The path to a people's parliament

Just over two weeks ago, I sat in the LBC 97.3 studios in Leicester Square being told by the very jolly Tory Bear that the Lib Dems were irrelevant!  Well, not so irrelevant now, are they Mr Bear?!!

That was at the height of Tory complacency about the election, the night before the first debate after which it became clear to everyone that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems if given a fair hearing are a force to be reckoned with.

There is so much excitement about the new politics.  There is, at the moment a feeling that everything could all be about to change, that the two party duopoly has gone for good.

Of course, the desire for a more representative parliament delivered through a proportional voting system isn't the sole preserve of Liberal Democrats; there are Labour, Green and even a few Tory supporters that believe in it.  But the path to such a people's parliament will be a long one and we will all have to adapt the way we do politics to it.

Balanced parliament means political parties have work together; so we are going to have to set aside our tribal loyalties, learn to breath without our nose pegs and be prepared to talk to anybody. Yes, even Tories perhaps or maybe even Gordon Brown (breathe 1, 3, 3 ,4, breathe, 1,2,3,4..scary thought, I know)

Balanced parliaments and coalitions are about creating outcomes, not throwing your toys out of the pram because you can't bear the idea of your political enemies benefiting in any way.

So, allow Nick, who has done us all so proud in the last few weeks to do his stuff.  Don't tell him now what he can and can't do a deal with; don't tell him who he should and shouldn't talk to. 

And stop going on about the triple lock! Crikey, I like the fact that the Liberal Democrats are a democratic party as much as the next Lib Dem but it is only a fall back position. For it to be invoked there would have to be a massive split in the parliamentary party and I think it's highly unlikely that there will be a split in the parliamentary party around who to talk to in the event of a parliament with no overall majority.

Any political geek who thinks she or he's going to have a direct influence on any coalition agreements is, well, over-egging their part in the pudding.

Every leader has to take his (or hopefully one day, her) party with them when negotiating with other parties.  The triple lock is just a formalisation of what all three of the Leaders will have to do.  Neither Cameron or Brown would be able to get very far without the support of their parliamentary party.

After all, have you not noticed that Nick has already set out what the terms of negotiation will be via his four priorities?

He's set out the terms of any negotiations and set the red line which cannot be crossed of electoral reform as his backstop. 

Not one of us knows what the electoral map and mathematics are going to look like come May 7th, so stop speculating and let Nick get on with what he is doing brilliantly: holding his and the party's nerve for another week!

Go Nick!!

 

 

 

Posted via web from jochristiesmith's posterous

What's it going to be, Gordon? Yes or No?

Sky News has started a campaign for a leadership debate come the General Election. Something never before done on UK TV.

Cameron jumped right in and said yes. Why wouldn't he? He comes over quite well on TV and certainly belies (I think) what most of the Tory parliamentary party are like. I think, because even though he tries to act like he's not, he really is awfully posh and he needs to take care that he doesn't come across as too pompous.

Nick, agreed on Sky News Sunrise programme this morning that he would. Again, why not - Nick is after becoming an increasingly polished media performer? And whilst it is prefectly possible to be a Liberal Democrat and pompous, Nick is definitely not! He's great (can you tell I'm a fan) - he just needs to make sure that he talks in stories rather than lists of policies.



And Gordon, he'll probably hide behind the lack of precedence in his attempts to avoid it. Because, let's face it; he's going to be rubbish! It's a shame because when he's really smiling, he has a lovely smile: but he's no good at putting it on and it just turns out like a grimace. What's really going to undo him is that he's a numbers man and in defensive mode he's just going to deafen us all with statistics and we will probably stop listening even before he's opened his mouth.

As Mark says on Lib Dem Voice - there's nothing to stop Sky going ahead even if Gordon Brown doesn't take part, but I think, in the end, even though he has nothing to gain from taking part in a TV debate, Labour still has quite a lot to lose by being the ones that refuse to play. And as for it being bad for democracy: pah! If that's the case, then TV is bad for democracy! It's true not all talented TV performers would make good leaders but good leaders need to be able to communicate with voters over the medium of the age; which is still, for most people of voting age the TV.

And yes, takling of TV, I'm on SkyNews.Com this evening; on the 'buzz' along with Jonathan Isaby from Conservative Home and a Labour bod (will say who, when I know) discussing the pros and cons!

Well, done Sky for just doing it!

Bar the gates to parliament and don't let them out until they've sorted it!

I am very excited about Nick's reforms published in the Guardian today! Especially because they include a week by week plan of action - which is what change professional like me really get off on!

So, here's a challenge to the Tories - if you're so reformist, then why not join the calls for reform in 100 days, real reform, not just tinkering around the edges like Cameron's plans do?

More later, no doubt but I've got to dash now....

The Bones Commission

Yes. The Bones Commission. 

I can almost hear a collective snort.  Already, on the Lib Dem blogosphere at least, the words ‘Bones Commission’ and ‘derision’ are starting to sound like committed companions.

Why is that so?  When so many of us really have no idea of what’s in it and the few places where we have been given an idea of what it contains are more interested in selling copy and stirring the radical in us all then actually being accurate. 

Those of us who know people on the various committees, FE and FPC, may well have heard a bit more, but even then it is only hearsay as nobody has actually been given anything on a piece of paper. 

Personally, I’m relaxed about the content of the Bones Commission; but then I don’t sit on any body that it’s looking to change, unless it has something very urgent to say about the London Policy Committee, which I doubt.  And even so, I’m with Paul Walter on this, what did we expect? That the Commission would come to the conclusion that more people needed to be involved in making each decision?  No, I’m relaxed, I get my opportunity to vote in the leader and to vote in the members of the constitutional committees and frankly that’s about as democratic as I need it. I don’t need to make every decision but I do need to be clear on what is happening.

The problem for me is not in the content of the Bones Commission but in its implementation. Because in truth (and I would say this, wouldn’t I?) the tricky bit of change is not developing the strategy; it is not saying we are at A and we need to be at B, although all that needs to be done.  It is about implementing the change, it is about actually changing the way the organisation does things in order to bring about B, getting people to do one thing when they’ve spent the last 10 years doing another.  And dull, dull, dull though it may be, the lion’s share of that activity and the trick to getting your transformational change, or ‘reforms’ as they are framed in the Bones Commission in without too much pain or reputational risk, is communication.

Clearly, I am not the only person to notice this: James Graham, almost understates it, in his Comment is free article when he says:

“The key problem within the party at the moment appears to be a lack of effective internal communication”.

My gut feeling is that the edifice of the party’s internal communication has not suddenly turned into a pile of rubble, but that the communication of the Bones Commission is being handled with such ineptness that is places a pall of suspicion over everything else.

So, where are they going wrong?

Well, broadly, as I mentioned in a comment on Stephen Tall’s piece on Lib Dem Voice they are treating transformational change of an organisation as if it were a policy implementation.  To be fair I do detect, in the manner of one of the characters in CSI:Miami, some evidence of someone having a think about stakeholders.  Clearly, there has been some plan around communication of the Reform Commission Findings to the Federal Executive and other constitutional bodies.  We know this not because there have been any formal communication telling us what is happening when but because those on the Federal Executive read their agendas and passed it on to others by word of mouth or via The Liberator.

So, it seems they have ignored the needs rest of the party and Nick’s filler message on Lib Dem Voice served only to incense people more, on account of the fact that it seemed to have been put together from a magnetic poetry fridge set.  This is bad planning; in fact, this is no planning.  I cannot understand this as of course, Chris Bones, has worked for some pretty big companies, all of which will have implemented large scale organisational change. But they are already losing control of the story and they don’t seem to be doing anything to get it back.

So, why do they have to communicate with even those who have no say?  Why is the content of the Bones Commission fundamentally different from a policy paper, even a controversial one like Trident or the Taxation document?

Well, the key is the stake that we all have in what the party does because ultimately we are the ones that will do it.  Party policy is important to us and is something that we, Lib Dems, pride ourselves on.  However, policy is what we plan to get the civil service to do in the future.  It is not what we expect ourselves to do now.  Asking people to change the way they do things is prey to much more adverse emotion than asking them to agree to the fact that someone else will have to change. Most people are happy with change happening to other people (especially when it’s in the future) but very few of us like having to change ourselves.  Especially, as an aside, in my experience those who are responsible for delivering change.

It takes a lot of thoughtful communication to get people to feel OK about change and not just when you’ve got something to say; you have to communicate when you don’t have anything to say, especially if you want to avoid rumours of impending doom taking place.

I can see, and I’m sure most of us can concur, that those we have elected to the federal committees should be able to absorb and respond to the changes ahead of the general public and membership.  After all, the Policy Committee gets to see Policy Papers before the working group makes them public.  It is highly likely that the results of the Party Reform Commission are not ready to be shared with everybody.  That’s fine, but what Nick and the team should have done is to set out a timetable for when more information is coming out.  They ought to be communicating regularly on the progress of the commission through all the party organisations even if they can’t tell us the content.  They should have conviction enough to set out a timetable, even if in the end they have to replan the timetable.

People are worried about their party, because they are worried that they way they make their contribution will have to be curtailed or changed.  This is an emotional response and a valid one.  People are uncertain about their future and because we are all human beings first (well, almost all of us) we are worrying possibly quite unnecessarily about the future.

I agree with James Graham, Tom is wrong when he asserts we should all just stop moaning; after all the vast majority of us give our time completely free, many of us give money and the Liberal Democrat Party is just as much mine as it is Nick’s. My time is precious and I want it to be used as effectively as possible and The Bones Commission may change that (at the moment, I’m hoping it will be for the better); why shouldn’t I care?

So, Nick, Chris and the rest of those responsible for delivering the Bones Commission’s findings, put your party out of it’s misery, not necessarily by giving in to Martin Land’s request (although I empathise with his angst completely) but by setting out a timetable for when and what sort of communication there will be.  Please trust us to be able to understand the process.

It won’t stop all the rumours and you won’t keep everybody happy.  It will, however, comfort many of us, make us feel valued and stop us getting suspicious of your silence.

 

What's happening with the Party Reform Commission?

aka the Bones commission: do any of my fellow Lib Dems know?

My undestanding is that they were going to report after the May elections and whilst I know there has been some additional consultation going on with local parties, is there an updated timetable?

Or did we decide to delay the strategic reform required to ensure a step change in our electoral success, to fight 2 by elections on a purely tactical basis? (Although if someone could tell me what the tactical advantage was, that'd be great). Maybe I should just go and find a wall to hit my head against.

Just to put it in perspective, the costs of just one by election could have been invested in employing a full time (maybe even two, depending on the level of experience that you want) organisational change professional for a year and you could implement the commissions findings (whatever they are) in a fraction of the time and actually enable allow us to deliver on Nick's objectives of 150 MPs within 2 elections.

Nick Clegg starts to tell our story

Today, I have starting to see evidence of a real narrative being built up by Nick. As the Free Think Blog mentions, Nick has been all over the papers like a rash today. And in his article in The Independent at last creates a story that will resonate with voters!

Hoo-bloody-ray!!!

It has been some time since the bloggers interview of Nick Clegg that I attended; I have to be truth had other things on my mind since then and have struggled to give the interview and my write up of it the attention it deserves. However, as I sit here in the eye of a storm, I find myself able to peruse and ingest the activity of Mr Clegg over the last few days and comment upon it. Almost always a pleasure, as I am only outdone in my regard for Nick Clegg by my Mum, who isn’t even a Lib Dem, but has been wittering on about him since 2005. And, she made Newport Library on the Isle of Wight order Barack Obama’s autobiographyat least 18 months ago, so she knows how to pick a winner, mark my words.

As anyone who has read the blog of the erudite, discerning and perceptive Neil Stockley will know that if we are to succeed in the breakthrough that Nick wants we need more than just the best policies in the country. We already have those and they haven’t always translated into electoral success. Key to winning will be Nick’s ability to define an appealing narrative, embody it, fit his actions to it and for us to back it up with a substantial range of policies. Well, big tick for us, as da-daaah: we already have the best policies in the country! So, it’s up to Nick to do his bit.

When I asked Nick about this at the bloggers interview he didn’t provide me with the answer that I was looking for. Well, not to start with. To be fair (or unfair) I wasn’t expecting him to give me the perfect answer, because if he had then that would’ve meant he understood what a narrative was and why it was so important and would therefore be doing it and I wouldn’t have to ask what our narrative was!! You can breathe again now. And I could have asked other pet questions such as what are you going to do about the dearth of women on the Lib Dem green benches (even the ones we’ve got are all but invisible at PMQs) and what are we going to do to court women voters?

So, really I wasn’t asking him what our narrative was but rather more obliquely: do you understand what a narrative is and what are your ideas for what ours should be? With a subtitle of: and isn’t it about time you got your head around it and gave us one? Because how hard is it? And have you not read Neil’s paper on Liberal Democrats and narrative?

I have been told that I’m not always as patient as I could be.

Well, Nick started off well: it’s about being a liberal, changing the way we do politics, lots to do with power both in politics and in business and then he proceeded to drift far, far away from the path I was willing him down and started to provide me with a list! A list! Aaaarghhhh!

Tempted as I was, sitting next to him, to fling my notepad on the floor and give a Chinese burn for answering a question on narrative with a list, I interrupted his flow allowing him, patiently, one more item on this ever increasing list. He kindly demurred and let me rephrase my question. Did he think using words like liberal was enough of an: here I stopped speaking and mimed pulling at the heart strings ‘emotional pull?’ he completed for me.

Yes.

Probably not, was the answer and this is where his response changed and he got back on the path and I was able to stop scowling and start smiling at him again.

Nick was clear that whatever else the next election is about, it will be about change, much in the same way as the 1997 election. The political challenge will be for us to lead the definition of that change with more authenticity that the Tories. Phew!

And today, Nick started to do it in a way that I thought was not just convincing but sustainable in both his Policy Exchange Speech and his article in the Independent. In his article on Democracy he starts off by outline the ‘crisis in which the public feel ever more alienated from, and angry towards, the political class’. That political class is out of touch they:

"read and watch the cottage industry of views spawned by the commentators. But Westminster politics has become a minority sport. Apathy, frustration and cynicism have won the day.

But people do still care. There’s nothing more disingenuous that politicians claiming that the public doesn’t care, that a culture of contentment has rendered people indifferent.”

He goes on to describe the people who come to his town hall meetings:

“…they shout because it’s personal, because it matters, because it’s part of their real life. The contrast with the contrived anger and noise in the House of Commons speaks volumes. It shows people do care. They do care about the world they live in. They just don’t care about party politics".

He then identifies that we are at a turning point and that it’s up to all of us to grab the opportunity:

“In 10 years' time we will look back at this moment and either see it as the beginning of a real, vital transformation in our politics, or a missed opportunity that killed off public faith in politics for a generation or more.

There are deep forces at work: social, cultural and political identities have become fluid as old political ideologies are replaced by a web of religious, ethnic and demographic distinctions between people that no longer fit into the rigid mould of two-party politics”.

And which path should we take?

“Overturning the vested interests that protect the status quo is always tricky. But I am certain that once it begins, and people see that change really is achievable, the tide will be unstoppable. People have been locked out of politics for too long. Cynicism and apathy have taken root. Self interest and a lack of imagination blinker the political class. But change is possible – and inescapable if we want to rediscover the democracy that once made this country great”.

This is more like it! This is just the ‘story’, the emotional bit, which I’ve pulled out from the article which is littered with some of the policy initiatives that would support this narrative. But it is these emotional bits that are important. People generally vote with their emotions, not after having done a compare and contrast against all the available party manifestos. Let’s face it, when Vote Match in the Mayoral lections told you to vote for someone else, other than Brian Paddick, did you?

First you must grab their attention. If you don’t have the polices, you won’t keep their attention (which is what will happen to Cameron, if he’s not careful) but all the policies in the world won’t get you in power if you can’t engage the electorate in the manner they wish to be engaged in.

Nick embodies this dissenting individual narrative very well himself from the ‘cacti episode’ on a school trip to his determination not to carry an ID card. He embodies that idea that he is one of us not part of the Westminster bubble, by being, well, refreshingly normal. It’s one of the things that made me not just vote for him as leader but give up a days fee to drive him around south west London during his leadership campaign. He embodies the listening through his town hall meetings.

So, the narrative I think he’s in the process of defining goes a bit like this:

The political classes, Brown and Cameron are out of touch and only interested in themselves. Whilst all around people are voicing their concerns nobody will listen. But me, I will listen; I do listen. We have an opportunity to move away from this rotten, self serving, two party politics and get back to listening to what people not the Westminster bubble want. Take that opportunity and we will go back to being the great country that we once were but vote in either the Tories or Labour and you won’t get anywhere.

It probably could do with refining and I’m not sure how it fits into Neil’s narrative archetypes but I am today, am really rather happy with this. I still need a bit more on how wonderful it’s going to be in this once again great country of ours but this is a real start.

One other bit of positive narrative embodiment from today? Well, an article like this in the Sun, is not going to do our Nick any harm at all!!