Author Archives: David Warren

Liberalism has a rich history of radicalism from the People’s Budget, to Beveridge through to the more recent opposition to the Iraq war. The latter event had the effect of placing the Lib Dems to the left of Labour and resulting in some spectacular electoral successes at the expense of Blair’s discredited administration.

It was this progressive party of Liberals that attracted me in my home town where council seats were being won and where Gareth Epps pushed Labour into third place in the East constituency at the 2010 General Election.

Then came coalition with the old enemy the Conservatives, which looking back was inevitable given the route mapped out by Nick Clegg and his allies at the top of the party. I believe that their aim was a pact with the Tories from the time he assumed the leadership. Coalition damaged the party badly and, yes, there were some gains but overall the balance sheet was a negative one born out by the sight of both candidates in the recent leadership election falling over themselves to admit they got things wrong whilst serving in government.

During those years the party was very much part of the political establishment, and the electorate’s verdict was harsh. It is only with the situation created by the referendum on membership of the European Union that some electoral progress has been forthcoming but my concern about that is that once again the party is lining up with the establishment. In addition it gives the appearance of being a single issue party.

There has been a long running and heated debate over the controversial Fixed Odd Betting Terminals that are sited in virtually every betting shop across the country.

The debate centres arround a proposal for restricting the maximum stakes on these machines to £2 down from the current £100.

This is opposed by the gaming industry.

They along with other opponents of the reform argue that it will drive the gambling addicts to online betting and also lead to job losses due to betting shop closures.

It is a fact that the profits from FOBTs have fed the growth in shops often in areas of deprivation and a lot of the people playing them are losing money that they can ill afford to.

So simply reducing the stake may not solve the perceived problem and may also have unintended negative consequences.

Gambling attracts people from all sections of society.

However the group that is of most concern are the cash-strapped unemployed who have time on their hands and spend it in the bookmakers.

The FOBTs appear to offer a route to extra money which is so badly needed.

My interest in political history sometimes finds me searching the used sections of the Amazon website for cheap second hand books.

A recent discovery was a fascinating autobiography of Victor Grayson by Reg Groves.

Grayson a working class lad from Lancashire was elected as an MP in the 1907 Colne Valley byelection at the tender age of 25.

He was by all accounts a brilliant orator and passionate about socialism.

This was before the Russian revolution when socialist ideas were rapidly gaining popularity amongst the working classes seeking a fairer system than the one they were living under.

Grayson is particularly interesting because he fought for a seat in parliament independent of  senior Labour figures suspicious and fearful of him.

He was successful but found his time in the House of Commons frustrating, as a lone voice he was isolated and became increaingly aware of the Labour leaderships desire to destroy him.

I allowed my membership of the Liberal Democrats to lapse a while back but I took that decision without rancour.

My involvement had not been passive I stood for local council and campaigned vigorously in other elections.

I liked the party, still do but I just couldn’t live with the position it had taken on Brexit.

Another principled stand by yours truly, one of many over the years.

So as the General Election came upon us my personal focus was on the need to stop the Conservatives winning.

At the start of the campaign their arrogance and swagger was worse than ever and they are pretty bad at the best of times.

My election activity largely focused around the need to get a hung parliament which would then hopefully lead to some form of PR for future elections.

Like many other carers campaigners I wanted to see the future of adult social care high on the agenda, of course Theresa May did that for us with her dementia tax proposal.

A crucial moment in the campaign which I believe contributed in no small way to her losing her parliamentary majority.
On election night itself I stayed up hoping for Tory losses.

The social media campaign to get young voters registered, Corbyn mania and what I felt was a strong campaign by Tim Farron gave me hope.