Report of Lib Dem Conference Sept 2009

Written by Jeremy Hilton and published in Gloucester Citizen Newspaper on Fri 19th Sep 2008

OF THE three main parties, the Liberal Democrats are first to hold their annual conference and this week we have been in Bournemouth.

The sun has been shining, after weeks of rain, on the morale of Liberal Democrat delegates whose spirits are high. Party leader Nick Clegg is consolidating his leadership in contrast with Gordon Brown. Labour is preparing for civil war whilst the Liberal Democrats are debating imaginative solutions to solve Britain's economic gloom.

Nick's speech on Wednesday, which closed the conference, sent us all home with renewed vigour, ready to challenge in the next election.

He made the point that our tax plans, designed to help those on lower and middle incomes, would be of greater benefit to the people of this country than the Conservatives' proposals for massive tax cuts for the top 10%, and that the New Labour project is failing people across the country.

Our plans, which includes a new income tax rate of 16p, a switch to green taxes, and switches in Government spending to assist low and middle-earners are much better suited to Gloucestershire than either Labour, or the Conservatives, whose similarity to Gordon Brown's Government was underlined when Nick coined the phrase 'Blue Labour'.

One of my first actions on arriving at the conference was to sign the petition in support of veteran Gurkha soldiers having the right to remain in Britain. The Government has already agreed that Gurkha veterans who have retired since 1997 can remain in Britain - we should now extend that right to all former Gurkha soldiers.

We debated the policy paper "Make it Happen" where our policy to cut taxes to those on low and middle incomes was endorsed. The rich and the polluters will pay more.

This year we developed the policy still further to make savings in unnecessary Government expenditure like the national ID card scheme and to redirect spending to our priorities. If there is money left over, we shall help hard-pressed families on low and middle incomes with further tax reductions.

"Make it Happen" is new policy paper, which deals with many aspects of Liberal Democrat policy that we shall fight the general election on. Our policies will particularly benefit the people of Gloucester.

We will help children from low-income families get a better deal from education as we fund schools in a new way. Money will be attached to the individual pupil and there will be extra cash for children who need more help, so schools can pay for smaller classes, after-school lessons, or one-to-one tuition.

As a liberal I am delighted to support our policy to protect civil liberties, and I just wish that Gloucester's Labour MP would stand up for our personal freedoms as well.

Liberal Democrats will put each of us back in charge of our own privacy. We will stop fingerprinting in school; scrap the ID card scheme to pay for more police; rewrite our data protection rules to make them stronger and stop holding innocent people's DNA on file.

Liberal Democrats will set people free from New Labour's intrusive nanny state.