Thus Spake, Well, Not Zarathustra Exactly

Amidst all the excitement (including, but not limited to, an interesting little spike in my readership, of which more anon) it occurs to me that I haven't provided my usual service of blogging my speeches from Welsh Lib Dem Conference, which was very successfully held in Brecon the weekend before last. So without further ado, my weekend's contribution, on a motion calling for a distinctive Welsh voice in party policy...

Conference, when I read this motion I was struck by the importance of the message it sends. Ironically, I think it struck me most because I'm English.

More specifically, I'm from Gloucestershire, barely 20 miles from the border but more than 120 miles from Westminster and the City. And so I don't know whether to laugh or cry when people try to denounce us as "one of the London parties". The trouble with London-centric thinking isn't that it thinks that Offa's Dyke is an active military installation defending it from the barbarian hordes; it's that it thinks that the M25 is an active military installation defending it from the barbarian hordes...

Now don't get me wrong, we shouldn't discard ideas purely because they come from England. There's no sense in creating clear red water the way Labour have, by kneeling on the riverbank and slitting your throat. Neither is there any sense in creating clear yellow water by standing at the riverbank and... well I think you can see where this metaphor is going...

The best expression of our commitment to policy making in Wales is that we are here, right now. Labour and Conservative can't even make policy democratically in England; we do it in every part of the UK and we should be proud of that. I welcome this motion and I am sure we will achieve its objective, but we will do so because we are Liberal Democrats and we would be that way whether we were in Brecon, Brechin or Bracknell...