This is a statement of my liberalism. I claim for it only that it represents my views so that anyone who works with me or can vote for or against me, knows what it is that I believe:

Basic Tenets

Because I believe in the dignity of all, in the potential that freedom brings and in the beauty of difference I am a liberal.

Because I believe that the purpose of power is service, that decisions should be made by those they effect and that each individual is of equal worth I am a democrat.

Liberal Democracy is more than a type of politics. It is a way of life. It is what happens when a passion for justice meets a spirit of adventure.

A politics of purpose – Liberal Democracy at its best

One of the reasons politicians are so derided is that they (we) are thought willing to do anything for votes. When people say ‘politicians are all the same’ it is partly a reflection of this.

At our best however our party is about empowering people, not politicians.
At our best in local government we encourage people to take power for themselves, for tenants to control their estates, for residents to protect and enhance their open spaces, for parents and communities to run their schools. For example in Newcastle the Liberal Democrat Council has given control of Exhibition Park to a trust comprising local residents.

At our best in opposition, as we are in Gateshead, we encourage and support local people in their campaigns. We do not hijack them, take them over or claim victories that residents have won themselves.
Our electoral successes have always been based on campaigning in and for communities, our politics being about the achievement of real purposes.

But as I write this there is growing anxiety in the Liberal Democrats that illiberal political parties are copying our campaigning style – distributing literature all year round, working for community concerns and opposing powerful organisations.

They may impersonate our practices but they cannot copy our principles.
It is these principles - our basic view of the good life, a life that is free in communities that are empowered, a society that is diverse in a world that is sustainable and fair; that mark us out.

Not campaigning style, not details of policy but principles and the purposes that animate them.

A politics of purpose is about who we are.
A politics of purpose is about what we want our society to become.
A politics of purpose is about what we will do to achieve it.

Politics in Britain appears a separate, discrete activity involving a class of career politicians moving from one political job to another. We must be different. We must be people involved in politics, not professional politicians.

Our councilors must work with people in their campaigns, in their attempts to improve their lives and communities and not tell them how to do it.

MP's and MEP's must take time out from their ‘political’ activities to work alongside people in their constituencies - to regularly work in the businesses, hospitals, and schools in the areas they represent.

And our leaders must speak the language of people, not the jargon of the political elite.

This is what we are at our best.
Politics for purposes.
Elections as a means not an end.
Guided by principle for the present and vision for the future.