There has been much this week to worry us. Israel continues to shock and horrify, not just in Gaza, worrying escalations of the Ukraine conflict in Ukraine itself and Poland make that whole situation more dangerous and yet more political murder in the US.

Yet we’re all talking about Peter Mandelson and whether the beleaguered Prime Minister can survive. If you’re not a political nerd, it all sounds as chaotic as, say, a Boris Johnson administration.

Obviously Mandelson should never have had that job in the first place and only found himself in the running because the Government thinks sucking up to Donald Trump is the  only way to limit the damage he inflicts, particularly in terms of trade. It should concentrate on building ties with European neighbours stop debasing itself and quietly stand firm against his excesses.  I doubt that rolling out the red carpet for someone as erratic as Trump will help us beyond the end of his State visit.

If he had left the previous ambassador in post, Keir Starmer would most likely not have so many  people in his own party questioning his position to the press.  Next year’s local elections are now being openly spoken about as a deadline for improvement.

He also now has a Deputy Leader election to worry about. Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell are unlikely to give us the drama of the 1981 Benn/Healey contest but it will give those in the party who are dissatisfied with him to send him a message.

I hope that as a party we are properly thinking about where we might realistically make gains from Labour in those critical local and national elections in May. We need to make sure we have both our feet on the ground when assessing these things but we will be in a position for the first time in 15 years to challenge them in some places and we need to take full advantage of it.

Charlie Kirk

Every right minded person will have been  horrified by Kirk’s murder this week and all our hearts go out to his wife and tiny children. Yes his views were terrible, yes he stoked fear and division but nobody deserves to die for expressing their views.

Yet the President does not condemn all such incidents equally. Where is the posthumous Medal of Freedom for murdered Minnesota Speaker Melissa Hortman? Flags were not flown at half mast when she and her husband were killed in June.

If any MP from any party had had a family member attacked in this country, I can’t imagine Keir Starmer being anything other than sympathetic and supportive. In the US, Donald Trump mocked Nancy Pelosi months after her husband Paul was brutally attacked in their own home.

What was needed was a call for calm, for respect, for people to express their differences robustly and peacefully. For the country’s leader to behave like a grown-up. No such luck. Trump tried to pin the blame on the left and stoked rather than tried to end the division.

It’s what he does and what he will continue to do while he uses the tools of the state to repress and intimidate.

All political activists will feel a bit more anxious now that political violence or the threat of it seems to be on the rise, particularly on the US but if those of us who want a fair, free and open society stop doing what we are doing, everything gets worse.

100,000 racists in London

It made me very uncomfortable to see 100,000 racists take to the streets of London yesterday and be open and bold about their views. The fact that they could do so should put the idea that we don’t have freedom of speech in this country to bed. It won’t, but it should.

But aren’t these just nice people who are worried that they can’t get a house or a GP appointment, I hear people cry.

If you are going to an event run by Tommy Robinson, you clearly have some very discriminatory and unpleasant views and, no, the rest of us don’t have to listen to you or pander to you.

I really feel for anyone from any marginalised group who came across people travelling to and from this event. It must have been frightening for them and they must have felt vulnerable in that moment.

Many more people turned out to argue for a People’s Vote during the Brexit years – 700,000 at one march I was at in 2018, and that was just in London. 1-2 million marched against the Iraq war in London alone on 15 February 2003.  You’ll note that we didn’t get either a People’s Vote or prevent the Iraq war.

Those People’s Vote and Iraq war marches were conducted extremely peacefully and respectfully.

Yesterday, Elon Musk showed up virtually to tell people to fight the “woke mind virus” and warn them that “violence is coming” He said that the “left is the party of murder and celebrating murder.”  From the Guardian:

This is a message to the reasonable centre, the people who ordinarily wouldn’t get involved in politics, who just want to live their lives. They don’t want that, they’re quiet, they just go about their business.

“My message is to them: if this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice. You’re in a fundamental situation here.

“Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that’s the truth, I think.

That sounds pretty threatening to me and needs to be challenged.

The party has been clear that it thinks that this sort of rhetoric has no place:

Politicians from all parties must come together to condemn Elon Musk’s dangerous call for violence and make clear it has no place in our country.

That’s a good start, but where have the Liberal Democrats been in the media this weekend? I hope that we’re going to be quite assertive about getting ourselves on to all the shows and getting coverage for our point of view.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social