Category Archives: Op-eds

Thoughts on the budget – Part 2

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Tue 17th March 2020 - 1:56 pm

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This is the second of two articles looking at last week’s budget. The focus of this article is the action the government announced to deal with the coronavirus.

Tagged Budget 2020 and coronavirus | 49 Comments

Why we need to close schools

By Lee Howgate | Tue 17th March 2020 - 1:00 pm

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Yesterday the government announced a range of measures to protect the public from the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a former Assistant Headteacher, parent and more importantly son, I am concerned that this has not extended to schools. Here’s why:

Tagged Covid-19 and schools | 27 Comments

Thoughts on the Budget – Part 1

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Tue 17th March 2020 - 9:00 am

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This is the first of two articles looking at last week’s budget.

Looking at the headlines of the budget there is much to welcome and support:

Tagged Budget 2020 | 46 Comments

Let’s put our values into action

By Layla Moran MP | Tue 17th March 2020 - 8:30 am

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Coronavirus, covid-19 will indiscriminately impact the most vulnerable people in our communities, leaving them isolated. Today I am asking all of us, as Liberal Democrats, to put our values into action.

Tagged coronavirus | 8 Comments

Isolation diary: Paying the newsagent

By Mary Reid | Mon 16th March 2020 - 5:07 pm

Today we have gone into self-isolation.

I live with my husband, Ian, and we have not got any coronavirus symptoms, nor have we been in contact with anyone who has, as far as we know. But Ian’s immune system is compromised so we decided a few days ago to isolate ourselves at home ‘for the duration’ (as they said in the war).

Now it may surprise those of you who know my digital credentials that we still have a daily newspaper delivered. And we’ve decided to continue with it as we like leisurely working our way through the news, reading the opinion articles and doing the crosswords and puzzles.

So the last thing I did today, before going into seclusion, was to call in at the newsagent and ask how I could pay my bill in the coming weeks. (I was oddly reminded of Pope Francis who, soon after he was announced as the new pontiff, phoned his newsagent in Buenos Aires to cancel his papers).

The manager clearly hadn’t thought about it. “You’ve got to come in to the shop,” he said. “Can I do a bank transfer, or standing order?” “No, you’ve got to come in to the shop.”

Hmmm … I do want to support the local businesses, which are very much at risk at present. I think I will phone up every few weeks to ask what I owe and then find my old cheque book (thank goodness they still exist), write him a cheque and ask my neighbour to drop it in.

Tagged isolation diary | 26 Comments

‘Keep the heid!’: Dad and the Cuban missile crisis

By Johnny McDermott | Mon 16th March 2020 - 12:25 pm

May you live in interesting times. These ‘interesting times’ we find ourselves in are frightening, doubtless. My ‘boomer’ mother admitted the restrictive measures are definitely ‘weird’, even in her lifetime. I am forced to turn to memories of my father, who better remembered far darker times.

He was born around the time of the great depression, and died around the time of our great recession. It was a life marred by personal tragedy, one in which he had, I believe, almost always felt a powerless observer. He rarely spoke of being a young boy at the edges of the blitzed area …

Tagged coronavirus | 15 Comments

Lack of humility could kill us

By George Kendall | Mon 16th March 2020 - 9:31 am

One of the most impressive threads I’ve seen on Twitter about Coronavirus is by Professor Francois Balloux, a computational/system biologist working on infectious diseases, who has spent five years in a world class ‘pandemic response modelling’ unit.

What solution did he offer?

He offered none, and that was what was so impressive.

He said that, after considerable study, he had failed to identify the best course of action, and wasn’t even sure there was an acceptable solution.

He thought a more severe wave of the pandemic in the winter is the most plausible scenario. He linked to the graph below of the deaths …

Tagged coronavirus and science | 44 Comments

Lock down is not the alternative to herd immunity

By Lorenzo Cherin | Sat 14th March 2020 - 6:33 pm

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Some think only in what is often called binary ways, left, right, black, white, male, female, rich poor, young, old, sick, well, us, them…

I see things differently. I have often put it like this: why should the answer to that which we do not like, automatically be considered to be the opposite of it? Why does it have to be, either, or, why can’t it be neither, and something more?!

Group think is herd mentality. But that is not quite herd immunity. But herd immunity, in theory or practice, is not one thing. And the government strategy is not one thing, not even if they have presented it thus. It seems like they are making it up as they go along, even if that is not the case.

Tagged Covid-19 | 66 Comments

We are underestimating the threat of antimicrobial resistance; where is the “Clean New Deal”?

By Harry Mayall | Fri 13th March 2020 - 5:59 pm

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It can be very soundly argued that if someone was to objectively look at the biggest issues facing humanity today then antimicrobial resistance (AMR) would be easily considered one of the greatest.

According to the World Bank, AMR is likely to cause a 1.1-3.8% fall in Global GDP by 2050, with the damage to get continuously worse in the following years. For scale, this is an economic effect potentially larger than that of the 2008 financial crisis, and also larger than some estimates of the damage that global climate change would inflict over the same time period. Let us not understate the human costs as well: the WHO estimates the death count of AMR pathogens is already 700,000 annually and will rise to 10 million by 2050 unless urgent action is taken.

These statistics are very scary and should be enough to convince anyone of the severity of the threat, which in both economic and human consequences is expected to rival climate change. Despite this, there is very little political attention given to AMR.

In the 20,000 words that make up the 2019 Liberal Democrat manifesto, there is only one mention of antimicrobial resistance, which is simply mentioned in passing as part of a policy on improving hygiene in livestock. The 2019 Conservative manifesto and the 2019 Labour manifesto both do even worse, not mentioning antimicrobial resistance a single time; they only mention offhandedly that they will spend more money to counter the threat of numerous things, including antibiotic resistance (which unlike AMR doesn’t include resistance to non-antibiotic drugs such as medications used to counter pathogens such as Malaria and Tuberculosis).

Tagged antimicrobial resistance | 11 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Viral Trump

By Tom Arms | Fri 13th March 2020 - 4:00 pm

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Up until the Second World War the United States was an isolationist country. It stayed out of the European-led imperial carve-up to concentrate on developing its own contiguous empire. The country briefly emerged from its shell in World War, and then promptly pulled up the drawbridge, lowered the portcullis and retreated back into a continental shell protected by two ocean moats.

After World War Two, US involvement in world affairs was essential for holding off the Soviet Union and world stability. Then came Donald Trump. It was not clear at first whether the New York property mogul and his “America First” policy was an isolationist or unilateralist, or a bit of both. Coronavirus has helped to answer the question.

But before that, it must be made clear that Donald Trump’s major concern is not America’s national interest or world stability. It is, quite simply, Donald Trump. At the moment that means winning a second White House tenancy agreement in November 2020.

That is why in the early days of coronavirus he was keen to minimise the dangers. He had a “hunch” that it was going to be OK. People should continue going to work even if they had Covid-19 symptoms. Flu, said Trump, was more dangerous than Coronavirus. He claimed there were plenty of testing kits when his scientific experts said the opposite.

There was a purpose to these irresponsibly dangerous and false statements: to keep the stock market indices as high as possible. Trump’s best chance of winning a second term is a continuation of the booming market that has marked his first three years. Trump once famously said that if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue his supporters would still vote for him. Perhaps, but will they vote for Trump if their pensions are destroyed; meagre savings wiped out and jobs and homes lost?

Tagged coronavirus and donald trump | 3 Comments

Classic Winners

By David Warren | Thu 12th March 2020 - 4:04 pm

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It was nearly twenty years ago that a very special lady got me interested in the sport of kings by asking me to place a bet on a horse called Legal Right tipped by the Guardian columnist Marcel Berlins. It was a success and from then on I was hooked.

In the years that have followed I have improved my knowledge of the game immensely and It is around this time of year that my excitement really builds in anticipation of the start of a new flat season. The first of the four classics are run in early May and we see how the previous autumn’s two year old stars have trained on. This time around the ‘Boys in blue’ at Godolphin have a really smart prospect called Pinatubo who I am sure they are anxious to unleash. Their rivals across the sea in Ireland at Ballydoyle will have their own plans to add to their impressive haul of winners.

All that said, as with almost everything else my thoughts often turn to the politics of racing. I am afraid to say we are unlikely to find many high profile Liberals amongst the stars of the sport. Having read interviews with Frankie Dettori I can confirm that he is most definitely a Tory. Rachel Hood wife of his current employer champion trainer John Gosden applied to be Conservative candidate for West Suffolk (the Constituency that includes Newmarket) awhile back and I know from my time as a resident of Newbury that the other big racing centre Lambourn is also a true blue stronghold.

Tagged horse racing | 12 Comments

From progress to freedom – the need for liberation politics

By Rob Davidson | Thu 12th March 2020 - 12:41 pm

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Liberals around the world need to define our cause. In the absence of a clear vision of liberation politics, we are left in the vacuous, uninspiring ‘middle.’ Worse, liberalism is under open attack globally and without a clear message and strong network of messengers, it’s losing. Liberals must move away from nebulous phrases like ‘progressive’ and finally make the case for freedom.

The Conservatives are known as ‘the party of business’ and that holds up even as Johnson says “F*** business.” Labour are known as the party of public services, of human rights and equality – even as Labour staggers through an anti-Semitism scandal.

But what does the public associate with the Liberal Democrats? More importantly, what does liberal democracy mean to people of Britain and the world?

Without a clear vision of liberation politics, our opponents on all sides have laid waste to liberalism.

Putin has declared liberalism, “obsolete” Orbán proclaims ‘illiberal democracy’ as his goal and Trump and Bolsonaro follow suit. In Britain, it is no wonder that Brexit leaders were so easily able to promote their populism as an attack on the “liberal elite.”

As I described recently, they do this with the support of a network of thinktanks, new media, pundits and bots that have normalized and promoted their agenda – including their unchallenged attacks on liberalism.

10 Comments

Making a drama out of a crisis? Taking the harm out of the virus!

By Lorenzo Cherin | Thu 12th March 2020 - 10:46 am

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If we believe in anything, it is the Harm Principle of John Stuart Mill. People should be at liberty, to make their own choices, unless they do harm, to others, or to themselves, if in ways that might harm others too. The bar for the deciding of what is a harm, is set higher or lower, according to whether you are a Liberal or a Libertarian. Mill was a Liberal. He believed the state, the government, needed to exercise authority, on, for example law and order. The balance, is what is to be considered. The preamble to the constitution of this party refers to that as “between the fundamental values, of liberty, equality and community.

I have often put it this way. I am a Classical Liberal, on liberty related issues, a Social Liberal, on equality related issues, a Social Democrat, on community related issues. I am of the view that there has rarely been an issue that combines all these and more, and requires strong thinking and action, than Covid19.

I have just written an article for the Ustinov Prejudice Awareness Forum, an organisation of which I am a member and writer. The article is titled “Viral Expertise“, in which I look at greater word length and in different ways, from a more international perspective, at what I want to say here, from a UK Classical Liberal, Social Liberal and Social Democrat point of view. The importance of this issue, is such, that I would very much welcome colleagues visit the link too.

I, we, surely must subscribe to support policies that reveal and encourage, personal responsibility and public good. For all , responsible, for goodness sake, more needs to be done at home and abroad to combat this virus and act as a rehearsal for, an ongoing effort where the world performs better.

Tagged coronavirus and health | 57 Comments

How broad a church should the Lib Dems be?

By George Kendall | Thu 12th March 2020 - 8:39 am

The Liberal Democrats have always been a broad church. From the Ashdown-Kennedy revival to 2010, we had seats in traditional rural areas like Devon and Cornwall, as well as university towns and other more urban areas. We welcomed members too with a wide range of backgrounds and values. This followed the tradition of tolerance in the Liberal party from 1859, and with the principle of freedom of conscience championed by our constitution.

But is our broad church weakening?

In 2010, we lost many of these rural seats, and we’ve struggled to recover them following the 2016 Brexit Referendum.

Some in the party argue that, to make an impact, we should stop appealing to a broad coalition. We should make uncompromising statements, however much it alienates some existing voters and members. That we could write off old areas of strength, and instead pursue less traditional seats, such as affluent metropolitan constituencies and university towns.

When there is a real risk of a Tory hegemony, I think this is a terrible mistake. It would gift the Tories places where only we can beat the Tories. And instead shift our fight to where we are competing with Labour.

110 Comments

‘High Risk Vendors’ and Government eavesdropping

By Simon Pike | Wed 11th March 2020 - 6:00 pm

Last Tuesday, Parliament debated the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property), Bill. Well, actually, it didn’t. Several Tory backbenchers and a Labour shadow Minister hijacked the debate with amendments seeking to exclude ‘High-Risk Vendors’ (by which they mean Huawei) from UK telecoms networks. They did not provide any evidence to support their concerns, and the speeches sometimes bordered on a witch hunt.

Robert Harrison and Paul Reynolds have both written balanced and insightful articles on Huawei for Lib Dem Voice. The Government currently proposes to limit ‘High-Risk Vendors’ to the access network, and 35% market share. In a comment on Paul’s article, I explained how the 5G standards are designed to prevent any eavesdropping within the access network.

There is a well-documented case where an equipment supplier has been compromised by a foreign Government so that it could intercept the secret communications of other nations. But this is neither Huawei nor China: the company is Crypto AG, and the foreign Government is the USA.

Tagged Government eavesdropping | 4 Comments

Housing: A basic human right?

By Chris Perry | Wed 11th March 2020 - 3:30 pm

According to the charity Shelter, three million new social homes must be built in England over the next 20 years of which 1.2 million homes are needed for younger families who cannot afford to buy and “face a lifetime in expensive and insecure private renting”. The Government intends to build 250,000 homes by 2022, including homes for rent.

Travelling around the UK one gets the impression that there is more house building going on than ever before gobbling up agricultural land. This is at the time that we are leaving the EU, the “single market” and the “common agriculture policy”. About 30% of all our food is currently imported from EU Countries and for some products it is 100%. In 2016 more than £30.3bn of Britain’s food imports and £12.3bn of its food exports were with the EU, highlighting the scale of economic disruption if the current trade negotiations result in tariffs.

Tagged housing | 13 Comments

Update from FCC and amendments selected for debate

By Nick da Costa | Wed 11th March 2020 - 12:00 pm

The Federal Conference Committee met on Sunday, 8th March to review the amendments, emergency motions and topical issues submitted for Spring Conference. We also discussed the most recent guidance with regards to COVID-19 and a few other reports back from the Federal Board.

On COVID-19; we’re keeping under close review the plans for the York conference in the light of the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Based on health advice from Public Health England and government, along with that from York Council, at present, the Conference will go ahead as planned. We will, however, be ensuring that those coming to Conference are reminded of current advice, such as the need for regular hand washing and the circumstances under which people should self-isolate. Obviously, if the advice we receive changes we may have to revisit these decisions. Constitutionally, any decision regarding whether Conference goes ahead would be a decision for the Federal Board to take – LINK

There will be plenty of hand sanitisers throughout the conference venue and the two official hotels; and please ensure that when you are washing your hands, that you do so for 20 seconds at least – or for the length of the chorus of The Land (plus the last line repeated). Advice and guidance will be published in the Conference Extra and Daily and will be available throughout the venue.

Also posted in Conference | Tagged 2020 York spring conference | 10 Comments

Singapore, do the Conservatives know what they are asking for?

By David Chadwick | Wed 11th March 2020 - 8:45 am

Singapore is often depicted as an authoritarian dictatorship come economic paradise. Conservatives like to fantasise about Singapore, seeing it as the prime example of a small state, low-tax, low-regulation economy that they would like to emulate.

But Singapore’s success has been driven by an idea that is antithetical to the Conservative mind: that the state can be as efficient and effective as the market.

Singapore is not the neoliberal paradise it has been heralded as below are four policy areas we could learn from: –

A sovereign wealth fund to accompany fiscal policy: the Singaporean state asserts its primacy in the island-state’s economy. Compulsory purchase-orders are common; the state frequently buys private turf for the public good. Singapore has built one of the world’s richest sovereign wealth funds, Temasek, which is accountable to Singapore’s Ministry of Finance. It helps to finance the state’s long-term infrastructure projects and, in many ways, resembles the UK’s Green Investment Bank, which the Conservatives sold off in 2015.

Tagged Singapore | 6 Comments

It’s Time for Tangible Support for Hong Kong

By Nicholas Chan | Tue 10th March 2020 - 1:30 pm

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A famous Chinese idiom story is about Liu Bang agreeing on a truce with Xiang Yu; both then forging a treaty of brotherhood. In reality, it was a scheme against Xiang Yu, who is a better battle commander.

1 Comment

Reducing income inequality

By Chris Perry | Tue 10th March 2020 - 8:30 am

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This is the second of three articles on housing

Huge profits are being made out of housing when the Government estimates 4,266 people are sleeping rough. For example Barratts made pre-tax profits in 2019 of £909.8m – even after paying their Chief Executive £3.6m. Nationwide made £833m after paying its Chief Executive £2.37m and the Government collected £9.3m in Stamp Duty.

Tagged housing | 22 Comments

Minimum Income Guarantee

By Joe Bourke | Tue 10th March 2020 - 8:00 am

The purpose of politics can be said to be to resolve conflicts among different groups in society that arise from conflicting economic and generational interests. Developing compromise solutions that can promote harmony and good societal relations are the raison d’être for political parties.

The post-war welfare state delivering health and education services free at the point of use is such a compromise. So too is the social security safety net.

Tagged minimum income | 26 Comments

Low incomes mean that the basic human right of housing is often beyond people’s reach

By Chris Perry | Mon 9th March 2020 - 6:44 pm

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This is the first of three articles on housing

Food and shelter are essential to survival and yet according to the latest Government figures, collected in the autumn of 2019 and published in February 2020, 4,266 people are estimated to be sleeping rough each night in this the 5th largest economy in the world. The Charity Crisis believes it may be nearer to 8,000.

According to the charity Shelter three million new social homes must be built in England over the next 20 years of which 1.2 million homes are needed for younger families who cannot afford to buy and “face a lifetime in expensive and insecure private renting”. The Government responded that providing fair social housing was a priority and it planned to build 250,000 homes by 2022, including homes for social rent.

Housing is big business and it was the collapse of the property marked in America which led to the economic crisis in 2008 which saw the Government bail out the banks and led to ten years of austerity during which the rich, including those responsible for the crisis, got richer and the majority of us got poorer.

6 Comments

EU negotiations – we must take Erasmus off the table – here’s why

By Cameron Molland | Mon 9th March 2020 - 12:10 pm

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Britain does not have the most glittering of reputations on the Continent for its ability to adapt to the local lingo. Indeed, when I holiday in France every year, one of the most frequent remarks people make to me is “Wow, your French is very good! We don’t often get many English people speaking our language”. I’m always a touch embarrassed by how poor British people are at speaking foreign languages; it’s become a bit of a national stereotype that les Anglais generally can’t speak the language of the country in which they find themselves; much like far too many British expats seem to think that they will make themselves easier to understand by over-enunciating, gesticulating wildly, and speaking loudly, whilst still speaking English.

I think this is one of the biggest hypocrisies and self-contradictions of Brexit; Priti Patel and the Home Office want all people who come to Britain to work to speak fluent English before they qualify for entry. And yet, that same Conservative government has already got one foot out of the doorway of one of the most incredible opportunities with which language students (a dying breed, alas) can be presented: Erasmus.

6 Comments

Jo Swinson…for leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats?

By Johnny McDermott | Mon 9th March 2020 - 9:43 am

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A few days after the general election, in a state of numbness I’m sure you are all familiar with, my thoughts were on our former leader, Jo Swinson.

I admit, I was not a full-throated supporter of Swinson’s. I believed she would have problems building the relationships and alliances essential to stopping Brexit, so backed Ed in the contest. In my opinion, she had an opportunity to set Scotland on a more positive course against independence. The real north, as I described it last week, could have begun to work more closely to tackle our unique crises. We would have been better able to hold the SNP’s feet to the iron, somewhat ironically, had we spent less time engaging in running point-scoring battles. We had the same aim. Those failings I find hard to set aside.

Also posted in Leadership Election | Tagged Jo Swinson and leadership election 2020 | 15 Comments

William Wallace writes … Liberalism is under attack

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 6th March 2020 - 6:31 pm

Liberalism is under attack. It’s time to defend its principles; and I hope that Ed Davey will lead the charge at our Spring conference next week. As Rob Davidson wrote on LibDem Voice last week, ‘liberalism and liberal democracy is facing an existential threat’ – both in England and globally.

Most Liberals do not read the Spectator, the Telegraph or Standpoint, which portray an alternative intellectual universe, in which conservatives decry ‘the liberal elite’, against which they stand for community and nation. A network of well-funded think tanks, with close links to neo-conservative think tanks in Washington, reinforces this blend of nationalist nostalgia, assumptions of Anglo-Saxon transatlantic affinity, cultural reaction and anti-Muslim prejudice: the Taxpayers Alliance, Policy Exchange, the Henry Jackson Society and others, with combined budgets larger than our party’s central income.

Repetition of the claim that Britain’s elite is liberal, and that these well-funded researchers, their rich backers in the City and offshore and the government which they support are insurgents against the dominant and corrupting liberalism of our society, feeds populist resentment. It supports attacks on the BBC as inherently left-wing, on universities and academics as having lost “the faith of the nation in some critical areas” (to quote a new Policy Exchange report), on Anglican bishops for failing to defend traditional moral principles as they see them.

Rob Davidson also pointed to the emergence of a global network of self-labelled ‘national conservatives’, strongly supported by right-wing American money, which idolises Viktor Orban’s ‘illiberal democracy’. The recent ‘NatCon’ conference in Rome, which included a number of British Conservatives, welcomed Orban as a keynote speaker. One of the other speakers told the conference that the current Pope has ‘given up his spiritual role to become political leader of the international left.’ This is the politics of unreason, in which one may even cast doubt on whether the Pope is a Catholic.

38 Comments

We need to find ways of stimulating people to debate inequality

By Chris Bowers | Fri 6th March 2020 - 4:22 pm

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Donald Trump has pulled off a masterstroke of marketing for the film Parasite. I would probably have gone to see it anyway, but once I’d heard his sniffy “Can we get Gone With The Wind back?” I was duty-bound to see it.

Having now seen it, I’m not its greatest fan.

It’s certainly original, but I can’t help feeling its missed a trick. It does make for uncomfortable viewing at times. For Trump, that discomfort probably comes from the massive differences in wealth between the two central families in the film, and the beautifully ambiguous meaning of the title leaves you asking “Who is sucking the blood out of whom?” – a level of self-reflection the 45th president is probably not used to.

We need films that force us to discuss inequality in today’s world. The differences between the richest and poorest even within a single company are at times obscene, and it’s not just liberals who reach the point where they wonder how far the disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest can get before it indicates a dysfunctional society, if not the pre-conditions for social revolution.

As a good liberal, I believe in equality of opportunity. I realise that won’t lead to equality of outcome, and I’m OK with that as long as earned wealth doesn’t tamper with the basic rights of everyone in society (eg. we are all equal under the law, we are all of equal human value even if some have different economic values compared with others, etc). I know wealth currently does buy privileges it shouldn’t (look at the law!) but I’m talking about the society we should be striving for.

Tagged donald trump and Parasite | 12 Comments

The launch of the Northern Liberal Network

By Tom Purvis | Fri 6th March 2020 - 2:25 pm

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For Blair and Brown there was the famous Granita Pact. For Laura and Lisa there was the Hope Pact. Earlier in the year, Laura Gordon posted on Lib Dem Voice to announce the launch of the Northern Liberal Network. The formal launch will be at Spring Conference, which appropriately is being held in York.

Upon seeing the original post by Laura, I knew I had to get involved. I grew up in Redcar, a seat described by some as one of the keystones of the Red Wall. What a lot of people fail to realise is that the Lib Dems held the seat between 2010 and 2015. Other Red Wall seats include Bradford East and Burnley – another two seats that used to be held by the Lib Dems.

Our party has a lot to offer places like these. They deserve better than a Conservative government which won’t care about them and they deserve better than a Labour party which has ran councils across the North in a way that should disgust everyone involved in politics. The problem wasn’t our policies which would have helped provide an additional £50 billion in capital investment, extra money for bus services and further devolution. It was that we failed to make a clear offer to voters in the North. The Northern Liberal Network will work tirelessly to make sure this does not happen again.

Tagged 2020 York spring spring and northern liberal network | 17 Comments

Observations of an expat: Maybe Minister

By Tom Arms | Fri 6th March 2020 - 12:22 pm

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The row between British Home Secretary Pritti Patel and her until recently Permanent Under Secretary of State Sir Phillip Putnam is part of a disturbing trend which is undermining a 150-year-old tried, tested and globally-respected system.

Europe, America and most of the rest of the world endure political patronage in varying degrees. This was also the case in the UK before Gladstone took a leaf from the Chinese and Indian experience and introduced civil service exams in 1870. Patronage, corruption and political ties were swapped for a civil service based on merit. Bribery income was replaced with job security, above average salary, a gold-plated pension and the prospect of a lucrative private sector contract upon retirement.

In return the civil servants were expected to offer apolitical and impartial advice to their policy-making ministers. When the policy was decided, the civil servants implemented it. Secretaries of state came and went. The civil servants stayed on to provide a historic knowledge, keep track of the buried bodies and point out the consequences and pitfalls of a minister’s preferred course of action.

The final ruling, however, rested with the minister. That is why when a mistake was made it was the politician who resigned. The issue of resignations is one of the core causes for the unravelling of the relationship between civil servants and government. Ministers have, for the most part, stopped taking responsibility for their decisions. Politics has become a career choice. Elected officials have become increasingly focused on retaining their jobs, political infighting and climbing the greasy pole rather than public service.

Tagged civil service, home office and Priti Patel | 15 Comments

Why Bernie Sanders is our best hope

By Sam Martin | Thu 5th March 2020 - 5:32 pm

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With Super Tuesday done we’re now in a two-horse race between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination with Joe Biden now the frontrunner. Many Liberal Democrats welcome this shift which I think is short-sighted. We need Donald Trump removed from office and a clear-eyed analysis suggests that Sanders has a better shot at this than Biden.

Many US moderates believe that Sanders, as a self-described socialist in the land of the rugged individual, cannot win. But the data shows that he can. Sanders can take advantage of increasing numbers of younger voters, as well as votes lost in 2016 by Hillary Clinton to Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, in the crucial swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin to flip them back. He’s also got much greater appeal to independents than other Democrats, who will be crucial in November. So the ‘Sanders can’t win’ line is not rooted in actual evidence.

Conversely anyone who see Biden as a safe bet needs to take a much closer look. He is a legacy candidate whose success so far has been through trading on his name recognition and association with Barack Obama. Watching the Biden of just four years ago (here explaining Sanders’ appeal) underlines how much he has declined since then. Only this week he called it ‘Super Thursday’ and confused his wife with his sister at a rally. Perhaps most significantly the corruption allegations against Biden’s son Hunter – still to be fully ramped up by the Republicans- give Trump an easy reprise of the ‘Crooked Hillary’ line and will neutralise any Democrat attacks on this corrupt presidency.

Tagged bernie sanders, donald trump and joe biden | 35 Comments

Op-eds

ALDC by-election report – 5 November (Charles Quinn)
Tom Arms’ World Review (Tom Arms)
Observations of an Expat: Post Election Worries (Tom Arms)
How Liberal Democrats can ride Britain’s youth wave on the pro-EU shift (Rupinder Singh)
Just growth by lowering deadweight losses through tax (Tony Vickers)

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Chris Coghlan: put children with complex needs at centre of SEND reforms

SNP Govt defeated on Lib Dem motion

Vince Cable writes: A budget of small things

Chadwick launches leadership bid

Category Archives: Op-eds

Thoughts on the budget – Part 2

Why we need to close schools

Thoughts on the Budget – Part 1

Let’s put our values into action

Isolation diary: Paying the newsagent

‘Keep the heid!’: Dad and the Cuban missile crisis

Lack of humility could kill us

Lock down is not the alternative to herd immunity

We are underestimating the threat of antimicrobial resistance; where is the “Clean New Deal”?

Observations of an Expat: Viral Trump

Classic Winners

From progress to freedom – the need for liberation politics

Making a drama out of a crisis? Taking the harm out of the virus!

How broad a church should the Lib Dems be?

‘High Risk Vendors’ and Government eavesdropping

Housing: A basic human right?

Update from FCC and amendments selected for debate

Singapore, do the Conservatives know what they are asking for?

It’s Time for Tangible Support for Hong Kong

Reducing income inequality

Minimum Income Guarantee

Low incomes mean that the basic human right of housing is often beyond people’s reach

EU negotiations – we must take Erasmus off the table – here’s why

Jo Swinson…for leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats?

William Wallace writes … Liberalism is under attack

We need to find ways of stimulating people to debate inequality

The launch of the Northern Liberal Network

Observations of an expat: Maybe Minister

Why Bernie Sanders is our best hope

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Chris Coghlan: put children with complex needs at centre of SEND reforms

SNP Govt defeated on Lib Dem motion

Vince Cable writes: A budget of small things

Chadwick launches leadership bid

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