We should ban disposable single use vapes

As the LGA Liberal Democrat Group’s spokesperson on health issues, I am very pleased that we may be seeing a successful outcome to the call by LGA and councils to ban disposable single use vapes. The government have just announced that they are looking at bringing in legislation to ban single use vapes.

In consultation with our Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP I have successfully called for the Local Government Association to back a ban, especially given the plethora of alternative vapes available for smokers to use as an aid to quit. Evidence shows that there is an alarming increase in the number of children vaping and of the detrimental impact of disposable vaping products upon the environment.

I am not anti-vaping as I recognise for some it can help people cut down on smoking but single use vapes blight our streets as litter, are a hazard in council’s bin lorries, are expensive and difficult to deal with in our recycling centres in addition to the health hazards. Their colours, flavours and advertising are appealing to children and are a risk to the health of young people.

As Liberals we try to avoid banning things – but in this case it is about preventing harm especially to children. Re-usable vapes will still be available for those wanting to quit smoking.

It is important that a ban is brought in as soon as possible. Disposable vapes are an inherently unsustainable product, meaning an outright ban will prove the most effective solution to this problem.

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Dropping the 1p tax rise has political costs too

It’s easy to forget how little even politically engaged voters see of our conferences. Some family members – middle-class voters in a rural Conservative seat, environmentally inclined and still considering who to vote for next year – saw just one headline from the past, and it was “Lib Dems drop pledge to raise income tax”.

Their verdict? “Disappointing”.

Changes to a major policy are something to be done with caution and care. Any political benefits of a change need to be weighed against the costs. Shifting positions can weaken a party’s brand, making it less clear to voters what we stand for unless we have a powerful narrative to explain why circumstances demand such a change. Shifts also need to be weighed carefully for credibility, especially when it comes to taxation policy, the shoulders on which the costs of building a liberal society need to be carried.

Dropping the 1p income tax increase, frankly, fails such an analysis. The truth is that dropping one of our longest-standing pledges weakens a party brand that, as John Curtice pointed out at conference, is already getting eaten away at by Labour and the Greens as voters don’t know where we stand. It weakens it at both ends too, reducing our ability to show ourselves as a fiscally credible progressive alternative and coming at a real cost to liberal spending priorities. Fixing the NHS, repairing our social safety net – these won’t be cheap, and voters will see past any pretence to the contrary.

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Derailing progress – the pitfalls of nationalist rhetoric for Britain’s railways.

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has been campaigning for the renationalisation of Britain’s railways, citing how different services are owned or part-owned by the Dutch, German, Italian and Hong Kong governments and asking why the British government doesn’t own these. It concludes with the TUC calling for the British government to renationalise the railway services.

I take umbrage with the language used by the TUC. Framing this as “foreigners shouldn’t own our stuff” plays into the hands of nationalists, giving power to those who want to cut Britain off from the world and transform us into a regressive hellhole. With historical evidence showing us that fascists are all too happy to court working people and drive a wedge between “us and them”, weaponising these arguments opens for xenophobia and indifference to become more significant than they already are among the trade union movement.

There is no opposition from me to nationalisation, of course, provided the argument for it is sound and no alternatives pose greater returns for the British people. Social democratic scholar and former Labour MP Tony Crosland wrote in his book “The Future Of Socialism” of the left’s deifying of nationalisation. He argued how regulation might be the superior alternative, as the privately-owned organisation always has to work to prove itself to maintain the contract, while the state-owned organisation has more room for becoming apathetic regarding the quality of service as it has no competitors.

However, the organisations running our railways aren’t technically private; they’re state-owned organisations that foreign governments own. But this is the crucial point: they operate in the UK. We can regulate and hold them to a high standard. And if they can’t meet these standards, then we consider nationalisation. The case must be evidence-based and common sense rather than “we don’t want foreigners taking our industries”.

My point is all well and good, but if you have a corrupt government, then it doesn’t matter what the ownership model of the railways is; the service will never be as good as it can be.

But that isn’t the case for Britain, right?

Oh, bugger.

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Scrutiny in Federal Council – why we are not there yet

Federal Council is not yet a productive committee. In fact, given I’ve had to skip at least one canvassing session to attend it, I might go as far to say that it’s been a net negative in terms of achieving the party’s goals of getting liberals elected.

It has so much promise. In the handy visual diagram of the party’s committees provided in the conference handbook, it’s shown as equal to Federal Board, so is a committee that if effective yields important power. But so far, we have little to show for our time.

Much has been said about our power to call-in and overturn Board decisions, but for me, the call-in power should only be one of last resort—an Emergency Stop to the workings of the federal party only to be used in extreme circumstances. Our other power, that of asking the Board to respond on any issue, has barely been used. We have had Q&As with the president, but if all Federal Council can aspire to be is another forum for Q&As, indistinguishable from those asked of the Board at Conference, then we are failing in the responsibility to Conference when the Federal Council was created as the compromise for a smaller, more agile Federal Board.

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Given the Chinese spy issues, should I, a Chinese immigrant, pursue a political career in the UK?

After the release of the news last week of Conservative candidates dropped after the MI5 warned they could be Chinese spies, I paused my application to be a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC).

I was shocked and scared. If the political atmosphere is moving to the extreme right wing, I could be a victim for two reasons: my Chinese-immigrant background, and the definition of a spy – the line between influencing British Chinese policy and freedom of speech is getting blurred.

Since I have started to speak the truth about what happened in China from 2022, I have made a really hard decision – not to go back to China to visit my mother, who survived a stroke in 2018, because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is catching foreign spies (which can be defined as “any excuse”). I worried I would disappear in a Chinese airport without any charges, which is normal in China. Now I need to worry if I am safe in the UK. Is the UK still a free land?

Before the Golden Era of UK-SINO relations finished, getting involved in British politics before 2019 was taken as a positive sign for Chinese immigrants who were born and educated in China. Three were encouraged and chosen by the Tory party to stand in the general elections in 2015, 2017 or 2019. Yet now, it’s extremely hard for any Chinese immigrant, not only to become a party member, but also to stand in a local election; furthermore, to be a PPC – a legal position to stand in the general election.

As far as I know, I am the only person from China who is seeking a PPC position. There are three reasons why I am doing this:

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WATCH: Ed Davey’s speech to Conference

The video of Ed’s keynote speech to Conference starts at around one hour, 32 minutes. Enjoy.

The text is below:

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What if the Home Secretary is right?

As someone who was brought up under communism in Poland, I never dreamt that Eastern Europe could change so much in such a relatively short period of time. I never thought that I would be able to travel or work freely in another European state. I never knew what diversity is. I rarely had an opportunity to talk to people from other countries or nationalities. But I remember that I always had a strong desire to meet people of other ethnic or faith origins. I remember that as a teenager back home, I participated in various events which marked the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This was a very special experience which allowed me to learn more about other churches and see that ‘unity in diversity’ is possible. Visiting the Lutheran Church made me realise that despite some dogmatic & theological differences, we all pray to the same God. This, as well as many other experiences has shaped me as a person which I only realised when I moved to Britain.

Living in Croatia for almost 4 years was also an ‘eye-opener’. It was in Croatia where I had a chance to see a mosque. It is Croatia where I had a real opportunity not only to read about individuals from other nationalities but to live side by side with people from other cultures and religions. I really felt so ‘normal’ and beautiful. 

All these experiences prepared me for Britain which in many ways can be called the ‘laboratory of diversity’. My job in the charity sector and my role as a Councillor give me plenty of opportunities to meet many wonderful people and enable me to build bridges rather than walls. It has also helped me to break down various barriers and recognise the importance of diversity. Settling in the UK, trying to be part of the local community, encouraged me to get to know other cultures and people of other faith groups. The whole experience has broadened my horizons and it made me a more tolerant and rounded person.

Why is it so important now? I do think that the polarisation of the political systems, inability to listen or talk to each other, seeing everything in ‘black & white’ colours means that diversity as well as many other things are seen in a deformed way. This means that our communities are divided and our friends and neighbours are often ‘presented’ to us a threat, invaders or burdens. This hurts many and the healing process to rebuild trust between groups and communities may take a long time. I often wonder whether media and access to social media platforms have changed our attitude towards diversity. Do we, too often, put too much emphasis on what divides rather than unites us? 

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The other elephant in the room

We all know that one of the topics the leadership don’t want us to talk about is the EU. But there is another very important matter to voters that we say almost nothing about either, taxation.

There was a time, when I was a young Liberal and just starting out on the employment trail when we proudly supported a progressive income tax system as both fair and certain. When I started work, basic rate was 33% and the top rate was 98%. We told people, quite rightly, that the tax was necessary to pay for public services. Then along came Thatcher and Laffer with his ridiculous curve and suddenly we have joined the ‘tax is bad’ viewpoint and we have become terrified of even suggesting that our policy programmes WILL require tax rises. Sure, we talk about taxes on the banks, or windfall taxes on utilities or taxing fatcats, but we simply don’t engage in the task of reminding people that their taxes are not a dreadful burden, but actually necessary to pay for the services we (and they) want.

It’s almost as if we now share the view of a US citizen interviewed about tax, who said ‘Why should I pay tax, the government should find the money!’

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The humbling gratitude of Ukrainians

One word: humbling. That was my feeling as I listened to the remarkable conference speech by Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik on Monday morning. She is leader of Holos, the first Liberal Party to be elected to the Ukrainian Parliament.

All one’s everyday concerns were reduced to insignificance as we heard of the bravery and tenacity of Ukrainians under the most harrowing conditions. Their belief in the survival and eventual flourishing of their country, their incredible solidarity, is absolutely awesome.

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Moving on after yesterday’s high drama

Lib Dem Conference is at its absolute best when it debates a hotly contested issues.

High quality speeches on both sides of the argument for Conference to decide upon. And if the leadership’s position is looking threatened, they just roll out a big hitter like Tim Farron to deliver a barnstormer and get them out of trouble.

Or, in the case of yesterday’s debate, not.

The issue in question was whether to have a national housing target. This has been debated at two Conferences in the recent past and on both occasions, Conference voted to retain a national annual target, in this case 380,000  homes, with (whatever happened in the debate) 150,000 for social rent. A great policy that many thought would give not just hope but homes to the hundreds of thousands of people who don’t have a secure home that they can afford.

With Conference having made its wishes known, it is odd that the leadership chose to pick this fight in the first place or prosecute it in the way that they did. The Federal Policy Committee was very closely balanced on this issue and, as I understand it, Ed insisted that housing targets were dropped. Inevitably, the Young Liberals put in an amendment to reinstate them.

Policy and research is one of the great strengths of the current crop of young Liberals. Chair Janey Little has already contributed huge knowledge and collaborative working skills on various policy issues, not least on violence against women and girls where she brought all the various stakeholders in and consulted them. She put those skills to good use. On her side of the argument were Council leaders like Stephen Robinson in Chelmsford, Keith House in Eastleigh and former Housing Minister Stephen Williams as well as current London Mayoral candidate Rob Blackie and his predecessor Luisa Porritt.

Unfortunately, the leadership response to this was to produce a series of leaflets rubbishing the Young Liberals’ amendment in a way that was always going to annoy Conference attendees. Certainly,  I had always been likely to support that amendment, but I did so with added passion and fury simply because of the aggression shown by the opposition and the fact that Ed was talking about the issue as though it was a done deal. The manner in which this was done was also a massive hostage to fortune. You know how in the American primaries candidates kick lumps out of each other until one emerges victorious? Well, that process does the opposition research for them. That is a lesson the leadership might like to learn for the future before it puts out simplistic, aggressive literature.

The debate yesterday started well with an inclusive speech from Helen Morgan in which she acknowledged the concerns that the Young Liberals had expressed in their amendment. By the time the argument got to the floor, though, it very much looked like it would go their way. Speeches were around 2:1 in favour of housing targets.

But not to worry, they still had their Trump card, Tim Farron.

Sadly, he took his role too literally and forgot for a moment that he wasn’t Donald Trump. His deeply insulting speech, in which he said that the amendment was the most right wing thing he had seen come to the floor of Conference since we’d sent Liz Truss on her sleeper mission to the Tories drew gasps from the audience. . He accused its proposers of being Thatcherites. This was clearly nonsense, given that the amendment was supported by the Radical Association and many members of the Social Liberal Forum.

It takes a lot to shock a Lib Dem Conference. We’re not a pearl clutching bunch as a rule, but he managed it. But there was no awe to go with it. Rob Blackie stood up and simply said at the beginning of his speech “Tim Farron: That was below you. You are better than that.”

If the amendment had not won before, that speech got it over the line. The vote wasn’t even close in the end.

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Ed Davey speech: Time to tear down the Blue Wall and end the Conservative soap opera

Ed Davey will today (Tuesday 26 September) give his first Autumn Conference speech since becoming Liberal Democrat leader, firing the starting gun for the party’s campaign at the next General Election.

Ed Davey will put health and care at the heart of his speech, highlighting how the Liberal Democrats have led the way in proposing solutions to tackle the crises facing the NHS, on GPs, ambulances and dentists. He will accuse the Conservatives of breaking promise after promise on the NHS, from their failure to recruit more GPs to their pledge to build 40 new hospitals, adding that there should be a warning on the ballot paper that “voting Conservative is bad for your health.”

He will emphasise that getting the millions of people stuck on waiting lists or suffering from mental health illness is key to getting the economy back on track, adding that “the Conservatives broke our economy with their carelessness, Liberal Democrats will fix our economy with care.”

Ed Davey will then criticise the Conservatives for being “more like a bad soap opera than a functioning government,” pointing to “the corruption of Boris Johnson, the chaos of Liz Truss and the carelessness of Rishi Sunak.”

Finally, the Liberal Democrat Leader will issue a rallying cry to his party to bring the Blue Wall “tumbling down” at the next election. He will point to the Liberal Democrats’ record as the “strongest campaigning force in British politics,” concluding that “the British people are desperate to see the back of this appalling, out-of-touch Conservative Government, and we are the ones who can make it happen.”

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Waiting list for diagnostic tests reaches 1.6 million – up 50% since 2019

  • The waiting list for diagnostic tests has risen by 525,000 since June 2019 to 1.6 million
  • NHS target: less than 1% of people should be waiting more than 6 weeks for these tests – currently 1 in 4 wait 6 weeks or longer
  • Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey calls for an expansion of community diagnostic centres and the legal right to see your GP in seven days as his party makes fixing the NHS a pillar of their conference

NHS waiting lists for basic diagnostic tests have grown by 50% since June 2019, up to 1.6 million. The research from the House of Commons Library, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, also shows that over 25% of people are waiting more than 6 weeks for one of these tests, the NHS target is less than 1%.

The 15 types of tests that make up the list provided by the Commons Library include MRIs, CT scans, Echocardiography, and DEXA scans. For MRIs the waiting list has spiked by a third up to 280,000 thousand. For CT scans, it has shot up by 40,000 to 180,000.

A separate FOI from the Liberal Democrats to NHS Trusts has revealed the longest wait time for certain standard diagnostic scans.

In Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trusts response, they said that the longest wait for an MRI which took place in the past 12 months was 914 days. At the same Trust, someone waited 367 days for a CT scan, 665 days for a non-urgent x-ray, and 693 days for an Ultrasound.

For an Echocardiogram, someone at Wye Valley Trust waited 49 weeks. For an Angiography, at Milton Keynes Trust the longest wait was 475 days.

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Kira Rudik wows Conference with a powerful and personal speech

 

Kira Rudik is the leader of Holos, the first Liberal Party to be elected to the Ukrainian Parliament. She is also Vice President of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe – the political grouping that brings together like-minded political parties within Europe. She is a proud European and has campaigned for many years for Ukraine to join the EU.

She was welcomed on to the stage by Layla Moran, who was dressed in the blue and yellow of Ukraine. Kira started with some thank yous – and it was clear she knew a number of our senior members well.

She then told us about the day the invasion happened, starting at 5am. Kira and nearly two thirds of the MPs made their way to the Parliament Building – a highly dangerous act as the building was an obvious target. They were allowed 10 minutes together in the chamber during which time they hit buttons furiously so they could pass all the necessary legislation. All the political parties vowed to work together until the war was over – a pledge that has been challenging but still holds.

You can watch her speech here:

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What’s the media saying about Lib Dem Conference?

Here’s a quick roundup of some of the things that the media are saying about Lib Dem Conference:

Steve Coogan and Carol Vorderman lead rally for proportional representation. Sky

Liberal Democrats face housebuilding targets row at Liberal Democrat Conference BBC

Man pleas for assisted dying reform at Lib Dem Conference Bourmemouth Echo

Lib Dems would double shared parental leave pay and increase leave Guardian

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25,000 operations cancelled twice or more in 2022 as backlog soars

  • Some patients have the same operation cancelled 13 times as backlog soars
  • Worst offending trusts have thousands of operations cancelled twice
  • Liberal Democrats demand urgent action to get the scandal of cancelled operations under control

The number of hospital operations cancelled twice or more surged to over 25,000 in 2022, an investigation by the Liberal Democrats have revealed.

That is up 18% from the 21,477 operations cancelled twice or more the previous year.

The figures were obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Freedom of Information requests, with data provided by 78 of the 124 hospital trusts in England.

Some of the worst hit trusts include Mid and South Essex, which cancelled over 4,000 operations twice or more in 2022, and Portsmouth with over 2,500. In total, a staggering 112,000 operations have been cancelled twice or more in the past five years.

The figures also reveal that some patients have seen the same operation cancelled up to 13 times over the past five years. Portsmouth is also at the top of the cancellation list for individual cases with one patient suffering the indignity of having their operation cancelled 13 times in 2019. This was followed by Mid and South Essex with one patient whose operation was cancelled 11 times, and North Midlands with one patient having 10 cancellations for a single operation. In total, 20 trusts had one individual patient who had faced five or more cancellations since 2018.

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It’s time for the Liberal Democrats to reclaim their place as the party of young professionals

In the ever-evolving landscape of British politics, it’s easy to forget that the Liberal Democrats were once hailed as a natural choice for young professionals. With a steadfast commitment to progressive values, environmentalism, internationalism, and leading the way on equality & diversity, the party had successfully captured the aspirations of a generation. 

Many of these commitments remain today – we remain ahead of the conversation on social care and health, we are leading the way on electoral reform, and we have never faltered in our commitment to standing up for diverse communities. We remain a party which believes in opportunity for all, and we have the policies to back that up.

We are the party of business, and of workers. The Liberal Democrats will invest in innovation and embrace the opportunities of modern technology, while making sure that economic growth is human-led and that workers are at the heart of our industrial strategy.

We are the party of internationalism, and we will embrace the academic and scientific benefit that comes with being able to work with and participate in the international community – opening new opportunities for people and society.

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Keep our national housing target, tackle the housing crisis and WIN!

Tackling the housing crisis is one of the most important things Lib Dems can do. As the Leader of Chelmsford City Council I agonise about housing every day. We have over 450 homeless families in my city this week, and no houses to put them in. 

So I welcome the huge number of positive things in the conference housing motion F31 and policy paper that will allow us to do that.

But one of the other really important things I want to do as a Lib Dem council leader is to help get many more Lib Dem MPs elected.  And removing the national housing target (which we voted FOR just two years ago) will make that job harder.

We’ve already seen public criticism for the removal of targets. It doesn’t matter how much the leaders try to explain that “actually, removing the target will mean we are able to build more houses”. We should have learned long ago that when you’re explaining you’re losing.

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What do you call a 33 year old who still lives with their parents?

What do you call a 33 year-old who still lives with their parents?

No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke. Instead, this is the reality for many people, including myself.

Six years ago, I moved out of my parents’ house with my then wife and into a three-bedroom end of terrace house. I was working full-time on a salary significantly lower than the average, while she was working ad-hoc as a supply teacher.

It was tight for us financially, but we made it work, just about. How? The house we moved into was bought by my granddad in 1955 and, by the time we moved in, it was owned by my dad and my aunt. We were paying rent, obviously, but it was considerably lower than the market rate.

When my ex-wife left, I took in a lodger to make ends meet. When my dad and aunt’s circumstances changed and they sold the house in 2021, I moved back in with my parents because I could not afford a place of my own. Since then, my salary has increased by almost one-third (through job changes, not employer pay rises), but it is still significantly below the average and I still cannot afford to buy or rent a place of my own.

Today, Conference will be asked to debate and vote on a new housing policy.

There is a certain irony in the party establishment standing before a banner of “for a fair deal”, while simultaneously proposing the removal of an ambitious – yet still insufficient – national housing target.

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Alex Cole-Hamilton’s speech to Conference

Here, in full, is Alex Cole-Hamilton’s speech to Conference.


Conference, this is the first time I’ve addressed you in person since Willie passed the baton to me two years ago. Can I take this opportunity to thank you Willie for your leadership, your service to our party and your friendship over the years.

Willie mentioned I am the first Liberal Democrat parliamentarian to be officially sanctioned by the Kremlin. My Ukrainian house guest calls that Santa’s good list.

And by the way, if you do nothing else at conference, do not miss Kira Rudik in this hall tomorrow, the leader of our sister party in Ukraine. In over 20 years of attending our conferences, I’ve never heard anything like her speech to us in Dundee earlier this year.

Conference, there are few things in life that cheer me more than the sight that greets me now. I am thrilled to my fingertips to be here.

I love this party. For nearly quarter of a century, I have served it at one time or another in every capacity: activist, staff, candidate, parliamentarian.

Wherever you are I feel at home.

The evidence of my devotion to this party can be found in the pages of a well-thumbed road atlas and a loyalty card for the Starbucks at Charnock Richard Services in Chorley.

It’s why I drove a carload of young liberals 9 hours down the M6 from Edinburgh to North Shropshire. It’s why I drove them 11 hours to Frome.

And why I’ll do it again in the 7 hours it’ll take us to get to Mid Bedfordshire.

Friends, I come with news of the north, and it is good news.

The liberal revival is underway for us too and we have taken such inspiration from Ed’s leadership and your victories in the south.

Last May, as they had done since I took over as leader, the pundits were writing us off – predicting that the Scottish local government elections would see us slip backwards.

Conference, we outperformed every other opposition party and increased our councillor base by a third.

It made me realise that the history of our movement is rooted in local politics and so too lies the promise of our future.

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Daisy Cooper: Lib Dems have “huge opportunity” to take seats off Conservatives in the Blue Wall

Liberal Democrat Leader Deputy Leader and Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper will today (Sunday 24 September) give her first in person speech at the party’s Autumn Conference, issuing a rallying call to party activists to take on the Conservatives in the Blue Wall and deliver a brighter future.

She will also set out bold new plans to give people access to regular mental health MOT checks at key points in their lives where they are most at risk, such as women after childbirth, men aged in their 40s or those in retirement.

On taking the fight to the Conservatives in the Blue Wall, …

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Caron’s pick of the Conference Fringe – Sunday

It’s day 2 of Conference and I know many of you will be bleary eyed from the disco last night.

Here is my pick of today’s fringe.

Sunday lunchtime 1300-1400

Your get there early warning is for Ukrainian Holos leader Kira Rudik’s conversation with John Sweeney 1pm. It is bound to be PACKED

Christine Jardine speaks at the Hunanist and Secularist Lib Dems’ fringe on assisted dying

Vince Cable is appearing at Compass’s meeting on how progressives can work together. That might grab some headlines.

 

Sunday early evening 1815-1915

Helen Morgan appears at Shelter’s reception on the housing emergency

LGBT+ Lib Dems and the Lib Dem Disability Association explore problems faced by older people needing social care

Wimbledon PPC Paul Kohler on restorative justice – Mad Dogs and Englishmen is the title of the fringe.

This isn’t an official fringe, but you can still get tickets for Layla Moran’s appearance with Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith’s For the Many Live event. It will be hilarious.

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Tom Arms’ World Review

Ukraine

Ukraine has approximately 30 days before the autumn/winter rains bring their counter-offensive to a muddy halt.

To date they appear to have broken through the first line of a three-line Russian defense in an area around Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia. There is an outside possibility they can achieve a major breach, but that is highly unlikely.

There is more depressing news for Ukrainian troops. For a start the bromance between Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un will keep the Russian troops supplied with artillery shells to help keep the advancing Ukrainians at bay.

Then there are problems with Poland. Up until this week the Poles have been a driving force behind EU and NATO support for Ukraine. But Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – with one eye on the farming vote and next month’s general election – has stopped military supplies to Ukraine because Ukrainian grain is driving down Polish wheat prices.

Poland has the support of Slovakia and Hungary and wants EU-wide restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain. The Ukrainians, of course, are exporting their grain to EU countries because the Russian blockade makes it impossible for them to ship it to their usual customers in the Middle East and Africa.

The next problem is signs that US support is waning. This week Volodomyr Zelensky turned up in Washington to assure American lawmakers that Ukraine is slowly but surely winning. President Biden responded with a $325 million military aid package. Zelensky also has the support of the leadership in both the Senate and House of Representatives. But a group of far-right Republican Trump supporters are threatening to block a financial package which includes an extra $24 billion in aid to Ukraine.

And then, finally, there is the fact that Trump has pledged to stop military aid to Ukraine if he is elected in 2024.

France

It has taken seven years, but it looks as if the investigation of France’s right-wing leader Marine Le Pen may end up in court.

She and 23 members of Her Rassemblement National – including her father Jean-Marine Le Pen – are accused of misuse of EU funds. They allegedly used a total of about $620,000 of money which was meant to be spent on EU administration to fund party activities.

The accusation comes from the Paris Prosecutor’s office and still has to be confirmed by the prosecuting judges. But it seems highly likely that that is a formality.

If she is found guilty, Marine Le Pen faces the possibility of a $1 million fine, 10 years in jail, and a 10-year ban on holding public office. Her conviction would have a major impact on the French and European political landscape.

According to the Paris Prosecutor, Ms Le Pen spent $45,000 of EU funds to pay her personal bodyguard. On another occasion she is alleged to have diverted EU funds to pay for a meeting to discuss party activities and hung an EU flag outside the meeting room. When the meeting started she told party members “take that s**t down.”

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Reflections on the Housing Working Group

We’re in the final hours before conference debates our Housing paper and it’s been good to read the discussion taking place on Lib Dem Voice and elsewhere. I am looking forward to a similar debate in the conference hall on Monday. Liberal Democrat’s really care about housing and we all agree that we need to build more homes, our discussions are about how we best achieve this.

When we started our working group we wanted to achieve two things. To offer a credible housing policy for the Liberal Democrats to show we actually want to build homes, and to help those who don’t have a home to get one and be protected while they’re renting. And I believe we’ve achieved that.

I have led a council that is facing a housing crisis, I’ve seen people trapped in temporary accommodation unable to join the community, I’ve seen people have no choice but to leave their area. People can’t afford to live here in the Lake District and this is hurting our communities and our economy. Too many of the homes that are being built or that come up for sale are being sold into the second homes or holiday lets market and there simply aren’t enough smaller homes for people looking to buy their first home. Without new blood the Lake District will simply become a playground for the super wealthy and its communities and heritage will die.

In South Lakeland, we have built new social housing to help people get on the housing ladder. As leader I introduced a target of 1,000 affordable homes to rent and this has led to more homes being provided.

Across England we build around 8,000 new council homes a year and this number is outstripped by the losses. This is a result of Conservative governments deliberately and cynically seeking to reduce the social housing sector.

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A postcard from Sir Vince in Kyiv

The main evidence of war in Kyiv in the last few days has been a series of loud bangs in the middle of the night – Russian rockets meeting Patriot Missiles apart from the one which got through and hit a power plant.

Otherwise, Kyiv is a normal and beautiful, bustling European city of 3.5 million with busy pavement cafes and restaurants, flourishing shopping centres and street stalls, traffic jams and young people zooming round on e-scooters. After a while you notice the numbers of burly off-duty soldiers in uniform, the exhibitions in civic squares honouring war casualties and the forest of flags to the memory of those who died in Maidan Square in the 2014 Orange revolution. So, not so normal. A war for national survival is taking place, to expel the Russian invaders.

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Revealed: Long GP waits in rural areas three times worse than urban ones

  • New research reveals four week waits for GPs three times higher in rural areas than urban ones
  • Lib Dems to adopt pre-manifesto with right to see a GP within a week at its heart
  • Ed Davey calls for strategy to close urban rural divide in access to GPs

The proportion of people waiting four weeks or more for a GP appointment is three times higher in rural parts of England than in London, stark new figures published by the Liberal Democrats have revealed.

It comes as Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey calls on the government to launch a new strategy to improve access to GPs in rural areas. The Liberal Democrats are also set to put their proposals to give everyone the right to see a GP within a week at the heart of their pre-manifesto being adopted today.

The House of Commons Library research, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, shows that on average people in rural areas are facing significantly longer waits for GP appointments than those in urban ones.

One in five (20.6%) patients living in rural areas waited two weeks or more for a GP appointment between April and June of this year, compared to 16.9% of those in urban areas.

The divide for waits of four weeks or more for a GP appointment was even more stark. 6% of patients in rural areas faced waits of 28 days or more for a GP appointment, around a third higher than the 4.6% of those facing four-week waits in urban ones.

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The Ukrainian Offensive Hasn’t Failed.  We have Failed the Ukrainians.

Without a doubt, the Ukrainian Military’s recent counteroffensive has proved more challenging than the last one.  Ukraine’s ability to put together such counteroffensives and defend the wider country remains at the mercy of the generosity of military aid donors.  “Give us the tools and we will finish the job” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky pleaded.

However, the arrival of military aid has often been delayed for political reasons as much as logistical ones.  This counteroffensive for instance has seen the Ukrainian Military forced to determinedly advance without air cover.  This is despite the Ukrainian Government requesting Fighter Jets, such as F-16s, to be sent for their defence since the start of the 2022 invasion.  The delay in the arrival of equipment for the current counteroffensive gave ample time for the invading Russian enforces to entrench and defend the land they have stolen.  Some reports say it has even given them ample breathing space to counter some Western weapons such as HIMARS.  Western leaders have justified the incremental approach to giving such aid to encourage de-escalation.  Despite this, Russian President Vladimir Putin reading Western reticence as weakness, as he has always done, has proceeded on his same imperialist course. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting that the short-term concerns of Western democracies, such as the US Presidential election next year, will mean that the alliance that supports Ukraine will ultimately fall apart.  This is why those democracies, especially European ones need to convene a long term plan to support Ukraine.  Bilateral and piecemeal military aid announcements were never sufficient to achieve victory.  If NATO membership is barred to Ukraine, then alternative security assurances need to be given to Ukraine.  A Memorandum of Understanding enshrining a commitment to support Ukraine could either be agreed between that country and it’s allies collectively or on a bilateral basis.  What is imperative is that European countries in particular plan for a future where the considerable US aid to Ukraine is potentially no longer available.  Brexit aside, the UK needs to be involved in any European discussions about supporting Ukraine in the long term to coordinate efforts.

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…and we’re back in the hall!

Tim Farron makes the first policy speech of conference this morning

The first policy speech of the first in-person autumn conference since 2019 brought a smile to my face and very positively answered the question “What is Tim Farron for?”

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Happy 25th anniversary Bi Visibility Day


Happily coinciding with the first day of our first terrestrial conference since the Ice Age, today is the 25th anniversary of Bi Visibility Day, also known as “Does this thing open from the inside?” Day.

Over on Stonewall’s website, their digital officer, George Alabaster, has answered the question “Why do we need Bi Visibility Day?”:

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Caron’s pick of the Conference fringe – Saturday

Conference kicks off officially today. The whirlwind of debate and socialising and fringe meetings is guaranteed to have at least three things in every slot that you want to go to.

Here’s my pick of the fringe for today, all of which can be found in the directory:

Saturday lunchtime 1-2:30

Federal Conference Committee invite people to suggest ways of improving disability access at future Conferences.

I suspect the New Liberal Manifesto’s meeting with Sir John Curtice on the need for the party to have bolder messaging will be very busy, so get there early. It’s chaired by Layla and Dick Newby, our leader in the Lords is also speaking.

Social Liberal Forum has Sarah Olney and others on a radical and liberal approach to economics

Saturday mid evening 20:15-21:45

I’m liking the collaboration between ALDES (Lib Dem Engineers and Scientists) and the Young Liberals to chat all things tech

Liberal History Group launch their book asking What have the Liberals ever done for us? Layla Moran, Wendy Chamberlain and Janey Little take part.

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‘Tutoring for the millions’: Lib Dems plan booster classes for almost 2 million children

Liberal Democrats will offer free small-group tutoring to 1.75 million children a year who struggle with their learning, the party’s education spokesperson will say today (23 September).

It comes analysis by the party shows that more than one in seven teenagers fall behind with English or Maths at secondary school. These 64,000 students meet government reading and maths standards at age 11 but then fail either GCSE English or Maths at age 16.

In her keynote speech at the party’s Autumn Conference in Bournemouth, Munira Wilson MP will accuse Rishi Sunak of letting down these children by “pulling the plug” on school-based tutoring. The National Tutoring Programme ends this year.

She will compare Sunak to Mr Bumble from Oliver Twist for consistently rejecting cries “for more” investment in education when he was Chancellor. Sunak rejected bids from Government advisers and officials for greater investment in COVID catch-up lessons, free school meals and new school buildings.

Instead, Liberal Democrats will call for tutoring to become a permanent fixture in England’s schools. Schools, sixth forms and further education colleges would receive £390 million a year for intensive small-group sessions for students who have fallen behind in class.

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