There was a curious anomaly in the otherwise excellent paper which launched conference, A Better Politics for Less. The paper proposed the merger of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (a body which does what it says on the tin) with the more obliquely titled Learning and Skills Council who, among other things, fund Further Education.

Merging the two bodies who fund college and university education seems logical, even neat. It means however, that the Liberal Democrats are proposing the creation of a mega-QUANGO at the very moment a Bill is passing through parliament to break up the LSC and devolve their funding powers to local councils. Government legislation embracing devolution and localism to a greater degree than Lib Dem policy? Perish the thought.

Being laid up with the traditional conference cold has given me plenty of time to reflect on our biannual shing-ding. Though I may have been feverish at the time, the conclusion I’ve reached is that for our party to make the national parliamentary breakthrough it has worked so hard to earn, we do indeed need a new approach to devolution. A new devolution settlement is needed in our own party – one in which our party’s democratic machinery devolves power up to the leadership.

The Federal Policy Committee

The letter by members of our Federal Policy Committee to the Guardian during conference appeared on the surface to be both self-indulgent and damaging. While there is little doubt it damaged the party in the media, we must acknowledge two things – the signatories believed they were protecting a core part of our party democracy and so acting to strengthen the party in the long term, and they had the guts to put their names to their opinion. This is more than can be said for the anonymous briefers who leaked their displeasure over the lack of consultation on the ‘mansion tax’.

There will be those who believe that the mansion tax debacle is another example of why the leadership cannot act alone – my feeling is that the party was hurt not by this target-seat friendly headline grabbing policy, but by the subsequent ill-disciplined infighting in front of the national media.

When Nick Clegg launched his bid to lead the Liberal Democrats, he did so with these words: “If the Liberal Democrats are to change the tired old pattern of British politics, we are going to have to be bolder. We are going to have to move out of our comfort zone and take greater risks.” He was right. Nick and his team have been slowly pushing the boundaries of the party’s comfort zone. With a general election just around the corner, it’s time to expand that comfort zone significantly.

The letter to the Guardian refers to the “29-strong” FPC. That strength is rapidly in danger of becoming a weakness. The biggest legitimate criticism of conference is that it lacked a compelling narrative. Great stories are not written by committees. Introduce a large table and complimentary biscuits and there will follow inevitable compromises, deals, half-measures. This process risks dragging the party to the safety of its own middle-ground, takes our fingers off the electorate’s pulse, and leaves the leadership without a radical and distinctive agenda to promote.

Federal Conference Commitee

In the case of conference, there is the party’s Federal Conference Committee to contend with also. The FCC, for all its great work, for all the real progress made in recent years in professionalising conference, still has some way to go in recognising the parity of conference’s role as a media showcase as well as the sovereign policy forum in the party.

As we head in to a General Election, the Liberal Democrat party is a pilot ship being navigated in the manner of a super-tanker. When a nimble change of course is required to navigate choppy political seas, the captain hits the throttle only for the message to come back “your request for more power has been duly considered by the 29-strong engineering committee, and we do not believe the necessary fuel can be afforded at this time.”

I don’t want this to read like an all-out assault on Federal committees, whose members dedicate time and passion to their work. The point is that the party’s governance structures need to give the leader more freedom to lead.

Reacting to events

According to one blogger, “[Nick] regrets not being more forceful about flipping and capital gains tax with the expenses scandal.” We were fortunate in that the errors of the Lib Dem parliamentary party were less severe than the others. Had Nick Clegg had reason to deliver the sort of tough justice delivered on his MPs by David Cameron – effectively completely deselecting Andrew MacKay for example – there is a very real question about whether he would have had the authority to do so. For an English MP,  possibly. For a Scottish or Welsh MP, the situation becomes murkier.

These are relatively trivial examples – there are more I could cite where valuable time is spent negotiating deals behind the scenes, which could be spent instead on reaching out to the voters, not in to the party.

As a starter for ten, I propose a new devolution settlement in the Liberal Democrats.

For a period of one year, the following powers would be devolved to a leadership team consisting of the Federal, Welsh, and Scottish party leaders, and their respective chief executives:

  • The final say on the content of the party’s manifesto (extending beyond a right of veto), after having taken the advice of the FPC and the Manifesto group.
  • Complete authority to determine the programme for the opening and final days of their autumn conferences, and the full programme of spring conferences
  • The authority to de-select on reasonable grounds any MP, MSP, or AM
  • The authority to suspend any committees deemed by all three leaders to be serving no useful purpose
  • The authority to review and redirect directly controlled campaign resources
  • The authority to introduce alternative methods of candidate selection in any seat

There will be those who will say this proposes the demolition of our party’s democratic processes, taking power away from any number of federal, national, and regional committees. This might be true if indeed the power were taken – but would be a positive statement of the party’s faith in its leadership if it were given. Devolved for one year, effectively a trial of a new party governance structure.

Bill le Breton argues that Nick needs to get a grip on his immediate team – I say he needs to be given a grip on his whole party. That authority which is devolved, can of course be taken back, especially if it is time limited – but in the meantime, far from stepping beyond our comfort zone, we’d be smashing through it at 70mph as we head in to the next election. It’s time for the Liberal Democrats to let their leaders lead.