I am writing this with 48 hours to go in the Scotland Referendum, I am on tenterhooks! It is Scotland’s choice but I would be heartbroken if they left.
I hope to play a small part, in a much, much bigger team out on Thursday knocking on doors and working till 10pm on our Get Out the Vote Operation. I have asked that as many HQ staff, as possible go and play their part too. The two year campaign has been a long slog but I want to pay tribute to Michael Moore, Jo Swinson, Alistair Carmichael, Willie Rennie and not just them, but also hundreds and thousands of Lib Dem and Better Together campaigners. Their determination and vigour is something to behold.
I also want to pay a special tribute to my good friend and colleague Charles Kennedy. He is the beating heart of liberalism not just in the Highlands but of our party and it has been wonderful to see him fighting the union’s corner. It is brilliant for liberal politics to have him back in the first rank and I look forward to working with him towards the General Election.
Since my last piece, my motion to conference together with Vince Cable has been submitted and picked by Federal Conference Committee. Our motion has a set of clear goals:
- Build 300,000 homes a year
- Creation of a new Housing Investment Bank, to simplify the allocation of public funds, create the scale needed to draw in private investment and improve access to finance for social housing providers
- Within the first year of the next parliament, publication of a long-term plan to set out how our house-building objectives will be met; to be overseen by a ministerial taskforce on housing, hosted by the Cabinet Office
- Social landlords to be given more control over their businesses, to develop more genuinely affordable homes and enable more efficient use of their resources
- Planning authorities to be given the power to designate New Home Zones on strategic sites to generate low cost development and growth
- A large-scale apprenticeships and training programme to build skills capacity over a long period.
It is being debated on the Monday of conference (6/10) at 10.20am. Please do come into the hall, speak and hopefully vote for the motion.
At conference I hope to talk to as many councillors as possible to hear your thoughts on our party, our pre-manifesto and any other ideas you may have. So if you see me rushing through the halls please do say hello and let me know your ideas! I really do value them and feed as many as I can into the party as possible.