Author Archives: Toby Keynes

Toby Keynes

An end to religious discrimination in our schools

By Toby Keynes | Thu 16th March 2017 - 12:37 pm

This Sunday, Conference will decide our party’s policy on state-funded faith schools – and in particular on whether schools should be able to select children on the basis of their religion or belief.

I would like to think this would be an uncontentious issue.

Surely we are defined as a party by our rejection of discrimination, and by our determination to oppose entrenched privilege and inequality.

And yet there are some within this party who believe that our children should be segregated by their religion – so that Catholic children only play and learn with other Catholic children, Jewish children only play and learn with other Jewish children, and so on.   And that the Jewish child whose local state school is in the same road but happens to be a Catholic school should be barred from that school because they are Jewish.  

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , and | 20 Comments
Toby Keynes

Opinion: Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill – A measure of humanity

By Toby Keynes | Wed 16th July 2014 - 10:25 am

Sunset @ Adyar:When Lord Falconer put forward his Assisted Dying Bill, I had no idea it would generate so much interest. Similar bills have gone before the Lords before, and similar bills have failed, by a wide margin.

However, this bill is gathering a remarkable head of steam ahead of its second reading in the Lords this Friday, 18th July .

The Church of England’s General Synod’s decision to reject the bill and call for a Royal Commission is reasonably predictable, but it’s becoming clear that opposition to the bill is far from …

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 18 Comments
Toby Keynes

Opinion: Spring Conference – Ditch it or shift it?

By Toby Keynes | Wed 20th November 2013 - 11:30 am

The future of Spring Conference is in question: the Federal Executive is seriously considering whether it should be scaled down or even abandoned, mainly to cut costs.

Neither of these are attractive options, and they appear to be deeply unpopular with activists.

However, the party has to contend with Spring Conference’s high fixed costs (bad for delicate party finances) and relatively poor attendance (bad for both party finances and party democracy).

At the moment, Spring Conference takes place in early March, during the Easter parliamentary recess.  That’s under 2 months before the May elections (except in European Parliament election years), when many activists …

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Posted in News | Tagged and | 19 Comments
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