Regarding uncontroversial motions at conference, perhaps FCC would contemplate a postal ballot of all motions put on the preliminary ballot? Any motion which, in its unamended form, got a (say) two-thirds majority vote could be deemed to be passed without the need for a debate.

I completely agree that conference could usefully spend a bit less time debating policy, and a bit more time doing other things - and I have very actively argued this in a variety of places, including regularly at Federal Conference Committee, usually with papers to back it up and propose alternatives. I think it’s fair to say that not everyone on FCC agrees with me but people are certainly open to discussing it - and we have also had quite a bit of success. The ‘urgent issue’ discussions and Parliamentary team/Council group presentations are both things that have happened as a direct result - also the regularisation of Q&As on portfolio areas, and events with the leaders, though I can’t claim such direct responsibility for them. Together these have all made quite a change in the balance of use of conference time. And we are discussing one or two other ideas for this autumn’s conference. I have always argued that just because only conference can make policy, it doesn’t mean that the only thing that conference can do, is make policy.

Ironically one of the arguments put against these moves is that it is important to preserve the right of local parties to put forward motions on controversial and important topics - and I certainly agree with that - but the debates we have on them are mostly the exact opposite of controversial - one of the problems is that nobody ever really argues against them!

You are absolutely right to highlight that one of the things we need is people coming up with actual proposals for alternatives - if people would like to conference to be different, please come forward with actual suggestions for how it should be. And in fact this brings us back to the policy/presentation/narrative point too - James and I are two of a very small number indeed of people who did actually put forward candidates for narratives as part of Meeting the Challenge last year. Only when more people do that and we have some discussion, I suspect, will we move from saying we need all these things, to actually having them!