Simon Hughes' Presidential Speech to Liberal Democrat autumn conference

Speech by Simon Hughes on Tue 16th Sep 2008

Conference, like many I have special memories of Bournemouth.

Four years ago, when we were last here, I had the honour to take over from Navnit Dholakia as Federal President.

It has been a huge privilege to serve our party in this office since then.

And like all good by-election campaigns, I am determined not to stop until absolutely the last minute, in this case, when the bell rings in the new year of 2009.

But this is my last speech to federal conference as your President.

In this job you meet a lot of people and I am tempted to use my whole speech to share stories of life on the Liberal Democrat campaign trail.

Take my Sheffield visit earlier this year.

"We've arranged for you to say hello to your friend the Lady Mayoress", they said.

"We haven't told her you're coming, so it'll be a great surprise. We'll just open the door and she'll be sitting with her back towards you and you can just tap her on the shoulder."

The door opens.

Immediately I saw thirty women - all ex-Lady Mayoress's I should add - all with their backs toward me.

Whose shoulder should I tap on? There was no way of telling!

At least nothing in the last four years was as bad as a campaign, several years before that.

Three days before a general election I had just praised our candidate as "the best prospect for change in Newham that there had been in thirty years".

An hour later he defected to another party.

I have loved my time as President.

Working with so many people who give so much to the Liberal Democrat cause.

Talking to candidates in local elections nearly every week.

But I owe it to you conference, to be honest about what we have achieved over the last four years, and where I think I, and we, could have done more.

Since 2004 we have made solid progress.

We have more members of parliament now than four years ago - sixty three in 2008 after nine gains at the last general election and one glorious gain by Willie Rennie in Dunfermline and West Fife two years ago.

Add eleven Members of the European Parliament, sixteen Members of the Scottish Parliament, and six Members of the Welsh Assembly.

We have nearly one hundred Liberal Democrats in parliaments across Great Britain.

There are also now twenty six councils led by us with majority control.

But we must be more ambitious.

By our constitution the first priority of every local party is to secure the election of Liberal Democrats to local and national office.

Our leader Nick has set us the ambition of doubling our number of Westminster MPs.

This must be our core focus.

Behind the scenes, the party machine is working much better now than it was four years ago.

We have more professional staff across the country and the Federal Executive has greatly improved its effectiveness.

I pay tribute to my colleagues on the FE for the way they have adapted - a more professional executive now concentrates on scrutiny, strategy and budget setting.

Since spring conference, I have been up and down the country with you all campaigning.

I joined our excellent candidates Elisabeth Shenton in Crewe and Nantwich, Stephen Kearney in Henley and Iain Robertson in Glasgow East.

It was a pleasure to campaign with you all.

To you three especially, warm thanks from the party for all your efforts.

There was a really successful campaign in Wales.

Of the twenty two councils we made gains in twelve, most notably in Merthyr, Cardiff and Swansea and made significant progress in Monmouthshire, Neath and the Rhondda.

Many congratulations to the Welsh party and the warmest thanks to Mike German, who is standing down as Welsh leader later this year and who has led the party so well.

In England, May also brought success.

We won or retained control of twelve councils.

Of these we took back St Albans, made five gains each in Burnley and Hull and six in the jewel in our crown, Sheffield.

I want in particular to congratulate our team in Northumberland where for the first time ever we are the largest party.

Really well done!

All my campaigning confirmed what fantastic strides we've made in local government.

We are the government of the capital cities of Scotland and Wales.

We now run nearly a quarter of London's councils on our own or with others.

And across the rest of England we are now the largest party in three metropolitan boroughs including Liverpool; in seven unitary authorities; eighteen districts and the three counties of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.

We must make absolutely sure that we hold our ground in Cornwall's new unitary council elections next May and go further to win the extra seat at the next general election.

To all those in government in county hall and town hall, on behalf of the whole party, we say thank you.

You are making a liberal difference all the year round.

Nick is determined that our local government leaders play a much bigger part with our national leaders in getting our messages across in every country and region of the UK.

And talking of local council success what greater tribute to the support for their local community given by our councillors than the young dancers from Grimsby who took the rally by storm on Saturday night!

I hope that from now on at every conference we offer a platform to an artist or group from the areas we represent, to bring the joy of performance into our conference and remind us that supporting others, particularly the young, is an activity without price.

Rumour has it that not everybody on the Federal Conference Committee was automatically signed up to this proposal.

Perhaps at last I've found the secret of making the Hughes proposal irresistible!

In my time as President, while our machinery and campaigning has been streamlined and improved, our party membership has not grown as I intended.

I much regret this and accept my responsibility. Recruitment has been difficult for all political parties; but our party is our members and we must do better.

The Bones Commission proposes a new recognition for supporters who sympathise with Liberal Democrat values.

We must do this.

On diversity, you all know I always campaign for our party to be fully representative.

We have come a long way, but the party and my successor will need to do more.

More than half the British public are women.

Women vote more but are still shamefully underrepresented.

We now have more women MPs then ever before but it should be one in two not the present one in six.

The other great challenge is representation of Britain's ethnic diversity.

On both these issues its time to end the talk and take the action.

Legislation on the statute book allows temporary all-women shortlists.

Keith Vaz is proposing a similar bill to allow ethnic minority shortlists.

We should support these.

We must consider whether our party then needs, on a temporary basis, special short lists, possibly combined with grouping selections together, or paying the £10,000 diversity premium proposed in the Bones Commission.

Our highest priorities may require, for a while, the bravest measures.

We have a diverse Britain.

Our party does not yet represent it.

To deliver liberal democracy now our party must deliver diverse representation now.

And if necessary, we must move from positive action to positive discrimination.

I want to mention a few people specially.

The last four years have been testing times for Liberal Democrats.

Our two leadership changes have been difficult but we have moved on - better and stronger for the experience.

I want to pay tribute first to Charles Kennedy.

When IDS was whispering on and Michael Howard raged in the night, there was only one opposition leader who mattered… holding the government to account, scrutinising and challenging the Prime Minister.

I want to pay tribute to Ming Campbell.

He steadied the ship in troubled times and further professionalised the party.

The Bones Commission was launched under Nick's leadership but Ming had begun the process of review and reform.

Thank you Ming and thank you Charles for your leadership years.

We also thank Nicol Stephen for his work as leader of our party in Scotland and send our best to him as he steps down.

And give our warmest wishes to Tavish Scott, Nicol's successor.

On his 80th this year, happy birthday Cyril and a huge thank you to all our paid staff and volunteers from Scilly to Shetland.

Without you we could not function.

Lastly, I must pay tribute to three friends in the House of Lords who died this year - Richard Holme, Ray Michie and Russell Johnston.

They were great contributors to the development of the party.

We gratefully record our thanks for their work and liberal example.

Conference, we live in confused times.

When Lady Thatcher and Gordon Brown stand together on the doorstep of Number 10 you know that something has gone strangely wrong.

Gordon Brown says he is a conviction politician.

Well maybe.

But now the personal conviction of our British Labour Prime Minister is that it is justified to throw unconvicted people into jail for 42 days without charge.

We have a message for the unelected Gordon Brown: you have no mandate to take away hard-won British freedoms.

Liberal Democrats will not let fundamental freedoms be here today and gone tomorrow.

Conference, despite these present contradictions, we live in a progressive age.

While the Labour government's failings are profound, of course some of its aims and achievements have been noble.

But having jettisoned old Labour, New Labour has no roots.

The party which aspired to fuse economic prosperity with social justice now offers neither.

At the same time Labour has sold its soul and lost its way.

One hundred years ago this year we had a radical Liberal government which delivered the state pension - following a campaign which I am proud to say started in my constituency.

Liberals led the coalition of the progressives in the first part of the twentieth century.

However, with the rise of the trade unions and women voters, Labour captured this representation and with it seized the leadership of the left.

Of course, inequality and injustice still exist, but the social and economic landscape now is radically different.

The age of mass trade union membership, the age of families of lifelong voters and localised communication is over.

We now operate in an open market for political ideas.

A socialist party born out of trade unions has no major place.

After eleven years in which public spending has doubled, we are less socially mobile, there are still pensioners and children struggling in poverty and the runaway rich are sprinting out of sight.

The justification for the Labour party in 1908 no longer applies in 2008.

This is a great opportunity for Liberal Democrats.

At the start of the twentieth century a liberal progressive agenda is far more authentic and relevant than any Labour one.

Yes, we face a resprayed Conservative party.

Mr Cameron has improved their fortunes.

But, conference, it is based on a deceit.

Over the summer, Mr Cameron had the temerity to suggest our leader was a political joke.

Conference, it is an insult to all of us.

We are the third largest party in British politics.

We have a long and proud history of great government and great campaining.

We have our largest number of MPs in 80 years and, under Nick's leadership, we can keep expanding.

We exercise a decisive influence on British politics.

Mr Cameron, I'll tell you what's a joke I'll tell you what's funny.

A man who claims to be progressive but saved his political future and that of his party by offering one big tax cut for the better off.

A man who pops up in the North Pole driving a husky and claims to have gone green.

A man who cycles to work for the cameras and has his chauffeur driving his papers in the car behind.

And I'll tell you what's not funny.

A party which says it is compassionate and progressive, but within the last year has lost one MP for misuse of public funds, one to UKIP, and your parliamentary candidate in Watford to a criminal conviction for harassment.

Conference let me tell you this: Mr Cameron you are not a salesman you are a conman.

The Conservative party, which is striving so hard to paint itself as fresh and different, remains the same vehicle.

Make no mistake, he is a social conservative and his claim to the progressive mantle of politics is as cynical as it is laughable.

Liberal Democrats it is up to us to ensure the British public is not deceived by Mr Cameron.

Nick is up for this. I am up for this. And Liberal Democrats are up for this.

Conference, over the last four years I have been humbled by the support and kindness of so many of you.

I thank you for the good times.

Four years ago members of my family were here as I became party president, my good mother among them.

Last year I had to dash from the platform at the end of my speech to the QE2 hospital in Birmingham where my mother was fighting for her life.

That day a combination of great NHS care, and bluntly, the miraculous, pulled her through.

Sadly later last year she died.

But at conference you gave a much appreciated round of applause in solidarity for my family and for me.

Conference, the warmth of your gesture showed to me that we are more than just a group of people who carry the same card in our wallets.

We are more than people of personal ambition.

We have a collective vision and a collective hope.

Our vision is far bigger than the aspiration of any one individual.

Our hope is to honour our mothers and fathers by building in this country a fairer, more compassionate and more prosperous future.

That's why we are Liberal Democrats and that's why we will succeed.