Thanks for that explanation which is worthy. And I admire your honesty: “and I’m content, for now, to simply carp from the sidelines.”! Reading your history I could see a paralell with me. I went hyper on party activity for 7 years and then went into complete LibDem manic overdrive in November 2000 and had to take six weeks off work for depression (even though I was under-employed at work at the time). After that I resigned or stopped doing all my LibDem tasks, jobs or roles (I counted up that I had 27 LibDem responsibilities at the time from being local delivery wholesaler, deliverer to being constituency chair) bar one – being a town councillor.

My therapy (with a counsellor) was very useful in that it identified precisely what I hated about the LibDems (going to meetings and listening to things I have heard 39 times from the same person) and what I very much enjoyed delivering leaflets, canvassing, doing council casework. So on the advice of the therapist I just do what I enjoy now. I deliver and canvass and do casework but NEVER attend meetings and if someone asks me why not, I say, “for health reasons” which they always find amusing! I would encourage you, when you feel ready, to come back into the activist fold and do whatever you like (there must be something?), and refuse to do what you don’t like.

All the very best to you
Paul

We do desperately need a national narrative: I get ‘what to the liberals stand for?’ and I get told we’re a left-wing tax raising party.
Some of this comes from the other parties, Tony Blair is always keen to say the challenge comes from the Tories and the ‘right’ not the LibDems and the ‘left’.

And where do we stand on education? We seem to be more conservative than anything else, opposing change for the sake of opposing it. The same with healthcare.
The same with economic policy, the great cry of liberals of the past, free trade, is rarely heard today. We should make our case as to why free trade is preferred, why protectionism is bad. In some cases this needs to be made to the party membership.

I can’t help feeling that liberalism is somewhat neglected by the party in our campaigning and our talk. We seem scared to talk of general ideas and try to focus on specifics. I think we should place our flag firmly in liberalism, state what we believe broadly, and then construct specifics around that, otherwise we do risk becoming another managerial party who say what we think people want to hear (although for us it seems to be membership not the public…)

I took a deliberate decision not to get involved in my party locally for three reasons: one, I genuinely don’t know if I’ll still be living in the area in six months time, and I definitely know I won’t still be here in two years. So, if I did get involved (and I would have to get heavily involved, its my nature), I would be moving out before I’d really got started. Secondly, I have a cross-party political job these days which takes up a lot of my time. Thirdly, I just needed a break. And, lest I forget, against my better judgement I did offer to get involved in a local campaign which promised to be more than the usual phone-masts-and-potholes campaign, but it fell apart.

I served on the party’s FE for three years, from 2002-2005. I eventually left because it became increasingly clear I had a conflict of interest with work. But also, after three years, it became clear that not only was I not achieving very much but it was all starting to get too personal. When senior people in the party start referring to you as the “Next Donnachadh McCarthy” it is time to move on.

In short, I’ve done my mileage, I’ve taken things as far as I can, and I’m content, for now, to simply carp from the sidelines. I’ll get more directly involved again when I’m good and ready.

David (5), the result in Leeds this time is roughly comparable to the last campaign in Leeds I was involved with (2002). That last thing you want is me coming back and making things worse!

Paul (6), this is definitely of concern, and there is a pattern. Look at Sheffield and Hull. We are generally very bad at retaining control of councils once we seize power. Islington, as I discussed above, appears to be a different case. If you want to see a truly nightmarish vision of what can happen after taking (admittedly coalition) control, look at Bromley’s results from last week. ALDC and the Party need to be taking this issue on, instead of simply talking about the need to take this issue on (which is all I ever saw in my three years on the FE).

Come back to Leeds, pull Excaliber from the stone and save us all!

The steady recrudescence of Tory support in the English suburbs, small towns and countryside is very alarming. We must devise effective strategies for countering this. As a party, we have always been good at garnering rural and suburban support, but rarely enough to win.

Against Labour, the message is mixed. In places, we have stalled (Manchester, Sheffield, Oldham, Kirklees, Southwark), in others we go ever forward (Brent, Haringey, Camden, Derby – and don’t forget that gain of 5 seats in Burnley).

A fresh menace is the Green Party. A vastly increased Green vote cost us control of Islington, and probably other places, too. We need to know why people vote Green and what we can do to get them to support us instead.

Then there are the tactical issues: like over-targeting (Ealing), and lack of a clear, coherent message (what you describe in Barnet). Chris Rennard cannot micro-manage every local party’s campaigning. They have to learn to get it right themselves.

Why is it that so many Lib Dem councils become unpopular after short periods of office? What went wrong in Milton Keynes, for instance? Or in Norwich?

Conversely, why do others get it astoundingly right? Dorothy Thornhill was relected as Mayor of Watford with more than 50% of the vote. Quite a spectacular achievement in a 3-way marginal.

Oh, yes. We need the right national message. And we have to promote it with a single voice.

Civil liberties, absolutely. The international rule of law, ditto. But what about health and education? And the economy? What is the distinctive Lib Dem message?