As ever, I’m slightly late — after all the north of Scotland is very far away from sunny Brighton. In making my long journey on the first day of the Liberal Democrat Conference, travelling through the lush Surrey countryside and seeing the dazzling light reflecting off the sea, it’s as if I have come back in time, from a Highland early autumn to a South Coast high summer.
“I’m here!”, I shouted to the Head of our Whips office as I took my seat (second row these days) at the front of the auditorium for the big rally.
Now, I could write about the 71 MPs that surrounded me, but it was when I turned around and looked behind me that the immensity of what had happened to my party fully struck home. Not a sea, but an ocean of faces. I never thought I’d live to see the day when the Lib Dem Conference was so massive.
In the past, it could be argued that the Lib Dems were always hard-wired to make the best of an election.
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“Great, we’re up from a taxi of MPs, to a small minibus!”. You get my drift…
We’d whistle in the dark and put a brave face on it. But not this time. There is now a confidence in the party which is more than tangible. Confidence may even be an understatement. There is an energy and an optimism that you can almost feel in the air. Admittedly, I am still trying to learn all of the new names and faces. It will take me time, but it is a pleasure! It makes me grateful to be in politics at this time to witness it.
“Mr Jamie Stone, can I speak to you about…”.
“Honourable Member, would you please think about signing this petition…”
Moving from A to B in Brighton along the entire seafront means that I have been approached, smiled at, and spoken to with a cheerfulness that I have never experienced at any other conference.
“Ah, such a contrast with the Tory conference!”, said a former civil servant to me.
“The Conservative MPs have been told to take their badges off as soon as they step outside the conference centre — for fear of being shouted at, or worse! How fascinating that you delegates feel perfectly confident wearing your conference passes on the streets.”
That short comment made me reflect deeply on my party’s standing in the public consciousness. Clearly we have a priceless asset at this time — public goodwill. We will do everything in our power to honour the trust that has been put into us by the electorate of 72 constituencies in the UK — the highest number of MPs this party has had since 1923!
“Next election, we could even become the official opposition, we could even eclipse the Tories”.
I have been told this repeatedly; it’s what Ed Davey has been telling us. Going by the mood of the kind people of Brighton — waiting staff in restaurants, people in shops, the staff in Brighton station — Ed’s ambition could quite easily become a reality. That yellow hammer that knocked down the blue wall is looking more totemic than ever. It’s all to play for — what a time to be a Lib Dem!
I am quite prepared to accept that readers of this piece may feel that I sometimes indulge in hyperbole, but let me leave you with one last enduring image. As I walked this week from Brighton Pier along the seafront, I saw a lovely sight. For a full 100 yards of my walk, a beautiful white butterfly danced along in front of me. Ok, I’m from the Highlands of Scotland, where we believe in the Second Sight, Kelpies, and all sorts of other strange and wonderful things — but I do believe that butterfly was a portent of great fortune. An auspicious sign for the future of the Lib Dems, I for one do hope…
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