The Campaigns & Elections Team are here to help you with all year round template campaign materials – for you to adapt and deliver in your local area.
Our October 2022 template is a tabloid style newspaper.
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Small businesses are in danger. Our treasured high streets could be turned into ghost towns as local businesses face sky-rocketing energy bills. But Conservative ministers just don’t seem to care.
Local shops, pubs and restaurants up and down the country could all be forced to close their doors – unless the government finally steps up.
We need an energy bailout now to save the high street, protect jobs and keep prices down for families.
Liberal Democrats are calling for an emergency Covid-style support scheme to help shops, pubs, restaurants and other small businesses cope with sky-rocketing energy bills by offering grants of up to £50,000.
Because unlike households, businesses are not covered by Ofgem’s energy price cap. Many could see their energy bills rise by almost 400%, with devastating consequences.
Under our proposals, small and medium-sized businesses would be offered government grants to cover 80% of the increase in their energy bills for one year, up to a maximum of £50,000. For example, a typical small restaurant would receive a grant of around £10,000 to help with their bills. The plans would benefit the 1.4 million small businesses across the UK, from high street shops to local pubs and cafes.
The estimated £10 billion cost of the scheme could be met by reversing the Conservatives’ tax cuts for big banks – which are seeing their profits grow with rising interest rates. That would include cancelling the Government’s cut to the Bank Surcharge that is due to take effect in April 2023.
There’s no time to waste. Small businesses need support now. The new Conservative Prime Minister must bring in legislation to protect businesses from soaring energy bills as soon as Parliament returns on Monday – before it’s too late.
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The Party website has lots of information in the internal-elections hub.
The key dates for these elections are:
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It’s thirty years since my first autumn federal conference, appropriately also in Brighton. That 1992 conference was the start of the most successful electoral run in our party’s history – record-breaking Parliamentary by-election wins, sweeping local government gains and then a huge leap in the size of the Parliamentary Party as a tired, discredited, scandal-riven Conservative Party lost office.
As part of that run of success, two years later, we were back in Brighton again, as you may have seen from the recently rediscovered BBC footage of a younger version of me (more curls, larger glasses but the same green top that I still have – and can fit into) leafleting alongside one Liz Truss.
Repeating that previous success is our challenge in the next few years – and we’ve already made a tremendous start with our election wins last year and this. Huge thanks are due to all our candidates, agents and helpers for their hard work in making that happen – and to their families and colleagues for tolerating their absences on the campaign trail.
An important part of that success in the 1990s was our party conferences, providing such a great opportunity for us to learn new skills, to set our policy and strategy and to be energised by meeting colleagues from all around the country, and overseas too.
I can’t guarantee that if you come to our Brighton conference this September you will also get to campaign with a future Conservative Party leader. But I can guarantee that you’ll find an excellent conference agenda – both the formal agenda in the main hall of speeches and debates, and the training and fringe meetings that happen alongside it.
This time around we have an advantage – the ability to bring in an even wider range of participants through online access to conference. It’s a huge credit to our conference committee that our return to an in-person conference is being accompanied by a new option for online access.
Enabling those who cannot afford the time or costs of an in-person conference to still access the event is an important part of making our aspirations on diversity and our commitment to internal democracy meaningful.
This time’s agenda includes debates on Britain’s future relations with the European Union, our pre-manifesto policy overview, action on climate change, the future of our nuclear deterrent and more. Keynote speakers include Kira Rudik, from one of our sister parties in Ukraine, and there will also be a chance for any party member to question Ed Davey in our Leader Q+A session.
More details are on the conference website, where you can also register to attend.
Whether in person or online, I look forward to seeing you at conference, hearing your views and taking part in our debates. Please don’t hesitate to grab me for any questions you have, or drop me an email on president@libdems.org.uk.
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Serving on a committee is one of many great ways you can support the Party, and we are always keen to encourage new talent. The Party website has lots of information in the internal-elections hub.
We have upcoming Federal elections for:
The rules for the election can be found at the end of the Federal Constitution, you can read them by clicking here.
The Returning Officer has produced regulations and guidelines for candidates and their campaigns. Candidates must read the rules, regulations and guidelines.
The Returning Officer will be requiring candidates to answer a few, set questions in their application. Answers to these questions will be displayed for voters. If you would like to feedback on, or suggest, questions for candidates you can do so by clicking here.
An important update made by Conference to our election regulations is a change to postal voting.
We will be issuing ballots to members by email. If you usually receive a postal ballot, or have opted out of emails from us, you will need to specifically request a postal ballot or update your preferences so that we can email you a ballot. This change is a big step forward in meeting our green goals, also set by Conference.
If you want a postal ballot please use this typeform by clicking here or to update your email preferences contact help@libdems.org.uk.
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