Next Saturday sees the Lib Dems gather in London for a special one day conference entitled "Setting the Agenda " which will be looking at shaping the next manifesto.  I'm due to be on duty in halls at the weekend, though I have Friday night off and so could come down for most of the day on Saturday but will need to be back in Oxford by about 6pm so will miss half the afternoon sessions.

Looking at the agenda, there's probably only one of the morning break-out sessions on a subject I really want to help shape the manifesto on, if that's really the idea:

IPPR/Re-inventing the State Group: Life Chances and Equality
How far can the Liberal Democrats ensure that there are real equal
opportunities for all? Speakers will include: Prof. Richard Wilkinson
(Nottingham University), Duncan Brack and a speaker from the IPPR –
Room H103 seating up to 50.

This is the area in which the Liberal Economic Tradition can really make a difference whilst reducing the size of the state.  I know that a couple of years ago the IPPR looked into the feasibility of Land Value Tax at a conference in Oxford, but overall I can't take them terribly seriously as I view them as one of the most egregiously Blairite "managerial state" think-tanks around.  So, what do you reckon...is it worth £40 for the conference and another £20+ for travel and so on, plus all the stress of visiting London twice in two days to get maybe a couple of sentences in at a break-out session that's likely to be biased towards ever more complicated state welfare?  Is this the last opportunity to influence the ethos behind the next manifesto or to spark investigation into alternatives that may not have been considered yet?

Someday I'd like to see the Institute of Economic Affairs or someone similar being the sort of partner we'd choose for this sort of discussion.  That would properly challenge those in the party that instinctively think that big state solutions (localized or centralized, delivery by politician and bureaucrat is still "big state" to me) to things like "life chances and equality" are the answer.  I worry that there's not going to be any of these groups next Saturday to present an alternative, liberal viewpoint.