Liberalism, Equality and the State
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Vince Cable, Lee Chalmers, Evan Harris, Simon Hebditch, Simon Hughes,Chris Huhne, Will Hutton, Neal Lawson, Alex Marsh, Mark Pack, Ed Randell, Alexis Rowell, Naomi Smith, Claire Tyler, Halina Ward
The Social Liberal Forum are proud to announce their first national conference at City University in London. The SLF successfully presented a motion to the Liberal Democrat spring conference challenging the government’s planned NHS reforms. The mot
ion received overwhelming support from conference and the health reforms are now under review. Dr Evan Harris: “The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference support for the SLF’s health reform motion clearly flagged up a significant and growing disconnect between Liberal Democrat ministers and the grassroots. The SLF conference will provide a timely platform for debating the nature and scale of this relationship.” The conference, in preparation for many months, will encourage greater debate within the Liberal Democrats to determine how far the party can push the equality agenda within the coalition. The need to establish how best to deliver the Social Liberal agenda will also be addressed. This debate is gaining increasing prominence at a time when the party does not want to become the heat shield for the Tories, as observed in the recent local elections.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
- How we got here
- Deficit Reduction: Ideology or Necessity?
- Inequality, Social Mobility, Pay: What does Fairness Look Like?
- Are the Big Society and Community Politics compatible? Accountability or marketisation?
- Health Reforms: Good for Us?
- The Triple Crunch: Credit, Fuel, Food - Will Resource Scarcity increase Poverty?
- Political Alignments: Delivering the Social Liberal Agenda
DATE: Saturday 18 JUNE 2011 - 09.30 - 5.00pm LOCATION: City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB For more information: http://socialliberal.net/ http://www.facebook.com/soclibforum Available for interview: Prateek Buch: [email protected] - 07764 756570 Dawn Barnes: [email protected] - 07968 392 483 Notes to editors: Founded in 2009 The Social Liberal Forum represents the coming together of a number of individuals who have formerly been involved in the Beveridge Group and the Reinventing the State Group (which oversaw the publication of the Reinventing the State collection of essays in 2007), and others. The SLF exists to foster debate within and beyond the Liberal Democrats, with the aim of developing social liberal solutions and approaches which reflect these principles and which find popular support. It is crucial that the party develops new approaches to deal with the pressing challenges of the early 21st century, such as rising inequality, declining social mobility, global financial chaos and climate change. Social liberalism provides answers to these challenges that economic liberalism alone cannot.