According to Google Analytics these are the five most viewed posts on this blog during 2011. While I seem to have a readership that comes here via the Lib Dem Blogs aggregator and Lib Dem Voice, and I have seen an increase in links from Facebook and Twitter, the most popular posts have been those that people have found when Googling for information about the EDL rally in Luton at the beginning of the year and the link to this blog from the ‘Have I got News for You” programme pages on the BBC website.
General
The general category for announcements, posts about the administration of the blog, and anything that doesn’t fit in the other categories.
Good riddance 2011 Welcome in 2012
As far as I’m concerned 2011 has been a rubbish year for me personally. It has been characterised by frustration, anxiety and a fair bit of melancholy. I often felt uncertain what my role was and what I was trying to achieve. I lost an election in circumstances I found very frustrating. I’ve been constantly dogged by financial worries and have had periods of gloom and lethargy. I also turned 40.
Before this all sounds like too much of a whinge there has been some good stuff to. Not least my becoming an uncle again.
I have learned some important lessons this year and I have ended it in a far more positive frame of mind, and more comfortable in my skin, that I started it. I also should record my gratitude to those colleagues, friends and family who have helped and supported me this year. Often when I haven’t been the easiest person to get on with. I am very grateful.
But in all honesty I’m glad to see the back of it.
So I am looking forward to 2012 with the expectation that it will be a far more positive year.
My overwhelming priority for next year is to concentrate on work and business, and in doing so I hope to see a significant improvement in my financial circumstances. I have some half formed ideas and plans about how to do this, but I recognise that, at least for the first half of the year, I will need to do some serious graft.
Beyond that, given the need to prioritise, I’m not making many other plans. Since the local elections, with one or two exceptions, I’ve largely withdrawn from political activity. I felt I needed a break. This is likely to continue for most of 2012 – it will give me some time to work out what I want to do next. However, I have made one or two commitments and intend to spend some time writing and thinking about political issues.
Finally, if things do improve on the work front, I’d like to be a lot more social in 2012 than I was in 2011. I may even throw the odd party!
This blog come 94th in the top 100 Lib Dem blogs
I was somewhat surprised, although very pleased, to learn today that this blog has been awarded 94th place in Total Politics magazine’s list of the top 100 Lib Dem blogs 2011.
While I occasionally have had posts chosen for Lib Dem Voice’s Golden Dozen, this is the first time I’ve had an award like this. I get a snazzy badge as well. Thank you to the folks at Total Politics and those that voted etc.
Should I aim for the top 50 next year?!
Would you like some tea?
I’m aware that I should be writing up my reactions to the Social Liberal Forum conference, including my bloggers’ interview with Evan Harris, as well as carrying on with my other series of posts. However, as you can see from the photograph below, I have been somewhat unusually detained over the last few days. Something that also coincided with my fortieth birthday.
Normal service will resume shortly.
I hope…..
21st June 2011
09:32
1
Geek Stuff, General
What’s next? Part Three
Since missing out by 14 votes on being re-elected to Luton Borough Council on May 5th I’ve been taking my time to adjust to the election result and to work out what comes after and I’ve been using posts on this blog as part of my process of working things out.
I’ve posted a number of articles looking at the things that I believe I can claim to have achieved over those eight years (achievements one, two and three) with a couple more to come. I’ve yet to write about the more general conclusions about the political world I have come to having reached this point but I think I have a better idea of what they are. But I am ready to start looking to the future. So, following part one and part two, this is the third and final post in my ‘What’s Next’ series.
So what will I do now?
Well I know myself well enough to know that politics is in my blood. It is part of who I am and I will always be involved in it in one capacity or another. I also know that there is more than one way to do politics. Local government and standing for public office is one way to influence things and fight for what you believe in. But there are others.
I know that I do have something to say and that something is now backed up with the knowledge and experience I have gained from eight years of holding public office. I now also realise that I have a greater freedom to speak out. It is not in my nature to set out to be deliberately disloyal to my party, but I am aware that the restrictions, self-imposed and otherwise, that were inevitably placed on me by the fact of being an elected representative and owing a loyalty to my council group no longer apply.
I also think it unlikely that I will stand again for election to be a councillor for a good while. A number of people have said to me that “you’ll be back”. That may be true, but it won’t be for at least a decade or more. It is time for other things.
So I think the priority for my political activity may now be to concentrate on thinking, writing and debating ideas and proposals. I am struck that while we are now in government at the same time in many ways the Liberal Democrat ideas cupboard is rather bare. So this may be a good moment to give greater reign to my inner policy wonk. Although I am not entirely sure how to go about this. Any suggestions gratefully received.
As for working for Luton I remain on the Board of Trustees of Luton Culture, something I am deeply passionate about, and there are more than enough challenges there to get my teeth into. I am becoming more and more interested in the politics and management or arts and culture. It plays a vital, if often underestimated, role in people’s lives and communities. Not least in a place like Luton. It is also a sector facing tremendous challenges given the economic climate. So it would be interesting to explore and develop my knowledge and understanding of this field.
Yet I have recognised that, not least for a number of reasons of practicality, my priority is going to have to be work and career. Politics will have to take something of a back seat while I concentrate on finding the right kind of work and trying to increase my level of income. So I am now actively looking for new work and opportunities. So again, if anyone has any suggestions to where I can make good use of my talents do let me know.
So in the words of The West Wing’s President Jed Bartlett; “What’s next?”
What’s Next? Part Two
It often seems to be my fate that I find myself only truly ready to take on a particular role at the point when that role is no longer available to me.
I was for three years a member of the Executive of Luton Borough Council back when the Liberal Democrats formed a minority administration. Having only been a councillor for a year before taking on the role of a portfolio-holder and not having done anything remotely similar in the past it involved a huge amount of learning on the job. To say it was a steep learning curve would be an understatement. I was very lucky to receive some excellent training. I owe a huge debt to Erica Kemp and the others involved in the Next Generation leadership programme on which I had the good fortune to be invited to take part. I also got to work with some talented and dedicated council officers who were often very tolerant of my beginners mistakes. I know that I did achieve things but I also know that I would have achieved a hell of a lot more if I had had more of a clue about what I was supposed to be doing when I started the job. I feel I only really developed a true understanding of what that role involved and how I could make it work at around the time when we lost control of the council.
I’ve had a similar experience this year.
Politics can be a very odd thing to get involved with. Standing for elected office doubly so. To put yourself up in front of your fellow citizens and say my talents and abilities are the ones you should put your trust in and that my ideas and opinions are the ones you should vote for requires developing a somewhat unusual mind set. Lets be honest it can require a degree of self confidence, some would say arrogance, that in other situations would be seen as an unattractive character trait.
Also it is a combative activity. You may feel that in your life or at your workplace others are out to get you. This may or may not be paranoia. But if you go into politics, by definition, this will be true. All politics involves a degree of conflict. Where this conflict is over matters of principle and substance and offers a genuine choice to the electorate then it can be a healthy, often vital, thing. But it is often too easy for that conflict to drift into being about petty or trivial things, to become a personal row about slights and hurt feelings, or develop into a cycle of conflict for its own sake. I’ve found that Luton politics has a very combative, a very party political, culture and has too often involved the latter form of conflict.
I’ve never been entirely comfortable with these two aspects of politics. I’ve accepted them and I’ve learned to deal with them. From the outside to some people it may have seemed that I have relished them. But the truth is that putting myself forward and dealing with the resulting conflict has always involved burning up significant amounts of emotional and psychological energy. I am not a natural politician. In order to do the things I have wanted to do I have had to invest heavily in developing a series of learned behaviours. So I have often felt ill at ease with the idea of being a politician.
I have found that this unease is most keenly felt at election time. A lot of campaigning can be very pleasant. Getting some fresh air and exercise delivering leaflets on a sunny day, often listening to music or catching up on podcasts while I do so, and then meeting up with colleagues for a beer afterwards can be an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. But canvassing, knocking on people’s doors and asking them to vote for you, has always been something I’ve had to steel myself to do. I’ve always had a degree of sympathy for Jehovah’s Witnesses and those people who try to persuade you to change your utility supplier, even as I am turning them away, because I know how draining it can be to go from door to door.
I’ve also at times worried about the impact that all this politics was having on my personality. There is a stereotype of a local councillor being someone whose great love is the sound of their own voice. I fear there have been too many occasions when I have appeared to embody that stereotype more closely than I would care to admit. One of the real dangers of long term exposure to local government is that it can make you, well, boring.
Now you may find all this introspection and self doubt a little trying. So you will be pleased to know that this year that changed. This election was the first election in which I have taken an active part in when I truly felt comfortable in the role of a local politician. I even felt keen to get out there and knock on peoples’ doors. I don’t whether this is greater self confidence or something else, but it felt like it fitted in a way that it never had done before.
Now you could take the view that this is evidence that I had finally been “captured by the system” and that my losing is therefore actually a lucky escape. But it does feel more than a little frustrating that the year in which I first felt fully comfortable in the role of being a local politician is the year when I stop being one.
What’s next? Part One
Since missing out by 14 votes on being re-elected to Luton Borough Council on May 5th lots of people have been very kind in expressing their own disappointment at my loss and asking after my welfare. I am hugely grateful for the support people have shown.
One of the commonest things I have been asked is “are you all right?”. Sometimes this enquiry has been accompanied by an expression on their face that suggests they are either expecting me shout out in anger and rage at the unfairness of it all or breakdown and start sobbing on their shoulder. My actual response has been to smile and say “yes, I’m fine”.
And, to a very large degree, I am. I always knew it was going to be a tough election and the possibility of defeat was always with me so I was able to prepare myself for the eventuality. I do have a life and interest outside politics and I had already had initial thoughts about how my life would change if I were not a councillor. Also I was determined to “be a man” in the sense of the old Kipling poem and attempt to greet whichever turned up out of triumph or disaster in roughly the same manner. This determination may have approached enforced cheerfulness at times, particularly as the full horror of the launch of my career as the poster boy for Lib Dem misery became clear to me, still I am in the main pretty OK about things.
However, I do now realise that it is going to take me longer to truly adjust to not being a local councillor than I had initially expected. I still find myself worrying about issues and concerns that I no longer have any influence over. In truth I had limited influence over some of these things when I was a councillor, but I suppose I had more of a legitimate reason to worry about them. I do have this niggling sense of loss that I no longer have a voice in the counsels of the elders of my tribe. Or something like that anyway.
Now I am not someone who often rushes to judgement. I have a tendency to need time to process things. To stop, think and reflect before moving forward. Sometimes this is a weakness, I know that it often is frustrating, but mostly I believe it to be a real strength. So I am choosing to take my time to adjust to the election result and to work out what comes after. I thought I would use making posts on this blog as part of my working things out. Given that it is now roughly a month on it is about time I started to write some of these thoughts down.
I have been thinking a lot not only about May’s election result here in Luton, but what has happened nationally in politics over the last few years, and about the highs and lows of my eight years as a Luton Borough Councillor. There are two themes that have come out.
The first is to try and work out what those eight years actually mean. In some ways I feel the need to justify my time as an elected member both to myself and to the wider world. So I want to try and catalogue and write about what I think I actually achieved as a councillor. And possibly more usefully where I went wrong.
The second is less specific but I hope more widely applicable. It is an attempt to try and learn the lessons from my involvement politics and the things that have happened to and around me. A kind of discussion of, having reached this point, how I see the political world and what conclusions I have come to.
Having thought through all that I will then be ready I hope to establish, if not plans, some clear ideas for my new direction.
While I am mainly doing this for my benefit, I hope readers of ‘Strange Thoughts’ won’t be too bored and that they may even find something of interest in these posts.
The best of my Process Guy blog
Before I set up this blog at the end of 2009, my first attempt at blogging was a a blog I called ‘Process Guy’ that ran between September 2006 and March 2009. For archive purposes it can still be found at processguy.blogspot.com.
In the post I wrote yesterday about internal party election rules I referred back to something that I had written on my Process Guy blog. This reminded me that I have for some time been meaning to bring across some of the best posts from that blog and re-post them here. Well, I am strongly in favour of all kinds of recycling!
So I am going to start to try and do that. I’ve created a new category called ‘The Best of Process Guy‘ and in there I will post those articles from my old blog that I consider to be worth having another look at. And, where better to start than the post I mentioned yesterday.
10th April 2011
08:05
0
General, The Best of Process Guy
Strange Thoughts in Liberal Democrat News
I’m catching up with a few things that I missed while being very busy in the last few weeks of March.
One of which is that I have only just noticed that this blog was included in the “Best of the blogs” column in Liberal Democrat News.
They featured my post:
Thanks guys!
New Year messages
Well it seems my vigour and determination for starting the New Year off in the right manner ran smack bang into the nasty cold which I have been suffering for the last week. Although I have been cruelly mocked by those who have called it “man flu”. But I’m mostly recovered now and ready to write up those New Year posts that I had been planning.
Although we are already on the 12th January I thought I would start by catching up with some of the new year messages I have been sent. The two videos below nicely reflect two of what I think will be my three main political preoccupations for 2011. The three are: the state and fortunes of my party, the Liberal Democrats; the crucial referendum on AV this May; and, also this May, the local elections here in Luton and what they will mean for the Town.
So, the first message is the Liberal Democrats leader, Nick Clegg’s, take on the Liberal Democrats and our role in the coalition as we start 2011.
The second is from Jonathan Bartley from Yes To Fairer Votes on the next steps of the Yes campaign.
The what I did on my holidays post
I’ve had a busy, and rather emotional, couple of weeks and haven’t been online much.
My nan, who had been ill for some months, died just after Christmas. The family had gathered together and we all were able to spend some of Christmas Day with her. But it has been a sad time. She was a kind woman with somewhat conservative views, whose gentle and diminutive appearance hid a very strong and determined spirit. She had remained fit and active well into her 90′s and will be very much missed by those who knew her.
For New Year I joined a group of friends in a cottage in Cornwall, just outside Bodmin, for a few days. I had a great time. The cottage itself was lovely. A lot of wine and food were consumed, board games were played, jokes were told, and I ended up doing a fair bit of baking. I have come away feeling very relaxed.
As a taster of my stay here is some Cornish countryside:
I also visited a number of really good tourist attractions. I was slightly disturbed by the gruesome history of Bodmin jail, was educated by the Eden Project, and impressed by the rather brilliant National Maritime Museum Cornwall at Falmouth.
So Christmas 2010 has been about sharing things, both good and bad,with family and friends, which I suppose is how it should be.
I am back now and back online. Starting 2011 with what I hope will be a new vigour and determination.
Happy New Year everyone.
This week is Trustee’s Week 2010
This week (25th to 31st October) has been declared by the Charity Commission, NCVO, and others to be ‘Trustee’s Week’. This an annual event to highlight the work that trustees of charities do and to encourage more people to consider becoming a trustee. I am a trustee of Luton Culture and its one of the most rewarding things that I do.
Find out more on the Trustee Week website.
On not blogging conference
The last few weeks, for various reasons, have been rather disrupted and unsettled. There has been a lot going on but, somewhat unusually, I have not been very certain about what I think about it all. As a result there hasn’t been much blogging going on here.
Keeping a regular blog going I find, aside from the issue of time available, requires a level of certainty and confidence in oneself and ones opinions which when lacking creates a serious block on writing. In fact I have been questioning whether it is really worth the effort for me to keep this blog going at all.
Rather unhelpfully this crisis in confidence has coincided with the Liberal Democrats annual Autumn Federal Conference which is, amongst other things, a significant source of blogging material. Given that it was the first ever conference held whilst the Liberal Democrats are in national government it should have been an opportunity for several interesting and insightful articles. Alas this looks to have been an opportunity missed.
I have decided to persevere with ‘Strange Thoughts’ but with a slight attitude adjustment. I am going to avoid taking it seriously and try to have more fun with it. I will attempt to stop fretting about the posts I haven’t written and enjoy more the ones that I have.
A note about social networking
I’ve done a bit of tidying up of my account on Facebook today. I replied to some messages and requests, updated my profile and, yes, trimmed my friends list.
As a result, and so not to offend anyone I may have removed, I thought I would post the note I wrote about social networking for my personal website here:
A note about social networking
Managing your online life can become complicated, so I have developed my own particular way of dealing with social networking sites and services.
I am on Facebook but I use it in a very restricted way. I use it for close friends and social things. Friend requests from people I haven’t actually met are likely to be ignored!
If you are just interested in keeping track of what I am up to the best approach is to follow me on Twitter.
Professional contacts and former work colleagues should connect with me through LinkedIn.
You can also sign up to the RSS feed of my ‘Strange Thoughts‘ blog.
An enforced pause
There was a worry that once the general election was over this blog would go into decline. Having concentrated so much on the battle for Luton South, the concern was that after all the votes had been counted and the winner declared I would have nothing to write about.
That has proved not to be the case. The election result was not an end of the excitement, but the beginning of an extraordinary period in politics. So there has been no shortage of things to write about nor of things that I have wanted to say.
Yet, this blog has declined nonetheless.
The lack of activity is partly due to the expected post election slump. The need to recover lost mental and physical energy and catch up on neglected tasks. Yet the truth is new MPs and ministers aren’t the only ones who have been struggling to get to grips with a new job in the last few weeks. Alright, it might not be quite that challenging, but I have started a three month contract taking over the management of a website development project. Working out what I need to be doing and a return to the daily commute has left little space for blogging.
It is a shame really. Thanks mainly to the election this blog was building up a nice bit of momentum. I am disappointed that I wasn’t able to keep it going and carry that through.
However, things are now settling down a bit and I am going to try to catch up on what I’ve missed and see if I can get some regular writing going.
