Wither Bournemouth? July 3, 2009
Posted by darrellgoodliffe in Uncategorized.Tags: Conference, Liberal Demoracts, Opinion
trackback
We boast about all the great cities that we run at a council level but when do we visit them with our annual conference? This is especially relevant to northern cities where we are supposed to be targeting the flaking Labour vote. Granted, Spring Conference was in Harrogate this year but we seem to have a strange affliction with favouring southern seaside towns when it comes to the main autumn conference.
Also, we are going to Liverpool next year for our autumn conference but I am genuinelysurprised that we once again decamping to the south coast. Apart from the political ramifications there is a knock on affect for decreasingpeoples ability to participate because of travel and accommodation costs. Of course, other measures can be looked at to address this including e-conferencing.
However, moving more around the country would ease the problem or at least the impact of it and it would send a clear political message about our broad appeal and would hopefully also send a message to wavering Labour voters.
This is primarily down to the availability of suitable venues with a large range of accommodation nearby.
The reason the main parties have tended to use Brighton, Bournemouth and Blackpool for their Autumn Conferences is because they have both a venue which is large enough to host the conference AND a wide range and large quantity of accommodation (being seaside resorts and conferences being out of season).
Up until now this simply hasn’t been available in the big northern cities. Even Harrogate (which is my favourite conference venue) is too small for our Autumn Conference nowadays.
Liberal,
Granted that is a valid point but I definatly feel this is something that can be taken on-board for future confernces; we should move more around the country and we desperatly need to look at how new media can increase participation.