Author Archives: Param Barodia

Christmas Competition – Why be a Lib Dem?

To talk about reasons why everyone else should join the party, I assume I should start by discussing the reasons why I joined myself. I joined the party shortly after Jeremy Corbyn’s second Labour leadership election, seeing no future for myself in the Labour Party, I began to search for a new political party to call my home. Being vaguely close to the political centre, I knew from the start it wouldn’t be the CPGB or UKIP, not being from a region that has a regional party, I assumed the SNP and Plaid Cymru wouldn’t be too pleased with a …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 5 Comments

How should Liberals respond to Trump’s visit?

I don’t agree with a lot of what Donald Trump says. That’s shocking, I know. Additionally, I must admit that my gut reaction to the news that good old Donald was coming to visit was a negative one. However, after giving a little more thought and discussing it with people who follow other political ideals, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a little more nuanced.

Trump may be controversial, but he is still the leader of one of the world’s most powerful countries, and one of the UK’s best allies, and in the current international climate, we most definitely need allies, and being allied to the world’s largest military would be useful.

Another argument is that he wouldn’t nearly be the worst world leader to be hosted by the UK government, with the Queen having hosted dubious figures such as Bashar al-Assad and Robert Mugabe in the past. Personally, I don’t give this idea much credence, as using the mistakes of the past to justify what could be a mistake of the future doesn’t make much sense at all. It is accepted that the UK has played host to some controversial figures, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Trump is on the same level as the man who was recently alleged to have used chemical weapons on his own citizens.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 22 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • David Evans
    Hi Alison. Thanks for your prompt response. It is very enlightening. Unfortunately, I think you missed one key aspect of what I was asking about. To me, the...
  • Roland
    @David - The laugh is you could see this coming. Decades back the US limited the power of computers sold to the USSR, after the wall came down we discovered in ...
  • Roland
    @David - The laugh is you could see this coming. Decades back the US limited the power of computers sold to the USSR, after the wall came down we discovered in ...
  • Katharine Pindar
    I recall that one of our ideas to raise taxes fairly was to tax company share buy-backs, and I read the other day that a big company, GKN perhaps, was just plan...
  • Peter Davies
    @Stephen Nash. Looking at that spreadsheet, I make a 5% raise in additional rate worth 8.9 bn. Aligning CGT with income tax would raise about 14 bn and increase...