I'm in Bournemouth with the Lib Dems. I'm not a party man myself - I'm here to promote Power2010, hear some debates and sample the mood.
Vince Cable had some good things to say at a packed Guardian fringe event on how to fix politics. He railed at how undemocratic public spending decisions are. When he was on Glasgow city council they'd go over the budget line by line, he said. It's ridiculous that Parliament has no input in to how billions of public money is spent. He also made good points on the link between electoral reform and cleaner politics and pointed out what is so often the elephant into the room when it comes to these kind of debates: the very real prospect of Scottish independence and the "total tragedy" of the UK dissolving (though he didn't say why this would be tragic other than the somewhat circular claim that the Union was one of our greatest historical achievements). The Lib Dems are the only ones facing up to this crisis, he said, with their policy for a fully federal constitutional system of nations and regions.
Professor John Curtice, who was also on the Guardian panel, was fairly hopeless. He ended up saying that more transparency and regulation is the wrong solution to political scandals as it simply exposes the wrong-doing of politicians and creates more hoops for them to jump through, generating more scandals in the long run as politicians use this to score points off each other. It was a bizarre argument to say the least.
Cable may be the darling of this year's conference, but it seems he still has some work to do to convince Bournemouth cabbies. Two of them told me in the most colourful terms why they don't approve of his idea to tax owners of £1m homes more which they reckon will punish lots of low income people who happen to live in expensive houses. This kind of reaction is quite widespread, I imagine, which makes me think they won't adopt it as policy.
I also caught some of Ming Campbell being interviewed by Steve Richards of the Independent. He gave a potted history of liberalism and told how he used to rebuff John Smith and Donald Dewar's attempts to convert him to socialism. Throughout his political life, he said, he has consistently been "a politician of the centre-left committed to a non-doctrinaire alternative to conservatism".
On Tony Blair, he said he'd never been able to get the measure of the man politically. He is the most "amazingly professional performer" - even Roy Jenkins was tricked by him when it came to his promises on electoral reform and the single European currency, which Blair went out of his way to convinve Jenkins he was sincere about. Those hoping the Chilcott Inquiry into Iraq will finally nail Blair are likely to be disappointed, he said. Campbell also gave a rather humorous account of how terrifying PMQs was for him as well as some interesting insights into his relationships with Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown.
I'm off now to the pub to join a gathering of Lib Dem bloggers organised by Lib Dem Voice. I hope to blog more later.
