I have been busy! I have changed job and am about to move house. I have been to Blackpool for the party conference. I have been traveling to Zagreb amongst other cities, introducing myself in my new firm. This explains the very sparse – i.e. non existent- blogging over the past few weeks.
It is not that there has not been much to comment on. The Party conferences threw up interesting issues. Labour were revealed as authoritarian, even to their own members. The Conservatives have continued their naval gazing- and seem set to choose another non entity to lead them further into oblivion. The Liberal Democrats conference was less bad tempered than it appeared on television, but we are clearly getting to the nitty gritty as we undergo our policy and organizational debate. Our party firmly believes in tapping in to the expertise of our members, and the genuine, democratic debate that we see may not look so good in a media sensitive age, but it is both necessary and morally valuable. I increasingly believe that the Liberal Democrats will emerge as a genuinely Liberal Party- protective of our civil rights, open and honest in our international dealings, and determined to resist the growth of the State in places where it has no place.
Internationally we have seen the impact of Hurricane Katrina, and the astonishingly inept way in which the Bush administration has handled its whole approach to the episode reflects a profound breakdown at the heart of the Bush administration.
For people in Wycombe, however, an international disaster struck a little closer to home than New Orleans. We have seen the terrible loss of life in the Kashmir earthquake, with many of us or our friends and neighbours directly affected by the disaster. To them I say that we are with you and we know that while cities may be rebuilt, nothing can replace the loss of so many. We can only comfort the survivors and mourn the dead, which we do with sorrow. In the ongoing political debate, it sometimes takes a great disaster to remind us that our differences are very small compared to what unites us. For many in our community, the impact of those few seconds when the quake struck will be with them for the rest of their lives. This is perhaps the most important thing that they will face this autumn,and as the rains come and the leaves fall here in Bucks, the rains on other hills, falling on people without shelter or aid give us pause for thought.
