What are Liberal Youth hiding?
So three grand and a few years later the new
Liberal Youth website
was finally relaunched last night. It's alright, but to be fair it could have been made for free by a committed member. Cough
. However the launch has been shrouded in controversy due to the fact that the Lib Dem forums are down and currently do not feature in the new website.The LY membership have
gone mental
, especially given their executive were busted lying. They said the forum couldn't be restored elsewhere, yet two techno savvy members managed to do just that. A source reports what happened next:"Then after some threatening phone calls from Elaine and massive fights within the Exec the two individuals in question have had to take the "not the liberal youth" forums down. Legal threats were said to have been screamed down the phone. Elaine has deliberately censored the history of the forums and purposely stifled debate."
What could she have wanted to hide?
Well TB has a pretty good idea this posting would have been pretty high up the list:
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Enlarge to have a read. Fascinating stuff from the former staff member responsible for Liberal Youth.
No wonder they can't find a replacement.
Posts
23 comments:
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Are you kidding me? All that time and they come up with THAT as a website?
*slaps forehead*
H***y, I'm surprised it took you so long :P
In all fairness, the website was commissioned in February and looked like that in March/April - it's taken a long time to get up due to server problems after I ceased to be involved.
What we paid for wasn't just the design: it was the CMS and a support package too.
If I had been able to find a committed member with the right expertise I would have preferred to explore that option.
However, with the GE looming and a site needed up quick (rolls eyes) I chose to hire a company instead.
It's not like the money is being spent on any campaigning other than Freshers or, indeed, a member of staff...
not a bad website for a bunch of kids
If Elaine keeps censoring us, and doesn't bring back the old forum, then we'll have no choice but to come to TB with all of our gossip.
This isn't an idle threat.
Lol have you seen keep right online's cable picture?
Lots of money on campaigning going to plenty of targets as far as I can tell.
Freshers Packs look great, not that Sara would know.
And a member off stsff is in the pipeline - but yes, probably should have been sorted already.
Bad news about the forums, so these will hopefully be restored.
But it is not lying if you simply understood nothing could be done and said nothing could be done. It is called 'mistaken' perhaps.
And I am a member of LY, but not the exec.
Anon@18:08 - don't try to spin your way out of this. It wasn't a misunderstanding.
The lie was proved when Elaine ordered the resurrected forums to be taken down again, and when members of the exec admitted there'd been an exec decision to take them down.
It was a big, fat lie.
The Freshers packs material was publicly put on the Liberal Youth fan page for all to see. So a) Sara will have seen it and b) she didn't criticise it in the first place. Not only that, but it's also on the new website so, should any Tory bloggers want to ridicule it, they can and bury our freshers campaigns in public before the even begin.
And whether it's a case of "mistaken" or "lying", the situation was certainly made blurry and the rumour of legal threats being made AND that we're turning away free help from members is, at the very least, unhelpful.
Ok, first of all the Freshers stuff is all over the fanpage and I've seen it - and it's very, very good work from Joe Rinaldi Johnson and all those who helped get the packs out. Credit where credit is due.
Also I've no doubt that James Shaddock's initial statement was true. And that the exec honestly didn't know how to get the forums back up in the first place.
However, what's dubious is the take down. The other version of the forums were hosted independently by the members for the members. I don't understand what jurisdiction the Exec has to take them down?!?!
I know every Chair has wanted to be rid of the forums since the forums have existed. When I was VC Comms they were the bane of my life. However, I really miss them. They are so valuable and they were fun. I think the Exec should make a very clear statement as to why they have come down when volunteers so graciously helped to get them back up.
The Exec now seem even more distant than before. This is not good.
Love it. Liberal Youth are probably the most inept - and as a result the most entertaining - political organisation in the country.
Sara, to answer your question, yet again Elaine has been exceeding her authority, and using bullying to back it up.
I'm disgusted by some of the things going on, and I think everyone who calls themselves a Liberal Democrat but tolerates this kind of intimidation should hang their heads in shame.
"I know every Chair has wanted to be rid of the forums since the forums have existed."
Hem hem, one eventual chair had the original idea for them, and supported them the whole time. Even though they did cause me/us grief as an exec, I felt much happier having them there as an early warning system for future problems. If we got involved talking to and listening to people, then the problems always stayed internal too.
It's a shame the current exec haven't learned how useful they can be for that. People will carry on talking I'm sure, just somewhere they can't control anymore. Tactical error to my mind.
Right on, Gez - do they want us debating in the private forums, or leaking to TB?
This could get very messy in the run-up to the election. And the Leader's office will probably flip. Again.
Sorry, Gez, honey! You know I love you!!
Ok then, every Chair since Gez...
I agree regarding the tactical error thing. If we have closed forums then we can debate relatively securely - I sensed TB was used largely as a pressure valve during the last election. This is not a positive prospect for the organisation in any shape or form.
No worries Sara! I suspect the couple of chairs before me may have found them a bit of an arse at times too, but to their credit they saw their value and stuck with them. They really were invaluable for co-ordinating country wide activity during the 2005 GE.
You're right though, most things start to leak when their internal pressure grows too great.
Do love the fact we're having to hold these discussions on a tory attack blog, or on alternative forums run by a, erm, tory. Both very decent of them, but we really ought to find our own space soon!
go for it, feel free to click on the adverts.
Do love the fact we're having to hold these discussions on a tory attack blog, or on alternative forums run by a, erm, tory. Both very decent of them, but we really ought to find our own space soon!
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I think its great a conservative (small c I think!) is doing the work LY seemingly cannot do themseleves!
Yup, it looks bad, real bad.
And at least the LY Exec aren't immature enough to try and spam Tory Bear with sarcastic messages of drama.
No, they just do that to try and silence opposition within their own ranks.
Illiberal Anti-democratic Youth.
Elaine's inability to stand up to public scrutiny, let alone subject herself to voluntarily, never ceases to amuse me.
With the LY Exec participating in this dictatorship and an awful lot of truth-economics over the last year, one wonders how long it will be until Nick Clegg finally abolishes LY, like Thatcher did the Federation of Conservative Students.
Although, FCS actually had a point and a good laugh making it... by rioting.
Illiberal Anti-democratic Youth.
Elaine's inability to stand up to public scrutiny, let alone subject herself to voluntarily, never ceases to amuse me.
With the LY Exec participating in this dictatorship and an awful lot of truth-economics over the last year, one wonders how long it will be until Nick Clegg finally abolishes LY, like Thatcher did the Federation of Conservative Students.
Although, FCS actually had a point and a good laugh making it... by rioting.