Recent news reports suggesting that the “chumocracy” currently running Britain has enriched its personal contacts during the Covid-pandemic by handing out lucrative procurement contracts worth millions is a tell-tale sign of a self-entitled political elite acting like a law unto itself. This sickening self-aggrandisement is a reflection of a political system that lacks transparency and accountability – issues Liberals have long campaigned on. In the 21st century, why do we still have a political system that permits a small, well-connected elite to act as if the country’s riches are its own? Is it due to our political system or our education system? Are those issues inseparable? Fortunately, our neighbour’s politics show how things can be done differently.
In 2012 I moved to the Netherlands to study. 2012 was a tumultuous year for Dutch politics, the Dutch coalition government had collapsed in April and fresh elections were held just two weeks after I arrived in September. Keen to show a commitment to my new host country, I used to watch the news every night with my Dutch flatmates. I didn’t understand much but learnt enough to match faces with names. This was made easier by the location of my campus, just a stone’s throw away from the Dutch parliament.
It became very clear, very quickly that there was less distance between the Dutch public and their politicians than there is in the U.K. This transparency was characterised by the Binnenhof – a 13th century square that houses the Prime Minister’s office, among other government departments. Like Westminster, the Binnenhof is one of the oldest Parliament buildings still in use. However, unlike Westminster, you can walk right through it. Passers-by, tourists and students would shuttle through, occasionally stopping to gawk at the Ministers arriving in their cars.
It was easy to accidentally bump into Dutch politicians. One lunch break I found myself queuing for a cheese sandwich alongside Diederik Samson, then leader of the Dutch Labour party. The Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, was even easier to track down, he had a favourite café where he could often be found sipping a coffee and reading the newspaper. I think I’m proud of the fact that I was one of the only students on my course not to have asked him for a selfie.
Boris Johnson has clearly demonstrated this week that he is a severe threat to Scotland’s place within the United Kingdom. Liberal Democrats need to consider any strategy which can give Scots a vision of a progressive United Kingdom freed from Boris Johnson’s “leadership”.
This is a speech I intended to deliver at Scottish conference last month, and I dearly hope this course can be seriously considered and deployed in good time to positively affect our performance in elections next May.
“I am deeply worried about Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom. I see polls showing support for Independence at 58%. I see within those polls that younger generations support Independence at a rate close to 4 to 1.
By Simon McGrath
| Mon 16th November 2020 - 10:30 am
London Region have recently been running a series of Zoom calls for people who are thinking of running for their Council in the 2022 elections. I have taken part in a couple of these and it has made me think about what I enjoy being a Councillor and why I would recommend others think about doing so.
I have been a Councillor for the Dundonald Ward in Merton since May 2018 – the ward runs from Wimbledon to Raynes Park along the railway line and it is characterised by terraced houses occupied by middle class professional families many of whom are from the EU. It won’t be a surprise that it voted strongly for Remain.
It’s a great place to knock on doors and talk to people – particularly in the daytime (I am retired) when a surprising number of people even before the lockdown work from home and often have more time to chat. I have had fascinating conversations about PG Wodehouse, the merits of working for different French banks and the details of train operations on the District Line. People occasionally even want to talk about politics!
Times have never been tougher, and this Christmas will be one of the most challenging yet. We’ve got to come together like never before. That means reaching out and staying connected with the most vulnerable and isolated members of our community.
It would be heartbreaking if family members or friends in care homes went without love this Christmas.
Earlier this year, An Post—Ireland’s postal service—announced it would carry letters, large envelopes, packets and parcels up to 2Kg addressed to residents in nursing homes, residential accommodation in the mental health or disability sectors and convalescent homes for free until 31st January 2021.
It’s a wonderful gesture that will support families and loved ones living in care homes, who have been so terribly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
That’s why I wrote to Royal Mail last month and asked them to follow An Post’s lead and offer free postage to and from care homes in the UK.
The Royal Mail’s role in response to the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be understated. Their staff have battled through in the toughest of times with professionalism and dedication.
By October, they had already handled more letters and parcels than they did in the whole of 2019—and the peak Christmas period for 2020 is only just beginning.
But with the national lockdown reimposed, and evidence suggesting that restrictions could be in place until the New Year, this is one small way to ensure that no one is left behind this winter.
Whilst many have discussed obesity as a national health problem, this framing ignores the curtailing of individual liberty that obesity produces; from the limits it often imposes on everyday activity to wide-ranging health risks and even potentially shortened lifespans. This framing is probably why the substance of obesity discourse revolves around how this often agency limiting phenomena is supposed to be ameliorated by limiting agency.
As a Liberal whose BMI straddles the line between overweight and obese, I think that obesity reduction policies should be based on expanding the agency of people, rather than curtailing it through Pigouvian taxes or even outright fat shaming.
This can be achieved by learning from the successes of other countries, primarily Japan. According to the 2017 OECD report the rate of obesity in Japan was 3.7% among people aged 15 years and older, whilst in contrast, the OECD average was 19.5% and that figure stood at 26.9% in the UK.
What explains this low rate of obesity?
More regular exercise?
About 25% of Britons age over 16 are classed as “physically inactive” as of 2017/18 whilst at the same time over 40% of Japanese people (aged 18 and over) admit they don’t exercise or take part in sports activity.
A lack of poverty?
As of 2017, 15.7% of Japanese people lived on 50% of median household income or less, compared to 11.9% of people in the UK.
So, what is going here?
A good answer comes in the form of a YouTube video by an American expat living in Japan. As a person who has lived in two different societies, he provides a unique perspective on Japanese and American diets and a beautifully simple thesis for Japan’s lack of obesity; Japanese people have access to cheap, varied and convenient healthy food in a way Americans (or indeed Britons) don’t.
There are few certainties in American politics at the moment, but I think we can say (with fingers and toes crossed) that Donald Trump has lost the presidential election; Joe Biden will be inaugurated on 20 January 2021 and Trump will leave the White House (one way or another) on or about the same day.
But what will the obese, orange-faced narcissist with the bouffant hair style do once he has exited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
Well, he will be 74 years old. He could simply retire to Mar-a-Lago and work on his golf handicap. He doesn’t have to worry about money. In addition to the billions of which he constantly boasts, Trump will receive an ex-president’s pension of $207,800; free healthcare; a staff and Secret Service protection.
That scenario, however, seems unlikely, Donald Trump is the ultimate illustration of power as an aphrodisiac. He thrives in the limelight and wilts in the shade. Donald Trump will want to continue as disrupter-in-chief outside elected office.
To do so, requires money. This may attract him back to his property roots and a global real estate empire. It badly needs attention as most of his investments are in leisure and travel-related property which has been hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
But the problem with a return to real estate is that the Trump brand has been tarnished. While he was a rising star and then president everyone wanted to do business with him or his family. Doing business with a defeated and petulant president who is a right-wing ideologue would be too much of a political statement for most businessmen.
Another possibility is the media mogul route, either with his own television network, or, in tandem with an existing conservative platform. It he goes the latter route the most likely partner is the ultra-right wing One America News Network. Fox has been ruled out after they unceremoniously ditched him on election night.
Liberalism’s answer to populism, I believe, is to give people what they really want, not what the forked tongues of populism tell them they want. Hopefully in the USA a majority has now chosen a President to give them what they really want.
But here in Britain we still have a populist Prime Minister with his inadequate government. There is still Lockdown, winter weather and seasonal colds and ‘flu yet to come – and the looming problems of Brexit, with or without a last-minute trade deal, before most of us can expect to share in a new vaccine.
There is some comfort in the government’s U-turn on providing vouchers for free school meals in each holiday, and in the continuation of the furlough scheme till March. We have been surprised at seeing a Tory government abandon their previous obsession with running down the Deficit, instead increasing it vastly, to save jobs and livelihoods and retain some spending power in the economy.
Yet this coming winter is likely to be a hard one, with many working-age people poorer if they have been on furlough, and especially if they have been made unemployed and are struggling to find a new job or restart their self-employment business. What will the government do then?
We know the Tory instinct will be to put up taxes – not to affect the wealthiest much, naturally, but to ask most people to contribute more. And among them, the millions of people now on welfare benefits will be expected to tighten their belts and ask no more than they can get now, inadequate as that is to prevent people falling into poverty.
However, the tide is turning. The British Social Attitudes Survey new annual report shows that the hardening of views on social security of the last few years has started to go into reverse. Their survey reveals attitudes have changed and this year more members of the public agree with the statement, ‘benefits are too low and cause hardship’ than last year. And fewer believe that ‘benefits are too high and discourage work’. This survey was conducted between July and October last year, so its findings are likely to be even more affirmed this year, when since March the number of people receiving Universal Credit has doubled to six million.
Forgive me if I seem the pre-Christmas Scrooge, but I can’t get as excited as everyone else at the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that has sent share prices rocketing (or falling) and a member of Sage saying we’ll be back to normal by the spring. I feel we are in danger of taking our eye off the ball.
The tendency when any of us are faced with a big problem is to see if we can solve it with minimum effort. It’s understandable; our lives are fairly full, so problems are irritants. But sometimes a problem requires a structural rethink, demanding root and branch reform rather than just tinkering with a failing element of the whole.
Issues like Covid-19 and climate change are problems that demand root and branch reform of the way the world does business, yet we are treating them like irritants. With climate change, we know our lifestyles are warming the planet to dangerous levels, yet we cling to the hope that some technology – like electric cars or planes running on biofuels – can be invented to stop us having to confront how we live and allow us to go back with a clear conscience to the life we know.
It’s the same with Covid. Although we don’t know for certain what caused it, the most likely explanation is our breaking down the barriers between the human and animal realms, to the point where bats, pangolins and perhaps even mink mingle with humans and cause a highly contagious killer virus. We need to look at our global lifestyle and re-establish that barrier, among other things through eating less meat and leaving forests intact – measures that will also help in the fight against climate change.
Yet instead, we hope for the magic wand of technology in the form of a vaccine. To me, it has long felt like lazy journalism or lazy politics to throw in the half-sentence “until we have a vaccine” to any thought about the coronavirus. It’s as if we don’t want to face up to the need to address the fundamental failings in our modus vivendi, and that can be dangerous.
I keep hearing siren party voices yet again hankering after a “progressive alliance” against the Conservatives. I firmly agree with John Pardoe’s adage of old that “a hatred of the Conservative party is the beginning of political wisdom”, but I fear that the very idea of the Labour party being “progressive” is, frankly, risible. It is one of the besetting chimeras of Liberals to have a dream that one day the Labour party will change. No-one who has challenged Labour in its industrial fiefs will succumb to such a fanciful concept. Labour believes in hegemony and control, and it has done since its early days. Once Ramsay Macdonald had negotiated the 1903 Pact with the gullible Herbert Gladstone and established a parliamentary foothold of thirty MPs, it then pursued its myopic single party aim without deviation. It prefers to be in opposition and to lose than to share any power. There is no better example than the first Labour government of 1924 which preferred to fall and to go into the electoral wilderness than to have even a minimal co-operation with the Liberals. Even in 2010, there was no possibility of a Lib-Lab coalition once Douglas Alexander had stated that they under no circumstances would they co-operate with the Scottish Nationalists.
I should start with a word of thanks – in fact, many words of thanks – to Kirsty Williams. She has announced that she will be standing down at the Welsh Senedd elections next May. As such a successful education minister in Wales, she is a daily demonstration of the difference that Liberal Democrats in power make. A consistently powerful voice for liberalism through all her many years of service, she has made such a big difference to so many lives. Thank you, Kirsty.
We need to get many more people like Kirsty elected in future. As the Thornhill Review …
President Trump’s ‘termination’ of Defense Secretary Mark Esper should come as no surprise (given the terminator’s temperament – and that’s before his convincing defeat at the hands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris). Because Secretary Esper was ready to resign in the event of his Commander-in-Chief’s electoral victory. He’d already written the letter.
His reasons why seem clear enough. Having ordered his troops back to base, he made public his refusal to condone even the possibility of their deployment on the streets of D.C., least of all to gas peaceful protestors for a photo opportunity outside of a church whose Bishop denounced the abhorrent abuse of power that had enabled it. President-elect Biden has drawn upon his faith – whatever your own beliefs – several times since his election, citing phrases of the powerful book that President Trump wielded as a prop so disgracefully.
But President Trump’s reason for sacking Esper now seems less clear. Most assume petty vengeance, a President affecting what little power he has left to ‘take out’ those who dared oppose him. A sign he is still President, in his own mind, by yielding his authority, perhaps. Or worst, an indication he plans to fulfil a campaign promise and is in full preparation for a 2024 campaign. To ‘End the Endless Wars’. Bring the troops home. An impossible prospect, at present, that would leave the future President Biden in a bind. To reverse, or abandon the region?
The 11th of November is the 100th anniversary of the birth of a political giant who helped form the modern Liberal Democrat party.
Roy Jenkins made a huge political impact, firstly within the Labour party as a reforming Home Secretary in the 1960s bringing in reforming legislation on decriminalising homosexuality, modernising divorce laws, and liberalising censorship laws. Then as one of the four founding members of the SDP that was to merge with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats.
The Children’s Society has produced a report, Moving always Moving, on the effects of housing insecurity on children.
What does that actually mean in practice?
For the purpose of this report we define it in a way that most closely reflects the experiences of relevant participants, and there are three main elements to the way we conceptualise it: with reference to multiple moves, to those moves being involuntary, forced or reactive, and to those moves being related to poverty.
When I was Scottish Housing Spokesperson, every Christmas we would do a freedom of information request on the number of children in temporary accommodation at that time of year. Imagine what that must be like, not having your things around you, not knowing whether you might have to move at a moment’s notice and often being accommodated away from your support network and friends.
The effect of this on physical and mental health, behaviour and educational attainment is profound:
It is clear that however it is labelled, poverty-related housing insecurity is associated with potential harm to children in terms of physical
and psychological health, health behaviours, risk-taking, ‘delinquent’ behaviour, emotional and social well- being, and education. The vast majority of the literature that paints this overall picture is quantitative. While statistical analyses are crucial to understanding the prevalence of broad trends and the strength of their effects, they are necessarily limited in terms of the depth of understanding they can enable about the lived reality of housing insecurity experienced over time.
If you are living in private rented accommodation, your landlord may decide to sell up for all sorts of reasons meaning you have to find somewhere else to live. If you have pets, it can be really difficult to find another private let and social housing is so difficult to get. I spoke to someone who had had to move twice within ten months because of landlords selling up. And moving is not cheap, even in the best of circumstances. If you are living in poverty, the costs associated with constant moves are even more damaging and impact on your ability to provide even the basics.
Some of the stories in the report are absolutely heartbreaking.
All the moving that Tiffany had done, and in particular this latest move far from the things that structured her everyday life, affected her. It meant that currently she had a really long journey between ‘home’ and school, which in turn meant that she had relocated herself outside of her nominal home a temporary two bedroom flat where she had been placed with her mum) for more than half the week. It also meant that she felt stuck at school, unhappy
but trapped because moving schools would require knowing where home was.
Tiffany also felt a certain tension around where it was she belonged – she didn’t feel a strong attachment to her new area and still identified strongly with the place where she had lived before, but she knew it wasn’t really hers to call home anymore. When we asked if she was hoping to move again, she responded by talking about her mum – about how her mum was going to be moved because her current place was only temporary and they could move her at any time –
and she absented herself from the narrative completely, suggesting a lack of attachment to the area where she now officially lived (albeit temporarily).
I did sigh a bit when it was announced that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden would be speaking at 8pm local time that night. After four days of sitting up till the wee hours waiting for that count to move off 253, I could have done with an early night.
There was no way I was going to miss it though. Especially as I’d sat up on Thursday to listen to Trump’s outburst. I had planned to go to bed at 11pm but at 10:50, he outgoing President (how lovely it is to write that) announced a press conference at 11:30.
I knew I’d regret if if I missed it almost as much as I’d regret it if I watched it. It was worth it for the reaction of the media. I don’t think we’ve talked about how huge a thing it was for MSNBC to actually pull away from him, saying that they weren’t going to broadcast his speech because what he was saying was false. CNN’s banners basically saying that he was alleging electoral fraud without evidence were a delight to see.
I knew that the Biden and Harris speeches would be much more edifying. Friday night’s hilarious episode of Gogglebox helped me stay awake and I poured myself a weird cocktail of maraschino cherry liqueur and amaretto. It’s kind of like a cherry bakewell… Strangely, I was so preoccupied that I didn’t even find out the Strictly spoiler.
Harris and Biden did not disappoint. Kamala Harris’s speech which I mostly sobbed my way through brought so much joy. Her touching reference to Joe Biden’s son Beau, a friend of hers who died in 2015 was particularly poignant, as was the way she talked about the history she was making and how it should encourage girls to ‘dream with conviction and lead with ambition.
But while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities. And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message:
Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they’ve never seen it before. But know that we will applaud you every step of the way.
Joe Biden was much more inspiring than I expected, reaching out to all of America, including those who supported Donald Trump. We haven’t seen any of that these past four years. He has a good idea of what he wants to do at this challenging point in history:
Folks, America has always been shaped by inflection points, by moments in time where we’ve made hard decisions about who we are and what we want to be.
Lincoln in 1860, coming to save the union. FDR in 1932, promising a beleaguered country a New Deal. JFK in 1960, pledging a new frontier. And 12 years ago, when Barack Obama made history, he told us “Yes, we can.”
Well folks, we stand again at an inflection point. We have an opportunity to defeat despair, to build a nation of prosperity and purpose. We can do it. I know we can.
I’ve long talked about the battle for the soul of America. We must restore the soul of America. Our nation is shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. And what presidents say in this battle matters. It’s time for our better angels to prevail.
Tonight, the whole world is watching America. And I believe at our best, America is a beacon for the globe. We will not lead … we will lead not only by the example of our power but by the power of our example.
I’ve always believed — many of you’ve heard me say it — I’ve always believed we can define America in one word: Possibilities.
That in America everyone should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them.You see, I believe in the possibilities of this country.
It was so strange watching the Festival of Remembrance from a virtually empty Albert Hall last night.
This will be a very strange Remembrance Sunday. Most of the usual services have been cancelled.
I normally buy my poppies in the supermarket, but as they are out of bounds at the moment for me, and I’m sure for many of you, here is the link to the Royal British Legion’s poppy appeal in case you want to make a donation to support the work that the Legion does to support veterans and their families.
I took this photo at the Tower of London in November 2014. Between July and November 888,246 filled the grounds gradually, one for each British soldier who died during the First World War.
Here is Ed Davey’s message for Remembrance Sunday
Today, as we remember and honour those who have lost their lives in our Armed Forces, let's commit ourselves to work harder for peace in our world. pic.twitter.com/HrfAHJOgOW
What will America do with Mr Trump when he ceases to be President? There will be those who believe that the relatively narrow margin of Biden’s victory means that America is still a bitterly divided country and that the healing process means that any question of prosecution would be a non-starter because it would ‘re-open the wounds”. Trumpism will not go away even in the unlikely event of the man himself disappearing into the sunset sometime in January. But national divisions are nothing like as simple as the binary choices of a two-horse race or a yes/no referendum.
Going against a majority view can be difficult for politicians but if it matters so much the voters have the option of sending them packing in due course. MPs who voted for the abolition of the death penalty were not, for the most part, punished by their constituents. We didn’t have council elections in the Mets in the May following the UK referendum but in 2018 many of us in the North were happy to be elected or re-elected in wards which voted heavily Leave, myself included. Because voters are human beings their political views can be more complex (sometimes contradictory) than we might like them to be.
When I went to bed at 4:30 am on Wednesday I was so utterly miserable and depressed. It was looking like Trump might actually have won a second term with all the suffering and irreversible damage to the planet and division that would entail.
But, since then, it’s been looking like it was increasingly a matter of time until Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the victors. That moment happened just before 4:30 pm this afternoon. I turned on the telly after an afternoon of delivering leaflets and dog walking just as the declaration was made. I would like to thank all my friends in various WhatsApp groups for helping me to say sane. The Scottish Lib Dem Women chat and the chat which Steve Jolly set up must have had 3 million messages by now at least, and all of them have been therapeutic.
I’m not going to lie, the tears have not stopped much since then. And every time they seem to be about to stop, something like this happens:
Like many others, I’ve been addicted to CNN for the past 4 days. What a brilliant team they are. They are not afraid to call out the bullshit when they see it. John King, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, Abby Phillip, Alisyn Camerota and many others have all managed to make sense of what is going on. We are all more familiar with places we had never heard of. I feel like I need to visit Maricopa County, Eyrie County, Fulton County and the like, as the places where history was made.
One of the most powerful moments came from Van Jones this afternoon. Someone who has been on the sharp end of Trump’s divisive, racist actions over the past four years. It makes you realise the damage Trump has done. President and Trump are two words which should never have gone together.
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇪🇺 (@caronmlindsay) November 7, 2020
Ed Davey has sent his congratulations to the winners
People around the world will now be breathing a huge sigh of relief. Over the past four years Donald Trump has fed a new divisive form of politics, testing American democracy to its very limits. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s victory isn’t just democratic, it may have saved US democracy.
“I’d like to congratulate Joe Biden and urge him not only to deliver on his promise to restore liberal values in the United States, but also to ensure the US will play a constructive role in the international battle to beat Coronavirus. The virus, like all of the world’s biggest problems, can only be solved if we work together as an international community.
“I hope Joe Biden will be a president who fights alongside progressives for social justice and climate action at home and abroad.”
Other Lib Dems also welcomed the news:
It's important we remember just how much of a big deal the election of @KamalaHarris as Vice President is.
She has not only broken through the glass ceiling, she's shattered it into a million pieces and shown women everywhere what is possible.https://t.co/hkEQvRKr7o
This day belongs not just to Kamala and Joe but to people like Stacey Abrams. Narrowly beaten in the Georgia governor’s race two years ago because of voter suppression, she served her revenge cold by trying to bust down the barriers Republicans put up. And she’s helped secure not one but two Georgia Senate run-offs on 5th January. One of the Democrats, Jon Ossoff, is a mate of Alistair Carmichael’s from his days trying to save Troy Davis from execution. And there’s also the Crooked Media team, former Obama staffers whose media and activist network has given us hours of pleasure over the past four years since they formed in the wake of Hillary’s defeat.
Hope is a terrible emotion. It too often leads to despair. But an almost overwhelming hope is the dominant emotion for all those supporting a Biden victory in the US presidential elections.
As I write this the election remains in the balance. No bookkeeper will give a Trump victory any odds. Biden is almost certain to win, but the emphasis is still on the words “almost” and “hope”.
Just when Biden can give his uncontested victory speech is unknown. Trump will not concede. The president has made it clear that he will contest the election result in the courts—right up to the Supreme Court; even though almost no respectable legal eagle believes Trump has grounds for his claims of a fraudulent election.
But the president’s business success was largely based on highly suspect legal triumphs and he will use his unrivalled experience in the courts to keep Biden out of the house and job which he claims as his exclusive preserve.
Then there is the cloud of violence hanging over America. So far there have only been a handful of incidents. But the fact is that Trump supporters are dramatically extreme – and often armed – in support for their man.
Biden has asserted that he will be a unifying president for all Americans. The problem is that rural and small town America have felt ignored for years. They believe that their way of life has been marginalised, under-valued, and under-represented by a coalition of patronising degree-wielding urbanites and non-whites who threaten their values.
If Biden wins, the man from Delaware may also face problems with Congress. America’s checks and balances system means that for an administration to be effective it needs a majority of support in the House of Representatives and Senate. The Democrats have held onto their plurality in the lower house but, for the time being, The Republicans have control of the Senate. This may change in January when there will be two Senate run-offs because of Georgia’s convoluted election laws.
A defeated Trump is unlikely to take the accepted route of retiring to his Florida mansion to work on his memoirs and presidential library. During the campaign, son-in-law Jared Kushner, was busy organising a future platform which is likely to become Trump Television. This will enable Trump to broadcast vitriol, personal insults and dangerously false conspiracy theories to undermine a Biden Administration, and prepare a 2024 bid for the White House either for himself or one of his children.
If Biden does succeed then there is hope. Joe is recognised as one of the most honourable politicians in Washington who strongly believes in the rule of law as laid down in the US constitution. In contrast, Trump twists the law to work only through friends prepared to swear feudal fealty to him personally.
I’m not an expert on elections in the USA, but am I the only one to be puzzled about the length of time it is taking to count the votes?
I have been seriously drawn into this election, staying up for a silly length of time watching CNN, which does seem to give the clearest coverage. I do appreciate that each state sets up its local voting arrangements, and that this privilege is enshrined in the Constitution. As a result, states vary enormously in how efficient they are at counting ballots.
The rules about mail-in/absentee/postal voting vary, so that in some states (and crucially in most of the swing states) they are only opened after the in-person votes are counted.
In the UK, postal votes are opened and verified in batches as they arrive at the Council, then locked away securely. Verification involves checking that the ballot paper is a genuine one and that the signature matches the one given on the application form. At the count, after the polls close, the ballot papers from the polling stations are verified by being counted and the total checked against the numbers of electors recorded at each polling station. But once the postal and non-postal ballots have been verified they are all mixed together, so that each counting officer is given a random collection of ballot papers to sort into baskets labelled with the candidates’ names. (Apologies to you activists who know all this already…)
Postal ballots must reach the Council before polling day, or can be handed in at a polling station on the day. Unlike the situation in some states in the US, postal votes that arrive late in the UK are not counted.
Having attended many election counts in the UK, some as a candidate, some as a counting agent, I can see how labour intensive the process is. In spite of that, most of our counts finish overnight, only occasionally spilling over into the next day, even though polling goes on until 10pm. So, apart from the necessary delay in dealing with late arriving mail-in votes where they are allowed, why are the American ones taking so long?
Alistair Carmichael had a Commons first today. He was the first person in the UK Parliament to refer to President-Elect Biden.
He was presenting his Bill to tackle plastic pollution. When Speaker Dame Rosie Winterton asked him when it would be debated, he said “Nine days after President-Elect Biden’s inauguration.”
If he has tempted fate, he will be in massive amounts of trouble…
If he has tempted fate, he has to keep us all in whisky for the next 4 years but those words are lovely to hear. https://t.co/SJlFzu8gdl
— Caron Lindsay 🔶 🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇪🇺 (@caronmlindsay) November 5, 2020
The view across London from Epsom Downs, with quarter of a rainbow
So lockdown comes to England again, but it doesn’t make much of a difference to us. Ian has received an email from Matt Hancock reminding him that he is “clinically extremely vulnerable” – which is hardly news to him. It advises him to stay at home as much as possible but to go outside for exercise and to attend health appointments.
We have been doing exactly that for the last three weeks, impatient once again with the slow response by the Government to the widespread re-emergence of Covid-19. Back in the summer our local Council and hospital were preparing for a second wave in October, so it was hardly unexpected.
However, there are some crucial differences for us this time. In the first lockdown we literally did not leave our house, apart from a trip to the hospital, from mid-March to the end of June. Looking back that seems an extraordinary thing to have done. Actually, it didn’t feel like a hardship for us at the time – the weather was good and we have a small garden – although I appreciate that it was really tough for many people.
Since then we have been going out for walks almost every day, and, when we were allowed to drive a short distance, we started exploring many places we hadn’t been to before. It has been a revelation – we have found three beautiful lakes, riverside paths, ancient heathland, and many walks through the woods, all within three or four miles of our home.
This time we are being encouraged to go out for exercise, which does make sense as it feels a very safe thing to do. Other walkers are always careful when passing and we never stand within 2 metres of anyone else.
When I saw the job advert for a party’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), I was very excited.
As someone who works as a Head of Product Development for a startup, and has previously worked as a consultant specifically around digital strategy transformation, I see a great opportunity for the party.
To me, it seems the party’s current technology systems consist of tools that were bought off-the-shelf and are (mostly) perfectly good at doing what they were bought for. But these tools tend to be isolated, and coherence when trying to join things together, as anyone who’s ever run a Typeform survey and then had to manually get it into Connect will tell you. Now HQ have hired that CTO, here are my 2 main wishes: get a powerful foundation for data in place, and build a culture of open source around it.
The system is broken. We all know it – voters and politicians alike. And as liberals we must make the acknowledgement of this failure a key part of our message.
Liberals have long argued that the system robs people of their natural rights as citizens. We are against concentrations of power in the hands of vested interests – whether in the private or public sector. And yet these concentrations of power are everywhere we look – whether it’s multinationals or public life.
We want an equitable and accountable political class, but the one we have is elected under a shady form of democracy or appointed by a government elected on minority support. We want a fair tax and social security system that rewards ambition and protects the vulnerable, but we are a long way from it. And we want to reform the economic system that is destroying our environment, but powerful interests are causing that to happen too slowly.
The current political and economic system is preventing all the systemic changes we need. And by doing so it has allowed powerful people with malign intent to drag this country to the edge.
There has been a great amount of robust debate on all aspects of coronavirus response. This is, of course, healthy – within the bounds of the available science, politicians have had to pick from many possible actions. We don’t have perfect knowledge of this pandemic (we don’t have perfect knowledge of anything) – people have had to make decisions, and these are open to criticism.
Science itself has also become a target – through the misrepresentation of data, amplification of discredited scientific theories, or outright attacking the scientific process. This is not healthy debate – facts should be disproven, they cannot simply be denied or misrepresented.
As a scientist I would like to bring some facts to the debate, and address some misinformation that has appeared here on Lib Dem Voice recently:
Last Wednesday, 28th October, the Guardian ran one of its rare single topic double column Leaders devoted to an excoriating denunciation of Donald Trump and his Presidency. Here’s a selection of the words and phrases used:
leader least equipped; divided country; not…a fit and proper person; brazen disregard for legal norms; propagated lies and ignorance; cruel and mean; agenda of corporate deregulation; tax giveaways for the rich; narcissist; devastating lack of empathy; growing gap between the level of competence required… and… ability; cronies whose mob-like fealty to their boss; post shame politician; one rule for wealthy elites and another for the
Recently I was privileged to be asked to make the speech proposing Glenys Falconer to be the 380th Mayor of Chesterfield. I was especially delighted to do so because I have known Glenys both as a friend and as a committed Lib Dem campaigner ever since the 1980’s. The interview below, which originally appeared on the Chesterfield Lib Dem website, expands on just a few of the reasons why Glenys will be such a good Mayor.
Glenys refers to being the fourth female Lib Dem Mayor in the last 15 years and the other three were all likewise long-standing fellow campaigners and friends. Trudi, who sadly died a few years ago, was one of the first two Liberal Cllrs to be elected in Chesterfield since WW2. That was in the 1970’s but she then moved away to live and work in Birmingham. Upon ‘retiring’ back to Chesterfield in the 1990’s we then quickly got her re-elected back on to the Council in a by election. That was to replace Jo White, one of the youngest Cllrs in England when she was first elected, much to the disgust of the crusty Tory Cllr who she defeated. Jo however then moved in order to work for Don Foster MP in Bath.
June was first elected to the Council in 1987 at the same time as myself and is President of the Local Party today. Maureen wrote an article in the first Focus leaflet to be issued in Chesterfield back in the 1970’s and today is Deputy Leader of the Council Group. Cllr Shirley Niblock who produced the interview below is a relative newcomer having been recruited to stand in a Target Ward in 2011. Newer Cllrs include Maggie Kellman, Katherine Hollingworth, Kelly Thornton and Emily Coy, all first elected in 2019. Oh -and the new Deputy Mayor is Tony Rogers who was first elected as a Cllr (in Devon) in the 1960’s!
What is the common thread in these Cllrs? Some originated in the Liberal Party of the 1960/70’s. Others, like June and myself were motivated by the SDP in the 1980’s. Others are new Lib Dems in recent years. All though are good colleagues, hard-working community campaigners and committed Liberal Democrats.
Yesterday, Scottish Conference discussed a motion which called for the party to adopt the Housing First model to help the most vulnerable homeless people.
This means that people with addictions, mental ill health or prison leavers, for example, are given somewhere to live. Housing First projects set up in Scotland have been successful – with no tenancies failing and incredibly positive feedback from those who have been helped.
It is an important tool in making sure that the most vulnerable homeless people are properly looked after. If they have somewhere to live, then everything else that is going on in their lives is easier to fix, whether that is trauma, addiction or mental ill health.
And look what the tenants have to say:
Housing First is the best thing ever. To have the chance to start a new life.
The Housing First support has been amazing and coming into prison into my own tenancy has made a huge difference as I am away from negative influences. With Housing First Support I feel I can remain in my tenancy and stay out of prison
You have to wonder how on earth has it taken so long to the point where we actually make sure someone has somewhere to live when they leave prison.
While I think we must build on the success of Housing First, we have to make sure that we tackle all forms of homelessness. While Shelter support the Housing First model they are concerned that we don’t make people experiencing different forms of homelessness.
There was a lot of support for the Housing First model at the Conference, but there was concern that the motion called for a new government agency to administer the model. The movers of the motion wanted that because the councils in the biggest cities have more homeless people, who have come from all parts of the country to deal with. It is counter-intuitive, though, for party that doesn’t like centralisation and when we can see how SNP centralisation has ruined most of our public services.
So the motion was referred back for further discussion, with a stronger motion coming back to Spring conference.
Lothians candidate Jill Reilly talked about what she had learned from her experience volunteering to help homeless people during the pandemic. Here is her speech:
For the first time, I have voted for a Democrat for President.
In doing so, I cast my vote more for the party than for the candidate. Joe Biden was not my first, second, third, or fourth choice in the primary contest. I will not pretend that voting for Biden is exciting, compelling, or particularly virtuous. But he is a competent representative of the values of the Democratic party, which I have supported in local and state level contests for some time.
As an Iowan, my vote has considerable weight. Iowa is one of the perennial swing states, and the only state which pollsters correctly and consistently predicted would switch from Obama to Trump in 2016. Four years later, it has a real chance of flipping back.
On top of the very competitive Presidential race, Iowa is home to a competitive Senate race (over $13 million has been spent on the Iowa senate seat alone) and three competitive House races. But this is nothing new to Iowans, who are used to their airwaves being saturated by political ads.
Though much of the advertising is of an attacking nature, there are a couple stand-out positive messages: increased access to healthcare, and, on a more intangible note, the tenor and reputation of our highest political offices. On the former, the top of the Democratic ticket is not as ambitious as many Iowans might want. It does not look like Iowans will be free from the grip of insurance monopolies anytime soon. But on the other, there is no question that Theresa Greenfield and Joe Biden are the best exemplars of American values.
And on both counts, the Democratic Party has been the only reliable source of competence and positive change in recent years. This is not to say it is faultless. Many of the things we deride about Trump and his administration – such as mass deportations, neoliberal economics, an empowered health insurance lobby, and corporate welfare – have been enabled and supported by Democrats of the past. I do not pretend that positive change will be immediate or fast. But Joe Biden has cast himself as a listener. I hope that he will listen to the burgeoning voices, not only in his party, but across the country, calling for a rediscovery of social democracy in the US. Americans living in America deserve fair access to healthcare, a comprehensive liberal education, and a positive conversation on minority rights – things many Europeans take for granted.
Tristan Ward “Let’s start by arguing that the economic benefits of the Single Market far exceed having to accept freedom of movement into the UK, and take it from there....
Chloe 'Needless to say the poorest in British society paid the price for this'
I remember canvassing , the poorer the area the less interested they were. Membership ...
GWYN WILLIAMS A balanced and fair assessment of the Senedd campaign. Unlike in Scotland, Wales has not as yet polarised into for and against Independence camps. The Welsh Lib...
Jana The logic of this article is that we should be rejoining the Single Market. That is different from signing up to complete political Union by joining the EU.
...
Pawel Urbanski Good piece, Tom. I would just split it into two things
1/ The principle: someone living off their assets should not pay less tax than someone living off a wage...
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
20C night
Sammy Going South and the morality of employing child actors
Lessons from 1936 and 2026 for the Liberal Democrats (LDN#211)
Recipe for a real change of direction
Day 9304: So Farewell Then, Kier Starmer
Tristan Ward 
Chloe 
GWYN WILLIAMS 
Jana 
Pawel Urbanski 