There is a new, clearly defined road to political power—become an anti-politician.
Forget about compromise, consensus and appealing to the middle ground. Dismiss ideas of party loyalty. Discard thoughts of reasoned political debate.
No, today’s successful politician is a crude, crass, socially unacceptable bully pandering to the basest human instincts to gain power. Finally, today’s successful candidate must be outside the traditional political establishment.
You may think that the previous is the start of yet another diatribe against President Donald Trump. In a way you are right. Trump is the international benchmark. He has lit the torch down this dark and dangerous path. But others are following. The latest addition to this pantheon of horror is Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
Brazil is important. It is Latin America’s largest country, population of 207.7 million.It has the eighth largest economy in the world.And, it is resource rich with more potential than an infant Amadeus Mozart.
On October 5th Brazilians troop to the polls for first round presidential elections. The run-off between the top two from round one will be held on 25 October. At the moment there are nine candidates. 63-year-old Bolsonaro is 40 percent ahead of his nearest rival.
His commanding lead is partly due to the fact that Bolsonaro is laid up in a hospital bed recovering from a knife attack which provided him with the additional aura of political martyrdom. But even before he was stabbed on 6th September Jair Bolsonaro was streets ahead of his political opponents,
To secure pole position, Bolsonaro has out-trumped Trump. On the subject of misogyny, the Brazilian has said he would not rape a certain congresswoman because she was “too ugly.” His daughter, said Bolsonaro, was conceived in a “moment of weakness”; maternity pay should be scrapped and women should be paid less because of pregnancies.
There is increasing worry about the impact of Brexit on our local economies and the recognition that it is important to make plans for all eventualities.
Last night, the Lib Dems in Opposition on North Devon (District) Council put forward a motion to examine exactly that:
The impact of Brexit (hard or soft) will affect all North Devon residents. This Council believes that with Brexit fast approaching, it is both sensible and realistic that the potential risks and impact of Brexit on North Devon – good and bad, short term and long term – are fully understood as far as is possible and aired in public together with detailed discussion on how these impacts can be mitigated. To achieve this, this Council undertakes to organize and co-ordinate a public conference/symposium before Christmas in which North Devon’s experts and leaders in business, farming, tourism, education, health and social services and other areas are invited to participate, together with elected representatives at all levels. This council is uniquely placed to lead this initiative by immediately setting up a Cross Party Working Group. The findings and conclusions of the symposium would be presented as a report to full Council and other authorities. Furthermore we request that consideration be given to how this Council can assist businesses etc. before and during the transition period.
I am pleased to say that the motion passed, with support from some Conservatives and Independents who recognised the need for such a symposium.
Cllr David Worden, Leader of the Liberal Democrats on North Devon Council, spoke passionately for the motion:
Whenever we turn on the news or read the newspapers it appears that the headlines are all about Brexit. I don’t want to go into the pros and cons of whether we should or should not leave the EU but I am extremely concerned about the impact of Brexit on the economy of North Devon. We live in one of the most deprived areas of the South West. There are hardly any services which have not been hit by austerity cuts. We simply cannot sit back and let the disastrous No Deal scenario, which seems ever likely, to be upon us, unprepared.
Jo Swinson, Lib Dem Deputy Leader, has announced nine major employers have agreed to publish their parental leave and pay policies.
Representing around 150,000 employees, the nine companies are:
Accenture
Addleshaw Goddard
Direct Line Group
EY
KPMG
Linklaters
PwC
RBS
Santander
Jo has been campaigning tirelessly for greater transparency on parental leave and pay. Getting these large companies to agree to disclose their parental pay and leave policies sets a standard that other companies will feel more pressure to follow.
Jo praised these employers for “setting an excellent example, demonstrating to others they can …
By Tahir Maher
| Wed 26th September 2018 - 3:45 pm
Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson Tim Farron said about the “latte levy”:
“We’ve been calling for this for years and the Conservatives have continued to do nothing – each year over 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups are thrown away and I now hope a small levy will finally be introduced to slash this waste.”
There is public support for using tax to reduce waste for single-use plastics. Firms that use unrecyclable plastic should be taxed to drive them to use other forms of packaging. This is part of the government target to abolish all plastic waste by 2042. The proposal is to use the funds raised to research into new recyclable/degradable plastics.
As Tim suggested, we need a tax on coffee cups that are very difficult to recycle. This is to deter the massive waste of plastic use that is having such a detrimental effect on our environment. This call follows the successful introduction of the 5 pence tax on plastic bags, by the Lib Dem, that has dramatically reduced their use.
From 2005 firms have had to buy a packaging recovery note (PRN), those firms who manufacture packing waste, to help offset the cost of dealing with the packaging. The PRN was to drive firms to more greener packaging. We, as a party, should push the government to increase the PRN to drive manufacturers to develop and use recyclable plastics.
The party has, rightly, focused on campaigning for an Exit from Brexit, but it appears to have done absolutely no thinking about how to campaign if we fail.
The press and internet are awash with Brexit doomsday scenarios: planes grounded; food shortages; lack of medicines; travel restrictions: a plummeting pound; riots; even a coup. However, Project Fear is no guide to campaigning in unknown territory.
How would we campaign in the new reality, if there is no People’s Vote or the vote is lost? There will be 9000+ council seats to fight on 2 May 2019, and we want to do well in those elections. If Britain does not Exit from Brexit, it will surely not be possible to fight those seats and ignore the UK’s changed circumstances? Can we afford to wait until Spring Conference, or later, before we consider the consequences of this outcome?
Having supported the European project since its early beginnings, we are surely not going to abandon it now? It won’t be easy to persuade people to support re-joining the EU without the opt-outs and special deals we currently enjoy when so many of them want to leave even when we have all these benefits. It could be a long haul. In the immediate future, as a matter of survival, our country will have to try – rapidly – to create a raft of new international agreements on trade; sourcing our food and medicines; creating new supply lines for manufacturers and suppliers; the new practicalities of travel. The UK currently has almost no people trained in the necessary skills to negotiate these agreements.
By Tahir Maher
| Wed 26th September 2018 - 10:45 am
The Liberal Democrats can hold their head high on the progress we have made to support women in the party and LGBTQ; I am now getting more positive with the party’s commitment to supporting ethnic minorities. However, the poor relation in all this is the support for disabled members. I don’t believe that there is the focus on disability issues as there is for other groups. Few in the party made it their mission to raise the issues that disabled people face, more than Robert Adamson.
A small tribute to Robert by Gemma Roulston the current Chair of Lib Dem Disability Association (LDDA):
Robert Moray Adamson was a carer who himself was diagnosed with MS. Robert never let the disease stop him taking a very active role in the party not only as Joint Chair of LDDA but with other party bodies like the English Party. Robert worked arduously to help and improve the lives of anyone with or without disabilities.
Robert and I worked well over these last two years together on LDDA business. When Robert was approached by Your Liberal Britain, about how to make their sessions at conference accessible, Roberts comments were taken up not only by them but by FCC too. With all the issues that Robert was going through he didn’t, however, agree with the right to die.
Robert has been Chair, Secretary, as well as newsletter editor of LDDA. He was always there for anyone with a kind word, good advice and was supportive. This year the Autumn conference in Brighton didn’t feel the same without him. Robert made a difference to people.
I recall that Robert wrote an article on being a candidate at Darlington entitled “The sitting candidate”, Robert was a kind, thoughtful and a humorous man. Robert’s one wish for LDDA was for it to be a SAO.
God bless Robert, rest up and enjoy not having to deliver leaflets, or have to herd cats.
By Tahir Maher
| Wed 26th September 2018 - 7:30 am
Thresa May is leading a divided party not wishing to be led and is heading in the opposite direction to anywhere she wants to go. Jeremy Corbyn is trying not to lead his party on Europe when his party is calling out for leadership. Vince is trying to get the party ready to take opportunities from a perceived moderate move from voters who are fed up by the dogmatic and squabbling Tories and leaderless Labour. Voters are moving away from the Tories because they have no agreed Brexit strategy, the can’t go to Labour as their 1970’s socialist tentacles have reappeared, and they won’t come to the Lib Dems as they perceive, wrongly, we are too small to make a difference. What a horrid dilemma. The country is being led by a Tory piped piper who is perilously taking us closer to the cliff edge.
YouGov polled in July asked voters what their top three priorities for the EU negotiators were:
Allow British companies to trade with EU without tariffs/restrictions – 42%
Allow the UK to make its own deals with other countries outside the EU – 40%
Maintaining co-operation with EU on anti-terrorism / security – 38%
(Immigration came in fourth with 29%).
For Brits abroad, 31% of Remain voters thought it was an essential requirement to agree a solution for them for those who voted for Brexit it was 8%. Labour supporters (28%) were more concerned about this than Lib Dem (25%).
Look, Theresa, I really don’t understand this. The European Union have told you that you can’t have this. You keep telling them that it’s what you want. When are you going to understand that, when you choose to leave, you get what they want you to have, especially when you have no status quo to revert to?
One assumes that someone has tried to explain this to our Prime Minister, but given that she has rather painted herself into a corner, it probably wouldn’t make any difference. In fairness though, even without her ludicrously self-harming red lines, her platform is being demolished by the ERG on one side, and the Democratic Unionists on the other.
And yes, there are signs that more thoughtful senior colleagues are looking for a way out, but between a Canada+++ option, which doesn’t solve the Irish border issue, and a Norway (—?) option, which doesn’t really exist, it does appear that we’re heading for either a snap election or no deal. And whilst Liberal Democrats might benefit from the former, is it likely to resolve anything, or would another even more painfully hung Parliament be the outcome? I was, at least, impressed by Jeremy Hunt’s spoken Japanese…
So, where are we now? Labour are meeting in Liverpool, with creative ambiguity the order of the day over Brexit.
If Labour bows to middle class liberal elites' demands for a second referendum (because they're the only ones who want one), they thereby insult the millions of Labour voters who knew exactly what they voted for in June 2016. And almost guarantee they lose the next election-IMHO pic.twitter.com/3QmHc91ka7
The Party’s membership, having been described as a middle-class elite by Iain Dale (who should really know better), appears to be overwhelmingly in favour of a “people’s vote” – it’s called internal Party democracy, Iain – with a leader who, frankly, isn’t. Can. or will, Jeremy and his mate Len deny their supporters the vote that they seem to want? And if they do, what do those who joined Labour to fight Brexit do?
Elsewhere, the Prime Ministers of Malta and the Czech Republic have suggested that a referendum wouldn’t be unwelcome. In other words, if a referendum took place, European leaders would be minded to give us an extension to the deadline in order to complete it. Unsurprisingly, this was seen by the Brexiteers as being an unwarranted interference. It’s called “giving you more options”, but these are Conservatives against choice, it seems. As is always the case, Conservatives only believe in freedom and choice when the freedoms and choices on offer are ones they approve of.
But I sound angry this morning, and it’s too nice a day for that. We’ve got a full slate of articles on Brexit, on party reform, on electoral reform and campaigning, so there’s plenty for you to get your teeth into.
And, if you need a laugh, here’s a video of men in penguin suits attempting to fill buckets of water on a revolving turntable (TW: Stuart Hall is doing the commentary)…
By Caron Lindsay
| Sun 23rd September 2018 - 3:45 pm
Tim Farron made a barnstormer of a speech in the migration debate at Conference last week, and was largely credited with fending off the threat of a Reference Back.
However, the Chair of Lib Dem Immigrants, Lisa Maria Bornemann, pointed out a flaw in his argument, to the great amusement of everyone in the hall except Vince. Watch our Leader’s face. And contrast with Tim’s realisation that he had been well and truly pwned. I was sitting right behind him and just after this he turned to me, still laughing, and said something along the lines of “Well, that’s me done.”
Today is Bisexual Visibility Day. Even now, bisexuals come in for a fair bit of prejudice even from other parts of the LGBT community. LGBT+ Lib Dems have put out a statement to mark the day:
Today we are marking the twentieth annual Bi Visibility day, which aims to raise the profile and visibility of bisexual people within our society – a society which so often overlooks them. Whilst great progress has been made in advancing rights and acceptance for gay and lesbian people (although of course, there is more to be done), bisexual people often suffer from assumptions based on the gender of their current (or last) partner and the prejudices of their peers. Media portrayals can trivialise their experiences, treat them as curiosities, or suggest that their sexual appetites are greedy and promiscuous. In such a climate, young bisexuals can feel pressured to “pick a side” and this is part of the reason why bi people suffer from far worse rates of mental illness than either gay or straight people. On top of this, the needs of bisexuals are often overlooked in the provision of health and social services.
Their chair Jennie Rigg added:
As Liberals, we stand against conformity and judging people based on their gender or the gender of their sexual or romantic partners. As a bisexual woman, I refuse to be put into a box by others because of the gender of the person, or people, I form relationships with. Today I celebrate Bi Visibility day by being even more visible than I normally am, and stand up for my bi siblings who do not yet feel able to be as visible as I am. My fellow bis are valuable and valid whether they are out or closeted, and I will continue to fight for their rights.
Follow the LGBT+ Lib Dems Twitter account for useful resources throughout the day. Here are some other Lib Dems marking the occasion on Twitter:
Here’s a quick summary of the Lib Dems’ reaction to Theresa May’s statement on the Brexit negotiations yesterday:
Tom Brake called for Parliament to be recalled:
The Prime Minister has had the most humiliating European summit in recent memory and returned with a tattered Chequers deal, making a no deal Brexit more likely than ever.
Two years down the line and the only consensus the PM has made across Parliament and the EU is that Chequers is unworkable.
Instead of pontificating to television cameras, May must now recall Parliament to explain how she got the country into this terrible mess, what her plan is to get us out of it, and when we can have a people’s vote and an exit from Brexit.
Welsh Leader Jane Dodds reckons we need a change of PM:
Theresa May pledged to the country to get the best deal possible but her unwillingness to compromise has left her isolated and now she’s doubling down on her fantasy Chequers deal. You cannot simply keep trying negotiate a deal which has already been ruled out by almost everyone involved and expect an eventual success, politics does not give marks for effort.
Brexit did not, and should not, mean whatever the PM decides it means. It took us 18 months to get the Chequers paper and her religious support of it shows the PM has no realistic plan for Brexit, that’s why she must resign. She has failed to listen to the people, failed to listen to the EU and never quite accepted she lost the General Election. I fully understand the difficulties she faces within her own party, but the buck must stop with her as PM and party leader.
By Caron Lindsay
| Sat 22nd September 2018 - 11:16 am
So, under cover of an incendiary and irresponsible statement by the Prime Minister on Brexit, the Home Office slips out a statement announcing that it is betraying the Windrush Generation by denying some of them the citizenship that it rightfully theirs.
In a statement issued late on Friday afternoon, the Home Secretary said a number of Caribbean nationals who came to Britain between 1948 and 1971 would not qualify for citizenship because they failed to meet the “necessary good character requirement” due to committing criminal offences.
Windrush citizens are supposed to be afforded the same rights as British citizens, so the announcement is likely to prompt renewed accusations that they are effectively awarded second-class status.
You have to bear in mind that the criminal justice system has at times been institutionally racist and a black person going through it would have got a much rougher deal than a white person.
Liberal Democrats have reacted with anger to this news:
The Lib Dem Campaign for Racial Equality said:
The @ukhomeoffice is institutionally racist to BAME Britons. The #Windrush generation came to rebuild our country when we were on our knees. They came as subjects of the British empire, not immigrants, don’t strip them of that status! End hostile environment now!#ldcrehttps://t.co/u1REKqXwiH
On Saturday, Ian Kearns electrified the Conference rally with a brilliant speech explaining why, in June, he left the Labour Party and joined the Liberal Democrats.
You can watch his speech above and the text is below.
At Autumn Conference I moved an amendment to F8 “Power to People and Communities”. Our amendment, concentrating solely on English regional devolution was opposed not by a rebuttal of its text and my speech but, sadly, by means of mischaracterisation and misrepresentation of what was written and said.
Since attending the Agenda 2020 session at Autumn Conference 2015 and then the East of England Regional Conference (which near-unanimously passed my motion “Fair Devolution for the East of England”) I have proposed additional criteria to the policy of “devolution on demand” – three little words encapsulating a seemingly straightforward and liberal approach but in fact opening a can of worms.
Quoting from my speech: “Civil Servants drawing lines on the map in dark rooms in Whitehall is a dreadful prospect. An entirely locally-led permissive solution, without additional qualification, is equally flawed because it implies self-selective, first-come-first-served devolution. Those first off the blocks will form regions within no framework and with no obligation to consider the ability of other neighboring districts to form viable regions themselves. We can have neither a top-down imposed solution nor an unmanaged, unfettered free-for-all. This is all about process, not about lines on the map. There must be a clear direction and goals: no areas disenfranchised or disadvantaged by the prior actions of others”.
John Crace of the Guardian made a snide comment on Monday – in his piece about Gina Miller’s speech he said we took a “two-and-a-half-hour lunch break. Presumably, because there wasn’t much more business to discuss.”
I couldn’t disagree with him more – and that’s not just because I’m a member of the Federal Conference Committee. Of course, there was plenty to say on Brexit, where Tories and Labour are tearing themselves apart. However, we debated so many other important issues – how we enable people to thrive in a world of rapid technological change, how we address increasing inequality through wealth …
By Caron Lindsay
| Wed 19th September 2018 - 9:00 am
Yesterday, Vince Cable told the Liberal Democrats to reach out and appeal to the millions of voters who are alarmed at the extremes of British politics.
A wee while earlier, some Liberal Democrat members had been reaching out in a manner that can only be described as optimistic.
Not the Leader’s speech is an annual tradition that started during the coalition years. A group of the Awkward Squad would gather in a nearby hostelry, watch the speech on Twitter and work out at what point they would have walked out had they been in the hall. There is less cause …
By Tahir Maher
| Wed 19th September 2018 - 7:40 am
This was my second conference as a member of the Federal Conference Committee (FCC). I had just joined FCC for the Spring conference and was really an observer. For the Autumn conference, I was involved from the start. The whole thing was well organised, and the team work well together (you have to give credit where credit is due). There were approximately 2400 members – more or less in line with previous year.
One note of sadness, I learned about, was the passing of Robert Adamson (Chair of the Liberal Democrat Disability Association). My Condolences to the bereaved family. Rest in Peace Robert.
Other than the sad news about Robert I enjoyed the conference. I enjoyed the interaction with the members, late-night meals and the different parts of the conference I was involved in. Outside the hall, I did see a lot of homeless people which I found distressing. Listening to a journalist on the TV talking about the Lib Dems he speculated that our policies need to reflect the concerns people talk about in pubs. One of the examples he gave was affordable housing, interesting he didn’t mention Brexit. I had the opportunity to speak to Gina Miller, we discussed why she had launched her new website “end the chaos”, she said she did this after listening to thousands of people and was surprised to learn that majority of them didn’t even know what Brexit was. The website was set up to provide core facts.
By Caron Lindsay
| Tue 18th September 2018 - 12:10 pm
So, Vince Cable is apparently going to refer to Brexiteers being willing to trash the UK economy for the “erotic spasm” of leaving the EU. Is this really the best we could do when Conference has set out what our plans are for the Brexit endgame – withdrawing Article 50 if there is no deal or an agreement to extend it. We have so far been the grown-ups in the room. We shouldn’t reduce ourselves to being a Carry On film.
Every Conference goer I have met so far – and there have been quite a few – has reacted …
Who knows what emergency motions we’ll be discussing today? Will we even have a Government by that stage? Will Theresa May still be PM?
The day starts without expectation of controversy but you never know in a party business session as we look at recognising the new Lib Dem Campaign for Racial Equality.
Policy debates today include promoting a fairer distribution of wealth, and a motion that sets out our demands for a better Britain.
And there will be keynote speeches from Scottish Leader Willie Rennie and Vince Cable.
09.00–09.20 Business motion: Renewal of Recognition of SAOs
Business motion: Recognition of AOs and SAOs
9:20-10:25 Emergency motions or topical issue discussions
10:25-11:30 Policy motion: Promoting a Fairer Distribution of Wealth
11.30–12.30 Policy motion: Demand Better: Liberal Democrat Priorities for a Better Britain
The Federal International Relations Committee is recruiting Congress delegates for the upcoming Alliance of Liberal Democrats in Europe (ALDE) Party Congress later this year. For more information on this process, please contact us!
What? Delegation voting-member at the ALDE Party Congress 2018
When? 8-10 November 2018
Where? Madrid, Spain
Who? Staff, parliamentarians, party members, activists, volunteers can apply
About the Congress
The 39th ALDE Party Congress, will take place from 8 to …
Europe, housing, the economy, land tax and sustainable development are on the policy agenda today.
Anti Brexit campaigner Gina Miller, not even a party member, will be giving a keynote speech. She’s had some attention as a future leader of the party despite not being a member so her remarks are bound to spark media interest.
The other keynote speaker is Welsh Lib Dem leader Jane Dodds.
And there will, of course, be the debate on membership subscriptions which, with a big increase in the Federal Levy, may actually prove more controversial than usual.
09.00–10.00 Policy motion: An Affordable, Secure Home for All
By Caron Lindsay
| Sun 16th September 2018 - 4:57 pm
The controversial paper on immigration passed today, but the only one of the five amendments to it that was opposed by the leadership passed.
Earlier, Ed Davey had reached an agreement with Lib Dems for Seekers of Sanctuary which made the defeat of the paper less likely. The leadership’s acceptance of their amendments meant that the policy on asylum seekers is pretty much what a liberal party should be offering.
The 90 minute debate was heated and passionate and saw some quality speeches. Opposing the paper, Alex Wilcock, who wrote for us yesterday, …
The controversial migration paper is the most likely opportunity to upset the leadership today. Many Liberal Democrats have expressed alarm at its negative language. Expect passion.
Other debates include ending discrimination in mental health provision, a longstanding Lib Dem priority and a paper on foreign affairs.
Also up today, Vince takes to the stage for the first time for his annual Q & A session. What other party leader would submit to genuine, unscripted questions from members for an hour in public?
There are keynote speeches from Sal Brinton and Jo Swinson.
As far as accountability is concerned, the Campaign for Gender Balance and the Parliamentary Parties come up for scrutiny.
09.00–10.00 Report: Campaign for Gender Balance
Report: Parliamentary Parties
10.00–11.00 Policy motion: Ending Discrimination in Mental
Health Provision
11.00–12.30 Policy motion: A Fair Deal for Everyone: Prosperity
and Dignity in Migration
Vince Cable will use his speech at the rally at the opening of Autumn Conference to make an open pitch to progressives to back us as the only movement in UK politics for them.
The intervention follows THAT speech in which he set out his ideas for reforming the party. Apparently, since then over 10,000 people have pre-registered their interest to become a party supporter – an average of over 1000 per day.
Vince said:
I want to make an open pitch to the people of this country who are fed up with the extremes of the current Conservative and Labour parties.
It’s an intense first day of debate at Conference. Abortion, Windrush, animal welfare and power for people and communities form the policy discussions. The day ends with a debate on reforming the Party’s disciplinary processes. Have sufficient changes been made to satisfy those who referred it back in Southport?
Keynote speakers today are Layla Moran and Tom Brake.
09.00–09.05 Opening of conference
09.05–09.40 Report: Federal Conference Committee
Report: Federal Policy Committee
By Caron Lindsay
| Fri 14th September 2018 - 9:30 pm
We’re looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Brighton over the next few days.
Tahir, Kirsten, Paul, Mary and I will be there. Tahir and Mary will also their Federal Conference Committee hats on so will be very busy indeed.
Come and say hello to us if you see us around – and do come to one of the fringe meetings we are holding and sponsoring.
Everybody wins – how feminist and LGBT organisations work together on equality issues
First of all, on Saturday between 1 and 2 pm in the Sandringham Room in the Metropole, we’re trying to inject some kindness and light into the toxic environment facing transgender people at the moment. Every time you open the Times, or the Mail, or, most annoyingly, the Guardian, there’s some article suggesting that women’s spaces are somehow at risk if transgender women are allowed in them. Actually, it’s been the law since 2010 and it’s been fine, but a new government consultation on making the process of getting a new birth certificate easier for trans people has been used as a vehicle for the most appalling scaremongering. In Scotland, feminist and trans equality organisations have worked well together on these issues, and we’ll have representatives from Engender and the Scottish Transgender Alliance along with the wonderful Sarah Brown (fresh from her by-election campaign in Cambridge) and Party President Sal Brinton showing that when women work together, all women prosper.
Our social security spokesperson Stephen Lloyd has been talking about how badly the Government has cocked up the implementation of Universal Credit for a while. We supported it in coalition but as soon as we were consigned to the back benches, depleted, the Tories ripped loads of money out of it.
He’s now written for the Huffington Post about what a nightmare this new system is.
And a crucial part of this incentive was the Work Allowance. This is the maximum amount a UC claimant can earn through employment, before their benefit payments are reduced. However in the Summer 2015 budget, with the
By James Baillie
| Fri 14th September 2018 - 11:55 am
What people often struggle with when it comes to Lib Dem economics is not the detail of our specific policies – which voters frequently don’t have the time to dig into, in any case – but our economic vision. Labour has a Big Idea, nationalisation, which dominates its economic agenda. The focus on Corbyn’s renationalisation plans was out of proportion to their potential impact, because it fits with how people see Labour’s economics, putting more of the economy under state control in the hope that permanently benevolent governments will somehow manage to run it all for the public good. The Tories likewise have their Big Idea in privatisation, moving more and more of the economy toward shareholder-driven corporations, deregulation, and the profit motive, in the apparent belief that this will placate the magic efficiency fairies. What’s our Big Idea?
The answer, in my view, is the social market, the core of which is that businesses should be owned and run by and for people across society, as independent bodies working to do good things in their own way. Taken to its conclusions it’s a truly radical vision, requiring the transformation of how we hold and invest capital to make cooperative, mutual, and social businesses the new normal. Even taken over the short course of a parliament, it’s a vision that can provide deliverable goals, improving working conditions and pay as we democratise workplaces and help new social businesses enter the market.
The social market is far from the misconception of Lib Dem economics as blandly toeing the middle line between the two other parties. It’s what happens when we logically put our principles into practice, decentralising economic power directly to people in a way that’s sustainable, democratic, and socially just. So how do we get there?
Firstly, we have to make it clear what we’re leaving behind, and secondly, we have to put policies in place that make it clear that what are now considered ‘alternative’ business styles should be standard norms in a liberal future, and ones that we’re prepared to act to help people build and grow. That’s why at Brighton Conference I’m bringing forward Amendment One to F28, the motion on business policy.
By Caron Lindsay
| Fri 14th September 2018 - 10:25 am
A year ago, Emma Walker hadn’t got round to joining the Liberal Democrats. She finally took the plunge in November 2017 and since then has made a massive impact. She’s launching a pioneering recruitment campaign (of which more in due course) and at last week’s Scottish Conference, she proposed her motion on ME. ME Action Scotland were there and tweeted about the occasion. They think it might be the first time a political party has adopted a policy on ME in the world.
Emma has sent us her proposing speech, which you can read below:
Imagine if, sitting in your seat here at conference, you suddenly begin to feel ill. Your vision blurs, you head begins to pound, and it feels like you may be having a heart attack. Maybe you collapse or you can’t remember your name. Your body has essentially crashed. Although it may take weeks. months or even years for you to receive a diagnosis, you are now one of the 21,000 people in Scotland living with M.E. For so many this is exactly how it starts. What’s more – there is no test, no cure and no proven effective treatment.
M.E, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, is an invisible illness in many ways. People who have mild to moderate M.E often look well, despite facing crippling symptoms such as bone-aching fatigue, excruciating pain and the inability to tolerate light or noise. 25% of all Scottish patients are severely affected – which means that they are house-bound or bed-bound, which in turn means that they are easy to ignore.
Only an estimated 5% of people with M.E recover fully, and some doctors question if they were misdiagnosed with other fatigue conditions. A slightly higher proportion learn to manage their symptoms and some return to work, but M.E remains in their system.
In Scotland, M.E affects more people than Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis combined. Yet we do not have a single M.E consultant and there is only one clinical nurse specialist, here in Fife. Shockingly, it’s the most common cause of long term school sickness absence.
This illness is a stigmatised one and it is characterised as being the fault of the patient. That they are not trying hard enough to get better, or that their belief that they are ill is the reason why they are ill. Those children who don’t attend school are often marked down as ‘refusing attendance.’ Parents have been taken to court for not sending their kids to school even though they are ill. GPs often send adult patients away telling them that everyone feels tired now and again. In fact ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ is a term that is sometimes used for M.E. But it is so much more than that. We would rightly never limit our definition of dementia to ‘chronic forgetfulness’, so why do we limit M.E patients to one symptom?
Two pieces of research have influenced the field. The first, in 1970, was led by two psychiatrists who after simply reading case notes from an ME epidemic that had occurred in the fifties, concluded that ‘mass hysteria’ was the cause. The reason why they concluded that? “The high rates in females compared to males.”
It’s easy to shrug this off as outdated, misogynistic research but this research delegitimised ME as an illness. It created a hysteria narrative which has paved the way for the ongoing dismissal of patients. In fact throughout the 80’s and 90’s, M.E became known as ‘yuppie flu’ or ‘the lazy disease’.
In 2005 the PACE trial came along. It was another bunch of psychiatrists testing various treatments, mainly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Graded Exercise Therapy. The findings were published in 2011. The data suggested that 64% of patients were improved and 22% were cured by the practices of thinking differently and running around the block. Given that the vast majority of patients regard GET as harmful, doctors and patients with any understanding of M.E immediately disputed the figures, and demanded access to the raw data. It took five years, repeated Freedom of Information requests and a tribunal to eventually access the data.
Independent analysts ruled that the PACE authors’ flawed methodology had been based on their preconceived views that M.E was not a real illness.
13% of the study sample had been recorded as simultaneously sick enough to take part and already recovered! M.E patients who couldn’t walk as far as those with Class 2 heart failure were recorded as being fit enough to return to work.
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Hywel 