Author Archives: Ruth Coleman-Taylor

Asking Jo to help restore the Conference crèche

By Ruth Coleman-Taylor | Thu 26th September 2019 - 10:16 am

I was lucky enough to get called during the Leader’s Q & A at Party Conference. I reminded Jo that we had had a Conference creche for most of the last four decades and that the Young Liberals had been prime movers in the original campaign for this. During that time, it has helped many parents and, in particular, young women to attend Conference and gain the benefits of learning, networking, helping make policy etc. But now there is no creche. Would she help to get it reinstated?

Jo looked hard at the FCC Chair, Geoff Payne, who promptly said …

Opinion: The future of the State

By Ruth Coleman-Taylor | Wed 1st October 2014 - 10:40 am

The Liberal Democrat pre-manifesto sets out our ambitions to take power from ‘the stifling hand of Whitehall’ and return it to citizens and communities: but does the state have the power it once did? Can we rely on having a strong state to implement our plans?

After the Second World War, the new architecture of the international order was based on bodies like the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union. These have all developed upon states agreeing to share sovereignty, to trade individual power for the achievement of shared objectives. In more recent decades, states have devolved, out-sourced or sold off functions to other agencies or spheres of governance. Some 80% of business transactions now take place in the unregulated space of the transnational domain. How much state is there and how much power does it have?