The reason I ask is due to an email I received a few days ago asking if I wanted to contribute to a project asking that very question.
I haven’t responded to that suggestion as I’m not sure I am – a liberal that is. The phrases racist and homophobic are two I’d accept but I also remember someone saying a few years ago that I’m a gut-instinct liberal when making responses to questions asked on the door step when out campaigning.
I’d actually prefer to answer the question posed by Party President Tim Farron last year – why did I join the party? Apart from the obvious answer – someone asked me – the main reason is that I believe in changing the voting system to STV PR. Other policies or the “philosophy” were irrelevant.
When I first got the vote in 1974 I was shocked by the big discrepancy in the way you vote and who wins. I looked around for alternatives and found the Liberal Party were the only ones with a realistic chance of bringing about voting reform. So I voted Liberal then, Lib Dem as a result. When I moved to East Lothian over 20 years ago I was approached to join the party and said yes, simply as a way of meeting other people, not because of any great belief in their other policies. I have sympathy to their approach to “community politics” but I despair on some of their policies.
Unfortunately the party in Scotland seems to have stopped campaigning on voting reform after the change for local authorities to STV PR. I’d really like them to re-affirm STV PR as the preferred option for Holyrood as this would do away with the perception of there being two tiers of MSPs.
So am I a liberal? Probably just.
Am I a liberal?
The reason I ask is due to an email I received a few days ago asking if I wanted to contribute to a project asking that very question.
I haven’t responded to that suggestion as I’m not sure I am – a liberal that is. The phrases racist and homophobic are two I’d accept but I also remember someone saying a few years ago that I’m a gut-instinct liberal when making responses to questions asked on the door step when out campaigning.
I’d actually prefer to answer the question posed by Party President Tim Farron last year – why did I join the party? Apart from the obvious answer – someone asked me – the main reason is that I believe in changing the voting system to STV PR. Other policies or the “philosophy” were irrelevant.
When I first got the vote in 1974 I was shocked by the big discrepancy in the way you vote and who wins. I looked around for alternatives and found the Liberal Party were the only ones with a realistic chance of bringing about voting reform. So I voted Liberal then, Lib Dem as a result. When I moved to East Lothian over 20 years ago I was approached to join the party and said yes, simply as a way of meeting other people, not because of any great belief in their other policies. I have sympathy to their approach to “community politics” but I despair on some of their policies.
Unfortunately the party in Scotland seems to have stopped campaigning on voting reform after the change for local authorities to STV PR. I’d really like them to re-affirm STV PR as the preferred option for Holyrood as this would do away with the perception of there being two tiers of MSPs.
So am I a liberal? Probably just.