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Just over a week ago Devon and Cornwall's Liberal Democrats set a date (12th May) and venue (Legacy Hotel, Plymouth) for a special conference to decide whether or not to field a candidate in November's Police Commisser election. Now party bigwigs in London are doing their best to make sure such a conference never happens, leaving some local activists complaining of a "stitch-up."

Kay Friend, the chairman of the Devon & Cornwall Lib Dems, has asked the regional conference arrangements committee to cancel the gig planned for 12th May, unless individual local parties wish to take over responsibility for it. She says the special conference, which would cost about £200, is neither appropriate nor necessary, quoting advice from David Allworthy, the Head of Compliance and Constitutional Support at Lib Dem HQ in London.

His advice says:

"Police Commissioner Elections are defined as Local Authority elections in law. Therefore a Local Party or combination of Local Parties as envisaged in clause 9.6 are responsible for approval, selection, campaigning and publicity. You cannot be responsible for selection campaigning and publicity without being responsible for the costs. Therefore any group of Local Parties responsible for fielding a candidate in the Police Commissioner Elections are also responsible through the joint arrangements for deciding how much each Local party should pay towards the costs which would include both hustings costs and the deposit."

I'm no lawyer, and even less of an expert on the Lib Dems' constitution, but I do wonder why this advice wasn't available before the regional executive meeting on 27th February decided not to field a candidate. If that meeting had never happened, it wouldn't have been necessary to call a special conference to reverse the decision. It now puts the regional conference arrangements committee in a very interesting position. I hope to speak to some of the local Lib Dem MPs about this later today.