Author Archives: Caron Lindsay

Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #492

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th October 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 492nd 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 (8-14 October, 2017), 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:

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Caron Lindsay

So Labour’s against a no-deal Brexit. Are we supposed to be grateful?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th October 2017 - 2:10 pm

Labour’s Shadow Brexit Spokesperson Keir Starmer has been all over the media this morning proclaiming with great certainty that Labour is against a no-deal Brexit.

He actually said that with a straight face. You’d never have thought that Labour could have headed the prospect off at the pass by ensuring that the Article 50 Bill had a parachute attached to it so that we didn’t fall off the edge of a cliff. They could have ensured that we continued to stay in the single market and the customs union way back in January.

And don’t get me started on their lack of spirited campaigning during the referendum.

What is worrying me is that whenever the predicament we are in as a country starts to become clear, both Tories and Labour start trying to shift the focus onto No Deal in the hope that anything that eventually emerges from the negotiations will seem better in comparison. There is no better. There is only less horrendous. There is no satisfactory outcome other than staying in the EU.

As business gets seriously worried and it starts to dawn on the public that this Brexit idea is an absolute shambles, it looks very much like Labour is going to find itself on the wrong side of public opinion if it doesn’t actively look for a way to drag the country off the ledge.

Nothing we are hearing from Labour at the moment gives me any sense that the leadership is shifting its position.

John McDonnell might wring his hands on the sidelines all he likes. What Labour needs to do is pull a shift at actually opposing the Government.

In a tweet this morning, Vince gave them a good telling off:

Meanwhile, Tom Brake called on Labour to agree to an “exit from Brexit” referendum:

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Caron Lindsay

Alex Cole-Hamilton calls for continence strategy

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th October 2017 - 10:49 am

When I was on holiday, I listened to an interesting article on Women’s Hour about a fringe show centred around pelvic floor exercises. It was both hilarious and mildly disturbing. And for a few days afterwards I was particularly diligent, as I expect many people were, before forgetting about it all again.

Elaine Miller, the person behind that show, wrote about it in the Guardian.

Anecdotally speaking, using humour as a health promotion tool works well. Proving that is tricky – the only established fact is that comedy is subjective, so, conducting a random controlled trial is fairly challenging. However, getting the public to comply with simple lifestyle changes and health behaviours has always been difficult, so, perhaps an irreverent approach is worth a shot?

Incontinence interferes with every single thing a person wants to do, and, helping someone to live a life unrestricted by their bodily functions is wonderfully satisfying, far more so than helping someone win a medal for being marginally faster than someone else. Being part of huge sports events was glamorous and fantastic, but, I am happiest on stage, at conference or in clinic proclaiming that that everyone deserves to have a decent pelvic floor.

Now it turns out that Elaine s a mate of Alex Cole-Hamilton’s and the two have teamed up to call for the Scottish Government to launch a National Continence Strategy. 

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Caron Lindsay

Liz Evans and Jane Dodds meet in Welsh Lib Dem leadership hustings

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th October 2017 - 8:55 am

Lib Dem Voice is always neutral in leadership elections of any sort and so we will be for the Welsh Liberal Democrat Leadership election which culminates in 2 weeks’ time. The two candidates are former Assembly candidate for Ceredigion and local Councillor Liz Evans and former candidate for Montgomery Jane Dodds.

The only thing I will say is that having met both Jane and Liz, I think that they are both absolutely amazing and either would be a worthy successor to Kirsty Williams who has resumed the leadership temporarily. This election is unusual in that it is being fought between two non parliamentarians. The Welsh Party’s constitution was changed earlier this year to allow this because of the unfortunate circumstances in which it found itself.

The Welsh Party has, despite some spirited campaigning and inspiring leadership from Kirsty for most of the last decade, suffered huge setbacks in the last couple of years. The coalition legacy and the rise of UKIP has cost the party dear. While they have the one Lib Dem Cabinet minister in the country at the moment, she is their only parliamentarian. Unfortunately Mark Williams lost his Ceredigion seat by a heartbreaking 150 votes in the General Election in June.

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Caron Lindsay

Cole-Hamilton: Defeating Brexit is our Everest

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 14th October 2017 - 12:00 pm

If you head to the Royal Mile at about two in the afternoon, you’ll be in for a big surprise. Our Alex Cole-Hamilton is one of the speakers at a Rally for Europe but he won’t be delivering the Europe stump speech many of us have heard many times. In fact, I’m probably more word perfect on it than I am the Sound of Music or the words of Abba Gold.

Today a new version of the Cole-Hamilton Euro speech takes centre stage and it’s just as good.

Here’s an extract.

Now I heard that Boris Johnson said that if we had to, in the event of no deal we could live without our EU workforce, that they only make up 3% of our health and social care workforce so we could probably tough it out. Boris, your spinal column makes up 3% of your body mass, try functioning without that.

“You all know my party’s policy. The Liberal Democrats believe that a process begun by the will of the British people must be concluded by the will of the British people.

“That we must put the final terms of the Brexit deal or the reality of no deal to them in a referendum, and on that ballot paper they should have an unambiguous choice to reject Brexit and remain in the EU.

“I believe that when credited with the facts, the people of this country will reject the lunacy of Brexit and return to the fold of what has become quite simply the most important project for peace and freedom in the whole of human history,

“So when the full hideous calamity of Brexit is laid bare, we should ask the people of this country, in the solemnity of the polling stations where this first started, is this really what you want? Is this what you imagined taking back control would look like? And if it isn’t then you should exercise your democratic right to stay.

“We meet in extraordinary times, historic times and you will each look back on this period and ask yourself, did I do my part? Don’t leave that question unanswered, it’s time to dig in and fight, it isn’t just a mountain we have to climb, this is our Everest.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems gain in Three Rivers and forge ahead in Sheffield

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 13th October 2017 - 7:59 am

Some very promising Council by-election results overnight.

First of all, there was a gain from the Conservatives in the Lib Dem stronghold of Three Rivers. Good to see the majority of one being boosted.

Congratulations to Keith Martin and the fabulous team in the area.

In Sheffield there was a solid 21% increase in the vote, even though Labour held the seat.

Another interesting result was this from Ashfield:

We did put up a candidate here, which is a really good thing. It is so important that we continue to fly our flag there and try to recoup the ground lost in that area. The winning Ashfield Independents, though, were formed by the previous Council-dominating Liberal Democrat group. Their literature looks strikingly familiar.

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Caron Lindsay

A couple of observations about Vince’s reshuffle

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 12th October 2017 - 5:27 pm

So Vince Cable reshuffled his top team today.

There’s a very interesting change of language. No longer are they called the Shadow Cabinet. That probably makes sense for a team of 12 MPs out of 650. They will henceforth be known as spokespeople.

So who has the top jobs? A full list is here.

The team is gender balanced. In fact there is a majority of women – 15 out of the 29. That includes long time Vince ally Dee Doocey who is coming in with a Spokesperson without Portfolio.  This would certainly enable her to obtain a profile over a wide range of subjects. I don’t even know if this has been thought of, but it crosses my mind that she could be a contender for party president when Sal Brinton comes to the end of her constitutionally allowed terms in 2019. If it happens, remember that you heard it here first.

As requested in the comments, for those of you who don’t know Dee, she’s had a very long history in the party and the Liberal Party before it. Back in the day she was the Finance Director of the Liberal Party. She has been a Richmond Councillor and Greater London Assembly Member who was appointed to the House of Lords back in 2010. She’s been running Vince Cable’s elections for 25 years. You can read more about her here. 

Vince has a job

The Leader doesn’t normally have a job in these circumstances but when you are the most credible voice on the economy in the House of Commons or not the country, it would be daft if he didn’t speak up on these issues. Susan Kramer will reprise her role on this in the Lords.

More experience than Corbyn’s front bench

While they may not be called the Shadow Cabinet any more, they are more entitled to call themselves that than the Labour front bench. There are no fewer than, by my reckoning, seven former ministers, including Vince, Alistair and Ed as former Cabinet ministers.

Where’s Norman?

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Caron Lindsay

Tim Farron explains how the Government’s cuts to supported accommodation will harm most vulnerable

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th October 2017 - 1:55 pm

One of the (many) hugely worrying things about the Government’s plans for Housing Benefit is the cap being applied to supported accommodation.

Across the country, people are given the chance to live as independent lives as possible in accommodation which comes with its own support network. Government cuts threaten this – and the human cost is appalling.

This was discussed in a  Westminster Hall debate yesterday in which Tim Farron took part.

From my experience of the supported housing provided for constituents with autism and learning difficulties, I know that the LHA rent cap will mean that they simply will not be able to afford the support that they get in their current setting. They will end up in institutions or hospitals, which will actually cost the taxpayer far more money.

On Facebook, he went into a bit more detail:

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Liberal Democrat MPs slam Government’s contemptuous approach to Parliament

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 10th October 2017 - 8:34 pm

This afternoon, Alistair Carmichael led an emergency debate, which he had secured, to raise the many ways in which the Government is marginalising Parliament. From ignoring Opposition Day debates to curtailing debate on legislation to the Henry VIII powers.

His speech introducing the debate was excellent. Watch it here.

My favourite bits are this:

The best Governments—and if ever there was a time in our country’s history when we needed the best possible Government, this is surely it—are those that are tested by Parliament, by the Opposition parties and by their own Back Benchers. Time and again, our system fails when the Government and the Opposition agree and arguments remain untested. How different might the debates on the case for going to war in Iraq in 2002 and 2003 have been if the then Opposition had been prepared to take a more questioning approach to Tony Blair’s case? I am sad to say that this Government, however, do not welcome scrutiny by Parliament, but rather seek to avoid it.

and the bit where he challenged MPs to get assertive:

In one sense, the Government have done us a favour by bringing this issue to a head, because it forces us as a House to decide what our role in the future of this country is going to be. Is it to be an active participant, with a strong voice and a decisive say, or is it to be a supine bystander as the Government continue to do as they wish, regardless of their lack of a mandate and, as is increasingly obvious, their lack of authority.

I have been a member of many debating societies over the years. They have all been fine organisations that provided entertainment and mental stimulation in equal measure. I mean them therefore no disrespect when I say that I stood for Parliament believing I was doing something more significant than signing up for a debating society. The difference is that in Parliament—in this House—we can actually effect change. Whether we choose to do so is in our own hands.

I loved the fact that the Tories responded by slagging off the Liberal Democrats in the most immature way as they clearly had no defence.

Christine Jardine said that MPs were there to serve the electorate, not to play games. She talked about seeing Parliament as others see it and the impression it gives to people outside who were not involved in politics.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrats mark World Mental Health Day

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 10th October 2017 - 7:26 pm

Today is World Mental Health Day.

For me it’s a day to reflect on how far we have come since I started to suffer from mental ill health as a child. Forty years ago, nobody understood the desperate, isolating, all-engulfing Depression that I couldn’t shake off, that took every ounce of my energy just to get through the day. I remember trying to talk about it to a friend once, and she scared the living daylights out of me, telling me I’d be locked up in a hospital if anyone found out.

There was the exhausting anxiety which punctuated every day – not helped by the fact that round every corner there might be another bully lurking to shout “Yak” at me. That’s what they called me at school. I just wish I’d had Google then to reassure me that, whatever my tormentors meant, these beasts were actually kind of cute.

My teens were a struggle and because I didn’t get the help I needed, I either didn’t cope very well or developed some fairly unhelpful strategies to deal with it. Comfort eating for one.

We can perhaps be a little bit proud of ourselves as a society that four decades on, we are at least attempting to tackle the stigma around mental health, so that no young person need fear that they are going to be locked up.

However, we should also be ashamed that this new openness has not been accompanied by the provision of sufficient support services for people with mental ill health.

There is one area I want to focus on – the transition from child to adult mental health services. Once you get into the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, you can actually get some pretty reasonable support. It’s arranged in a fairly logical way with consultants, psychologists and nurses working together to support young people. Unfortunately not every young person who needs help can get it at all, and most have to wait far too long.  It is not uncommon to wait for more than a year to even see a specialist.

Mental health issues generally aren’t resolved overnight, so you have a year of turmoil while you are waiting to be seen and, maybe another couple of years of reasonably intensive support – and then you turn 18. All the effort put into helping you is now at risk as you are put into the virtually non-existent twilight world of adult mental health services which are disparate, insufficient and as suitable for the scale of the problem as  trying to surf the Atlantic on a My Little Pony lilo.

This country is being robbed of the talents of some wonderful individuals simply because it does not invest in the services they need to stay well.

Even the most cruel and heartless government should surely recognise that the cost of not supporting these people is enormous to both our economy and our society.

I’m incredibly proud that Nick Clegg and Norman Lamb have done so much to improve mental health services and tackle the stigma around mental health. One of the most horrible things about the run-up to the 2015 election was the almost certain knowledge that Norman wouldn’t be mental health minister any more.

Today, Liberal Democrats have been marking Mental Health Day in a variety of ways:

Kirsty Williams made this video highlighting mental ill health in the workplace:

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #491

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th October 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 491st 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 (1-7 October, 2017), 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:

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Caron Lindsay

No, Nick, you need to join the Rebel Alliance to stop Brexit, not the Imperial Stormtroopers

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 6th October 2017 - 7:51 am

Nick Clegg is probably the country’s most knowledgable person on international trade, the EU and our relationship with it. Read his brilliant Brexit Challenge papers to see how true that is.

We should listen to whatever he says on Brexit because he is most often right.

However, for the former leader of a political party, he has shown a monumental amount of naivety in suggesting that people need to join Labour or the Conservatives to stop Brexit. He could not be more wrong.

You can maybe see where he gets the idea from. When he was leader of the Liberal Democrats, and, specifically, Deputy Prime Minister, the party was forever telling him in forms of motions passed by its Conference and various firestorms on the internet, that he was wrong. We sent him some pretty strong and unambiguous messages on things like the Bedroom Tax, secret courts and reforms to the social security system that disadvantaged people. Sure, we should take credit for what we stopped the Tories unleashing on the country, but we also did some stuff that we shouldn’t.

Yes, we sent him plenty messages. Sometimes he acted on what we told him, sometimes he didn’t, and sometimes he had to put a lot of effort into persuading the party to back his position.

Let’s compare and contrast with the Tories and Labour. They aren’t great about letting their members actually influence their policies. You didn’t actually see many actual votes on the issues of the day at their conferences. You didn’t see any at the Conservatives. They don’t do that sort of thing. They were shocked by the internal democracy in the Liberal Democrats and thought it very strange. Ordinary Labour members don’t get much of a chance to influence policy either. Even if they wanted to, remember that their Conference didn’t even get to discuss Brexit because they might disagree.

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Caron Lindsay

The human element and the political reality – Vince on Theresa May’s speech

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th October 2017 - 9:50 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Well, that speech probably contained everyone’s worst nightmares.

In April this year, just after the election was called, I was one of those recording a podcast made by the excellent Engender Scotland. I ended up having the mother of all coughing fits. Of course, there were half a dozen other wonderful women to hold the fort while I left the room until the spasms subsided.

So I really felt for poor Theresa May today. She was up there on her own at the keynote occasion of the year and the germs took control. I don’t mean Boris and the rest of the Cabinet.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #490

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st October 2017 - 9:17 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 490th 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 (23rd-30th October, 2017), 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:

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Caron Lindsay

Vince: Boris should call in the Spanish Ambassador over Catalonia

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st October 2017 - 8:01 pm

It’s been really upsetting to see the scenes from Catalonia. Ok, so the referendum on independence has been ruled illegal by the constitutional courts, but there are ways of dealing with that in a peaceful manner.

No good can come of the Police’s inflammatory action.

Of course, this all has some resonance to me as a Scot. We, of course, had our own referendum on independence in 2014 after the SNP won a mandate to hold one.

Mike Moore, as Secretary of State for Scotland, acted like a grown up and negotiated with Nicola Sturgeon to produce the Edinburgh Agreement. That was really important because it gave the poll legitimacy. If the SNP had had their way, they’d have set up their own Commission to regulate it. Mike insisted that the Electoral Commission, reporting to the Scottish Parliament, should oversee it. Together, in accordance with both parties’ policies, they agreed that 16 and 17 year olds would be able to vote – something that worked incredibly well.

The outcome was a legal and fair poll which commanded confidence.  Don’t get me wrong, the referendum was one of the most horrible experiences of my life, but it was at least run properly.

Vince Cable has tonight called for Boris Johnson to call in the Spanish Ambassador over the incident;

Police in a democracy should never drag people violently out of polling stations, whatever the arguments for or against holding a referendum. The police response looks to have been brutal and completely disproportionate.

The Foreign Secretary should break off from conspiring against the prime minister and call in the Spanish ambassador to tell him that this is completely unacceptable.

Actually, he could have added in that the EU needs to speak out on this. The internal affairs of Spain are one thing, but when people are being dragged out of polling stations, that does seem to be incompatible with everything the EU stands for.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince: Lib Dems demand an exit from Brexit referendum

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st October 2017 - 3:56 pm

Here’s Vince addressing the considerable crowds at the #stopBrexitManchester march. This is what he had to say.

We are in Manchester because the Conservative Party are here and we want them to hear our voices – to tell Theresa May and Boris Johnson that we are not ‘citizens of nowhere’, but people who are proud to be British, and proud to be European.

We must tell the government what is at stake here.

Take the great research institutions in

…

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Caron Lindsay

Membership matters: Are Lib Dems really ahead of the Tories? And if so, is that good enough?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st October 2017 - 12:18 pm

One of Vince Cable’s stated aims as leader was to overtake the Tories in terms of party membership. We knew that that was a reasonably tall order, as the last known figure for Tory membership was around 149,000 three years ago. That aim was going to take a wee while to fulfil, we thought. However we were looking at it in terms of us growing. It sounds like we’re already there because the Tory membership has sunk like a stone over the Summer.

David Hencke reports on an interview with a key Conservative campaigner who puts membership at around 100,000 – below our figures:

John Strafford, chairman of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy, in an  eve of conference exclusive interview  on the Tribune magazine website, says the real membership of the party has plummeted to around 100,000- way below the 149,500 figure and 134,000 figure used by the party in 2013.

Mr Strafford said: “The party is facing oblivion. If you take the fact only 10 per cent of the membership is likely to be very active they will not have enough people on the ground to fight an election – they won’t even have enough people to man polling stations on the day.

“They are keeping council seats because often the families of the councillors are campaigning with party members to get them re-elected. They simply don’t have the local resources to do this in a general election.”

The Tories have been notoriously secretive about their party membership. Unlike us, the don’t publish the number in their annual accounts as we did even during the bad times. However, this House of Commons library report published last month gives some interesting facts and figures about trends in political party membership. Over the last 70 years or so, the Tories have had the biggest fall.

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Caron Lindsay

An interesting observation from David Laws

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 29th September 2017 - 1:30 pm

Biteback has recently published David Laws’ Coalition Diaries, 2012-15. They are well worth a read.  Unlike his Coalition book published last year, these contemperaneous diaries aren’t nicely organised into different subjects and you tend to get more of a flavour of the frustrations and emotions that were going on at the time.

I am wending my way through the 560 page volume and will drop you the odd snippet while I read.

John Rentoul seems to be doing the same, on Twitter. He posted an account of a meeting between the Tory Chief Whip Sir George Young and Tory Ministers which …

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Caron Lindsay

Happy Golden Jubilee to Willie Rennie

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th September 2017 - 8:19 pm

As if we needed any further proof that the best people were born in 1967 after Nick and I celebrated our Golden Jubilees this year, it is Willie Rennie’s special day today.

I wonder if he celebrated it like this.

If you look at the longer post, you can see him actually giving a political interview on a slide.

He probably didn’t do anything like this:

Or have an alpacalypse.

And we hope to goodness he didn’t meet any angry rams.

He might have had another Lady and the Tramp eating spaghetti moment with a cute dog, though.

We have to remember that Willie has done a lot more with his half century than fool around with cute animals. In 1993 he helped Diana Maddock win the Christchurch by-election. In 1997, he moved back up to Scotland where he was Chief Executive of the Party during the first devolution referendum. Then he moved to be Chief of Staff at the Parliament. All the early coalition achievements in Scotland – free personal care, free university tuition, had his fingerprints on them.

Then in 2006, he grabbed his place in history as a Lib Dem by-election winner. He audaciously took the Dunfermline and West Fife seat in Gordon Brown’s back yard after a dreadful few weeks for the party when we’d deprived ourselves of a leader and had a new tabloid scandal breaking roughly every half hour.

Since he became leader of the Scottish Lib Dems in 2011, he’s challenged the SNP Government on education and mental health, centralisation, justice, the Police, civil liberties and many other issues.

In the party, he put his own reputation on the line by championing radical diversity measures that saw Scotland elect 2 male and 2 female MPs this June. That took courage and determination on his part.

He has been the leader the party so desperately needed after the drubbing we took in 2011. He has campaigned with energy and always a massive smile in every part of Scotland.

And what is he doing on his birthday? Giving a speech on Brexit to the SCER Europa Institute. He’s challenging the SNP, Ruth Davidson the Scottish Conservative Leader who supported Remain and Scotland’s Labour leadership contenders to get on board with a Brexit Deal referendum. He says that such a vote would be entirely democratic and asks why we shouldn’t trust the people to give their opinion.

The full text of his speech is below:

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Caron Lindsay

Vince for PM: How it might happen

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th September 2017 - 10:25 am

Richard Coward, writing for American not for profit news site the Fair Observer, suggests that our Vince could lead a Government of national unity aimed at stopping Brexit or at least remaining the single market.

It certainly requires the alignment of many disparate forces, but it’s not the daftest scenario on the planet:

Somehow or other, pro-European Labour and Conservative MPs are eventually going to have to find a way to cooperate with each other in the national interest. Only by doing so can they defeat the hard-line Brexiteers. Moreover, since the EU will only negotiate with a government, they are

…

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #489

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 24th September 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 489th 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 (17-23 September, 2017), 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:

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Conference highlights – Neil Fawcett’s air guitar

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 24th September 2017 - 1:48 pm

One of the highlights of my life, let alone Conference, was Neil Fawcett accompanying Kelly-Marie Blundell’s rock set at the Disco on inflatable air guitars from Primark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being look quite so happy and fulfilled. He’s in the bottom right of this video by The Mirror’s Mikey Smith:

I should add that Neil was not alone. Louise Harris and our Joe Otten also had …

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Caron Lindsay

Talking Bournemouth and Brexit with Sam Skubala on the Politics World podcast

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 24th September 2017 - 12:48 pm

Have a listen to my chat with Sam Skubala when we talked about Bournemouth, Brexit, Vince and Jo. And about reducing inequality.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Conference highlights – Caron on the Fringe

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 24th September 2017 - 11:48 am

So, another group of Lib Dem Conference highlights with a shamelessly self-indulgent look back at the fringe meetings I spoke at.

The Child Poverty Action Group fringe

On Monday I spoke at a fringe meeting run by the excellent Child Poverty Action Group. The work of groups like CPAG is so important in highlighting the impact of poverty and it’s great that they speak up, even when what they have to say is uncomfortable for us as Liberal Democrats to hear.

The theme of the meeting was around achieving social justice. What would that look like?

The botched implementation of Universal Credit was a major aspect. Along with the appalling family cap, it was cutting the incomes of the poorest families by £3000-£5000.

We had passed policy that very morning that tackled several of the concerns that CPAG had – like restoring a second work allowance and restoring the cuts announced by George Osborne the minute we left the Coalition.

Starring in a video with Malala and Jo Swinson

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Caron Lindsay

Bi-Visibility Day – How Lib Dems can make a difference

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 23rd September 2017 - 9:42 pm

Today is Bi Visibility Day. This is the day that the B in LGBT+ is emphasised. Sadly, it is too often the only day when bisexual people are even thought about.

It is wonderful to see Stockport Town Hall lit up to mark the occasion:

This did not happen by accident. It was Lib Dem Councillor Lisa Smart who put a motion to Council earlier this month. She said:

As a society, we have definitely made progress on LGBT+ Equality over the past few decades but there is still a distance to travel. On Thursday evening we will be talking about the barriers still faced by those members of our community who are bisexual.

More than one in four bisexual employees hide their sexuality at work, compared with one in six among gay and lesbian employees. Bisexual people are more likely to experience mental health problems in general and are twice as likely to experience depression and/or anxiety.

Often in the council chamber we can have robust debates and strong disagreements about issues. My hope is that we can unite and come together to support the bisexual members of our community, take some steps to celebrate the bisexual community and let them know that they are valued in Stockport.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Conference highlights – the Universal Credit Debate

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 23rd September 2017 - 11:36 am

On of my highlights of Conference was the debate on the emergency motion on delaying the rollout of Universal Credit because it is turning into a disaster for the people who are forced to claim it. People have to wait 6 weeks or longer for money. Imagine what that is like if you have no savings to get you through – a situation many people on low incomes will face.

The idea of Universal Credit is a very good one. It aimed to end the poverty trap which stopped people on benefits from getting work because it cost them to do so.

I made a speech from a Scottish perspective, outlining the principles of accessibility, fairness and confidence that were in our manifesto on social security and observing that Universal Credit meets none of them in its current form.

Other speakers gave some pretty harrowing examples of how people could lose their homes and have to rely on food banks to get by.

I am really hopeful, though, that we really are going to take this stuff to the Tories and try and get things changed.

The reason for my optimism is our new Department of Work and Pensions spokesperson Stephen Lloyd. Remember all that energy he put in to regaining his Eastbourne seat? He seriously never stopped campaigning after 2015. Well, that energy and determination is going in to opposing the Tory Government and building alliances across the Parliament to force the Government to think again. Here, in full, is the speech that he made in the debate:

The Tories’ reputation for competence is an oxymoron of epic proportions. This is a party who have politicised our police force with their ridiculous introduction of police and crime commissioners, prevented councils from building new council homes from the receipts of Margaret Thatcher’s huge council house sell-off programme decades ago, which is a direct cause of today’s appalling housing shortage – and then today the complete shambles of what they’ve done with Universal Credit. Competence is not a word which springs to mind!

The original concept of UC was ‘to make work pay’ and when we supported it in coalition it would have done. Since then though, over £3bn has been taken out of the programme. The work allowance, for instance, an amount people on benefits can earn before those benefits start being reduced, has been slashed to the bone. In some cases – to zero!  And the taper rate, which determines how much people get to keep of their benefits for every extra pound earned, has also been cut to ribbons!!

This has rendered the entire principle behind universal credit – to make work pay, something I and the Liberal Democrats passionately believe in – utterly worthless.

Universal credit is no longer a progressive, reliable policy; it is a complete train wreck. And the Conservatives are responsible!!

It gets worse. Housing payments made directly to the tenants; something I fiercely opposed at the time when I was on the Work and Pensions Select Committee – telling the ministers that it would lead to a shocking rise in rent defaults. And I remember so clearly the then Secretary of State chiding me for ‘not trusting that tenants would pass the money on to their landlords’….

The result?, and this is even before the full national UC rollout-out, have been every bit as bad as I feared; if not worse!

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Nick Clegg in conversation at Conference Fringe

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 22nd September 2017 - 1:25 pm

Happily, it doesn’t matter that I had to be in 3 other places at the time when Nick Clegg’s only fringe meeting appearance in Bournemouth, because those nice people at Prospect magazine have only gone and put it on You Tube.

Enjoy.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems GAIN two Council seats from Labour

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 21st September 2017 - 11:59 pm

About 20.5 years ago, I was part of the campaign which beat Labour to win the Holmebrook ward in Chesterfield in a council by-election. A certain Keith Falconer won. Later on, his wife Glenys Falconer also represented the ward. In fact, since I wrote this, I have learned that it is the third time Keith has won this seat in a by-election. The first was in 1986, before my time in the East Midlands. He then represented the ward for 22 of the 25 years until 2011. He fell victim to an utterly unprincipled and nasty Labour campaign in 1995.

Anyway, that campaign was a really good springboard for the General Election. If I remember rightly, there was a newspaper which screamed “Poll sensation for Tony Rogers” on its front page.

20 years on, the Liberal Democrats have taken a fair few knocks in the Derbyshire town. They may be down but they sure as hell aren’t out – and they are still capable of an audacious result.

And the winner? A certain Cllr Keith Falconer.

ALDC celebrate in suitable style.

Now I know my dear friend Paul Holmes will come on here and say “We never talked about any of that Brexit rubbish.” And I might just let him gloat for a bit. But, seriously, I am thrilled to bits for all my old friends in Chesterfield who were part of this. I wonder if they are off drinking in the Tullamore like they used to after a good by-election win.

However, I do think that the Brexit stuff is responsible for Vince’s rather good poll figure. The man’s almost in positive figures, for goodness sake.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince is on Question Time tonight.

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 21st September 2017 - 9:00 pm

Poor Vince. He was in Bournemouth on Saturday cos he spoke at the Lib Dem Voice fringe meeting on adult education.

Then he had to go back to London for Marr on Sunday morning.

Then back to Bournemouth on Sunday afternoon for his Q & A, home on Tuesday and then back to the west country tonight to appear on Question Time.

So, some bits of that programme will actually be bearable for a change.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince Cable backs opt-out organ donation system

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 21st September 2017 - 8:17 pm

I’ve seen people go through the pain of losing someone they love because a transplant didn’t happen in time. I’ve seen people, in shock at having lost someone suddenly and tragically being put under the added pressure of deciding whether their loved one’s organs should be donated. Maybe they hadn’t even had the conversation and didn’t know what their wishes would be. Maybe it was pain too far.

I’ve always made it clear to my family that should it be me, anything that would make anyone else have a chance of improved life should be used. I’ve signed up to the organ donor register. However, not everyone who would be happy to donate their organs has got round to filling in the form.

That’s why I’ve always favoured an opt-out system. It means that anyone who objects to their organs being used has the right to ensure that it doesn’t happen to them. And if you do object, you will make sure that you have opted out. This is one of these issues where there are liberal arguments for both sides. For me, as long as there are proper safeguards for people, opting out is the way to go.

So I was very pleased to see that Vince Cable has backed The Mirror’s campaign for an opt out donor system.

He told them:

“There are around 6,500 people in the UK waiting for a transplant. I urge the Government to listen to this campaign and the calls of countless families across the country.

“We can ensure more lives and more children like little Max are saved. I’m proud to be a registered organ donor. I carry my card everywhere. It was an obvious choice.”

The “little Max” he was talking to is a 9 year old who had a heart transplant after a wait of 8 months.

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