Sean Davey

Tuesday 21st 

By Tuesday I had a good feel for conference: whether it was putting my watch in my jacket pocket to get through security quicker or voting on conference floor. Lord McNally made the first speech talking about the coalition’s position on human rights, international development and particularly Pakistan. He also spoke warmly about his work with Ken Clarke in the Justice department. Following this a motion on “fairness in a time of austerity” reaffirmed the party’s commitment to Social Liberalism speaking up for students, children and those in poverty. I then spoke in an intervention in the Equal Marriage motion which also featured a moving anecdotal contribution from Brian Paddick MP. This motion which, as I pointed out, enshrined liberty and personal freedom passed overwhelmingly and so Liberal Democrat policy now supports civil partnerships for mixed sex couples and most progressively “marriage” for same-sex couples. 

Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Simon Hughes rounded off the morning’s events with his speech. This staked our claim as a continuing independent party, but with new found influence over the governing of our country. Hughes illustrated with an analogy:

“When you move from the touchline to the pitch, there is a risk you may get some knocks and pick up a few bruises – but on the touchline you never get the chance to change the game. Now that we are in the game, one thing that we can say with absolute certainty is that from now we will not be ignored.”

He ended on the note that we will go into the next election in 2015 fighting for Liberal Democrat policies but in the mean time we will stick up for Liberal values as “the strongest Liberal party in Europe”, and he closed:

“…at the next election, when the public see the difference we have made, delivering a Britain which is fairer, freer and greener - they will know that it would not have happened without us.”

Following Simon Hughes’ speech I attended a fringe entitled “Liberal Democrats take on the big society” which featured him, Sarah Teather MP (minister for children) and the chief executives of the RSA and Ipsos Mori. Now I was hoping for this event to be a deconstruction of David Cameron’s patronising “big society”, however Teather and Hughes both pointed out despite the way the Conservatives had gone about marketing this, it represented similar Liberal ideas of community involvement and participation. There was a consensus that the big society could be a foil for third sector cuts and polls from Ipsos Mori showed that people were moderately sceptical: the big society certainly wasn’t helping Liberal Democrats gain popularity and most people were only enthusiastic for “other people” to become involved with public service provision. The conclusion was that only if people could be encouraged to become more actively involved in their communities, if there more opportunities and access from volunteering to public services was this was a positive move. 

I caught the end of a rally with Floella Benjamin (who gave me a hug afterwards) as part of the “coalition for young people” and then went to see Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change address conference. Huhne delivered an astonishingly powerful speech in which he set out the “Green Deal” which if it goes ahead in full will revolutionise the energy industry in our country

“This is a revolution in our economy. It is as profound as moving to steam, iron and coal in the first industrial revolution. Or to steel, petrol and gas in the second. In Britain, in this third industrial revolution, we will build a new economy of low carbon and clean growth. As we have done before, we will show the world the way.”

I look forward to future moves on Huhne’s Green Deal, which are set to include a shift to electric power (rail, cars, heating), up to 250,000 new jobs by 2030 and a Green Investment Bank to fund research and projects in renewable energy. 

Later in the evening a true giant of the party: Lord Paddy Ashdown was interviewed by Andrew Rawnsley which you can see here. He pointed out that the Labour negotiation team were impossible but he was “devastated” at the prospect of a coalition with the Conservatives. But after reading the Coalition Agreement his self-reported response was “f**k it, I’m with you” and now he is a passionate supporter of the coalition, and the most confident of the former leaders in Nick Clegg’s leadership.

Monday 20th 

Imagine the struggle of a normal Monday morning and add the red wine I was expected to drink as socialising with lobbyists, lib dems and leaders. Of course really it was intellectual discussion that I’d binged on, and I had had a couple of very late night/early morning combinations. So I struggled out of bed, ate my toast and headed off to an even more lively convention centre. The number of people and press present had effectively doubled Saturday-Sunday but Monday it felt like it had gone up by another third or so! The metal detector routine, the escalators, the auditorium were all bustling with activity and I wondered if Liberal Democrat conferences had ever seen so many people! I listened to a debate on free schools and academies where concerns were voiced that pushy parents and religious groups would exploit this policy and redefine “entry standards” out of keep with Liberal and pluralist values. This motion to oppose the coalition policy expressed a break from the Conservatives and showed that we as a party will remain independent and make clear to the leadership what we support or don’t. The motion was passed, and made the papers. I posted a video below which covers this motion and the response. 

Lunchtime fringe reinforced the sheer numbers: I cued for the Guardian debate to be turned away due to “health & safety regulations” so instead went to a talk on “A marriage made in heaven? Can the Con-Lib coalition hold?” hosted by the Institute for Public Policy Research and featuring Jeremy Browne MP and Simon Hughes MP and others. Again there was a consensus that the coalition represented the best possibility: Liberal Democrats in government, Liberal policies being implemented, the Conservative manifesto not being fully implemented and of course the deficit being dealt with so that the billions saved on interest can be invested in schools, hospitals and the environment not debt. As I mentioned Jeremy Browne was much more perceptive and personable than in his speech and related how he had fought the Tories for his seat, as many LibDems had, and that if Nick Clegg wanted to become a Conservative politician there would have been many many easier ways than joining the Liberal Democrats who were polling around 3% at the time he joined. 

Getting back to main conference after lunch I was told that the auditorium was full and joined what must’ve been a couple of thousand people in an ‘overspill’ hall to watch the Leader’s Speech on a gigantic cinema screen. I was a bit miffed to not be in the room, and I imagine this was to do with the highest ever numbers with around 7500 people attending including a heavy throng of journalists. As anyone interested enough to read this will know, it was an excellent speech and Nick Clegg pointed out the achievements of the coalition and the importance of a Liberal Democrat presence in government. You can read one of the numerous analysis online, however I thought the basics were that it was a brilliantly written and delivered speech - as LibDems and increasingly the wider public have come to expect of Mr Clegg - and addressed the conference’s concerns over being too close to the Tories and losing our identity. Needless to say there was a strong atmosphere of solidarity, passion and a standing ovation. 

My evening fringe was a really great talk from MPs David Heath, Jo Swinson and Julian Hubbert about the many roles of a Member of Parliament, neatly summed up by Heath as being “super-councillor”, Parliamentarian, Community leader and more. A lot of lobbyists and staff in the audience. Later that evening I was turned away from a Social-Liberal fringe event, and was really starting to get annoyed at excessive numbers! So I decided to go to the Hilton bar before the South-West reception and was sidelined into an event I hadn’t considered… 

This turned out to be possibly the best part of conference for me: chatting with Sir Menzies Campbell and then a brilliant lecture from American pollster and founder of MORI (as in IPSOS-MORI) breaking down the election and outlining the future of politics as firmly routed in coalitions. This was easily the most intellectually stimulating and insightful event I attended, and we were invited back for annual gatherings as a little strategic branch of the party. 

Later evening was the South & Western Counties reception (I skipped food at the previous event for this!) where I networked furiously - talking to lobbyists from Airbus, PPC’s, Paddy [Lord] Ashdown, and many many more. It was invigorating to see so many people fighting to win in the Liberal Democrat heartlands of the South-West but did deprive me of the early night I’d hoped for! 

Sunday 19th

Rising early Sunday morning I set out to soak up some of the atmosphere on the ground at conference. The foyer was already filling up with press - from Jon Soppel with BBC breakfast to Newsnight’s Michael Crick seemingly looking for trouble! Looking around the exhibitors stalls there was an impressive presence of pressure groups and charities including the Electoral Reform Society, CND and the NSPCC getting plenty of attention. General [open] discussions tended to be centred around the ideological realignment of the party and how the left and social liberalism was being maintained, and of course the cuts. The standard of intellectual perceptions and debate was impressively high and a warm, tolerant attitude underpinned the common Liberal ethos. 

Later in the morning Danny Alexander made his speech to conference. Unfortunately the Chief Secretary of the Treasury is more brains and less charisma, but he communicated his agenda and certainly reassured me that the LibDems are standing up to the Tories in coalition and guiding the cuts to be as compassionate as possible. He rightly pointed out that ”we did in thirteen weeks what labour didn’t do in thirteen years” in terms of restoring the earnings link to pensions and lifting 900,000 people out of tax from next year. 

For lunchtime fringe I was accosted to “meet Nick Clegg” and entered an almost empty room of nervous staff trying to fill this unadvertised under-35s event. I was sat down for a few minutes when I turned around to see the Rt Hon. Mr Clegg on his mobile at the back of the room! Instead of any event getting underway in the formal sense he came up and greeted us and chatted about giving young people the best start from an early age in the education system, not just training workers, and he spoke passionately about justice reforms. He also mentioned how hungry he was and only half-jokingly asked if anyone had sandwiches he could share! I was impressed to see that in a private, press-free room Nick was still the inspiring, charismatic leader he is on stage, but also down to earth, personable, really funny and most importantly not patronising! 

After Nick Clegg left I stuck around for an open discussion with Duncan Hames MP, Martin Shapland from Liberal Youth and Cowley Street staff to talk about educating and reaching out to young people about politics and the party. We had some really interesting ideas about printed media, college visits, online presence and much more and I was pleased that Duncan and the campaigns staff took it really seriously and are going to keep us up to date on what ideas they take forward.  

Back to the main conference for the Q&A with the man we’d just been chatting casually to and it was impressive to realise how genuine and passionate Nick Clegg is about the coalition and the new era of politics we are entering. He was exactly the right mix of a familiar face to conference and the second most powerful politician in Britain and there was a constructive, enthused atmosphere on conference floor. Next was Jeremy Browne’s speech as Foreign Office Minister of State. This was much more mechanized and the tiniest bit self-important, but he isdoing important work at the heart of the foreign office and redeemed himself in a more relaxed and intimate fringe event later in conference. 

Sunday night things really picked up on the Fringes. I went to a packed Radio 4 recording for Monday’s ‘World at One’ which featured Lynne Featherstone (home office minister for equalities), Richard Grayson (former head of policy and general party insider), and Mark Littlewood (Director of Institute for Economic Affairs and former Chief Press Spokesman) . The food was excellent but the debate held its own and the panel were genuinely convinced the coalition would last and continue to implement Liberal policies and prove the Liberal Democrats capability to govern. There were a lot of clashes between the somewhat disillusioned Grayson on the left and Littlewood very much on the right economically, but the standard of even those moments was excellent and I felt like I learned a considerable amount from listening to the debate. I only regret that I can’t find the recording online!

Following this a fringe on future student funding from NUS President Aaron Porter, Liberal Youth Chair Martin Shapland, Million+ Director Les Ebdon and Deputy LibDem Leader Simon Hughes. This was another sophisticated debate on university funding and how to avoid brain drains, ensure equality and continue to support the country’s intellectual potential. Simon Hughes was hesitantly enthusiastic about future moves on a graduate contribution system regardless of the Lord Browne report and even spoke of a possibility (“I can’t confirm anything” he stressed repeatedly) that the coalition would commit to abolishing fees, and certainly the Liberal Democrats would continue to fight for this. 

Finally a late fringe (9.30-10.30pm) with Danny Alexander and the Chief Exec of RSPB which affirmed a commitment to the environment, farming and maintaining biodiversity in the British countryside. There were also interesting points about everything from renting solar panels to getting school children out to see the countryside.

Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference, 2010

Liverpool, 18-22nd September

Saturday 18th

Once I had made it through the airport-style security checks - reminding us we now have ministers, Secretaries of State and the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom representing our party and our Liberal ideology in government - I was surprised to enter a foyer of Liberal Democrats in smart suits and with blackberries and iPhones as opposed to the bearded, sandal wearing types the press would lead you to believe are at the core of the party. I was impressed by the clear range of ages and backgrounds and by the overall professionalism which set the tone for my time at the core of the Liberal Democrat party. 

Events really began that evening with the Fair Votes Rally. I read a Telegraph write up the next day which described the apathy and “silence” of conference and for the first time I really began to understand the hostility of some politicians towards the press. A conference hall packed tightly with thousands of LibDems and littered with MPs and press throughout created and atmosphere nothing short of electric. Art Malik was a laid-back presence as host, where perhaps we could have benefited from someone who reflected the fiery passion and anticipation of the crowd, however this was delivered in the form of MPs Jo Swinson and Tim Farron and the independent anti-sleaze former-MP Martin Bell. Highlights included Farron’s joke “now that Nick is down the hall from Andy Coulson he doesn’t have to check his own phone messages!” 

Then the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, The Rt Hon. Nick Clegg MP took to the stage. To deny that he remains at the head of a united Liberal Democrat party who passionately support his leadership would simply be untrue. A rapturous standing ovation greeted him, and delegates sent a clear message that he had our support. You can watch a clip of his speech here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11359715

Following Nick Clegg’s speech I attended a first-timer’s drinks reception - the first of many glasses of red wine to come - and spoke to Tim Farron about the influx of new membership and repositioning of the party as serious contenders for government from now on. I was surprised again by the diversity in the room in terms of age, background and gender especially and doubted a Tory conference would attract so many different individuals. 

To round off the evening I proceeded to conference bar where I chatted to Vince Cable no less, who reassured us that despite his deep, lifelong hostility towards Tories he found them professional and at least bearable to work with, and there was no risk of him resigning. He seemed to genuinely believe the coalition was here to stay: a view which was reinforced by MPs at every level throughout conference…