List Elections - get better, or die trying...

And so the wedding is done, the honeymoon too, and it is, sadly, time to return to Planet LibDem. Yesterday saw a jet-lagged Regional Conference Chair attend a meeting of the Regional Executive, where thoughts of the elections past were uppermost on people's minds. I won't go into any detail as to what was discussed, although it would be fair to say that there was a variety of views to be had.

Our performance does lead me to ask one question though - is our poor performance in regional/state list elections a problem or an inevitability? We have become exceptionally good at fighting FPTP elections, squeezing opposition parties using the classic 'two-horse race' tactic. There is, however, a problem when you move into a list-based election system. You can't claim that X can't win here, because they can, and often do. The Greens, for example, have proved that beyond doubt.

Perhaps we need to start thinking about how we can give people positive reasons to vote for us. Labour and Conservative campaigners start with an advantage in terms of access to the media and, to be brutally honest, a traditional vote which takes time to shift. Other parties, such as the Greens, UKIP and the BNP have one issue which they have an incredibly strong view on, loathesome though it may be in one case.

For Europe, this should be easy. We are, by far, the most positive of the British political parties on Europe, and we should be talking loudly about how to make Europe better, more democratic, more accountable, more successful. That doesn't mean selling our nation down the river, and there aren't many of us who are so europhile that we are blind to its weaknesses. It's only a pity that those who matter in terms of our campaigning have seldom been keen on nailing our colours to the mast.

London is more complex. With its plethora of voting systems, first past the post for the Assembly constituencies, alternative vote for the Mayor and a D'Hondt based top-up list for the city-wide Assembly Members, how best to focus our efforts where they will have most effect is difficult to pinpoint. However, I think that we need to work on giving people something positive to inspire them out to vote for us.

It's time that we really learned to utilise our elected representatives better, especially our four London-wide ones, to fly the flag in places where we are weak, getting Liberal Democrat views into the local media. In turn, that means conveying a reasonably consistent message, and repeating it until it sinks in.

Time is not on our side though, with another region-wide elction next year, and we need to learn fast...