That was the theme of my speech at the Community Politics debate at party conference, where I summated on the amendment from Kingston Liberal Democrats and others:

The book I mentioned, Campaigning In Your Community, can be purchased from ALDC as can several other publications related to Community Politics. Mary Reid moved the amendment and you can read her speech here.

The debate is on the Tuesday afternoon of party conference. Fingers crossed the amendment gets taken for debate, but in the meantime here is what it says:

From: Kingston, Glasgow North and Richmond & Twickenham local parties plus 18 voting conference reps
Proposer: Mary Reid
Summator: Mark Pack

Amendment to F41: Community Politics

Line 33, replace ‘organise’ with ‘empower, enable and encourage’

After line 37 insert, then renumber:

3. The principle of subsidiarity to be adopted by elected representatives at all levels of government, ensuring that decision-making is devolved to the lowest feasible, democratically accountable  level.

In lines 38-39 delete ‘ensure dialogue with the communities they serve’ and insert

listen and respond to the communities they serve by engaging with community groups and by seeking out those without advocates, and to ensure dialogue and personal contact

Add at end of motion:

and to help ensure these calls are turned into effective action, Conference calls on:

a) the Party President and the Federal Party to work with those responsible for candidate approval processes at all levels in the party to encourage changes in the approval processes to place a high value on would-be candidates having an understanding of, and commitment to, community politics;

b) the Federal Policy Committee to ensure that community politics runs strongly as a theme through the party’s policies and policy development process, and in particular to ensure that future policy papers contain an analysis of how the proposed policies will help community politics;

c) the Federal Executive and Federal Party staff to work with others such as ALDC and State Parties to ensure that the skills necessary for community politics have a prominent place in the party’s training programmes and to provide grassroots campaigners with templates and materials to support community politics activity;

d) the Federal Party to use Federal Party communications to supply party members and supporters with campaigns they can directly participate in which support the party’s national policy priorities;

e) the Federal Executive and Federal Finance and Administration Committee to make support for and promotion of community politics one of the criteria when allocating grants to party bodies;

f) Liberal Democrat ministers to use the language of community politics rather than adopting the vocabulary of other political parties; and

g) the Party President, the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee to report back on their own contribution to progress in these areas as part of their reports to the 2012 federal party conferences.

The text is below and if you are a voting conference rep willing to put your name to the amendment, please email your name, membership number and local party to Mary on mary@maryreid.org.uk - thanks!

Amendment to F41: Community Politics

Line 33, replace ‘organise’ with ‘empower, enable and encourage’

After line 37 insert, then renumber:

3. The principle of subsidiarity to be adopted by elected representatives at all levels of government, ensuring that decision-making is devolved to the lowest feasible,democratically accountable  level.

In lines 38-39 delete ‘ensure dialogue with the communities they serve’ and insert

listen and respond to the communities they serve by engaging with community groups and by seeking out those without advocates, and to ensure dialogue and personal contact

Add at end of motion:

and to help ensure these calls are turned into effective action, Conference calls on:

a) the Party President and the Federal Party to work with those responsible for candidate approval processes at all levels in the party to encourage changes in the approval processes to place a high value on would-be candidates having an understanding of, and commitment to, community politics;

b) the Federal Policy Committee to ensure that community politics runs strongly as a theme through the party’s policies and policy development process, and in particular to ensure that future policy papers contain an analysis of how the proposed policies will help community politics;

c) the Federal Executive and Federal Party staff to work with others such as ALDC and State Parties to ensure that the skills necessary for community politics have a prominent place in the party’s training programs and to provide grassroots campaigners with templates and materials to support community politics activity;

d) the Federal Party to use Federal Party communications to supply party members and supporters with campaigns they can directly participate in which support the party’s national policy priorities;

e) the Federal Executive and Federal Finance and Administration Committee to make support for and promotion of community politics one of the criteria when allocating grants to party bodies;

f) Liberal Democrat ministers to use the language of community politics rather than adopting the vocabulary of other political parties; and

g) the Party President, the Federal Executive and the Federal Policy Committee to report back on their own contribution to progress in these areas as part of their reports to the 2012 federal party conferences.

Mary Reid

I’ll be blogging Vince’s answer but I’m a little spoilt for choice for possible questions, so over to you: what would you like to see me ask?

First, however, is a look at the fringe meetings being held over the weekend. These meetings may not have the power to decide in the way that conference debates can, but they do often give a great chance to hear issues discussed in greater and more expert detail than the rather staccato main hall style of 3-5 minute speeches back to to back.

The highlights I’d pick out are:

Lords Reform 1911-2011: A century after the veto power of the Lords was broken in 1911, democracy has still been kept out of the Lords. The History Group’s fringe meeting will look at both past and present attempts to reform the Lords. Friday, 8pm, Jury Inn Suite 3. Event on Facebook here.

Vince Cable and Evan Harris in discussion over further and higher education: It is a smart move by the Social Liberal Forum to get two prominent people with very contrasting views together – and in a format that should shed more light than heat if Evan’s previous ‘in discussion’ with Nick Clegg is anything to go by. Saturday, 1pm, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, City Suite A.

Breakthrough or breakdown? CentreForum looks at the electoral prospects for the party with Tim Farron (briefly, as the new Party President is continuing the Simon Hughes tradition of doing two fringes at the same time), Chris Huhne and academic polling expert Paul Whiteley. Saturday, 6:15pm, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, City Suite A.

Who runs the internet? The Voice’s own fringe meeting with James Blessing, Evan Harris, Jim Killock and Mary Reid as trailed here. Saturday, 8pm, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, Meeting 6.  Event on Facebook here.

These are of course only the four best fringe meetings in my own view – your own view, especially if you have different interests, may be different. So do check the full list of fringe meetings including in the Spring Conference agenda and directory embedded below.

Liberal Democrat Spring Conference Agenda and Directory 2011

Further information about the Liberal Democrat federal conference is available in the Party Conference section on the main party website and the official Lib Dem conference Twitter account is @LibDemConf.

Who runs the internet? Wikileaks, piracy and censorship

Libel law reform campaigner and former MP Evan Harris, website pioneer Mary Reid, James Blessing of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) and Jim Killock of the digital rights champions Open Rights Group debate recent issues about free speech and the internet with chair Mark Pack.

Meeting Room 6, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, 119 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JE
12 March · 20:00 – 21:00

Hope to see you there.

Know other people who are coming to conference who may be interested in this meeting? If so, please let them know about it by sharing this post or our Facebook event with them – many thanks.

The figures have been dug out by Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon and show that £862,000 was wrongly taken off passengers at Oxford Circus in the last year and £248,000 at Finsbury Park.

Both are very busy stations, so their presence in the list of worst offenders may be partly caused by the number of passengers passing through, but even so it’s a good reminder about checking your Oyster transactions online every now and again. In fact, the last time I did this, I found a small over-charge. The phone help line were very good at helping to identify what the wrong charge had been and refunding it. That was some consolation – but I needed to know to query something with them in the first place.

In total £61.8m was wrongly taken last year. Caroline Pidgeon has said of these figures:

This level of overcharging is totally unacceptable. There is something very seriously wrong when each and every week of the year Londoners are ripped off by more than £1 million.

Of course in some cases passengers might forget to touch in and touch out, but such huge levels of overcharging clearly demonstrate that there are some structural problems with how Oyster is operating. It is clear that not enough is being done to ensure the machines and the technology are working properly.

TfL also need to take immediate steps to make it far easier for people to be able to claim a refund when they have been overcharged.

Above all else the levels of overcharging occurring need to be regularly published at every station, so that passengers are alerted to this serious problem.

So my tip? Check your Oyster transactions now and again to see if money has been wrongly taken.

The full details of Oyster over-charging are on the London government website.

UPDATE: Matthew Harris from Barnet has added some extra information about Oyster payments problems in Don’t let the grit spoil the Oyster and Mary Reid has also blogged about Oyster overcharging.

Who runs the internet? Wikileaks, piracy and censorship

Libel law reform campaigner and former MP Evan Harris, website pioneer Mary Reid, James Blessing of the Internet Service Providers’ Assoication (ISPA) and Jim Killock of the digital rights champions Open Rights Group debate recent issues about free speech and the internet with chair Mark Pack.

Meeting Room 6, Mercure St Paul’s Hotel, 119 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JE
12 March · 20:00 – 21:00

Know other people who are coming to conference who may be interested in this meeting? If so, please let them know about it by sharing this post or our Facebook event with them – many thanks.

Libel law reform campaigner and former MP Evan Harris, website pioneer Mary Reid and Jim Killock of the digital rights champions Open Rights Group will debate recent issues about free speech and the internet, and I’ll be chairing.

It’s at 8pm on 12 March in Sheffield. More details on Facebook and Flock Together.

Hope you can make it.

Jonathan Calder recommends Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music by Rob Young: “Anyone with an interest in folk music will find this book engrossing. Young traces the rise of the genre from Cecil Sharp and other Edwardian song collectors like Ralph Vaughan Williams and George Butterworth, through the post-war radialism of Ewan MacColl and Charles Parker, to its electronic heyday in the hands of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. He finds the visionary spirit living on in unlikely artists such as Kate Bush, Julian Cope and Talk Talk … The book has a wonderfully complete discography to guide your own exploration of folk and folk rock, and the most engrossing index I have ever come across. Richard Jefferies stands next to Jefferson Starship. Traffic next to Thomas Traherne. Steve Winwood next to Gerrard Winstanley, It reads like notes towards my own vision of Britain.”

Andrew Hickey recommends Where Dawkins Went Wrong by Andrew Rilstone: “Rilstone’s a blogger, but also a professional writer (mostly of RPGs) and the Dawkins book is a collection of his essays, mostly absolutely demolishing Dawkins from the perspective of a Christian, but an intelligent one who actually looks at evidence. While it might not be political in the party-politics sense, the growing chasm between religion and atheism is definitely a political issue, and having someone who is both liberal and secularist, but nonetheless deeply religious, examine these issues without turning it into a slanging match (though some of Dawkins’ bigger mistakes do tend to get a certain amount of sarcasm) is something that’s all too rare in current discourse.”

Mary Reid recommends The Song of Lunch: “Did you see ‘The Song of Lunch’ on the Beeb, with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman playing a couple meeting up again after 15 years? The original narrative poem by Christopher Reid would make a smart but inexpensive gift.”

Jennie Rigg recommends Old Harry’s Game: The Complete Series: “Wickedly funny. It’s an office comedy set around the administrative travails of being Satan in an overcrowded hell, and as such will be familiar to anyone who has had to deal with a recalcitrant local party.”

Duncan Stott recommends Ninja Tune XX (double CD): “Ninja Tune is a UK record label that has been belting out innovative sounds for two decades. To celebrate this anniversary they have released these compilations of exclusive new music from some of its biggest names. To anyone who wants to expose their ears to something different, or wants to celebrate the uniquely creative British music scene, these CDs are a great way to discover some of the most cutting-edge sounds being created today.”

Stephen Tall recommends Eminent Corporations by David Boyle: “We are promised a book which ‘spills the beans by telling the real life stories of some of the biggest corporate names, and finds them as dramatic, flawed and revealing as any human biography’. I love how David’s writing attempts to re-humanise society, to allow us all to enjoy the potentiality of our imagination, and not be squashed by man-made constructs.”

And finally, a recommendation from myself - Karel Capek’s War with Newts: you can call it science fiction, you can call in political satire, you can call it alternative history but whatever you call it, this darkly humours tale is funny and thought-provoking.

Thanks to everyone for making their suggestions and providing such a broad spread of ideas. If you’ve got any recommendations of your own, pop them up in the comments thread.