Category Archives: News

I guess that I was never going to evade COVID indefinitely, and thus Liberal Democrat Voice is brought to you from Day 4 of my home isolation. Luckily, I seem, so far, to have gotten off pretty lightly, and I can isolate in our home office, which has its compensations.

The past week has been a descent into fantasy politics, as five Conservative MPs vie to cut taxes, increase spending, level up and crack down, all at the same time. At least Nadhim Zahawi’s notion of cutting 20% of the headcount in all Government departments has bitten the dust, allowing him to spend time with his accountants. Given what is being suggested, he might need quite a lot of time with them…

But what is clear is that, between the five candidates that remain, there is little clue as to how government works, or how things interrelate. In the modern world, decision-making is made complex by international agreements, interaction between pieces of legislation and trade arrangements. And you can’t just go around abolishing statute without consequences. It’s not as though that message hasn’t been relayed to them. Previous attempts to “cut red tape” have faltered when it is discovered that the regulations were put in place for a good reason – customer protection, access to major trading markets, that sort of thing. So, you can cut the regulation on cooked meats, for example, but the producers may then find they can’t sell it into their major export markets. Effectively, they are bound by the regulations of their export markets.

And, just like that, the world changed. Not, I hasten to note, necessarily for the better, especially given the theatre of the grotesque that is the Conservative leadership contest.

But the level of vitriol with which the various contenders seem determined to vent upon each other can only be helpful to Liberal Democrat candidates in the short term, even as it damages the country still further. And all the popcorn in the world doesn’t compensate for the damage that will be done to those already struggling to get by if government spending is squeezed in order to allow tax cuts for business and the wealthy.

Of course, whoever does finally emerge as the anointed one will be inheriting a rather gruesome legacy after three years of chaos in Number 10. Inflation approaching double figures, growth non-existent, debt servicing costs increasing, and no signs of an answer to the long-term problems facing the country, unless being unpleasant towards the trans community is meant to take our minds off of it all. Perhaps the move towards tax cuts and culture wars is just a pretence intended to win the contest, but I doubt it – these people think that this is a vote-winning strategy beyond that somewhat unrepresentative Party membership.

Good morning, gentle readers, as another lively week begins, albeit curiously similar to many recently. A Government mired in sleaze, now reduced to being teased by the Chinese diplomatic corps, caught between multiple political rocks.

You can entirely understand why the Prime Minister would have initially backed his mate when accusations of sexual misconduct emerged. After all, when your own personal record is so poor, you’re hardly in a position to take the moral high ground. But the notion that the Deputy Chief Whip of the governing party requires a minder to keep them out of trouble does make you wonder what sort of behaviour is sufficient to set you beyond the pale.