The mud slinging continues
This open letter just caught TB's eye on Facebook. Is it a precondition of being a Liberal Democrat to have faux piety pour from your mouth at the drop of hat? What's with the whole holier than thou bullshit coming from the Bagshaw campaign? Both camps are as bad as each other.
Open Letter in response to events in Harrogate
During the opening rally at the Lib Dem Conference at the weekend Liberal Youth Chairperson, Elaine Bagshaw, made a speech. Her adversary in the current Chairperson election, Sara Scarlett, decided to heckle her. This is the response from Leeds Liberal Youth:
Dear Sara,
Given the events of the rally in Harrogate on Friday we, Leeds Liberal Youth, feel we should share our viewson your behaviour.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms your decision to heckle Elaine Bagshaw during her speech. Not only was your outburst rude but it drew the reputation of Liberal Youth into disrepute in front of the rest of the party. We do not know the history of your and Elaine's relationship, which has clearly deteriorated and we are not interested in knowing it. Our protest is against the heckling incident.
Firstly you completely misjudged the situation in which your interruption took place. The rally was an upbeat occasion with powerful and inspirational speeches from all sides of the party. It was, with your exception, a great way to celebrate the 21st birthday of the Liberal Democrats and kick off Conference. Your heckle was the one thing that dampened the occasion.
Secondly Elaine was not making a speech to promote her Liberal Youth Presidential campaign. It was about the achievements of Liberal Youth throughout the year and she was not boastful about her contribution in any way. While you are entitled to your view, the achievements she mentioned are true and she has done a great deal of consultation on the education policy papers from this Conference. Nevertheless this was not the right occasion to debate these issues. Given this, it is a shame you didn’t turn up to the Liberal Youth fringe event where you could’ve discussed your concerns, nor the student campaign meeting, organised by the campaigns department and Greg Mulholland MP.
Finally we do not believe your behaviour could be considered ‘Presidential’. If elected President you will have to represent Liberal Youth in front of the rest of the party and the public. Behaviour like this cannot be tolerated under these circumstances. One of our members sat near you during the rally and reported that you were giggling afterwards. We hope, given the condemnation you have received since the event, that you now consider your actions to be less funny.
Given these concerns we feel it would appropriate for you to offer an unreserved and public apology to Elaine. If you are unwilling to do this perhaps you will consider stepping down from the election to save any future embarrassments to Liberal Youth.
Yours,
Liberal Youth Leeds & Leeds University Union Liberal Democrats
Dear Sara,
Given the events of the rally in Harrogate on Friday we, Leeds Liberal Youth, feel we should share our viewson your behaviour.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms your decision to heckle Elaine Bagshaw during her speech. Not only was your outburst rude but it drew the reputation of Liberal Youth into disrepute in front of the rest of the party. We do not know the history of your and Elaine's relationship, which has clearly deteriorated and we are not interested in knowing it. Our protest is against the heckling incident.
Firstly you completely misjudged the situation in which your interruption took place. The rally was an upbeat occasion with powerful and inspirational speeches from all sides of the party. It was, with your exception, a great way to celebrate the 21st birthday of the Liberal Democrats and kick off Conference. Your heckle was the one thing that dampened the occasion.
Secondly Elaine was not making a speech to promote her Liberal Youth Presidential campaign. It was about the achievements of Liberal Youth throughout the year and she was not boastful about her contribution in any way. While you are entitled to your view, the achievements she mentioned are true and she has done a great deal of consultation on the education policy papers from this Conference. Nevertheless this was not the right occasion to debate these issues. Given this, it is a shame you didn’t turn up to the Liberal Youth fringe event where you could’ve discussed your concerns, nor the student campaign meeting, organised by the campaigns department and Greg Mulholland MP.
Finally we do not believe your behaviour could be considered ‘Presidential’. If elected President you will have to represent Liberal Youth in front of the rest of the party and the public. Behaviour like this cannot be tolerated under these circumstances. One of our members sat near you during the rally and reported that you were giggling afterwards. We hope, given the condemnation you have received since the event, that you now consider your actions to be less funny.
Given these concerns we feel it would appropriate for you to offer an unreserved and public apology to Elaine. If you are unwilling to do this perhaps you will consider stepping down from the election to save any future embarrassments to Liberal Youth.
Yours,
Liberal Youth Leeds & Leeds University Union Liberal Democrats
What did you think TB meant?
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13 comments:
"powerful and inspirational" my arse
The Mudslinging will be a part of all political parties, I seem to remember a certain young conservative being slated about 8 years ago for comments he made.
I knew him personally at the time.
erm, slightly off the point but anyway. i didn't know anything much about liberal youth before reading about it on TB and decided to google Elaine Bagshaw and Sara Scarlett to get an idea of who they actually are. i was shocked to see that elaine bagshaw, current chair of liberal YOUTH looks about 45 and also seems to be the most sinfully boring individual ever. i'm just glad i'm not in LY.
Scarlett's outburst was stupid but some of this stuff is pretty daft too. I ran into LDYS's national campaigns officer - one of SS's top supporters as it happens - and he only heard about the student campaign meeting with Greg through hearsay and guesswork so what chance Elaine even told Sara it was happening?
Now now Alex - boasting isn't becoming of a lady...
They do know this is an election for the chair of the organisation, not the president, right?
Mmmm I did warn BOTH of them this would leak out to Conservative Future. Make the most of it, the election will be over soon.
By "achievements" do they mean being able to (inaccurately) draw bar charts? Woooo- you guys have deceived the electorate and exaccerbated further distrust in politics and policians. Well Done!
F*cking liberals!
Alexandra, we may need proof of that
You'd never get heckling at a CF event.
i'm sure you would, but that is not the point.
this wasnt a youth event, it was a televised national party event.
doh
"What's with the whole holier than thou bullshit coming from the Bagshaw campaign? Both camps are as bad as each other."
It is perfectly possible to be in Liberal Youth, and even to have an opinion on which candidate would be better for chair, without being in a "camp", particularly after Friday. You seem to imagine that all criticism of Sara Scarlett originates from some mythical Elaine Bagshaw campaign machine, and vice versa.
"What's with the whole holier than thou bullshit coming from the Bagshaw campaign? Both camps are as bad as each other."
It is perfectly possible to be in Liberal Youth, and even to have an opinion on which candidate would be better for chair, without being in a "camp", particularly after Friday. You seem to imagine that all criticism of Sara Scarlett originates from some mythical Elaine Bagshaw campaign machine, and vice versa.