Anders Hanson

After the week that the Liberal Democrats have just had it probably wasn’t the best time to have a conference. But actually the mood at conference was very good.

It seeed to be that regardless of what side of the argument people were on, they just seem determined to put a difficult week behind them and look forward to the local elections in May. One MP I spoke to last night, who was one of the rebels in the Lisbon Treaty referendum vote, also seemed pretty chipper and as they knew that the issue was an incredibly difficult one to handle they had no gripe about Nick himself. It was also definitely noticeable how many people I know that have elections in May were fairly confident in them doing well at the ballot box.

The most notable thing for me is the number of people who have come up to me all weekend and said, “Life must have changed a lot for you now that Nick Clegg is leader”. To which the answer is always “Not at all. Nick is still the MP for Sheffield Hallam and although he has extra responsibilities as leader, life in the constituency carries on as normal and we carry on campaigning as normal.” It’s interesting how even people who are long-standing activists seem to imagine that Nick’s campaigning in the constituency is somehow different now.

So to Nick’s big moment - his first conference speech as leader. It went very well and he really made it very clear the style that he wants to adopt as leader and the sorts of things that the Liberal Democrats should be championing. I was also pleased with two bits that I was surprised he mentioned - ruling out going in to government with both Labour and the Conservatives, and also using any savings in government to cut the taxes of the least well off. The speech was clear, interesting, gives a lot of promise of great things to come, and he even managed to do well one of the things that he has not always been good at - ad libbing. I knew he had done well, but it was the reaction from other people that made feel particularly chuffed as they were all along the lines of “the boy’s done good” and “that was a speech from a real leader”. I felt good coming out of the conference hall, but I was even more pleased with it after the feedback.

Ever since Nick Clegg has been leader I have also had butterflies every time I know that he has a big moment where he really has to perfom well. I got it at Prime Minister’s Questions. I got it today. But hopefully like has happened with PMQs his excellent performances will stop me getting so nervous.

Until this weekend I’d never been to Liverpool before. Actually, that isn’t strictly true. I did come here as a small child with my parents to go to the International Garden Festival. But that was a long time ago and we didn’t see anything of the city itself.

But having now been to Liverpool this weekend I am pretty impressed by the place. In some cities, the people who live there know they are on the up and are confident in their success, and develop a kind of arrogant swagger about their home town. Liverpool isn’t like that. They know it doesn’t have a great reputation but they are also determined to change people’s minds. What Liverpool has is the feel of being an important commercial city, a bit like Leeds and Manchester, but it is also a bit more down to earth and rough around the edges than them, and so in that sense is a bit like Sheffield. I suppose it’s those two things combined that makes me like the place.

I spent Friday afternoon and today doing some sightseeing around the city. Although I went to the fairly obvious choice of Tate Liverpool, I also went to Williamson’s Tunnels which I had heard about and was intrigued to see. They were both interesting in very different ways and I am glad I went. But I also spent a lot of time just looking around the place to get a feel for what it is like. The thing that struck me more than anything was the impresive architecture, but also how much redevelopment is going on.

I knew that Liverpool was being turned around, but you don’t appreciate the scale of it until you go there. At the Liberal Democrat Conference, Councillors Warren Bradley and Mike Storey have made a big thing about how the Liberal Democrats have turned the city around and if it wasn’t for them then the city would not be undergoing the huge renaissance that it is. Well I believe them. The city is certainly improving a lot, and from the press I have read (so not just Lib Dem spin) a lot of it is down to the Lib Dems taking control of the city. I know they have had a lot of problems too, particularly in relation to being the European Capital of Culture, but I can honestly say they seem to be doing an excellent job. With so much building still in progress it does detract a bit from the image at the moment, but I am sure when it is all done it will be great. And loads of people I have spoken to this weekend have said the same.

The Lib Dems in Liverpool have done an excellent job of selling their city to the conference delegates. They said to people at conference that they wanted people to go away after this weekend impressed, and then to come back. Well Liverpool has impressed me and I will definitely be back, and I hope Lib Dem Conference will be too.

NOTE AT 21:24
Seems like I was far less original than I thought when I came up with the title for this posting.  If lots of people said it then maybe they all heard it from me.  Not much of a brag though as it isn’t exactly roll on the floor laughing material.

If there is one thing that struck me more than anything at this week’s conference, it is that most people are now genuinely at ease with Ming Campbell’s leadership of the party.  It is however also true that people are discussing who comes next.

What I sensed in the last week is that people are starting to understand where Ming Campbell is coming from, and appreciate that even if it is not what they would have chosen.  This is tending to be along the following lines.  Firstly, with David Cameron’s personal popularity waning, people are recognising the advantage of having a leader with experience and gravitas who is genuinely respected by the public.  Secondly, despite the hiccups in the week before, he gave a good performance in everything that he did at conference and his leader’s speech was him in top form and giving the same excellent speeches that he gave in the leadership hustings.  Thirdly, people are also seeing that he is starting to whip the party in to better shape in terms of how it operates, pushing forward the party’s talent and the campaigns the party has
run over the last year have been more dynamic and proactive.   Not all of these things can be attributed to Ming alone, but they are a part of his way of operating as a leader.

But despite this, people are openly discussing the future.  Any why not?  There should be no contradiction in being content with the current next leader, but also looking for which person will come next.  Ming himself has said that he will lead the party at the next election, and in to the next parliament, but he has not said that he will go on and on and on.  The Independent debate at conference with Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne was inevitably seen by many as a debate being between the most likely candidates for the leadership next time.  Apart from the fact that this assumes they will the only two contenders, which I think is unlikely, this does a disservice to two brilliant politicians who both gave important contributions to the subject of how the Lib Dems move closer to power.  Indeed it should also be quite possible for someone to say that they might one day want to stand to be leader, without it being seen either as premature or underhand.  It is sad that any MP who breaks from the line of saying “there isn’t a vacancy and I fully support Ming” is then pilloried, despite being one of the MPs that is closest to and most supportive of the current leader.

This all sounds like me painting a very rosy picture of a very loyal party and denying that there is any dissent simply because of my links to both Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne.  But this is genuinely what I detect is happening, and that view was reinforced at this week’s conference.  Most in the party have no appetite for a leadership contest before the general election, for both the positive reason that they are supportive of Ming and the negative one that it will make the party look silly.  There are of course some people who are trying to undermine Ming’s leadership, but this a fairly small group which includes some MPs but is not, from what I can tell, directly linked to any of the leadership contenders.  But why this doesn’t worry me is because I have now been in the party long enough to remember the unrelenting criticism from some who wanted Paddy Ashdown to go from the moment he started informal links with Tony Blair, and the more immediate undermining of Charles Kennedy which started well before he was finally ousted.  I suspect those who have been party members for far longer than my eleven years will remember the same happening to earlier leaders too.

The people who are undermining Ming the most is the media, and that appears to be for one reason alone.  Despite many journalists having respect for Ming as a person, they have decided on the accepted line and none will deviate from it.  The only way the Liberal Democrats can counteract it, as journalists will find dissent even where there is none, is to keep up the campaigning in their own constituency.  Opinion polls will always show a worse situation for Lib Dems than there is in reality, as the national swing assumes the electoral contest is simply between Labour and the Tories.  In so many seats, that is simply not the case anymore, and the by-elections in Sedgefield and Ealing Southall should confirm that. We need to debate the future, but we need to temper this by not losing heart and keeping up the fight in our own areas.  That’s how we’ll win, and as a result hand on an excellent legacy to whoever is the next leader.

Liberal Democrat selections don’t normally generate a buzz of excitement, but yesterday afternoon’s hustings for the London mayoral candidate showed that they can and with good cause. Despite struggling to get a selection going earlier in the year, the party can now be really proud of the people that are being put forward.

Chamali Fernando was first up and completely wowed everyone in the room. She was confident, passionate, articulate and managed that difficult feat of appearing to be intelligent and serious whilst also being fun and down to earth. She was less confident in answering questions from the audience, but that should not detract from a very able performance. If she is selected she would really bring something very different to the mayoral confident and she would stand out from the other candidates.

Brian Paddick started off by setting people’s minds at rest - he is not a johnny come lately as he was a Lib Dem member ten years ago but let it lapse when he became a senior police officer. His speech was articulate, funny and assured, and he thankfully did not talk in that strange stilted formal manner that police officers often adopt on television. He proved that he was a person who could not only be a brilliant candidate but also a very able mayor, and he was very good at answering the questions. He was also good at emphasising his human side by references to his upbringing in London.

Fiyaz Mughal was the serious candidate. I know that because he told us several times in his speech. I think in other circumstances he would have come across as a very competent candidate, but up against the other two he was quite bland and everything he said was long-winded with him frequently running over time, and he gave far too much dry detail about everything which I think is inappropriate for that sort of event and won’t work on TV or the press if he is selected. In fact his slightly snide comments about the other candidates on his own website, confirms to me why he is not the person to be our candidate. The main thing in his favour though is that he is the nearest to having done a ‘normal’ job with ‘ordinary’ people.

Having listened to all three I am still sure that it has to be Brian Paddick. Despite my praise for Chamali - and she really is very good - I don’t think she’s quite ready. Whilst she would stand out as something different, something fresh and could potentially really enthuse people, I believe that Brian Paddick is a much more credible person for the job. His position as a senior and successful police officer, and the fact that he has put liberal words in to action and shown it works, gives him a headstart in a campaign. He has also faced down critics and hopefully can do the same in a campaign that could be equally challenging.

BRIAN PADDICK

CHAMALI FERNANDO

FIYAZ MUGHAL

A common complaint at party conference’s (see my last posting as well) is the amount of paper that gets wasted, making conference’s appear particularly unevironmentally friendly.  So it was with some surprise that one of the groups that today was handing out the most paper to advertise their event was Greenpeace!

I’m not criticising that as people have every right to advertise their meetings and paper can be recycled and created quite sustainably, but I just hope environmental groups don’t start complaining about wasted paper when they are doing it themselves.