Well, that was that. A rather fun but often worrying election is now all over bar the (inevitable) shouting. Elaine’s victory in the first round was rather faster than I thought it’d be – I thought we’d at least see RON’s votes redistributed. But it was not to be: an absolute majority of voters thought Elaine would make the best chair, and congratulations to her for that.

The GEM elections were interesting as well, as the only proper STV election on offer. All the candidates were very good (including my friend James Harrison, who was elected – congrats!) but the one surprise (in my view) was the loss of Michael Atkins. He’s been Liberal Youth’s policy guru for the last year, and it’s a shame that he won’t be on the exec any more.

Now’s the time for healing. Everyone who’s been elected will now have to work together to make this the best party it can be, and I hope they can do that. The rifts created by this election have been greatly exaggerated (mostly by a certain big-headed Conservative) but they do exist. Focusing on the future will, I imagine, be the best way to deal with them. What’s said is said – let’s just do the work.

I hope the people who haven’t been elected continue to take part in Liberal Youth. Many good people didn’t quite make it today, but they’ve still got a lot to offer the party. This goes out to Sara in particular – please stay involved! There’s a place for everyone in this party: you just need to find it.

Sara’s message of a strong, independent Liberal Youth is a valuable one, whether or not you like the way she communicated it. We need to be brave, to say the things that others won’t – to march, as she would no doubt put it, towards the sound of gunfire. That’s what’ll let us show people that the Lib Dems are the party for them – our willingness to debate the issues that matter most.

That’s why I’m a Lib Dem, and I think that’s why most of the Liberals I know are too. We need to take the lead in the debate, as we so often have before. I hope that in the next year, we can.

Hello, my friends from Federal Liberal Youth. Particularly to Elaine and Sara – I think they need this as much as anyone. I have a short announcement to make.

You are not politicians.

Now, I am not pronouncing on the possibility or likelihood of your becoming politicians in the future, nor on your relative merits if you did. I’m sure you’d be fine representatives of your constituents and our party. But you aren’t there yet.

I’ve got no problem with a vigorous campaign for Chair. Anything but – Liberal Youth can clearly do better than it is right now, and a campaign will highlight the contenders’ ideas. But this idiotic sniping has to stop. Nicking each others’ facebook friends, sending messages from internal LY groups, bitching one another out – that’s not campaigning for an internal party position. That’s fighting over political table scraps.

The little cliques, the digs, the fights – they’re what’s weighing Liberal Youth down. This is not the night of the long knives, it’s a minor election for a minor post. You aren’t Matt Santos, so stop acting like it, or the RON campaign will win.

Worse than that, it’d deserve to.