Author Archives: Mark Valladares

Heavens, is it Monday already? Apparently so, and not just any Monday, but International Women’s Day, so there’ll be some content to reflect that, courtesy of our Editor-in-Chief.

I should take this opportunity to point readers towards Parliament’s celebrations of both International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month Although, somewhat curiously, both Houses will be marking it with debates on… Thursday.

Otherwise, I’ll be offering some thoughts on the Party’s disciplinary processes – which reflect some comments I’ve received from others who will remain nameless but may recognise the points that I’m making.

Welcome to Suffolk’s Gipping Valley, where another week starts. You may wonder about the picture, which comes courtesy of the Gateway 14 Residents Campaign Group. I’ve been spending the last week or so drafting my Parish Council’s seven page response to a planning application which is exercising local residents, which might reassure John Marriott that, despite my occasionally whimsical view of the world of parish councils, I take my responsibilities as Chair of my Parish Council very seriously.

We’ve got a busy day ahead of us, with articles on British pensioners overseas, …

And the snow lay round about, crisp and deep and even…

Welcome to a wintry Creeting St Peter this Monday morning! For a rare change, we’re getting some of the worst of the conditions here, but the wood-burning stove is doing its job, there’s no shortage of coffee, and I can still get out for a walk, so service should be as normal.

We bring you today a story of a company that didn’t export anything, but has been caught up in the administrative nightmare that is Brexit. I used to handle double taxation …

Good grief, is it that year already?

And welcome to another week here at Liberal Democrat Voice. Whilst the Commons is away for another week, entirely thanks to Jacob Rees-Mogg and his fetishistic dislike of virtual working, the Lords is rather more efficient and sits on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Domestic Abuse, Trade and Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bills are the core agenda, but there are Liberal Democrat Oral Questions from Dick Newby (the future of the Hull-Zeebrugge passenger ferry), Joan Walmsley (the prospects for obesity services) and Jonny Oates (the Green Homes Grant scheme).

Here on the website, we welcome back Geoff Reid, who writes about the importance of accuracy – a useful prompt for the busy Day Editor – and why it matters.

It’s always nice to welcome a new contributor, and today sees Ellen Nicholson’s debut, challenging the right-wing media. She was our candidate in South West Wiltshire (think Westbury) in 2019 and they’ve got all up Unitary elections in May.

Welcome to the final instalment of our most read posts of 2020. For those of you late to the “countdown”, the earlier posts can be found by following the following links;

• posts 20-16
• posts 15-11
• posts 10-6

It would be naive to suggest that the 2019 General Election campaign was a success and, for good or ill, much of the blame fell upon Jo Swinson and her advisors. In the fifth most read post of 2020, Paul Walter highlighted the views of the former Chief Executive of the Party, and former MP for North Devon, Sir Nick Harvey. He wasn’t particularly supportive…

At number 4, we noted Jo’s response to defeat, looking back at what might be fairly said to have been an eventful decade. She suggested that she might not be finished either…

Welcome back to the third of our four articles featuring the most read posts on the site in 2020. If you missed the earlier posts, posts 16-20 can be found here, and posts 11-15 here…

June saw the tearing down and immersion of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol. At number 10, Chris Bowers wrote for us suggesting that supporting what was, in strictness, a criminal act, was a troubling step. It would be fair to say that opinions were split, and the debate about when, or if, it is appropriate to break the law in order to advance a cause ran on for three days.

Our ninth most read piece came from our Wednesday Day Editor, Tahir Maher, who may not have expected his piece in mid-April justifying lockdown to spin off into a debate on the economics of the national debt. It is one of the charms of LDV that the comments threads can occasionally stray quite a long way from the primary topic…

At number 8, Paul Walter reviewed the findings of the General Election Review and was as honest as the authors were. I’m not a campaigner, and I wondered about some of the strategy applied, but these things aren’t usually quite so blunt. Will we learn the lessons for next time, or will we fight the last war again?

Welcome back to the second instalment of the most read posts on Liberal Democrat Voice this year, featuring the posts ranked at positions 11-15 (part 1, featuring posts 16-20, can be found here).

In September, our number 15 post saw us still debating what to do next in terms of Brexit, and ten of our former MEPs attempted to convince us that then was not the time to campaign to rejoin the European Union. Admittedly, that argument still rages to some extent, and there will be many Party members and supporters who are keen to start such a campaign as soon as possible, preferably yesterday.