Suffolk Coastal Lib Dems and Your Liberal Britain

Suffolk Coastal Liberal Democrats held a very successful Your Liberal Britain event this weekend, over two sessions. Twelve members turned up early on Friday evening, and Saturday morning saw an attendance of sixteen, making a total of 23 individuals altogether (since some of us were so keen that we turned up twice). The first session had an equal representation of very new, new-ish and long-standing members, and the second session comprised mainly long-standing members with a scattering of new-ish ones.

If we were to sum up much of the discussion in a single (rather long) sentence, it could read something like this:

"We need a population of healthy, educated people, living in stable environments and unhindered by systemic disadvantage, who are equipped to make their own decisions on matters affecting their lives."

We also agreed that we endorse the first-sentence extract from the existing preamble to the Liberal Democrats' constitution:

"The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity."

We identified many, many social problems that we feel the Liberal Democrats could (and should) address, but when it came down to choosing just one to tackle first, the consensus was that we should tackle the housing problem as a priority. Our reasoning was that poor housing provision, in all its forms, leads to economic hardship, social restriction and a climate of pessimism that will undermine any attempts to resolve the other pressing areas of concern.