MORE than 5000 people are due to descend on Glasgow this weekend for the Liberal Democrats annual autumn conference.
Thousands of delegates, influential political heavyweights and the media will arrive in the city ahead of the five-day conference, which runs from tomorrow to Wednesday at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC). It will be the largest UK conference to be hosted in Glasgow this year. It also marks the first time in more than a decade that the party has held its conference in Scotland.
The event is predicted to inject more than £8.5 million into the local economy, providing a financial boost to the city's hotels, restaurants, shops, bars and other businesses.
Scott Taylor, chief executive of Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, said: "We're looking forward to welcoming the Liberal Democrats to Glasgow for their 2013 annual conference.
"With thousands of attendees, influential political figures and the UK's media set to descend on the city, an event such as this not only has a huge impact on our global profile, it also delivers a significant boost to the local economy.
"We're also delighted that the Liberal Democrats have chosen to bring their annual conference back to Glasgow in 2014, which will be a momentous year for the city given our hosting of the Commonwealth Games."
But ahead of the conference, a senior party peer said the LibDems should drop Nick Clegg as leader, and warned the party had to cut its Coalition ties with the Conservatives or face electoral meltdown in 2015.
The broadside from Lord Oakeshott came as party president Tim Farron proposed a super-mansion tax on properties worth £4m, mainly in London. The current proposal from the Liberal Democrats is for a tax on homes over £2m to raise almost £2bn.
As the party faithful gather for their annual get-together, Lord Oakeshott, an ally of Business Secretary Vince Cable, noted how Mr Clegg's personal poll ratings were very poor and were comparable to those of the 1980s Labour leader Michael Foot. "We need to face facts," the peer declared. "There's quite a lot of complacency and self-delusion going on. We are likely to lose seats."
The peer pointed out how if the LibDems - who have 55 MPs - got 13% of the vote, they would hold 20 seats, and at 17% would hold 40. But the current rating is 10% or below with "no sign of improvement".
"We have to accept Nick's ratings are very poor and have been for a long time … It's nothing personal; you've got to look at the facts," he stressed.
Earlier this week, David Laws, the Education Minister and a close ally of Mr Clegg, made clear the Coalition would continue "up to the wire" before the next General Election.
But Lord Oakeshott insisted: "It's disastrous if we are seen as a tin-can tied to the Tories' tail in 2015. We have to move on to developing our own very clear and distinctive Liberal Democrat message for next time … We should disengage well before the next election - sixth months to a year before."
Mr Clegg accepted there would be differences and "old-fashioned debates" at the LibDem's conference, but added: "What I hope you'll see is a party coming out of all this actually strong, united and proud of what it's done in Government."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article