Motivation

I voted for Lembit in the Party Presidential Election. I thought he'd be a great guy to run the Party - enthusiastic, able, interesting. Sadly, Ros Scott won, and Lembit probably has to wait another few years for another go (if he wants one!) and I get a little depressed. I think, though, that it was more interesting about what Chandilla Fernando said in his loser's letter to Voice. He said:

But here, barely, half of our own members voted in the election for Liberal Democrat Party President. And our membership is now the lowest it has been in any of our lifetimes.

In the early hours of Friday morning, we failed to save our deposit in a Parliamentary by-election, despite having an excellent candidate in Harry Wills.

Kidding ourselves about the scale of the challenges we face is a route to nowhere. Far better to address tough questions today than to face electoral reverse tomorrow.

He went on to talk about how he'd set the agenda (and, to be fair, he had) and so on. But I actually agree with him. I think we could have done better in Glenrothes than 900-odd votes and a loss of our deposit. But more importantly, I'm a little saddened that only half of the membership voted. I'm also down in the dumps about the Party generally, although that's due to not feeling very connected at the moment. Maybe that will change if I go to the local meeting in a few days... Anyway, the vote. I'm struggling to understand why people didn't send their ballots back, really. They got them through the post, along with manifestos for all three candidates. No need for a stamp to send them back! So why did they not get their voice heard?

It could be that there was some form of catastrophic problem with the balloting. That's not very likely. So we're at two choices - either half the membership couldn't be bothered to vote, or did not want to. The latter is fair enough, but that can't be all of them. Can it really be that a sizeable minority couldn't be bothered? I hope not, but that seems the most likely possibility. The solution? If I were the one elected to be the President, not Baroness Scott, I'd strongly consider trying to get more local events going across the country. Forget 7pm-on-Tuesday-Wear-A-Suit-At-The-Church formal meetings (largely why I'm probably not going to the meeting, I don't have a suit!). I'd like to see weekly or fortnightly get togethers in a local pub or similar! That would get the faithful talking. :-)