What could I talk about for 30 minutes with no prep
The energetic election campaigns of @joswinson What Doctor Who means to me – in fact I could easily do half an hour on Sarah Jane Smith My springer spaniel, Hazel Delia vs Nigella Brooklyn Nine Nine@miss_s_b being awesome https://t.co/yflW1Xq9DO
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇪🇺 (@caronmlindsay) May 9, 2019
Though I could add in things that Alex Cole-Hamilton has said that made me laugh, the amazing brilliance of the Lib Dems in coalition…. in Scotland 1999-2007, fighting Labour in Chesterfield 1992-2000, Willie Rennie, farm animals and all.
I thought about adding in “Amazing Women in the Lib Dems” but I only have 30 minutes, not 30 days. And if you added in awesome women from other parties – Kezia Dugdale, Alison Thewliss, Caroline Lucas, Stella Creasy and Harriet Harman just for starters – then the whole enterprise would take a lot longer.
And my god I want to her Jennie do 30 minutes on Tom and Jerry. Can we please start crowdfunding for the fringe meeting at Bournemouth now?
This morning, my family’s postal votes arrived. I’ve had a postal vote ever since I didn’t vote in the 1997 election because I was too busy helping in a target seat. I suspect Mrs Pankhurst would have approved, but I was determined that I would never again fail to have my say.
Never has that vote felt more precious. I want this country to say very clearly on 23 May that we want to stop Brexit, that we want to stay part of the remarkable institution which champions peace, human rights and democracy.
Many other postal votes will have landed on doormats today. So it’s pretty convenient that the Lib Dems kicked off their European campaign with a staggering display of both passion and competence.
Buoyed by strong results in last week’s local council elections, and unencumbered by the nuance of Labour’s position, Cable insisted the Lib Dems were the best-equipped party to challenge the message of Nigel Farage at the poll later this month.
“We are clearly the best organised, we have been leading the People’s Vote argument for three years and we’ve been the pro-Europe party for 50 years. We are credible and people recognise our unwavering clarity and commitment.
“We are taking it very seriously, we have a high-pressure social media campaign where we are doing more than Farage’s people,” he said, adding, “we are out of the traps early, and expect to do well.
And he outlined why we are the best place to deliver the maximum remain vote.
He has faced criticism for failing to make the media impact of his predecessor, or improve the Lib Dems’ poll ratings. But he hailed last week’s strong local election results as evidence that a steady approach of rebuilding the party from the bottom up is finally paying dividends.
“Infrastructure and organisation really does matter,” he said. “The lesson for other parties is you can’t function without that. There is no future sitting in London sending out messages.”
The manifesto launch tonight was brilliant. Four speeches. All passionate and delivered with heart. Sal Brinton talking about how the Lib Dems had stopped the Tories using Brexit legislation to undermine the NHS.
Ed Davey talking about the importance of stopping Brexit so that Britain can be a powerful force in the EU in the fight against climate change. I actually got a bit sad when he was speaking because he did so much to combat climate change in government and then the Conservatives, left to themselves, have unravelled so much of it.
He also spoke about the importance of co-operation across the EU to tackle crime. Why, he said, do Brexiteers like criminals so much.
Jo Swinson gave a totally heartfelt speech about a visit to Bucharest. Her wonderful dad, Peter, was there to help the Romanians prepare for EU membership. She told how he had taken her to the People’s House, an outrageous structure built as a vanity project by Romania’s dictator while so many of his people lived in destitution and absolute poverty. She talked about the role of the EU in bringing peace across Europe, in Northern Ireland, bringing former enemies together.
The EU has been at the forefront of promoting human rights, liberal values and democracy, she said. The EU is the hope that made once warring countries work together and which is the cornerstone of the Good Friday Agreement. In a time of “strong men” leaders, now is not the time to be turning our back on European leaders who share our liberal values.
There are more relaxing ways to spend your 76th birthday. I thought Vince was actually going to cry when the audience sang Happy Birthday to him, but he went on to deliver a fantastic speech highlighting the clear Stop Brexit message that is driving the Lib Dem campaign. He said that nobody, not even the most ardent Brexiteers, were doubting that we would be worse off if we left the EU. The only thing is that these Brexiteers weren’t going to be the people who paid the price. It would be people much poorer and more vulnerable than they were.
The Lib Dems, he said, will be unapologetic about backing the four freedoms. The right we have to work and live across Europe was championed by Mrs Thatcher. The current Conservative Party has moved so far to the right that they are disowning the single market Thatcher created.
He said that while the Lib Dems will campaign to stop Brexit, this election is about returning a group of Liberal politicians from across Europe who will lead the fight against populism.
He highlighted the crucial EU role in making the likes of Google pay their taxes.
We won’t solve the Trump problem, he said, by grovelling to him and throwing him lavish state visits, but by standing up to him as part of the EU.
He set out our unique pitch – as the biggest and best organised of the Remain parties who has been fighting for for EU values for 50 years.
The very first line of the Liberal Democrats’ European election manifesto says exactly what we want to do:
Every vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to stop Brexit and stay in the European Union.
For the first time in a long time, we are off the leash. We are fighting an election saying exactly what we want and not dressing it up in nuance and equivocation.
We’ll look at each section of the manifesto in more detail over the next few days. It looks at what our MEPs will do if we succeed in stopping Brexit. Which is a good idea, because if we do manage to stop this nonsense, we’ll need to get a lot better at communicating what they are doing and how that benefits all of us.
The introductory section packs a punch, setting out our internationalist values:
The Liberal Democrats’ vision for Britain is a country that has remained at the heartof a dynamic European Union. A country where everyone can afford somewhere tolive, in a safe, clean and friendly neighbourhood. A country where high-quality health and social care, good-quality childcare, lifelong education, reliable transport and clean air are all part of a contract between government and citizens. A country with a new politics – taking on entrenched power and privilege and delivering a fair deal for everyone.
I like the use of the word friendly, there. It’s a very warm, active word. It conjures up images of people talking to each other, helping each other out, of kindness. It’s a powerful concept and so much better than the horrible politics of “it’s their fault you haven’t got.”
Turning to the Government and official opposition, the manifesto does not mince its words:
Theresa May doesn’t care about Remainers – and doesn’t care about those who voted leave either. For almost three years she has been obsessed with trying to buyoff the right wing of the Conservative party…
…The deal she has put on the table shows just how damaging and costly Brexit will be, in contrast to the lies peddled by the Leave campaign. It is also clear that many of the reasons driving people to vote leave – worries about funding of the health service, anger at rising inequalities across the country, the feeling of being left behind – will not be solved by Brexit; indeed, they will all be worsened.
The Conservatives have spent half a decade trying to please UKIP and Nigel Farage. Jeremy Corbyn has his own Brexit vision: instead of opposing it, he wants to deliver it. The fact is that whether Labour Red or Tory Blue, Brexit is bad for the UK.
The manifesto goes on to set out what would happen if we did manage to stop Brexit. It includes calls for Europe to adopt a net zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050, for an emergency £7.5 billion Support Fund for those affected by Brexit uncertainty and the extensions of rights for EU citizens in the UK including the ability to stand and vote in elections.
Coming to a Lib Dem risograph near you very soon, I would imagine.
Seriously, Labour’s shadow international trade minister told Tory James Cleverly ON LIVE TV that “We are in there trying to bail you guys out” on Brexit.
.@BarryGardiner admission on BBC1 that @UKLabour are trying to bail the Tories out to deliver Brexit will go down like a lead balloon with Labour voters… looks like we are seeing that tonight #LocalElections2019
You could not make it up. No wonder reports from the talks earlier this week made them sound like a love in. And here is the moment where he actually says it:
Welcome to the 1300 people who have joined the Liberal Democrats in the last day or so since our local election gains surpassed all our expectations.
It’s actually been really heartwarming to wake up every morning for the last few weeks and see a whole rush of “I just joined the Lib Dems” posts on Twitter.
Every so often I roll out this post, which is basically a rehash of an article that I first wrote in May 2015 when many joined the party in the wake of the General Election result. I thought it might be useful to tell you a little bit about how our party works and give you a bit of an idea of the opportunities open to you. If you are not yet a member, if you like what you read, sign up here.
What do we believe?
Before we get into the nitty gritty of organisation, the best statement of who we are and what we’re about can be found in the Preamble to our Constitution which underlines how we believe in freedom, opportunity, diversity, decentralisation and internationalism. Here’s a snippet:
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. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.
We look forward to a world in which all people share the same basic rights, in which they live together in peace and in which their different cultures will be able to develop freely. We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms. Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject allprejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.
We have a fierce respect for individuality, with no expectation that fellow Liberal Democrats will agree with us on every issue. We expect our views to be challenged and feel free to challenge others without rancour. We can have a robust debate and head to the pub afterwards, the very best of friends.
Obviously, our priority at the moment is to stop Brexit, but there is so much more to us than that. That bit about no-one being enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity shapes everything that we do.
It’s 40 years today since Margaret Thatcher walked into Downing Street as Prime Minister.
There was an 11 year old girl in Inverness who was really excited by this – especially by the notion that a woman could become Prime Minister was a very powerful one.
Ten years ago, for the 30th anniversary, I wrote this post describing my shame. I suppose, in my defence, I have spent most of my time since fighting the forces of small state, selfish conservatism.
I’m ashamed to admit it, but thirty years ago tonight, I, a fairly innocent 11 year old, went to bed and prayed for Mrs Thatcher to win the 1979 election.
I really didn’t understand much about politics then – the geekery and obsession didn’t take hold until about a year and a half later, when I had had enough time to rue my earlier enthusiasm. I did know that I wasn’t keen on Labour – there seemed to be nothing but strikes, and my dad hadn’t had a properly stable job for a good couple of years. My parents and Grandma were all enthusiastic Tories and it seemed that life would get better with a new Government.
I quite liked the Liberal Party. The MP for Inverness, Russell Johnston, seemed to me to be a good man and the fact that a primary school child like me knew who he was was quite positive. He was also in favour of home rule for Scotland, which I always thought was a good thing. However, my staunch Catholic grandfather had told me time and time again, from the moment David Steel became Liberal leader, that he didn’t want babies to be born, so he had the same appeal for me as the Daleks. I literally would watch him on tv from behind a cushion. When I grew up and understood the issues involved, he became a lot less scary, but I actually thought he would pass a law forbidding people to have babies. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous, but in my defence, I had heard that in China you were only allowed to have one child, and I was only 11.
There are two elements of the BBC’s coverage of the local elections that are simply ridiculous and need to be complained about.
The first is their oft expressed line that the message the voters were giving to the Conservative and Labour parties is that they wanted them to get on with Brexit.
So that would be why they voted in huge numbers for the party whose aim is to stop Brexit, then, is it?
The Liberal Democrats gained over 700 seats, a spectacular feat by any standards. We put in our best ever performance in terms of seat gain in a local election. The message is clear – a significant proportion of the electorate want this Brexit nonsense to be stopped.
There was a moment that I feared that we would end up gaining 666 councillors.
It happened.
Briefly.
But it quickly passed.
And the final total topped 700.
The Tories briefed the papers last weekend that they could lose 1000 seats. This, we all thought, was expectation management. We thought that our own 500 gains briefing to the press was about as good as it could get. And we were wildly pessimistic in the end.
I was thrilled to see my old mate and former Chesterfield Lib Dem MP Paul Holmes re-elected to the Council. And regular Lib Dem Voice contributor Ed Fordham elected as Councillor for Brockwell along with two ward colleagues.
Moor ward in that town has a history of close elections. I remember missing out on winning a seat from Labour in a by-election there in about 1994 by 17ish votes.
Look at how close we were to 9 gains there:
It’s a long time since we had a night like this.
But let’s just enjoy it as a stage on the journey. It’s not the end in itself. We need all Remainers to swing behind us on May 23rd to send a very clear message that Brexit can and must be stopped.
Coming to a Lib Dem risograph near you very soon, I would imagine.
Seriously, Labour’s shadow international trade minister told Tory James Cleverly ON LIVE TV that “We are in there trying to bail you guys out” on Brexit.
.@BarryGardiner admission on BBC1 that @UKLabour are trying to bail the Tories out to deliver Brexit will go down like a lead balloon with Labour voters… looks like we are seeing that tonight #LocalElections2019
You could not make it up. No wonder reports from the talks earlier this week made them sound like a love in. And here is the moment where he actually says it:
Four years ago, I was utterly heartbroken at this time in the morning. Not only had we lost almost all our MPs, but we’d suffered heavy losses in the council election.
Today, after spending most of yesterday in a darkened room whimpering in pain, I wake to absolutely brilliant results. Already we are up (at the time of writing) 271 councillors and most of the results aren’t in yet.
It’s not surprising that Ed Davey described the results on BBC Breakfast as the best local elections for the Lib Dems in a generation.
Some more of the highlights:
We seem to have surprised the BBC’s political editor:
— Wera Hobhouse MP 🔶 🇺🇦 (@Wera_Hobhouse) May 3, 2019
Yvette Cooper’s backyard now contains Liberal Democrat Councillor Tom Gordon stormed to victory from a standing start in his home ward after moving down from Newcastle.
Here are the results in full and my latest interview with BBC Radio Leeds will be up at some point tomorrow I believe! pic.twitter.com/hrHTVdxTGI
Three times the vote of the Labour Party. 9 times the vote of the Conservatives and Greens. And all that in just a few months’ spirited and energetic campaigning.
His former colleagues in Newcastle were delighted.
We knew Tom was good, and we were sorry a new job forced him to move away, but Manor Park's loss is definitely Knottingley's gain! He has pulled off an electoral sensation in a matter of weeks! https://t.co/IcR95LnXe8
— Manor Park Lib Dems 🔶 (@ManorParkLD) May 3, 2019
And here is Councillor Gordon:
Chelmsford’s result was simply outstanding – from 5 councillors to 31 and the Conservatives falling from 52 seats to just 21.
I have never been more glad to be proved wrong as far as Hinckley and Bosworth were concerned. They thought they might pull off overall control, but I thought that was a tiny bit ambitious, even with their ace team which has been honed to perfection over the years by former Lib Dem MP for Chesterfield, Paul Holmes. But they did it. It’s a fantastic result for Michael Mullaney and the team there.
As this post goes live, indefatigable Liberal Democrats the length of England will have been up for hours delivering last minute leaflets in the local elections.
They have a tough day of more leafletting and knocking up (which is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds) ahead of them.
One of the best smells in the world is the breakfast roll cooking when you come in from your good morning leaflets.
But after that, there’s still a good 12 hours of work left.
And usually after the local elections, you can put your feet up for a week or so. Well, that didn’t happen in 2017 because some woman had a rush of blood to the head on a walking holiday in Wales and called a general election. It’s not going to happen now either because of the impending European elections.
The polling day operation is a crucial part of the campaign. Voters in local elections aren’t always inclined to go to the polls – the turnout is usually pretty small compared to a general election. Getting more of ours out than the opposition gets of theirs is crucial.
However tired you may feel, hold on to the idea of how brilliant it will feel if we win these elections. It will give us huge momentum going in to the Euros.
Keep going up until 10pm tonight. I’ll be on the phones for candidates across the country this evening.
Special good luck to our regular contributor Ed Fordham who is seeking elected office for himself for a change in the Brockwell ward in Chesterfield, to the North Devon team led by our Kirsten Johnson, to April Preston in Manchester Withington and Tom Gordon in Wakefield’s Knottingley and Ferrybridge ward.
April has the support of Jo Swinson in this video recorded a couple of months ago.
Yesterday’s news that victims of rape and sexual assault in England and Wales are among those who could be required to hand over their phones for scrutiny as a precondition for getting justice is a very worrying development.
It is hardly going to encourage people to come forward if they have to allow Police to trawl through their entire public and private social media and many will fear that material which is entirely unrelated to the offence could be used in evidence. You also need to take into consideration that messages sent could be used to imply consent that simply was not there at the time the offence was committed.
Victims fear that giving defence lawyers access to their data will simply mean that they will face the sort of character assassinations in court that women who dared to wear short skirts in public used to get.
There is nothing about a person’s clothing or behaviour that ever justifies rape. End of.
What has been interesting is that many of the usual media suspects have published articles opposing this policy.
An anonymous writer int he Guardian describe her experience.
Nine years ago, I blogged about the awful gendered marketing of children’s fancy dress outfits by the Early Learning Centre. At that time, they did doctors’ outfits for boys and nurses’ outfits for girls.
Almost a decade further on, it’s frankly not much better. Try searching fancy dress for girls and boys. Boys get the superhero stuff – very active and history changing. Girls get mostly pretty dresses and uncomfortable and impractical shoes. Have you ever tried climbing a tree in a Belle costume? It’s not easy. The more recent Disney Princesses have a bit more agency than they used to, but the Early Learning Centre seems to still concentrate on the ones with long dresses.
A poll carried out by the Fawcett Society shows that I’m not alone in my concerns. It found ‘widespread concern’ about ‘pink for girls, blue for boys’ advertising by manufacturers and retailers.
63% of mothers and 60% of fathers agreed that product marketing reinforces gender stereotypes. Fawcett says these misgivings are not limited to parents, ‘as over half of men and women who do not have children also agreed’.
Earlier this year, Christine Jardine brought in a bill to prohibit the differential pricing of products and services that are substantially similar other than being intended for, or marketed to, a particular gender. She expressed her concern about gender stereotyping in marketing.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 547th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (21-27 April, 2019), together with a hand-picked seven from the last two weeks you might otherwise have missed.
Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.
As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:
Just after Jo was on Marr this morning, Vince popped up on Pienaar’s Politics.
He used the opportunity to say, unsurprisingly, that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote to stop Brexit. Finally, we have a slogan that means something and is in keeping with the zeitgeist. Once we are all sick to the back teeth of hearing it, it will just be starting to cut through to the general public, so prepare to hear it a great deal.
In fact, if any Lib Dem fails to say that within 5 seconds of opening their mouth at the moment, they are not doing their jobs properly.
It was the main theme of our launch the other day – and the New Statesman even described that event as “slick.” It’s a long time since anything we did has been called that.
Vince added that with our campaign infrastructure and momentum from the local elections, we have a big advantage over Change UK.
On that Change UK memo earlier in the week in which they set out their mission to crush us, he said that we have good working relations with them at informal levels, but he reckons that they will see the advantage of working together when they hit the realities of our electoral system.
As that New Statesman article said:
It (the timing of the Change UK launch in Bristol on a day Parliament was sitting) demonstrates one of the implicit arguments that the Liberal Democrats will make as to why they are the best vehicle for Remainer outrage – because they have the know-how and experience to actually get MEPs elected and to make a splash in a way that Change UK do not.
But they also have another ace in the hole – the looming local elections this Thursday. These were seats last contested in 2015, a disastrous night for the Liberal Democrats on which they lost 51 MPs; but more importantly for our purposes they also lost 658 councillors and control of four councils.
They are not going to make those losses up overnight: the difficulty minor parties have is what takes years of work to acquire can be lost in the time it takes to say “rose garden”. But frankly they will be doing pretty poorly if they can’t at least make enough of those losses back that they won’t be able to declare themselves the winners of the local elections and the most well-placed pro-Remain party to give the big two a fright.
Now the Labour-supporting New Statesman is hardly likely to want to up the prospects of Change UK, but even taking that into consideration, they’ve added weight to the point that Vince was making about our expertise and experience making us better placed for success.
Vince also told Pienaar that his decision on whether to stand again for his Twickenham seat would depend on when the General Election was. If it was on its scheduled timetable for 2022, he wouldn’t fight the seat again. If he did, he’d be 84 at the end of that Parliament.
She also said that it was a shame that pro Remain parties weren’t voting together in the European elections, but she emphasised that they would continue to work together in Parliament for a People’s Vote to ensure we could stay in the EU.
Jo faced some challenging questions from Mishal Hussein. The very first one was about austerity and its effect on local government and how that squared with our local elections campaign.
Jo answered that one as well as she could, pointing out the effectiveness of Liberal Democrat councils and councillors in delivering for their communities but acknowledging the cuts and the economic crisis at the time when the Coalition Government came to power and highlighting how much worse the Conservatives got when we left Government.
While I was away, I kept my eye on what was going on in the world. It was good for me to have a few days when I didn’t even open my laptop to write about it, though.
But now I’m back, I want to highlight some of this week’s key events.
One which caught my eye was the launch of the More United MPs’ Network. From Politics Home:
The group said MPs in the newly-established network will lead campaigns on issues such as poverty and homelessness, responsible technology, mental health and climate change.
The campaign has vowed to capitalise on the “clear appetite” of the public to use online petitions, and has vowed to attract more than 250,000 members, including 100 MPs by next year.
Those who lead and support More United campaigns will also be eligible for money raised by the wider campaign at general elections – with almost £500,000 given out to supportive candidates via crowdfunding in 2017.
Conservative former minister Nicky Morgan and Labour’s David Lammy are among the group, which also includes figures from the SNP, Change UK, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens’ Caroline Lucas.
More United CEO Bess Mayhew said: “People see cross-party working as a proxy for trust in politics. When polling shows that only three out of ten people believe they can make a difference by getting involved in politics something has to change.
“By uniting MPs who can find common ground on divisive issues we want to show there is a way to move Britain forward and work together to build a fair and thriving country.”
I am now back from my blissful trip to the Highlands. Yesterday morning I woke up to this amazing view. We had enjoyed a week of mostly sunshine and some really hot days. Nine hours after this photo was taken, we were heading home in temperatures struggling to reach double figures and driving rain.
While I was away, I went out canvassing with our top of the list in Scotland Euro candidate Sheila Ritchie in Inverness. It’s great to be welcomed on to doorsteps again. Our message that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote to stop Brexit went down exceptionally well. Labour remainers were annoyed with their own party’s ambiguous stance on Brexit and were willing to lend us their votes for this election.
This is consistent with what others are finding across the country. Conservative remainers are exasperated with the failings of their party and are switching to us.
The prospect of another, imminent independence referendum is also making some SNP leaning voters think again about backing that party.
If there was ever an election worth throwing extra effort at, this is it. We can change the direction of our country and we should all be out there as often as we can over the next month.
Let’s get behind our brilliant candidates and make this a campaign to remember. If you haven’t been canvassing since the coalition years, get out there. You will notice a big difference.
Our prospects in the European elections will be improved by a good showing in the local elections on Thursday. We need to show that momentum so if you are in an area that doesn’t have elections, please go to somewhere that does or do some phone canvassing in the next few days or knocking up on polling day.
Getting lots more Lib Dem councillors is a good end in itself, but this year we have the added incentive of putting a stop to Brexit and establishing ourselves as the best option for remainers to vote for on May 23rd.
Let’s get to it.
But while you are having your breakfast, have a bit of fun with this Brexit quiz. We went to a pub quiz in Fortrose on Thursday night and were languishing in a pretty poor last place until the final round. That round was one of these where you can get loads of bonus points if you can predict how many questions you will get right. And if you don’t meet your target, you end up losing half your score.
The subject was Brexit in people and numbers which was a bit more up my street than Michael Caine movies and tv crime dramas which had led to our last place predicament.
We stormed from last to fourth. It turns out we could have gambled more and come third.
How many of these questions would you get right? No cheating – you are not allowed to use the internet to help you.
I have to confess that until all the headlines about Diane Abbott yesterday, I had no idea that the relatively innocent act of sipping a Mojito on a tube train was illegal, thanks to measures brought in by Boris Johnson when he was Mayor of London.
But my main reaction to this spectacular non-event was to wonder what on earth the world has come to when sipping that Mojito is worthy of a public apology and acres of virtual and actual newsprint when lying and cheating your way to a narrow referendum victory is not.
March 29th was the day when we were scheduled to leave the EU. I wake up every day grateful that I am still an EU citizen and am hopeful that I will always remain so. Leaving would break my heart. I can only imagine how it would have felt on March 29th if we were leaving to know that Vote Leave had dropped their appeal against a fine imposed by the Electoral Commission.
The BBC reported:
An Electoral Commission spokesman said: “Vote Leave has today withdrawn its appeal and related proceedings against the Electoral Commission’s finding of multiple offences under electoral law, committed during the 2016 EU referendum campaign.
“Vote Leave was the designated lead campaigner for the leave outcome at the referendum.
“We found that it broke the electoral rules set out by Parliament to ensure fairness, confidence and legitimacy at an electoral event. Serious offences such as these undermine public confidence in our system and it is vital, therefore, that they are properly investigated and sanctioned.
“We have been advised that Vote Leave has paid its £61,000 fine and look forward to receiving the sum in full.”
The fact that Vote Leave cheated has achieved remarkably little traction. This is something that could easily have affected the legitimacy of the referendum result. We are still poised on the brink of taking a regressive and harmful step on the basis of a result obtained by cheating.
Yesterday Ed Davey gave a really open and moving interview to Radio 5 live about how he was a young carer to his mother for 3 years before she died when he was 15. His dad had died when he was 4. He talked about the key moment of his life, coming a few months after his Mum died, realising that he was doing things for himself and not her any more.
He said that it has affected his attitude to politics – caring for the most vulnerable is what politics should be about, he said.
He said it informed the way he thought about other people and about the health service and the importance of helping each other. Curries from the Indian family across the road gave him and his family practical help during that time. Watch here.
Well, I suppose they might have been that day when they made their protest in the Commons chamber. It was a visible reminder that we are preoccupying ourselves with Brexit when the entire future of our planet is in doubt. And it was quite funny watching MPs trying to maintain their composure and keep their faces straight.
But the recent spate of protests by the climate change campaigners are doing their cause more harm than good. Ok, so they get attention, but what on earth is the point of gluing themselves to trains, for goodness sake?
I thought public transport was a good thing. Obstructing it, potentially making low paid people with not much power in their workplaces late, is neither big nor clever.
And holding up the traffic might grab headlines but it doesn’t do much for air quality in the vicinity.
The powerful message of children walking out of school to tell us to secure their future is so much more persuasive.
People’s homes are off limits for this kind of stuff, whether there are politicians or heads of companies. If you want to protest go to their public offices. Nobody’s family should have to feel like they are under siege.
The Clegg family was not home – but what if they had been? What about their neighbours? Whatever you might think about Government decisions, politicians’ partners and children should not have had their lives disrupted.
Imagine if they had been home when these 400 people descended? The children are 10, 8 and 3. To a 3 year old, people outside having a go at your daddy, however nice they think they’re being, could be really scary, the stuff of weeks of nightmares.
Now, note that I am not saying that such protests should be illegal, but with rights come responsibilities. UK Uncut have done their cause no good whatsoever this weekend – and that’s a shame because when it comes to some of the welfare reform cuts, as you know, I agree with them.
UK Uncut will have had to have distributed Nick Clegg’s private address to a fairly large number of people, for a start, the 400 there and anyone they tell. How can they guarantee the conduct of every single person who would turn up. It was ok this time, but at some point, if this continues, someone will turn up with malevolent intent.
And that was before an MP was murdered. In the current, febrile climate, when you have emboldened fascists taking to the streets, going to politicians’ homes is not a good look.
There seems to be some horror in the right wing press that a teenage girl is likely to get help to challenge the decision to take away her British citizenship.
At the time Sajid Javid made his decision, Lib Dem Home Affairs Spokesperson Ed Davey said:
Membership of a terrorist group is a serious crime, as is encouraging or supporting terrorism. But Shamima Begum should face justice for those crimes in the UK.
It is not only hard to see Ms Begum and her baby as constituting a serious threat to national security, but it also seems a huge wasted opportunity. We can learn lessons as to why a young girl went to Syria in the first place; lessons which could improve Britain’s security by helping us prevent this happening again.
The decision to deprive her of her citizenship, potentially rendering her stateless, was shameful.
At Scottish Conference, Jo Swinson said:
And while we’re on the subject of the depths Tories will stoop to. Shame on you Sajid Javid for your decision on Shamima Begum, throwing human rights out the window to further your career.
The decision to strip someone of their citizenship should never be in the hands of a Minister.And it’s in the hands of Ministers like him that our country’s future rests.
It is a fundamental principle of liberalism that decisions made by the state should be open to challenge. Everyone should have access to justice and if they can’t afford to do it, they should receive help to get the advocacy they need.
It’s not a fair fight if the government can make life-changing decisions about you and there is nothing you can do about it.
Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 546th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (7-13 April, 2019), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed.
Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.
As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:
Yesterday marked 100 years since the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar, India.
A British General ordered his troops to open fire on crowds gathered in a park to celebrate a Spring harvest festival and at the very least estimates, hundreds of people were killed.
In the Independent this week, Lib Dem Deputy Leader Jo Swinson called on the UK Government to apologise for this atrocity:
This centenary year falls at a time when the term ‘Global Britain’ is increasingly being touted by the Conservative Government as they point to the Commonwealth in the wake of the Brexit shambles. But what weight does that term carry if Britain refuses to comprehensively repudiate and recognise its responsibility for such atrocities? Refusal to help heal the wound left by the Amritsar Massacre by not issuing an apology only serves to demonstrate a pig-headed stubbornness that harks of an inward facing island, not a progressive, outward-looking country.
The massacre is a shameful stain on the history of British foreign policy. It is a wrong that continues to mark our foreign policy for as long as the Conservative Government refuse to apologise. Acknowledging what happened, the gross abuse of human rights and the rule of law, and issuing a formal apology is long overdue.
The four Lib Dem women MPs this weekend signed a letter to the Home Secretary asking him to co-operate with the Swedish authorities should they seek to extradite Julian Assange to face extradition requests.
Tonight over 70 parliamentarians stand with victims of sexual violence, and are calling on both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Sec to urge them both to be champions of action to ensure Julian Assange faces Swedish authorities and is extradited there if they so request: pic.twitter.com/uaJMM984Cc
In their letter to Sajid Javid, 70 parliamentarians – chiefly Labour MPs and peers – urged him to “stand with the victims of sexual violence” and ensure the rape claim against the Wikileaks founder could be “properly investigated”.
“We do not presume guilt, of course, but we believe due process should be followed and the complainant should see justice be done,” the letter said.
I have very little sympathy for Assange generally. Using transparency as an excuse to put people in harm’s way, when a much more responsible approach could have highlighted the problem is just not acceptable as far as I am concerned.
I don’t agree with those, mainly on the left, who treat him as some sort of hero.
I think Dani Garavelli, as she often does, summed it up perfectly in today’s Scotland on Sunday.
Indeed, in the last few days, Assange has served as a useful barometer for a certain kind of misogyny. If your immediate response to his capture was to refer to him as “a political refugee protected by international law” – à la John Pilger – or to quote Orwell as saying: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act,” then you are most likely a brocialist happy to throw women under a bus in pursuit of your own agenda.
It was this issue, and Corbyn’s poor response to it, that finally led my friend Cat Headley to leave the Labour Party on Friday.
…a story in the Sunday Times (£) today tells how details from a suicidal young girl’s medical notes were used to deny her family asylum. And what’s worse, an immigration judge found in favour of the Home Office and the family faces deportation.
The girl, who lives in the northeast and cannot be named, had been given a “sugar-coated” version of why her family had to flee Albania for a new life in Britain. Her father did not tell the child about an alleged assassination attempt on his life by the local mafia.
At an interview with a psychiatric nurse, 48 hours after the girl overdosed in 2016, the child said her family came to Britain to “have access to better healthcare for dad”.
The Home Office was assessing the family’s asylum application at the time and learnt that the girl was “experiencing medical issues”. It requested access to her records for “safeguarding” purposes. But officials found the nurse’s psychiatric assessment and, in an unprecedented step, used it to argue that her father was lying about his reasons for coming to the UK.
If you are in a vulnerable situation, you need to know that you can talk openly to those giving you care in confidence. Of course parents aren’t going to burden their children with dangerous realities if they can avoid it, particularly if they have reason to be worried about a child’s mental state.
As Vince has said, the Lib Dems are the party of Remain.
Her message was actually echoed by the awful UKIP leader Gerard Batten, who said that Remainers have a clear option in the elections – the Liberal Democrats. Now, I’d not go as far as to say that a Batten is a stopped clock who is right twice a day, but he was certainly right about that. It was the only thing he said that bore any relation to reality. He showed the misogyny endemic in his party by referring to a comment about rape by one of his MEPs was just satire.
Layla talked about a dearth of Tory activists in the Vale of White Horse council elections in Oxfordshire and said that we hoped to take control of it from the Conservatives. She spoke of real anger towards the Conservative Party from its voters over Brexit. She spoke with great joy about putting up stakeboards yesterday – which my autocorrect then changed to skateboards. That would be fun!
The commentary on last night’s EU summit was presented as Theresa May going to beg for favours from foreigners. I saw it a bit differently. You see, I see the EU 27 as my leaders. I’m a European. I’m a citizen of the European Union. These people, down a long and convoluted democratic chain certainly, are accountable to me. They are my leaders in the same way as the UK Government – although the latter infuriates me a lot more and pleases me a lot less – and the Scottish Government and my Council are. And, frankly, out of that lot, the EU 27 are the pick of the bunch.
In the context of Brexit, the EU have, to be honest, been fair, firm, adult and where they have leaked stuff to the press, have been more authentic and less inflammatory than the Members of Parliament in her own party. I can’t believe that I actually live in a universe where Mark Francois isn’t a Harry Enfield character but actually has a vote in the mother of Parliaments. Perfidious Albion on speed? Really? He actually wants our international reputation to be mud?
I have a lot more confidence in the EU27 to acquit themselves with honour than the UK Government. And they were nothing but reasonable in their deliberations. They want a sensible solution to all of this. What they are getting in return is incoherence and the strategic ability of a two year old who wants that sweetie at the checkout and thinks that throwing a tantrum is going to get it for them.
You have to credit them with some sense of humour. The first Brexit cliff edge was chosen by us – near April Fool’s Day. This one has been chosen by the EU – Hallowe’en. The jokes will be writing themselves for the next six months.
It would be wrong to think that we have six months, though. May will have a go at persuading her recalcitrants to pass her terrible deal in the next few weeks and she might succeed. It might pass by a vote or two. And we’d be headed into a poorer, more isolated future on the basis of a handful of ERG types and Brexiteer Labour MPs. That is so not how it should be, but the danger has not passed.
The last thing the Tories want to do is fight the European elections. What on earth would be the point in voting for them? How do they write a manifesto that the Dominic Grieve and Mark Francois wings of the party can support? They will try not to have to and we have to make sure that they don’t succeed in their aim.
The Euros, if they happen, offer a huge opportunity for Liberal Democrats, especially as EU citizens have the chance to vote for the Party that’s been doggedly trying to stop Brexit from the start. We stand to gain several seats. Sure, Farage’s mob will win some, too, but the opportunities for the highly motivated Remain campaign to gather behind Remain candidates will make us win too. In Scotland not far off half a million people signed the Revoke petition. In 2009, 174000 people elected George Lyon as MEP. This is doable, people.
The Party has launched it’s “new” local election broadcast. Well, actually, it’s the same one we’ve been using for a few months – which is fine, because it’s a cracker – with an extension highlighting the Council elections.
I personally love this one – it reminds us that only 7 years ago, we were all loving Danny Boyle’s diverse and wonderful opening of the Olympics.
And it’s a reminder that we can stop being collateral damage in the Conservative Party’s civil war and go back to being a country that works together to solve the problems of poverty and inequality.
David S Here's something to be learnt from Brexit:
For Parliament to vote to have a referendum isn't just a vote to schedule and set up an election.
A vote to hav...
Jeff nigel hunter 1st Jul '26 - 10:32pm:
WH Smith sold its shops off and they were rebranded. Now the USA private equity company are selling them off afte...
Francis Chubb The advantages of this approach are: (1) the Citizens' Assembly (or its alternative) can consider all the points that the commission would look at - indeed, it ...
Francis Chubb I am very glad to see this article, as I have been hoping that our Lib Dem MPs will find a way to help get Andy Burnham to move on proportional representation s...
Graham Jeffs I have much sympathy with this article.
Consistently over the past year or two many of us have been urging the party to promote our belief in Liberalism, not...
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David S 
Jeff 
Francis Chubb 
Graham Jeffs 