I’m a veteran Party bureaucrat, having joined the old Liberal Party at university. And, perhaps not entirely surprisingly, I’ve held a range of positions since then - everything from Secretary-General of the Young Liberals to being a member of the ALDE Party‘s Financial Advisory Committee. Returning Officer, Presidential consort, committee secretary, you name it, I’ve probably done it.
These days, I’m the Chair of the Parish Council for a (very) small rural village in Suffolk’s Gipping Valley, and a member of the East of England Regional Candidates Committee.
Parliament returned to Westminster on Tuesday after the conference recess, and the Lords was immediately presented with one of those challenges it so often rises to, another anti-terrorism Bill, the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, which received its Second Reading.
From the Liberal Democrat benches, Jonathan Marks outlined the four key tests against which the proposals would be judged;
First, what is the purpose of the measure and what is the mischief it seeks to address? Secondly, is the measure necessary to achieve that purpose? Thirdly, is the measure a proportionate response to the mischief, having regard to the restrictions on liberty
Yes, it’s back, as the end of the Peer show returns to a Parliamentary chamber near you. And this time, I’m going to try to produce a column every week…
The ninety-eight strong Liberal Democrat group returned to battle this week, having shrunk by one more just before the Summer Recess. Ronnie Fearn, after two terms as the MP for Southport, and seventeen years in the Lords, retired under the terms of the 2014 House of Lords Reform Act on 11 July at the age of eighty-seven. No doubt the wear and tear …
I’ve spent a rather relaxing weekend in Hampshire and Dorset, but it’s time to return to reality, or at least mid-Suffolk and a new week.
Will the week ahead see a rash of Cabinet resignations, as Brexiteers realise that the next set of Government compromises in search of a deal will take them ever further from whatever Brexit they individually want or understand? Is Theresa May really a sleeper agent for an Exit from Brexit, or just being tossed from crisis to crisis?
The suggestion that talks between Dominic Raab and Michel Barnier broke down without agreement last night do not augur …
Good morning, and welcome to another week here at Liberal Democrat Voice.
Something is happening out there, with Liberal Democrat polling numbers consistently edging up into double figures. Is it the start of the long march to credibility, or is it a reflection that, compared to Labour and the Conservatives, our stance on Brexit is beginning to cut through?
Last week, Labour decided that, rather than take a view on Brexit, or on a People’s Vote, they would offer several. Unfortunately, whilst Sir Kier Starmer was enthusiastically received for suggested that a new referendum would include the option of remaining inside the …
Look, Theresa, I really don’t understand this. The European Union have told you that you can’t have this. You keep telling them that it’s what you want. When are you going to understand that, when you choose to leave, you get what they want you to have, especially when you have no status quo to revert to?
One assumes that someone has tried to explain this to our Prime Minister, but given that she has rather painted herself into a corner, it probably wouldn’t make any difference. In fairness though, even without her ludicrously self-harming red lines, her platform is being demolished by the ERG on one side, and the Democratic Unionists on the other.
And yes, there are signs that more thoughtful senior colleagues are looking for a way out, but between a Canada+++ option, which doesn’t solve the Irish border issue, and a Norway (—?) option, which doesn’t really exist, it does appear that we’re heading for either a snap election or no deal. And whilst Liberal Democrats might benefit from the former, is it likely to resolve anything, or would another even more painfully hung Parliament be the outcome? I was, at least, impressed by Jeremy Hunt’s spoken Japanese…
So, where are we now? Labour are meeting in Liverpool, with creative ambiguity the order of the day over Brexit.
If Labour bows to middle class liberal elites' demands for a second referendum (because they're the only ones who want one), they thereby insult the millions of Labour voters who knew exactly what they voted for in June 2016. And almost guarantee they lose the next election-IMHO pic.twitter.com/3QmHc91ka7
The Party’s membership, having been described as a middle-class elite by Iain Dale (who should really know better), appears to be overwhelmingly in favour of a “people’s vote” – it’s called internal Party democracy, Iain – with a leader who, frankly, isn’t. Can. or will, Jeremy and his mate Len deny their supporters the vote that they seem to want? And if they do, what do those who joined Labour to fight Brexit do?
Elsewhere, the Prime Ministers of Malta and the Czech Republic have suggested that a referendum wouldn’t be unwelcome. In other words, if a referendum took place, European leaders would be minded to give us an extension to the deadline in order to complete it. Unsurprisingly, this was seen by the Brexiteers as being an unwarranted interference. It’s called “giving you more options”, but these are Conservatives against choice, it seems. As is always the case, Conservatives only believe in freedom and choice when the freedoms and choices on offer are ones they approve of.
But I sound angry this morning, and it’s too nice a day for that. We’ve got a full slate of articles on Brexit, on party reform, on electoral reform and campaigning, so there’s plenty for you to get your teeth into.
And, if you need a laugh, here’s a video of men in penguin suits attempting to fill buckets of water on a revolving turntable (TW: Stuart Hall is doing the commentary)…
The Federal International Relations Committee is recruiting Congress delegates for the upcoming Alliance of Liberal Democrats in Europe (ALDE) Party Congress later this year. For more information on this process, please contact us!
What? Delegation voting-member at the ALDE Party Congress 2018
When? 8-10 November 2018
Where? Madrid, Spain
Who? Staff, parliamentarians, party members, activists, volunteers can apply
About the Congress
The 39th ALDE Party Congress, will take place from 8 to …
Time to start another week, as the Party’s Autumn Conference beckons. Of course, much of the talk will be about the proposed “Momentum for Moderates”. In truth, the Party needs to build a broader coalition of support in order to gain power, and I can’t say that I’m terribly fussed about the terminology, as long as we remain a liberal force in British politics. And no, that doesn’t mean centrist, unless you can anchor centrism somewhere on the political spectrum. But I don’t doubt that there will be numerous contributions over the coming days.
I’m not one to criticise Theresa May’s dancing. You don’t want to see me on a dance floor, if truth be told. And, regardless of her prospects in “Strictly Come Dancing”, she was trying.
And on that thought, welcome to another week, with the schools going back and, indeed, Parliament. The behaviour is likely to be rather more dignified in schools though, with the weekend papers featuring supposed coup preparations against both Corbyn and May. We Liberal Democrats have Vince’s speech to look forward to at the end of the week, when he may, or may not, be talking about his …
Yes, that’s a 51.7% swing, for the aficionados out there.
For the Conservatives, who had previously held all fifty seats on the council, they’ll just have to get used to having an opposition in the Council chamber. Well done to Sophie Cook, one of our younger members, and her team in a part of the county where success has been traditionally hard won.
Elsewhere, a solid defence in Bude, on Cornwall Council…
Results of Bude By-election are in
Lib Dem 1010 Independent 475 Conservative 264 Labour 148
Bude returns a hard working Lib Dem to Cornwall Council
See, not all gammon is bad… Again, congratulations to David Parsons and the North Cornwall crew – a lovely bunch from my memory as Presidential consort.
It’s Monday once again, and time to introduce another day of general stuff!
* checks diary *
Oh, it’s Friday.
* looks around *
Yes, it’s summer, and whilst Caron is off having a thoroughly deserved holiday, the rest of us are minding the shop. That means that normal service… isn’t. So, bear with me as I step in for the day.
Yesterday saw the release of the first set of Brexit technical notices, advising of various impacts in the event of no deal. And, in terms of reassurance, they didn’t offer as much as Dominic Raab …
Time for the start of a new week, for those of us with weekday, nine to five jobs. Of course, with the rise of the gig economy, zero hour contracts, flexible working hours and self-employment, that represents fewer of us, and why is Monday seen as the start of a new week anyway?
Since I returned to the frontline of Liberal Democrat Voice, I’ve started most days with an opening piece, putting the day into context, but increasingly sense that it isn’t really working. So, I’m going to try something more… editorial, I guess. See what you think.
Last month, campaigners near where I live won a by-election where the key issue was that of second home owners and their impact on local communities and services.
This weekend, I’m spending a few days in Rhode Island, home of the chicken, and enjoying the tranquility of the shoreline near the Massachusetts border. Whilst doing so, I’ve been discussing some of the issues surrounding how you maintain healthy rural communities, especially in places popular as holiday destinations. As you do, right?
One of the challenges is how you ensure that local workers, whose salaries are often far lower than those seeking to …
Welcome to Rhode Island, the Ocean State and the smallest in the Union. First to declare independence, and last of the original thirteen States to join the United States, it’s probably the least remarked upon part of New England. It is, having spent the weekend in a quiet corner near the Massachusetts border, rather pretty and, if you’re in the area, worth a peek.
So, why the steamed clams? They’re something of a delicacy in these parts, and thrive in the absence of walruses, whose diets consists largely of clams. And, despite my …
There was agreement that, as bits of the building were either falling on people or were in danger of burning down or filling with sewage (or both at the same time), that it was really high time that Parliament vacated the building so that it could be modernised for the new age, with technology built in and new services …
I note that the latest proposals for debate at Autumn Conference on migration policy have come in for some stick from my editorial colleague. And with good cause, for apologising for what is necessary and appropriate is never a good way to convince people that what you need is, indeed, necessary and appropriate.
But I come bearing something rather more practical, in that I want to talk about what underpins any immigration and asylum policy, regardless of how liberal it is, or otherwise.
For, no matter what your starting point is, you have to administer it properly. So, without actually outlining …
Today, Liberal Democrat Voice is brought to you from Boston, Massachusetts, home of the mighty(ish) Red Sox, and the heartland of the American forces in the 1776 Rebellion against all that was good and decent. Or, in other words, where plucky freedom fighters liberated their nation from the colonial oppressors. You pays your money, you takes your choice…
The United States is an odd place. For all the talk of freedom, you often need to present proof of age to buy beer at a ballpark or in a supermarket, albeit that this depends …
It’s been a very pleasant weekend in mid-Suffolk, with a Branch garden party to attend in Needham Market, a fascinating lunch with a new friend talking about Brexit and wider geopolitics and an intriguing dinner party, but it’s now time to return to work, as the week begins anew. And what have we for you today, I hear you ask?
It hardly seems like two years since the last London Assembly elections, but it really is, and as a sign of how seriously the Regional Party are taking 2020, we today can announce the schedule for the selection of the Party’s …
The grass in my garden is looking a bit distressed, and the oasis of a new centrist party is looking like a bit of a mirage. But life goes on, and so does Liberal Democrat Voice. So, what have we got for you today?
Ben Andrew kicks us off with some suggestions that would help the young amongst us. And yes, he does touch upon student finance, but his focus is on earlier years too.
We have news on proposals for Horizon Europe. “What’s that?”, I hear you ask. Well, it’s a major funding programme, supporting collaborative research and development across the …
An opinion poll this weekend showed a significant shift from the Conservatives to UKIP, which perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise given the reaction to Theresa May’s proposals for Brexit. If, and one cannot be too cautious here, it is an early sign that Brexit supporters will desert the Conservatives if she proceeds as outlined, the beneficiaries are likely to be Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Of course, it might also cause Theresa May to revert to a more hardline approach…
But, whilst the experts and the commentariat pick through the entrails, we’ve got a website to run. And we start …
The overnight news that David Davis has resigned as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, and that his junior Ministers, Steve Baker and Suella Braverman have gone with him, is the first public sign that the Chequers Accord is not the panacea that it was first thought to be.
I’ll be trying to keep up with developments here, but it may be that we are in a state of chaos. What larks, eh?
But seriously, what does this mean for the Government and for Brexit? And how should Liberal Democrat’s respond? Is it, as I would suggest, time to call …
I’ll be honest, I’m struggling today. Despite being half-Indian, I really rather prefer temperatures in the lower twenties Celsius. But as the burning sun beats down on most of us, Liberal Democrat Voice does not rest.
As the Government staggers from one attack from within to the next, and as senior Ministers overtly start their campaigns to replace Theresa May, what are Liberal Democrats to do? We’ve got a contribution which offers an interesting perspective on that from James Porter.
If there is a people’s vote, what should we want to see on the ballot paper? John King has been thinking about …
England win 6-1, a huge march against Brexit. Anyone would think that we might be entitled to good stuff for a change. We’ll see if anything comes of either event, but it is nice to have something that offers hope, rather than the despair that has been so wearing of late.
There’s been a lot of hope in the past week for supporters of the NHS, but the Conservative proposal of an extra £20 billion for health spending turned to dust pretty quickly when it became clear that there wasn’t much actual money, and that what there was would be coming …
Amidst the drama of Brexit, the Guardian covered a report from the US which may well have gone unnoticed by many. “Financing Dies in Darkness? The Impact of Local Newspaper Closures on Public Finance.”, published by academics from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Illinois at Chicago on 8 May, might not, on the face of it, seem of great import, but I would suggest that it gives those of us who care about local government some cause for concern.
The authors summarise their report as follows;
The loss of monitoring that results from newspaper closures is associated
I’m a mathematician by training, and work professionally with numbers. And, because I find testing arithmetic projections entertaining, I thought that I might play with the proposed “£20 billion for the NHS”. See what you think.
Firstly, I should note that that £20 billion isn’t for you, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, although the Barnett Formula might mean that there is more money available for you too.
I’ll assume that the BBC’s figure of £114 billion for NHS England’s budget is accurate, and note that the Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting that inflation will be fairly constant at 2% per annum …
I was told on Saturday that there was going to be an announcement of £20 billion for the NHS, and my first response was incredulity. “Where does that come from?”, was my question.
But sure enough, the announcement has come, and whilst the proposal for finding this sum is, how can I put it, less than entirely concrete still, it has complicated the arithmetic of opposition to Brexit. I’ll take an initial look at the numbers later.
It’s expected that the Lords could be sitting as late as midnight, as the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill returns for consideration of Commons amendments. Will …
Last week, I was less than entirely complimentary about FIRC. This week, perhaps I should try to be more… helpful. So, having raised the question of communication, and being fairly confident that the Committee’s Chair and Secretary may look in on the comments, here’s an opportunity for you to make some suggestions as to how we, as a Committee, might engage with you all.
First, though, here’s an excerpt from the Federal Constitution, just to make it clear what we do, and what we do not…
There shall be a Federal International Relations Committee (“FIRC”) which shall be responsible to the Federal
So, it’s apparently possible that we’ll be reduced to hunting and grazing off of the land within weeks of Brexit, if the Sunday Times is to be believed. I suppose that, as Chair of my Parish Council, I’ll be organising bands of villagers, armed to the teeth, to keep you away from our food supplies… But seriously, whilst the scenario supposedly outlined may be exaggerated for effect, it is a reminder that, in a world of interdependencies, no country is an island, even when it consists of nothing else.
Dave Hodgson, Mayor of Bedford since 2009, has this week condemned the new timetable changes on East Midlands Trains;
“‘It sucks’. That was the verdict of a commuter I spoke to at 7:30 this morning getting off a delayed rail replacement bus, on the first day of the loss of peak-time intercity trains from Bedford. These buses are a testament to the Government’s utter betrayal of Bedford over the new rail timetables.
While the Government boasts of ‘modernisation’, commuters I spoke to this morning are dreading theprospect of at least two and a
There is a certain irony in that, having written the Committee’s communication plan before I resigned as its Secretary, that the Committee leadership has evidently forgotten that it exists. Thus, this report is wholly my own work. You’ll remember that if I run for re-election next year, right?
The key areas for discussion this time were the workplan and our response to the Alderdice Report on BAME participation within the Party.
The workplan is, I sense, a work of obligation rather than commitment, in that it looks to have been put together because one is required, rather than desired. Federal Board not …
Last week, I wrote in these pages about becoming a Parish Councillor as, perhaps, a stepping stone to other things, although it can be, and often is, worthwhile in itself. I then went home to my Annual Parish Council Meeting and, rather unexpectedly, became Chair. That will teach me…
On explaining a bit about my particular Parish Council, a friend noted that it seemed to be one of the common models, an anarcho-syndicalist collective, whereby someone is notional in charge (a bit like the Constitutional Peasant scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail), as opposed to the Stalinist school of …
expats Mathew Hulber......Doctors Deserve Fair Pay, Not Government Condemnation,,,,, I stand firmly with the doctors preparing to strike next month. They aren’t dema...
Slamdac @Alex am aware of that, and that is why they are paid well over £100,000 of taxpayer's money.
In a time where we are asking taxpayers to pay more and more, ...
Peter Davies The more serious flaw in James Moore's argument is that it is not the 40% (42% on earned income) rate that "kills enterprise, cripples growth and exacerbates th...
Jana We have learned from experience that Freedom of Movement between a higher wage economy and a lower wage economy results in a movement of workers to the high wag...
Alex Macfie @Slamdac: Consultant Doctors are very senior, experienced medical professionals. They will have started as staff doctors with salaries starting at ~£36,000 and...
Yes, it’s back, as the end of the Peer show returns to a Parliamentary chamber near you. And this time, I’m going to try to produce a column every week…
It’s Monday once again, and time to introduce another day of general stuff!
Welcome to Rhode Island, the Ocean State and the smallest in the Union. First to declare independence, and last of the original thirteen States to join the United States, it’s probably the least remarked upon part of New England. It is, having spent the weekend in a quiet corner near the Massachusetts border, rather pretty and, if you’re in the area, worth a peek.
Six months ago, in my increasingly erratic reporting of events in the House of Lords, I touched upon 
Today, Liberal Democrat Voice is brought to you from Boston, Massachusetts, home of the mighty(ish) Red Sox, and the heartland of the American forces in the 1776 Rebellion against all that was good and decent. Or, in other words, where plucky freedom fighters liberated their nation from the colonial oppressors. You pays your money, you takes your choice…
So, it’s apparently possible that we’ll be reduced to hunting and grazing off of the land within weeks of Brexit, if the Sunday Times is to be believed. I suppose that, as Chair of my Parish Council, I’ll be organising bands of villagers, armed to the teeth, to keep you away from our food supplies… But seriously, whilst the scenario supposedly outlined may be exaggerated for effect, it is a reminder that, in a world of interdependencies, no country is an island, even when it consists of nothing else.
Dave Hodgson, Mayor of Bedford since 2009, has this week condemned the new timetable changes on East Midlands Trains;
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Conservative councillor Paul Dick joins the Lib Dems
Ianto's shrine to be saved
Walkabout
Talbot Street and Church Street, Ellesmere
expats 
Slamdac 
Peter Davies 
Jana 
Alex Macfie 