A dawning realisation that I don’t really fit, but that’s fine

Occasionally, someone revisits the idea that the Liberal Democrats consist of a number of tribes, and writes (usually quite thoughtfully) about how the interaction between the various groups impacts the way that the Party operates. And, as a long-term member whose history includes a variety of roles at every level of the voluntary party, I naturally read them with a degree of informed interest.

This year, the version that caught my attention was from James Baillie. James is a relative newcomer (admittedly, dinosaurs are relative newcomers compared to me these days) but his background as a historian offers a interesting perspective and his use of data opens up sources of evidence that underpin his logic. He identifies six groups;

• Orange Bookers
• Social Conservatives
• HQ Loyalists
• Moderates & Parochialists
• Social Liberals
• Radical Liberals

which feels about right, at least to this observer, although I might have used slightly different language.

And that’s kind of where my problem lies. I don’t sit easily with any of these groups and, in truth, nobody has ever come up with a grouping which I might recognise myself as sitting within.

It is, if you like, the blessing, and the curse, of being a bureaucrat in a political organisation and, despite my occasional attempts to “be something else”, that is my default role - my liberalism is best expressed by maintaining the societal and constitutional guardrails that protect a liberal society and allow others to shape that society. You might reasonably argue that this is an inherently conservative view of the world, and it probably is, but my motivation is to defend freedom by operating the systems that protect individuals from the overmighty state/party hierarchy (delete as appropriate). Rules matter, if you like.

And, in an environment where being part of a group matters more, as various groups within the Party organise and promote slates of candidates for its internal elections, I do feel, just a little bit, that I am something of an anachronism in not having an obviously political agenda or a desire for advancement.

That wasn’t why I didn’t run for election this year. I’m not a policy wonk, which rules out Federal Policy Committee, and I’ve not really got an obvious skillset which makes Federal Conference Committee a serious option. My professional life rules out the Federal Board (and realistically I’m not going to win anyway). I’ve been a member of Federal Council (and what a mistake that was) and Federal International Relations Committee, but feel that, for the time being, I’ve served long enough.

And you know, that's fine. Let someone else have a go and, if the time is right, I can find something that suits me and the Party at some point in the future...

A short history of correspondence with my family…

When I was (much) younger, messages to my family were sent on something that looked like this, an aerogramme. They were designed to be lightweight (to keep the delivery cost down) and easy to use - you folded over the gummed, protruding edges to seal it closed. But, with telephone calls expensive, and even middle class Indian homes not always connected to the telephone, they were how you kept the family in touch with what you were doing.

Of course, the advent of the internet meant that aerogrammes were increasingly irrelevant, and it appears that the Royal Mail gave them up in 2012. I admit that I hadn’t noticed.

In truth, I am at best an erratic correspondent, even with e-mail and social media. I mark family birthdays when they are noted by others on the family WhatsApp groups - there’s one for the Valladares’s and another for the cousins and second cousins - and I’ll occasionally exchange messages for significant events, but it’s a bit haphazard.

Ros encourages me, but she knows that it’s a bit of an uphill battle and I sense that her expectations are low that I will actually deal with the matter in good time. This year is a bit different though.

Inspired by the family gathering earlier this month, and aided by Ros’s prescience in purchasing a goodly supply of charity Christmas cards, I have handwritten seventeen cards and matching envelopes, ready to be posted to Canada, India, New Zealand and the United States, one for every cousin and second cousin (and their families) on my father’s side, plus the surviving members of my father’s generation - and there aren’t many of them left, sadly.

It may seem a little sentimental, and maybe it is, but seeing so many of my family up close and personal did bring back some memories. And nothing says that they matter as much as a handwritten card with a brief but heartfelt message. I now also have a full set of addresses for the first time in a long time, which means that I have no excuse not to repeat the process next year.

I will say this though, it’s not a cheap thing to do at £3.40 per card, and you can quite see why people increasingly revert to e-mail these days.

I’m not expecting anything like a full set in reply. After all, most people don’t have Ros to organise them, and life is hectic and complex. But I will have a warm sense of satisfaction that I have reminded my family that I care about them enough to wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, wherever they may be.

A pleasant dinner, interrupted by someone being murdered…

I’m always open to the idea of a good meal, and when Ros suggested dinner at the Suffolk Food Hall, I warmly welcomed the notion. There was the small detail that the dinner was part of a murder mystery evening, but that didn’t put me off particularly.

And so, last night, we set off into the dark of a typical late-November evening towards the south bank of the Orwell, just below the bridge which carries the A24 towards Felixstowe.

Whilst we were early, we were far from alone and, before long, were encouraged to find our dedicated table in anticipation of the puzzle to come. As more of our fellow guests arrived, a small clutch of people in 1920s outfits began to mingle amongst us, setting the scene for what would follow, an investigation into the death of Sir Edwin Chelmsford, the High Commissioner to India.

I had ordered the pork as my main course, and began to suspect that I could expect more pork by way of ham acting but, let’s be honest, you’re not expecting Olivier at these things, are you?

In fairness though, the co-ordination of the meal with the sleuthing was very well done, and an excellent three-course meal was successfully combined with the task of attempting to identify the killer and their motive. Combined with an enthusiastic troupe of actors playing the dramatis personae, it all made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening, even if I entirely failed to spot the key clue and thus drew an incorrect conclusion as to the identity of our murderer.

Before we knew it, three hours had passed, and it was time to return to the darkness and make our way home. All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening…

Looking at a polar bear, exit stage right…

To London, for dinner with Ros and a visit to my parents. And that means a trip on newly-nationalised Greater Anglia, with its fairly new, quite nice, Stadler rolling stock, with a hot cup of tea to drink and some Viennese whirls to keep me going until dinner. Well, I say that, but Greater Anglia offer, as entertainment, what I tend to describe as “the first class lottery”, in that you can never be sure if your train will have the scheduled first class carriages, regardless of what they’ve sold you even an hour before.

But I digress.

One of the things I enjoy most about train travel, and regular readers will know how much I like train travel, is looking out of the window, watching the world go by. Naturally, I like to do this in comfort, one of my rare extravagances.

The first half of the journey south and west to the capital is something I look forward to, although you do cross into Essex just before Manningtree. It does have one unusual feature though, i.e. polar bears. Now I acknowledge that polar bears are not native to Suffolk - at least, I don’t think that they’ve been native for a very long time - but the recent addition of polar bears, the first rescued from a zoo in Sweden that was closing, with others following from Nuremberg Zoo, means that Suffolk boasts the largest dedicated polar bear enclosure in Europe. And, as trains pass by, it’s something to look out for.

I do acknowledge that there are many people who don’t really approve of keeping such animals in captivity, and I do wonder how captivity affects the animals concerned, but where an animal cannot easily be returned to the wild, it seems logical to at least give them the best environment possible for them to live out their lives and to give the public an opportunity to put these creatures into context more readily.

Today, one of the bears was lying on its stomach, seemingly watching the trains. I wonder what it was thinking? Are polar bears potential trainspotters?

Time to bask in the glow of achievement... for now, at least...

I have been gloriously re-appointed as Suffolk's member of the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), representing our county on the national stage in the town and parish council sector, and I ought to thank my fellow colleagues on the Board of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils for giving me the chance for what may be one last go-around in the role.

I do have another set of roles to decide upon, which offers some interesting questions. NALC elects its officers and committees for a two-year term, something that I will not be able to complete, as my eligibility comes to an end in May 2027 unless something extraordinary happens - a new Ipswich Town Council may have elections then, but I'd have to run (and win) in a town where Liberal Democrats are not often elected.

It would be foolish of me to count upon such happenstance...

On the other hand, I appear to have the respect of my colleagues on the National Assembly (which never ceases to surprise me), and I think that I add value as the current Chair of the Smaller Councils Committee and Co-Chair of the Micro Councils Network (we may be small, but we're often perfectly formed...).

I have a fortnight to make up my mind.

As encouragement perhaps, I find myself in the rather unusual role of panel member for a discussion of Local Government Reform at the Liberal Democrat East of England Regional Conference in Colchester on 15 November. Unusual, mostly because I really wouldn't consider myself to be an expert. Luckily, I'll be in the company of Chelmsford City Council Leader, Stephen Robinson, and NALC's Head of Policy and Communications, Justin Griggs, who both know more than I do and can look and sound intelligent whilst I try not to panic.

As I write this, it dawns on me that there isn't a woman on the panel - note to self to have a word with the Regional Conference Chair on this point.

I also ought to think about what I want to say, and an opportunity to do that is offering itself in just over a fortnight.

In the meantime, there's stuff to do, and I really ought to get on...

If I die, can I come back a Valèncian?

I’m at an age now where, if I can avoid a very early morning flight time, I will. Of course, that does potentially mean that my choice of destination may be limited as a result. And so it was with the getaway I’d organised for this weekend.

The original idea was to try for somewhere in “classical” Spain - not Madrid, or Barcelona, but rather Seville, Granada or Cordoba. But the flight times weren’t right, or the fares were a bit stiff and so, after a bit more research, we ended up picking València, somewhere I had been once before, for four hours, unplanned, three years ago, and whilst it seemed nice enough, I had my reservations - would there be enough to keep us occupied for five days? But I found a good hotel, got flights on British Airways, and we were set to go.

And so, you’ll be wondering how it went.

València is marvellous, with fascinating architecture, pleasant back streets to walk in and dotted liberally with good cafes and neighbourhood restaurants. It has an excellent public transport system, the largest aquarium in Europe, large sandy beaches, and a marina with water so clean that rays can be seen gliding beneath the water’s surface. And the weather’s pretty good too…

We started off with an exploration of the area around the City of Arts and Sciences, with its spectacular architecture which gives you the decided impression that you should be impressed - València is no provincial backwater. Building big structures in white would be bold in England, but on the Mediterranean shore under blue skies, it all looks that much more spectacular.

Days 2 and 3 were dedicated to gentle strolls, some astonishingly good paella and an exploration of Valèncian beach life. València has a beach which reminded me of Rimini - it’s a long way to the sea but the beach stretches far further along the coast.

A València Card includes free public transport, and with buses, trams and a metro system, you can get anywhere you need to go efficiently. There’s also a bus which circles the inner city core which is helpful.

But, on top of this, cafes and bars are priced in such a way to encourage you to stop and linger, and a reasonably priced beer is entirely welcome on a day when the temperature is in the mid-eighties.

Sadly, our last day was impacted by the weather which caused severe flooding in the Balearics but, luckily, we’d already decided that the day would be spent at the aquarium. The shark tunnel alone was enough to justify a visit.

So, all in all, a successful trip. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we went back…

The road to power starts with a single step

I have, mostly by dint of being too polite to say no, risen a surprisingly long way in the genteel world of Town and Parish Councils. I represent my county on the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), and chair a national committee and a national network.

And now, my various terms of office are at an end and I find myself rather wanting to be re-elected. To that end, I attended a meeting of the Mid Suffolk Area Forum of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils (SALC) this evening where the first order of business was the (re)election of the Chair, i.e. me, and three Vice-Chairs.

We had rather more attendees than usual, as the other item on the agenda was a presentation from each of the competing proposals for local government reform in Suffolk - we’re being “unitaried” by Labour in the current round, and the prospect of a contest made me slightly nervous. After all, my representative “house of cards” is built on being either Chair or Vice-Chair of the branch.

Luckily, however, the withdrawal of one of my rivals meant that I was re-elected by a simple show of hands (or, perhaps, inertia), which means that I’ll be at the SALC Board on Monday, where I hope to be re-appointed for another year as Suffolk’s representative on the NALC National Assembly.

It’s a hectic week or so for me, as I’m due to chair a meeting of NALC’s Micro Councils Network on Friday and, subject to a vote on Monday, attend a National Assembly meeting on Tuesday.

So, wish me luck and we’ll meet again on the other side…