There's a lot in it to digest, but one thing that struck me is the pull on us of two different views of a political party.
One view is put forward by Tim Farron, who chaired the review, in his foreword:
Community politics is in our blood, yet we take it for granted and at times some of us can be sniffy about it: it’s small beer, it's just pavement politics, it’s just a dolled up set of election tactics…. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The antidote is to build deep relationships with our communities, to serve them at an immersive level, to ‘keep in touch and get things done’, to win trust and to continually earn it.
This sees a political party as a local, community-based organisation. Maybe, and this is not a dig at Tim, it has much in common with a church.
The other is seen at the start of chapter 1:
Thanks to strong leadership, a clear strategy and iron-fisted discipline the party enters 2025 with strength, optimism and momentum on its side.
I hope it means 'self-discipline', because I doubt anyone will be attracted to joining an organisation by the prospect of being subject to iron-fisted discipline.
More representative of this second view, perhaps, is one of the points in favour of bulk buys for literature: "securing message and design discipline".
"Design discipline" sounds like something a fast-food franchise would worry about.
So maybe this is the choice all political parties face: church or fast-food franchise?
Or perhaps you can plot all parties, even all organisations, somewhere along a continuum from one to the other. If you want to be pretentious you could talk about Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
I'm aware that some churches are strong on discipline, so 'church' may not be the best characterisation of that end of the organisational spectrum, but it makes for a good headline.
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