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ippr at the conferences 2009

09 October 2009

Nearly a thousand delegates packed the three events that ippr held at the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Conservative conferences to discuss the future of politics at this time of radical change and upheaval.

Speakers at the fringe meetings included the Foreign Secretary David Miliband MP, former Labour Cabinet Ministers Charles Clarke MP and David Blunkett MP, Conservative Front Benchers Francis Maude MP and David Willets MP, and former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell MP. 

Among the issues discussed were:

• Is the Liberal Democrat agenda best advanced by the party working more closely with Labour or the Conservatives?
• What is the record of the Labour government during 12 years in power?
• Can the Labour renew itself – and can it do it time to win the next election?
• What is the future shape of progressive politics if, as seems likely, the Conservatives win the next election?
• What should be a policy priorities for an incoming Conservative government given the scale of the economic crisis?

Rethinking the Fringe

We also want to open up the closed circles of the conferences, so we forged partnerships with leading blogging sites.  Editors of those sites joined our panels and readers from the sites were surveyed for their views on the main issues of the day. Results from the three surveys can be found via the below links.

• Liberal Democrats
• Labour
• Conservatives

We also used twittered highlights live from the fringe events, giving people beyond the hall the chance to feed into their views to the panelists. Follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/ippr.

Event Recordings

Liberal Democrats - The Future of Politics Part 1 (.mp3)
Liberal Democrats - The Future of Politics Part 2  (.mp3)

Labour 2009 event part 1 (.mp3)
Labour 2009 event part 2  (.mp3)

Conservatives 2009 event part 1 (.mp3)
Conservatives 2009 event part 2  (.mp3)

Media

The ippr fringe events were among the highlights of the 2009 conference season and were extensively covered in the media:

• The Conservatives' first 100 days, Guardian - 8 October 2009
• Better-off families to lose tax credits and baby pay-outs, Daily Mail - 7 October 2009
• Will we hear the next cry for help?, Daily Telegraph - 30 September 2009
• Brown prepares his last desperate roll of the dice, The Observer - 27 September 2009
• MPs should be sharpening taxes as well as axes, The Guardian - 28 September 2009
• Parties face conference backlash, politics.co.uk - 25 September 2009
• Lib Dems would be compelled to work with Labour after Tory victory – Menzies Campbell, Guardian - 22 September 2009
• Labour-Lib Dem coalition back on the agenda, New Statesman - 22 September 2009
• Public scepticism takes the steam out of debate, Financial Times - 22 September 2009

For more information on ippr's events programme, contact events@ippr.org.