![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistWhat's your name, where are you from, and which committee(s) are you standing for?
Duncan Brack, from Streatham constituency in south London, standing for FPC.
Are you standing for the first time or restanding? If first time what new thing do you bring that nobody else could; if restanding, what about your record are you most proud of that you think should make us vote you back in?
Restanding. Over the last two years I helped make the 2015 manifesto the greenest the party's ever produced, and chaired the Agenda 2020 working group, including writing most of its paper - which includes a (I think) pretty good summary of the Liberal Democrats' basic values and philosophy.
Are you standing for any other committees, if so which ones; and if elected to more than one how do you plan to divide your time?
Your question is out of date; under the constitutional amendments passed at Brighton conference (which I supported), no one can be directly elected to more than one committee (though they can stand for more than one - I'm not).
Are you an active member of any SAOs, and if so which ones?
No SAOs, but I help to run the Liberal Democrat History Group (including editing the Journal of Liberal History) and the Liberal Sustainability Network. I'm a member of the Green Liberal Democrats and Social Liberal Forum.
If someone asked you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in one or two sentences what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and then why anyone should vote for us – what are your answers?
Obviously, in the current political environment: we are the only party that sees Britain's future in the EU, because the EU offers the best way for nation states to tackle the great challenges of our time: climate change, war, terrorism and poverty. At home we want to see power exercised by individuals and their communities, inequalities of income, wealth and opportunity greatly reduced and the natural environment protected for the good of all. Free, fair and green.
What is your view on diversity quotas for committees? Should they be extended to cover more than just gender, scrapped totally, kept as is or something else?
Again your question is out of date: under the constitutional amendments passed at Brighton conference (which I supported), they now cover gender, disability, sexual orientation and ethnicity.
Secrecy rules prevent the party knowing what committees are doing. What will you do to communicate with members; and in what circumstances is confidentiality justified?
The question is wrong: the FPC reports to party members what it does via our Facebook page and at conference - and the bulk of what we do is producing policy papers for debate at conference, so in a sense the papers are our report. (Having said all that, if re-elected, I'd like to look again at whether we can communicate better.)
We do not reveal specific things that individuals said in committee discussions, or how they voted, for good reasons - including because we don't want to give ammunition to our political opponents or reveal things about our members which they would prefer kept confidential from their employers.
If you had the power to do so unilaterally, what one party (not government) policy would you change, and what would you change it to?
I think party policy on nuclear power - which is to support new nuclear stations as long as they can be built without public subsidy - is nonsense; no company will build them without public subsidy. So we ought to be more honest and say we oppose them: there are far better and more cost-effective ways to decarbonise the UK economy.
What is your view on electoral pacts? Should the party make them, and if so, who with?
In an ideal world I'd like to see electoral pacts with other progressive parties (by which I mean the Greens and Labour) to help defeat the Conservatives, but in practical terms (a) Labour isn't always very progressive; and (b) you can't assume voters will just switch their allegiance automatically - for example, with Corbyn as leader, it's a fair bet that many Liberal Democrat voters would prefer to vote Tory rather than Labour in the absence of a Lib Dem candidate. Probably the best we can hope for is the kind of covert cooperation we saw between us and Labour in the run-up to the 1997 election, helping to target resources, not attacking each other too much, not fighting hopelessly unwinnable seats too hard, etc. It led to a marked increase in tactical voting and a collapse in Tory seats.
The list of all candidates who have answered can be found here.
Duncan Brack, from Streatham constituency in south London, standing for FPC.
Are you standing for the first time or restanding? If first time what new thing do you bring that nobody else could; if restanding, what about your record are you most proud of that you think should make us vote you back in?
Restanding. Over the last two years I helped make the 2015 manifesto the greenest the party's ever produced, and chaired the Agenda 2020 working group, including writing most of its paper - which includes a (I think) pretty good summary of the Liberal Democrats' basic values and philosophy.
Are you standing for any other committees, if so which ones; and if elected to more than one how do you plan to divide your time?
Your question is out of date; under the constitutional amendments passed at Brighton conference (which I supported), no one can be directly elected to more than one committee (though they can stand for more than one - I'm not).
Are you an active member of any SAOs, and if so which ones?
No SAOs, but I help to run the Liberal Democrat History Group (including editing the Journal of Liberal History) and the Liberal Sustainability Network. I'm a member of the Green Liberal Democrats and Social Liberal Forum.
If someone asked you on the doorstep, the hustings or on TV to sum up in one or two sentences what the Lib Dems, uniquely, stand for – and then why anyone should vote for us – what are your answers?
Obviously, in the current political environment: we are the only party that sees Britain's future in the EU, because the EU offers the best way for nation states to tackle the great challenges of our time: climate change, war, terrorism and poverty. At home we want to see power exercised by individuals and their communities, inequalities of income, wealth and opportunity greatly reduced and the natural environment protected for the good of all. Free, fair and green.
What is your view on diversity quotas for committees? Should they be extended to cover more than just gender, scrapped totally, kept as is or something else?
Again your question is out of date: under the constitutional amendments passed at Brighton conference (which I supported), they now cover gender, disability, sexual orientation and ethnicity.
Secrecy rules prevent the party knowing what committees are doing. What will you do to communicate with members; and in what circumstances is confidentiality justified?
The question is wrong: the FPC reports to party members what it does via our Facebook page and at conference - and the bulk of what we do is producing policy papers for debate at conference, so in a sense the papers are our report. (Having said all that, if re-elected, I'd like to look again at whether we can communicate better.)
We do not reveal specific things that individuals said in committee discussions, or how they voted, for good reasons - including because we don't want to give ammunition to our political opponents or reveal things about our members which they would prefer kept confidential from their employers.
If you had the power to do so unilaterally, what one party (not government) policy would you change, and what would you change it to?
I think party policy on nuclear power - which is to support new nuclear stations as long as they can be built without public subsidy - is nonsense; no company will build them without public subsidy. So we ought to be more honest and say we oppose them: there are far better and more cost-effective ways to decarbonise the UK economy.
What is your view on electoral pacts? Should the party make them, and if so, who with?
In an ideal world I'd like to see electoral pacts with other progressive parties (by which I mean the Greens and Labour) to help defeat the Conservatives, but in practical terms (a) Labour isn't always very progressive; and (b) you can't assume voters will just switch their allegiance automatically - for example, with Corbyn as leader, it's a fair bet that many Liberal Democrat voters would prefer to vote Tory rather than Labour in the absence of a Lib Dem candidate. Probably the best we can hope for is the kind of covert cooperation we saw between us and Labour in the run-up to the 1997 election, helping to target resources, not attacking each other too much, not fighting hopelessly unwinnable seats too hard, etc. It led to a marked increase in tactical voting and a collapse in Tory seats.
The list of all candidates who have answered can be found here.