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Category Archives: Op-eds

Observations of an Expat: Energy Security

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th April 2026 - 9:20 am

Energy Security. The Ukraine War made it a hot topic for a Europe dependent on Russian oil and gas. The Iran War – alongside the climate change debate – has revived the issue for the rest of the world.

The world’s main fossil fuel production centres are unstable. As a result, demand is growing to replace oil and gas with renewable energy. Furthermore, the renewable energy should be produced in areas which the consuming countries control. Many countries are already doing just that. Some better than others.

Surprisingly, Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” America does well when it comes to renewable sources of …

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Tagged energy security | 3 Comments

In 2028, the Democrats must not repeat their ‘Tim problem’

By Samuel Jackson | Fri 24th April 2026 - 2:19 pm

Despite it being more than two years away, there is a great deal of interest in the 2028 US presidential election. As such, there is fierce speculation about who the Democrats’ candidate will be. While it is a fool’s errand to definitively say who that will be – given the candidacies of past ‘shoo-ins’ such as Edmund Muskie or Gary Hart – it may be worth considering who their running mate could or should be.

The role of Vice President is not insignificant. Fifteen out of forty-five Presidents previously served as VP, with eight directly succeeding following deaths in office and one following resignation. As elected representatives, they cannot be fired or dismissed like appointed Cabinet secretaries. And as President of the Senate, they can cast deciding votes to resolve ties over budgetary bills.

During elections, running mates are meant to serve as campaign assets, balancing out a ticket geographically, ideologically and personally to gain wider appeal. As this position is not determined through primaries, it is up to successful nominees under advisement to consider and select the best possible running mate.

Democratic anxieties about 2028 stem from recent memories of 2016 and 2024. In 2016, US Senator for Virginia Tim Kaine served as Hilary Clinton’s running mate, and in 2024 Governor of Minnesota Tim Walz served as Kamala Harris’s. The losses of these tickets to Donald Trump – while baffling – may be attributable to several factors, the choice of running mate should not be dismissed.

Geographically, neither Tim gave their respective tickets an advantage as they both came from reliably Democratic states on the peripheries of key US regions they were meant to represent (the South and the Rust Belt). As the Electoral College means that elections hinge on outcomes in a handful of swing states, there was no benefit having both halves of the ticket come from safe states.

Demographically, both Tims were meant to be ‘inoffensive’, balancing out tickets headed by women, seeking the highest office in a country where many voters are sceptical about the idea of a female President. While there was speculation that Clinton could nominate Elizabeth Warren, Harris voiced in her memoir 107 Days that her preferred choice of Pete Buttigieg was too risky, the combination of a black woman and a gay man potentially alienating voters. This has led to the belief that the next Democratic nominee needs to be a straight, white man.

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Tagged 2028 US election | 1 Comment

With one bound….? Starmer’s Houdini act

By David Vigar | Fri 24th April 2026 - 11:00 am

What just happened at Westminster? Does anyone else think Keir Starmer played MPs and the media like a violin this week?

On Monday, I thought at least one MP would ask the simple and obvious question. “Why did the PM appoint Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to Washington nine days after receiving a briefing that informed him that: ‘Mandelson reportedly stayed in Epstein’s house while he was in jail in 2009.’”

Surely that explosive sentence should have been enough, if not to block the appointment, at least to postpone it pending investigation.

The sentence, from a report by JP Morgan, speaks volumes. It indicates that Mandelson not only knew Epstein, but knew him well enough to stay in his house. It shows that Mandelson stayed there when the owner was in prison for soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18 – and when he was the UK Business Secretary. That suggests a close and unethical relationship. It also suggests Mandelson remained willing to take huge risks, not learning from his two previous dismissals from Cabinet.

The briefing, titled Advice to the Prime Minister, is dated 11 December 2024 and is available among the documents released by the government.

It repeated JP Morgan’s comment that Epstein had a “particularly close relationship” with Mandelson. And it contained a copy of an email from Mandelson to Tony Blair’s office in 2002 where he calls Epstein his friend and says he is “young and vibrant” … and “safe”.

Red flags waving. Alarm bells ringing. Massive issue. All ignored.

So how did Starmer dodge that smoking gun this week? First, he brushed over it. Second he found a smokescreen.

In his statement, he covered the briefing thus: “A due diligence exercise was conducted by the Cabinet Office into Peter Mandelson’s suitability, including questions put to him by my staff in No. 10. Peter Mandelson answered those questions on 10 December, and I received final advice on the due diligence process on 11 December. I made the decision to appoint him on 18 December. The appointment was announced on 20 December.”

Hang on … So Mandelson answered questions the day before Starmer received the brief? So what did he say? The briefing is silent.

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Tagged keir starmer and peter mandelson | 9 Comments

Why A&E must stay free. But funding must change.

By Jean-François Burford | Thu 23rd April 2026 - 10:22 am

Few institutions define modern Britain as strongly as the National Health Service. Created in 1948 under the leadership of Aneurin Bevan, the NHS was founded on a simple but powerful promise: Healthcare would be free at the point of use, based on need rather than ability to pay. For generations this principle has been a source of national pride. Yet today the NHS faces unprecedented pressure, and unless we are prepared to rethink how it is funded, that founding promise itself may become impossible to sustain.

Demand on the system has grown dramatically over the past two decades. Britain has an ageing population, chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease are increasing, and advances in medical technology, while lifesaving, are also expensive. Accident and Emergency departments, in particular, have become the frontline of these pressures. Long waiting times, overcrowding and staff burnout are symptoms of a system that is trying to do more than its current funding model can realistically support.

The debate about the NHS often becomes polarised. On one side are those who fear any change represents the creeping privatisation of healthcare. On the other are voices calling for a more market-driven model, similar to that of the United States. Both positions miss an important point. Reforming the system does not have to mean abandoning the core values of the NHS. Instead, it can mean modernising how the system is funded while protecting the principle that no one should be denied care when they need it most.

One possible solution is to preserve free access to emergency services while introducing a shared funding approach after initial assessment. Under such a model, anyone could still walk into an A&E department and receive immediate care without charge or paperwork. Treatment would begin exactly as it does now, guided only by medical urgency.

Once the patient has been stabilised and assessed, however, the cost of treatment could be shared between public funding and private insurance. A simple example might involve a 50/50 split: half funded by the state and half covered by an insurance provider. No one would be turned away or left with an unaffordable bill.

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Tagged accident and emergency and NHS | 31 Comments

South Cambridgeshire proved it works. It should be Lib Dem policy

By Tanya Park | Wed 22nd April 2026 - 1:55 pm

In July 2025, South Cambridgeshire District Council did something no other UK council had done. It made the four-day week permanent. Not as a trial, not as a temporary arrangement, but as the way the council works. Its staff complete 100% of their work in 80% of the time, for 100% of the pay. The government told them to stop. They didn’t. The results came in: £371,500 in annual savings, a 120% rise in job applications, a 40% fall in staff turnover. Services maintained. Budget improved. Staff retained.

South Cambridgeshire is a Lib Dem council. This is our proof of concept. And we have not built on it.

That is the question this piece wants to ask, directly and without much diplomatic padding: why not?

Ed Davey said publicly he was proud of what South Cambridgeshire had done. Bridget Smith, the council leader, spoke at the 2024 autumn conference about having “sown the seeds” for a serious party debate. Eighteen months on, it is still not party policy. The seeds appear to still be in the packet.

The political landscape has shifted in the meantime. Labour committed to a 32-hour week in its 2019 manifesto and then buried the policy under Starmer, a senior adviser telling journalists flatly it was “a decision for individual businesses.” The Employment Rights Act does not touch working hours. Twenty-five councils have debated following South Cambridgeshire’s lead. Iceland, Portugal, and a 61-organisation UK trial have all produced evidence pointing in the same direction. The 4 Day Week Foundation is recruiting for two fresh pilots in 2026. The momentum is building, and the main Westminster parties are standing well back from it. That is an open goal. And it has our name on it.

The case for the four-day week is usually made in the language of productivity and well-being, and that case is strong and well-documented. But the more interesting argument, and the more distinctively liberal one, is about freedom. Specifically, about who gets to decide how their hours are spent.

The current working week was not designed for most people’s lives. It was built around a particular kind of worker: male, without primary caring responsibilities, in reasonable health, with someone else managing the domestic infrastructure. That design has never been seriously revised. Around five to six million people in Britain provide unpaid care, the majority of them women, and they are paying a daily time penalty the system imposes without acknowledging it. The carer who has quietly given up on promotion because she cannot afford the extra hours. The disabled worker who has used every hour of flexibility on medical appointments and arrives already depleted. The low-paid warehouse worker who wants to do an Open University course so they can have a chance at the career they want. These are not edge cases. They are the people for whom the current settlement does not work, and for whom a shifted baseline would mean something real.

Liberalism has always been, at its best, about more than leaving people alone. It is about creating the conditions in which people can actually shape their own lives. Time is one of those conditions. An extra day is not a perk. It is, for a great many people, the difference between a life that is merely endured and one that is actually lived. That is a liberal argument. It belongs to us more naturally than it belongs to anyone else.

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Tagged four day week, lib dem councillors and south cambridgeshire council | 28 Comments

A single point of failure: Why we need the NHS to remove Palantir.

By Martin Wrigley, Rebecca Jones, Theo Brown | Wed 22nd April 2026 - 12:55 pm

Most of us by now will have heard of the tech giant Palantir, and its deal with the NHS to build a federated data platform.

Putting to one side the influences of Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Peter Mandelson in dodgy looking tech deals, revolving doors and high-pressure lobbying, the more we look into it, the more questions the NHS Palantir deal raises.

My team and I have been investigating and asking questions in Parliament. Last week I, (Martin) secured a Westminster Hall debate on the Palantir issue, and I made the case that Palantir’s implementation of the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) has the wrong contract, the wrong solution and the wrong supplier.

I’m sure most of us at some point in our lives have looked online to try and find a program we need, only to find out to our frustration that you cannot buy it outright and must instead pay a hefty subscription cost. Now, imagine the same thing but instead of paying £50 a year you are paying over £330M that gives you no software, no improvements and no intellectual property at the end of the contract. That’s what the last government set up.

But let’s look past the outrageous terms and look at what the supplier has provided for the NHS in past contracts. With such a high price tag it must have excelled at previous tasks, right?

Well, sadly not. In Autumn 2020, Palantir won a £20 million contract for a border-flow system. After a year or two this was cancelled as it had no users and no useful function.

And then, despite having no prior expertise in health they were given a contract to help manage the data from the COVID vaccination program. Although that contract was a loss-leader, given for free…

After that, with influence from the NHS data team, Palantir won the 3-year contract in November 2023 for a Federated Data Platform. Intended to deliver AI insights into the NHS, this was to connect all 200-odd hospital trusts into a data warehouse and analysis tool.

This subscription service was meant to deliver 13 core capabilities. According to the national audit office and the supplier themselves, after three years they have partially delivered three or four of them.

When they appeared last year in front of the select committee that I sit on (Science, Innovation and Technology), the only improvement Palantir and the NHS team could name was an improvement in managing staff rotas to deliver a higher throughput for operating theatres.

Now I know this has been an issue for many years in the NHS, but technology has improved vastly, and today even relatively simple apps can do the logistics to rota staff.

Also, I do wonder whether this may be down to Government improvements in staffing and pay rather than the magic of Palantir.

In what world is this contract a good deal for the NHS?

Maybe it’s not a good deal, but at least the software will be beneficial to patients and improve treatment, right?

Well, there has been many attempts within the NHS to unify its systems through a single IT system. They have all failed bar some improvements towards it’s combined data dictionary. You would therefore expect Trusts and ICB’s to jump at the opportunity for Palantir’s FDP, but after three years we have about half of the trusts stating they are live on the FDP, with just a quarter reporting benefit.

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Tagged NHS and palantir | 3 Comments

“Forthright, clear, determined, energetic” – a tribute to Councillor Jeanette Sunderland

By Ed Fordham | Wed 22nd April 2026 - 10:54 am

Photo Credit: Bradford Lib Dems

Some people stand at the front and lead, others sit and back and chunter. Jeanette Sunderland did both, and did them both very well. Forthright, clear, determined, energetic and a real sense of no-nonsense she was a familiar face to so so many of us within the Liberal Democrat family.

In tough times and good Jeanette would be there – often turning up to the by-elections that could not be won, precisely because she knew they could not be won and she wanted to help and thank the team who were flying the flag for liberal democracy.

Across at least three decades Jeanette was a liberal to her core, and her untimely death this week will come as a very real shock to so many.

ALDC was very much a part of who Jeanette was and what she believed in – but she was no sycophant. Few people could express their concerns or criticism so clearly and so nicely – if she was angry you could just tell, words were often not needed. Jeanette was always willing to ask the question no-one else dared. I recall then Party Leader Nick Clegg MP being at an ALDC reception taking questions, Jeanette was straight to the point: “if our MP’s are wiped out in the forthcoming General Election, will you resign?” The room gasped at the boldness of the question and Jeanette added “oh come on, you all know it’s coming and if you don’t you deserve to lose.”

Back in February 1998 we won our first ever seat for over a generation on the City of Stoke-on-Trent, Jeanette rang to congratulate and to arrange a group meeting. I explained that Cllr Ian Openshaw was our first councillor and we didn’t have a Group. Back came the reply: “im planning ahead and suggesting June, that gives you time to win the by-election ward again and become a group of two.” When May came round we won the ward again and I gained a second ward and we became a group of three. I excitedly rang her to arrange an Away Day for June as Jeanette had suggested – she was delighted. I also recall her collapsing into tears of laughter when, catching up at a party conference soon after, i showed her the photo I had taken of a wall in Stoke on which was sprayed “Preserve the past! The future’s f****d!” She quipped through the tears, “well they’re not wrong”.

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Tagged featured, jeanette sunderland and obituaries | 3 Comments

We must stand together against anti-Jewish hatred

By Gavin Stollar | Tue 21st April 2026 - 12:42 pm

Embed from Getty Images
The past week has forced many across our country to confront a deeply troubling reality: anti-Jewish hatred is not an abstract concern, but a present and growing threat here in Britain. Yet there remains a striking silence from parts of our society that have long prided themselves on standing against racism in all its forms.

In the space of just days, three arson attacks have targeted the Jewish community, including petrol bomb attacks on synagogues in Finchley and Kenton. It is only by sheer good fortune that these buildings did not suffer the same devastating fate as the Hatzola ambulances set alight in Golders Green last month. These incidents come only months after the murders at Heaton Park Synagogue on Yom Kippur, and against a backdrop of police data showing that British Jews are, per capita, far more likely to be victims of religious hate crime than any other group.

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Why does cautious Starmer keep getting it wrong?

By Tom Reeve | Tue 21st April 2026 - 10:51 am

Embed from Getty Images
Yesterday, Keir Starmer faced Parliament to explain how a man who failed his security vetting ended up as Britain’s most important ambassador. It is a question worth asking. But there is a deeper one beneath it: how does a prime minister who presents himself as the cautious, process-respecting antidote to Conservative chaos keep finding himself in exactly these situations?

The Mandelson affair is, in miniature, the story of this government. A political decision was taken — to appoint a Labour grandee to a high-profile role. Warnings existed. Red flags had been raised. The vetting process that was supposed to filter out exactly these problems produced a recommendation to deny clearance. And yet the appointment went ahead, with civil servants apparently acting on the understanding that the prime minister wanted it to happen. When it collapsed, spectacularly, Starmer said he was furious he hadn’t been told. The civil servant who overrode the vetting was sacked. The prime minister, once again, was the victim of events – or was he?

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Mathew on Monday: is Keir Starmer the most incurious Prime Minister in British history?

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 20th April 2026 - 5:45 pm

There is something increasingly puzzling – and politically dangerous – about the way that Keir Starmer governs. It is not simply that things go wrong on his watch; every Prime Minister faces crisis, missteps, and the odd unforced error. It is that, time and again, Starmer appears oddly detached from the very events shaping his premiership. As if politics and government are things that happen to him, rather than things he actively directs.

That sense of detachment is beginning to harden into something more troubling: a complete lack of curiosity.

Effective leadership demands an almost relentless inquisitiveness – a desire to know what is happening, why it is happening, and what might be coming next. It requires a Prime Minister to probe, to challenge, to test assumptions, and, crucially, to anticipate problems before they spiral. Starmer, by contrast, too often looks like a man content to sail above the fray – until, inevitably, he is dragged under by a storm he neither saw coming nor seems prepared to confront.

We have seen this pattern repeat itself. Controversies emerge, decisions. Unravel, narratives take hold – and Downing Street appears on the back foot. The sense is not of a government firmly in control, but of one constantly scrambling to catch up with events. That is not simply a communications failure; it speaks to something deeper about how power is being exercised.

Of course, there will be those who argue that this is a deliberate style, that Starmer is seeking to rise above the noise, to avoid the hyperactive, personality-driven politics of recent years. That he is, in effect, trying to de-dramatise the office of Prime Minister. If so, it isn’t working.

Because the vacuum created by that approach does not remain empty for long. It is filled by speculation, by confusion, and by opponents who are only too happy to define the narrative in his absence. Leadership is not about constant noise-but it is about presence. And increasingly, that presence feels lacking. More fundamentally, there is a difference between calm authority and passive drift. The former reassures; the latter unnerves. At present, Starmer is very much in the second category.

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Tagged keir starmer, kezia dugdale, polling and stonewall | 14 Comments

Make Culture Really Count

By Jean-François Burford | Mon 20th April 2026 - 1:50 pm

Governments don’t just underestimate culture, media and sport, they depend on them, while systematically failing to sustain them.

In the UK, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport stands as a formal acknowledgement that these sectors matter. In practice, it has become a symbol of something else: a gap between rhetoric and reality that has gone unchallenged for too long.

That gap is indefensible. The creative industries contribute £145.8bn to the economy, around 5.5% of GDP and the wider DCMS sectors account for close to a tenth of all economic output. They employ millions, grow faster than the wider economy, and project British influence globally. By any serious economic measure, they should be central to national strategy.

Instead, they are treated as optional.

This isn’t just a matter of perception; it is built into the system. At local level, most spending on arts, culture and sport is not protected. Councils are not required to fund it. When budgets come under pressure, as they have year after year, these areas are cut first. Libraries close. Youth services disappear. Community sport collapses. What is lost is not just access, but opportunity and once gone, it rarely returns.

This is not inevitable. It is the result of political design.

Nationally, the imbalance is just as stark. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport operates with a fraction of the budget of departments such as the National Health Service or the Ministry of Defence, despite overseeing sectors that generate a significant share of UK growth. This is not about affordability. It is about priority and a persistent failure to align investment with economic reality.

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Tagged culture | 2 Comments

What is the best way back into the EU?

By Mark Corner | Mon 20th April 2026 - 12:17 pm

I appreciated Gareth McAleer’s article in Lib Dem Voice on the economic power-up to be had from rejoining the EU, but while I support his desire to rejoin I think a different approach will be more effective.

Economic arguments are always difficult and precision hard to achieve. As the saying goes, an economist is someone who if you ask for a telephone number gives you an estimate. It would be better to say that rejoining the single market will be of obvious economic benefit and leave others to fill in the billions. The alternative view, the Boris Johnson idea that …

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Tagged rejoin eu | 20 Comments

The Labour threat to the Right to Protest

By Nina Wessel | Mon 20th April 2026 - 10:56 am

Last week, the government forced through parliament the controversial “cumulative disruption” power, which enables police to ban protests on the grounds that they take place repeatedly. This attack on the fundamental freedoms of assembly and expression has been strongly criticised by the UN and human rights organisations.

Introduced by the Lords as an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, this legislation was not subject to full debate and scrutiny in parliament, MPs were denied a separate vote on the cumulative disruption amendment, and the vote on the bill was pushed through before the conclusions of the independent review.

This is the latest measure in a trend to impose restrictions on the democratic right to protest, and raises serious civil liberties concerns.

As noted by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Strasburger in a recent article for Middle East Eye, banning repeat protests ignores a basic lesson of democratic history – that sustained action is central to achieving democratic change:

From women’s suffrage to civil rights to anti-war movements, meaningful change has always depended on people returning, again and again, to make their voices heard. Curtailing protest simply because it is persistent strikes at the heart of that tradition, and risks targeting the very causes that are most likely to be worthy of protest.

Together with Lord Marks and Baroness Doocey, our justice and police spokespersons in the Lords respectively, Lord Strasburger backed an amendment in the Lords to remove the repeat-protest provisions from the Bill. That amendment was not ultimately put to a vote after the Conservatives declined to support it.

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Tagged right to protest | 4 Comments

Time is ticking: Britain’s defences need urgent fixing

By George Cunningham | Sun 19th April 2026 - 1:55 pm

This week, the government suffered its latest humiliation when Lord George Robertson, a former NATO Secretary-General, ex-Labour Defence Secretary and chair of the government’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review accused the government of “corrosive complacency” in risking the country’s security by dragging his heels on how the government will fund rebuilding its military in the face of the growing threat from Russia.

A rising crescendo of articles and speeches by ex-military, defence correspondents and experts – and our very own Lib Dem defence spokesperson James MacCleary MP – have been highlighting that the government’s Strategic Defence Review remains little more than rhetoric after one year.

Poland (4.5%), Latvia (4%) and Lithuania (3.7%) have the highest GDP % expenditure of NATO members on defence. Germany is hugely increasing its defence budget by lifting its debt brake to spend nearly €650bn over the next five years. Even France has managed an increase in its defence budget by EUR 6.5bn for 2027, despite a debt level (117% of GDP), higher than the UK’s (110%). However, the UK is in last place (alongside France), in terms of growing its defence budget amongst European NATO partners during the past decade.

The shocking state of British armed forces means that we cannot defend ourselves effectively. Aircraft carriers that cannot be adequately protected, an eviscerated Royal Navy with all major ships but one destroyer, one frigate and one Astute class nuclear submarine under maintenance or repair, an army that can barely pull together a functioning brigade of soldiers for immediate deployment. Surely, our armed forces, whose men and women put their lives at risk for the nation, deserve better.

The Defence Investment Plan – which our industry needs to produce the weapons and equipment – continues to be “missing in inaction”. The Ministry of Defence is in a fight with the Treasury for more money – and not getting very far. We are meant to increase our defence budget from 2.3% (£68 bn) to 2.5% of GDP by next year, yet the defence chiefs are now being asked to find £3.5bn of savings, raising fears that weapons projects may be even further delayed. If the Chagos Islands deal eventually goes through, it will lop another 0.2% of GDP off the defence budget. Neither logic nor maths add up.

Commentators are saying we only have 2-3 years to fix the problem at best we can because of the Russian threat. And already a year has been lost (and four since the second invasion of Ukraine). So the painful question is how can we raise the money for defence in the short time (let alone manufacture the equipment we need)? Some ideas:

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Tagged defence | 20 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th April 2026 - 11:44 am

China

The invisible hand of Beijing has been busily pulling the backstage strings to try and organise Iran War peace talks.

Pakistan—which has been the lead country in mediation country—is a close ally of China and is clearly coordinating Its honest broker activities with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi who prefers to remain in the shadows.

Economically China desperately needs an end to Trump’s War. Ninety percent of its oil comes from Iran and, as the world’s second largest economy, China needs global stability to maintain growth.

At the same time, Chinese President Xi Jinping must be smiling to himself as Donald Trump entangles himself in a needless Middle East war which distracts him away from the Chinese priorities of Taiwan, the Philippines and the South China Sea. It also enables him to project China as a nation of calm reasonableness compared to an America run by an erratic president committed to riding roughshod over international law and conventions.

But what China does not want to do is be seen to be actively involved in discussions about the Iran War. This week a host of visitors including the Spanish prime minister and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi visited Beijing to try to persuade Xi Jinping to offer direct mediation.

Tehran, for its part, has called on China to guarantee its security. The Chinese have the facilities to do the job. They have a naval base around the corner in Djibouti on the Red Sea. Even closer is their port of Gwadar near in Pakistan near the Iranian border. It is currently used exclusively for commercial purposes, but it could be quickly adapted to military use.

But China’s rulers have looked at the sad experiences of the US and concluded that they have little desire to commit their military to the risk of being dragged into a costly war that will undermine their own strength and brand.

Behind the scenes, backstage, quiet diplomacy—yes. Anything more, No, for fear of being blamed for any failure. And where the Middle East is concerned, failure is the name of the game.

Hungary

It is now time for the big Hungarian clean-up. The new prime minister, Peter Magyar has promised just that, and he has a comfortable super majority to achieve it.

But it will not be easy, Orban has packed the media, industry and academia with his cronies. They have all said they would construct legal obstacles to dislodge them, and the courts have also been filled with Fidesz supporters.

From a foreign perspective Magyar’s biggest challenge will be clawing back funding for the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC). The MCC poses as an educational institute but in reality, is the main financial vehicle for funding an international far-right network of institutions, political parties, pressure groups and think tanks.

The funds for MCC come from shares in Hungary’s massive state-owned energy company MOL. Orban organised a transfer of a large bloc of MOL shares to MCC. They in turn have sent funds to the Reform Party in UK, AfD in Germany, the National Rally in France and Vox in Spain. MCC also helps to finance the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC)

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Tagged china, donald trump, hungary, pope leo xiv and the vatican | 1 Comment

Why Cromwell’s Statue at Westminster Should Come Down

By Gareth McAleer | Sun 19th April 2026 - 9:53 am

As Liberal Democrats we like to think of ourselves as champions of liberty and the equal dignity of every person. That is why we should be uneasy with the statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the Houses of Parliament. It is not just a carving in stone. It is a symbol of honour placed at the threshold of our democracy by a state that still chooses to celebrate a man whose rule was built on conquest, massacre and the systematic displacement of entire peoples across Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland. If we take …

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Tagged ireland and oliver cromwell | 39 Comments

Observations of an Expat: The Cost

By Tom Arms | Sat 18th April 2026 - 9:43 am

Trump’s War against Iran has upended the world economy. And it has only just begun. As one economist said: “At the moment things are bad. They are going to get worse and they could become catastrophic.”

At the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) spring meeting of world finance ministers the IMF revised down world economic growth for 2026 from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent. It then went on to warn that if the Iran War continued much longer there was a real risk of a global recession.

Of the world’s advanced economies, the UK is the hardest hit according to both the IMF and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Predicted growth in the UK is 0.8 percent for 2026, down from 1.3 percent.

Even harder hit are the Asia Pacific countries who are dependent on the Persian Gulf for their gas and oil-based energy. Asia is also the most populous continent and accounts for more than half of global manufacturing which means that economic hits to that region have major global impact. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) reckons that the war has already cost Asia-Pacific countries $300 billion.

Fossil fuels are not the only vital commodity exported from the Persian Gulf. The region is the world’s major source of urea which is a derivative of natural gas and a major component of fertiliser. There is a real danger that the lack of fertiliser will hit global crop yields.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that forty-five million people could be pushed into “food insecurity” and that food shortages could reach “catastrophic levels.”

The Eurozone has also been hit. IMF growth predictions for the Eurozone have been revised down from 1.3 percent to 1.1 percent and inflation is expected to go up from 2.1 percent to 2.6 percent. Trump’s war has made it unlikely that the European Central Bank can cut interest rates. In fact, they may have to raise them. This view is being echoed by central banks around the world.

Germany is the hardest hit of the Eurozone countries. This is because its economy is heavily geared towards manufacturing which in turn is fuelled by oil and gas. Because France derives a large part of its energy from nuclear power plants it will escape a lot of the pain, but the French finance minister has warned about inflation and supply chain risks.

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Tagged donald trump and iran | 9 Comments

The Quiet Revival, my Roman Empire, and other times that I’ve been proven right

By Mills Dyer | Fri 17th April 2026 - 1:38 pm

It is rare that a podcast will make me immediately stop what I am doing. However, this was the case last summer, when the brilliant ‘Since Churchill and Attlee’ podcast highlighted a study from The Bible Society called ‘The Quiet Revival’. The report claimed to show that 16% of 18-24 year olds surveyed (by YouGov) in 2024 were Christian and went to church at least once a month, rising from 4% in 2018. This survey result was not just extraordinary, but frankly, unbelievable. As I read the Bible Society report for myself and googled the coverage surrounding it, I realised with shock that this report was being picked up as if it was itself gospel.

This brings me to my Roman Empire, something that a person thinks deeply about on a regular basis. My Roman Empire is that, Christianity worldwide (but particularly in North America and Western Europe) is dying out, and that no one else is noticing. This is not to say that I do not have skin in this game. I left Christianity a few years ago, when I realised that I could no longer believe in a deity, much less attend a church, that was less compassionate than I was. A ‘casualty’ of the Christianity’s move towards the political right.

As an observer of the church in the UK and certified data nerd/psephologist, I knew that the data in the Bible Society’s report went against all available evidence. Attendance data from the Church of England and the Catholic Church, data from the UK Census, and the British Attitudes Survey all disagree to a sharp increase in Christian attendance or identification as the Bible Society are suggesting. The British Attitudes Survey even showing the reverse pattern the The Bible Society claim for an uptick in the identification with Christianity. Moreover, the consistent data picture is one of decades of steady decline. In 1960, just under 7% were on the Church of England’s electoral roll, in 2019, that had dropped to just 1.5%. The 2021 Census shows that identification with Christianity has dropped below half the population for the first time in England and Wales (46.2%, down from 59.3% in 2011).

Why this is all relevant now is because a fortnight ago (27th March) The Bible Society pulled the report and the data/claims that went with it. Now YouGov, which carried out the research, has told the Bible Society that an internal review of the data found that some of the respondents who completed its survey were “fraudulent”.

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Tagged christianity | 13 Comments

A UK Wellbeing Economy: The start of a Liberal Democrat vision and plan

By Josh Matthews | Fri 17th April 2026 - 10:07 am

We are at our best, as Liberal Democrats, when we have radical vision, challenge the status quo, AND have the plan to match.

Too few people in positions of power truly realise just how deep the failing of the current economy goes. It does not work for too many people.

But the question is not just what a new economy looks like, but how we unpick the old one and move forward.

This article outlines how the Liberal Democrats could construct and communicate a plan for a Wellbeing Economy in the UK. You can find more detail on each of the seven steps below published recently at Critical Mass for Sustainability.

The next stage of economics must be a transition to an economy judged not only by GDP, but by whether people can access care, find fulfilling and secure work, access a thriving local environment, afford a decent home, breathe clean air… all on a liveable planet.

A wellbeing economy matches our party’s deepest values: liberty, equality, community, democracy, and environmentalism.

Freedom, fairness, and equality of opportunity also cut across Liberal Democrat values and form the core of what a wellbeing economy could be:

A platform and the freedom to live your version of a best life.
Freedom in a fair society that works especially for the least advantaged.
Genuine equality of opportunity, not just theoretical opportunity written in law.

That new economy needs a practical route from the current, complex, globally connected system to a better one, built from inside the institutions, incentives, and fiscal realities we have now.

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Tagged economy and well being | 5 Comments

Three chords and the truth

By Tom Reeve | Thu 16th April 2026 - 11:58 am

The new Fabian pamphlet, Common Endeavour, has one of the sharpest lines written about populism this year. In chapter 8, Labour MP Liam Byrne borrows the old country music saying that all you need is “three chords and the truth.” Populism works, he argues, because it plays three simple emotional chords: patriotism, nostalgia, and moral combat. Pride, loss, fight. Simple, repeatable, and perfectly tuned to social media algorithms that reward feeling over thought.

He’s right. And he’s honest enough to admit that mainstream politicians have been answering with word salads while populists holler a battle cry. Reform UK doesn’t win arguments. It wins feelings.

But Byrne’s own answer is where it falls short. His formula for beating populism is “optimism plus fairness plus performance.” That’s a strategy memo, not a song. It tells a government what to do. It doesn’t tell a movement what to feel. You can’t knock on a door and sing optimism plus fairness plus performance.

Liberals need our own three chords. Here are mine.

Power. Security. Respect.

Start with power, because that’s where liberals are different. Labour’s instinct is to fix things for people from the centre. Reform’s trick is to offer the feeling of power by handing it to a strongman. One is paternalism. The other is surrender dressed in a flag.

As countless leaders of radical movements have noted, power is not given, it is taken. I believe that’s not only a radical proposition, it’s liberal as well.

The preamble to our party’s constitution states that power belongs at the lowest level that works. The implication is that the centre must justify each power it possesses, not the other way around.

Yes, the consequences of this are significant at the local level – neighbourhood budgets and planning decisions made by people who live with the outcome. But power isn’t only a local question.

As a species, we are wealthier than at any point in history, but the people in the bottom half of the economy aren’t feeling it. That’s not a local problem; it’s a national and global failure of power. Who sets wages, who controls housing costs, who decides where investment goes, who writes the rules of the economy, and for whose benefit?

Liberals may have cracked the local argument. The national one – dispersing economic power, not just political power – is harder. But it matters, and we haven’t begun to answer it seriously.

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Tagged liberalism | 1 Comment

100 things @ 100 days

By Josh Babarinde | Thu 16th April 2026 - 9:31 am

Hello lovely Liberal Democrats!

This week, we reached 100 days since I took office as Party President – and what an honour it’s been so far!

I’ve been working with incredible members, activists, councillors, parliamentarians and staff across our party to help us to reach more people – voters, donors, volunteers, media and more – with our liberal message and to reinforce our position as the last line of defence against populism and division in our country.

Below are 100 things that I’ve been doing since I was elected to play my part in that fight as Party president. It’s not an exhaustive list but I hope it gives a flavour of what I’ve been up to!

(PS It’s in a random order, so please don’t read too much into that!)

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Attendance Allowance should not stop at the hospital door

By Jack Meredith | Wed 15th April 2026 - 1:30 pm

My grandfather, or as I affectionately call him, Bampa, is currently in the hospital awaiting urgent heart treatment.

It’s frightening enough on its own. The hospital is 40 minutes away, so I’m relying on phone calls during the day to keep up to date on my bampa, get on with my work day, and keep my family members updated on what the hospital tells me; suffice it to say, it’s a lot.

And then, recently, my mum had a letter. My mum has been told that, due to how long my bampa has been in the hospital, if he is still there by Sunday, 26 April, his Attendance Allowance will stop.

Now, we’re not expecting him to be in there that long, and he should (we hope) be home by the end of the week. But what kind of state treats its citizens like this? A man who has worked his entire life, never complained about the cards he was dealt in life, having lost his wife only a few months ago, is now in the hospital, and the response from the state is, “Yeah, sorry about that, but if you’re there any longer, we’ll punish you.”

It’s one of those moments when the welfare state shows you why, once again, it is not fit for purpose. What should be a humane system built around the realities of illness, frailty and care is just an administrative machine that is constantly scanning for the point at which it decides support no longer counts.

Attendance Allowance is designed to support older people with the extra costs of disability and ill health. It can range from £76.70 to £114.60 per week. But if someone has the misfortune of being ill and being in hospital for 28 days, their support is suspended, and only resumes when they’re back home.

While this makes sense to Whitehall, considering they fund the hospital stay and therefore the benefit is not needed, life is not lived on a spreadsheet.

Extra pressures do not disappear when someone is in the hospital. Families need to travel, buy essentials for the person in the hospital, spend money on food, parking and transport, manage calls and paperwork, chase updates, prepare for discharge, and carry the emotional and practical stresses of caring. Depending on the treatment, the person coming home from the hospital will need more support than before, not less.

This is what makes the rule on Attendance Allowance so cruel. It operates on a fantasy version of illness, one in which the hospital somehow automatically removes the burdens of care, rather than intensifying them.

The impact on Attendance Allowance has a knock-on effect on the carer’s allowance, too. If the Attendance Allowance stops, the linked Carer’s Allowance also stops, triggering a second financial impact on the same family. This is a direct penalty on ill health and care itself, delivered by a system supposedly in place to support both.

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Tagged attendance allowance and social security | 3 Comments

Why Birmingham is ready for a Liberal Democrat administration

By Jenny Wilkinson | Wed 15th April 2026 - 11:28 am

Birmingham is at a turning point. After years of Labour failure, a sense of frustration is palpable across the city. A year-long bin strike, which has left streets filthy and strewn with litter, combined with bankruptcy and council tax increases of 24% over 3 years have left residents fed up and looking for an alternative to the failed Labour administration. This widespread discontent has created a unique opportunity for the Lib Dems to provide the leadership that residents are crying out for. With all 101 Birmingham City Council seats up for election on May the 7th, we have the opportunity to make this a reality.

As a member of Sutton Coldfield local party in Birmingham, I’ve witnessed first-hand voters turning away from Labour and the Conservatives. When Steve Darling MP visited us recently, he found scores of residents looking for an alternative and expressing their support for the Liberal Democrats. They are tired of being let down by failures in local and national government, and they see in us a party that champions local communities.

Our candidates across the city are finding that the tide is changing towards us and this isn’t just anecdotal. In October we gained a seat from Labour in the Moseley by-election. This win sends a message to the electorate – that the Liberal Democrats are capable of taking on Labour and winning.

Our leader, Sir Ed Davey, emphasized this last week when he visited Birmingham for the launch of our manifesto stating:

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Tagged 2026 local elections, birmingham, ed davey and steve darling | Leave a comment

A very warm Highland welcome for soft southerners

By Paul Walter | Tue 14th April 2026 - 1:23 pm

It was a huge privilege and pleasure to spend an extended weekend in the Highlands. Blue letter delivery rarely comes with such a vast helping of scenic delights.

We were very fortunate to have very sunny weather as we delivered in Fort Augustus – a fine tourism centre for Loch Ness (above) visitors.

A stiff breeze on Saturday made our Isle of Skye (below) outing even more photogenic – with white horses on the surrounding sea.

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Rejoining the EU – what £1.2 trillion really means for Britain (part 2)

By Gareth McAleer | Tue 14th April 2026 - 12:37 pm

If the UK economy were permanently £180 billion larger every year, and that translated into around £54 billion of extra tax receipts annually, the real‑world impact would not be abstract. It would be measured in hospitals built, nurses hired, waiting lists cut, teachers recruited and classrooms made smaller. This is where the story moves from macroeconomics to people’s lives and to the choices a government can make with new, sustainable revenue.

The NHS: more staff, shorter waits

Take the NHS first. Recent estimates suggest that one additional NHS doctor costs the public sector roughly £100,000 per year when salaries, training and overheads are included, while a nurse costs around £40,000 to £50,000. If even a quarter of the extra £54 billion a year – about £13.5 billion – were directed into health and care, it would support a transformation on the ground.

That level of funding could pay for roughly 135,000 extra doctors or around 270,000 extra nurses, or a mixed workforce of, for example, 60,000 doctors and 110,000 nurses. In practice, a phased approach would be more realistic and more powerful. A government could plan to recruit 5,000 new doctors and 20,000 new nurses each year for a decade, backed up by thousands more radiographers, physiotherapists and paramedics, as well as sustained capital investment in scanners, theatres and digital systems.

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Defending Liberalism against the illiberal counter-attack

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 14th April 2026 - 9:37 am

In Britain, the USA and across Europe an active cultural war is being fought between liberalism and nationalistic reactionaries. I regret that British Liberal Democrats are playing so small a part in this conflict – fought through the intellectual media and think tank world, within Christian churches (and within Judaism) and across university campuses. Anti-liberal tracts and articles spill out from well-funded think tanks and newspapers in the USA, Britain and elsewhere. Liberal rebuttals are fewer. But Allen Lane/Penguin have just published one full-length rebuttal: ‘Centrists of the World Unite: the lost genius of Liberalism’, by Adrian Wooldridge, who has spent most of his career on the staff of The Economist.

In over 300 pages Wooldridge takes us from the 16^th and 17^th century origins of liberalism to its contemporary dilemmas. His underlying theme is that liberalism – defined as ‘the belief that society starts with the individual rather than the collective that power is so dangerous that it needs to be restrained, that truth can be striven-for only through open discussion’ – has twice been successfully reinterpreted to meet the challenges of social, economic and international changes, and that we now need a third confident reinterpretation to counter the anti-liberal onslaught we face today.

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Also posted in Books | 11 Comments

The Independent View: Lib Dems would be backing a winner on greyhound racing ban

By Patrick Baga | Tue 14th April 2026 - 8:55 am

This week, greyhound advocates and adopters assembled at a parliamentary reception hosted by Neil Duncan-Jordan MP. Our organisation, international greyhound protection group GREY2K USA Worldwide, jointly released a report entitled Reaching the Finish Line, alongside the League Against Cruel Sports. It is the most comprehensive policy argument in favour of phasing out greyhound racing in the UK ever assembled.

The timing of this release coincides with reporting that there are Labour MPs, as well as sympathetic Labour Ministers, urging Keir Starmer to follow Scotland and Wales and call time on greyhound racing.

It is our belief that it is now time for the Liberal Democrats to adopt a party position of banning greyhound racing. After all, this is both the mainstream consensus and in line with Lib Dem compassionate instincts on animal welfare and gambling harm. Polling in both Scotland and Wales showed approximately 60% support for ending greyhound racing versus 20% opposition.

Further, Lib Dems are already leading on this issue. Jane Dodds MS played an integral role in securing the Welsh ban and Liz Jarvis MP is carrying the torch in Westminster. Her Early Day Motion calling for an end has 34 signatories, including 22 Lib Dems.

The evidence base for a ban is also clear. Animal welfare experts in Scotland determined that racing greyhounds sustain more traumatic injuries than companion greyhounds and that the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) is incapable of safeguarding their welfare.

For most of these dogs, the journey begins in Ireland, where they must survive an initial cull of thousands of greyhounds that are deemed too slow. They are then transported from Ireland to the UK, where hundreds are lost.

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged greyhound racing and jane dodds | 10 Comments

Mathew on Monday: Hungary shows us that the populist Right can be defeated!

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 13th April 2026 - 5:00 pm

For years, Victor Orban’s Hungary has been held up – by admirers and critics alike – as proof that the populist Right, once entrenched, is almost impossible to dislodge. A self-described “illiberal state,” tight media control, constitutional engineering, and a politics built on division and grievance all seemed to point in one direction: permanence. And yet – politics has a habit of reminding us that nothing is permanent.

Yesterday’s election result in Hungary has sent a jolt through that assumption. After more than a decade and a half dominating Hungarian politics, Orban’s grip has been broke by a broad, pro-European opposition. It wasn’t inevitable. It wasn’t easy. But it was possible.

For liberals and democrats here in the UK that matters. Because too often we hear a weary fatalism: that once populists take hold, the game is up; that institutions bend and never recover; that voters, once captured by grievance politics, don’t return. Hungary suggests otherwise.

Here are five takeaways we should take seriously.

Unity beats purity. Hungary’s opposition didn’t win by fragmenting into ideological silos. It came together-liberals, social democrats, greens, conservatives who believe in democracy-around a shared goal: restoring democratic norms. In the UK we too often default to internal squabbles. Hungary shows that when the stakes are high, cooperation across traditions isn’t a betrayal of values-it’s how you defend them.
Democracy still matters to voters. Orban’s project relied on the assumption that voters either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care about the erosion of democratic checks and balances. But, over time, many did. People care about fairness. They care about whether the system works for them. They may not always use the language of ‘liberal democracy,’ but they recognise when something isn’t right.
High turnout changes everything. One of the most striking features of the Hungarian result was turnout. When more voters engage, the electorate becomes broader, less polarised, and less easily captured by a narrow base. If liberals and democrats want to win, we shouldn’t just persuade-we should mobilise. Apathy is the populist Right’s quiet ally.
The populist Right is not invincible. Orban cultivated an image of inevitability. That’s a core part of populist strategy: to appear unstoppable, to sap the opposition’s confidence before a vote is even cast. Hungary punctures that myth. However dominant a movement may seem, it is still subject to the same basic truth: if enough people vote against it, it can be removed.
Offer hope, not just opposition. Crucially, Hungary’s opposition, led by the new PM-elect Peter Magyar, didn’t just say “not Orban.” It offered a different direction-pro European, outward-looking, and rooted in democratic renewal. Here in the UK, liberals must do the same. Critiquing the populist Right is necessary, but not sufficient. People need something to vote for.

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Tagged hungarian election 2026, jeremy corbyn, shirley williams and your party | 5 Comments

Rejoining the EU: A £180 Billion‑Per‑Year Power‑Up for Britain (Part One)

By Gareth McAleer | Mon 13th April 2026 - 11:11 am

Imagine the UK economy suddenly becoming £180 billion richer every single year – not as a one‑off sugar rush, but as a permanent, compounding uplift. That is what rejoining the European Union could mean: a structural transformation that boosts national income, raises living standards, strengthens public finances and restores Britain’s economic confidence. It would mark a deliberate, strategic shift away from managed decline and towards a confident, outward‑looking economic future.

An economy on turbo

Britain’s economy today is worth around £2.7 trillion. Add £180 billion more in real GDP each year and you get a 6–7 per cent permanent uplift – a lasting improvement that compounds over time. These step changes happen when countries remove trade barriers and integrate fully into large markets, allowing businesses to plan, hire and invest with far greater certainty.

Rejoining the EU would cut through customs red tape, restore full access to the single market and send a clear signal that Britain is open for business again. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s analysis of fiscal multipliers shows that deeper trade integration raises GDP permanently. Over a decade, the result is not just recovery but renewal – a richer, more stable UK economy with stronger foundations and better prospects in every region.

More revenue without raising tax

A stronger economy means higher revenues without increasing tax rates. Britain currently collects about 27 to 28 per cent of GDP in taxes, mainly through income tax, national insurance, VAT and corporation tax. As GDP grows, revenues rise automatically through higher wages and profits, rather than through stealth tax raids or emergency fiscal events.

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Tagged european union and rejoin eu | 29 Comments

Another cockup by this ham-fisted government

By Michael Taylor | Mon 13th April 2026 - 9:04 am

For years, our political opponent, especially the hypocritical Labour party, have lambasted us for our role in tuition fees during the coalition, conveniently overlooking Labour’s role of introducing them in the first place after saying they wouldn’t and then introducing top-up fees when they said they wouldn’t.

This ham-fisted government has messed about with student fees ever since getting back into power, first raising the interest rate and then capping it. Saying they would reintroduce maintenance grants and then not doing so.

Now a group of mainly poor working-class students are being told that the people responsible for student loans have mistakenly …

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Tagged student loans | 8 Comments