President of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron MP, has written to Lib Dem members today. Here’s his letter in full:-

Are two Eds better than one? I’m not sure – but the two Eds said something very interesting over the weekend: apparently they don’t have a ‘Plan B’ for the economy after all.

You’ll have heard Simon Hughes and I over the weekend rightly calling on the two Eds to apologise. We want them to apologise to the British public for deceiving them for 18 months. However, there is one apology we didn’t call for publicly, but which they still should make – that’s an apology to you.

Last May across the country, from Lancaster to Sheffield and Manchester to Newcastle, many of you lost your council seats to undeserving Labour candidates who were fighting their elections on a false platform with dishonest messages. They stood on a platform that the Eds now admit was wrong. Shame on them – but I’m proud of you.

In addition, Nick Clegg deserves an apology. Nick has been berated and abused by the Labour leadership for having the guts to stand up and work as part of the Coalition in the best interest of the country. Now Labour have admitted that their attacks were inaccurate – but there’s no hint of apology. They have gone from being in the wrong place, to all over the place.

That leaves the Liberal Democrats as the only political party with the backbone to tackle the country’s problems, but with the heart to do everything to ensure that fairness, compassion and justice are written through everything we do.

As this article from The Times recognises, the Liberal Democrats are a progressive force in Government. We are the Party delivering tax cuts for working people, we are the party investing in the poorest school pupils, we are the party delivering the largest ever state pension rise and importantly, we are the party prepared to take the tough decisions needed to get this country back on track.

So don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology from Labour – but rest assured you are most definitely owed one!

I have written more about this on Lib Dem Voice, and you can see my full article here.

Best wishes,

Tim Farron
President of the Liberal Democrats

On 14th December last year Salford, Worsley & Eccles Liberal Democrats called a public debate over the issue of an elected mayor for our city. Leader of Salford Liberal Democrats, Councillor Owen, invited Councillor Merry (leader of the council and member of the “NO” campaign) and referendum organisors Geoffrey Berg & Stephen Morris (English Democrats) of the “YES” campaign to debate the pros and cons.

On the issue of an elected mayor for Salford, locally the Liberal Democrats are firmly in the “NO” camp and have aligned ourselves with Salford Labour and support their campaign for a “NO” vote. However, Liberal Democrats were keen to see how Berg & Morris could fulfill their flagship promise of “lowering the city’s council tax by half, or more than half” – especially since we felt, if it could have been done, we would already have proposed such a cut.

Former Worsley Lib Dem Councillor Bob Boyd asked the first question and I was fortunate to ask the second question – sadly, neither were answered satisfactorily.

The debate was recorded by the English Democrats North West Secretary Val Morris, and it’s her comments you can hear at various points throughout the recording.

It was a rather long debate (indeed it was almost 40 minutes before I got to speak), but anyone who was not able to attend on the night and is still undecided about whether to vote “YES” or “NO” should most certainly watch it!

Who could not be inspired by these words of encouragement from Jason Hunter:
“Liberal Democrats – In Government, On Your Side……20 months on from the creation of the coalition….

A labour supporter said about the LibDems:
“why would we want to be in a Coalition with a party who have been more than happy to ditch their principles just to get cabinet jobs.”

I’ll tell you why … its because you are simply wrong my friend.

The libdems went into coalition to implement libdem policy, and in this parliament they are implementing over 75% of their manifesto commitments (according to the BBC and University College London).

Taking millions of low earners out of income tax, and ensuring that all workers pay £700 less tax on the first £10,000 they earn.

Making sure that kids in school who need extra help can actually get it from the £2.5 billion in the pupil premium.

Ensuring that EVERY 18-24 year old can learn or earn with the Youth Contract starting this April.

Creating hundreds of thousands of apprenticeship places for the 55% of our 16-18 year olds that don’t go on to further education.

Creating the Green Investment Bank to create sustainable jobs for those youngsters when they finish their apprenticeships.

Triple locking pensions for the elderly to put an end to 75p increases that labour gave our elderly. It gave pensioners an extra £4.50 last year and another £5.50 this April.

Implementing a new team at HMRC to stop tax avoidance and evasion by the 350,000 wealthiest people in the nation…. not just the 5,000 that labour focussed on.

Clamping down on big business to make sure they pay taxes due in the UK… not letting them off £25 billion like Labour did with Goldman Sachs and Vodafone etc.

Breaking up the banks to ensure that if they want to gambling at the investment bank casino, they do it with their own money and not the taxpayers.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Have we done everything we wanted? No, of course not, we don’t have a majority government, we came third in GE2010 and have just 8.7% of seats in parliament.

Have we been able to stop the Tories doing everything we don’t like? No, we havnt, we are outnumbered 5 Tories to each LibDem in the coalition.

Have we influenced positive policies far beyond our expected ability? Definitely.

Have LibDem policies influenced the economy? Darn tootin they have.

Was borrowing lower last year than in 2010? Yes it was.

Have we been in recession in the last 20 months? No, we havnt. We have had consecutive growth figures every quarter.

In 2011 was the tax collected a record breaking year? Yes, it was.

When interest rates are going up around the world, ours has come down from the 4%+ that Labour left to just over 2% today, one of the lowest of all our peers.

Do we still have our triple A credit rating when those around us are losing theirs? Yes we do.

Labour say its not working, but with times around the world far worse now than during Labours governance, we are keeping our heads above water….. labour took us into two consecutive periods of recession in better times than this.

Is everything rosy? No, of course not, but are the libdems punching above their weight? Oh yeah baby, they sure are.”

After nearly two years of no fiscal policies whatsoever, current Labour leader Ed Miliband and Labour’s shadow chancellor Ed Balls have both made similar statements over the last 24 hours defending the coalition government’s public sector pay freeze. This is in stark contrast to just a few weeks ago when both were still spurting out their “too fast, too soon” narrative – however, following Labour peer Lord Glasman and Blackley & Broughton MP Graham Stringer’s criticism of Ed Miliband’s leadership they have now changed their tune completely.

Now, following a complete fiscal policy u-turn by Miliband and Balls, Labour support the cuts and agree that a 1% pay rise over the next couple of years for public sector workers is the right thing for our country. I am a public sector worker, I don’t want my pay to be capped, but I was smart enough to realise in 2010 that it was necessary. As a result, of the public sector pay freezes, I have had to forgoe certain luxuries (overseas holidays etc) – but I know that in the longer term, we’ll all be better off if we sort our finances out sooner rather than later.

The PCS and Unison unions disagree. They are now starting to distance themselves from Labour and following statements from both those unions over the last day, I suspect this is the beginning of the end for Labour. Certainly when unions that support Labour financially claim that the party is “emulating the Tories on many issues” and the BBC reports that PCS union leader Mark Serwotka has said Mr Balls’ comments were “hugely disappointing”, while the general secretary of the RMT rail union said he was signing “Labour’s electoral suicide note”.

Nobody can blame the unions for acting they way they do (and saying what they say), after all – they are simply protecting their own interests. But public service unions have no interest in anything outside their little “public sector” world and need to realise that we are all in this together. This country will be better off when everyone accepts that cuts to “nice to have” services rather than services we “need and can’t do without” have to happen.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats realised that in 2010 – it’s taken a further two years for Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to realise it. When are the rest of Labour going to catch up?

Milband and Balls may have signed Labour’s electoral suicide note, but it’ll be Labour’s grassroots activists that bury the corpse of the party if they continue down the old and tired “too fast, too soon” argument.

The steady rise in youth unemployment since 2004 has now reached over the one million mark. That’s more than one in five 16-24 year olds not in education, training or work: not because they are lazy or feckless, but because of factors well beyond their control. In Salford, shockingly more than 2,500 18-24 year olds are currently on Jobseeker’s Allowance.

This is worrying. If young people are out of work, the consequences of that will be felt for decades afterwards. We need to ensure that the young people of today do not have a false start and help us build the new economy of the future.

That’s why Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has unveiled the Youth Contract, worth £1bn. Starting next April, the Youth Contract will provide at least 410,000 new work places over the next three years for 18 to 24-year olds to help them into work, including 160,000 wage subsidies and 250,000 new work experience placements.

They will also receive extra support from the JobCentre Plus after they have been on JSA for 3 months. This will range from help with CV and applications to a careers interview from the National Careers Service.

Not only that, but the Coalition Government is also making 20,000 more incentive payments available to encourage employers to take on young apprentices.

Lastly, it will also help those most in need of support, those 16 and 17-year olds who are persistently not in employment, education or training (NEETs). This new £50m programme will focus on the most disengaged of the 26,000 in the North West of England to get them learning, on an apprenticeship or in a job with training.

As a Liberal Democrat, I’m proud that while we’re clearing up the economic mess that Labour left behind, the Coalition Government is ensuring that our children do not bear the consequences of Labour’s mistakes. This is the right thing to do to prevent another lost generation.

Continuing with my “blast from the past”, the video below is an interview with me, by Sky News presenter Colin Brazier, where I took the government to task a few years ago over it’s plans to increase tax on petrol and diesel. Also participating in the debate was Mike Rutherford from the Motorists Association and CONSERVATIVE MP Tim Yeo. While I think I made some valid points, this wasn’t my finest performance (at one point I inadvertently inferred that Tim Yeo was a Labour MP, of course I knew that he was a Tory, as Colin had just pointed it out moments before).

I guess I was a little infuriated with the idea of the already high price of fuel going up even more, simply because the Labour government at the time had little idea what else to do.

NOTE: At the time, I lived in Prestwich, Manchester – hence the introduction. I start speaking around the 4 minute mark, but it’s worth listening to the whole interview to get an idea of the issues at the time (of which, the issue of high petrol prices and car tax rates is still a big problem today).

Back in 2006 I was interviewed live on air a few times on Sky News by Colin Brazier. When the video below was originally broadcast, Steve McClaren was the manager of the England national football team and he had just dropped David Beckham from the squad. I didn’t think it was a particularly good idea at the time (and I still stand by that now).

I’m introduced about 2 and a half minutes in.

If you’re politically naive, then it’s generally not a good idea to accept a public debate challenge from two veterans of local politics – but that’s exactly what Geoffrey Berg (Salford’s elected mayor petition organiser) did last night.

I’ve written extensively on my blog about the elected mayor referendum that was forced by Mr Berg and his English Democrat sidekicks but as Salford approached the actual referendum date (and following some active letter writing for both the “YES” and “NO” campaign in the local paper), Councillor Norman Owen, leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Salford City Council challenged the “YES” camp to a public debate.

Councillor Owen was joined by leader of Salford City Council (and leader of the Salford Labour group), Councillor John Merry on the “NO” side whilst Geoffrey Berg and Stephen Morris of the English Democrats spoke for the “YES” camp, who were bizarrely directed in what to say (and who should say it) by Michael Moulding of the Community Action Party.

Whilst I have not been involved in local politics as long as Councillor’s Owen and Merry, in all my years I have never witnessed such a spectacle. Fortunate, to ask the second question, I quizzed Mr Berg on his bold claim that an elected mayor would “halve or more than halve Salford’s Council tax”. I was intruiged as to how he could promise such a saving, given that Salford has already been through several rounds of efficiency savings and staff redundancies.

What followed was embarrassing. Actually, it would have been very funny if this topic was not so serious (and costing the city hundreds of thousands of pounds it can ill afford).

Mr Berg failed, spectacularly, to answer my question – in fact, he waffled so incoherently I tried to press him to actually give me some indication of how he could halve Salford’s council tax. He couldn’t. This infuriated many members of the audience who had obviously come with an open mind about the idea of an elected mayor for Salford, and so the probing questions continued long after I had sat back down.

Many bizarre and insulting statements followed from Mr Berg and his English Democrat colleague. From direct personal attacks of Councillor Merry to a dismissal of the hard work local Councillors do in their local communities, the “YES” camp systematically offended virtually everyone in the room. Their “policies” were laughable, at one point claiming that Salford’s higher council tax hurt the poorest the hardest, yet failing to realise that the poorest tend to receive council tax benefit, meaning they don’t even pay it.

That was not the worst of it.

Asked by one audience member if they had even costed what they proposed, Mr Berg floundered, waffled and comprehensively failed to explain how he could possibly pay for any of what he was proposing. Fortunately, Councillor Owen and Councillor Merry were on hand to give Mr Berg a 101 in local council economics and with that the “YES” camp were finished.

One of the last questions asked what made Mr Berg qualified to speak about the pros and cons of an elected mayor for Salford and apparently the answer was that he had once (briefly) been a Conservative councillor in Bury. My recollection is that was the one question he actually answered.

Local Conservative party councillors, members and activists were conspicuous by their absence at the elected mayor debate last night – no doubt they wanted to distance themselves from Geoffrey Berg (who could blame them).

At 11am today, Liberal Democrat Councillor Owen will debate with Geoffrey Berg on Salford City Radio (94.4FM). If you live within the reception area, I urge you to listen in. You can also listen on-line at http://www.salfordcityradio.org/listen.php

A new planning application has been received by Salford City Council to erect a 4-bedroom house on the vacant land at the junction of Liverpool Street and Derby Road in Langworthy. The plot is adjacent to the Moorlands Sports and Social Club.

Application number: 11/60734/FUL

You can read the full application and view maps and illustrations of the proposed building at Salford City Council’s Planning Portal by clicking here and using the search facility for the above application number.

Navigate to the ‘documents’ link and all the details are accessible in PDF format.

Langworthy residents may wish to note that the applicant wishes to close off part of the public footpath (on Liverpool Street).

I would be interested to hear the comments of both Langworthy and Weaste residents with regards to this proposed development – comments can also be submitted to the planners via Salford City Council’s planning portal (link above).

I would expect the council’s planning panel to consider the application in the new year.

Earlier this autumn the Boundary Commission published its proposals for reducing the number of MPs in England from 650 to 600 while equalising the size of most constituencies.

While some of the new boundaries the Commission is proposing are sensible, many more needlessly tear the heart out of the communities they serve and will make effective representation in Parliament much more difficult.

We are now in a period of consultation and as a local party – supported by our colleagues in the Liberal Democrat North West regional office and National Headquarters – we have put in a series of counter-proposals.

These back the Commission where we feel it has got it right; and put forward better solutions where we feel it is necessary, using the expertise of our members from across the region.

We know our plans are better because they have been produced by people who live and breathe in the communities affected.

However, to stand a chance of persuading the Commission to adopt our counter-proposal, we need your help.

You can see here what the Boundary Commission have proposed for the North West (which affectively wipes Salford off the map and puts Langworthy into Manchester).

Below you can see our counter-proposal for the existing Salford area constituencies:

Salford Constituency   Langworthy
Salford Constituency   Weaste and Seedley
Salford Constituency   Claremont
Salford Constituency   Ordsall
Salford Constituency   Irwell Riverside
Salford Constituency   Swinton South
Salford Constituency   Pendlebury
Salford Constituency   Kersal
Salford Constituency   Broughton

Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Boothstown and Ellenbrook
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Little Hulton
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Walkden North
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Walkden South
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Winton
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Worsley
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Barton
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Eccles
Worsley and Eccles Constituency   Swinton North

If you could take a minute to add your voice to the consultation via the commission’s website (here), we stand a far better chance of persuading them. There’s just two weeks before the deadline on December 5th. Please add your voice to ours in explaining why you feel they better serve your community.

The consultation is open to everyone and you can be sure the Conservatives and Labour are encouraging their members to take part too. As may be expected, those parties’ counter-proposals are not designed to make our lives any easier!

The Guardian has published the latest ICM poll which shows that 30% of people in the UK continue to blame debts racked up by the last Labour government as the reason for the current economic crisis; only 24% blame the coalition’s spending cuts.

The voting intention poll shows Labour (38%) still with a 2 point lead over the Conservatives (36%) with Liberal Democrats increasing to 14%. Others are on 12%.

Translated into a general election, the country will still have no one single party with an outright majority and as the strongest third party, the Liberal Democrats would once again be called upon to consider it’s part in a coalition government.

The Labour Party needs to consider this poll strongly. It’s time to face up to the hand they had in the economic problems of this country, accept their part, apologise for it and stop blaming everyone else.

Dump Ed Balls and Miliband Junior – and next time prepare for proper, meaningful talks with the Liberal Democrats. In 2010 it was obvious that Labour did not want to form a government with the Liberal Democrats – come 2014 if they have the same attitude the Lib Dems could be forced into a coalition with the Conservatives again, rather than having a choice.

The full Guardian poll is here.

In October, Urban Vision announced that street lighting across Salford City was being updated with new LED lamps, rather than the traditional filament-type as a way of saving money and becoming more energy efficient. They even listed a few streets in Langworthy’s neighbouring ward of Claremont where the LED lamps would be installed. Great!

But what about Langworthy?

About a week ago, I asked our Langworthy Neighbourhood Manager which streets (if any) would be getting LED street lights. He did not know, so forwarded my request to Urban Vision. The response? None.

I’ve since reminded Urban Vision about my query – but their silence simply raises another question. Why does Claremont get to do it’s bit and save money for the Council whilst being more energy conscious and Langworthy does not?

Langworthy has a proud community and we want to do our bit to help the city and reduce our energy consumption, which in turn protects our planet.

UPDATE 23/11/11:
Urban Vision have finally come back to me and the following streets are scheduled to receive the LED streetlamp upgrade in November/December:

Almond Close
Amersham Street
Brentwood
Citrus Way
Clementine Close
Coconut Grove
Coomassie Street
Culverwell Drive
Mango Place
Melksham Close
Melon Place
Sandy Grove
Tenbury Close

This list is different to the streets initially listed on Labour’s Langworthy ward Councillor John Warmisham’s blog here, however he has since updated his blog to the list above (presumably because he received a copy of the email I got from Urban Vision).

I note with some annoyance that Cllr Warmisham only wrote about the LED street lighting in Langworthy after I blogged about it. Langworthy ward Coouncillors were told about LED street lighting in October, perhaps Cllr Warmisham didn’t think energy efficiency was important until I mentioned it?

Salford today took one step closer to the possibility of an elected Mayor on the same day Leicester City Council announced it was increasing their elected Mayor’s salary to £100,000 per year. Leicester’s Labour-controlled council also decided it would pay his Deputy Mayor £75,000 per year and his SIX “assistant Mayors” would also get a pay increase taking their salaries to £40,000 each!

Leicester elected their first directly-elected Mayor in May of this year; could that city’s voters have guessed their Mayor would get a £44,000 pay rise barely half-way through his first year in office?

At today’s full session of Salford City Council it was announced that January 2012 would be the date of Salford’s Mayoral Referendum and should that Referendum produce a “YES” vote, the election for Salford’s first directly-elected Mayor would be held in May (on the same day as the city’s local elections).

So, while a decidely bad idea for Salford – who are the front-runners for the top job in Salford should the electorate decide it wants to pay for a different kind of leader?

Despite being vehemently against a directly-elected Mayor, Salford Labour’s current leader (and leader of the Council) Councillor John Merry has already all-but thrown his hat in the ring, declaring on Twitter that he “still wanted to lead [the council]“.

Salford Conservatives seem split, but publicly they are in the “YES” camp and Boothstown & Ellenbrook Councillor Robin Garrido has been mentioned as a front-runner for the local Tories. No official candidate has been declared (nor would they be likely to declare one until after the Referendum).

As for the Liberal Democrats, we are completely against a directly-elected Mayor for Salford and so we absolutely will not select a candidate unless the Referendum produces a yes result.

I fear, however, a plethora of Independent Candidates will be tempted by the potential £100,000 salary and so it’s highly likely that a long list of Independent hopefuls will throw their hat into the ring.

Geoffrey Berg is probably the choice of the “mayoral alliance” – the main organiser of the Mayoral Petition which forced the Referendum. I’d be surprised if he relented and allowed his co-conspirators Michael Moulding (currently Community Action Party, ex-Independent, ex-Liberal Democrat) or Stephen Morris/Paul Whitelegg of the English Democrats. The English Democrat elected Mayor in Doncaster has made such a hash of his term of office, I doubt it would be good for the “mayoral alliance” campaign if they selected an English Democrat.

But what about other Independents? I fear the temptation of a huge salary coupled with likely local media interest will see the Referendum campaign turn into nothing more than a circus. How is that good for democracy or good for Salford?

You may have seen or heard misleading news reports today suggesting that the UK Border Agency is breaking its pledge to end the detention of children.

UKBA has responsed to these misleading news reports and has emphasised the need to hold families at the border, while making clear the bold changes the agency has made to the way families already in the UK are managed and supported.

Brodie Clark, head of border force, said: ‘We have always been clear that we may need to hold some families at the border while enquiries are made to decide whether they can be admitted to the country or until the next available return flight if they are refused entry.

‘In the case of unaccompanied children, we may need to hold them until alternative accommodation is arranged, usually through social services. The number of passengers held is very small compared to the millions that we process and tens of thousands we refuse entry to at the border each year and it is always for the shortest possible period.

‘Not doing so would weaken border security by allowing people into the country who have no right to be here, and, equally, to release unaccompanied children before social workers have arrived to support them would put them at great risk.’

For those families already in the UK, but with no legal right to stay, the agency has introduced a completely new process for managing their return which encourages them to leave voluntarily, sometimes with financial assistance.

In cases, where return needs to be enforced, a new type of accommodation, Cedars, is used to hold families for a short period immediately prior to their departure from the UK.

Cedars has a completely different look and feel to an immigration removal centre and is only being used as a last resort. Families are referred there only after advice has been sought from the independent family returns panel which ensures that the welfare of the children is taken into account.

So far, fewer than ten families have been returned following a short period of stay in Cedars.

There has been some debate recently regarding an elected Mayor proposal for Salford. I blogged about this here back in July.

Recent correspondence in the Salford Advertiser from the petition organisers Geoffrey Berg (a resident in Prestwich, which comes under Bury Council) and Paul Whitelegg (English Democrat party) suggests that an elected Mayor could “reduce Salford’s spending” and lower the city’s council tax. However, Paul Whitelegg agrees in his letter that the cost of the Referendum alone would be add around £1.50 to Salford’s annual council tax bill, so he is proposing I pay an extra £1.50 to fund his Referendum in my city. This flies in the face of his suggestion that an elected Mayor would be able to lower council tax bills, since the first action of any elected Mayor would have to be to raise Salford’s council tax to pay the Referendum bill!

But ignoring the cost, can the English Democrats explain why Salford would want an elected Mayor when their own Doncaster Mayor has failed miserably since he was elected in 2009?

In fact, following the government’s decision to intervene in his running of Doncaster in April of this year because of a damning Audit Commission report that city is likely to have another expensive Referendum to see if they would like to go back to more widespread representation.

In the few short years Doncaster has had an English Democrat elected Mayor, he has ignored a vote of no confidence in his leadership carried by locally elected councillors, has overseen the closure of 14 local libraries and withdrawn council funding for maintaining sports grounds which serve over a dozen former mining communities. After just two and a half years in power, his policies appear to have done nothing to improve the lives of the people of Doncaster. They will do nothing to improve the lives of Salfordians.

Tim Farron’s speech to Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference

Speaking at Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference on Sunday, Liberal Democrat Party President, Tim Farron said:

So, well done – you all got past security clearance!

Incidentally I’m very grateful to the police, they’ve now provided me with all the detailed personal information on party members that I need in order to conduct a Stalinist purge.

Basically anyone who actually passed security clearance without sign of being a subversive will be erased.

Its been a busy six months since Sheffield.

And I’m going to start where I should.

At the bottom.

And Mays elections really were the bottom – at least they flipping well better had be!

Ok, we got 16% of the vote and had some real successes around the country, but let’s not fool ourselves.

In much of the country we got slaughtered.

In Scotland, in many of our great cities, in shire districts Liberal Democrats who have served their communities and worked their backsides off for years, got their backsides kicked.

I want to say this to you now, if you lost your seat, I stand with you; I am angry on your behalf; I take the responsibility and I absolutely will not insult you by claiming that this was collateral damage, or an understandable mid term blip.

Frankly, as your President, I owe you an apology.

Politics is full of clichés.

Perhaps the worst, is that bit where you’re on telly having to pretend everything’s gone swimmingly on a bad election night.

I had that job, and I have to confess that I didn’t stick to the script.

I didn’t pretend it was alright really.

Cos it wasn’t.

I saw the stats piling up, the Lib Dem minus figure getting bigger, you know, I knew these were not statistics, these people are my friends.

People who didn’t deserve to lose.

But who lost.

I’m not going to explain them away, shrug and accept their defeat as an inevitable consequence.

Defeat is never inevitable or acceptable.

But sometimes it happens.

I remember 2001 when we should have won Westmorland and Lonsdale and didn’t.

The campaigns department sent us a pager during the campaign – cutting edge!

They included us in the messages they sent to sitting MPs.

After the election, they carried on sending us messages – assuming that we’d got elected.

I went back to work at Lancaster University on the Monday after I lost, and I kept getting messages telling me about photo calls for new MPs, swearing in and making maiden speeches.

It was a sickener.

I was pleased for those who’d won, but I was gutted, depressed, I took the whole thing personally.

I’d worked my socks off for 3 years, I’d done everything I thought I could to win, but I still lost by 3,000.

And I have to confess that after 2001 there were a few months where I thought, why don’t I just jack it in?

Do a 9-5, dig the garden, get a season ticket at the Rovers, you know, torture myself in a different way.

Then I changed my mind.

There were two things that did it if I recall.

First, England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich; which has no political significance whatsoever, it just massively cheered me up!

A few days later my daughter Gracie was born.

If that doesn’t make you take stock, nothing will.

I thought back to what had first politicised me, and if you’ve heard this one before – well, tough!

I was 14 I saw Cathy come home, it completely broke my heart and my reaction was to do something, to join Shelter and then the Liberals.

Because if homelessness, poverty and inequality are wrong, then not doing something to stop them is equally wrong.

I’d joined this party to make a better a world, and now in the maternity ward in Kendal I had this little ginger thing, someone to make the world better for.

I had no flaming right to walk away.

So I got re-selected and spent 4 years doing everything Hilary Stephenson told me to, and a bit more.

Because you can’t change the world if you come second.

That’s why I am here rather than watching Rovers put 4 past Arsenal, despite only having 3 shots on goal.

Tell me if I’ve got this wrong, but I think that you want me as President to sell the undiluted Liberal Democrat standpoint.

Not to be an apologist for everything the coalition does.

Committed to the Liberal Democrats in coalition, but more importantly, committed to the Liberal Democrats.

There’s wonderful freedom in this role and I’m determined to use it!

Unlike ministerial platform speeches at conference this year, I don’t have to show mine to Oliver Letwin in advance!

I didn’t have to.

But I sent him a copy anyway just to wind him up.

But there are 18 Liberal Democrats who don’t have the luxuries that I do.

They can’t just sound off if they don’t like government policy or trot through the no lobby on occasions – rare occasions – to demonstrate their disagreement.

They are our ministers.

And while I’m parading my conscience around the TV studios saying the right things, they are busy in their departments doing the right things.

On those very, very rare occasions when Michael Gove says or does something stupid or wrong, Sarah Teather doesn’t come out and slag him off. Instead she fixes it.

Free schools for example!

When the Tories showed hesitancy about committing to true and fair banking reforms, Vince Cable laid on the pressure and forced that commitment.

And when George Osborne flew the kite of cutting income tax for the wealthy, Danny Alexander cut the string, and stopped him.

Incidentally, those 20 economists – nearly all of them top rate tax payers by the way – who called for scrapping the 50p tax rate.

They have many supporters in the Conservative party.

But they are utterly wrong.

Are we all in this together?

Well not if we give tax cuts to the rich!

At a time when 90% of the country is struggling to pay the rent or the mortgage,
giving a 10p tax cut to those who need it the least, would not just be economically witless, it would be morally repugnant.

Now of course, all income tax is temporary!

Income tax was introduced as a temporary measure in 1798 during the Napoleonic wars.

So my solemn promise to you is that we will get rid of this temporary measure, as soon as we stopping falling out with the French.

Danny, Vince, Nick and I are absolutely clear – the wealthy will continue to pay the largest share of the cost of our recovery so that we can protect the least well off.

The principle that the rich pay more does not come from a desire to penalise the wealthy, but from a desire to ensure that our recovery must be a fair recovery.

Be absolutely sure of this. Liberal Democrat ministers are the guarantors of fairness in a government that would be an absolute nightmare without them.

And not only this.

Your average Tory minister, bless them, works hard in their department and is rarely seen anywhere near their constituency.

Our ministers are full-on committed constituency MPs as well as being tasked with the small responsibility of running the country.

Their commitment to Liberal Democrat principles and policies is immense and their workrate is phenomenal.

That goes for all our ministers, but goes for Nick in spades.

This summer, Nick hasn’t stopped. His schedule racing around the country meeting members, supporters and one or two former supporters, has been staggering.

Thick skinned, warm hearted, quick witted, occasionally paint-splattered, a Liberal to his fingertips – he leads the Lib Dems, runs the country and runs rings around the Tories.

If you listen to Nadine Dorries, Conservative home and the Daily Mail, then Nick Clegg is leading the government; but when it comes to the NHS, the Bankers and fair taxation, Nick seems to be leading the opposition too!

Ed Miliband, are you still on holiday?

Who is taking the Blairite nonsense out of the NHS bill?

Nick Clegg

Who put the bankers back in their boxes over financial restructuring?

Nick Clegg

Who stood up against reactionary Tory drivel after the riots?

Nick Clegg

We are a radical Liberal Party putting radical liberal politics into action and blocking Tory policies every day.

For how many decades have we dreamed of being able to say that?

I have always been proud to be a Liberal Democrat, I was proud of us when we called it right on Kosovo, when we called it right on Iraq, when we called it right on deregulation of the banks.

But I have never been more proud of my party than I am now.

British public opinion is a bit more mixed.

I mean we’ve endured decades where the public were utterly indifferent to our existence, then for 5 minutes they loved us intensely, followed by a lengthier period where they’ve actively disliked us.

I had a girlfriend like that once.

But no one can say we don’t matter anymore, as Oscar Wilde said there’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about!

Look we had three political options after the 2010 elections: we had to choose between the rather unpleasant, the completely impossible or the utterly appalling; but we only had two economic options between the horrible and the catastrophic.

Now my politics were formed in the 1980s amidst mass unemployment in the north of England.

At times more than half of my class at school were on free school meals, most of us – me included – had parents out of work.

That experience scarred me, and it scarred me all the more because those levels of unemployment in the 80s were avoidable – that government deliberately used unemployment as an economic tool to control spending and the unions.

And we are tackling the deficit today, making horrible decisions to avoid the catastrophic alternative of market meltdown and mass unemployment or, as Ed Balls calls it ‘plan B’.

If the Tories created mass unemployment in the 80s out of wickedness, Labour would create mass unemployment today out of witlessness.

This summer, the silly season got serious didn’t it?

No one saw the riots coming.

With the possible exception of the Kaiser Chiefs.

And I reckon that was just a lucky guess!

The riots were an outrage against peaceful communities, a tragedy for civil society, an affront to our identity and an absolute gift for every knee-jerk reactionary in the country.

Some who shall remain nameless, but for illustrative purposes lets call them David Starkey, saw the fires of discontent and thought it wise to pour petrol on them by invoking racial stereotypes.

Now David Starkey is one of Kendal’s favourite sons, and I know that he is absolutely not a fascist, but I also know that he is absolutely an intelligent person and intelligent enough to know that it is culpably reckless to play into the hands of those who are fascists.

And there’s been a hypocrisy in so much of the media – including from the apparently shameless Murdoch press – focusing their ire on what they call a feral underclass with a contempt for society.

Just an observation here:

The super rich don’t need to go down Ealing high street nicking tellies in order to demonstrate their contempt for society. They demonstrate their contempt by not paying taxes.

And lets be honest, we are sharing power with a bunch of people who think that this is OK!

If you care about communities, then you are an opponent of all those who undermine them.

That includes the looters. That includes those who benefit from our society but who do not pay the taxes that they should, and that includes politicians and newspaper editors who provide them with cover.

Before the summer recess, I spent June and July away from Parliament too after my wife had an operation.

She’s fine by the way, she spent 2 months effectively confined to home, not able to walk or drive so I was granted compassionate leave by the whips – who, lets be honest, didn’t owe me any favours!

So I got to look after the kids out of school hours and be a constituency MP the rest of the time.

Rosie meanwhile read lots of crime thrillers, got hooked on online shopping, but absolutely refused to get sucked into daytime TV.

She claims.

Interestingly enough some tickets arrived through the post the other day for a gentle discussion programme called the Jeremy Kyle show.

I assume its a bit like question time.

The title is ‘my husband forces me to deliver leaflets even when I’m on crutches’.

Which is intriguing.

I learnt a lot during that time away from Parliament: first, being a Mum is hard work; second being my wife is really hard work; and third, politics looks a heck of a lot different when you are not in the Westminster bubble.

You see I spent almost 2 months getting my news the same way everyone else does.

No briefings or nuanced explanations from ministers.

The Lib Dems achievements on the NHS bill, on reigning in the bankers on keeping profiteers out of our state schools – they either don’t get reported, or the Lib Demness of those successes is exquisitely camouflaged.

Think about it, we are the first government party in history that doesn’t have a single newspaper telling our side of the story.

But the fact that our excellent message wasn’t landing in the minds of the public
highlighted an obvious danger for all of us who hold elected office.

And this is the moment when I could offend just about all of you, but isn’t it so often the same old story, you’re a brilliant campaigner, you get elected, you get sucked into the council, you go to meetings, you spend lots of time with your very lovely and very bright officers, and you start listening to them intently even though they don’t actually care two hoots if you’re re-elected.

And your diary gets a bit too full to go out knocking on doors, so not only are you now listening to officials but you have stopped listening to normal people and so you forget what they sound like, what angers them, what impresses them, what they elected you to do in the first place so you make daft decisions and you get slaughtered in the local press and then you lose.

That can happen in Whitehall as well as the town hall!

It can be a slippery slope.

So what’s the answer?

I’ll tell you what:

A full blooded return to the principles and the practice of community politics.

And it needs to start now.

In many of the mets, with elections in thirds, the same seats that we lost this year, are up again next year.

There may be a sense of inevitability that if we lost this year, we’re bound to lose next year too.

Well I am absolutely not having that!

This conference must mark a renewal of the theory and practice of community politics – and a belligerent determination to make our own luck.

I don’t underestimate the task ahead, but we have been through far worse and come out smiling on the other side.

The Thorpe scandal, the merger debacle; you know, if our poll rating is currently 13%, I can tell you that that’s about 14 times better than it was in 1989.

You know, I reckon if either of the other parties saw their poll ratings dip into single figures, they would implode and cease to be.

They couldn’t hack it mentally or emotionally, and the vested interests that they serve would abandon them.

Not with us. We’ve got nerves of steel. Survival is what we do.

A bit like cockroaches after a nuclear war, just a bit less smelly, we are made of sterner stuff.

And we are not the vehicle of any vested interest.

We are the vehicle for a radical, green, tolerant, internationalist, progressive form of politics and if we did not exist then there’s hundreds of people here today who’d rush out and invent us!

Going into coalition was absolutely the right thing for the country, but costly for the party.

I’m in no doubt that being in coalition with the Tories has tainted us, our identity is blurred, many who support us are confused. They say: “We thought you were against the Tories, why are you shacked up with them now?”

The picture of the coalition being a marriage is a depressing one isn’t it?

It’s enough to put you off your tea!

If it’s a marriage, well its a good natured one, but I’m afraid its temporary.

We’re staying together for the sake of the kids, or the Special Advisors as we call them.

So look, I don’t want to upset you and its not going to happen for 3 or 4 years but I’m afraid divorce is inevitable.

So, as your president I took the liberty of seeking some legal advice about how we stand in the event of a divorce.

There’s good news and bad news. Good news: we might get half of Ashcroft’s money.

Bad news: we have to have Pickles at the weekends!

Well over the last few months, there’s been a new spikiness and effectiveness about the Liberal Democrats.

We fought against the bankers, we stood up against the witless kneejerk populism of the Tories after the riots, we’ve fought against tax cuts for the rich and we came out fighting on the NHS, and I’ll tell you what, we will continue the fight for our NHS.

And since then, we’ve started winning by-elections, including gaining a seat off Labour for the first time since the general election, our membership has risen, donations have increased and our poll ratings have shot up from absolutely diabolical to just slightly depressing.

Now there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned.

I was sort of thinking of leaving it out but that would be cowardly.

The AV referendum.

That went well didn’t it?

Electoral reform was within our grasp for the first time in our lifetimes, but was it for the last time?

Don’t even think it.

Two things I have got doggedly used to in the 25 years since I joined this party: one is losing, the other is never, ever flaming giving up!

We have a corrupt electoral system, it needs modernising and transforming.

We will democratise the House of Lords and we will bring in proportional representation for the upper house.

PR for parliament.

Unlike the NHS bill, it is in the coalition agreement, I don’t care how many Tories or Lib Dems don’t like it, it is not an optional part of the programme. It’s a red line.

It’s not a sexy doorstep issue, its not going in my focus leaflets, but it is vital if we are to ensure that our democracy emerges from the 19 century.

When we go to the polls in 2015, we must be electing a part of the upper house for the first time ever, by proper PR.

Not a miserable little compromise!

The AV referendum is salutary.

It reminds us what we are up against in general.

A Tory party owned and directed by the impossibly rich, a Labour party which may be led by a progressive but which is owned by the forces of conservatism and a media owned by a handful of powerful individuals with antidemocratic axes that they grind very effectively.

How do we compete against that? Isn’t it impossible?

David Penhaligon said “I only got elected because I was too naive to realise it was impossible”.

We must fight every day to ensure that we never become part of the establishment, but we should fight hard to prove that we are worthy of power.

David Penhaligon, Roy Jenkins, Jo Grimond and all the legions of others who brought us from the depths for such a time as this.

They’d have killed to see the day we were in government, and they’d have killed us for complaining about it.

There’s a true story about President Kennedy visiting a NASA warehouse used for storing fuel cylinders for the Apollo programme.

He met the janitor and asked him ‘what do you do?’ the janitor replied, ‘I’m putting a man on the Moon’. That is the spirit.

As Liberal Democrats, we are all in this together whether you are the Deputy Prime Minister or a Focus deliverer, or indeed both.

No one will sell our story if we don’t, no one will believe our message if we don’t, no one will fight our battles if we don’t.

We’ve spent years trying to qualify for the premier league of politics, now we are here – lets waste no time looking into the stands for reactions, let’s look at each other, look to each other, focus on the goal, tackle our opponents and stuff them.

Get on with it!

Regular readers of my blog and Langworthy Focus readers will remember the traffic calming campaign I spearheaded earlier this year for Seedley Park Road and Seedley Terrace. The original articles are here and here. With the help of local residents on Seedley Park Road I collected and submitted a petition to Salford Council which called for action on speeding cars using our streets as rat runs.

I’m delighted to report that our community committee has agreed to fund the traffic calming measures I campaigned for on both Seedley Park Road and Seedley Terrace, the latter gaining some new full width speed humps.

Seedley Park Road will also see some full road width speed humps as well as a driver feedback sign, which I particularly pushed for as I felt that motorists using the road either seemed unaware or simply “forgot” that we have a 20mph speed limit here.

I am incredibly grateful to Langworthy Lib Dem Councillor Lynn Drake who presented the petition during a full session of Salford Council and for supporting the campaign at our community committee.

You can see the measures that are to be introduced on both Seedley Park Road and Seedley Terrace in more detail below.

Seedley Park Road

Seedley Terrace

Today the Boundary Commission for England has released it’s proposals for changing the electoral boundaries that will be used in the next General Election (currently scheduled for sometime May 2015).

Amongst the North West shake-up, they propose to abolish the Salford & Eccles and Worsley & Eccles South Constituencies, instead creating a new ‘Swinton’ constituency and then splitting the rest of Salford across Leigh and Manchester. Kersal and Broughton will remain, as currently, in the Blackley and Broughton constituency.

The proposals are as follows:

Manchester Central Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Ancoats & Clayton
Bradford
City Centre
Hulme
Irwell Riverside
Langworthy
Ordsall
Weaste & Seedley

Swinton Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Barton
Boothstown and Ellenbrook
Claremont
Eccles
Pendlebury
Swinton North
Swinton South
Winton
Worsley

Leigh Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Cadishead
Irlam
Little Hulton
Walkden North
Walkden South
Astley Mosely Common
Leigh East
Leigh South
Tyldesley

Blackley and Broughton Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Cheetham
Crumpsall
Harpurhey
Higher Blackley
Miles Platting and Newton Heath
Moston
Broughton
Kersal

While I will be providing my own (alternative) suggestions to the Boundary Commission along with a combined Liberal Democrat response, I’m eager to hear what Salfordians living in Langworthy, Ordsall, Irwell Riverside and Weaste & Seedley think in particuar. Please post your comments below.

Today, like many other people across the world, I paused for a minute’s silence at 1.46pm UK time. This was the moment, ten years ago today, when the first hijacked aeroplane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

I remember the moment vividly when the second passenger jet, United Airlines Flight 75, hit the South Tower as I was watching, live, whilst on holiday in Tunisia with my wife. We were celebrating the first anniversary of our wedding, but this became a time we would remember for a different reason.

Much time has passed since those terrible events of 10 years ago, and after the massive damage done by both Al-Qaeda and the international military response in Afghanistan (and Iraq!), the world is a long way along to putting things right. The rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan and the decapitation of Al-Qaeda’s leadership means that looking forward to a better and safer future is where the emphasis lies now.

But we must never forget the events of September 11th 2001. There are children in schools and colleges now that either have no memory of the attacks, only of the war(s) that followed. It is our duty to remind the young of what happened and try to help them make sense of it.

If our sons and daughters forget what happened on that Tuesday morning in New York, at the Pentagon in Virginia and in mid-air over Shanksville, Pennsylvania onboard United Airlines Flight 93 then they will not learn the lessons that we have had to learn and will make the same mistakes that Al-Qaeda made in 2001 and the British and American administrations made soon after by going to war with Iraq, a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attackers.

I don’t normally use my blog to ‘advertise’ other company’s products – for one, my blog is independent of commercial interest. If I did introduce advertising or worse blogged about products in a way destined to influence my readers (perhaps for some sort of commission), people would quite rightly stop reading it. I wouldn’t blame them!

After picking myself up off the floor on receipt of my renewal from my current insurer (£700 or £800 if I pay monthly) I used all of the car insurance comparison sites: comparethemarket.com, confused.com, moneysupermarket.com etc and ended up with a very competitive £450 via Compare the Market. Having see the TV advert (all very funny) I knew that I would be entitled to a “free toy” once I had completed my purchase – and there is a seperate claims mechanism in place via www.meerkovo.com to claim the toy.

The fun doesn’t end there: once you’ve successfully claimed your free toy, the residents of Meerkovo celebrate a day in your honour (by way of further thank you).

Compare the Market have proved that once a company has taken your money, they don’t have to think of you as just another customer. I wish more companies would feel the same once they have relieved us of our hard earned money.

Well done Compare the Market!