Marshalswick South Focus Team

Councillors, Rod Perks and Allan Witherick working with Andrew Duff MEP and Melvyn Teare for you Learn more

Conference confusion? Coalition or merger? The answers clear

by awitherick on 24 September, 2010

In mid-late September the Liberal Democrats gathered in Liverpool for their first Federal Conference since the General Election. This brought together members from across Great Britain to discuss policy, hold party MPs, and of course Ministers, to account as well as providing opportunities to train and network.
Among the party faithful present were local councillor Allan Witherick, parliamentary candidate Sandy Walkington and for part of the time Andrew Duff, our MEP. As a whole the mood was upbeat despite heightened security and the newspaper reports seemed to neglect much of the positive work going on during the conference.
Cllr Allan Witherick said “For me conference was invaluable as I had the opportunity to raise issues which matter to people in St Albans directly with the Ministers responsible. We all have concerns about the cuts, but equally seeing how much we spend on debt interest, we know it can’t go on. Labour did the equivalent of mortgaging us to the hilt, and then carried on spending.
One thing is clear though, we are still Liberal Democrats and some of the policies passed at conference show how different we are in stance to the Tories and the principals that we will continue to fight for while in government.

It should be stressed that unlike trade union conferences for example where their members are able to claim all of their expenses, the Liberal Democrats primarily pay for themselves as there’s no one to claim bills from- which always confuses taxi drivers who are used to the other parties getting receipts for everything!

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