You would think, wouldn’t you, that if you caught a disease because of your work, that your employer would be obliged to look after you.
This is not the case for frontline workers, even public sector workers. In a parliamentary debate she’d secured on Long Covid, Layla Moran highlighted the cases of three who had experienced the wrath of HR departments after contracting long Covid.
Take Daisy, an NHS nurse in Wales. For four months she received reduced and then no pay from NHS Cymru, which told her that it was unable to support staff who contracted covid-19. Her case was resolved, but she continues to say that this issue has not been resolved at a national level in Wales. That story, and many others like it, have left me speechlessâa headteacher and a nurse, key workers on the frontline, who have no choice but to do their job with inadequate personal protective equipment and testing, and now face financial ruin for doing their duty. It is unacceptable, which is why the APPG recommends that the UK Government recognise long covid as an occupational disease and institute a long covid compensation scheme for frontline workers.
She asked the Minister for three things – better reporting of Long Covid – with the daily stats – research into the condition and how to treat it and recognition of the condition in the social security system and by employers.
I know several friends who have Long Covid and it is really debilitating.
Alistair Carmichael also spoke in the debate, saying that he expected problems in the social security system which had already shown its utter uselessness in dealing with people with ME.
There must be more flexibility in how the system responds to people who are affected in this way. The point has been made to me by constituents that there is a lot of crossover between the symptoms and treatment of people with long covid and those who suffer from ME; I think that point was also made by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). Certainly, looking back over the years at the way in which the benefits system has coped with people who suffer from ME, let alone the medical profession, we can see that this will be a problem with which we shall have to come to terms for some considerable time.
A Universal Basic Income would make a big difference, he said.
As the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Long Covid, Layla can speak with some authority on these issues. I think that the UK Government has been better than the Scottish Government which doesn’t even have a decent strategy for dealing with Long Covid and that in part is due to the fact that Layla’s leadership on this has been so good.
Here is Layla’s whole speech:
I would like to start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time to debate long covid today. I also thank members of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, especially the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) and my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who co-sponsored the debate. Most of all, I want to thank everyone who has written to me, the all-party group or their own MP in the last few weeks with their stories. Their accounts are deeply moving. Todayâs debate is for them.
"I'm not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021," Rep. Jamie Raskin says as he presses forward with impeachment articles while mourning his son. #CNNSOTUhttps://t.co/ENtoAqOMMkpic.twitter.com/YkDJvMxC8t
I have been known to become exceptionally sweary while watching Sunday morning news programmes. The inane and out of touch utterances of some politicians drive me mad.
But today I was moved to tears by the proud and loving way in which Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin talked about his son, who died by suicide on New Year’s Eve.
He was very open about what he had been through, and spoke so eloquently about his son Tommy and what he had brought to the world. He sounds like a wonderful, community minded, considerate person who lived his values.
Four days after Tommy died, Rep Raskin and his wife Sarah wrote a tribute to him which was full of love and warmth.
Here’s my hand-clicked pick from this week’s Sunday newspapers. What have you been reading today?
An article in the Observer shows that those in the Red Wall seats stand to lose most from the Tories ending the ÂŁ20 per week Universal Credit top-ups. Will any of the red wall MPs be tempted to vote for a Labour amendment to extend it? Or will the fall for Rishi Sunak’s idea to give families half as much?
In the same paper, Patience Akumu writes about the election in Uganda which saw the incumbent leader returned to power, despite the desire for change among many Ugandans.
There was once a time when the free world was a powerful ally in such matters but now it seems it has too many problems of its own to bother with yet another developing country grappling with a leader who will not relinquish his grasp on power. Following difficulties in getting election observers accredited, both the EU and US chose not to send any.
Perhaps the west feels that, with its own perceived failures, it does not have the moral authority to lecture Africa. Museveni and other African leaders love to hang on to this particular lifeline. Museveni, in a CNN interview, retorted that while Ugandans may have electoral problems at least they are not dying (of coronavirus).
As we prepare for an inauguration which many fear will see outbreaks of violence in the US, Scotland on Sunday takes us back 150 years to when Abraham Lincoln was sworn in, telling the story of how his life was saved when a Scottish detective uncovered a plot to kill him.
The Sunday Herald has some uncomfortable truths about Scotland’s role in slave trade and how our towns and cities benefitted from its profits.
But it was not just those who were directly involved in slavery who benefitted. The wealth derived from unfree labour in the plantations – including compensation – turbocharged the post-union Scottish economy, funding key infrastructure such as canals and waterworks and creating thousands of jobs.
âSlavery and its commerce also had wider effects; powering the Scottish Industrial Revolution and providing large scale employment in cotton mills from 1778, funding philanthropic initiatives in universities, schools and hospitals, as well as the repatriation of wealth to families of lower rank in wider Scottish society,â Mullen says.
“We are not a rejoin party” was one of the first things Ed Davey said in his New Year interview with Andrew Marr. The starkness of that statement is bound to disappoint some Liberal Democrat members and activists who are committed to this country ultimately being part of the EU again. Party strategists are adamant that now is not the time to have that argument and that we need to re-establish our credibility after the 2019 election. Perhaps being proven right will take care of some of that issue. We just need to make sure that we can be better at benefitting from being right than we have been all the other times when we have called a major issue correctly – think Iraq and the 2008 economic crisis.
It’s also not what our policy, passed at Conference in September, says:
Conference resolves to support a longer term objective of UK membership of the EU.
I would have preferred to see a very quick addition to Ed’s line that we didn’t support Brexit for all the reasons we can see it going wrong before he emphasises the need for the closest possible relationship with the EU. There is nothing wrong with saying that while rejoin isn’t on the table now, we think we’ll get to a place where it will be a viable option. There is nothing wrong with keeping that hope alive.
However, he was very strong on one issue that differentiates us from the Labour Party. Keir Starmer is not going to fight for freedom of movement of people. The Liberal Democrats will. Ed said that taking away the freedom to live, work and raise families across the EU is illiberal. The issue is one that impacts on so many families in this country and should increase our support.
One of the sadnesses of ending freedom of movement is how it's illiberal it is – taking away that freedom for all British people, including our young people.
As Leader of the Liberal Democrats I will fight the Government on free movement within the EU. #Marrpic.twitter.com/vXxHrqRFal
That’s a major point of difference with Labour and should attract young people.
The conversation then turned to students. Ed said that the Government had let down schools, universities and students. He called Gavin Williamson the worst education secretary in living memory, who had mismanaged the crisis for everyone in the education sector. He argued that students should be refunded some of their fees and the Government, not the universities should pay for this.
The Government have let students and they've let down schools.
Gavin Williamson is the worst Education Secretary in living memory – he must go, and the Government must step up for our young people and teachers. #Marrpic.twitter.com/N06Hx9iNc8
This Saturday sees the first National Action Day of the year. Under normal circumstances, we’d be out delivering tonnes of leaflets and knocking on doors, talking to voters.
We can’t do that at the moment, so the plan is that we phone as many voters as possible.
There are events taking place all over the country.
During the leadership election, both campaigns worked out that if you get a bunch of people together in a Zoom room, have a bit of a chat, and a briefing session, put ourselves on mute, sign into Connect …
Our Parliament has a reputation as being one of the oldest and best in the world. Every time I walk through the Palace of Westminster, I am reminded of who has walked these same corridors.
Shirley Wiliams, Barbara Castle, William Wilberforce talking about abolishing slavery, Lloyd George bringing forward the People’s Budget, Aneurin Bevan bringing in the legislation that set up the NHS.
All these great things, over centuries.
In 200 years time, I doubt they’ll be talking about the Day the Fish Smiled.
It was Business Questions. The SNP’s Tommy Sheppard raised the crisis in our fishing industry caused by the Government. But of course, he couldn’t just leave it there. He had to use it as a proxy to ask to have a Commons debate on Scottish independence. I mean, the industry is on its knees. One of its key players, Loch Fyne, is talking about only being able to last another week. And all because the Government first of all pursued Brexit, did so in such a cack-handed manner that the decisions were only made about how the seafood industry would operate on Christmas bloody Eve with a week to go and then didn’t get its finger out to produce the relevant paperwork. This level of incompetence is pretty much standard practice for this lot.
It’s infuriating that the SNP constantly let the Tories off the hook by turning the question to independence. Keep it on the subject. Make them own the mess that they have made. Nope.
So what should have been an exchange on a crisis of the Tories’ making ended like this.
The fishing issue was covered a moment ago by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should have tuned into that debate, rather than bringing it up at business questions, but the Government are tackling this issue and dealing with it as quickly as possible. The key is that we have our fish back: they are now British fish, and they are better and happier fish for it.
Not exactly edifying, is it?
Earlier, the grown-ups were present. Our Alistair Carmichael  took the Government’s actions to pieces in an urgent question, laying bare the damage that they had done.
The Prime Minister and Victoria Prentis set the bar pretty low yesterday but George Eustice brought it clattering down today with a performance of breath-taking complacency. Frankly insulting to industry that he is already backtracking on the PMâs offer of compensation yesterday. https://t.co/m2kH6OFFjZ
Just when you think that the Tories couldn’t sink any lower than their opposition to providing help to families with free school meals during the holidays, they have gone one further.
All over social media, there are pictures of the sorts of food packages that are being sent to children who would normally qualify for free school meals.
What are you supposed to eat the noodles *with*? Plain udon is not a meal. https://t.co/FcbkuYleK5
Daisy Cooper has written to the Education Secretary to ask him to investigate and sort this out – by giving vouchers to families rather than these “woefully inadequate” and “abysmal” packages:
My #FreeSchoolMeals letter to the Govt asking what urgent action theyâve taken to investigate the reports of unacceptable half-empty âhampersâ and to identify how many children have been affected đ pic.twitter.com/Kc2TybnosZ
It is completely unacceptable that parents have received woefully inadequate food parcels in place of free school meals.
The amount of food parents have received to feed their children is not anything like enough to provide an adequate, nutritious lunch every day. Nor do they appear to represent value for money, given what the parcels should theoretically be worth.
On Sunday we brought you the news that Christine Jardine’s Private Member’s Bill to give NHS workers the right to remain in the UK.
Sadly, today, the Tories tried to kill that hope by cancelling all sitting Fridays until the end of March. At best this postpones when the  Bill will be heard.
Christine’s Bill proposed that all health and social care staff from outside the EU would be granted indefinite leave to remain, enabling them to avoid the hellscape that is our immigration system and granting them rights enjoyed by British citizens.
Christine vowed to fight on, though:
Like the rest of our wonderful NHS and care staff, hundreds of thousands of people from other countries are on the frontlines of the Covid pandemic, putting themselves in harmâs way to make sure we get the care we need.
The UK should say, loudly and unequivocally, that those who have put their lives at risk for our country are welcome to live in it. Thatâs what my Bill would do, and I am deeply disappointed that the Government is not even letting it be debated in Parliament.
I am not giving up. I will urge Ministers again to make Government time available to pass this urgent legislation, which has cross-party support.
The idea that anyone who has worked so hard to save lives during this emergency might one day be forced to leave should be unthinkable.
I might have known that after I had written about Obama’s inauguration speech earlier, how I would fall down the rabbit hole of the Obama White House You Tube Channel.
I came across the unveilings of the official portraits of George W and Laura Bush. Now, I am not a fan of him or his presidency at all. It is, however, very difficult not to love Laura.
Despite all that, when you watch all the speeches from the Obamas and the Bushes, you pick up a real warmth between them.
There was not a lot of common ground between them when Obama took office, but he went to great pains to point out how helpful Bush had been to him, then and since, and how there was quite a rapport between all the living occupants of the Oval Office. It is enjoyable to watch.
I think back to 1992, when Bill Clinton won after a pretty fraught election campaign with not a lot of love on either side. The first President Bush was similarly helpful and graceful to his successor and they struck up an enduring friendship as a result.
Obviously, this is not going to happen this time round, but Donald Trump, as in so many other ways, is very much the aberration here.
We need to see more examples of people with totally opposing views can behave with grace towards one another without compromising their principles. We need to follow the example of our own Charles Kennedy, whose friendship with Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell had been so important to both of them, as we found out after he died. Â Charles had been subjected to the most appalling abuse for his opposition to the Iraq War, yet away from the heat, those two had a close personal friendship.
As we prepare to welcome Joe Biden as US President a week on Wednesday, I thought it might be an idea to look back at previous inaugurations.
Let’s hope that we get to 20th January without any more of the scenes we saw this week. There may well be drama in Congress as the Democrats attempt a second impeachment, but the last thing anybody needs is more injury or loss of life.
I’m thinking back 12 years to Obama’s inaugural speech. I will never forget it. But that is partly because our hamster Puffball died during it, not just for its inspiring and hopeful qualities.
Then LDV co-editor Stephen Tall said that he came across as the “ultimate pragmatist CEO”:
Was this speech a mesmerising tour de force which will rank among his best? Not for me. But thatâs not a bad thing at all, because what the speech did demonstrate was a sense of uncompromising purpose â and Iâll take that over highfalutin oratory from the most powerful leader in the world. For sure, there was the soaring promise:
The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
But what struck me more was the sense of the ultimate pragmatist CEO, impatient to fix what he sees as broken:
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works â whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the publicâs dollars will be held to account â to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day â because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
I was still learning to love him. Obviously I was delighted that he had been elected, but I have always been a Hillary fan. Somewhere there’s an alternate universe where we are now at the end of Obama’s first term as 45th President with her having been the 44th. That would have been a lot better.
Obama was just starting to inspire me. His inaugural speech certainly made me warm to him more as I wrote on my own blog.
Obamaâs speech still had the idealism and the confidence that we have come to expect from him, but this was tempered with sobering realism and a call to all Americans to give of their best to deal with the unprecedented challenges ahead.
You could actually see George W Bush squirming as his legacy was laid bare in a few well chosen, but very frank words. âOur nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planetâ
There were two phrases that I thought were the signs of the new age. âWe reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.â So itâs goodbye Guantanamo. The poisonous vernacular of the war on terror is replaced with âTo those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.â Well, I loved it.
And if this is true, then bring it on: âTo the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the worldâs resources without regard to effect.â I hope Israel was listening and will be made to think about the way it consumes the resources of the middle east. It would be good if clean waters flowed in Gaza.
Another theme of the speech was personal responsibility, and embracing your duties as a citizen to help the nation succeed. âFor as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighterâs courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parentâs willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.â
The two things I really loved most of all about the speech was the inclusion of non-believers in the list of value systems at one point and the addition of curiosity as one of the âvalues on which our success depends.â I like the willingness to abandon conventions as novel solutions are sought for challenges.
Welcome to another selection of interesting articles from this week’s Sunday papers. It’s been a dramatic week, but we start off with something a bit closer to home:
The Observer has an article about how the huge number of elections due to take place in England could be run:
Measures such as switching to postal votes or extending the time in which ballots can be cast are regarded as logistically impossible in England.However, election officials are looking at simple measures to reduce transmission, including a publicity campaign asking that voters bring their own implement to make their mark.
âVoters can bring their own pen or pencil to vote,â said Craig Westwood, the Electoral Commissionâs director of communications, policy and research. âWhile you can do that in any election, itâs another measure to help keep safe. Voters will be hearing these messages from us, and others, in the weeks leading up to the polls.
âWe are focusing a lot more on the voting options that people will have, including postal and proxy voting, and making sure that polling stations are safe places to vote. Weâre comfortable that local authorities can make them safe, with support from voters in following the advice theyâre given. This will all be similar to what weâre already experiencing in our daily lives, in terms of social distancing, hand sanitiser and masks.â
They ruled out extending the time for voting. It would perhaps be sensible to have the voting over a weekend rather than just a Thursday.
Liberal Democrat guidance is to assume that the elections are going to go ahead in May regardless of any speculation to the contrary. That means that we continue to campaign in Covid-safe ways and if we have to go on for longer, then we’ll be in really good shape to do so.
In the Independent, Jim Moore urges Keir Starmer to look to Stacey Abrams, who has done so much to level the playing field in Georgia where Republican voter suppression had given them so much of an advantage. Her work at making sure people were registered to vote has been credited with both Joe Biden’s victory in the state and those of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to take control of the Senate. Moore argues:
So to Sir Keir. The Tories have been increasingly using the same language adopted by the Republicans when it comes to voting, despite the UKâs Electoral Commission stating in 2019 that there remains no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud.
For the record, there were more than 32 million votes cast in the UK General Election that year, but just 161 cases of fraud reported to the police and only a single conviction.
As in the US, enforcing voter ID in Britain looks very much like a solution in search of a problem that doesnât exist. But if it can swing you a few constituencies â and it might do that because poorer, and younger, voters who are less likely to have ID are typically more likely to vote Labour â then hey, why not.
These are the sorts of things that have been raised time and again by Liberal Democrat MPs and peers. It would be really helpful if Labour got their act together and really started pushing against the Government’s plans which so transparently follow the Republican voter suppression 101.
A distressing interview in the Sunday Mirrorwith a nurse shows the pressure that NHS staff are under. Â She was speaking after four patients she was caring for had died in two days.
Given the pressure on her, it was really worrying to see that when she is not at work, she can’t sleep because of the nightmares she’s having.
She begged people to follow the rules to avoid catching Covid.
Her message to anti-lockdown groups is simple: Get real.
Ameera said: âThey donât have any medical qualifications yet feel itâs OK to make unfounded comments.
âWhen will they realise whatâs really going on? Will it be when they lose someone they love? We can have a day where patients are dying all day long and you are having to quickly wash them and zip up a body bag.
âNone of the people from anti-lockdown groups will ever zip up a body bag in their lives.â Doctors and nurses are risking their lives to treat patients, day in, day out.
Our NHS is under more pressure than it has ever been. As I write, brave nurses, doctors, cleaners, porters, health care assistants are putting in superhuman effort to keep people alive, to comfort them and their families when they can’t and to treat more critically ill people than they have ever had to at the same time before.
And all the time taking the risk that they could be next to be lying there struggling to breathe.
It’s exhausting. And it comes after many of them bust a gut during the first wave. Then they barely stopped to rest before trying to catch up with the routine procedures and tests that they had not been able to do.
After ten months of relentless pressure, many are at breaking point. They are seeing suffering on a scale that they had not imagined.
Every day on my social media, I hear about at least one person who I actually know in real life being admitted to hospital.
As I think of them and hope that they will soon be restored to good health, I think about the stressed health professionals and support staff treating them.
Many of those staff are not UK nationals. Those who aren’t EU citizens with the protections of settled status have the hellscape of our horrendous immigration system to navigate. Every so often, their visas will have to be renewed. That is a hellishly stressful and expensive process.
If you came in to the country on a spouse visa, that will set you back ÂŁ1500. And you’ll have to pay it again to renew it after two and a half years. You also have to pay ÂŁ624 PER YEAR in NHS surcharge.
So, that’s nearly 5 grand for the first five years. Then you can apply for indefinite leave to remain. That will set you back another ÂŁ2400.
We’re at pretty much ÂŁ7,500. On a nurse’s salary? Are you having a laugh? And if you have kids who are not UK nationals, you have to pay for them too.
Right from the start of the pandemic, Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine has been trying to get the Government to give indefinite leave to remain to healthcare staff and their spouses and children.
This week, her Bill is debated reaches its next parliamentary stage. It says:
BE IT ENACTED by the Queenâs most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:â
Indefinite leave to remain
(1) Â An eligible person has indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom.
(2) Â The Secretary must, on request from an eligible person, issue physical documentary proof of that indefinite leave to remain as soon as reasonably practicable.
(3) No fee may be charged for issuing a proof under subsection (2)./ol>
Simple. The right to stay for free for those who have been braving the pandemic, taking that risk, and their families.
Here she is introducing the Bill back in September:
The party has released a campaign video and we can expect more in the next few days:
For years now weâve rolled our eyes around mid morning when Donald Trump woke up and found his phone and Twitter app. “Oh god, what now?” we would groan as we read the latest instalment of populist bile.
This week, entirely predictably, it all got dangerous and people lost their lives. Families are mourning loved ones whose deaths were entirely preventable. And the events which led up to them were highly predictable.
Twitter, who have for years hosted his most outrageous statements without taking action finally lost patience with Trump, permanently banning …
It is certainly going to be some job to get this vaccine rolled out.
My Dad, who has just turned 75, got his first jab this week. It is such a relief. I donât think I will even start to rest easy until my Mum and husband have had theirs, though.
Boris Johnson as good as said in his address announcing a new “March-style” lockdown that we we would have succeeded in beating Covid if it hadn’t been for this pesky new variant. The variant he’s known about for three months and done little to combat. Brazen or what?
Not even 36 hours had passed since his Marr interview yesterday, when he said that parents should send their kids to school today. Now, the decision he should have taken before Christmas has been made.
Ed Davey pointed out these errors of judgement in his reaction to the PM’s statement. He had earlier called for a lockdown, and so the party will be supporting these measures. However, we also want to see better support for those who have so far been excluded from the Government schemes, investment in mental health services and an increase to Carer’s Allowance.
Ed said:
This is the public health policy the Prime Minister should have announced before Christmas, but yet again, Boris Johnson ducked the difficult decisions, failed to listen to experts and acted too late.
Just yesterday morning Johnson was telling parents that schools were safe and children should definitely go. Today he is telling us that they must all move to remote learning but without any proper future plan.
The Prime Ministerâs failure to act earlier means we are seeing record numbers of new infections, a rising death rate, hospitals overwhelmed and NHS and care staff exhausted.
With this new lockdown, Liberal Democrats believe itâs urgent that the Government announce a new comprehensive economic plan for businesses and the self-employed; a plan to increase Carerâs allowance in line with the increases in Universal Credit and must fully take account of the impact of these developments on the mental health of young people and vulnerable individuals who are going through an incredibly difficult time.
All around the world, the evidence is that acting early is critical to minimising damage to the economy and protecting public health. We need a Prime Minister who can act in time, not one who acts when it is too late.
There’s one interesting difference between the PM’s statement and the announcement by Nicola Sturgeon this afternoon.
The first sentence of the Preamble to the Liberal Democrat constitution, oft quoted, sets out the sort of society we want to see:
The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.
No-one – that’s a high bar, and it’s not qualified by national boundaries. Tackling poverty is a central part of what we are about.
In December, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published its third report into destitution in the UK. Updated to include the impact of the pandemic on already high vulnerable people, it makes horrifying reading. Why, in one of the richest countries in the world, do too many people not have the ability to access the basics of food, shelter and clothing? Why do we tolerate it? And what can we do to change things?
Let’s look at some of those conclusions from the JRF Report, which should make every single government minister feel utterly ashamed.
With more than a half (54%) of the whole destitute population being sick or disabled according to our quantitative survey, COVID-19-associated delays in the processing of DLA renewals and PIP claims and appeals had a detrimental effect on the mental health and material wellbeing of people in receipt of or applying for these benefits. The loss of face-to-face contact with health and other services often hit participants with mental health or drug or alcohol problems especially hard, as they felt much less benefit from online or telephone-based support. The difficulties of contacting local authorities on unaffordable telephone lines was a particular problem during lockdown when council offices were closed.
A householdâs ability to manage relationships well through the COVID-19 crisis depended very much on space they had at their disposal. Overcrowding and lack of access to outside space affected many of those we spoke to, and parents who were interviewed reported that the effect of lockdown on their children was overwhelmingly negative. Some participants lived in inadequate or shared forms of accommodation, which made social distancing requirements challenging to fulfil. Several interviewees had paid rent arrears with credit cards to stave off eviction, and others were awaiting eviction once the protection offered by the eviction moratorium had ended.
Some things helped, though. The extra ÂŁ20 per week on Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit, along with increased working hours for some key workers, helped take some people out of destitution. Only into poverty, though, which is just as unacceptable. The removal of conditionality elements for Universal Credit – the suspension of the requirement to prove that you are spending all your time looking for work – had a beneficial impact on stress levels and mental health too. The ban on evictions helped remove the threat of homelessness, although they didn’t stop arrears accumulatingBut these are the things that the Government is stopping.
He said: âMost of the people I know that take heroin and almost all of the ones who have died, have come from childhood trauma. Heroin, drugs and alcohol, are a way for them to deal with that.
âThere needs to be a shift in society from seeing these as deaths of âjunkiesâ to deaths of abused, traumatised kids who turned into adults.
âThatâs why Iâm an advocate of decriminalisation. If you take the criminal element out of it, you take the stigma out of it, take the labelling out of it and recognise that theyâre people who need help.â
This is something Liberal Democrats have been calling for for years and it could become a key issue in the Scottish elections this year. The SNP Government cut drug and alcohol rehab services early on in this term. Although the funding was later reinstated, the consequences in terms of homelessness and deaths were serious.
Support for assisted dying is growing and the election of more progressive MSPs could make it possible to introduce legislation after the next elections, scheduled to take place in May. Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton is quoted in this Scotsman article:
We wouldn’t want to launch a bill unless we were confident that we had the numbers.
But every successive Parliament has a seen a shift towards this to the point that we are at the tipping point into majority. We just need a few more like-minded progressive MSPs to join our ranks.
This is a dignity that we should be affording to Scots at the end of their lives.
Fans of Russell T Davies’ writing will be interested in this article he’s written in the Observer to coincide with his new tv drama, It’s a Sin, about when AIDS first became prevalent in the 1980s, with the heartbreaking impact of not only the disease but the prejudice and stigma which was allowed to grow up around it.
But me? I looked away. Oh, I went on marches and gave a bit of money and said how sad it was, but really, I couldnât quite look at it. This impossible thing. There are boys whose funerals I didnât attend. Letters I didnât write. Parents I didnât see. Late last year, I bumped into the father of a good friend whoâd died in 1992. We chatted, politely, hopelessly, and I flailed around, wondering how to apologise after all this time for not going to the funeral. But then I realised it hardly mattered. No one went. The shame had been so great that they only had 25 people for a lovely, lively lad, dead by 28.
They were comparatively lucky to have had a funeral at all. Back then, there were undertakers who refused to handle the bodies. Crematoriums that turned people away in case their staff were contaminated. Some lonely funerals happened at night, so no one could see.
Families split up by the Home Office’s harsh deportation policy speak to the Observer
In the past few days, I’ve seen accounts of a friend’s relative waiting hours for an emergency ambulance and then spending more than a day in A & E before a bed could be found in a ward.
Just on my social media, I am seeing several people each day testing positive. I’m aware of people having the virus, too, although, thankfully, nobody I know has been seriously ill with it. However, the so called “mild” version is extremely unpleasant.
With all this in mind, you can just imagine the stress that front line health workers must be facing. Exhausted already by the first wave and the race to catch up with the backlog of things that didn’t happen during it, the intensity of the second wave is at times overwhelming for them.
And that’s before any of them catch the virus and have to take time off themselves.
They need reinforcements, so it would help if retired health professionals could take some of the strain, even if it is covering things away from the front line.
But apparently the system makes it difficult for that to happen seamlessly.
We’ve brought you reports from the Commons, the Lords and Holyrood debates on the Brexit trade deal today already.
In Wales, Lib Dem Education Minister Kirsty Williams broke ranks with her Labour colleagues to support an amendment to the government’s own motion which reaffirms the longstanding Liberal Democrat policy to vote against the deal. The amendment which Kirsty specifically voted for stated that she:
Does not support the UK Governmentâs deal and calls on Walesâ representatives in the UK Parliament to vote accordingly.
Labour dodged making a decision on this and abstained. But Wales’ sole Liberal Democrat voice stood up for her convictions,
Ed Davey has announced tonight, in news that will surprise few people, that the Liberal Democrats will be opposing Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal because it fails to deliver on the promises the Brexiteers made to the electorate and it makes the country so much worse off.
It’s not about tariffs. The whole point of being in the single market was not to have to bother with bureaucracy and red tape. Businesses who have been watching these ads saying that things are changing on 1st January (but we have no idea how) are going to find out for the first time in almost 30 years what a pain in the backside it is to have to fill in paperwork to trade with our closest neighbours.
We will no doubt be attacked for our stance as we will be told that the alternative is no deal and we’re against that. However this is going to to through tomorrow whether we like it or not given that most Tories and Labour MPs will vote for it. It is entirely consistent with our approach to Brexit.
There was a coherent case to be made for abstention on the grounds that it was at least better than no deal and it puts distance between us and the ultra nationalists both north and south of the border. Having said that, we’ve spent all my political life fighting off accusations of fence-sitting and being wishy-washy so do we really want to just sit on our hands? I’ve seen other people argue well that we should vote in favour, rather than abstain, for the same reason. However I think it is important that the Brexiteers are made to own this. When it all goes wrong, I don’t want them saying “but you voted for it.” We’ve come too far on our internationalist and open values to suddenly become shields for those who have taken us to this place.
By Caron Lindsay
| Sun 20th December 2020 - 10:23 am
We will be doing our best to take a Christmas break this year. We have all had a tough year, including the LDV team, so we need some down time.
We will be taking a festive break between 23 and 27 December.
Of course, there are things that may crop up that will inspire us to put digital pen to paper. After all, who knows what the situation will be with the Brexit trade deal?
If you are inspired to send us pieces, please do, and we will deal with them from 28th December. Mark Valladares would be delighted to come back to a full inbox.
To be honest, my plans for Christmas have not been changed at all, nor have they been affected by Scotland’s national lockdown. We continue to avoid as much human contact as possible until we can get vaccinated. I am fortunate though, to be able to spend it with people I love and a massive pile of unread books. And an even more massive pile of beautiful new Focus leaflets to deliver, so long as the guidance permits it.
My heart breaks for those who are stuck on their own when they didn’t want to be, who have been trapped by circumstance in the middle of a Tier 4 area or who can’t have the guests that they had hoped. Let’s all look after each other by picking up the phone and making sure our loved ones are ok.
For the second time in 6 weeks, the prelude to Strictly involved the Prime Minister announcing tougher restrictions to deal with a new strain of Coronavirus which, although no more lethal, can spread up to 70% faster.
Much of London and the South East have been put on a much stricter Tier 4 from midnight tonight and the 5 day Christmas bubble is now no longer allowed. Outside of Tier 4 areas, bubbles will be able to see each other on Christmas Day only – but the advice is very much “only if you have to.”
By Caron Lindsay
| Sun 13th December 2020 - 11:48 am
European and British flags.
I hate 13th December. I really, really do.
On this day in 1984, my Grandma died, way too soon, at the age of 64. I still miss her.
And last year, in the early hours, any hope of avoiding Brexit evaporated as Boris Johnson got a majority that could have enabled him to govern with more wisdom and flexibility from the constraints of the reckless extremes of his party. He chose not to take that chance.
On top of it all, we lost Jo. I’m still not over that. She remains one of the most exceptionally talented people I have ever known. She’s proof that the best people don’t always win in politics.
An election once Jo had had the time to establish herself would, I suspect, have had a very different result.
We are where we are though. And it isn’t fun. 2020 has not excelled itself. A couple of bright spots – the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, to be confirmed by the Electoral College tomorrow, the development of effective vaccines against Covid have not lifted the gloom by much.
Now the dreaded 13th December is the day we enter the final stage of the Brexit drama.
Whatever emerges from the EU negotiations over the next hours is going to be far from good. We’re looking at a catastrophic no deal or a damaging fig leaf of a deal that will hurt our businesses and cost people their jobs and homes. Let’s be clear. The Government is choosing this path. It had better options open to it. When we were gripped in the first wave of Covid, they could have done the responsible thing and requested an extension to the transition period. We’d have voted for it, so would the SNP. Labour probably would and the EU would almost certainly have granted it. The more excitable ERG types on the Conservative benches would have made a lot of noise, but we would have bought ourselves some time and stability.
I’ve always thought that the Brexit agenda was mostly about turning our economy into a low regulation, rights-free zone. This is why they are so resistant to any future improvements in things like environmental standards or workers’ rights. They dress it up as sovereignty, but it’s an oligarch’s charter really.
They manipulated people’s feeling of powerlessness with false promises of taking back control. The truth is that those people at the sharp end, the lowest paid and most vulnerable, will have less control than they had before.
There should be no problem with accepting the EU’s reasonable level playing field requirement in the trade deal. I doubt that there will be any major changes within the next few years anyway. These things take time to get through and would take even longer to actually come into force. If there were any changes, we could debate them and decide whether to accept them or take the consequences.
By Caron Lindsay
| Sun 13th December 2020 - 10:35 am
It’s a year today since Munira Wilson was elected as MP for Twickenham. Since then, she has held one of the most stressful roles, as Health Spokesperson, holding the Government to account for its often reckless and chaotic handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Like all other MPs, though, she will have a lot of casework from people who have had the financial rug pulled from under them – owners of small businesses whose activities have been curtailed or stopped altogether during the pandemic. People who run events companies, creative industry freelancers such as make-up artists are just some examples of those who simply have had no income and no support since March. Then they were struggling. Now they are desperate.
Lib Dems have led the fight for support for this group. Jamie Stone set up an all-Party Parliamentary Group and our MPs have repeatedly pressed the Government to do more.
This week, Munira led a parliamentary debate to highlight the plight of those 3 million people who have been excluded from the Government’s support schemes:
"Debt is rising. Rachel from the SE says:
'I am selling my house, cannot get a mortgage, selling my personal belongings just to put food on the table. Never been so scared. Iâm also a single parent & itâs heart-breaking telling my daughter Santa canât afford much this year.'" pic.twitter.com/Mg2BACIs2k
In her opening speech, Munira highlighted the impact the Government’s failure to provide support has had:
There has, at times, been a suggestion that some of the excluded are highly paid and dodging tax in some way, especially those paid via dividends. My constituent, Fraser Wilkin, who runs a travel company in Twickenham, pays himself by dividends because of the huge fluctuation in annual income due to events outside his control, such as the coronavirus. If he had drawn a regular salary through the year, he would have been unable to fulfil his statutory and contractual obligations to his clients, in terms of prompt refunds when their holidays were cancelled due to the pandemic.
Universal credit is cited as the fall-back. A survey of more than 3,000 individuals found that almost three quarters were unable to access universal credit. Let us face it: we all know that universal credit is not meaningful support. Otherwise, the Government would not have felt the need to create the furlough scheme or the self-employed income support scheme.
We know that the mental health impacts on many of those excluded from support have been stark. There have already been eight reported suicides, and one respondent to the House of Commons digital engagement team said that she almost took her life several times, and one week spent every day in contact with the Samaritans.
âWhy should we have to move everywhere and everything because of him?â
That question is on the front of Change, Justice, Fairness, a Scottish Womenâs Aid community research project into homelessness caused by domestic abuse in Fife.
Too often, the trauma suffered by victims of domestic abuse is exacerbated when they are forced to leave their homes, often with their children. It is not acceptable that they should be forced into this situation.
It is unlikely that the event that led to them seeking help was the first incident. Safe Lives suggest that someone will endure 50 incidents of abuse or violence before getting effective help.
So you have very vulnerable, traumatised individuals, the vast majority of whom are women, having to declare themselves as homeless. That means that they are put in temporary accommodation, perhaps for short periods into bed and breakfast accommodation with no cooking facilities, where they donât have the comfort of having their own things around them, the children donât have their toys. They are perhaps in an unfamiliar area away from their support networks. They could get moved at any time to different temporary accommodation. That instability and insecurity piling even more distress on to them.
Those who arenât married and arenât named on the tenancy face a lengthy and complicated battle to gain occupancy rights if they wish to stay in their home.
The process of transferring a tenancy can also take time, during which the victim can be homeless. This needs to be sorted with greater speed. The Scottish Government needs to produce guidance that strengthens the rights of the victim to prevent them going down the stressful homeless route.
This is why I persuaded the Scottish Liberal Democrats to pass policy calling for better support for housing for victims of domestic abuse. In a very moving debate, members shared their own experiences.
We call on the Scottish Government to do more to ensure that they have the right to stay in their own home if they wish to do so. If they are to be moved, that should be done in a planned way. We recognise that the statutory homeless route is not appropriate for families who are suffering the effects of abuse.
I was surprised to learn that not all social housing providers have stand alone domestic abuse policies so we call on housing associations to do more to support people in this situation
The Womenâs Aid research identified serious flaws in the way victims were treated. Women described how they had to talk about what had happened to them in an open plan office.
A third of the staff who dealt with disclosures of abuse said that they had not had any training.
Particularly troubling was the fact that the majority of service providers didnât have any idea that the moment of leaving an abusive partner was the most dangerous for the victim.
I’ve been catching up with some of the candidates in next year’s key elections to find out about their campaigns, what brought them into politics and how you can help them.
We head north h first to speak to the brilliant Molly Nolan, the Scottish Parliament candidate for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross.
Winter has hit this week, the best case scenario on future trade with the EU is that our Government is going to agree to something that destroys the beautiful castle we have become used to and leaves just a rickety drawbridge over a shark infested moat and 25000 jobs are to be lost with the collapse of just two retail giants. It’s been a grim few days and we know there’s worse to come in this most anxious of Decembers.
Across the country people are trying to cheer themselves up. Christmas lights have been going up here since mid November in an attempt to brighten the gloom.
Something guaranteed to bring a smile is LIb Dem MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross reads a story on Twitter to the primary 4 (Green) class of Noss Primary School in Wick. Enjoy.
During lockdown, I was sent some lovely poems by Class Four Green in Noss Primary School in Wick.
They really cheered me and my team up during a difficult time.
To say thank you, Iâm sending this delightful storybook about a runaway pea to Class Four Green.
You can imagine how much I enjoyed writing Cllr Liz Barrett in the ehadline. I am still ridiculously excited about Cllr Barrett’s victory in the Parth City South by-election on
Liz is the second person in her household to be elected a Councillor. Her husband Peter has represented Perth City Centre ward since 2003. We will let him away with getting Liz’s ward wrong in his tweet.
Liz has written an email to party members about how she won:
Subject: Hereâs how I WON in Perth South
Three years ago I missed out on becoming Perth City South Councillor in a by-election, but last Thursday I WON! We came from third place, beat the Tories, and took a seat off the SNP.
 Itâs no secret the last few years have been tough for our party. Couple that with a global pandemic and associated restrictions, itâs easy to get caught up in a campaigning black hole.
 But, I can tell you, working hard locally really does put you in pole position to reap the rewards.Â
 We have been campaigning non-stop through surveys, petitions, street letters and regular Focus leaflets ever since I lost that day three years ago. Since lockdown, weâve been sending e-news to over 350 residents, and growing.
 In July, we stole a march on both the Conservatives and SNP by getting two leaflets out in quick succession after deliveries were authorised by the Party. Â
 We also knew we had to get our message across the doorsteps in person, so, when rules have allowed, a team of us have been out pounding the pavements, talking to residents and hearing their concerns.Â
This weekend, ALDC’s Kickstart event is taking place online. Hundreds of LIb Dems have been taking part in panel discussions and training sessions. There are separate streams for councillors and campaigners, future campaign leaders and leaflet designers. Â I have never actually been to a UK wide Kickstart event so it’s fantastic to be able to take part virtually in this one.
I have been there as a volunteer helping to deliver a training session (on good photos, used well) and to mentor a small group.
There has been training for agents, organisers and campaigners on everything from the finer points of electoral law to writing good copy for your leaflets and building your teams. Â There were two slots of 8 simultaneous training sessions, an opening plenary session with Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper and a choice of two keynote speeches at lunchtime. And there is much the same tomorrow. And that’s not counting the 45 separate mentor groups and the panels for Councillors.
I understand that both of today’s keynote speeches have been recorded. My highlight of the day was Alliance Party Leader and Northern Irish Justice Minister Naomi Long. Her knights on politics and campaigning were fascinating – so grounded in making things better for people. She described how John Alderdice sorting out a problem for her when she was a student left a lasting impression and led to her joining Alliance and then standing for elected office. Her focus on being honest with voters and not trying to equivocate on issues that matter was for me really important. It is well worth listening to if you get the chance.
The other keynote panel event was with  former Lib Dem MEPs.
The amount of organisation that has gone into this event is huge. With over 1000 people expected to attend, spreadsheet Queen Abi Bell had organised every tiny detail and made sure that everyone had the right information to get to where in the ALDC Zoomiverse they needed to be.
This was ALDC’s back office where a tech team made sure that we didn’t break Zoom:
Peter Davies @Rob Heale: You can't really end poverty through taxation unless your tax system unless you include rebates for those without enough income to pay tax. That's k...
Alex Macfie Take on Big Tech â properly. Not with user bans and age verification. Not only are these shockingly paternalistic and illiberal, but they wil...
Rob Heale The boldest option would be to adhere to our aims set out in the Party Constitution to be free from poverty. People living in poverty can rarely be free because...
Chris Moore Battling on against the current with scarce means or attention from the media.
Excellent radical liberal focussing on the issues that really matter.
An...
Adam 4,700 Jewish soldiers fought for the Prussian army in the Franco Prussian war. They fought with distinction - many of them received the Iron Cross. When Germany...
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More ministerial dissent over Labour's immigration policies
Jane Dodds stands down as Welsh Lib Dem leader
The straight and narrow path to Marzipan Tunnel
Peter Davies 
Alex Macfie 
Rob Heale 
Chris Moore 
Adam 