Firstly I’d like to apologise for the lateness for my August blog. Rosie and I took the kids away to Spain for a fortnight. It was nice to get away for a couple of weeks. I hope you had the chance to do the same over the summer.
As we head into September we are facing the biggest vote in my lifetime. The Scottish Referendum. As a northerner I believe we are Better Together. I am bound to say that I suppose, but I really do believe the UK is bigger than the sum of its parts. I think that the bonds and shared history that hold us together rises above the endless facts and figures we hear being bandied about in the debate. I love Scotland – I love its compassion, its values and its place in liberal history. Like many others, I would be heartbroken if they left. So I am doing what I can to make sure it happens, I will be contacting Scottish friends via email, Facebook and calling them – I’ll be talking to them and saying please think about your vote and vote no in the referendum.
Moving past the referendum, I am really looking forward to conference. It will, yet again, be hosted in the wonderful city of Glasgow. It will be my last conference as Party President (My term finishes on the 1st January 2015) so I am keen to push forward as many themes that I’ve talked about in previous articles – housing, our vision for a renewal for local government and devolving powers from Whitehall to your town hall.
But at that conference, we will be debating our parties Pre-Manifesto. I am urging everyone who is attending conference to get involved and to make sure that your voice is heard!
If you are not coming to conference you can email me your thoughts or comments and I will make sure the manifesto team hear them.
Finally, as always, I’d love to hear from you about what your council is doing, your ideas or things you think we as a party could do differently please get in touch – you can email me at tim.farron@libdems.org.uk