Well, as much as most students are probably thinking "Oooh, I could go to Wine Street and see the latest in Welsh clubbing cuisine!" or even, "Hmm, I wonder if Swansea's chip shops are really all they're cracked up to be?" or maybe, "Cardiff? Who'd go to Cardiff when you've got Swansea?"
For the record, I think you should go to Newport, but I may be biased.
Anyway, why go to a Welsh Liberal Democrat Conference, if you are a Welsh Lib Dem student? The simple answer is this: why not? The longer answer is why I am writing this blog post.
This Conference should be amazing. Not only are we having a visit from Nick Clegg, but we have the amazing Welsh leader, Kirsty Williams. She is a passionate, inspiring speaker, and I think we are glad to have her to rally the troops. I'm just waiting for a Vera Lynn impression, where she bursts out into "We'll win again, we know where, we know when!"
But it is not actually the people at Conference that make this one so special. It is the policies. We are passing four specific motions (amongst others) calling for a completely new start to the UK.
I have heard so many people of my age saying that our country is wasting away. And it is. Not in a David Cameron "broken society" style, or a Labour "asbo and terrorism" style. No. Our country is wasting away on a much deeper, more horrifying scale than that. Our country's heart is slowly dying.
There are areas of our nation where people live in poverty. Their parents live in poverty, their grandparents live in poverty, their children live in poverty. It has been that way for decades now.
There are schools which are failing to offer the route out of poverty that is education. Young pupils from areas of deprivation should be given every ounce of extra help we can. Why? Because they need it. They have been neglected for far, far too long. And it's about time we said, "No more".
Then there is our politics. Dirty, shattered, corrupt. Unrepresentative, uninsipiring and worst of all, unrepentant about it all. In ancient edifices of bureacracy, millions of lives are governed with a single stroke of a pen. In closeted Cabinet rooms, peoples' lives are debated as a means to an end. As tools in the political machinations of the priveliged few.
Our country is rotting. And young people, like me, and my peers, are the future. But is there anything that inspires us? Is there anything in our life but slow and unending drudgery? Is there anything in our future for us to aspire to, to reach for, to work for? Is there any hope at all, that we can stand proud in a country where our voice is respected, listened to and valued? No.
Make no mistake. When Cameron talks about a "broken society", he is right. No, not in his judgement on marriage, or his judgement on anti-social behaviour, or his judgement on almost anything at all. But there is a broken society. A disconnect between the young and old; a disconnect between the political classes and the apolitical classes; a disconnect between individuals and communities. And all of these problems are not easily solved. There is no magic button to press. It requires consistent, long-term, focused investment.
This is why all young people in the Welsh Lib Dems should attend Conference. Because we are discussing our future. Not the future of the dried up prunes in Westminster, but our future.
If a Liberal Democrat is returned, I am passionate in my belief that Britain will start to be healed. Because of all the parties (and for once I include the Greens and Socialists in that), only we are willing to take the harsh choices to save the economy, but... but... but... but... to also plan for the future and to try, even whilst we suffer the cutbaccks, to build a better Britain.
No. Not a "better Britain". The best Britain. The Britain we all dream of, the Britain where someone born in Merthyr can do anything they want, just like a child born in Kent.
That is why I am a member of this Party. That is why I wake up every day and work hard for a new dawn of liberalism. And, on a smaller level, it is why we should all head to Conference. Because there, we pass the policies of the future.
Make no mistake. The Liberal Democrats are the party of the future.
So get involved. :)
0 comments:
Post a Comment