Category Archives: Op-eds

Alexandrine Kantor

When the caveats within the definition of the IHRA are misused

By Alexandrine Kantor | Mon 24th February 2020 - 9:15 am

I wanted to share my experience of submitting a motion defining the definitions of Antisemitism (IHRA) and Islamophobia (APPG). But I decided to not add the caveats (mentioned in this Liberal Democrat Voice article by John Kelly).

You can read my speeches and the motion here.

Firstly, the IHRA definition is clear that it is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel and lastly, I did not want to single out the Jewish community over geopolitics that they have no link with, no control over, and are not responsible for. As we did adopt the APPG definition of Islamophobia without clarification …

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Stuck in a car

By Tom Arms | Fri 21st February 2020 - 10:30 am

I have just spent two days in a cramped Vauxhall Astra chauffering my brother, his wife, her sister and her brother-in-law. It was an interesting experience. They are from the Bible Belt states of North Carolina and Georgia respectively and dyed-in-the-wool Republican Trump supporters. They regard me as a beyond redemption loony liberal.

The first day they were recovering from jet lag and weren’t up to political battle. But as we drove out to Oxford on the second day swords were crossed. The group’s champion was brother-in-law, Paul, a Christian missionary with a political science degree. We disagreed, but the disagreements were illuminating.

As expected, the discussion focused on Trump. Here are a couple of highlights:

Trump and the rule of law – I maintained that Trump is riding roughshod over the American constitution and the rule of law as evidenced by his refusal to allow White House staff to testify in the Senate Impeachment trial.

Paul’s response – The Democrats in the House of Representatives had their chance to call staff. They could have gone through the courts and forced the White House to respect the subpoenas. They chose not to, so they have lost the right to complain

Myself – If they had pursued the issue through the courts it would have taken months, perhaps even years.

Paul – That is the way the legal system works. You can’t complain that Trump is riding roughshod over the law and then deny him access to due process.

Myself – Hmm…

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Paul Reynolds

Assessing the Johnson Government’s new reform narrative

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 20th February 2020 - 5:19 pm

Over the last week the Johnson government’s narrative approach to reforms in the UK  has become more clear.

Johnson’s personal views on eugenics and poverty are a matter of record. ‘The poor being poor due to low IQ’ brings psychological comfort to those born into the luxuries of inherited wealth and private education. So blaming everything on Cummings might be unwise.

Policy more than personal views are however, our subject of concern. At last, the government’s underlying propositions can be clearly stated, as follows:

1. The UK’s low productivity problem is caused by a surfeit of unskilled migrant workers from Eastern Europe, enabling firms to avoid investment in new technology and avoid employee training.

2. UK poverty is the result of low IQ among sections of the population and of a self-perpetuating underclass, aided by single mums and teenage pregnancies.

3. Whilst UK unemployment is low, there are 8million ‘economically inactive’ citizens who, via further welfare reforms and eugenics, can be reduced in number and induced to take up the low paid jobs formerly taken by EU migrants, receiving training by employers who can no longer access low-skilled EU labour.

4. The core aim of a new immigration points system is thus to raise productivity and raise wage levels, and in the process reduce the cost of in-work benefits.

5. Increased national capital spending by the state will stimulate growth from construction contracts and compensate for the negative effects of EU tariffs and other barriers, creating demand for indigenous low skilled labour, (at least until such time as new global trade deals are in place)

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Michael Kitching

Listening to people about immigration

By Michael Kitching | Thu 20th February 2020 - 3:11 pm

When I wrote another Lib Dem Voice article a couple of months ago to share some thoughts following the General Election, I had one line in it that said we need to come up with Liberal answers to some people’s genuine concerns about how immigration has affected them, beyond calling them racist. Following that I was called racist myself and told that I shouldn’t be welcome in the Lib Dems.

So before this article I feel it necessary to say strongly, I support the free movement of people, and we should fight tooth and nail for it. In fact if anything, a freer and more open system that encompasses far more of the world would clearly be of great economic and social value to our country and our freedoms.

We cannot, however, deny that a large part of the electoral coalition the Conservatives have built, is around concerns about how migration has affected local communities. Many of these voters are undoubtedly people who in the past ten or twenty years, voted Lib Dem.

In many cases, particularly in rural communities where populations have increased by 20% over the last decade or so, there are very real issues. These stem from a lack of housing to take account of inward migration, a lack of investment in basic public services and a clash of culture and language in some cases, when previously entirely homogenous communities are changed so quickly. We should, of course, support the rights of individuals seeking to work and live in the UK. We should also work with communities to ensure that we invest to reduce the negative effects that some can see. Public service improvements should come alongside new migration, not in reaction to it twenty years later.

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Larry Ngan

Why we should do more to support the Hong Kong protest movement

By Larry Ngan | Wed 19th February 2020 - 6:30 pm

The 2019 General Election Liberal Democrats manifesto calls for standing to a peaceful world; not only because this is our value, but also everyone deserves a better world. When we jointly face challenges in our support for liberal democracies, stable partnerships are often fostered. One such alliance calls for “Honouring our legal and moral duty to the people of Hong Kong by reopening the British National Overseas Passport offer, extending the scheme to provide the right to abode to all holders”. Nonetheless, do words suffice in supporting the civilians in Hong Kong who are among those standing in defiance of brutal dictatorships?

Since the 2019 autumn conference, the situation in Hong Kong deteriorated substantially. By the end of December 2019, more than 7000 protesters had been arrested according to the figures from Hong Kong Police Force. For all that, it did not include those who disappeared after arrests, or those being transported to Mainland China. Two thirds of those arrested were between eleven to twenty five years old, and half of them were students. Some who were reported to have disappeared were later found dead under suspicious circumstances. New York Times investigations revealed police tactics on the day nearly caused a mass stampede as police deployed tear gas without warning, cornering civilians into a dead end. Demonstrators in that incident adverted mass injuries by shattering glass and forcibly entering an office building for refuge.

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Mark Pack

Getting our finances right – report back from February Board meeting

By Mark Pack | Wed 19th February 2020 - 5:15 pm

At our latest meeting, the Federal Board welcomed our newest member, Lisa Smart, who has been elected the new chair of the Federal Communications and Elections Committee (FCEC), taking over from James Gurling. Welcome on Board, Lisa!

We also welcomed back to the Board Tony Harris as Registered Treasurer and Chair of the Federal Finance and Resources Committee (FFRC) and Mike German as Federal Treasurer.

Details of the outcome of elections for other key posts around the party are available on the party website. Congratulations to everyone elected and thank you also to everyone else who applied, helping to give us a strong set of names to choose from.

After our January Board meeting agreed the timings and got the ball rolling on key elements for our success this year, such as an independent elections review and our leadership election, the Board concentrated this time in particular on the Federal Party’s budget.

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William Francis

What is our approach to Co-determination?

By William Francis | Wed 19th February 2020 - 3:40 pm

As a party, we have long advocated a cooperative relationship between labour and capital rather than an adversarial and hierarchical one, where the investor, the manager, and the worker are partners in the industry.
Such a vision was expressed in our 1964 manifesto, with the statement:
“Employees must be given a share in the decisions and profits of the companies in which they work. should be represented on the board of directors, or on a joint supervisory council”.

This vision has deeper roots in the Party’s history for in 1908, the Liberal government passed the Port of London Authority (PLA) Act, which mandated worker representation in the corporate governance of the PLA.
We should do more to revive this facet of ourselves, particularly with regards to co-determination.

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David Warren

Death In The Afternoon

By David Warren | Tue 18th February 2020 - 12:56 pm

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Just before I was born my parents made the decision to move from their home town of Reading to an isolated South Oxfordshire village which is where I grew up.

My widowed grandmother also joined us which was great as I was very fond of her. I attended the local primary school which on the whole I enjoyed, reading was a passion.

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Tom Arms

Comrade Dominic

By Tom Arms | Tue 18th February 2020 - 9:20 am

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In the Soviet Union they had one in every ministry, factory, communal farm, university, school and military unit.

They were called commissars. Their job was to insure that workers stuck to the party line. They called it democratic centralism; a reversal of Western democracy.

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Nicolas Webb

Rising above politics as usual

By Nicolas Webb | Mon 17th February 2020 - 12:44 pm

The decision to not rush the leadership election has allowed a welcome space for a discussion on the strategy and philosophy of being a Liberal Democrat in 2020. I am a new member having joined just last month. I do not pretend that my views carry any more weight than any other member, and probably less than those who have worked so hard for the party. Nonetheless, the opportunity to contribute ideas to the direction the party should now take was part of the reason I joined.

Post-Brexit we have a clean slate. The challenge is to apply the timeless principles …

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Mark Argent

Rejoining the EU will be right… but it’s too soon to push for it

By Mark Argent | Sun 16th February 2020 - 10:07 am

Nothing has emerged since the start of the referendum campaign to suggest that Brexit promises anything more than serious harm — to the British economy, British culture and Britain’s standing in the world. That didn’t change at 2300 on 31 January.

But the way forward is more complicated than switching from #RevokeArticle50 to #RejoinEU — and not just because the process for rejoining is not so simple.

Polling suggests that a majority have been opposed to Brexit for some time. Some of those will be relieved that the indecision is over, but many will not have changed their minds. But …

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Tom Purvis

Winning in local elections

By Tom Purvis | Sat 15th February 2020 - 1:15 pm

 

Whilst the General Election results were disappointing, we have a set of local elections in May which present our party with an opportunity – to rebuild trust with the electorate ahead of future national elections.

It will most likely be 2024 at the earliest when the next election is, assuming the Government remove the Fixed Term Parliament Act, so that gives us four years to win in local elections across the country and show the electorate that we can be trusted to represent them well at a local level.

Historically, we have done well in parliamentary constituencies where we have done well locally, a point which Paddy drove home time and time again in his speeches and books. Perhaps this is not surprising, given how hard working our councillors are. The same hard-working nature cannot be said for Labour councillors.

In places like Sheffield, we have a real chance to deny Labour a majority. In May last year, we were able to win in the South East of the City, which we have not done for a long time. As well as this, we gained seats in the North of the City too. Hopefully, we can replicate that this year and continue to make gains which will prevent Labour’s control.

By winning seats and then doing the job we have the privilege to do, we can show residents that we will not take them for granted, we will listen to them and we will help to make their lives that little bit better. Whether it be cutting bushes back so that a wheelchair user can access a path, building a partnership between the local residents and police force or pointing residents in the right direction when they have a problem with housing or council tax. We can make a difference and it is this difference which will help to build a new alliance of Lib Dem voters.

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John Kelly

Anti-Semitism  and the IHRA Definition

By John Kelly | Sat 15th February 2020 - 11:28 am

In September 2018 the Federal Board of the Party adopted the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Association) definition of anti-Semitism.  It did so following the recommendation of the Home Affairs Select Committee in its report of 2016 that government and public bodies should adopt this definition, with certain caveats.  The definition has been adopted by many universities and local authorities and the UK Government has recently putting pressure on those public bodies that haven’t to do so in the near future.

The basic working definition reads:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

The definition is normally published with examples of manifestations of anti-Semitism – some of which refer to Israel.  The Home Affairs Select Committee was concerned that the definition might lead to charges of anti-Semitism being levelled against those who criticised the actions of the Israeli government and recommended the addition of two caveats to the definition if it was to be used by UK public bodies, as follows:

24. We broadly accept the IHRA definition, but propose two additional clarifications to ensure that freedom of speech is maintained in the context of discourse about Israel and Palestine, without allowing antisemitism to permeate any debate. The definition should include the following statements:
1. It is not antisemitic to criticise the Government of Israel, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent.
2. It is not antisemitic to hold the Israeli Government to the same standards as other liberal democracies, or to take a particular interest in the Israeli Government’s policies or actions, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent.

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Mark Kenyon

The best thing about the Green New Deal you never knew and why this could be our new superpower

By Mark Kenyon | Fri 14th February 2020 - 4:45 pm

Short of living under a rock since Greta Thurnberg started getting regular visits from her school attendance officer, everyone knows what the Green New Deal is; a government led transformation of our carbon intensive economy to a green one providing lots of well paid jobs in the process.

A few of you might have your suspicions about how it could be paid for ranging from:

  • hope (economic boom, so taxes!)
  • to panic (it’s the bees!  We need to ignore the cost and just get on with it!)
  • to cynicism (ahhh, I remember the first Green Deal).

You’d all be wrong.

The Green New Deal should be paid for in the same way we pay for Quantitative Easing (or to give it its proper name, Enriching The Rich Because Trickle Down).   At the stroke of a keyboard, money will appear in the government’s accounts, ready for spending into our hot little hands.

OMG!   But what about the money we’ll owe China?   Haven’t the boomers already screwed the planet?   Don’t let them add to the debt mountain!

Keep Calm and Read On.   Economics 101 has meant that you think about an economy like a household budget.   Money is earnt, then spent.   The difference every month is the deficit, the cumulative figure is debt.

Debt is bad.   Debt needs to be paid back.   Debt means higher taxes.   Too much debt means higher interest rates!   I don’t care what Ford Prefect says, PANIC!

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Ireland

By Tom Arms | Fri 14th February 2020 - 10:48 am

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Ireland, we were told by Boris Johnson and his coterie of Leave campaigners, was not a problem. It was a non-issue dreamt up by the Remainers as part of their fear campaign. The Good Friday Agreement, they said, was secure along with the future of the union.

Then Boris drew the EU-UK border down the middle of the Irish Sea and threw Northern Ireland’s Protestants to the nationalist wolves. It was not the first time that a British Prime Minister was prepared to sacrifice Ulster for the benefit of England. During World War II, Winston Churchill, offered unification in return for Irish entry into the war on the side of the Allies. Eammon de Valera refused because he thought Churchill would be unable to deliver on the pledge.

This week Sinn Fein – the political wing of the IRA – emerged as one of the victors in a three-way tie in the Irish general election. A unified island was not a major part of their campaign. In fact, it was conspicuous by the virtual silence on the subject. Instead the nationalists focused on a left-wing agenda of increased spending on public services and housing in contrast to the long-established 100-year duopoly of the centrist parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.

But make no mistake it. A united Ireland free of British control remains the heart and soul of Sinn Fein. It is the reason that it was formed back in 1905. And pre-World War I support for the nationalist cause in the southern two-thirds of the Ireland was the reason that Sir Edward Carson was able to mobilise 100,000-plus members of the Ulster Volunteer Force to threaten a civil war unless the six Protestant-dominated counties of the north remained part of the United Kingdom.

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Mary Reid

These are the conditions of liberty and social justice …

By Mary Reid | Thu 13th February 2020 - 12:33 pm

Earlier today Adrian Sanders mentioned the Preamble to the Constitution of the Liberal Democrats. That’s quite a mouthful – and sounds deadly boring – but all party members can read on their membership cards a short extract from this document:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

In fact, this is the first sentence of one of the most beautiful pieces of political writing in English. When people ask me what Lib Dems believe I always point them towards it.

Recent posts appearing on Lib Dem Voice have demonstrated some of the turmoil within the party following the General Election and Brexit. We could all benefit from taking ourselves back to our fundamental values before seeking a way forward.

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Adrian Sanders

Get Liberalism done

By Adrian Sanders | Thu 13th February 2020 - 10:00 am

It’s over, finished, done, our membership of the EU has ceased to be. This is very sad for our wonderful team of MEPs and their staff, it’s heart-breaking for those who support the idea of ever closer union, and very worrying for anyone concerned that the uncertainties of the future are going to harm our country, economy and standing in the world.

Dwelling on what might have been has become something of a preoccupation for many Liberal Democrats, myself included. I won’t forget where I believe responsibility lies for our and the nation’s current predicament. Sir Nick Clegg and his advisors were directly answerable for losing so many seats in 2015 that handed Cameron a majority that enabled him to hold the EU referendum.

Brexit gives many of us a chance to close one very disappointing and depressing chapter and to open a new, positive one. It is a golden opportunity for all of us to realign both our purpose and our image. If anyone is in any doubt as to why this is necessary just look at where we were before the 2010 General Election and compare to today.

Alongside the loss of thousands of Councillors and political control over billions of pounds of national, regional and local government spending, losing our place as the third party in the Commons cannot be understated. We have not overcome the loss of House privileges, media coverage and money that came with it, and our ability to do so has been hindered by competition from other parties such as the Greens, Ukip/Brexit, and Independents as well as the Nationalists who became the third party in 2015 and have held on to it.

We have been defined by the coalition years and our opposition to Brexit to the exclusion of all else for far too long. The time has come, to coin a previous slogan – to get Liberalism done.

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Dominic Buxton

Liberal Democrats – for a better tomorrow

By Dominic Buxton | Wed 12th February 2020 - 6:00 pm

Chuka Umunna Campaign launch

It’s 2020 – a new year, a new decade. Once more, and I know it’s already February, I feel the urge to reflect on the gains and losses of the general election last year and set out why I believe that there has never been a better time to be involved in politics.

I think we can all agree: the general election result was disappointing. There is no way to spin it. We lost the election. We didn’t win the argument, despite the largest national increase in vote share of any party. In Tom Brake, Chuka Umunna, Jane Dodds, Sam Gyimah, Luciana Berger and Jo Swinson, to name a few, we lost some skilled and hardworking local MPs, but that shouldn’t deter us from moving forward and building a liberal movement to tackle the forces of nationalism and populism in this country when Labour fail to rise to the challenge.

There is so much to fight for. Like over 3.6 million people across the country, I chose a more progressive politics, because I believe that in a time where waves of nationalism are engulfing our politics, it is our duty as Liberal Democrats to challenge and hold this Government to account actively. While we may not have many MPs in the Commons, we should set ourselves no limit to what we can achieve when we work together, including with people in other parties with whom we share values.

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David Warren

An Arsenal Of Democracy

By David Warren | Wed 12th February 2020 - 3:00 pm

In 1940 US President Franklin D Roosevelt coined the phrase ‘An Arsenal Of Democracy’ as a reaction to the twin threats of Fascism and Communism in a time when large parts of the globe were living under brutal dictatorships. That century had seen the Bolsheviks triumph in Russia, the Nazis in Germany and the Francoists in Spain. Portugal was under authoritarian rule, and France invaded by the Germans lived under the yoke of Hitler’s appalling regime. In Europe, Britain stood alone in what were the darkest days of WW2. It wasn’t until America entered the war that the tide started to turn and with the war eventually won democracy was restored to many of the places that had lived under authoritarian rule. The collapse of the Eastern Bloc, 45 years later, brought freedom to even more countries and some celebrated ‘the end of history’, but they were wrong. In many ways, 1990 could be viewed as a high point.

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Johnny McDermott

What would Paddy do?

By Johnny McDermott | Wed 12th February 2020 - 12:00 pm

I’ve been rooting around the comments on LDV autopsies, finding myself in a contradiction. We “already have a horse”, I said – Sir Ed Davey – and could steal a march on whomever Labour appoint as the second of only two horses in the next No 10 race. I don’t believe it to be an anti-democratic appeal to ask new entrants and MPs with little or no public recognition to think about what the party needs before personal careers.

 We are in desperate need of realism. We really cannot go into 2023-24 expecting a majority. That would be a farce. It was not down to the withdrawal of the Brexit Party, destroying a “4 horse race” strategy. Did we genuinely believe Farage would abandon decades of attempts to leave the EU to cash in on some short term power move? The Brexit Party’s existence was an obvious threat to its own imperative. We could see that clearly enough to push for a win, so we must have known withdrawal was a highly likely possibility.

 So I’ve been trying to resolve my contradiction. We cannot win, but should not wait for a second horse to be appointed and trail after them, shaping our party in their image. I don’t believe those are positions that cannot be squared. I found myself asking: what would Paddy do?

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Chris Northwood

On story telling

By Chris Northwood | Wed 12th February 2020 - 9:00 am

Storytelling is one of the oldest human traditions. A good story engages the audience, communicates information and leaves a lasting impact. Stories spread either through small communities retelling it, with it evolving through each retelling or through mass media, which increases reach and minimises variation. Stories are everywhere, and with millennia of practice, we’re pretty good at telling them.

Stories are used as a lens to help people make sense of the world, and through relating to a character how they fit within it. When people vote for a political party, they listen to the stories about that party: Which story do they relate to? Which story is the one they want to be told? Which story is the most believable?

When a story is told, it is not said in isolation. A broader grand narrative will change how a story is perceived. As Liberal Democrats, we know what our story is. Our constitution’s preamble tells a story of progressiveness, liberty and community, so the challenge is telling this story in a way that feels relatable in the context of our current culture.

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Mark Johnson

The Party of Human Rights

By Mark Johnson | Tue 11th February 2020 - 12:30 pm

Much has been made of the repurposing of the Liberal Democrats in the aftermath of December’s General Election.  Enter the Orange Bookers, the social liberals and the FBPE Europhiles all of whom are beginning to set out the course they feel the party should embark on as it looks to the future.

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Alan Muhammed

Winning Here?

By Alan Muhammed | Tue 11th February 2020 - 11:30 am

A poor performance at the recent general election and an imminent leadership contest has led to much soul searching within the Party. In recent weeks a number of articles in the press have rumoured potential leadership candidates and the ideas that they will campaign on.

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William Francis

Liberal policies for a Liberal Party

By William Francis | Tue 11th February 2020 - 9:30 am

With the leadership election approaching this an excellent opportunity to engage with wider debates about the direction for the party. Whilst many have argued for the party to be one for the political centre, I disagree.

History has shown that the British Liberalism does best when it offers a distinct and unique image (with a corresponding set of policies), that separate it from the Lab-Con duopoly.

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Garth Shephard

Will Boris Johnson’s popularity make us has-beens?

By Garth Shephard | Mon 10th February 2020 - 3:30 pm

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I’m told that Boris Johnson was a positive factor in voters’ preferences at the last election. Apparently, it wasn’t just a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, they actually liked the captain of the ship.

To many of us, Boris Johnson is either a clown, a liar, or worse and therefore not exactly Prime Ministerial material. Not so, I hear; he is just the sort of chap an aspirational working class lad or lass would admire.

Not so much the public school boy, unkempt toff or even likable rogue. No, he is “the very model of a modern major general”. – Someone to lead us all into a post-Brexit national renewal – England’s green and pleasant land. Notwithstanding the record of his predecessors, he is the salvation of the Conservative Party, embracing the new dawn.

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Tom Arms

The mandate of heaven and coronavirus

By Tom Arms | Mon 10th February 2020 - 2:00 pm

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At the risk of appearing crude, crass and unfeeling, this article is going to focus on the political and economic consequential dangers of the coronavirus. This should not be taken in any way as an attempt to belittle the deaths of 805 Chinese (as of the early hours of Sunday morning) or the grief that their friends and families are suffering. Every human life is precious. But as the death toll mounts and the quarantine is extending, the economy suffers and this suffering will result in political consequences.

In Hubei Province there are an estimated 50 million people in quarantine. That is 50 million people who are now not working. Neither are they in the shops, restaurants or cinemas spending money. The Chinese government have imposed severe travel restrictions throughout the country and restricted gatherings in public places in every major city.

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Danny Chambers

Why didn’t remain politicians connect?

By Danny Chambers | Mon 10th February 2020 - 9:30 am

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What did the 2016 Remain campaign and the 2019 Revoke Article 50 position adopted by the Lib Dems teach us?

– That policies must engage people, not patronise them.

Let me explain.

Most analyses agree that Brexit will negatively impact the more deprived communities the hardest.

So the question being asked by so many people is this: why on earth did Cornwall, one the UK’s most deprived regions which receives so much funding from the EU, and which appears to have a lot to lose and little to gain, vote for Brexit?

The Leave message during the referendum may have been based on misinformation and lies but it was packaged as a message of hope for improvement and change. This was a stark contrast to the Remain campaign which consisted merely of warnings, hence it being dubbed ‘Project fear.’

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New issue of Liberator out

By Liberator Collective | Fri 7th February 2020 - 3:23 pm

Issue 399 of Liberator is on its way to subscribers and it’s a bumper 40 page issue, mainly given over to analysing the December general election and its consequences, and how the party handled both ‘revoke’ and ‘Jo Swinson could be your next prime minister’.

The free sample articles for this issue are by Simon Hughes on seeing the campaign unravel, and from Nick Harvey on what he thinks were the eight major errors made by the party.

Also in this issue new party president Mark Pack answers our questions and Peter Dunphy explains how Unite to Remain was put together.

Reflections on the general election also come from: Liz Barker, Tony Greaves, Ruth Coleman Taylor, Nigel Lindsay, Theo Butt Philip and many others.

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Tom Arms

Observations of a ex pat: Goodbye democracy?

By Tom Arms | Fri 7th February 2020 - 11:50 am

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It has become a political fact of life that democracy on both sides of the Atlantic is under severe threat.

The latest proof of this danger is the Senate acquittal of Donald Trump in a judicial exercise that makes Stalin’s Moscow show trials look like paragons of legal transparency and justice. The Conservative British government is going in the same direction, albeit by a different route.

The root of the problem is respect —or lack of respect— for the rule of law. For democracy to work it needs clear legal parameters and elected political leaders who accept that their responsibility is to represent their constituents within a legally binding constitutional framework.

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Lloyd Harris

BBC witch hunt

By Lloyd Harris | Thu 6th February 2020 - 5:33 pm

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I am not keen to join in the witch trial of the BBC, which is more about giving Conservative politicians less scrutiny and destroying competition for organisations that only want to get rid of the BBC, so they can rake in more money for their shareholders.

It isn’t possible to go to jail for paying the licence fee; that is a myth, you get a fine only. However if Council Tax, which is actually quite a similar charge, is a civil offence then the licence fee should follow, but that would also result in a fine. The only difference is the lack of a criminal record.

The licence fee rate was set by the Conservative Government when it wrote the BBC’s Charter in 2016, so the BBC can’t charge what it likes. Unfortunately there is no provision to vary the charge for ability to pay or a person’s wealth. Next opportunity to amend this is the charter renewal in 2027.

Most countries have a state broadcaster. Do we want to go down the road of Russia and have it state funded via taxation but controlled by the Government?

Do we want it to be an independent commercial company left at the mercy of market forces and see it ditch its unprofitable parts to avoid going bust?

Do we wanted it to be funded by its users and therefore free of Government but answerable to the audience? I prefer this but with more freedom to raise money from other sources (currently something like 25% commercial/other income and 75% licence fee), so the licence fee rate falls instead of rises.

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    Poll rating amongst teachers ? But, they happily gobbled up the 10% pay rise Ms Phillipson arranged for them though, Chloe. As to being a nasty piece of work, ...
  • Chloe
    Her poll rating amongst teachers is awful, & to read the teachers blogs about the reforms she put in place is an eye-opener. Above all else, those calling ...