Author Archives: Abrial Jerram

The riots were serious. Lib Dems must step up

By Abrial Jerram | Tue 3rd September 2024 - 4:30 pm

I won’t forget the 2024 election in a hurry.

Not only were there the expected wins of PPCs I had been excitedly anticipating sitting in the House of Commons for years, but there were a steady stream of wins in places where most people, or at least me, thought our chances of victory were somewhere between pretty low and non-existent.

It was the day we finally didn’t have a Tory government anymore.

Also, at a deeper level, it was the day when what Lib Dems say or do started to matter again. How much it matters is up for debate, but when the exit poll showed us back as the third party with record gains, it was clear that what we say or do is of far greater consequence than it had been a few short weeks before. In terms West Wing watchers will be familiar with, it felt like we were closer to the ideal of never doubting that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens could change the world.

Since then, the biggest crisis in Britain has been the riots. I struggle to imagine anything that could be more diametrically opposed to the values of community and care that ran through the whole of our election campaign.

So how did we respond then? In summary, and I did some quick google searching to check I hadn’t missed anything obvious, our response was to appoint a government advisor and adopt the relevant APPG’s definition of Islamophobia. Now, of course the government should have an independent advisor on Islamophobia and a legal definition of Islamophobia would help public bodies in taking against it, but I doubt that anyone seriously thinks that the lack of either of these things was a significant cause of the riots.

Surely the end goal of our policy must be that riots of this sort (and any other sort) are never seen again in Britain.

Local Lib Dems can restore people’s trust in housebuilding

By Abrial Jerram | Fri 8th September 2023 - 1:23 pm

I live in a ward represented by four Lib Dem councillors, where there are 3,952 new homes (out of ∼5,200 homes in the ward), primarily built due to local plans written by the then Lib Dem-led council. However, in 1,800 conversations on the doorstep in the ward, (thanks connect), only one has contained objections to the scale of housebuilding. I’m not claiming that NIMBYism does not exist, just that it’s a much less prevalent view than stereotypes would suggest and that there is a consensus that the development has improved our area.

After all, this is an affluent, suburban ward, which was gained from the Conservatives, where stereotypes, especially those based on all parties’ campaign literature (including ours), would suggest that NIMBYism would be a popular if not prevalent view. So why is this not the case here? In real terms, the answer to that is that the development has allowed the local GP surgery to move out of a portacabin to a new and more suitable location, and also, where there was one local primary school, there are now three local primary schools and a secondary school. Also, there’s a new cafe, library, community centre, parks, etc. and even though there are things that could have definitely been done better the broad consensus about the positive impacts of the development remains strong.

Though sadly, the Lib Dems lost control of my local council during the coalition years, (housebuilding rates have declined since), similar development is now taking place neighbouring Lib Dem run South Cambridgeshire. They have both started and completed over 4,000 homes in their first term (significantly more than before Lib Dems took control) and are now putting in place a local plan containing tens of thousands more (∼58,000).

This all means that I get to be part of a local team (and its predecessors over the last 20 years) of which I can be proud, not a universal experience among Young Liberals to whom the housing crisis is very present. This is a local team that has done a lot for just one ward to tackle the housing crisis (go read Janey Little’s excellent article on that if you haven’t) and has made an appreciable difference to local public services including on things that Lib Dems campaign on elsewhere – GP appointment availability, the condition of school buildings, lack of local amenities, affordable housing.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged 2023 autumn conference and housing | 8 Comments