This is not a manifesto...

It's that time of year when a young man's fancy turns towards getting the nominations required to run for a Federal Committee. And in each Party electoral cycle since 2010, I've been a contestant.

I had a little bit of a past, in that I'd been elected to English Candidates Committee in 2005 and 2007, but in 2010, both Ros and I ran for a place on the Party's ELDR Council delegation. Ros got a vast number of votes - being Party President probably helped! - and I got elected with her, benefiting from a significant proportion of her surplus.

Much to my own surprise, I was re-elected in 2012 and 2014, and even more surprisingly, won a place on what was then the International Relations Committee in 2014, which I retained in 2016. I lost my seat on what was now the ALDE Council delegation by dint of not being Welsh, and was narrowly shaded out of both positions in 2019. I ended up back on both though due to resignations but, in 2022, I decided that it was time to move on a bit. I'd done all that I thought I could on Federal International Relations Committee, but wanted to stay on with ALDE, so managed to get re-elected to that.

I also ran for a place on the new Federal Council, but came up just short again. And yet again, a resignation created a space for me, and so I was back in harness. I then lost my place on the ALDE Council delegation after a change in the way delegation sizes are calculated saw my spot disappear.

This time, I'm not planning to run. Federal Council has been somewhat disillusioning for reasons I'll write about another time, and I'm not willing to run for a position just because I can. If I don't think that I can add value, it's hard to justify attempting to persuade others to support me.

So, for the time being, I'm retreating to the role of a very minor spear carrier on an obscure Regional party committee and focussing on other things. It's been a good run, better than I had expected, but perhaps someone else should have a go...