"Choose a better future" - Liberal Democrats message from Harrogate (Pendle Liberal Democrats)

Pendle Liberal Democrats <info@pendlelibdems.org.uk>

"Choose a better future" - Liberal Democrats message from Harrogate

March 15, 2009 10:25 PM

Members gathered in Harrogate on the weekend of 6th-8th March for the party's spring conference. And the key theme was "choose a better future".

Party Leader Nick Clegg used the conference to reach out to Britain and ask people to move away from the failed cycle of Labour and Conservative governments. He called on voters to "make a leap of faith" and "choose a better future" with the Liberal Democrats.

As part of the "better future" theme, conference members backed calls to give families practical help in the recession, enhance opportunities for every child, plan for a greener future and defending the individual liberty against invasion by the state.

In addition, members voted to:

• cut primary class sizes to 15

• put an additional £2.5 billion into funding schools to ensure children from more deprived areas get as good a start in life as those from wealthy backgrounds

• provide 20 hours of free childcare a week per child

• scrap tuition fees

• reform banks and the financial sector to end the abuses and the practices that led to the current crisis

• reaffirm support for an extra 10,000 police officers

• fight Government plans for Royal Mail unless there were safeguards for the Post Office network, Royal Mail is able to compete effectively, the Uniform Service Obligation is protected (under which mail is delivered for the same price across the whole country), and employees are given a stake in the company.

Speakers at the conference included Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable who attacked the "pact with the devil" into which Labour entered with rich financiers over a decade ago.

Howard Dean, who revolutionised the use of the internet for campaigning in his 2004 bid to win the Democratic US Presidential nomination, spoke to a packed conference on how to reach out to people who are currently not engaged with politics.

And at the opening rally, the party celebrated its 21st birthday.

"This was a successful conference," said PPC for Pendle Lib Dems Afzal Anwar. "The message was made loud and clear - the cycle of Labour and Conservative governments has brought us to the mess that the country is currently in.

"The two old parties can only offer us more of the same failed policies and ideas. People want a better future and they know they can only get that with the Liberal Democrats."