Labour announce (a little bit of) Lib Dem Supporters Trust policy

I've just checked my pass for Conference and it certainly appears to be for the Liberal Democrats and not for Labour's. I'm sure if I'd been at the wrong one, my cousin a Labour PPC for next year's General Election would have put me right.

But I do recall speaking in the motion on Reclaiming the People's Game. In fact I have evidence that I did here:

 

Yeah, we were talking about the role of supporters trusts in the running of football clubs. Many of those in the debate had some experience of such trusts, myself included, being set up to save their clubs. In my case that has resulted in investment in the club by the supporters trust and a seat on the board for a representative of the supporters trust.

So you can imagine my shock when today Labour announce that they have a plan to for supporters' trusts to appoint members of the clubs' boards. Even more startling when a number of Labour activists and leaning journalists attacked Liberal Democrats for actually have the gall to discuss and debate this issue at our conference earlier this week.

It appears that the reason we were attacked is that this is a good idea, so much so that it has been stolen from under our noses.

But the Liberal Democrat policy that was discussed went further than just call on supporters' trusts to be recognised. It called for greater equality and diversity training and observance within football, greater clarity and robustness into the ownership and fitness of individuals to be directors and protection for individual stadiums and local identities of clubs.

So Labour are only concerned about one part of what is needed not the hard stuff that will actually have a greater effect and hopefully lead to less requirement of supporters' trust to actually have to come to the aid of their club. Labour failed to deal with the banks but are happy to appeal to the base level in appearing to do something about the result, they are up to same trick with the people's game, but they really must deal with prevention as much as they are sorting out the recovery after near death experiences of many fans.

Yet again the Lib Dems are leading the way, but leading the way by getting to the heart of the issues, not dealing only with the outcomes but seeing how they can prevent the symptoms in the future.