Category Archives: Op-eds

Peter Blake

Tactical voting sites sold us myths – they’ll never be trusted again

By Peter Blake | Fri 13th December 2019 - 7:15 pm

Tactical voting was one of the hot topics of this general election; dozens of independent websites, celebrities and even some of our own candidates were banging the drum of tactical voting to ‘get the tories out’ and deliver a hung parliament. It was also pushed relentlessly in the media that tactical voting was going to be a seismic force this election and the polls even seemed to suggest that may be the case.

In Southport we garnered the support of tactical voting websites early on in the campaign only to be urcerimoniulsy dumped in favour of Labour later on, we …

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Fraser Graham

The Election Result – musings of a (relative) newbie

By Fraser Graham | Fri 13th December 2019 - 4:45 pm

I joined the Lib Dems in 2016, on the day after the leave vote happened. At the time, if felt I could no longer be a bystander, I had to do something. In the time since, I certainly have, becoming the convener of my local party and a committee member of the LGBT+ Lib Dems.

When I joined the party, my thoughts were primarily on Brexit, and the party’s stance of opposing it. But as I’ve become more involved, met members, attended conferences I have realised how much more we are and how truly I do belong.

I spent last …

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Nick Barlow

The way forward: We need a pause to properly respond

By Nick Barlow | Fri 13th December 2019 - 12:32 pm

We’re all hurting today. The election result might not have been completely terrible – our vote share went up! – but it’s not been a good campaign for us, the results are far below what we wanted or expected, we’ve lost our leader, and we’re now going to be leaving the EU in just seven weeks’ time.

The easy response would be for us to dust ourselves down, elect a new leader as quickly as possible and dive straight back into the fight, but I think that would be a mistake. Last night was a massive moment for us as a …

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Caron Lindsay

Rollercoaster

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 13th December 2019 - 8:39 am

I’m just in from one of the worst nights of my political life. Don’t get me wrong, at my count, Liberal Democrats in every seat increased their vote share. For election after election, I, as Scottish Party Treasurer, would have to set aside a ridiculous amount of money that could have been spent on campaigning to cover lost deposits. Not many of them this time around.

Any other time we would be celebrating a bigger increase in vote share than any other party.

It is kind of ridiculous that a rise in the Conservative vote of 1.2% was met with 50 extra MPs while a rise in the Liberal Democrat vote share of 4.2% resulted in  one fewer parliamentarian.

And it’s truly bloody awful when that one parliamentarian is your leader of just 4 months. Jo took a courageous stand on Brexit and offered radical, generous spirited, liberal policies on other issues. Yet she lost out to the SNP by just 149 votes. There are no words to describe how heartbroken I feel about her loss from Parliament.

There is a cruel irony that many of the women she encouraged now make up the majority of our  parliamentary party. She’s delivered on one of her key interests to make the party more diverse but won’t be able to work with them in Parliament.

The night ranged from the shock of the exit poll to the relief that our data was more accurate. Christine Jardine eventually won with an increased majority. Yet just an hour’s drive away, our leader lost by 149 votes. Could we have done more to persuade people to go there to shore up our vote? We’ll hever know.

The sickening, stomach churning moment when that exit poll suggested that there would be no Liberal Democrat MPs in Scotland at all  We’d hoped for five – and we got 4 when we gained Wendy Chamberlain in North East Fife. She enters Parliament along with a second term for Sarah Olney.

Other lows included  not winning Sheffield Hallam, both Chuka Umunna and Luciana Berger losing their seats. And Tom Brake losing Carshalton after 22 years by approximately 400 votes.

I’ll crunch some more numbers later, but it is worth noting that we might have had several more seats and Boris Johnson might have had some fewer if we had stood aside, say, in Chingford and Wood Green  against Iain Duncan Smith or the Greens had too aside in Sheffield Hallam. For future elections, we’ll need to work to ensure that we minimise the number of Conservatives in Parliament.

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Paul Walter

OPEN THREAD: Your thoughts on the election campaign and the results as they come in

By Paul Walter | Thu 12th December 2019 - 10:01 pm

via GIPHY


Bat shit crazy.

Getting up in the dark to deliver “Good Mornings” for two hours before dawn.

This task was leavened by a vague blob in the darkness besides the A4. He was a blob of anoraks, waterproof trousers and ski hats at 7am in front of me as he approached a 4*4 which had arrived to collect him for work:

You must have covered a lot of ground

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Was this the craziest election of our lifetime?

By Andy Boddington | Thu 12th December 2019 - 10:00 pm

Embed from Getty Images

10pm, 12 December.

It’s all over bar the counting.

It was an election where we heard of plonkers. Joshing. Post stratification. An election where blocks of ice made more a contribution to the climate emergency debate than most politicians.

There were false facts. False fact checkers. Tony Blair unbelievably accused parties of peddling fantasies. We didn’t see much of Jacob Rees Mogg. Lifelong Tories recommended voting against the Conservatives.

This article is not about political parties and policies. It’s about political antics. Things that have caught my attention. No doubt you have your own anecdotes and experiences to share!

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Paul Walter

Two earthly halves locked in a downward spiral

By Paul Walter | Wed 11th December 2019 - 2:30 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Jeremy Clarkson recently became a climate change believer when he experienced a dry lake in Cambodia.

I recently experienced something of the bush fire season in Australia. As well as all-pervasive smoke in most of Queensland and New South Wales, ABC Radio news is a constant stream of news on the bush fires – hundreds of them raging all the time. And it is still their spring.

Without trying to rehearse the dangers of climate change, I have one particular fear.

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James Baillie

This week, fight for our values on social security 

By James Baillie | Wed 11th December 2019 - 10:55 am

As we enter one last push before the election, it’s important to remember why we’re doing this. It’s tempting to clamp down into an unhelpful, wearying “shut up and deliver leaflets” mode, but really the best way to get motivated and to motivate others in politics is to have something to fight for. For me, the Liberal Democrats’ social security policies are exactly such a motivator.

A good safety net that liberates people from poverty and the threat of income insecurity is an absolutely crucial part of a liberal society. One of the reasons why coalition-era cuts in this area were so damaging for us as a party is that it jarred strongly with our natural position fighting for a society that supports and enables and empowers people. As liberals, we believe in people being supported to choose their own paths in life, and few things disempower people like time and energy and health being absorbed by a lack of good living standards. Fortunately, five years on, we’ve responded to that challenge, and are now exactly where we should be, leading the two main parties in having the most progressive welfare system plans on offer according to a Resolution Foundation analysis.

First, we have a plan to fix the system so it’s fit for purpose. Our root and branch reforms to Universal Credit, reducing the waiting time from weeks to days and scrapping the two child cap and bedroom tax, would rapidly and significantly improve people’s lives. Simply spending more on raw benefit levels is also urgently needed, and something that our Liberal Democrat MPs will fight for in the next parliament.  Since 2016 we’ve also been committed to the even bigger step of abolishing the benefit sanctions system: it is unconscionable, no matter what the circumstances are, that people should be left with insufficient income to live on. 

One area we’ve talked about less, nestling among the wide constellation of official Lib Dem policies not explicitly mentioned in the manifesto, is the longer term future of the system. As of Autumn Conference, our long term plan is to pilot turning the standard element of UC into a guaranteed minimum income, removing all claiming conditions other than income level. This is a natural evolution of policy from the abolition of sanctions, and also fits with our policies on lifelong learning and providing living cost support for startup businesses: by piloting an unconditional minimum, we will be looking towards having a single, streamlined system that will provide people with new opportunities, as well as giving people the stability they need to take care of themselves and those around them.

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Paul Walter

Tammy Duckworth and the importance of second chamber reform

By Paul Walter | Wed 11th December 2019 - 9:30 am

Embed from Getty Images
One issue that has not come up during this campaign, but should have, is second chamber reform.

Firstly, may I say that our House of Lords has many, many fine members and does a fantastic job.

But there is a problem. We can’t get rid of it. It fails on the five democratic questions that dear old Tony Benn used to repeat endlessly:

What power have you got?

Where did you get it from?

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Caron Lindsay

New MRP poll shows Lib Dems can stop Boris Johnson from winning a majority

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 10th December 2019 - 11:41 pm

The latest You Gov MRP poll shows us gaining slightly in both vote share and seats from 2017 but  still gives Boris Johnson a majority. But before we all panic, the figures show that we can stop him and gain more seats.

The headline figures have the Tories on 339, Labour on 231, us on 15, the Greens on 1, Plaid on 4 and the SNP on 41.

The study has us on 12% and with 15 seats. That doesn’t ‘t tell the whole story. Seats like Lewes, Finchley and Golders Green (Luciana Berger) and Cities of London and Westminster (Chuka Umunna) are in reach for us if we can squeeze that Labour vote.

North East Fife has moved from being SNP two weeks ago to a toss up and Caithness has gone from a 1% SNP lead to a 4% Lib Dem  lead.

If these results were replicated, we would gain St Albans, Richmond Park, South Cambridgeshire, Sheffield Hallam and Winchester by significant margins.

Here are the seats when we are in with a shout of a gain:Cheadle

Cheltenham

Esher and Walton,- Monica Harding could unseat Dominic Raab with the race tightening in the two weeks

Finchley and Golders Green, (Luciana Berger)

Guildford,

Hazel Grove,

Lewes

St Ives

Wokingham

Chelsea and Fulham – a longer shot but Labour votes switching to Lib Dem could see Nicola Horlick elected.

Ceredigion

The SNP could gain a few more seats from the Tories, too.

The take home from this poll is that a Tory majority is not inevitable.

Incredibly, Bolsover, one of the safest Labour seats in the country, is predicted to go Conservative. Who would have thought that Dennis Skinner would face electoral defeat at the hands of the Tories?

And on other side, Iain Duncan Smith also faces defeat by Labour in Chingford and Wood Green.

I suspect that this poll underestimates the Lib Dem vote from what I have seen and heard about on the ground in Lib Dem seats.

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Mary Reid

Winter elections

By Mary Reid | Tue 10th December 2019 - 4:35 pm

The last time there was a General Election in December was in 1923. The BBC has a fascinating account of the event.

It was not a particularly cold winter, more dull and drizzly than crisp and blindingly white, although there were occasional snow and sleet flurries with December seeing a mean temperature of 3.9C.

Houses were decorated with festive bunting and heated by coal fires, shopping streets bustled with rattling trams and women wore ankle-length skirts and cloche hats.

The Representation of the People Act five years previously had given them the vote, although not all women – only those aged 30 or over who owned property worth at least £5, which accounted for about two thirds of the nation’s women (full voting rights would come in 1928).

Back in 2012, Mark Pack brilliantly developed a suggestion I had made to the LDV team and reported the Government’s proposal to move the day of local elections from May to February. There were howls of protest until someone noticed the date.  I particularly loved the final sentence:

As a planned cost saving measure, if the last Thursday in February falls on a leap day, the elections will be skipped and all incumbents automatically re-elected …

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The Voice

Rob’s Liberal Democrat rap

By The Voice | Tue 10th December 2019 - 11:58 am

Liberal Democrat Rob Castell thought he would be standing against Dominic Grieve in Beaconsfield. However, he stood aside when the election was announced. Dominic Grieve has been an important pro-Remain voice in the Commons, crucial to stopping Brexit. He is standing as an independent and the Liberal Democrats locally and nationally agreed not to oppose him.

Rob has been campaigning with Dominic Grieve, who is picking up much unexpected support.

Rob’s generosity in standing aside is clear. He has been a great and positive presence on social media during the campaign, though. Recently, he was put in touch with the producers of Politix and Chill, a new BBC Sussex podcast for young people. They asked him to write and record a rap about politics. Two others, from the Conservatives and Labour, were also invited to do so and they were judged by talent scouts.

Rob told me that it was a great experience and he hopes it will make politics more accessible for young people.

Watch it here.

The words to Rob’s rap are below:

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Michael Berwick-Gooding

Can the Greens’ Universal Basic Income tackle poverty?

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Tue 10th December 2019 - 10:25 am

The Greens in this election are promising in their manifesto “a Universal Basic Income, paid to all UK residents to tackle poverty and give financial security to everyone”. They state that their Universal Basic Income (UBI) will replace the current benefits system. And they will phase it in over five years. The rates are £89 per week for working age adults, and £178 per week for pensioners. They will provide an unstated amount as a supplement for people with disabilities and lone parents. For families earning under £50,000 there will be £70 per week for each of the first two children and £50 for each additional child. However, it seems they are not paying Housing Benefit to new claimants once UBI has been introduced. Their manifesto states that they will, “Continue to pay Housing Benefit to those who received it before UBI was introduced, so that they can cover their rent (page 50).

For those in full time work the £89 a week is in fact only £40.92 a week because the Income Tax Personal Allowance of £12,500 would be scrapped.

They estimate the cost of the UBI, the supplements and free childcare at £86.2 billion. They state they will provide 35 hours of free childcare for all from the age of 9 months. This is more than we are promising because we are only providing free childcare for working parents for children aged 9 months to two years. This is estimated to cost £12.3 billion in 2024/25. Therefore the Greens are spending less than £73.9 billion to introduce their Universal Basic Income while abolishing Housing Benefit for new claimants.

The Greens benefit reforms will leave most people who would qualify for benefits today in poverty. Using the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s figure in their
“UK Poverty 2018” updated by inflation for April 2019 the poverty levels excluding housing costs per week are:

Single person no children £157.62
Single person with two children £325.88
Couple with no children £271.58
Couple with two children £439.84

Turning to the Greens’ proposals these are what people would receive if not working:

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The Voice

Steve Coogan campaigns for Lib Dem Oli Henman in Lewes

By The Voice | Tue 10th December 2019 - 8:55 am

As part of an initiative to encourage tactical voting, comedian Steve Coogan joined Liberal Democrat candidate for Lewes Oli Henman for a campaigning session:

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Caron Lindsay

Jo’s best bits from the Channel 4 Debate

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 9th December 2019 - 7:07 pm

Channel 4 held an “everything but Brexit” debate last night.

Jo represented us. Labour sent Angela Rayner, the SNP Philippa Whitford and both of them basically decided to gang up on Jo over the coalition rather than defend their own policies. Moderator Cathy Newman seemed to join in the pile-on at times.

The Conservatives and Brexit Party couldn’t even be bothered to turn up. It was quite bizarre when she read out bits of the Conservative and Brexit manifestos when they were not represented and able to be properly scrutinised.

Here are some of Jo’s best bits.

 

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Paul Fisher

Citizenship – a human right

By Paul Fisher | Mon 9th December 2019 - 12:10 pm

It is Liberal Democrat Party policy to bring forward legislation to create overseas constituencies and votes for life for the British diaspora abroad. The Election Manifestos of 2017 and 2019 are explicit on this matter. Currently, British citizens living outside the UK loose their right to vote in Parliamentary elections and referenda after 15 years of absence; their enfranchisement ceases. After BREXIT, Britons living in the European Union will loose their local voting rights (European Parliamentary and Municipal Elections) and as they pass the 15 year threshold, they become completely disenfranchised for life. Is this democratic? No, this is an …

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Adrian Sanders

Time for Smart Tactical Voting

By Adrian Sanders | Mon 9th December 2019 - 8:27 am

Tactical voting was essential in helping me to win four Parliamentary elections in a row, and its absence led to the defeat of so many of my colleagues along with myself in 2015.

The danger in this election is that a simple ‘let’s unite to kick out the Tories’ could well end up with a hung Parliament that has more Leavers than Remainers in it.

Those who advocate such a simple solution to change the Government need to examine precisely whom it is they are helping to elect.

My first preference is for a Liberal Democrat majority Government. If I can’t have that, …

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Caron Lindsay

The most frustrating thing about Jo Swinson

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th December 2019 - 3:25 pm

Jo Swinson was on Sophy Ridge this morning, setting out very clearly that every single Liberal Democrat MP elected on Thursday would be absolutely focused on stopping Brexit.

She emphasised that Liberal Democrats could stop Boris Johnson getting a majority.

She also defended our policy of revoking Article 50 if the Liberal Democrats won a majority, saying that it was the most popular option amongst remainers, including Labour remainers. She could have mentioned that 6 million people signed a petition to do just that just a few months ago so the idea clearly has support.

Here are her highlights:

Sophy Ridge asked her about …

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Caron Lindsay

Santa Rennie delivers festive lump of coal to SNP

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th December 2019 - 11:23 am

It wouldn’t be an election without Willie Rennie doing something eye-catching.

And today, he took part in a Santa dash in Glasgow.

 

He placed the SNP firmly on the Naughty List for the decline in public services since they have been in government and suggested that they’d be getting a lump of coal on Christmas morning.

The only reason that the SNP want to talk about Brexit is because their domestic agenda is truly abysmal.

Hundreds of children are waiting far too long for mental health treatment, the third Police Authority chair in three years has resigned and we are falling down the international education rankings.

This Christmas the SNP deserve a lump of coal for the way they’ve mishandled these services. Our teachers, nurses and police officers are working hard day in day out but they don’t get the support they deserve from an SNP government which has independence on the brain.

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The Voice

TV legend Esther Rantzen backs Luciana Berger

By The Voice | Sun 8th December 2019 - 8:12 am

Television presenter Esther Rantzen is throwing her support behind the Lib Dem candidate in Finchley and Golders Green. She said:

As a floating voter myself, I believe we need to support outstanding individuals to ensure we elect the best politicians with integrity and determination.

Although I do not live in her constituency, I am greatly impressed by Luciana’s courage and commitment in standing for election when she has in the past as an MP suffered appalling abuse and prejudice.

She has put herself in the firing line for fearlessly exposing anti-Jewish racism.

It might have been tempting to decide to leave politics when women, especially Jewish women, have come under so much vicious attack. Instead she has decided to fight prejudice and resist hatred and xenophobia.

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Caron Lindsay

How YOU can help the Lib Dems get more MPs this week

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th December 2019 - 8:54 am

There’s just five campaigning days left in the General Election. All of a sudden you seem to go from “Oh yikes, how the hell will I survive 5 weeks of this?” to “Oh Yikes, there’s only five days to do all this?”

What matters to us all on Friday morning is the number of Lib Dem MPs we have. Noble third places count for nothing.

If you are not in one of the seats we hope to win on Thursday, please either get to your nearest one, or make phone calls from your own home into it. The party has set up a nice tool to let you know which one you should go to.

I have always done this. Sometimes, my local party where I live has not been happy about this. I remember the horror in the West Lothian local party in my first election when I moved there when I said I was heading to Edinburgh South. We didn’t win there in that election, but we were a top target and laid the groundwork for wining the Scottish Parliament seat two years later.

When I lived in the East Midlands, I worked in the target seat of Chesterfield which we  won in 2001.

At this stage of the campaign, we need to make sure that the target seats win. What you have done already will have helped you build for next time. And it can be hard, when you have put lots of effort into your local campaign to leave it and head elsewhere.

But if you can be part of winning a brighter prospect, that will also help you in more ways than one. Firstly, a good result for the party helps us all. More MPs = more influence in Parliament. For the country that is a good thing because it gives us the chance to stop Brexit.

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Mary Reid

Pest control and security cameras

By Mary Reid | Fri 6th December 2019 - 2:50 pm

Here at Lib Dem Voice we receive some intriguing emails, especially those from people wanting to place a post to help their search engine status.  Here are a couple we have received this week.

This is xxx, a writer and a big fan of your blog/website content https://www.libdemvoice.org . I’m reaching out to you because I wish to write an amazing blog post for your readers.

The articles ideas I had:

Pest Control Services
Residential Pest Control Services
Commercial Pest Control Services
Termite Control, Termite Treatment
Ant Control & Extermination

I would appreciate if you could allow me to write a guest post for you!

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Paul Reynolds

That NATO Summit discord, in context

By Paul Reynolds | Fri 6th December 2019 - 11:59 am

The recent NATO summit in the UK filled the headlines for a few days. What was the summit really all about ?

Arguments about low defence spending amongst some members, about perceived military weakness relative to Russia in the Baltic States, spilled out. There was even an apparent threat from Turkey to delay progress on the Baltic States issue until the rest of NATO accepted that Kurdish defence forces in Syria are ‘terrorists’.

After 70 years of NATO, the irreconcilable discord dominated.

The underlying problem is that members do not agree any more on what exactly NATO is for.   What is worse is that its members are in a kind of gridlock; there is little leadership on mutual interests, lots of taboo topics, and sticking plasters everywhere.

Spending spats are really disagreements about control; some members being reluctant to extend spending until there is more equal status in NATO decision-making.

The history is key.  NATO was never part of any ‘grand plan’ at the outset. Its formation & development after WW2 was something of an accident.  NATO’s origins lie with the 1947 Dunkirk Treaty between France and the UK, and then the Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO) in 1948 which brought in the Benelux Countries, creating the Western Union (WU) with US support. The WU was precursor both to NATO and to EU defence cooperation.

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John King

The Daily Mail could end Brexit

By John King | Fri 6th December 2019 - 9:30 am

The recent news that the Daily Mail has bought the i newspaper for £49.6m has caused alarm and dismay to many. Is this the latest example of the extreme right tightening their grip on Britain’s print media, 80% of which they already own? It was, after all, the Mail’s long running, vengeful and ferocious campaign against the EU, under Paul Dacre’s editorship, that set the scene for Brexit.

It may be that Dacre finally overstepped the mark with his “enemies of the people” attack on our top judges, or it may be that his particular brand of burning anger was no longer necessary once the worst of his work was successfully done; at any rate many hoped that his replacement by the more pragmatic Geordie Greig would signal a change of heart at Britain’s most popular daily, and a less toxic approach.

Support for this view comes from a leading article in the British Medical Journal, and raises the interesting possibility that the Mail might one day be in the vanguard of a drive to reverse the worst calamity it ever backed: Brexit. The argument is that if the paper has seen the light and abandoned its long term support of the anti-vaxx lobby, anything is possible.

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Oliver Craven

The Lib Dem pitch to the rural left

By Oliver Craven | Thu 5th December 2019 - 11:45 am

Those of us who are left of centre in rural areas are often completely missed from political discourse, despite our long history of distinctive political belief.  Rural people are, obviously, spread out both geographically and economically. We live in smaller communities and have much smaller workplaces. The result of this is a more individualistic yet supportive community where people rely on themselves first and their neighbours second. Liberal philosophy is ideally placed to appeal to these rural values, giving a hand up when needed while getting out the way when not.

How can our liberal message best appeal to the many areas of the country that are represented by the Conservatives yet badly let down by their safe seat apathy?

Our economic message must fit both rural reality and rural values. We must build a framework that allows small and micro businesses to thrive by busting monopolies that are especially damaging in rural areas. Across the country, monopoly power is costing ordinary people billions. The uncompetitiveness of the energy market costs the country £1.7bn but the renewable revolution allows us to rebuild the energy market around communities and their needs, returning the profits of relatively small-scale renewables to the areas in which they are based. A new model of distributive rather than concentrative markets must be built, in which ownership and control are shared widely through mutuals, cooperatives and small enterprise.

We must also build the infrastructure rural areas need to succeed. Our support for universal high-speed broadband as well as better public transport is vital to helping fledgeling businesses to survive, while we also need to be building affordable and social housing to ensure we can halt the rural brain drain. I, myself, am an example of that drain, moving from the village I grew up in to the nearby city of Lincoln for work and to study.

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Paul Tyler

Lord Paul Tyler writes… Voting tactically to end tactical voting

By Paul Tyler | Thu 5th December 2019 - 9:45 am

New polling for the ERS on #DemocracyDay today (Thursday 5th) shows that 80% of people feel they have little or no influence on how decisions are made, and 85% think our political institutions need significant improvement.

We now know that around a huge proportion of Labour supporters are likely to vote tactically (almost all for Liberal Democrat candidates) and a similar number of Liberal Democrats will do likewise (most for Labour candidates). These well-informed citizens are determined not to be cheated again by the absurdly anachronistic and unfair electoral system.

They wouldn’t have to vote tactically if a proportional system operated in this election. If we all enjoyed the STV preferential ballot which the Lab/Lib Dem Coalition introduced for local elections in Scotland almost every vote would count – there 95% of those who vote are represented by councillors they have helped to win. In England and Wales barely half can say that.

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Paul Walter

Hugh Grant on Boris Johnson: Sinister, narcissistic and alarming with potentially no principles at all

By Paul Walter | Tue 3rd December 2019 - 8:55 am

Chuka Umunna and Hugh Grant talk with the press yesterday in St John’s Gardens, London SW1

“Could someone interview Hugh Grant tomorrow?” came the call from our esteemed LDV editor Caron, late on Sunday.

Well, one of the advantages of being gloriously retired is that you can often turn on a sixpence. So I jumped at the chance to interview the great man despite basic logistics issues such as “where” and “when” being still unclear. As these basics remained unclear as hours passed I realised I would have to bring forward my powers of initiative and assertiveness.

Fortunately, thanks to the great assistance of our old friend Dr Evan Harris of Hacked Off and Helen Davies, chair of City of London and Westminster Liberal Democrats, yesterday I was introduced to Hugh Grant as a “friend” and got my three minutes with him. You can hear the whole interview here on SoundCloud. (It includes a section about press abuse.)

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Tony Greaves

What happens after 12 December?

By Tony Greaves | Mon 2nd December 2019 - 12:45 pm

It is clear that there are two possible broad outcomes to this General Election. The first is an overall Conservative victory. The second is no party with an overall majority, what the world will call a Hung Parliament.

There’s a subset of them both which is a repeat of 2017 where the Tories as largest party can get to an overall lead with the assistance of the DUP. The Irish borders issue (the main single reason we are now having an election yet almost completely absent from the election debate) may make that more difficult for Johnson though we must …

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Caron Lindsay

Hugh Grant goes canvassing for Luciana today, Chuka tomorrow

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st December 2019 - 9:54 pm

It was great to see actor Hugh Grant out canvassing for Luciana Berger today.

In the first of a series of visits to Lib Dem, Labour and Independent remain supporting candidates who could deny Boris Johnson a majority, he canvassed with Luciana then attended a packed rally.

The best tweet has to come from Gabriel Rozenberg, quoting that great line of Andie McDowell’s from that last scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral – still an incredibly funny film, if you haven’t seen it.

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Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett

What World AIDS Day means to me

By Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett | Sun 1st December 2019 - 11:00 am

We’re in the middle of a General Election campaign and you can be forgiven for not being aware of every international day the United Nations celebrates, but I want to draw your attention to one that is special to me: World AIDS Day. It’s today.

I’ve been living with HIV for over 15 years, since June 2004, but I didn’t publicly disclose my status until March 2015 – when I became Britain’s first openly HIV positive candidate. There’s still so much stigma attached to being HIV positive that, despite knowing that I am healthy, undetectable and am able to live my …

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