Author Archives: Ruth Bright

Opinion: You’re not from round here are you?

Some rights reserved by ztephenWas “local”, I wonder, the most overused word in the Eastleigh by-election? Of all the terms in the Lib Dem lexicon “local” is surely our favourite.

A few years ago when the party had one of its periodic embarrassments, it looked like there would have to be a by-election in Winchester. I had a week-old baby at the time and was barely out of hospital when the phone calls started – “Why don’t you stand?”, “Hampshire bred”, “You got a great result in the next

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 21 Comments

Opinion: Three-in-one leader’s speech

Editor’s note: This composite leader’s conference speech was written last Thursday, well before Andrew Rawnsley published a similar piece.

Today we gather in a generic city with a bit of regeneration.

It is good to get out of the Westminster bubble.

It’s hard being outside the bubble.

Some people outside the bubble don’t like us.

Posted in Conference, Humour and Op-eds | 12 Comments

Opinion: Questions for Jeremy Hunt on abortion

The Abortion Act 1967 Act was passed when I was nine months old. Women of my generation have grown up believing our rights were safe and our bodies were our own. Even those who had never heard of a backbench MP named David Steel had reason to be grateful to him for ensuring that women could not be forced by the state to continue with pregnancies they did not want.

Women of my generation and others now have to wake up and realise that the settlement, we thought was so safe, is no longer. Thanks to the Coalition, the Health Service is now in the hands of

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 54 Comments

Conference heroes and heroines

Shirley Williams – for rejecting the title of living deity with characteristic common sense in her Sabbath day speech to conference.

Evan Harris – for cutting through the cynicism of christening motions after national treasures by teasing conference with his “William Beveridge” amendment speech on the Shirley Williams motion. What next – the Conrad Russell memorial welfare reforms or the John Stuart Mill cuts in Sure Start? That’s enough naming stuff after deities living or dead thanks very much.

Pamphleteers Prateek Buch (Plan C – social liberal approaches to a fair, sustainable economy published by Social Liberal Forum) and Jo Ingold (Challenges …

Posted in Conference and News | Tagged , , , , and | 13 Comments

Care – dilemmas for us all

When my grandfather was in his last week of life I was sitting by his bedside in the local community hospital as he dozed peacefully in a morphine assisted haze.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose next door. I stormed into the other room to see a small group of care assistants throwing pillows from one to another and loudly humming the theme tune from Star Trek.

“Do you mind?” I said: “there’s a man dying in there”.  An instant spokeswoman apologised unreservedly but went on to point out gently: “It’s hard for us too and we have to have a bit of …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 9 Comments

Opinion: None shall be enslaved by….maternity?

Nick Clegg bemoans the maleness and paleness of the Lib Dems and his sense of shame that our parliamentary party is 88% male seems genuine enough.

What is it about the culture of Lib Dems that has brought about this striking gender imbalance?

My own experience as a councillor and candidate is that being a (young, childless, solvent) woman is a huge advantage. When I was approved and selected in 2001 you could almost smell the desperation of the party to promote women. The glass ceiling – what was that?

But then I did what women do and I had children and …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 29 Comments



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