Catherine Bearder, leader of the Lib Dem MEPs, backs Mark Pack for Party President
Catherine Bearder is the leader of our MEPs in the European Parliament. She’s also very kindly backing me in the Party President contest, joining MPs such as Layla Moran:
To find out more or to sign up as a supporter, take a look at my campaign site markpack.org.uk/president.
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While I am willing to support Mark as Party President, I wish I could email him about concerns I have. Notably, about Liberal Democrat Voice, which I believe he founded, but which now is perhaps due for reform. There is no editorial board, no appeal from decisions, everything is in the single control of one person, who does very good work, but should I believe be accountable. It is an autocratic not a democratic set-up, yet this excellent organ (to which I am a frequent contributor) is understood by the public to be an official voice of the party. Well, make it so now, I would suggest.
Hi Katharine – thanks for your support and yup, I was involved in founding Lib Dem Voice and then a co-editor for many years. My general view on such things is that back seat driving from previous incumbents is very rarely helpful so I’ve always been happy to leave the current editorial team to make their own decisions as they wish. I think they’re pretty good at being clear that it isn’t an official party channel and as President I certainly wouldn’t look to interfere in their decisionmaking. On the more general point, I think there’s some real value in having supportive but unofficial channels – indeed this was a big part of the reason for creating Lib Dem Voice – as it means they can, for example, better reflect internal debates and disagreements in the party in a way that official channels are often limited. What we also should do, though, is make sure our official channels are better used to communicate with members, noting of course the resource constraints that staff are under.
P.S. My email is mark.pack@libdemnewswire.com if you ever want to email me on this or any other matter.