Author Archives: Caron Lindsay

Caron Lindsay

Eluned Parrott selected to fight Cardiff Central

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 24th April 2017 - 9:15 pm

Former Welsh Assembly member Eluned Parrott has been selected to fight the constituency of Cardiff Central which, until 2015 was held by Jenny Willott.

Eluned fought the seat for the Welsh Assembly last year and came within 1000 votes of victory.

From the Cardiff Lib Dem website:

The Lib Dems are odds-on favourite to win Cardiff Central (at 4/6 with Betfair on Monday morning), and have been endorsed by pro-EU newspaper The New European as the clear choice in the fight against a hard Brexit.

Eluned Parrott said:
“I hadn’t intended to come back into politics, but Brexit changed everything. I can’t simply stand by and let our country be ripped apart by hatred and division.

“I want to represent Cardiff Central in Parliament to fight Theresa May’s divisive Hard Brexit, both for the majority here who voted Remain and the many who voted Leave but want to stay in the Single Market.

“Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party isn’t providing Britain with a real opposition to this Conservative Brexit Government. That’s why people are turning to the Liberal Democrats in droves – as you can see by the dozens of by-election wins we have had across Britain, including one right here in Cardiff.

“The choice in Cardiff Central is clear: Corbyn’s Labour party who rolled over to back the Tories’ Hard Brexit, or the Liberal Democrats who will fight for an open, tolerant and united country.”

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Caron Lindsay

The Lib Dem Lowdown: 100,000 members special: A guide to the Liberal Democrats for our new members

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 24th April 2017 - 5:00 pm

When Tim Farron set his 100,000 members by 2020 target during his leadership campaign in 2015, it seemed pretty ambitious. Since Brexit, though, around 30,000 members have signed up to our party. A warm welcome to every single one of you.

Around half of those 30,000 have joined in the 6 days since Theresa May made her announcement about the General Election. This afternoon, Tim Farron was able to announce that we had reached that ambitious 100,000 target at a rally in Vauxhall.

I wouldn’t celebrate for too long, though. Tim is not one to rest on his laurels. I’m sure an even more ambitious target will be set fairly soon!

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 in the hope that 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, read it and if you think it sounds appealing, 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.

Your rights as a member

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #477

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 10:04 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 477th 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 (16-22 April, 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

Encouraging poll news for the Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 23rd April 2017 - 8:01 am

The first Scottish opinion polls since the General Election was announced have been published and there’s mixed news for the Liberal Democrats.

Panelbase has us on just 5% (but that’s still up since January) and Survation has us up 1 from the 2015 election at 9%. If we go up at the rate that we have done in every election other than 2015, we could be on for a fair few gains up here. Edinburgh West and North East Fife, both gained from the SNP at Holyrood last year are the top targets but seats like Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and Charles Kennedy’s old seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber are definitely in play. Winning back those highland heartlands from the SNP would be a marvellous thing and it is eminently doable.

On a UK level, we’ve gone up 4 points to 12% in a YouGov poll.

And there has been another important development:

UKIP are on the way down, and they certainly don’t seem to have learned any lessons about candidate approval, if one of their Glasgow council candidates is anything to go by. It’s quite something when being in favour of the guillotine and flogging are the mildest of your bizarre views. From the Herald:

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems will not go into coalition – Farron

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd April 2017 - 10:31 pm

Tim Farron has done what I’d been hoping and ruled out the Liberal Democrats going into coalition with either Tories or Labour.

This means that the Tory argument that Corbyn, Sturgeon and Farron will get together and do a deal with the Loch Ness Monster to crash the stock exchange (ok, maybe the last bit of that was an exaggeration) is shown to be nonsense. People can vote Liberal Democrat with confidence knowing that we will do everything we can to oppose the Tories and Labour on Brexit.

It also has the advantage of putting to bed at the earliest stage of the campaign the endless questions about who we would go into coalition with and what would we compromise on. This has dominated questions to Lib Dem leaders in past elections and it is good that we have eliminated it. There is no way that we could credibly do a deal with either. Providing serious issue by issue opposition is what we will be doing.

Here’s what Tim said in an email to party members:

I want to make this clear.

The Liberal Democrats will not enter into any coalition deal with either Theresa May’s Conservatives or Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

On Thursday 8th June, every vote for the Liberal Democrats is a vote to change the direction of our country and stop a hard Brexit.

The reasons for this decision are simple.

Under no conditions can we sign up to Theresa May’s Hard Brexit agenda; a hard Brexit will be a disaster for Britain. It risks crashing our economy and leaving us isolated on the global stage.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Membership: 8000 newbies in 48 hours

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 20th April 2017 - 5:02 pm

I think I’d better revise my “Guide to the Lib Dems for new members” post!

Welcome to all 8000 of you who have joined the party since the snap election was announced on Tuesday.

We hope you enjoy the next seven weeks which are bound to be intense. There is nothing like the whirlwind of an election!

This now means that party membership now stands at 95,000. If just 5000 more people join us, then that’s Tim Farron’s membership target for 2020 smashed.

Sal Brinton, our Party President, had this to say:

People are flocking to the Liberal Democrats as we are the only party who are offering effective opposition to this Conservative Brexit government.

Theresa May: we have the troops for this fight and they are raring to go.

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Caron Lindsay

Daisy Cooper “ready for snap election” in St Albans as local pro EU group backs her

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th April 2017 - 8:33 pm

The energetic Daisy Cooper, whose spirited campaign made her runner-up in the Party’s Presidential Election in 2014 despite a late entry into the contest, is now the PPC for St Albans.

Since her selection last August, she has been campaigning strongly on the issues that matter to the heavily Remain voting citizens of St Albans.

This is in contrast to the local Brexiteer Tory MP Anne Main, whose greatest contribution to recent national debate was encouraging countryside walkers to flick away their dog poo. Her advice was contradicted by people who know about these things – the South …

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Caron Lindsay

Gorton election will now take place on 8th June

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th April 2017 - 6:27 pm

It’s just been announced that, subject to approval by MPs, the Gorton poll will be cancelled as a by-election and will now take place along with all the other seats on 8th June.

From the BBC:

A by-election for the Manchester Gorton constituency has been cancelled after the House of Commons backed Theresa May’s call for a June general election.

The Cabinet Office said the election for the vacant seat, planned for 4 May, would now take place on 8 June as part of the nationwide polling day.

MPs will be asked to formally overturn the writ for the poll.

The proposed by-election

…

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Caron Lindsay

LGBT+ Lib Dems Acting Chair praises Tim Farron’s record on LGBT equality

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th April 2017 - 3:55 pm

An awful lot of people that I love depend on a world where LGBTI people have proper equality. I need my leader to be able to speak up for the young transgender person so that they can feel confident that someone is on her side and understands what she needs to be able to live a happy and fulfilling life, who gets that you you are unlikely to meet your potential if you are being bullied for being gay, and how important it is that you have a good support network. I need a leader who speaks out for LGBT rights locally, nationally and internationally. In Tim Farron, I have a leader I can absolutely trust on that score.

Mischief-making Labour people, seeking to comfort themselves at the prospect of the oncoming slaughter for them, have been having a go at Tim on Twitter on this subject.

Those of us who know that Tim is sound have been saying so. And you’d think that the acting chair of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats, Jennie Rigg, would have something interesting to say on the subject. And she does. And, as you would expect from her, she does not mince her words.

Dear media people,

I see that, thanks to Cathy Newman’s interview last night, the thorny theological topic of Sin has raised its ugly head once more.

Let me get this right out in the beginning: I don’t give a fig what Tim Farron’s religious beliefs are. You know why? Because I am a Liberal. He could believe the sky is made from Puff the Magic Dragon’s bumfluff, and I wouldn’t care one jot, whit or iota. What I do care about, and care deeply about, is
How Tim Farron votes in parliament

How he treats people – LGBT+ people in particular – in everyday life

So lets do a little list of things which illustrate how Tim Farron views LGBT people:

With one exception, Tim Farron voted fully in favour of same sex marriage. The one time he abstained? That was because he was trying to get an amendment passed on the Spousal Veto, a really nasty little clause which shafts trans people. Yep, that’s right, even the time he abstained was because he was fighting for LGBT+ rights, not against them.

He was the first party leader to issue a statement on the gay concentration camps in Chechenya. He condemned them in the strongest terms. And while the Greens have since joined in, none of the Tories, Labour, or UKIP have.

He campaigned against section 28 from its inception, and thinks that refusing people service for their sexuality (like bakeries not baking cakes for gay marriages) is unchristian.

He spoke out on the blood donation ban (I’m still banned from giving blood, by the way – because I have had sexual relations with bisexual men).

He has campaigned tirelessly for the rights of trans women in prisons, and trans issues in general. When we had a trans rights motion before conference, he was there at 9.30am in the front row to vote for it. Not because of the cameras – there were no cameras – but because he is enthusiastic about LGBT+ rights, and not just G rights with a smattering of L like many politicians.

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Caron Lindsay

Tim Farron campaigns in Richmond Park

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th April 2017 - 12:50 pm

The first big photo-op of the election campaign saw Tim Farron return to the scene of our most audacious recent triumph – Richmond Park, where Sarah Olney beat Zac Goldsmith.

Here’s a reminder of her stunning victory speech just 4.5 months ago.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #476

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 16th April 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 476th 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 together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed. This week’s covers the two weeks from 2 April as we had our Easter holidays last week. Or at least, I couldn’t drag myself off the beach in time to do it.

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

An Easter shoutout to some special people

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 16th April 2017 - 3:55 pm

Easter means many things to people. For Liberal Democrat campaigns staff, it often means long hours working in the run-up to an election. From the hypnotic rhythm of the Risograph to the chatter of activists who need occupying with leaflets, canvass sheets and letters to stuff, there is a Campaign Beast to be fed and it’s the organiser who cooks up the menu.

Now, if you are a candidate or a volunteer, you have some element of choice about if and when you hit the streets at this holiday time of year. If you are a member of staff, you have to be there at both ends of that range of possibilities.

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Caron Lindsay

Manchester Gorton: Times reports on “serious challenge by the Liberal Democrats”

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 16th April 2017 - 11:31 am

According to the Times today (£) the Liberal Democrats are putting up a serious challenge to Labour in the Manchester Gorton seat. We know that’s true, of course, because we are running a pretty vigorous campaign. Key people in the party are making it known that they are clearing their diaries and heading there as much as they possibly can. However, it’s good to hear serious journalists taking serious note of what they are being told:

With the vote less than three weeks away, party sources said that the Lib Dems were stronger than they had been in the Witney by-election, when Tim Farron’s party lost but achieved a 19.3 per cent swing from the Tories.

Losing would be a disaster for Labour and would rank as one of the great by-election shocks. The 31 per cent swing required for a Lib Dem victory would be the eighth largest since the war, according to Matt Singh, an election analyst.

The Guardian quotes a campaign briefing written by the Party’s Deputy Campaigns Director Dave McCobb:

But a briefing for senior Lib Dem officials and campaigners – written by deputy director of campaigns Dave McCobb – says the party’s messages on Brexit, including calls for a second referendum on the outcome of negotiations, are winning over voters in a seat where more than 60% voted remain in last June’s Brexit referendum.

McCobb says the Lib Dems are making up ground fast and are on 31%, with Labour on 51% – a level of support that is, he says, “running well ahead of where we were in the Witney byelection and approaching Richmond Park levels of support at this stage.”

But someone doesn’t seem to have noticed this:

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Caron Lindsay

Irish Brexit official: British ministers think that Brexit is an act of self harm

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 15th April 2017 - 9:24 pm

The Irish Times had an interesting story yesterday, quoting one of the Irish Brexit officials as saying that British Ministers realise that Brexit is a huge mistake.

The British government is slowly realising Brexit is “an act of great self-harm” and that upcoming EU-UK negotiations must seek to limit the damage, the State’s top Brexit official has said.
The official, John Callinan, said on Thursday: “I see signs in the contacts that we’re having, both at EU level and with the UK, of a gradual realisation that Brexit in many ways is an act of great self-harm, and that the focus now is on minimising that self-harm.”

Mr Callinan also highlighted the existence of internal divisions on the British side just weeks out from the start of formal withdrawal negotiations with the EU, saying it was clear there was “no single, settled position” on Brexit in London.

“Even within the British government, there are very different views,” he said.

Responding to this report, Tim Farron said:

These reports confirm what many of us have suspected. The Liberal Democrats have warned from the get go that Brexit is a monumental act of self-harm.

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Caron Lindsay

The most disgraceful Government form ever #rapeclause

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 9th April 2017 - 12:35 pm

There are many occasions at the moment when the UK Government makes me ashamed to be British. Two examples this week show what Tim Farron described on Question Time the other night as “Cruel Britannia.”

The first is the removal of Personal Independence Payments from people suffering serious psychological distress. Matt described powerfully here what that would mean for him.

When outdoors I can become so distressed by events and this can trigger an episode of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms. Symptoms include flash backs to an event that has caused much psychological harm and distress, visual hallucinations of the event that makes me feel that I am in another time and place, reliving the event as though it is really happening at that moment, becoming completely unaware of immediate surroundings. Coming out of one of these episodes is extremely distressing, confusing and disorientating and leaves me full of fear. My entire thought process is filled only with getting home and getting safe. I am no longer capable of following the route because my brain and thought process will not quieten down enough to think. I can only liken it to a petrified dog that will run off at full speed ahead, unaware of dangers / hazards / roads, petrified of people. All you can think of is getting home to the safety of your bed and cowering. The situation has caused me to put myself and others in danger whilst in this panicked state of mind. There are many things that can act as a trigger for me, It might be the way someone looks reminds me of person from my past, It can be a certain smell that acts as a trigger, it might be something I hear. I spend most of my life avoiding triggers. These are obviously easier to control within the safety of my own home, but impossible when I am outdoors.

The second example is the removal of benefits to cover third or subsequent children. In itself this is utterly wrong in principle. Benefit should be payable according to need. Children are suffering now because their families are now significantly worse off. The idea that large families should be penalised is so wrong. Are we really saying that if someone finds themselves as a single parent and they have four children, that the state should only provide help with two of them? What are the others supposed to do? It brings back the sort of attitude from Victorian times when the state would provide a parent with help with child support for a couple of weeks before taking the children off the parent and putting them in the workhouse. The idea that the poor are in some way culpable and should be punished is not something any liberal should accept. 

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Caron Lindsay

UK Government launches consultation on axing lettings fees – another Lib Dem win

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 9th April 2017 - 10:48 am

Back in the day, Liberal Democrat peer Olly Grender worked for Shelter. Her passion to help people with housing matters has never left her and she continues to campaign on a range of housing issues. The pressure that she put on the Government resulted in their decision to end lettings fees for tenants. We reported that this was going to happen last November but the Government launched its consultation on Friday.

Olly introduced a Private Members’s Bill in the Lords last year which would have outlawed these fees. Five days after the debate, the Government announced the measure. Olly explained why it was so important to protect tenants from these charges in her speech proposing her bill:

Shelter’s research shows that average letting fees are £355 per move, with one in seven people paying £500. On rare occasions, renters have been forced to pay fees of £900 or more to a letting agent, simply for the privilege of moving into a home. Reference checks, credit checks, administration fees, inventory fees—the list goes on. Invariably, the fees charged are extortionate compared to the cost actually incurred by the agent and they are not necessary. Furthermore, any cost actually incurred should be covered by the lettings agent’s client—the landlord—not by the tenant. Far too often these high up-front costs are proving a barrier to tenants, who simply cannot afford to move.

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Caron Lindsay

Scottish Liberal Democrats demand answers from Ruth Davidson over mental health cuts to PIP

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 8th April 2017 - 10:05 am

The Conservatives have not covered themselves in glory on social security issues recently. The removal of Housing Benefit from young people, the totally immoral restriction of benefits to two children and the deeply objectionable 8 page form that women have to complete if they want to claim for a third child conceived by rape, the cuts to disability benefits and cutting back eligibility to Personal Independence Payments for those suffering psychological distress have all shown a cruel lack of understanding of real life.

Let’s not forget the five year benefit freeze imposed by George Osborne in 2015. With Brexit bound to increase prices, that is simply unsustainable.

The cuts are significant, but even more reprehensible is the inhumane stripping of dignity from those who need our help. A civilised society supports those in need. If that makes me a bleeding heart Liberal, as Tim Farron declared he was on Question Time the other night, then I’m proud to be so.

Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservatives may pretend that they are nicer than their Westminster counterparts, making the right noises on mental health recently, but we can’t forget that they are the same party. Every awful thing that Theresa May’s Brexit government does reflects on them.

As health and social security spokespeople for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Alex Cole-Hamilton and I have written to Ruth Davidson asking her to state her position on the cuts to PIP. Our letter says:

Dear Ruth,

We were pleased to see your party last week join the Liberal Democrats and campaigners in declaring that the SNP Government’s new mental health strategy lacked ambition. It was the right thing to do because the new strategy will not deliver the transformation we desperately need to see.

However, we were deeply concerned to see that, in the very same week, your colleagues at Westminster were voting to restrict personal independence payments to people with mental health and anxiety conditions, affecting tens of thousands of people both in and out of work.

This shows little understanding of the complex needs of some of the most vulnerable people in our society, for example those trapped in their homes because they are too anxious to leave without someone. These people can need help to leave their home every bit as much as someone suffering from a physical condition.

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Caron Lindsay

Party members: Your chance to help shape the party’s strategy

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 7th April 2017 - 2:14 pm

Over the last couple of months, every Wednesday lunchtime and in another few meetings too, a group of us have been getting together to start the process of building the party’s future strategy which will be voted on at Autumn Conference in Bournemouth.

I don’t say very much in these groups because there are people much cleverer than me with much more useful things to say, but one of the things I wanted to make sure of from the start is that we involved members in the quest to shape our future direction. This is something that we must build together. It can’t be imposed. The group agreed that we would consult our members fully and we are doing just that.

The culmination of a lot of hard work popped into party members’ email inboxes late on Wednesday night. In the email, Party President Sal Brinton said:

At Spring Conference in York, our Leader Tim Farron outlined his vision for our Party:

“To replace the Labour Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives… so that we can replace the Conservatives as the Government of our country.”

This is a bold vision, which needs a bold strategy to deliver it.

We want to hear your views on how our Party can work to achieve Tim’s vision, and have set out some ideas of our own:

We want to hear your views on how our Party can work to achieve Tim’s vision, and have set out some ideas of our own:

We have also compiled an online survey for you to complete. It will only take a few minutes of your time.

Part of ensuring we deliver Tim’s vision is the need for every member to play their part to build a liberal society. Our country needs us now more than ever, and I know so many of you are taking part in some fantastic campaigns across the country, and I’m looking forward to seeing more gains on May 4th. So, don’t worry if you don’t have enough time to do it right now, because the closing date for the consultation is Monday 15th May at 12 noon.

We want to see an Open, Tolerant and United country, and we need you to help us build it.

In that email there is a unique link to the survey and a link to the consultation document. You’ll need to be logged in as a member on the party website to access it.

What we need you to do is basically mark our homework for us. We are bound to have missed something. What is it? Give us your feedback.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems respond to US air strikes on Syria

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 7th April 2017 - 10:07 am

It was quite disconcerting to wake up this morning to see that Donald Trump had launched air strikes. There is no question that Syria needs to be dealt with. You just can’t have any government getting away with gassing its own people. I just feel uneasy about Donald Trump being in charge of this. Does he even have a proper strategy? I also feel uneasy about our Government just slipping into line behind him.

On Question Time last night, Tim Farron was talking about the importance of establishing no fly zones and of humanitarian aid, but made clear that doing nothing was not an option in the face of an attack as horrific as the one we saw earlier this week.

He has since described Trump’s action as “proportionate” but went on to say that our Government’s response was not sufficient:

The attack by American forces was a proportionate response to the barbarous attack by the Syrian government on its own people.

The British government rather than just putting out a bland statement welcoming this should now follow it up and call an emergency meeting of the Nato alliance to see what else can be done, be that more surgical strikes or no fly zones.

Evil happens when good people do nothing, we cannot sit by while a dictator gasses his own people. We cannot stand by, we must act.

I don’t always agree with what they say, but in situations like this, I always look for the views of three people: Paddy, Ming and Julie Smith

On Twitter, Paddy said:

I also had a conversation with Julie on Twitter:

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem GAIN from UKIP in Aylesbury, hold in Bath and leapfrog Labour into second in safest Tory ward in Calderdale

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 6th April 2017 - 11:54 pm

Yes, you read that headline right. This is not a drill. We actually took a seat off UKIP in Aylesbur. Congratulations to Cllr Susan Morgan and her team for a cracking result.

It was one of these eye-watering vote share increases.

Fantastic.

In Walcot ward of Bath and North East Somerset Council, Richard Samuel handsomely increased the Lib Dem vote share to hold the seat.

Also up for a very large gin and tonic the next time we meet up is erstwhile Conference trouble maker Alisdair Calder McGregor who leapt into second place in the safest Tory ward in Calderdale. He was the only candidate whose party’s vote share actually went up.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince Cable to liberals: Don’t despair, go local, celebrate identities and embrace social democratic policies

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th April 2017 - 1:45 pm

Last night, Vince Cable gave the annual John G Gray Lecture to the Scottish Liberal Club in Edinburgh. John G Gray was a leading Scottish figure in the fightback from near extinction in the middle of the last century. He was at one point the only Liberal councillor in Scotland. Vince observed that at the same time as he was successfully fighting a ridiculous proposal for a ring road in Glasgow, Gray was doing the same in Edinburgh, making sure that a proposal that would have damaged much of the city’s heritage never came to fruition.

The subject of his talk was Brexit, Trump and the Crisis of Liberalism. He set out four things that we should do to stop the “insidious” politics of populism and nationalism taking root.

Firstly, he looked at some of the reasons for populism taking hold. History has many examples, from the South Sea Bubble, to the Depression to the 2008 crash, of economic heart attacks being followed after some years by populism. When people lose out, they turn to the extremes and we have over the past decade seen the fall in post war living standards. Significantly, the measures used to keep the economy afloat, low interest rates and quantitative easing, ensured that pensioners’ savings didn’t grow. That resulted in discontent and nostalgia became a powerful emotional driver.

He warned that as the populists fail, the search for a scapegoat would turn on the judiciary and the other elements which underpin our democracy. He highlighted the Daily Fail’s talk of the enemy within – where the Lib Dems were top of the list. Populists do what they can to delegitimise anything that gets in their way. 

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Caron Lindsay

The shameless Lib Dem Press Office Easter Egg grab

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 5th April 2017 - 9:14 am

As Theresa May went all Donald Trump on us by playing up to traditional Tory supporters  and focusing on an irrelevant and inaccurate news report about Easter eggs to distract us from the general chaos of her Government, The Liberal Democrat Press Office quietly went about providing commentary on the actual big issues of the day.

Our press team highlighted contradictory remarks by Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson. Boris was doing his best “It’ll be fine if we don’t get a brexit deal” in Germany, while Hammond said that we needed one to protect our economy in India. Tim Farron commented:

This Government is in utter chaos over Brexit. Philip Hammond says one thing in India, then is immediately contradicted by Boris Johnson in Germany.

It seems it’s not just some in the Chancellor’s own party who don’t want a deal on Brexit – it’s some in his own cabinet.

Theresa May should clarify whether she still believes that no deal is better than a bad deal, and if she agrees with her Chancellor of her Foreign Secretary.

The Brexiteers need to drop the bluster and bravado and admit that crashing out of the EU without a deal would be a disaster for our economy.

Tom Brake reminded us of the failings of the Philippines leader as Liam Fox was about to pay a visit:

Duterte is one of the 21st century’s most sinister leaders and Liam Fox has flown halfway around the world to grovel to him.  The fact that the first visit made by Fox since triggering Article 50 is to the Philippines shows just how low this government is willing to stoop in order to secure even a minimal trade deal in the future.

According to UK trade statistics, the value of our exports to the Philippines are just £500 million a year- to put this into context our total international trade is currently over £28 billion a month.

So not only is Fox blind to the horrific human rights abuses and endemic corruption in the Philippines, he’s also clearly oblivious to the actual realities of doing trade with them.

No amount of pandering to corrupt regimes can replace our membership of the Single Market, which is why the Liberal Democrats will continue to fight against the hard, divisive Brexit this government is pursuing.

If, like me, you’ve noticed that things seem to cost more when you do your food shopping, you’d be right. Prices in supermarkets have gone up by 2.3% in the last three months according to research. Susan Kramer said:

Shoppers are feeling the Brexit squeeze, with prices rising while real wages continue to fall.

This is only set to get worse as the Government continues with its reckless plans to damage our economy by pulling Britain out of the Single Market.

It’s not too late to stop a hard Brexit and prevent a long-term squeeze to people’s living standards.

The British people must be given the final say over what comes next. They can choose to keep Britain in the Single Market, and if they want, to remain in the European Union.

This was just a fraction of their output on the serious stuff yesterday.

However, they couldn’t resist a wee foray into Egg-gate. They are human, after all. How many egg analogies can you get into one press release? I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t get hard-boiled in there, given that that’s what we traditionally do with them at Easter, but I did smile.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems could gain 100 seats at local elections: Rallings and Thrasher

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 9:45 pm

Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have predicted that the Liberal Democrats could gain 100 seats in the County Council election, twice as many as the Tories are predicted to gain. They also say that Labour will lose 50 seats and UKIP 100.

From the Sunday Times (£):

Thrasher and Rallings predict that Ukip’s vote will collapse from 22% to 10% — and that the Tory vote will rise five points to 31%.

Rallings said: “The Tories will benefit from Ukip’s decline, but could themselves lose seats to the Lib Dems.

“The Lib Dems will be looking to take seats from both Tories and Labour as they claw their way back from the humiliation of the 2015 general election. In local elections they benefit from an ability to mobilise support on the ground.”

The last time those seats were fought, we lost 124, so even that sort of spectacular rise wouldn’t take us back to where we are in 2009.

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #475

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd April 2017 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 475th 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 (26 March – 1 April, 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

The Liberal Democrat Activist, the UKIP MEP and the boxing ring

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 1st April 2017 - 2:49 pm

When I first read this, I was sure it was an April Fool, but apparently not.

I had never heard of “chessboxing” before. Apparently it’s alternate rounds of boxing and chess. Yes, you read that right. Two more incongruous pastimes you couldn’t imagine – although both require a capacity for strategic thought.

Tonight, according to Politico, in London, Lib Dem activist and experienced chess-boxer will take on Jonathan Arnott, UKIP MEP in a chessboxing match.  It is the first time Arnott has ever been in a boxing ring.

We looked into this a bit further and discovered that the event is being run to raise money for the Ally Cadence Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. This was set up after Ally died at the age of just 6 months, 12 days after she was diagnosed with this condition. Toby White has set up a JustGiving page for the event tonight. Here’s what he has to say about it:

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Caron Lindsay

The best of today’s fake news

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 1st April 2017 - 12:00 pm

We hope you enjoyed our little bit of April 1 fun – although from the comments it seems that some took it seriously. Anyone want to have a guess as to which member of the team came up with this? I got it wrong when I read it for the first time. I then asked the rest of the team and got a variety of answers – but with two main suspects. The author has, since I first wrote this,  revealed themselves on Facebook – so if you’ve seen that, don’t spoil it.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem that the Government’s Brexit strategy was a slow-burning April Fool after all.

Here are some delights of the day that I’ve found. Feel free to add any others that tickled your fancy in the comments.

First up, I always knew that Neil Fawcett was a rascal, but how dare he seek to deprive us of the gently soothing rhythm of the risograph producing our leaflets.

Secondly,  Mark Pack is very good at challenging our core assumptions. He suggests here that we may be about to campaign FOR potholes. 

Iceland Foods are now doing frozen flowers, apparently:

And Aldi Scotland has health and safety in mind.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 13 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Three things to note on the Transgender Day of Visibility

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 31st March 2017 - 9:58 pm

Today is the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, a day when we are asked to take the time to learn and understand about transgender people’s lived experiences, where we celebrate our transgender and non binary friends and think about what we can do over the next year to make their lives easier.

If you just take a look at the #TDOV hashtag on Twitter, there is so much you can learn from people sharing their experiences. I want to point out just three of the day’s highlights.

Two of them involve Liberal Democrats. First is the amazing Maria Munir. It’s almost a year since they came out as non binary to President Obama, a year in which they have done so much to raise the profile of non binary people and work for greater understanding and acceptance. Today they were on LBC talking about HSBC’s decision to introduce ten gender neutral titles. Stuart, who leads HSBC’s Pride network explains how difficult it was for him when he transitioned.

If you are looking for resources to help you understand about the lived experience of transgender people and the issues they face, the Scottish Trans Alliance has some really good suggestions . 

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Caron Lindsay

A whole load of love for the Lib Dem Press Office

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 31st March 2017 - 1:35 pm

Well. We knew that the Lib Dem Press Office could raise a smile with its constant sass. Last year the Huffington Post cited 17 occasions when it was the most entertaining thing in British politics. 

But last night, something extraordinary happened. Serious journalists heaped praise on our little press operation.

It started with a tweet from Sam Coates of the Times:

Not only that, but a whole five serious, reputable journalists then pitched in to agree!

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Caron Lindsay

Damning PIP report shows culture of fear and mistrust – Olney

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 30th March 2017 - 9:27 pm

The virtual ink was barely dry on Geoff Crocker’s harrowing piece about his son’s PIP interview when a comment from Sarah Olney on the damning report by the Independent Reviewer of the PIP implementation, Paul Gary, popped into my inbox.

The report is highly critical and outlines that the fundamentals are just not working.

A key conclusion of the Review is that public trust in the fairness and consistency of PIP decisions is not currently being achieved, with high levels of disputed award decisions, many of them overturned at appeal

My findings point to the need to build very considerably on current action to improve the way PIP is administered, continuing the direction of travel proposed in the first Review. They include recommendations to improve the way the right type of evidence is obtained, used and tested in assessments; to strengthen transparency; and to broaden audit and quality assurance in assessment and decision-making.

In other words, there’s not a lot that’s going right.

Imagine, for a moment, that you’ve gone through the stress that Geoff describes just going for the interview. Then you find that you have been denied PIP. Then you have to endure the further stress of an appeal just to get the help that you desperately need to get on with your life, to work. PIP is not a luxury. It’s there to help people with long term conditions with the extra costs that these pile on.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal Democrat membership tops 87000

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 30th March 2017 - 1:50 pm

Elaine Ford and Willie Rennie

Good news from party HQ. It’s barely 3 weeks since our membership reached 85,002, double our low point during the coalition years. Now, it’s shot up again and has just gone over 87,000. While we have had 5000 new member since the beginning of February, Labour’s membership, according to LabourList, is falling at the rate of almost 3000 members every week at the moment.

Party President Sal Brinton welcomed the news.

The clear message to this Government is we have not given up the fight against a hard Brexit, and thousands of people across the country agree with us.

This is not the time for despair, it’s the time for action.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour may have given Theresa May a blank cheque to pursue her divisive Hard Brexit.

But the Liberal Democrats will not stand by and watch as this country is torn out of the Single Market and young people are left with a future they did not vote for.

We are the natural home for all those who oppose a hard Brexit and believe the people must be given the final over what comes next.

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