarian stance toward civil liberties embodied by nothing more symbolic than the identity card. I subsequently gained a deep scepticism for the authoritarianism embodied by New Labour and the Thatcherite economics espoused by the Conservatives.

 All things considered, it is little wonder that ended up supporting the party that I did and in 2008 merely one month after my 18th birthday and in the middle of an A-level politics course I finally joined that party. Much has happened since I joined the party, I have been to 2 party conferences, I have become the Treasurer in my University’s Liberal Democrat society, I have stood for a council seat for Lancaster City Council and most of all I have watched my party transcend from opposition to Coalition government. Even after everything that has happened to the Liberal Democrats over the past years some good, some bad I am still a very proud supporter of my party and its centre-left roofs. It is essential, especially in these times of coalition that centre-left social liberals such as myself can convey thoughts and opinions about politics in general from a liberal left perspective. This is my main reason for wanting to start this blog.

I am Lancashire born and bred, I have lived here all my life from my hometown of Blackpool to my current studying in Lancaster at Lancaster University. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading the thoughts and opinions of at least this centre-left Liberal Democrat over the blog entries to come and together perhaps we can do our bit to paint the ‘red rose county’ yellow.