Which Liberal Democrats do an effective job of promoting the party?

The latest Lib Dem Voice survey of party members included this question:

Which prominent Lib Dems who are NOT MPs (eg, peers, campaigners) are doing an effective job of promoting the party to the public? Please write-in.

The top ten names given by party members were:

• Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott
• Lord (Paddy) Ashdown
• Mark Pack
• Evan Harris
• Baroness (Shirley) Williams
• Lord (Chris) Rennard
• Caroline Pidgeon AM
• Willie Rennie MSP
• Baroness (Susan) Kramer
• Stephen Tall

Seven of those are current or former Westminster Parliamentarians and only one (myself) has not previously held elected public office. (Stephen was a councillor in Oxford.)

It is no surprise that (ex)Parliamentarians feature heavily, especially given that they are more likely to get media opportunities such as Question Time than non-Parliamentarians. Even so, their dominance being quite so great in the list is, to me at least, a sign that as a party collectively we’re missing a trick or two given the way in which the internet has opened up the ability to feature in such a list to (at least in theory) a much wider range of people.

It’s a point excellent blogger Richard Morris has also picked up on, concluding:

At the very least – the results of the LDV survey say to the Lib Dem blogging fraternity (of which I am proud to be a part) ‘must ty harder’.

Will do.