Liberal Democrat Voice

Roz Savage MP writes: Liberalism is having a Moment. But does it have a future?

By Roz Savage MP | Sun 23rd August 2026 - 10:58 am

Liberalism seems to be going through an identity crisis. Within a few months, three very different thinkers have published books asking the same question: what has happened to Liberalism, and what would make it relevant again?

Adrian Wooldridge has given us Centrists of the World Unite!, David Howarth Being Liberal, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu What Happened to Liberal Democracy?

We are halfway through this parliament, barring Andy Burnham calling an early election. So it’s a good time to search our collective Liberal soul in a quest for clarity of purpose.

We have 72 MPs, our largest parliamentary party in a century, yet remarkably little influence over the national conversation. If people still struggle to say what Liberal Democrats are for, perhaps we haven’t told a sufficiently compelling story.

I approached Wooldridge’s Centrists with some scepticism. To me, “centrists” implies the mushy middle between left and right, administered by nice people who want to be everybody’s friend/tactical voting choice.

Fortunately, that isn’t Wooldridge’s Liberalism. His is restless and insurgent. Historically, Liberals challenged aristocratic privilege, monopolies and inherited hierarchies. His complaint is that this bold tradition became associated instead with a cautious, managerial establishment.

His challenge is worth hearing. We are good at being reasonable, evidence-led and practical. But competence is not a destination. Liberalism should feel radical.

David Howarth’s Being Liberal explores the Liberal disposition: open-minded, suspicious of abuses of power, uncomfortable with hierarchy, treating people as individuals rather than categories, and accepting that reasonable people can disagree.

It captures something policy programmes miss. Liberalism isn’t only about what government does. It is about how we treat other people – and how we behave when given power ourselves.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, future of liberalism and liberalism | 14 Comments

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ALDC by-election report, 20th August

By Joe Nutt | Fri 21st August 2026 - 6:02 pm

There were four principal authority by-elections across England on Thursday 20 August. Labour were defending two seats, Reform UK were defending one and there was one vacancy in Huntingdonshire where Reform had won one of the ward’s three seats at the May elections.

The Liberal Democrats were defending no seats this week, but produced the standout result of the night by gaining St Neots Eynesbury from Reform UK with a commanding swing of almost 30 percentage points. Elsewhere, Labour regained a Reform seat in Barnsley, Reform gained from Labour in Carlisle’s Harraby South, and Nottingham’s crowded six-way contest demonstrated how fragmented local politics has become in parts of the country.

Huntingdonshire DC, St Neots Eynesbury

The headline result of the week came in St Neots Eynesbury, where the Liberal Democrats overturned a Reform UK gain made only three months ago. In May’s district elections, Reform had won two of the ward’s three seats after the collapse of the long-standing St Neots Independent Group representation, while the Liberal Democrats finished third. This by-election represented an immediate opportunity to test Reform’s breakthrough here.

The wider political context made the contest even more significant. At the 2026 elections, the party won 20 seats to become the largest group on the council, overtaking the Conservatives, but remained short of an overall majority on the 52-seat authority. Since then, the minority administration has faced additional pressure after the Green Party just this week left the governing arrangement, leaving the Liberal Democrat and Independent administration operating on a knife edge. This gain lifts the administration’s combined strength to 26 seats, exactly half the council, which marginally strengthens its position.

St Neots itself has become one of the Liberal Democrats’ strongest parliamentary success stories too. The town sits within the St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency won by Liberal Democrat MP Ian Sollom in 2024, and Eynesbury has seen significant housing growth over recent decades, creating an electorate that has become increasingly competitive between several parties.

Against that backdrop, Ian Taylor delivered an outstanding victory. His 1,024 votes and 47.9% share represented a remarkable 29.8-point increase on the previous Liberal Democrat performance, while his 377-vote majority over Reform UK sends a powerful signal about the value of sustained local campaigning.

Huge congratulations to Ian Taylor and the team on an exceptional gain that strengthens the Liberal Democrat administration in Huntingdonshire.

Liberal Democrats: 1,024 (47.9%, +29.8)

Reform UK: 647 (30.3%, +3.1)

Conservatives: 143 (6.7%, -3.8)

Green Party: 118 (5.5%, -12.5)

Labour: 104 (4.9%, new)

Independent: 102 (4.8%, new)

Turnout: 24.0%

Liberal Democrats GAIN from Reform UK

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Posted in News | Tagged aldc local government by-elections | 7 Comments

Reinvigorating the Royal Navy

By Ben Edginton-Thomas | Fri 21st August 2026 - 9:30 am

On the 20^thJuly this year, a Russian Navy frigate conducted live-fire exercises approximately 40 nautical miles south of Plymouth, in the English Channel. The vessel was shadowed by a Royal Navy ship and a French military aircraft. A week earlier, a separate Russian frigate had fired warning shots at a British yacht south of the Isle of Wight.

These are not distant signals picked up by intelligence. They are warships firing guns off the English coast. And the Royal Navy response required a French aircraft because we did not have enough of our own to spare.

Welcome to the state of the Royal Navy in 2026.

In 1991, the picture was very different. The Senior Service had 50 destroyers and frigates. Today it has only 11. Six Type 45 destroyers and five Type 23 frigates, most of which are ageing. Combine that with the two hilariously unreliable aircraft carriers the UK has, which spend more time in maintenance than at sea, and you wind up in our situation, where the UK had zero deployable carrier strike capability at points this year.

Adding to the general embarrassment, the Royal Navy has only 60 active and commissioned ships total. To command these, we have 134 admirals and flag officers, a ratio that would embarrass any organisation, and much higher than any of our allied partners such as France or the US. The Ministry of Defence also employs 57,445 civil servants, which is nearly twice the number of people serving in the entire Royal Navy.

We are top-heavy and underperforming. What rarely gets told alongside these defence statistics is that we did not just lose the ships. We lost the factories, the engineering expertise, the apprentices, the supply chains, the institutional knowledge and the communities that built them. The decline of the Royal Navy and the decline of British manufacturing are the same story told from different angles. In trying to save money through privatisation and outsourcing, we achieved neither defence efficiency nor industrial growth.

The Royal Ordnance Factories, publicly owned, were privatised in 1987 and subsequently acquired by BAE Systems. It is one of many. Defence Electronics, shipbuilding, aerospace design, one by one these sovereign capabilities were sold or allowed to atrophy on the grounds that the private sector does these things better. The private sector then consolidated, reduced competition, and settled into a comfortable arrangement of monopoly, returning significant profits to shareholders whilst delivery programmes run late and over budget. BAE Systems returned £1.5bn to shareholders in 2024, the very same year they were managing UK programmes years behind schedule. The MoD, as a captive customer, simply absorbed the cost overruns and you and I, as taxpayers, paid for both.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged defence, defence procurement and royal navy | 4 Comments

Global Power or Euro-Atlantic leader?

By Peter Chambers | Thu 20th August 2026 - 10:56 am

What is Defence for?

Recent governments seems reluctant to define national security goals. There are needs around the Home Islands, the Falklands, Cyprus, Ascension, Diego Garcia, Gibraltar, the Caribbean, and various nations that the government has given “iron clad” security guarantees. There are also commitments to NATO and the Northern Group, in Europe.

For a politician there is a large and vocal demand for defence, but we are told there is no more money. And industry will want certainty – for investment – to start large capital investment and skills pipelines. People around government talk of there being no headroom.

So is there headroom by reducing the requirement? Is government trying to defend Europe, create an Atlantic Bastion, police the Caribbean, hold the Falklands, give guarantees in the Indian Ocean, maintain a presence in Cyprus, provide a US base in Diego Garcia, have a shipyard in Gibraltar, maintain an air-link via Ascension, and other things?

So can we look at the defence needs and remove some to find headroom? The current tasks seem to fall into two categories: Global Power and Euro-Atlantic, and the government gives signs that it wants to do both. But not to fund both to the point of credibility.

Who are these categories for? The Global Power side seems to support a vision of a lost Empire that has not found a role. The needs here include the major centres mentioned above and a large list of “lily-pads” that can be rapidly reinforced by military mass that no longer exists. It may also include the role of riding to help US power, on request.

The Euro-Atlantic category is easier to explain to the public. It includes the UK home islands, the associated airspace and economic zone. It also includes support to all the nations who stand between us and the main regional threats.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged defence | 5 Comments

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Lib Dems at the Edinburgh Festival

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th August 2026 - 11:22 am

If you happen to be visiting Edinburgh in the next few days, you’ll find that choosing the Fringe show you want to go to is even more challenging than working out your Conference diary.

Over the four weeks, 3649 shows take place over 268 venues, for a total of 53000 performances in the biggest cultural festival in the World. And that’s before you start on the Book Festival.

Two Scottish Lib Dems are performing in shows this week and beyond.

Fife Council candidate Eliza Twaddle appears in The Real Housewives of the Zombie Apocalypse.

The dead have risen! But that won’t stop our seven housewives from serving high-camp drama in the most high-body-count reunion episode yet! Can our favourite OG queens of reality TV survive the hordes – and each other – and manifest their way to the end? Clydebuilt Theatre Company’s original musical returns! ***** (MusicalTalk’s Pick of the Fringe 2025, podcast). **** (Scotsman).

The reviews refer to technical problems on one performance but these are easily resolved.

Elsewhere, Charles Dundas, the Scottish Party’s Campaigns and Candidates Convener, is appearing in a whole load of improv shows between now and the end of the Fringe. He has very usefully listed them all here.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged edinburgh festival fringe | 1 Comment

Let’s celebrate: LDV turns 20 next week

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th August 2026 - 8:57 am

On 27th August 2006, LDV burst onto the blooging scene with a post suggesting that Simon Hughes was “certain to be challenged for the party presidency.”

Word reaches the Voice that weeks before the position had been advertised in Lib Dem News, party officials in Cowley Street received a call requesting a copy of the nomination papers for party President – the caller was not acting on behalf of Simon Hughes.

Word also reaches us that one potential candidate is positioning himself to blitz Autumn Conference with an army of supporters bearing nomination papers, to seize the momentum.

A Presidential contest is no bad thing – though there is an argument that there are better ways to spend the money. The Voice has been told that a proposal is being put to the Federal Executive to double the campaign expenditure limit – to £5000 per candidate.

Clearly this put off any rival as a month later...

Multiple unofficial, but reliable, sources tell the Voice that Simon Hughes will not face an election for the post of Party President.

PS This time I am assured the Voice is right, unlike the other time. I really am right this time. 100%. There’s a press release coming, and everything.

UPDATE: The party’s official announcement is here.

For other elections (Federal Executive, FCC etc) the timetable now is as follows:

The final opportunity for candidates to withdraw their nomination has passed
The final opportunity for candidates to submit manifesto artwork has passed
Ballot papers will be sent out on 16 October
They should be returned by 3 November
The results will be announced on 6 November

Well, at least we were noticed. By September 2006, LDV was posting several times a day and since then has been there through the tension of leadership elections, the anxiety and rage of the coalition years, the dark days that followed and the rebuild to our best ever General Election result in 2024.

We’ve reported on births, deaths, marriages, party controversies, policy ideas, conferences, speeches. We’ve showcased Lib Dem achievements at all levels of Government. We’ve tried to encourage our party to be the best it cam be. We’ll be looking back on our two decades as part of the Liberal Democrat community over the next, well, for as long as we feel like it.

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Posted in News | Tagged lib dem voice | Leave a comment

Diversity, standards, and the treatment of Professor Jason Arday

By BLAC Liberal Democrats | Tue 18th August 2026 - 1:10 pm

An Open Letter from BLAC Lib Dems

The tragic story surrounding Professor Jason Arday has left many of us deeply troubled. Let us be clear: plagiarism is unacceptable. Academic standards matter, and allegations of academic misconduct must be investigated properly and fairly.

But we also need to ask a bigger question about the culture in which this controversy has unfolded.

There is a growing anti-inclusion movement in Britain — one that has imported much of the American culture war and increasingly portrays diversity, equality, and inclusion as threats to standards rather than essential parts of a healthy society.

At its heart is an ugly assumption: Black people who attain prominent positions must somehow have got there because standards were lowered, because of preferential treatment, or because their background mattered more than their ability.

We have seen versions of this narrative repeatedly. In sport, figures such as Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford have been targeted. In media and culture, Ed Enninful and Misan Harriman have faced attempts to diminish their achievements and attribute their prominence primarily to diversity initiatives.

This is not an argument against scrutiny. Public figures should be scrutinised, universities should uphold rigorous standards, and institutions should be accountable.

But scrutiny is not the same as suspicion.

If there were legitimate concerns about Professor Arday’s academic work or his readiness for a senior role, those concerns should have been identified and addressed through proper processes. If Cambridge failed in that responsibility, it should acknowledge it.

What we should not do is turn one Black academic’s difficulties into evidence for a wider ideological argument against diversity.

We are particularly concerned by the way some critics have celebrated what they regard as the exposure of a supposedly corrupt diversity agenda. Nathan Cofnas, described by the BBC as a “self-defined race realist” and who left Cambridge in 2024, has publicly claimed credit for exposing Arday. Whatever one’s views of Cofnas, his reaction illustrates the wider ideological context in which this controversy has been seized upon.

We should be wary of allowing American racial politics and culture-war narratives to become normalised in Britain.

There is another uncomfortable truth.

We failed Professor Arday too.

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Posted in Op-eds | 21 Comments

Labour has the promise on business rates – We have the plan

By Pawel Urbanski | Tue 18th August 2026 - 9:32 am

What just happened

The new Prime Minister has put business rates at the heart of his first Budget on 28 October: 20 per cent relief for pubs and clubs, and a promise to “look at business rates more broadly for high street businesses“.

An uncomfortable truth first: ask on any high street who stands up for the shopkeeper, and few will say the Liberal Democrats. Yet on business rates we have carried the best answer for eight years. Labour is now campaigning on ground that has been ours for years, though the message has never reached most voters.

Why this is liberal ground

A high street is not just an economy. It is where a community sees itself: the baker who knows your order, the salon giving a teenager her first job, the pub where the ward hears its own news. It is also liberalism in practice: hundreds of people running their own lives, answerable to their customers rather than a head office, with power spread along a street instead of held by one chain or one landlord.

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Posted in Op-eds | 5 Comments

Redirecting the funds to the jobs Britain cannot do without

By Edward Marsh | Mon 17th August 2026 - 4:30 pm

Britain has developed a curious contradiction in the way it values essential work. We routinely express admiration for soldiers, nurses, care workers and other public servants whose labour sustains the functioning of society, yet the material rewards attached to many of these professions frequently bear little relationship to their social importance. At the same time, the state commits substantial resources to supporting people outside employment.

This raises a fundamental question about the architecture of welfare and public policy: should a proportion of welfare expenditure be reconceived not merely as a mechanism for supporting people outside employment, but as an investment in making socially indispensable work more economically attractive?

The objective should be to construct a sufficiently compelling economic and social proposition that moving from welfare into essential employment becomes an attractive choice rather than merely an obligation.

This would require us to think more imaginatively about the concept of a “core service profession”. Certain occupations possess an importance that extends beyond their immediate economic function. A nurse does not merely provide a service to an individual patient; the profession is integral to the resilience of the entire health system.

These occupations could therefore be recognised as a distinct category of employment: professions in which the state and society have a strategic interest in recruitment, retention and long-term participation. Recognition, however, should amount to more than ceremonial appreciation.

The state could construct a comprehensive package of fiscal and social advantages for designated core-service occupations. These might include substantial income-tax relief, preferential access to affordable housing, heavily discounted public transport, enhanced pension contributions, subsidised childcare, training opportunities and other employment-related benefits.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged employment and public services | 37 Comments

Israel and the West Bank

By Andy Daer | Mon 17th August 2026 - 12:45 pm

Please note that, in accordance with our established policy on this particular area of international politics, comments will be moderated prior to publication.

Last Friday, we heard David Mencer, an official Israeli spokesman, defending the Israeli government on the BBC Today programme, after increasing settler violence in the West Bank had been condemned by the British Foreign Office.

It was put to him that failure to protect the West Bank Palestinians was a breach of Israel’s legal obligation to protect people in territory where they were the occupying force. Mencer denied that Israel was failing to protect the Palestinians from violence, but went on to say that although he thought the violent settlers were a minority (a few juvenile delinquents), the invading settlers were in effect the true owners of the West Bank, because Abraham had lived and died in Hebron many thousands of years ago, and that conferred on all Jews ownership of Judea and Samaria for all eternity.

I accept, as an atheist, that there are people with very deep belief in the divine intervention in human affairs described in the Bible, and there are no doubt many Israelis who think the way David Mencer seems to. However, it does seem surprising that God intended such open-ended support to people like the Russian immigrants to Israel and the West Bank, who are converts, not descendants of biblical Jews, and are unrelated to Abraham.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged annexation of West Bank and israel | 9 Comments

Getting ready for Conference – Directory now out

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 16th August 2026 - 2:42 pm

There are two ways you can prepare for party Conference.

Six weeks out, when the agenda and the directory come out, you could sit down with a nice cup of tea and work out a tentative plan for how you are going to spend the 4 and a bit days in Brighton.

If you are new to Conference, the agenda has all the motions up for debate – (you can read more about that here) so you can start to plan whether you might like to put in an amendment or a request for a separate vote before the deadline on Monday 7th September at 1pm.

The directory has all the details of things like the exhibition, the fringe and the marvellous array of training on offer. There will be at least five things in every time slot that you want to do and that’s before you even think about catching up with your friends.

The other way of doing it is to follow my all to often example. Leave it all to the last minute and end up filling in your schedule in the excellent Conference app on the way down while you are trying to write speeches and fill in speaker’s cards. Ditto with packing. Rather than plan what I’m going to wear and travelling light, I usually end up throwing every piece of clothing I possess into a big suitcase half an hour before I leave the house. Or I panic that I don’t have enough to wear and buy things I really don’t need on next day delivery.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2026 autumn conference | 1 Comment

Wendy Chamberlain highlights Afghanistan “gender apartheid”

By The Voice | Sun 16th August 2026 - 12:42 pm

There’s been a lot of coverage about the fifth anniversary of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the desperate sight of people trying to get out while there was still a chance. The vast majority of them never did or could.

The Taliban originally tried to say that it was all fine and women would still be able to continue their education. The reality is that women have little legal status and fewer rights, and are essentially counted as property of the men in their lives.

Wendy Chamberlain chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Afghan Women and Girls which put out a statement this week.

The statement describes the “gender apartheid” faced by women and girls in Afghanistan:

For five years, millions of Afghan women and girls have lived under a system deliberately designed to erase them. They have been denied education, excluded from work, stripped of basic freedoms and silenced simply because they are women. This is not discrimination of isolation. It is the systemic oppression of half a population. It is gender apartheid.

As we mark this moment, we must also acknowledge that the international community has failed to reverse this trajectory. Afghan women and girls have shown extraordinary courage and resilience, continuing to resist despite immense personal risk. Yet they cannot be expected to shoulder this burden alone.

The United Kingdom must continue to stand firmly against any attempt to normalise or legitimise the Taliban while this system of gender apartheid remains in place. Recognition cannot come while the Taliban continue to deny the Afghan people their fundamental rights and freedoms. Whilst women and girls are the primary targets of the Taliban’s gender apartheid policies, all Afghans, including men and boys, continue to suffer under a totalitarian regime.

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Posted in News | Tagged afghanistan and violence against women and girls | 3 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th August 2026 - 9:55 am

West Bank

The actions of Israeli settlers in the West Bank must be truly horrific for Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador in Israel, to call them “terrorists” and denounce their actions in Qusra as an “horrific act of terror.”

In the past, Ambassador Huckabee, has been the chief American cheerleader for Israeli settlement of the West Bank. In 2017, before his ambassadorial days, Huckabee said: “There is no West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria.” Later he added: “I think Israel has the title deeds to Judea and Samaria.”

After he was nominated ambassador in 2024, Huckabee was asked if Israeli annexation was possible in Trump’s second term. “Well, of course,” he replied.

It is quite possible for Huckabee to approve of West Bank annexation while disapproving of the tactics being used to achieve that end. But it is unusual.

Those tactics are indeed the tactics of terrorists. Settlers lay siege to a Palestinian home; cut off the water and electricity; pelt the property with stones and threaten to kill the occupants. When the terrified Palestinians flee for their lives, the settlers simply move in and occupy the home.

Their actions are illegal under international law. In fact the Israeli settlements are illegal and almost every country in the world has called for their withdrawal. The Israeli government, however, is committed to supporting the 600,000 West Bank settlers. In fact, some of the Cabinet are settlers themselves.

But the violence is growing. Some observers believe that the settlers are increasing the pressure on the Palestinians—and the Netanyahu government—because they fear that an anti-settlement government may emerge from the October general election and this is their last chance to establish facts on the ground.

The United Nations has reported that in recent months the number of attacks on Palestinians has grown to six a day.

The Israeli government has ordered the army into the West Bank, allegedly to try and reduce tensions and restore order. But Palestinians are reporting that, in some instances, the army appears to be helping the settlers. In one instance, the IDF ordered a besieged Palestinian family out of their home and then occupied it themselves.

What does Ambassador Huckabee have to say about that?

US water supplies

No one is dead—yet. They are, however, seriously worried that hackers have hacked into computers controlling the water supplies in at least a dozen American states. Even more worrying is that the FBI’s lead suspect is Iran.

In theory, control of the company computers could enable the hackers to poison water supplies. One thing the computers do is regulate the chemicals used to treat drinking water. So far, there has been no sign they have done so, but one Minnesota water authority reported some flooding and loss of water pressure.

America’s water supply industry is a hacker’s dream. It is comprised of tens of thousands of separate companies and water authorities—all hooked up to the internet. There is no federal law governing cybersecurity at these companies. The Environmental Protection Agency tried to impose one in 2023 but was blocked in the courts.

Neither, does it seem, that any federal authority responsible for the cyber security of the country’s critical infrastructure. At the moment a fistful of Washington acronyms –led by the FBI—are involved in investigating the breach.

There is, however, a wider and potentially more dangerous issue at stake. NATO has explicitly said that a cyberattack constitutes an “armed attack” for Article 5 purposes. Article 5 says an attack on one member is an attack on all.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged iran, israel, us midterms and west bank | 4 Comments

Observations of an Expat: The Mecca Agreement

By Tom Arms | Sat 15th August 2026 - 9:51 am

It is time for another round of musical chairs—Middle Eastern style. The region’s countries are notorious for changing their friends and allies as often as their socks and the Mecca Agreement announced this week complicates the issue by throwing up a sandstorm of unresolved questions.

But start with history. The region’s first postwar security alliance was the British-inspired Baghdad Pact. Formed in 1955, it included the UK, Iraq, Iran,, Pakistan and Turkey. After the Iraqi revolution in1959, Iraq pulled out. At that time the Americans—who had been active non-members of the pact—became even more active non-members. Thus the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) was formed. It lasted until 1979 and the Iranian revolution.

But how did the Mecca Agreement come about. Well, according to Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, the pact has been three years in the making. The two chief architects appear to be Fidan and Pakistani Defence chief Field Marshal Asim Munir. They kept their talks fairly quiet until this week’s announcement.

Fidan has been heavily involved in Turkey’s foreign policy for decades. He was head of the country’s intelligence services and President Erdogan’s national security adviser before his appointment as foreign minister. For Turkey, the Mecca Agreement is the culmination of Erdogan’s long-standing policy of shifting Turkey away from Europe and towards the Middle East and Islamic world.

Ankara brings a significant contribution to the alliance: a large NATO-trained military and an established and sophisticated defence industry.

Saudi Arabia lacks military muscle but it makes up for that with hard cash. The alliance’s secretariat will be based in Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan’s biggest contribution could be its nuclear arsenal of about 170 weapons. The most interesting thing about the Mecca Agreement is its NATO-style three musketeer clause that commits all the member states to come to the defence of any member state that is attacked. The agreement is ambiguous about the role of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and leaves open the question of whether Saudi Arabia now shelters under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella. The Saudis have for years spoken of acquiring a nuclear capability as a deterrent against attack by a possibly nuclear-armed Iran. Now it may have it.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged egypt, Mecca agreement, pakistan, saudi arabia, turkey and united states | 4 Comments

ALDC by-election report 13th August

By Joe Nutt | Fri 14th August 2026 - 2:45 pm

There were two principal authority by-elections across England, Wales and Scotland this week, both held on Thursday 13 August. The Liberal Democrats were not defending either seat, with Reform UK defending Almondbury on Kirklees MBC and Labour defending Honiton St Michael’s on East Devon DC.

It was an excellent night for the Liberal Democrats, with gains in both wards. In Almondbury, Paola Davies returned to the council just three months after losing her seat as Reform swept all three positions at the May local elections. In Honiton St Michael’s, Rhys Wallis took a seat which Labour had won in 2023 but which had subsequently become vacant after its former councillor left the party and sat as an Independent.

Kirklees MBC, Almondbury

Almondbury produced one of the clearest reversals of the May local elections.

The May 2026 election was fought on new boundaries, with three councillors elected and 15 candidates standing. Reform won all three seats, with Gill Floyd, Pip Harvey and Craig Wiles finishing ahead of the three Liberal Democrat candidates. Poala Davies was the strongest-placed Liberal Democrat, on 1,755 votes, while Reform’s three candidates polled between 2,060 and 2,224.

Just weeks later, Wiles resigned from the council, triggering this by-election. That gave Davies the opportunity to return to the ward she had represented previously, and she did so in emphatic fashion. Her 671-vote majority over Reform is particularly striking given that the party had swept the ward only three months earlier. The Liberal Democrat campaign was supported by a grant from ALDC’s Fighting Fund.

The result also provides an important reminder that May’s Reform breakthrough throughout Kirklees was not necessarily a settled realignment. It shows a continued trend of Reform UK not being able to retain seats which they have won recently. It may point to voters not being satisfied with their performance in office, despite big promises and an appeal to the fresh and new when they first stand.

Huge congratulations to Paola Davies and the team on a superb return to the council.

Liberal Democrats: 1,749 (43.9%, +14.5)
Reform UK: 1,078 (27.0%, -10.0)
Conservatives: 528 (13.2%, +4.4)
Green Party: 347 (8.7%, -8.0)
Labour: 181 (4.5%, -3.4)
Independent: 103 (2.6%, new)

Turnout: 29.5%

LIBERAL DEMOCRAT GAIN from REFORM UK

East Devon DC, Honiton St Michael

Honiton St Michael has a particularly interesting recent electoral history. The ward was a three-member ward at the 2023 election, when the Conservatives won one seat, Labour gained one from the Conservatives and the Liberal Party gained one from the Liberal Democrats. Neither the Liberal Democrats nor Reform stood in that election.

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Posted in News | Tagged aldc local government by-elections | 6 Comments

Politics at School

By Geoff Reid | Thu 13th August 2026 - 3:22 pm

When I was a secondary school student at a single sex council Grammar School in Newcastle in the mid-sixties some subjects crept into staff-student conversations in unlikely ways. An enlightened Anglican priest decided to include some sex education in his Religious Education efforts. The English teacher had no worries about students looking at the world hrough current party political eyes. We could do that because we were not short of youthful activists. There was Henry, an old-style Conservative, who would struggle to find a home in today’s Tory party. Julian was what some would call soft-left Labour. Robert was Labour and Co-op (he worked at the Central Co-op on Saturdays, privy to the high levels of theft amongst workers). I had never discussed my party affiliation with the English teacher. He simply noted my attitude to events and out of the blue one afternoon he simply announced during a debate “Ah, but Reid’s a Liberal.”

This was not the only reason why I enjoyed sixth form life after being somewhat bored by my previous five years in the school. Someone had the bright idea of putting me in charge of the newspapers. Day by day I read the Guardian (continuing to do so to this day) and looked at the others. There were some options in the sixth form curriculum. I opted to take an extra A-Level in religious studies, which I thought could reinforce the beginnings of my training as a Methodist Lay Preacher – yes, I know, probably ridiculously precocious! The price of this was missing the weekly “Civics” lesson. I reckoned that as a Young Liberal I could sharpen up my political awareness elsewhere.

That, of course is ancient history. Fast forward half a century to my stint as Lord Mayor of Bradford. This I saw as a prlvileged learning experience, which came with a temporary high profile, from which the only continuing status was getting your name carved on the wall some twelve months after the event. This was heretically minimalistic for some of my predecessors who thought it guaranteed being somebody special forever. Mind you, that was not the worst heresy I committed. Nothing compares with the chagrin of the council media office when I insisted on writing my own speeches!

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged civic education and education | 3 Comments

Zack Polanski on the Fringe

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 12th August 2026 - 8:55 am

My weekend at the Edinburgh fringe continued with Iain Dale’s All Talk event with the Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Zack Polanski.

I’m usually one of the younger people at Iain Dale’s shows. This time I felt positively geriatric. The audience was very young. The event didn’t have to be moved to the bigger theatre, like Nicola Sturgeon’s earlier that day, but the smaller theatre was full.

Polanski talked about his decision to change his name to one that reflects his Jewish heritage. He had thought originally that his family had changed their surname because of the persecution they faced in Nazi Germany. In fact, he said, it was because of anti-semitism in the UK.

He also talked about the tensions of his childhood and the impact of his parents’ messy divorce had on him.

I found it quite strange that someone who has barely been out of the public eye in the past year spent a good while whinging, Lib Dem style, about the Greens not getting decent media coverage. He said that he was frequently booked to appear on shows, cancelled at the last minute and the same stations would run stories about how he had disappeared. He did say that Sky and LBC (two of the biggest broadcasters in the UK) were better at giving them a fairer amount of coverage, which feels like more than we get.

The impact of being in the public eye, though, had taken its toll on him and his partner. He talked about his housemates being worried for their safety because of his presence and his decision not to go on the electoral roll because he was worried about his address being circulated to all political parties. It is awful that any politician should have that sort of fear and that those around them felt threatened.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged edinburgh fringe, greens, iain dale and zack polanski | 9 Comments

Four ways you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

By The Voice | Tue 11th August 2026 - 12:59 pm

Liberal Democrat Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that’s fine, we’re grateful for people taking the time to read the site.

You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are four simple ways:

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Posted in Site news | 3 Comments

Enough is enough: Women and girls deserve better

By Lib Dem Women | Tue 11th August 2026 - 8:58 am

We are sick and tired of being told by those in power that tackling violence against women and girls is a priority, while women and girls continue to be failed by the very systems that are supposed to protect them.

The case of Simon Levy is yet another devastating reminder of what can happen when warning signs are missed, information is not properly acted upon, and agencies responsible for protecting the public fail to learn from previous mistakes.

This cannot continue to be treated as a series of isolated incidents.

For years, women have been told that lessons are being learned. We have heard commitments to tackling violence against women and girls, improving police responses, strengthening the criminal justice system and better protecting victims. Yet too often, the same failures emerge again and again.

By the time Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered by a stranger in a London park, Levy had reportedly already been offending for years. By the time Sarah Everard was murdered by a serving Metropolitan Police officer, Levy had been offending for even longer. His first conviction came in 2021, yet further serious offences followed.

The question we have to ask is simple: when will enough be enough?

Women should not have to wait for another tragedy before institutions examine what went wrong. Nor should responsibility simply be passed between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and probation services, with each failure treated as an individual mistake rather than part of a wider systemic problem.

The prosecution described Levy’s victims as vulnerable women, and told the court that Levy believed targeting women in these circumstances would make it more likely that he could get away with his crimes.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, lib dem women and violence against women and girls | 6 Comments

To paraphrase Shakespeare’ ‘something is rotten in the state of Britain’

By Judy Abel | Mon 10th August 2026 - 4:45 pm

In Hamlet, the Prince memorably says, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. When looking at the economic mess we are in, I think we can safely say that about how much of big business and finance operates in the UK today.

Corporate life and responsibility – or the lack of it

We have seen, for decades now, a string of scandals which can only undermine our faith in how public and private corporations operate in our country. One of the most egregious examples is that of the, publicly-owned, Post Office, which saw ordinary people go to prison for crimes many in senior management knew they had never committed, in the infamous Horizon scandal. It took years of effort by the victims to clear their names. At the same time, postal services run by the sold-off arm, Royal Mail, have declined since privatisation, with fewer deliveries and sky-rocketing prices: the cost of a first-class letter has risen by more than 100% in the last five years! The HS2 gravy train is another example of mismanagement and even, potentially, some fraud. Something has clearly gone badly wrong if we are paying up to £100bn for a 150-mile stretch of railway.

The mergers and acquisitions system is also broken. Foreign companies are taking over UK businesses and then many are going to the wall. For example, Raleigh bikes, founded in 1887, has just started insolvency proceedings; the Dutch Company Accell bought the company in 2012 and then sold it on to a US private equity company in 2022, since when the business struggled. Private equity also bought the WH Smith chain, now also gone from our high streets. Let’s hope EasyJet fairs better as it has just been taken over by another US company, Apollo, which is reportedly loading it with £3bn in debt.

In the fossil fuels sector, oil company BP has also just reported record profits, despite the foreign wars affecting several oil-producing countries, some concluding it has been cashing in on these crises. And all this despite oil fuelling climate change, which is now costing lives and farmers millions in lost food production. Amazon, another US company – whose growth in delivery services has surely only hastened the demise of the British high street – paid only the equivalent of 7% tax on their UK profits in 2025. Why is this tolerated? And the involvement of private equity companies in providing social care in England – which Andy Burnham has at least said he will stop – has been a stain on our social care system. These companies have made good profits out of the most vulnerable in society – not always delivering a good level of service for it – in some cases quite the reverse.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged public services and value for money | 93 Comments

Born to be a Refugee…

By Dalila Henniche Maali | Mon 10th August 2026 - 1:30 pm

As a geoscientist, I spent years writing technical reports about sedimentary rocks, each one telling a story of millions of years old. My imagination travelled through time, reconstructing glaciers, seas, channels, deserts, and floodplains to understand how landscapes evolved. Yet nothing in my scientific work prepared me for writing a far more personal story, the story of my friend Iyad from Gaza, and the cause I have carried in my heart since childhood, across countries and continents.

I met Iyad more than twenty-five years ago in Paris at the Cité Universitaire Internationale, a beautiful residence where students from around the world lived among historic buildings representing different nations. It was a place where cultures mixed naturally, where ideas were exchanged freely, and where friendships formed across borders. We were part of what we jokingly called the “Arab elite,” young scholars from different parts of the Arab world completing PhDs in a wide range of disciplines. Many of us stayed in Europe or moved to North America to pursue careers in research and scientific innovation.

Iyad chose a different path. He wanted to return to Gaza and help his own people.

He was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. His family had fled Jaffa during the Nakba in 1948. He studied in UNRWA schools and worked tirelessly to secure a better future for himself and his family. His academic success earned him a scholarship to France, where he completed an MSc and a PhD in Robotics at prestigious institutions including École des Mines de Paris and INRIA. His achievements were remarkable, but the war never stopped destroying the life he tried to build.

Since his return to Gaza, Iyad and his family endured every major conflict: 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and the devastating war that began in October 2023. Their days were marked by bombardments, power cuts, and constant fear for their children’s lives. Homes were hit, schools destroyed, and loved ones killed or injured.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged palestine and refugees | 9 Comments

Nicola Sturgeon talks to Iain Dale at the Edinburgh Festival

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 9th August 2026 - 10:55 am

It’s that time of year again when Edinburgh transforms into one of the most exciting and occasionally bizarre places on earth.

You can be casually walking down the street and see people dressed up as genitals coming towards you. There are brilliantly creative street artists and ingenious living statues everywhere. It’s also absolutely hoaching with people and this year, with Princes Street remaining closed due to the awful fire last month, getting from A to B is even more frustrating – unless you walk.

LBC host Iain Dale is hosting his regular run of “All Talk” shows with politicians and media types and, as usual, I have tickets for a fair few of them.

His opening interviewee was former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Opinions about her are very divided, even in this party. South of the border, Lib Dems often love her. North of the border, opinion can be more mixed. I love her. Always have. That’s not to say that I agree with her on everything – although if you take independence out of the picture, we have a lot in common.

Like her, I spent most of my childhood with my head in books. I could not get enough of them. Like her, the political bug hit me early and we both joined our respective parties when we were 16. Like her, feminism is (and always will be) one of the driving forces of my life.

Of course she made mistakes in Government. Who doesn’t? Failure is an integral part of being human. But she put in place the Scottish Child Payment which has at least prevented child poverty from getting worse in Scotland. That and the way she led the nation with clarity and reassurance during Covid (and before that Swine Flu as health secretary) will probably be her greatest legacies in office.

One of the reasons I have always liked her is that when she qualified as a lawyer, she went to work in a law centre, not for a swanky law firm. I always appreciate people who work to give access to justice to those who need it most.

Years ago, when a friend died, she showed me real kindness. She didn’t have to. I was a complete nobody from another political party. Things like that tell you a lot about what makes someone tick.

She tended to keep her sense of fun well hidden when she was First Minister, and nobody could ever accuse her of being lazy. I remember one of her friends saying that it was hard to get her to relax and finish up early the night before her wedding.

It was therefore good to see hungover, sweary Nicola Sturgeon yesterday. A skinful of red wine with friends after a few weeks off the booze had had a predictable effect. She started off by talking about the novel she is writing, a political thriller which is progressing slowly. She said she’d asked her friend the “Quine of Crime” Val McDermid, how to get through Writer’s Block. Val’s pithy response was “Stop faffing about on WhatsApp and write.”

She’s just finished filming War Games on Channel 4 which she enjoyed making. She plays the Deputy PM of the UK with a host of other former ministers and they make decisions, COBRA style, during a rapidly escalating crisis.

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Posted in News | Tagged edinburgh festival, iain dale and nicola sturgeon | 4 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th August 2026 - 8:55 am

Who is responsible for the mass migration of Moroccans into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta?

Some 72,000 migrants swam around a border breakwater to Ceuta beaches. Seventy thousand have been returned. 181 drowned. 1,100 unaccompanied minors have been taken to mainland Spain. A handful remain at large.

Some blame the Spanish Supreme Court which ruled that illegal immigrants arriving by sea should be treated differently. Others say it was simply another example of the power of social media. Some conspiracy theorists are pointing an accusing finger at Donald Trump and Europe’s far-right anti-immigration lobby.

The most credible—but far from certain—villain is the Moroccan government. For a start, it has form. In 2021, during a diplomatic dispute over Madrid’s decision to give medical treatment to Polisario leader Brahim Ghali, Moroccan border controls suddenly became extraordinarily porous. Up to 10,000 people entered Ceuta. The European Parliament subsequently explicitly accused Morocco of using migration as political pressure.

There is also the fact that Morocco claims the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla as well as cluster of Spanish-owned islands off the coast of Morocco. And although have moved close to an agreement on the former Spanish colony of the Western Sahara, Spain still officially recognises the UN designation of “Unresolved Territory.”

Trump and Europe’s far-right parties may not be the dark shadows behind the Ceuta crossing, but they were quick off the mark to exploit it. The most inflammatory statement came from Elon Musk who said the crossing “looked like World War Z.” He also added the wholly false claim: “Spain’s entire budget will be destroyed by illegal immigrants.”

Trump immediately dubbed the crossing an “invasion” and warned that the same thing would happen in America if the Democrats won the mid-term elections.

Within days of the crossing, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, launched its proposed “Operation Fortress” which called for the Royal Navy to be mobilised to stop small boats crossing the English Channel.

Seventy-two thousand people headed for the same stretch of water at roughly the same time. The question for Spanish investigators is whether social media created a stampede—or somebody fired the starting pistol.

You cannot bank on a Donald Trump promise. Ukraine’s Vlodomyr Zelensky discovered that this week—if he didn’t already know it.

Ukraine desperately needs America’s anti-aircraft Patriot missiles protection against Russian missiles. That is why Zelensky was ecstatic when Trump told him at the recent NATO summit that he would allow Ukraine to manufacture the missiles under license.

Trump repeated the offer when Zelensky flew to Washington for Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral.

Then he changed his mind. On 30 July he told “The Financial Times” that he was “not sure” about the deal. The following day he told a Camp David meeting of the cabinet that nothing has been agreed. “We are talking about it.” He then added that America had to be “very careful” because advanced technology could one day be turned against the United States.

Back in Kyiv, Zelensky was left scratching his head and wondering: What happened?

No one knows for sure. How the presidential brain cogs turn. It is an international mystery. A hurried phone call from Russia’s Vladimir Putin appears to have been ruled out. A more likely explanation is that Trump spoke before he knew all the details such a deal involved.

The Patriot PAC-3 interceptor is among America’s most sophisticated missile technologies. Granting a production licence requires agreement from the Pentagon, export-control authorities and companies such as Lockheed Martin and RTX. Manufacturing the missile involves a network of around 400 subcontractors and the transfer of highly sensitive military technology.

Only one other country—Japan—currently produces Patriots under license and that deal took several years to negotiate and another four or five before Mitsubishi Industries could start production. Germany is likely to be the next country to produce the interceptors. It started negotiations in 2024 and hopes to start production in 2028.

No, the most likely scenario is simply that the president spoke out of turn–again.

Donald Trump may rue the day he decided to take on the BBC. His decision to sue the Beeb for $10 billion over the bad editing of a Panorama report could seriously backfire.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 1 Comment

Conference Agenda is out!

By The Voice | Sat 8th August 2026 - 10:58 am

It’s just six weeks until Lib Dems gather in Brighton for our Autumn Conference. Yesterday afternoon, the Conference agenda came out.

Over the four days we will see debates on such subjects as:

Ending Violence against women and girls
Mortality of children in temporary accommodation
Maternity care
Party strategy
Defending Democracy
Food security
Water companies
AI
Making music matter
Rural and coastal education

There will be keynote speeches from:

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Posted in News | Tagged 2026 autumn conference | 5 Comments

Observations of an Expat An Iranian Who’s Who

By Tom Arms | Sat 8th August 2026 - 8:30 am

America’s Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, recently told American television that the problem with negotiating with Iran is that the Iranians are hopelessly divided.

He was right. Nobody is certain that the Iranian sitting across the negotiating table can make the rest of Iran obey any agreement.

The diplomats and politicians who meet with J.D. Vance, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, et al, are generally pragmatists who want an end to war and sanctions. But back home they are being undermined by revolutionary ideologues prepared to embrace martyrdom.

The pragmatists are led by President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. 71-year-old Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon who entered politics as the Minister for Health. He has been president of Iran since 2024.

His religious credentials are sound. He supports the theory of the Islamic Revolution. He has to because all candidates for the presidency—and the Majlis—are vetted by the Council of Guardians for their religious credentials.

But at the same time, Pezeshkian’s chief loyalty is to the state rather than to the concept of the revolution. To that end he favours ending Iran’s international isolation; wants to revive the economy and end sanctions; and favours social freedoms.

Pezehskian’s main ally is Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, aged 63, who served as Iran’s ambassador to Japan and deputy foreign minister before becoming foreign minister in 2024. He is a professional negotiator and has led the Iranian delegation in talks with the US. Like Pezeshkian, Araghchi is a pragmatist committed to the idea of Iran as an Islamic state.

The chief opposition to the pragmatic wing is led by 61-year-old Saeed Jalil, leader of the Paydari (Stability) Front which directly holds 90 seats in the 290-seat Majlis (parliament). He can also usually count on about 30 other votes.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 4 Comments

ALDC’s by-election report – 6 August 2026

By Joe Nutt | Fri 7th August 2026 - 8:39 pm

Five principal authority by-elections took place across England and Wales on Thursday 6th August.

The Conservatives were defending three seats (two in West Norfolk and one in Surrey), while Reform UK were defending one seat in South Tyneside and Plaid Cymru were defending one seat in South Wales.

The Conservatives had a disastrous night, losing all three of their seats. The headlining story of the week for the Liberal Democrats came from West Norfolk, where we delivered stellar first-time performances in two coastal wards, shooting straight into second place in both, pushing the Conservatives into third, and coming within just 18 votes of winning in Snettisham. Elsewhere, the Green Party completed a clean sweep in Surrey, while Reform UK and Plaid Cymru logged uneventful holds in South Tyneside and Caerphilly, respectively.

England

King’s Lynn & West Norfolk – Double Coastal Contest

Two by-elections took place in adjacent coastal wards on the Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, Heacham and Snettisham. Both seats were previously held by the Conservatives on a council currently under no overall control.

In both races, the Liberal Democrats fielded new candidates and achieved outstanding results, leapfrogging both the incumbent Conservatives and Labour into second place.

King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, Heacham

In Heacham, Reform UK picked up the seat from the Conservatives. However, the standout story was the impressive performance from Liberal Democrat candidate Rachel Windsor. Standing for the first time, Rachel secured 28.7% of the vote, pushing the Conservatives into third place and Labour down into fourth.

Thank you to Rachel Windsor for putting up a strong Liberal Democrat choice on the ballot paper and establishing a formidable baseline for future contests in the ward.

Reform UK: 289 (37.8%, new)
Lib Dem (Rachel Windsor): 219 (28.7%, new)
Conservative: 163 (21.3%, -3.8%)
Labour: 93 (12.2%, -11.4%)

Reform UK GAIN from Conservative

King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, Snettisham

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Posted in News | Tagged aldc and local government by-elections | 7 Comments

The Independent View: Are mutuals the answer to the water crisis?

By People's Commission on the Water Sector | Fri 7th August 2026 - 2:05 pm

As public outrage at water companies disregard for the law, abuse of our money, neglect of our water systems, pollution of our waterways, continues to mount it is an extraordinary act of arrogance to see the water companies increase rewards for CEOs and Finance Directors rising to £25M this year (Guardian 2026).

Whilst the government has fallen into the trap of believing the problem of water pollution is complex, and the fault of regulation, the People’s Commission on the Water Sector undertook a truly independent review and found that the cause was commodification of water and the lack of national strategy. The shorthand is that privatisation has led to pollution for profit, but that same shorthand is leading to proposals for ideologically driven short-term fix solutions, for instance replacing water companies with mutuals, that do not address the root causes of the water crisis.

One solution being proposed is the move the water companies into Mutuals, companies owned by members (which could be the public) rather than shareholders. They vary enormously from charitable trusts to non-profit company, consumer co-operative, multistakeholder mutuals (all of which are being used to describe alternatives to for-profit, shareholder-owned private water companies). Whilst this looks an attractive solution with the possibility of the public owning the problem, on its own it is problematic as water remains a commodity rather than a public good, financing costs can be high, and the water system as a whole remains fragmented.

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Tagged water and Water sector | 7 Comments

William Wallace writes: We should talk more about Liberalism

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 7th August 2026 - 11:55 am

We’re Liberals and we’re democrats. So we should be talking much more about Liberal and democratic values, in public: that’s what makes us distinctive, what drives us into politics – and what attracts new people to the party. When I first joined the party, everyone from Jo Grimond down talked about redefining liberalism and its implications for our society, our economy and our foreign policy. Now we are too shy about reaching beyond daily press releases and restating the principles on which our politics are based.

Others are not so shy. I’ve read defences of neo-liberalism in the Times and the Financial Times in the past two weeks, and no doubt the Telegraph, the Spectator and Unherd have offered similar thoughts. The case for shrinking the state, for contracting out public services to private companies (which may turn out to be owned by other states, which our free marketeers somehow seem to find acceptable), for loosening regulation of markets, continues to form the conventional wisdom of the British commentariat, and Labour has not yet found a way of redefining the central issues of relations between society, economy and state. Can we do better?

The preamble to our party constitution commits us ‘to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.’ The fundamental challenge for liberals is how to maintain such a balance in the face of rapid social and economic change, and against the background of international turmoil that threatens the liberal ideal of a peaceful world. Community was far easier to maintain when most people lived and died within a few miles of where they had been born, and most worked for employers similarly local. Liberty for the wealthy and educated has always been easier than for the marginal and poor. Equality is a worthy principle, but very difficult to reconcile with liberty and with a market economy, let alone to promote at a time of rapid technological change.; practical liberals talk more of equality of opportunity and of limits to inequality. Globalisation – the endpoint of the market economies and open borders that our Liberal predecessors worked to create – makes the preservation of stable communities and the prevention of a widening gulf between ultra-wealthy and struggling masses harder and harder to maintain. Globalization concentrates power in multinational companies and private equity, far from the concept of ‘responsible capitalism’ with which liberalism grew. Some liberals are now talking about wealth taxes; but that is only scratching the surface of the economic inequalities we face and will be well beyond the reach of American trillionaires and Russian oligarchs.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured, liberalism and party strategy | 10 Comments

The future of war has arrived: It’s the Navy

By Edward Marsh | Thu 6th August 2026 - 5:30 pm

The character of warfare is undergoing a profound transformation. While the fundamental nature of war – competition, coercion and violence remains unchanged, the methods by which states pursue strategic advantage have evolved dramatically. Conventional military forces remain essential, but the decisive battles of the twenty-first century are increasingly fought beyond traditional frontlines. The new centre of gravity lies in the resilience of a nation’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). Energy grids, telecommunications networks, transport systems, financial institutions, water supplies and digital connectivity have become both strategic assets and prime targets. The future of conflict is increasingly focused on disrupting, degrading and manipulating the infrastructure that underpins modern societies.

Recent conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine have demonstrated this shift. Military success is no longer measured solely by territorial gains but by the ability to paralyse an adversary’s essential services. Attacks on energy facilities, communications networks and logistics hubs aim not only to destroy physical assets but to undermine political legitimacy, economic stability and public confidence. Modern warfare has become multidimensional, combining kinetic strikes with cyber operations, electronic warfare and information campaigns to generate strategic effects far greater than the weapons themselves might suggest. Infrastructure has become both the battlefield and the weapon.

The war in Ukraine has reinforced this reality with exceptional clarity. Russia’s sustained campaign against Ukraine’s electricity generation, transmission networks and energy distribution systems has demonstrated the strategic value of targeting CNI. Missile and drone attacks have sought to deny electricity, heating and communications to civilian populations while constraining Ukraine’s military capability. These were not simply tactical operations but part of a broader strategy of societal attrition intended to erode resilience, impose economic costs and weaken national morale. Ukraine has also demonstrated the offensive potential of this approach, conducting strikes against Russian economic targets, including major retail infrastructure, bringing the effects of war directly to the civilian population and illustrating how infrastructure attacks can generate strategic pressure without territorial conquest.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged defence | 9 Comments

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