Category Archives: News

Hammond is right to break the Conservatives’ National Insurance pledge

Philip Hammond’s decision to raise National Insurance contributions (NICs) for self-employed people has been the most eye-catching and controversial aspect of the budget. No less captivating for a Liberal Democrat has been our party’s response. Lib Dems are understandably keen to hammer the Tories for breaking a manifesto promise. And MPs have been quick to paint themselves as the defenders of entrepreneurs and small business people (though patronising them as “White van man” is probably unwise).

For all that, the Chancellor’s policy is right – though it goes only a tiny way to treating all workers equally and fairly. Let us look first at the tax break and then deal with some objections.

  • Employees pay class 1 national insurance at 12% on earnings from £155 to £877 a week and 2% on earnings above that. The weekly sums are supposed to equate to £8,060 and £43,000 a year.
  • Employers also pay 13.8% on top of what the employee pays. Despite the myth that “employers pay” and that this comes out of profits, this is a tax on employed people’s wages. This is the biggest part of the injustice in the tax system and the chancellor has not touched it.
  • Self-employed people pay class 4 national insurance at 9% on profits between £8,060 and £43,000 and 2% on profits above £43,000.
  • Self-employed people also pay class 2 national insurance at a flat rate of £2.80 a week if they earn over £5,965 a year. So silly is this policy that George Osborne killed it (from April 2018). Interestingly, as part of that it was announced that class 4 national insurance would be increased to compensate, so there is some cover for Mr Hammond’s move.
  • Those incorporated as companies are able to take their income as dividends rather than salary, and so avoid NICs altogether.
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New issue of Liberator out

Issue 383 of Liberator is on its way to subscribers.

This issue’s free sample online content is from Tony Greaves on what ‘taking back control’ really means, and from Dave Raval on why the much-vaunted post-Brexit trade deals will bring more problems.

Elsewhere in the issue there is:

On the Fence With A Part-Time Submarine

Liberal Democrats look set to yet again show they lack the guts to scrap the waste of money that is Trident, says David Grace

A Vote for A Delusion

Leave voters who think they have made Britain a global player again are in for a shock, says Paul Hindley

The Tinkerbell Approach to Politics

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Don’t get mad, get even: Join the Lib Dems

Just received an email from Tim Farron.

“Incredible news , “he reported, “moments ago, our membership reached 85,002.”

I wrote back: “Not enough.”

We are still in fourth place. Labour stands at 515,000. The conservatives are 150,000 and the SNP is 120,000.

The United Kingdom is a tribal nation and its politics reflect the tribes that divide it.

The Liberal Democrats are a unifying force. That is one of the main reasons I joined it. But to succeed it must break the tribal lock that has bedevilled British politics for nearly 200 years.

The only way to be certain of success is to have MORE members than any other political party. It sounds like a tall order. It is. But it is a necessary one.

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WATCH: Willie Rennie’s speech to Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference

It was a speech full of warmth, positivity and passion. Willie Rennie knows that a second referendum on Scottish independence needs the positive, emotionally resonant pro UK argument that was so lacking in 2014. He planted the Lib Dem flag in the progressive pro UK/pro EU space in Scotland, saying that we represented the views of the Scottish people. The challenge for the party is to turn that into votes. Watch his full speech here.

The text is below:

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Today at Welsh Conference

Welsh Conference continues this morning. There are more spokespeople Q and A sessions along with a debate on future relations with the EU. They will also be discussing their Governance Review with a call to establish an 8 member task force to take this forward. Here’s the full agenda.

9:30 Party Spokespeople
Bob Griffin: Economy and Infrastructure
Cadan ap Tomos: Young People, Equalities and the Welsh Language

9:50 PM5: Future Relationship with the European Union

Having regard to:

  1. 1  the narrow majority for ‘Leave’ in the EU referendum;
  2. 2  the need to respect that majority and the views which led up to it;
  3. 3  the multiplicity of beneficial outcomes from Brexit then suggested to the electorate;
  4. 4  the limited two-year negotiating period after Article 50 is triggered.

Notes with concern that:

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WATCH: Willie Rennie’s Facebook Live interview

Here is the Facebook Live interview that Willie Rennie did for the BBC yesterday:

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Today at Welsh Conference

Welsh Liberal Democrats gather in Swansea this weekend for their first Spring Conference since the disastrous election last year which saw them lose four of their five AMs. The party has had to pick itself up from that heartbreaking and thoroughly undeserved defeat. It has re-organised its resources and is ready to fight the Council elections in May. They also have the only Liberal Democrat Minister standing, in Kirsty Williams, who is doing a great job as Wales’ Education Secretary. Below is their agenda for the day.

They are having discussion sessions with their party spokespeople, motions on students and the community, ending the right to buy and community banking and  a long debate on their council elections manifesto. The details are below.

Morning session

09:15 Opening of Conference
9:40 Party Spokespeople: Cllr Peter Black: Finance, Local Government, Heritage, & Housing Jane Dodds: Communities & Social Justice

10:00 Topical/Emergency Motion

10:20 PM1: Students and the Local Community

Conference notes:

  1. The positive impact of students and universities on the local economy
  2. The transient nature of student communities
  3. The tensions that can arise between long-term residents and the changing studentpopulation

Conference believes:

  1. Collaboration between groups leads to the most effective and sustainable solutions to the issues and challenges transient communities face
  2. That it is the responsibility of students, landlords, and local authorities to keep the local areas tidy
  3. More can and should be done to improve community relations between long-term and student residents

Conference calls for:

7. Local authorities to work with students unions and universities on a variety of projects including:

  1. Creating an information pack for students and landlords detailing what resources are available to them within the community. This can include material and adverts from local businesses and groups, guidance on contacting the council, guidance around bin collection and local events.
  2. Informing students of their rights as renters through online materials and workshops
  3. Run community building projects such as Cardiff Digs and Love Bangor
  4. Promote and work with Communities 1st and similar groups
  5. To recognise work done by students in the local community through the useof Higher Education Achievement Report or other award schemes

10:50 PM2: Standing up for our Local Communities

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Today at Scottish Conference

After yesterday’s  keynote speeches by Alistair Carmichael and Nick Clegg, and debate on consumer advocacy, education and printing drug-related deaths, Scottish Conference will hear speeches from Sal Brinton and Willie Rennie and debate Brexit, maternal mental health and run a consultation session on housing.

Here’s the full agenda.

09.30-12.00 Morning session

Party AGM

Speech by Sal Brinton

SC5: Fighting for our place in the UK and Europe

EM2: Emergency motion

14:40-17.00 Afternoon session

SC6: Maternal mental health

Speech by Willie Rennie

Consultative session on housing

Party awards

On the fringe, RNIB Scotland  will be talking about their manifesto for the local elections, the Educational Institute of

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Lib Dems on Surrey County Council call on Tory leader to resign over ‘sweetheart deal’

Some of you from outside the area may have missed the story that has been rumbling along about the communications and connections between the Government and Surrey County Council.

Back in January Conservative-led Surrey announced that they were planning a 15% increase on Council tax this year.  They could only implement that by holding a referendum, which they would hold on the same day as the county council elections.

Then in February, David Hodge, the Leader of Surrey County Council, stated, to some bemusement, that they would not be holding the referendum after all. All became clear when Jeremy Corbyn asked the PM whether a special deal had been done for Surrey. She replied that the matter was entirely up to the Council. Corbyn then read out leaked texts from Hodge to a civil servant in the Department of Communities and Local Government.

I am advised that DCLG officials have been working on a solution. You will be contacting me to agree a memorandum of understanding.

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Lynne Featherstone interview Part 2: The future

In the hours following the icy gales of Storm Doris, I caught up with Lynne at Taunton’s most distinguished hotel, The Castle. This is the second instalment of our chat. You can read the others here. A more detailed discussion of the path to same sex marriage will appear tomorrow.

Of your achievements in politics, where would you put the equal marriage bill? 

Oh, right at the top. It is the most public. It is the most clear cut and obvious. But it shares with others. Clearly the FGM campaign wouldn’t have happened. I am incredibly proud of it because I find it extraordinary that we allow a practice such as this to go on in this country and around the world. I always say that if they were chopping off half a boy’s willy, this practice would not have lasted four seconds let alone four thousand years. This is because we don’t rate women and girls.

The one that people don’t know about is the disability in the developing world campaign, which I’m incredibly proud of. I changed the structure on how we give money. I refused to give any money to any educational charity working in the developing world unless they had totally accessible schools. That made a huge difference.

That is the thrill of politics – you can use it to try to make the world a better place. It sounds terribly naive, but that’s what I went into politics for. I was one of the very few lucky people who managed to do some big things. I got a lot of satisfaction at every level, but there’s nothing like being a minister.

Along with many other Lib Dem MPs, you lost your seat in 2015. What are you up to now?

Yes, I did lose my seat. For the first two weeks, I laid on the sofa eating chocolate and drinking alcohol while watching every episode of 24 and all the Harry Potter films. That was an excellent start to my new life!

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CANZUK: The next big thing?

As the UK continues to drift away from the EU it becomes increasingly important to seek out new geopolitical alliances and trading partners. The Tories have pivoted towards the US to fill this role. However, with its scepticism of globalisation and lack of credibility the Trump administration is hardly an ideal ally. Instead we should turn towards Canada, Australia and New Zealand and form a “CANZUK Union”.

The CANZUK Union would be led by a Council of Prime Ministers and built on three pillars: free trade, freedom of movement and intergovernmental cooperation. A trade deal would strike down tariffs and regulatory barriers but not create a customs union. This would allow each member to pursue its own regional trade deals. The existing travel agreement between Australia and New Zealand (1) would be extended to involve Canada and the UK. Building on Five Eyes and NATO arrangement committees of government ministers would cooperate on areas such as defence, security and foreign policy.

This new union is not intended to replace EU membership. Over 50% of our imports come from the EU, compared to 3% from Canada, Australia and New Zealand combined. Of our exports, over 40% go to the EU compared to 3% to the CANZ countries (4). Geography determines who we trade with most, and we can’t just move Britain to the Pacific. 

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Today at Scottish Conference -“Turning back the tide of division”

Scottish Liberal Democrats gather in Perth today for our Spring Conference. Some of us gathered last night and enjoyed a delicious meal in a French restaurant. Sorry if I breathe garlic fumes on everybody I meet today.

We meet just seven weeks before every council seat in Scotland is up for election. A better than expected result in last year’s Holyrood elections, with solid parliamentary work on mental health, education and justice since has heartened the party but the national opinion polls are yet to show any significant movement in our favour.  The political environment up here is very different from south of the border where we have the advantage of being the only party standing up against the Tory and Labour compete with each other to get to the Brexit cliff first.

Up here, the SNP are making a great deal out of the fact that Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain. Of course they are going to use it to call for independence although even a former nationalist leader said this week that they were being forced into it at the worst possible time.

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Yet another Lib Dem GAIN from the Conservatives

Good news – coming to you a little later than usual due to me drinking wine with my friends in the bar at the Scottish Conference hotel – from Oxfordshire.

Well done to Kieran Mullins and his team for that amazing swing.

The rest of the by-elections were a clean sweep for the Tories – but there were some healthy vote share increases for us.

Philip Vial was our candidate here.

Joanna Burrows fought the Exton Ward in Rutland:

Derwent ward in Derby was a Conservative gain from UKIP so I suspect that tactical voting was in play here, affecting our Simon Ferrigno’s vote.

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Inspiring Lib Dem Women: Jennie Rigg

Jennie Rigg is one of my favourite people on the planet. The former Chair of Calderdale Lib Dems is a plain-speaking, hilarious Yorkshire woman who has lit up the Lib Dem end of the blogosphere for getting on for a decade. She is one of these people who can express really complicated concepts that tie some up in knots in a way that the reader can really relate to. She comments regularly on here and is very good at explaining the barriers that women and people of colour and other marginalised groups face.

She made a brilliant speech at Conference in the social security debate last year blowing apart the arguments for the maintenance of some sort of sanctions regime.

I really have to think about it when I disagree with her because her instincts are liberal to her core. We have had some fairly robust arguments on these comparatively few issues but can go down the pub for a pint afterwards. Apart from lib demmy stuff, we both share a passion for our doggies, Doctor Who and gin.

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Inspiring Lib Dem women: Elaine Bagshaw

Today on International Women’s Day, we are celebrating some fantastic Lib Dem Women.

Remember back in 2015 after that devastating General Election when we all just wanted to hide under our duvets and make the next five years go away? Well, Elaine Bagshaw didn’t have time to do that, because she had to fly the Lib Dem flag in the Tower Hamlets mayoral by-election caused by the disqualification of the previous incumbent.

She made progress in that election and since then she has led her local party from strength to strength. As the candidate for Poplar and Limehouse, she is out there campaigning most days. Her local party membership is over 550 and she is working hard for her community. Late one recent Saturday night, she featured on local Bengali channel NTV talking about the Lib Dem perspective on Brexit and Trump and did such a good job of explaining our position.

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Lib Dems react to Budget

Liberal Democrats have been reacting to Philip Hammond’s budget which seems to do not much more than stoke the balance in favour of massive corporates as opposed to small business and give extra money to Tory hobby-horses like free schools,

In terms of the massive issues facing the country in health and social care and housing, there’s not much.

Liberal Democrats have been reacting to the budget. Susan Kramer highlighted how the Tories had broken their manifesto promise by raising national insurance for the self-employed:

This is a tax on builders, taxi drivers and window cleaners, some of Britain’s hardest working people. This hits the gig economy where people are already insecure and facing rising prices and job uncertainty. And on International Women’s Day it will hit over one and a half million women.

Companies will continue to save money by using workers without giving them the security and benefits of staff jobs. Meanwhile, these workers will have to pay more. This is patently as unfair as it is a tax on entrepreneurship and hard work.

Tim Farron also slammed the rise:

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++Second government defeat – Lords vote for parliamentary veto on final Brexit deal

The BBC reports:

The government has suffered a second Brexit defeat in the House of Lords as peers backed, by 366 votes to 268, calls for a “meaningful” parliamentary vote on the final terms of withdrawal.
Backing the move, former deputy PM Lord Heseltine said Parliament must be the “custodian of national sovereignty”.

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The future of the English Party

The English Party has set out its governance review, with the aim of making it accessible to members and easy to engage with, whilst providing least distraction from current campaigning and the fighting of elections and by-elections. We recognise the importance of ensuring the party in England is relevant and accountable to members, has clarity of purpose and operation and is effective and efficient and have worked hard to embrace these ideals in the range of proposals being put to members.

The options for the future of the party in England have been complied by a review group set up in autumn 2016 by the English Council Executive and comprising representatives from all eleven regions. The members of the English Review Group, as we are known, come to the process with a range of professional and party experience, including both long-standing and relatively new members. Within the group, we have differing opinions regarding the future shape of the English Party but have all have worked together to come up with a range of proposals for consultation.

The proposals outline four options for how the future party in England might look and function, they include:

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Well – did they consult or not?

The issue of refugee children will not go away – both in reality and in terms of a decency-check on the current Government, including the Home Secretary in particular.

The Government is adamant that the decision to close the ‘Dubs’ scheme, which many believed would allow the country to accept a further 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees, was because local government did not have the capacity for more than around 400. The evidence for this is that the Home Office asked councils and this is what councils told it. Simples.

The problem with this is twofold.

First of all, why did the Home Office …

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Lib Dems take part in national Day of Action opposing Brexit and supporting #righttostay

Today, across the country, Lib Dems have been taking part in a national day of action, collecting signatures for our petition calling on the Government to give EU nationals the right to stay in the UK and spreading the word about our opposition to the Government’s position on Brexit and our call for people to be given the final say on the Brexit deal. This is way too important for all our futures to leave to the Brexit Government.

I hope that EU nationals take some comfort from the fact that there is so much public support for them to be given the right to continue to live in the country where they have settled.

There were over 100 events in total. Here are some of the pictures of the bright street stalls all over the country:

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++++Breaking: Jackie Pearcey will fight Manchester Gorton by-election for the Lib Dems

News from the land of Twitter:

Jackie is a fabulous candidate. She has 20 years’ experience as a Gorton councillor. She’s brilliant. I first met her in a queue at the Torquay conference in 1993 and I just love her plain-speaking manner and sense of humour. There couldn’t be a better person to fly the Lib Dem flag. She’s in the centre of the photo in between Mamchester mayoral candidate Jane Brophy and the one-man opposition to Labour Cllr John Leech. That man gives Labour in Manchester a million times more trouble than Corbyn’s Labour gives to Theresa May’s Brexit Government. 

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Two months to go: What will you be doing on polling day?

It’s just two months to go until every seat in Scotland and Wales and the English County Councils are up for election. Also being elected are the metro mayors. Jane Brophy in Manchester, Stephen Williams in West of England, Rod Cantrill in Cambridge, Beverley Nielsen in West Midlands, Chris Foote-Wood in Teeside, Carl Cashman in Liverpool are all flying the Liberal Democrat flag.

Now is a good time to work out what you can do on polling day to help your local campaign team plan their effort. Polling day is incredibly important. Elections can be lost on the day if we …

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Analysis of Northern Ireland Election results #AE17

So all the votes have been counted, the transfers shuffled and now we have up to three weeks of negotiations to see if the Northern Ireland Assembly can come together in some shape. But what was the story of the count yesterday in Northern Ireland’s second election in 10 months?

This election saw a reduction of seats in Stormont from 108 to 90, or each seat returning just 5 MLAs. The turnout was up 10% on last May at 64.8% so every party was able to claim that more people voted for them but it was how that extra 10% of voters turned out that is the real story.

The two big gainers in the vote share were Sinn Féin up 3.9% and only 1200 votes behind the DUP in the popular vote and Alliance who were up 2.1%. The SDLP and UUP had negligible shifts in vote share -0.1% and +0.3% respectively, and the DUP dropped 1.1%. But this election became a story of transfers. From the moment that the UUP leader Mike Nesbitt said he would give his second preference to the SDLP things were shaping up.

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The Lib Dems are the party the country needs

I’ve been following politics for about 15 years and I joined the Liberal Democrats in January. When I was first interested in politics,  I was pretty right-wing. I was mired in stereotypes about race, sexuality, gender, and the unemployed. I was an avid reader of the Daily Mail and would hang on every word written by Richard Littlejohn. Then Michael Foot died. Now I’m too young to remember Michael Foot, but I’m sure older readers will remember him as being very divisive. Well Littlejohn just couldn’t help but call him a “useful idiot” just 3 days after he died and after that I was out. I slowly embraced liberalism and left right-wing dogma behind.

After a journey that started in US politics and included a lot of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” I developed left leaning views, open to reason but annoyed at the way people where being scapegoated for the mistakes of the powerful instead of being helped. But I became too cynical about politicians and started towards the far left. There I realised they were full of dogma too, were too anti-capitalist and fond of false equivalences about Republicans and Democrats, as well as being disrespectful of reasonable points of view. On top of that I realised that as much as the right-wing has been duped by The Sun and the Daily Mail, they were being taken in by Russia Today and Press TV.

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Great result for Alliance as majority of Northern Ireland votes against Brexit

The Northern Ireland election results are now  in and they show some very encouraging trends for those of us with a liberal outlook. Our sister party, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, won 8 seats and got its highest vote share in 28 years. Although their number of seats stays the same at 8, in an Assembly that is 18 seats smaller, that is a major achievement. It also increased its first preference vote share by over 2%.

Voters also sent a message that they were opposed to Brexit with the biggest losers being the unionist parties, who lost 16 of the 18 seats. The DUP famously gave more than £400,000 to the Leave campaign. The impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland, particularly on the border with the Irish Republic, would be devastating as Nick Clegg wrote recently.

On her Facebook page, Alliance leader Naomi Long summed up a good night for the party:

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Friday fun: Tom Brake and Sarah Olney in Twitter video controversy

I don’t think Tom Brake, Sarah Olney or Simone van Beek, the staffer from LDHQ who directed the video, actually meant to amuse Twitter in quite the way that they did with this campaign video for Fairtrade Fortnight.

The message was good, although it may not have had quite the chemistry of the old Gold Blend ads of the 1990s.

For those readers who are too young to remember them, this was a series of twelve ads over six years advertising Gold Blend coffee. The romantic tension between stars Anthony Head and Sharon Maugham built up over time and everyone was on tenterhooks waiting for the final instalment. It made the fuss over Christmas department store ads we see today seem very small.

As a long-time boycotter of Nestle products, I had the pleasure of watching them knowing that I would never give the company a single penny in return for the entertainment.

Anyway, back to Sarah and Tom and the reaction on Twitter. This comparison seemed a little strange:

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Romancing the Silk Roads

As someone fascinated by the Central Asian countries, I was delighted when the All Party Parliamentary Group for China (APPCG) organised a talk this week by Peter Frankopan, author of “The Silk Roads – A New History of the World”.

“The Silk Roads are rising again”, said Richard Graham MP, Chair of APPCG at the end of a fulsome introduction of the Oxford University historian.  Yet, there are not many other Parliamentarians, let alone the British public, who are in tune with the zeitgeist.

Frankopan was keen to put into historical context the dramatic changes that we are witnessing today with a shift in the world order. The declining influence of western colonial powers,  the UK’s vote for BREXIT and the election of Trump, were contrasted against a China growing in confidence and pursuing the “One Belt One Road” initiative, the lynchpin for Xi JinPing’s foreign and economic policies.  

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Lib Dems GAIN a council seat and have a strong hold in Redcar

It’s that time on Thursday night again and I can tell you that we have gained a council seat – this time, on Wells City Council, from the Independent. Congratulations to Rob Ayres and his team.

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Wow – a Liberal Democrat on Question Time tonight

Good news. We have a Lib Dem on Question Time tonight.

It may actually be worth watching.

Although there is a downside.

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Lib Dem Job Watch: Cambridge Special

As part of our occasional meander round the Liberal Democrat job ads, we have learned that Cambridge Lib Dems are looking for some staff between now and the May elections.

Across Cambridgeshire activists are campaigning hard to make Rod Cantrill the first elected mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and to take control of Cambridgeshire County Council.

Utilising both traditional and sophisticated online campaigning techniques in order to reach a huge geographical area, and with members of the winning Richmond by-election team at the helm, this is a great chance to come learn from the best.

Will you join the team? Can you forward this message to someone who might fit the bill?
There are three exciting roles available to the right candidates, with the potential for free accommodation in Cambridge for the duration of the campaign.

You can work part-time or full-time, so flexibility in job-sharing is an advantage.  Please indicate what you are interested in and how you might combine them.

Office Assistant

Campaign Assistant

Digital Campaigns Assistant

Applications to Elizabeth Parkin (Chair of Cambridge Liberal Democrats) by midnight on Monday 6th March.

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