The party conference season

Published on Wed 27th Sep 2006

The party conference season is upon us and both Lib Dem and Labour conferences have been interesting - within reason of course! - although for rather different reasons.

At the Lib Dem conference, among other things, we debated a key issue of tax and how to make it fairer. We now propose to raise taxes on pollution and on the wealthy and to use the money raised to cut tax on people, work, and earnings. So we would raise the personal tax allowance by thousands of pounds taking millions of the poorest tax payers out of tax altogether, cut the basic rate of income tax by 2p down to 20p and increase the threshold for higher rate tax. We want to abolish the hated council tax and replace it with a fairer tax - local income tax - related much more to the ability to pay. I led a move during the debate to include, on top of all this, a new top rate of income tax of 50p on very high earners. Although I was defeated by the Leader, Ming Campbell, and his supporters it was victory all round since firstly I was able to rebel with no "punishment". Secondly, our debate was widely considered by the media to be high quality and entertaining, and the vote at the conference actually mattered in deciding our policy. No other conference will have proper democratic debates which are binding on the party's and the leadership's policy.

Mind you at least the Labour Party conference had some personality-based drama in the Tony-Gordon-Cherie pantomime. I fear (but I do not worry!) that the Tory Party conference will simply be a stage managed and slick collection of set piece speeches - light on policy but heavy on spin and sound-bites. Sadly this represents the increasing Americanisation of our policies.

What is the point of becoming a member of the Labour or Conservative parties? You do not have a vote on policy matters and you cannot debate issues with the leadership without being called "disloyal". You just write a cheque and get told when to clap. No wonder turnout and engagements is falling in this country.