Political

New Liberal Democrat election law book out at conference

Election Law Handbook 4th edition - coverThanks to the help of many people, but above all the Herculean efforts of John Bridges at ALDC, a new edition of the ALDC Election Law guide is going to be on sale from the ALDC stand at the Liberal Democrat conference next week in Glasgow. If you can’t make it to Glasgow, party members will also be able to buy it from ALDC afterwards. Purchasing details are over on the ALDC site.

It turned out to be a much bigger update than I was expecting when I agreed to do it earlier this year, not only because it is eight years since the previous edition but also because many parts of the text were starting to show their age with patch and mend updates through earlier editions. As with roads the past eventually catches up with you.

Hence the fourth edition contains a high proportion of new text, making it a good purchase even for people who still have well thumbed copies of the third edition. It continues to concentrate primarily on English and Welsh local council elections, with some coverage of European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Greater London Authority elections.

But this time it also has rather more Scottish local elections content than before. It’s not yet quite a complete guide for Scottish local council elections too but is getting there. Hopefully the next edition can fully cover Scottish local election too.

The fourth edition gives good coverage to Westminster elections, but look out for specific general election advice updates from the party as the election gets nearer.*

On the subject of updates – I’m hoping that we can do more regular electronic updates to the fourth edition rather than having another multi-year wait until a fifth edition is printed. That will make it easier to keep it up to date, to expand the Scottish coverage and also to cater better for feedback from readers. For some readers of the previous edition it’s been a very long wait between making helpful comments and the chance to factor them into the text. Eight years is pushing it even for the most patient person.

I hope you find it useful – and do keep the feedback about it coming.

* The general election agents manual will be getting an update too, which I’ll be turning to with Candy Piercy now that the election law handbook is done.

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