Sunday, January 13, 2008

Clegg to spin 'Yoof Wing' relaunch?

Apparently the youth wing of the Liberal Democrats, currently known as Liberal Democrat Youth & Students, is about to have a makeover and big fanfare relaunch as "Liberal Youth". When Liberal Youth is born the official spin will be that it has been driven by Clegg as part of his first 100 days as leader. Well that's the spin anyway.

However, there are restless mutterings that the relaunch will be little more than a big media scam, and that the name change was agreed a long time before Clegg became leader. "The decision was finally passed at LDYS conference last October, but the announcement has been delayed so that it can be announced as something that Clegg decided to do to relaunch the youth wing" says an insider.

"As far as I know the name was Gettleson's (Chair of LDYS) idea and it's 100% awful, it sounds like Hitler Youth." The relaunch will be "totally staged managed" with many of the current LDYS membership banned from attending so they can "bring in the beautiful people". That Hitler Youth caricature sounds quite apt doesn't? It's all so liberal too!

16 comments:

Nich Starling said...

And of course the Tories never stage manage photo shoots to put minorities, women, etc, on the front row. I am surprised you are so desperate for stories Dizzy as this story isn't like you at all or have you become part of the anti Nick Clegg blogging front the Tories are trying to orgnaise ?

dizzy said...

Yes that's right, it's a big conspiracy. :rolleyes:

Anonymous said...

Das ist mehr like it, Liberal Jugend. Achtung Spitfeuer und Donner und Blitzen,

Pete Chown said...

Aren't the old SDP people up in arms about them losing the word "Democrat"? I thought this would be a great chance to revisit old battles, with people calling for names like "Social Democratic and Slightly Liberal Youth". :-)

anthonynorth said...

The party hierarchy should listen to the Liberal youth, whoever he is.
It's the only party where you can start off 'grown up', and redress to childhood by the time you're in politics proper.

John M Ward said...

Pete Chown wrote (in part): ...names like "Social Democratic and Slightly Liberal Youth"

Not bad... Though, if it were to be "Social And Democratic Slightly Liberal Youth" that could at least be contracted to SAD SLY which has the merit of being easy to remember, and probably other benefits besides...

Nich Starling said...

But where is the storey Dizzy. As I see it Nick Clegg is taking advantage of a planned relaunch to get the party some publicity.

Whatever next, accusing him of spin for holding a pre-planned constituency surgery ?

What I am saying Dizzy is that you are usually so on the ball and this is so ... well ... a non story.

At least Everton won though. Come you blues !

dizzy said...

And you;re not calling it a non-story because you're a Lib Dem of course! There is a story here of course, that LDYS members have been banned from the relaunch for a start. Also this isn;t about taking advantage of a relaunch of course, because, well the relaunch is meaningless, there is going to be no structural change to the organisation apparently. It's a publicity scam and name change, and that is it. However, the key of course is this. Why does it _have_ to be a 'story' anyway?

Anonymous said...

John Dixon wrote already in last July, that he had heard a rumour in Ealing Southall that "There's a long term plan within the party to change our name back to the 'Liberal' party."

However, I haven't heard Clegg claiming that renaming LDYS to Liberal Youth has been driven by him. And even if there has been a plan preceding Clegg leadership to become "Liberals" once again, that doesn't mean that Clegg actually hasn't actively worked towards that end.

Newmania said...

Dizzy I have been thinking a lot about the Liberal Party recently. AS you know we have some chance of attacking Norman Baker here in Lewes. It occurs to me that they cannot go into the election without clearly declaring what they are going to do in the event of a hung Parliament.
After the leadership election it is pretty clear that they cannot support the Conservatives but they could , with some slithering about (under certain circumstances) support Brown and then change the system to block out the right forever.

No PR system will not asisst the left for reasons I have discussed in depth elsewhere and as for transferable votes...wonder why the centre Party wants that eh...
This nightmare of losing the coutry forever because of the usual unprincipled Liberal horse trading is starting to haunt me .
I wonder if you might apply your mighty brain to that subject at some point?


BTW This is good , what has to be attacked is the ( bizarre )notion of a "Nice Party"


Cheerio

Anonymous said...

Oh gosh, but Dizzy, the "banning" story might be a story if it were anything other than fiction. Whether you made it up or your source did, doesn't really matter.

dizzy said...

*yawn*

Anonymous said...

*Yawn* indeed dizzy; pretty much sums up whole story.

Matthew Wilkes said...

"There is a story here of course, that LDYS members have been banned from the relaunch for a start."

Brilliant, I can put your mind at ease then. There have never been (at least as long as I've been involved in LDYS) any events from which any of our membership were banned and that's not something that's about to change.

Indeed, we are trying to encourage the kind of members who historically have not been active in events such as LDYS conference to come to more events, but this is certainly not at the expense of banning our already active members.

Tapestry said...

The Hitler Youth was abbreviated to Ha Yot (HY in German).

Hopefully Liberal Youth will become known as 'The LY'.

e.g. What are doing this weekend? LYing

or What are your hobbies? I'm a LYer.

Quite appropriate for Nick Clegg with his localising spin covering up his eurocentralising beliefs.

Chris K said...

I take it that Dizzy won't be invited to any LDYS events? ;)