Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Some of us from OK and oD went along to the launch the Liberal Conspiracy in the Demos offices. Said 'Hi" to Georgina Henry who oversees the amazing galaxy of bloggers in CiF and was especially pleased to meet Bill Thompson and then went and shared a bite with Avaaznik Paul Hilder, without both of whom....
Sunny was introduced by Demos's Catherine Fieschi. He told us the left needed to work out where to go from here, and this was not just a matter of ideas but of having institutions and an infrastructure. Sunny is wrestling with a thorny problem. He wants to "galvanise" people into action, and for there to be liberal conspiracy in every town - and this on bonefire night! He said how he complained at a Fabian meeting about the way Brown was bringing in people from everwhere into his government and making Labour look as it it was just sitting in the middle going nowhere and inspiring no one. (This reminds me that I was going to blog that meeting for different reasons). So the aim of the Liberal Conspiracy is direction, inspiration, organisation and making a difference. But not, he said, "sectarianism" and "tribalism". We need to be able to "figure out where to go" without that. I agree, I just hope that the left brain of the country is up to it.
