A resurgent Liberal

I’ve just pulled together a special page for the leadership election on Flock Together.

All part of the Flock Together mission statement (which I need to think about properly and write down at some point)

Making it dramatically easier for liberal-minded people to get involved in the Liberal Democrats

or words to that effect.

I’ve just uploaded the second campaign podcast onto the Campbell website. This one features David Walter interviewing Nick Clegg MP about Ming and the campaign to date.

Somewhat to my surprise, since this is all a bit of an experiment, I’m getting to be quite a fan of this podcast format.

I’m not too sure that my great-great-great-grandfather James would have been too impressed by the way some leadership candidates are discussing the question of age. He and his brother John were active members of the Dalkeith Liberal Association during Gladstone’s 1879 Midlothian campaign, when the grand old man was already 69. The Scotsman’s archive records John’s motion of thanks to Gladstone on February 4th, 1879.

As one of the leadership candidates seems a bit unsure of his Liberal Party history, it is perhaps worth mentioning that, following his success in Midlothian, Gladstone went on to be Prime Minister three more times: in 1880 (aged 70), 1886 (aged 76) and 1892 (aged 82).

Interesting post on localism by Peter at the Apollo Project.

One thing that’s often overlooked is that many counties (especially the historical ones) are at least as big as various US states, German L�nder or even member states of the EU. Also that most countries do not have the homogenous bureaucratically tidy regional structure that Labour and the civil service were trying to inflict on us. (Now the plug for my website). You can play with all the various combinations at Construct-a-region. Interestingly the most popular ‘regions’ constructed so far are London (big) and Cornwall (small). Interestingly also, there is an extraordinarily low level of interest in reconstructing the regions that Whitehall has currently inflicted on us.

So, what would I expect from any contender for the party leadership - at least technologically?

The evidence from other countries, especially the US, is that a successful candidate will use the internet to build up a community of supporters backing their candidacy.

Howard Dean (or, more accurately, Joe Trippi) led the way on this via:

• Use of meetup.com to encourage Dean supporters to meet and work together. To this end, I’ve modified Flock Together to enable leadership contenders and their supporters to do likewise and also make it easy for members to get news about nearby hustings and the leadership campaign.
• The Blog for America which provided a platform for online discussion (subject to some moderation) and captured the thoughts of Dean’s team as the campaign progressed. There’s a useful list of tips on best practice preserved on the Howard Dean site. With sites like Liberal Review and Lib Dem Blogs gaining ever more readership within the party, blogs are likely to be more important during this campaign than ever before.
• An email list to get campaign messages and ideas out to his supporters and consult them on their views. And if US experience isn’t persuasive, David Cameron also had daily messages going out via email.
• A website pulling all the above together, providing useful information on the candidate’s activities, views and beliefs and offering lots of ways to donate or get involved

Of course, the experience of the Howard Dean campaign also makes it clear that none of this is a substitute for a strong policy platform, effective media management and the ability to communicate effectively with the public and the party.

However, given the way that the recent problems in the party have been exacerbated by lack of adequate communication with the membership, borrowing some of these practices would be a helpful step forward and a good basis for improving how the party operates ongoing.