Lib Dems go coy for conference

The Liberal Democrats are in a bind at the moment. Anyone trying to put on an event at their Liverpool conference this year will know exactly what I mean. Up your dose of statins and read on.

This year was always going to be an interesting one for the party. A fair chunk of coalition power now lies in the wood panelled halls of Cowley St so it is fair to deduce that their annual conference would be better attended and that competition for speakers would be much more fierce than in previous years.

But where last year Shadow Chancellor Vince was an attainable target, this year you might be forgiven for thinking that you had more chance of delivering Barack Obama and the Pope at your fringe meeting.

The problem is, of course, that there are no longer any shadow spokespeople. So conference organisers have a much smaller pool of speakers to draw on, in a year where demand is intense.

This, coupled with the decision not to double up on speaker slots, is causing big problems. Lib Dem HQ has deemed the approach “stressful” and wants its team to be able to focus on one event at a time. This sounds entirely reasonable, but the conference fringe contains well over 200 events, many of which run concurrently.  There are 17 Lib Dem ministers.  Last year there were double that number of shadows.

Common practice these days is for senior Parliamentarians to flit between fringe events. They’ll make opening remarks at one, join halfway through the debate at another and then close a third.  This is by no means perfect, but if you’re realistic, you can make it work well.

Frankly it is the only way, as a minister, that you have any chance of covering the ground. The decision to reject that approach this year is going to have consequences. There will be events, run by big organisations, at Liberal Democrat conference without any ministerial presence. This will certainly give sponsors pause for thought about the value of attending.

Of course Conference is about the members not about corporate sponsors, and this is an important point.  But when you are a party of government you have to accept that more people than ever want to see you in action.