Category Archives: London

The Voice

Liberal Democrats announce London Mayoral shortlist

By The Voice | Mon 17th July 2023 - 11:22 am

The Liberal Democrats have announced their shortlisted candidates for next year’s London Mayoral election. Rob Blackie and Chris French have been shortlisted and will now have the summer to win the support of London Liberal Democrat members. The result will be announced in September.

Rob Blackie advises startup technology companies, working on challenges such as accelerating cancer treatments and tackling climate change. In 2022 Rob founded the award-winning Breaking Putin’s Censorship Campaign – fighting Russian propaganda about the Ukraine war. Rob is number 2 on the Liberal Democrats London Assembly List for the 2024 elections.

Chris French is a community …

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Charley Hasted

Liberal Democrat Councillor speaks out about stalking experience

By Charley Hasted | Mon 1st May 2023 - 12:30 pm

Brent Councillor Anton Georgiou spoke to the Kilburn Times and the Local Democracy Reporting Service recently about his experience of being stalked and called for better support for victims of stalking and especially those in public life.

Councillor Georgiou spoke candidly about his experiences – from receiving threatening messages and constant phone calls to his stalker sending him feces, emails containing pictures of himself covered in ejaculate and death threats. He talked candidly about the impact the messages and calls had on him personally and professionally as well as on his family and how this only increased when his stalker told him he’d moved to London from Ireland and how Anton could “run into him at any time.” leaving him afraid to leave the house.

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Simon McGrath

London members vote to choose the top of the list for the Greater London Assembly

By Simon McGrath | Tue 18th April 2023 - 9:50 am

Ballot e-mails will be going out shortly for members in London to decide the order of our candidates for the List election for the Greater London Assembly in May 2024. The Assembly has fourteen constituency members and eleven elected on Party lists. So, if our share of the vote gives us four people to be elected on the List, the top four on our list will become Assembly members.

We currently have two GLA members – Caroline Pidgeon and Hina Bokhari, though Caroline has announced she is not standing again.

There are eleven members competing:

  • Chris Annous
  • Rob Blackie
  • Cllr Hina Bokhari
  • Michael

…

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John Sweeney

Met police found to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic – Now what?

By John Sweeney | Mon 27th March 2023 - 12:30 pm

The Baroness Casey Review into the Met Police makes for very grim reading for all Londoners. The contents outline some horrific attitudes and behaviours towards minorities, women and LGBTQ+ people across the city it polices as well as within its own ranks. Baroness Casey has simply held a mirror up to this organisation and stated very clearly this has to change.

What makes reading the report even more depressing is that these same issues within the Met were identified back in 1999 in another independent review – the MacPherson report. This report only arose from years of campaigning by the Lawrence family seeking justice for their son Stephen. Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racist attack in Eltham in 1993. The Macpherson report concluded the investigation into Stephen’s murder was “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership”. 

I grew up in Lewisham in a ‘tough neighbourhood’ not far from Eltham within miles of the racist attitudes that prevailed at the time. My local pub, the Golden Lion, was the scene of the unsolved Daniel Morgan murder in 1987. Daniel’s family still wait for a justice that may never come and can only take some comfort the  Independent Panel enquiry they campaigned for established the Met was “institutionally corrupt” and  Britain’s biggest police force engaged in “the denial of the failings in investigation, including a failure to acknowledge professional incompetence, individual’s venal behaviour, and managerial and organisational failures”

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Hina Bokhari

My New Year Resolution: Let’s give London its Liberal voice

By Hina Bokhari | Thu 29th December 2022 - 5:30 pm

London has always felt like a Liberal city. We are welcoming, diverse, creative and tolerant. We are an internationalist world-class city open for learning and innovative business in or out of the EU. Recent research by the political scientist, Sir John Curtice*, concluded “London looks very different from the rest of the country”. A third of Londoners (34%) are socially liberal, compared with just 19% of those in urban areas outside the capital.

So now is the time for a Liberal surge in the city. We had one after the referendum when London voted 59.9% to remain and the LibDems topped the tables in the next European elections. We can do it again.

And now with London’s Business and Economic leaders openly highlighting the problems with Brexit it only seems right that London is ready for a stronger, Liberal voice who will fight for better relations with Europe.

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Graham Lippiatt

See an Award Winning Movie and Help Ukraine

By Graham Lippiatt | Sun 15th May 2022 - 2:52 pm

The Lloyd George Society and Rights-Liberties-Justice are sponsoring a showing of the film Mr Jones at the National Liberal Club on 20 June. The movie tells the story of Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist and former employee of Lloyd George, who travelled secretly to the USSR to uncover the truth about the Holodomor, the great famine of 1933 under Stalin’s regime in the Ukraine. Jones witnesses appalling conditions, including starving people whose grain has been forcibly taken away for consumption elsewhere, villages whose entire populations have died or just vanished and ‘horrifically, he stumbles across examples of cannibalism. Yet despite his evidence, Jones finds it hard to get the matter taken seriously once back in Britain.

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Hina Bokhari

London Liberal Democrats call for action on cladding

By Hina Bokhari | Tue 28th September 2021 - 12:42 pm

Rightly, we expect Government to step in when the market has gone wrong. Through regulation or remediation, the state is there to protect its citizens.

And yet millions of leaseholders are being horribly let down by the Government. A government which is letting developers off the hook.

The Government and developers have now known for over four years that homes are unsafe – not just with dangerous cladding, but with all sorts of other fire risks which have been identified – and not just on high rise blocks, as I know too well from the local Worcester Park fire in my local area back in 2019 in which 23 low rise flats were destroyed by fire within minutes.

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Fredo Rockwell

On Hina and ice-cream

By Fredo Rockwell | Fri 23rd July 2021 - 11:26 am

Last Thursday, LibDem London Assembly member Hina Bokhari invited me to spend the day with her. My goals were to get to know Hina better, learn what the London Assembly does, and create a video for my YouTube channel we could share with the world.

At one point Hina says “there’s nothing particularly remarkable about me.” I think this video shows pretty clearly that this isn’t true – she is actually an extremely remarkable person. As LibDems, we should all be very proud she represents our party in the London Assembly.

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The Voice

London Liberal Democrats launch manifesto to Take London Forward

By The Voice | Fri 16th April 2021 - 11:35 am

Luisa Porritt has launched her manifesto for the London mayoral elections on 6 May saying:

“London is a liberal city. I’ll offer the progressive alternative to Sadiq Khan’s poor record our city needs. What would have been ten years of steady change has been accelerated in a year by the pandemic.”

Luisa is pledging to introduce a flexible travel card, block the Silvertown Tunnel and make the streets safer.

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Caroline Pidgeon

A letter from Caroline Pidgeon AM to the Mayor of London

By Caroline Pidgeon | Wed 10th June 2020 - 3:30 pm

Dear Sadiq,

Re: Concerns for London’s Charity Shops

As we know, many businesses and organisations are facing unprecedented challenges in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. I wanted to write to you about some specific concerns I have for charity shops, a staple of our high streets in London.

Charity shops provide essential revenue for charities in London and across the UK. They are important for all charities, but particularly important for those smaller charities who rely heavily on the income from their charity shops. Furthermore, charity chops provide an affordable place for many people to shop in London and are a lifeline for many in terms of purchasing goods they would otherwise be unable to afford.

An often-underrated benefit of charity shops is also that they are a greener and more environmentally sustainable way to shop – promoting the reuse of items, whilst providing a profit for good causes.

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NewsHound

International Women’s Week events

By NewsHound | Thu 5th March 2020 - 9:30 am

There have been well-attended events to celebrate International Women’s Week, with culminates with International Women’s Day this Sunday:

https://twitter.com/NFadPho/status/1234473144913711104

And something coming up on Sunday…

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The Voice

Siobhan Benita launches her campaign to be Mayor of London

By The Voice | Thu 13th February 2020 - 7:23 pm

Today Siobhan Benita has launched her campaign under the slogan “Love London Better”. And what a breath of fresh air she would be in the capital.

As she said:

London dares to be different. It has so far delivered three very different Mayors who have captured Londoner’s hearts and minds in different ways. What could be more different than a Liberal Democrat female mayor? It’s time.

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Paul Walter

Traditional Tory voters in London are coming across to the LibDems

By Paul Walter | Tue 3rd December 2019 - 7:30 pm

Siobhan Benita, our London spokesperson and 2020 mayoral candidate (right), has been campaigning for LibDem candidates all over London. Yesterday she spoke to me about how things are going. This was her assessment:

I think it is going really well. We’re definitely seeing, in some of our key target seats, what we’ve heard here (in City of London and Westminster), which is (that) especially traditional Conservative voters, are (coming across to the LibDems). (This is) not just about Brexit – what we were hearing in Kensington yesterday, for example with Sam’s team, and a lot of the older voters there who have only ever voted Conservative, were saying they don’t associate with Boris Johnson’s Conservative party – they don’t like him – they don’t like the lies he is saying – and for the first time ever – some of them had already postal voted – they’d already given us their vote. So I think we are definitely seeing that across the capital. The nice thing for me, I think as well, is that I know we are obviously strong in parts of London – say south-west London – we have traditionally been strong. I’m definitely getting that sense in the north as well, in Finchley and Golders Green it’s going to be really really exciting there too. So I am hoping that we can – you know – change the map across London and that we’ll be seeing yellow pockets across London, other than the south-west – but I think we’ll grow there as well.

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Chris Key

Why has nobody been held accountable for the Garden Bridge scandal?

By Chris Key | Thu 10th August 2017 - 4:02 pm

Yesterday on LBC, Sadiq Khan acknowledged that the taxpayer is unlikely to see anything for the £50 million which has been spent on the Garden Bridge.

The Daily Express did its best to portray Khan, rather than Boris Johnson, as the guilty party here. Following James O’Brien’s show, they wrote a piece which totally failed to recognize the fact that it was Khan who had been the one who had instigated the enquiry which Margaret Hodge produced. A report which made it clear that no more public money should be invested in this project.

It is clear that there were …

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Paul Walter

Impressive free public access to our Supreme Court

By Paul Walter | Sat 11th February 2017 - 11:57 am

The main courtroom at the Supreme Court, from the perspective of the Presiding Judge.
This week I wanted to visit a court in London, to get a feel for the proceedings. I didn’t fancy the Old Bailey – its case list is a series of stabbings basically. Not nice. I was about to make the journey to the Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand when I remembered the more recently opened Supreme Court.

The United Kingdom Supreme Court resides just opposite Parliament in an impressive building previously occupied by Middlesex County Council and the Middlesex Courts.

When I visited, there were only a few people milling around inside. The staff were very friendly and helpful. I was whisked through the security scanner and then the receptionist explained what I could do in the building. The public are able to wonder around the three court rooms (when there are no cases ongoing) and take photographs. Then there is an interesting exhibition area about the history of the building, the Supreme Court, the Magna Carta and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. That latter entity is the final court of judgment for a number of territories overseas.

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Mary Reid

Under Hitler, Europeans were killing each other; now they are arguing over Eurovision

By Mary Reid | Mon 16th May 2016 - 2:56 pm

 

Tim Farron has strongly condemned Boris Johnson’s extraordinary comparison of the EU with Hitler.

Tim said:

Under Hitler, Europeans were killing each other, now they are arguing over Eurovision.

The European Union is what happens when countries seek to learn from the past and work together. Boris Johnson’s latest intervention is what happens when people refuse to learn the lessons of the past and seek to spread discord by inventing conspiracies.

The EU has helped secure peace; Hitler destroyed peace and killed millions of innocent people. It is extraordinary that anyone even needs to point this out to him.

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News Meerkat

Emails go out to start voting on our Greater London Authority candidates

By News Meerkat | Fri 28th August 2015 - 11:36 am

The ever-energetic and helpful Dr Mark Pack, formerly of this parish, has published a very informative update this morning on the subject of the election of our Greater London Authority candidates:

Emails with online voting links have been landing in London Lib Dem members’ inboxes over the last day.

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The Voice

Got some spare time? Can you help out in Kingston today?

By The Voice | Thu 25th July 2013 - 12:51 pm

There’s a whole crop of by-elections today across the country. ALDC have the details here over three pages. Have a look for details of one near you and do what you can to help your local campaign.

However, there is only one Liberal Democrat defence, in Edward Davey’s Kingston constituency, so here at the Voice we are asking Liberal Democrat supporters reading this to concentrate their efforts there.

Lesley Heap is our candidate in Beverley ward. She’s a former NHS worker who’s now a swimming coach. She’s lived in the ward for 12 years.  And she needs you to ring her supporters …

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Mark Pack

A flagship borough: 25 years of a Liberal Democrat Sutton Council

By Mark Pack | Fri 5th October 2012 - 9:45 pm

Look round the room at the next Liberal Democrat event you attend and ask yourself how many people in the room will have their names recorded in places that future political historians can find. A few, certainly, especially if they have been elected to public office.

For most, however, their contribution to a political party slips away through the cracks of the historical record, disappearing as the direct personal memories people have of them fade and then end with death.

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Mark Pack

Success for Caroline Pidgeon’s cycling safety campaign as new lights to be tested

By Mark Pack | Sun 16th September 2012 - 12:15 pm

As the Evening Standard reports there’s good news for one of the issues London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon has been campaigning for with others:

Traffic lights for cyclists are to be brought in under plans to improve safety on the capital’s streets.

Transport for London has pledged to test the Dutch-style lights, which will be at eye-level and could be staggered to give bikes a head start…

TfL chiefs are holding talks with the Department for Transport about installing the equipment as it would require a law change. But managing director for surface transport Leon Daniels suggested that TfL would press ahead with a trial regardless.

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Mike Tuffrey

Opinion: Nothing to fear but fear itself

By Mike Tuffrey | Wed 20th June 2012 - 10:55 am

Mike Tuffrey seeks inspiration from Roosevelt in advocating a four point plan for a sustainable economic recovery.

With all the depressing news about the economy, I can recommend a re-reading of the inaugural address of newly-elected President Franklin D Roosevelt, given in the depths of the Depression on March 4, 1933. Aside from his well-known call to arms against fear itself, he did a nice (and topical) line in banker-bashing too: “Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men”.

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Chris Butler

No rest for London Liberal Democrats

By Chris Butler | Sun 27th May 2012 - 11:50 am

Here in London, we’ve already started working towards the local and European elections in 2014.

Last weekend it was great to see 52 activists attend a Regional Action Day in Sarah Teather’s constituency in Brent, so soon after a disappointing set of results in the capital in May.

Aside from giving a boost to our fantastic hard-working teams across the capital, Regional Action Days are designed to give activists the chance to exchange ideas and learn new skills.

In Brent last weekend, Sarah Teather MP, Baroness Sue Garden and our newest London Assembly Member, Stephen Knight, were joined by a large range of …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dem Patrick Streeter to stand for City of London election uncontested for 100 years

By Stephen Tall | Sat 19th May 2012 - 6:15 pm

Just a few weeks after the fierce battle for the London mayoralty concluded, a very different election is due to take place — an election which hasn’t even been contested for more than a century. But now London Lib Dem member Patrick Streeter is standing for the post of City Auditor, and promising to ask some tough questions, according to an email received by the Voice this week:

Patrick Streeter of Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats is contesting an interesting election on June 25. Each year the City of London Corporation elects its auditors, although the position has not been contested

…

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Mike Tuffrey

Opinion: Learning lessons from London – two and half quick reflections

By Mike Tuffrey | Sun 6th May 2012 - 3:25 pm

Let’s start with the facts….

  • Overall turnout was down to 38%, from 45% last time.
  • Two Liberal Democrat Assembly members elected, compared to three in 2008 and five in 2004.
  • Mayoral vote was 92,000 (4.2% – and deposit lost), compared to 236,752 (9.8%) in 2008.
  • Our Assembly list vote was 150,447 (6.8% – just over the threshold), against 275,272 (11.4%) in 2008.
  • The Greens “pushed the Lib Dems into fourth place”: actually their Assembly vote flat-lined at 8.5%, although their Mayoral vote was up a bit, from 3.2% to 4.5%.

First off, a big thank you to Brian Paddick, his brilliant deputy Caroline Pidgeon, and the …

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Mary Reid

London elections results open thread

By Mary Reid | Fri 4th May 2012 - 10:00 am

The count for the Mayor of London and the members of the London Assembly is now underway in Olympia, ExCel and Alexandra Palace.

Once again, the electorate have had to cope with not one but three different voting systems.

Mayor of London

There are seven candidates for the Mayor of London, with Brian Paddick standing for the Liberal Democrats.

Voters had the opportunity to mark a first and a second preference candidate on the ballot paper. If one candidate achieves more than 50% of the first preference votes then that person is elected. If, as is more likely, no candidate passes the 50% ...

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Mary Reid

The local elections results open thread

By Mary Reid | Thu 3rd May 2012 - 10:05 pm

The polls have closed, so where are we?

England

Elections have been held for 128 councils. In most cases one third of the seats were being contested. Altogether 6706 seats were up for election, of which 1170 were held by Liberal Democrats.

Ten English cities have been holding referendums on whether to have a directly elected mayor. They are Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Coventry, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield and Wakefield.

Doncaster was voting on whether to abolish its directly elected mayor.

Three cities – London, Salford and Liverpool – have been electing a mayor.

  • London: 7 candidates, with Brian Paddick waving the Lib Dem flag.
  • Salford: 10 candidates, including

…

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Vote for change in London – Ashdown, Steel and Williams

By Paddy Ashdown David Steel and Shirley Williams | Wed 2nd May 2012 - 11:20 am

Tomorrow those of you in London have the chance to make your voice heard by voting in the mayoral and assembly elections. It is vital that you do. We have an opportunity to do something to bring real change to London.

Throughout the campaign it has been clear that huge numbers of Londoners are undecided and unenthusiastic about voting for either Boris Johnson or Ken Livingstone. And the more they have seen and heard Brian Paddick the more they like him and believe he will bring real change. It is only now that election day is upon us that most of …

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Mark Pack

Poll shows Labour’s vote up but Livingstone’s vote down

By Mark Pack | Sat 28th April 2012 - 1:15 pm

When phone polling was first introduced in the UK it attracted flak over its accuracy (least remembered about those ASL polls the better), but also gained popularity through both its lower costs compared to the then dominant face to face polling and also its greater flexibility. The same pattern has been seen again with the spread of internet polling the UK. Just as face to face polling used to be the gold standard and phone polling the upstarts, now phone polling is the gold standard and internet polling the upstarts.

The merits or otherwise of YouGov have been much debated elsewhere …

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NewsHound

LibLink: Paddy Ashdown – I understand why many voters on the progressive wing of politics are struggling with voting for Ken Livingstone

By NewsHound | Fri 27th April 2012 - 12:25 pm

Writing in the Evening Standard, former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown says:

I understand why many voters on the progressive wing of politics are struggling with voting for Ken Livingstone. His campaign has been sad, desperate and divisive. He has just one big idea — a seven per cent cut in Tube fares. It’s a perfectly decent policy at a time when fares have risen for years on end but the problem is he can’t do it and he knows it.

Transport for London knows it too, having worked

…

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Eleanor Besley

The Independent View: how London Mayoral candidates shape up on cycling and transport

By Eleanor Besley | Tue 24th April 2012 - 2:52 pm

The way that we travel and the places we live in have a massive impact on our lives, going well beyond what’s traditionally considered transport policy. Increased car use is driving up levels of obesity, polluting our cities and leading to more accidents. As London’s population grows, the demands on our transport system make it an ever tougher nut to crack.

Sustrans wants to see a London, and a country, where everyone is able to get around, to work, school, shops and leisure facilities. Making it easier and safer to walk and cycle for our short …

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    I think your left/centre-left 'anti-system' bloc still breaks down into activists who are 'recognise the spirit of the system, just want it to work better and b...
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    I mean ... 'radical' is an attractive to many people across the centre-left of politics, but your 'radical' is my 'unprove / unwise leap in the dark' and many m...
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    @David Raw “ And how, Kira, would you define “the basics of life” My grandfather used to tell me that when he attended school, he used to go in bare f...
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    I read Mike’s email with interest. It started well before sliding into more of the same. Strong analysis on the campaign model, and the point that demogra...