'Conference no longer gives me the thrill of anticipation and the boost to my enthusiasm for campaigning that it did when I was younger'
I am a very old Liberal who joined in 1974 and have been to more conferences than I can remember.
Like everyone else I am very ready to celebrate our general election success but party conference no longer gives me the thrill of anticipation and the boost to my enthusiasm for campaigning that it did when I was younger.
The agenda was prepared in a hurry after the election and did not excite my attention. Each motion was on a worthy cause, began with a long and familiar denunciation of awful things the Tories had done followed by a broad unspecific objective like “better prisons”, “more investment in schools”.
When more detail was offered it implied huge expenditure but with no election soon no costed spending or explanations of how the money is to be raised.
This is of course what opposition parties often say.
There were of course amendments – Liberals love amending things – but I didn’t see anything that a Liberal might vote against so discussion was less lively than I am used to.
The usual full programme of fringe meetings produced more interest.
There was also the delight and surprise of discovering that unexpected people were now MPs.
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