I think we should be hoping that schools are taken out of democratic control. Can you think of anything democratically controlled that actually works?

The problem with morons is that they don’t want to think for themselves, they want to be told what to think. Most of those doing the telling are saying that the Lib Dems are an irrelevance, that it’s pointless to vote for them, that Clegg is Cameron-lite, etc. People believe this because it’s not a priority to them to find out the truth. Each person only has a finite amount of attention to pay to stuff, morons have less than non-morons, and thus the number of things that each can pay attention to is less. Westminster politics is just not important to most people, and they give their limited thought processes to other stuff. We can lament that they are shortsighted and silly for this, but that won’t change it.

I think the trick would be to change the way the party is portrayed by the opinion makers… As for how to do that? No clue.

This is probably where we differ, then. Speaking purely for myself, I found the whole Orange Book episode rather interesting, as it suggested that there was an actual debate going on about ‘big issues’ at a time when no other party was doing that. For me, it made me want to get more involved. I know other people for whom this was also the case. Now, you may argue that the party already has too many people like me (and the others I’m referring to), but I can’t imagine that the OB did us much harm amongst the wider electorate. Perhaps I lack a long enough historical perspective to judge this.

“I’m saying that we (and when I say we, I mean you) need to find a way of countering this sort of crap, and actively encouraging people to think of you as Tory-like is silly.”

Yes, but in this case it’s hardly our fault that the Tories are proposing to do the kinds of things that we want to do. It’s annoying that they got their policy out there first, but years of inactivity under Kennedy and the failure to grasp the agenda under Ming have left us where we are.

I’m intruiged by the notion that it’s somehow my personal responsibility to spell out to people why we are not Tories (I assume that you didn’t mean me personally, but who did you mean?). Were I in charge, I’d probably make it a priority to do and say some things that the Tories genuinely couldn’t match, but that doesn’t mean making our entire raft of policies subservient to that aim. Sometimes the Tories will have the right policy too - even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, and all that.

I’m sorry, but I just can’t conceive of how people can’t tell the difference between us and the Tories. Can someone enlighten me on exactly how this works? This is an entirely serious question.

If we accept that people are morons, and will therefore believe things that are entirely at odds with the facts, it doesn’t really matter what our policy is. We should just have a real policy (doing The Right Thing), and a big lie that will make the morons believe that they want to vote for us. If they’re not judging us on reality, what difference does it make? (I blame this comment on having listened to excerpts from The Prince all week, as it’s been book of the week on Radio 4).

“if that means going down the focus group route I for one would be very worried”

We already do. We don’t use the focus group technique specifically, but we do use depth interviews (which is a focus group of one) and opinion polls. One issue facing the Bones Commission is whether we use them enough, and where we don’t, what we do instead to get a sense of public opinion. But these are operational questions, they don’t say much about who we are other than like the rest of the world we recognise the value of research.

On your penultimate point about the electorate wanting us to be other things, that misunderstands the point of using research. Although parodied as a creature entirely of his focus groups, Blair was never that. What Philip Gould’s research programme did was show how utterly out of touch the Labour MPs and party were with the public. He was then able to use that to adapt the Labour programme to be more acceptable. It’s rather hard to argue that after a decade of massive tax and spending rises with a grotesque centralisation of power and largely token reforms of public services that this isn’t a real Labour government, even if it’s been spun as something more ‘third way’.

“What is the point of a party if it doesn’t have a role?”

A bit of an OTT conclusion from what I wrote… there quite a lot more to our party than the absolute right to decide policy by majority of a selectorate of conference delegates… and that starts with

“We are a Liberal Democrat party aren’t we?”

Well quite (although I’d say ‘the’ Liberal Democrat party and or ‘a’ liberal party) and I think you answer your previous question there. People join the party for difference reasons, mostly though to get liberals elected, and hopefully form a liberal government.

In that context what powers Conference has is a similar operational question to whether or not we use focus groups. Does it help or hinder the election of a liberal government with a liberal agenda.

I personally think the answer to that is that consulting the party is vital, but must be balanced with other consultations so we’re not just talking to ourselves. I don’t though think that debates at Conference are the only or best way to consult the party, or that the votes following those debates can absolutely bind our elected representatives. If they veto there’s not a lot the party could or would do about it, and they already propose new ideas between conferences in response to events.

A version of what the Tories have, which is that conference votes on ideas and papers, but something is not actually policy unless also agreed by the Shadow Cabinet strikes me as a very sensible balance.

The other minor problem I have with the “we’ve got something special / protect absolutist party democracy or chaos is come” lobby in the party is that they tend also to oppose one-member one-vote for policy. It’s rather a peculiar position to argue a small group of MPs can’t be trusted on one hand but also that ordinary members can’t be trusted either.

Defying conference and acting without consulting conference……….yes I think that is contraversial! Of course we have to take into account public opinion, but frankly if that means going down the focus group route I for one would be very worried. What is the point of a party if it doesn’t have a role? We are a Liberal Democrat party aren’t we? So sorry, but if the electorate want us to adopt policies that are Conservative, or Socialist or Fascist………our bottom line has to be this is what we stand for. And lets be honest, leaders rarely fail to get their way at conference, if they are smart they will anticipate the battleground areas and seek solutions prior to conference. I fear we are not going to agree on this one!

“I am sorry but frankly the logical conclusion of your argument is that we follow the ranks of the Labour and Tory parties into the stage managed rallies rather than proper democratic accountable conferences.”

If I were proposing that it would pertinent to point out both these parties have larger memberships, better attended conferences, and a track record of electoral success that wouldn’t lead me conclude their conferences are a source of crippling weakness in respect of either membership, participation, or outcomes.

But I’m actually not proposing anything. Simply observing that our “proper democratic accountable conferences”, actually have no great power other than to produce official policy papers.

These papers have no mechanism to bind what the MPs do other than their consent to be bound. That consent in reality can be withdrawn in respect of what goes in the manifesto, what thinktank papers they write, what they campaign on, and what they vote on in Parliament. Withdrawing that consent, or ignoring conference is a risk, but it is a risk they can take, without there being any real sanction against it.

“a party that stands out against the other main parties as one that has a grass roots and listens to it.”

You have a point, only we both know the public don’t care about these internal process matters, rather more that we are a party that listens to them.

“Much as I love our shadow cabinet they do not have godlike characteristics”

Sure, but they do have the power to commission polls, surveys and other forms of consultation and research that are more representative of public, member, and expert opinion than party conference can hope to be.

That doesn’t mean the opinion of conference is irrelevant, just that our elected representatives have to strike a balance. On rare occasions that balance might mean defying a majority of conference delegates, or acting without consulting conference. Is that contraversial?