I’ve got two Liberal Drinks events to go to this week. Belfast Liberal Drinks – Pint the Sixth tomorrow evening at 7pm, followed by Pint the Fifth on Thursday at 7pm. Yes you did read that correctly, we had Pint the Fifth organised before a somewhat spontaneous one being organised yesterday evening for Monday.
Why do we have two ?
The first one (ie Thursday’s) is on that date because Linda Jack will be here and so we thought it would be good to have another drink with her.
The second one (it Monday) is because we found out that Ian Walton a former membership secretary of NI Lib Dems is in Belfast for a long weekend and will be leaving on Tuesday morning.
In other words, any excuse for a drink. Or is it?
On a much more serious note, this means that we in the Northern Ireland Liberal Democrats will have the opportunity to quiz two separate members of the Federal Conference Committee about the security arrangements for Lib Dem Conference in the Autumn that are proving so controversial.
I’m sure that both FCC members will be able to give us their words of wisdom on the subject in the pub(s).
In the meantime, I’ve just signed the petition
We the undersigned ask that the registration process for the Liberal Democrats conference In Birmingham be urgently re-evaluated by the Federal Conference Committee.
We ask that the FCC consider with immediate effect, the removal of the illiberal requirement of its members that they submit personal and private information required by West Midlands Police under the threat of being barred from attending conference.
I hope that others will join me in doing so. I’m saving my real rant on the subject until after I have spoken to Ian and Linda. So in the words of Stephen Glenn last night (in a text message)…
[Ian]’s over here and run into angry party chair. Poor him. Good job he didn’t have MDO as well.
Of course, I was not really angry with Ian, just with the decision of FCC.
One good piece of advice from Ian last night is that apparently if one request that the information be deleted as soon as the check has been made, then it will be deleted. But then we’ll have to keep submitting information for every conference – instead of it being held on file…
Gyronny Herald 