Category Archives: Op-eds

Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Jo and Layla at the Rally for the Future – We have to do better for the next generation

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 11th November 2019 - 11:55 am

On Saturday, the first big Lib Dem election rally took place. The main subject was our policy of providing free childcare to children from 9 months of age – which will make life so much easier for families. What was really good is that this event was family friendly. Babies, toddlers, teenagers were in the audience including Jo’s own two sons.

The speeches were punctuated with toddler babble. It was a joy.

Jo and Layla spoke.

Watch here:

Layla remarked that she had never known such a friendly reaction on the doorstep.

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Caron Lindsay

Luciana Berger: Being in the Liberal Democrats is so refreshing and so positive

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 11th November 2019 - 10:25 am

When I saw Luciana Berger at Conference  in September, she looked happy and relaxed as she toured the stalls in the exhibition. She said then that she felt very welcome in the Liberal Democrats.

Many of us hoped for a long time that she would come across to us.

In an interview with the Independent, she contrasted her new life in the Lib Dems with the appalling, horrible abuse she suffered in when she was in the Labour Party:

Being in the Liberal Democrats is so refreshing and so positive. I can have disagreements with people and we do so in an adult way where people don’t shout and scream at you and hurl abuse in your direction.

Her last meeting in the Labour Party was very different:

I attended my last Labour Party meeting in October last year and vowed never to go back because it was so unpleasant – it was so toxic, there was no humanity in the room.

The attitude was very much that she should be more loyal:

She says the abuse was regularly dismissed by Labour members in her Liverpool Wavertree constituency, who responded to her recollections by sitting stony-faced and suggesting that she should be more supportive of Jeremy Corbyn.

The instances of anti semitic abuse from the far right, far left and Brexiteers made her physically ill at one point this Summer. You would think that anyone hearing the sorts of things outlined in the interview would react with compassion and empathy.

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Caron Lindsay

Christine Jardine: Brexit is sucking the life out of our politics

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th November 2019 - 10:39 pm

Christine Jardine was on Sophy Ridge this morning talking (among other things) about how Brexit was sucking the life out of everyone meaning that we couldn’t concentrate on the huge issues of the day like Brexit and the NHS.

The amusing thing is that this clip is both being promoted by the party on its social media channels and trashed on Guido Fawkes.

Guido reckons that Christine is saying that Brexit is more important than the union. Which is a cheek given that Brexit as proposed by the Conservatives is more of a threat to the union than anything I have seen in my lifetime.

If we stop Brexit, we strengthen the union.

Sophy Ridge asked Christine about the leaders’ debates.

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The Liberator Collective

New issue of Liberator out

By The Liberator Collective | Sun 10th November 2019 - 5:00 pm

Issue 398 of Liberator will soon be on its way to subscribers and the free sample articles for this issue Liberalism After Brexit, by Bernard Greaves, and Another Capitalism is Possible, by Paul Hindley, are available here.

And for those facing the rigours of a winter general election, here is the front cover illustration.

Other articles in this issue are:

Answering To A Higher Authority – Tim Farron chose to join a notably hardline Christian group, and then wondered why his views were wildly incompatible with being Lib Dem leader. Liz Barker seeks answers in his new book

Army Dreamers – The west’s counter-insurgency strategy sees the UK and its allies are pouring money into the questionably effective armed forces of repressive governments, says Rebecca Tinsley

Ukraine’s Comedian is No Comic – As America’s impeachment hearings centre on President Trump’s relations with Ukraine’s comedian president, Kiron Reid looks at how the latter got elected

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Julie Taylor

Sunday poetry

By Julie Taylor | Sun 10th November 2019 - 2:00 pm

Boris is playing mind games

Cummings is showing him how

The chaos theory of conquest

Is up and running now

 

We’re now aware of their tactics 

We must band together to fight

Demonstrate the strength of the British 

Backing all MPs doing right

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Caron Lindsay

Remembrance Sunday reflections

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th November 2019 - 10:29 am

Charles Homer Bosworth was my great grandfather. In his face, I can see my Dad, my Uncle Bob, my Uncle Peter. My Dad was called after him. Known as Homer, he lived in Codford in Wiltshire. Born in 1888, he served in the First World War and gets a mention in the Codford Roll of Honour:

Charles Homer Bosworth served in the British Army during World War 1 and spent time in Russia as part of his service.

Until last year, that was as much as my sister and I and our cousins knew about his first World War Service. Then we got in touch with our Dad’s cousin in the US and he was able to tell us some more details. Apparently, Homer’s time in Russia involved being captured by the Bolsheviks and held in a cattle train car. Thankfully, he and his colleagues managed to escape, otherwise I would not be here today.

Homer continued to serve this country, joining the RAF. By the time World War 2 broke out, he was 51 years old and could have retired. Just two weeks in, he was one of 519 people killed after HMS Courageous was torpedoed off the course of Ireland.

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Caron Lindsay

My favourite election moment of the week

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th November 2019 - 8:27 pm

It’s a toss up between Jo Swinson and arriving at a visit in Auchtermuchty and Willie Rennie and Alex Cole-Hamilton being, well, themselves.

Yesterday, Jo visited North East Fife

The typo in this, from a Courier reporter, is very amusing, but I just loved the exuberance of it.

The baby is Daphne Grint, 5 month old daughter of Scottish Lib Dem environment spokesperson Rebecca Bell.

And it’s Willie himself who provides the other iconic moment along with Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton. And there wasn’t a farm animal in sight.

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Mark Valladares

A quick canter through some Taxpayers’ Alliance polling

By Mark Valladares | Sat 9th November 2019 - 11:28 am

I’ve spent the last two days being less than warm towards the Taxpayers’ Alliance, but even where I doubt the sincerity of their aims in the generality, the data they produce is nonetheless in that it tells you much about the voters you are trying to convince. And yes, whether or not you can come up with a persuasive argument to reflect their wishes, or if you even want to, you still need to understand their motivation. So, here are some of my personal highlights…

Reducing the basic rate of corporation tax from 19% to 12.5%, the same level as Ireland

Those …

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack writes…Parrots, canvassing and factsheets

By Mark Pack | Fri 8th November 2019 - 12:55 pm

Parrots feature more often in canvassing that you might expect. 

A few years back, Kelly-Marie Blundell revealed her canvassing experience one day in Guildford:

“Canvassing flats, often elderly people will call out through the door before opening as a measure of precaution. When I was canvassing some flats in Guildford, I knocked on one such door, or so I thought.

“‘Excuse me, can I help you?’ came the thin, elderly lady’s voice. I replied, ‘Yes, my name is Kelly-Marie Blundell and I am your…’

“But then she repeated it, speaking over me. So I spoke a little louder and clearer, presuming she was hard of hearing. ‘Yes, my name is Kelly-Marie…’ Then I heard it again, ‘Excuse me can I help you?’

“Rather baffled, I started again. ‘My name is Kelly-Marie…’

“And then I heard a squawk. That’s right. The repeated phrase was clearly coming from a parrot!”

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Mark Valladares

Some thoughts on taxation, as inspired by the Taxpayers’ Alliance…

By Mark Valladares | Fri 8th November 2019 - 11:20 am

Yesterday, I wrote slightly cynically about an approach from those lovely people at the Taxpayers’ Alliance. But, you know, they’re entitled to their view, even if they’re highly unlikely to admit who funds their research and their interest in seeing key tax rates lowered (the answer being, probably not people like you, gentle reader…). But I did promise to take a look at their findings, and thus give you an opportunity to comment.

But, before I do, here are some base statistics from their research;

  • 40% of respondents stated that they were “relatively comfortable financially”
  • 9% stated that they were “very comfortable

…

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Katharine Pindar

The Lib Dems’ two aims in this election

By Katharine Pindar | Thu 7th November 2019 - 4:45 pm

Liberal Democrats should have two main aims in this Election. The first should be to convince a majority of the electorate that to remain in the EU is right for our country, and that no form of Brexit is acceptable. The second must be to point out why this diseased Tory government needs to go, to be replaced with a government where Jo Swinson and our party have major influence which can address the causes of the Brexit vote.

Focusing on the European Union, we need to make the point much neglected in recent debates: the absolute value the EU gives our country, in the past, now, and, if we succeed, in the future.

This is the greatest alliance of peace-loving nations that the world has seen. It has kept the peace in Europe and promoted its prosperity since its foundation. It has protected the freedom and rights of its citizens, promoted good employment and environmental standards, fostered the economic growth of member states, furthered international co-operation for refugees and migrants, developed scientific advances, and shown how democracy and freedom can co-exist with order and security, through shared institutions and respected legal systems.

Britain led by Brexiteers has been prepared to disregard all this, including the benefits of the single market which makes the EU our largest economic partner. Currently we are valued by countries such as Japan as a means of access to the whole EU.  Once we are no longer in the single market the benefit for international companies of moving production to the UK will be lost. The Brexiteers claim that FTAs with individual countries will generate the same amount of trade and UK production as will be lost by leaving, yet the EU has already made 67 free trade agreements which we share.

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James Gurling

James Gurling writes…The Unite to Remain Agreement

By James Gurling | Thu 7th November 2019 - 3:11 pm

Our Party is deservedly recognised as the UK’s lead Party of Remain.  Today we have announced a series of agreements – facilitated by the independent “Unite to Remain” group – designed to maximise the number of Remain supporting MPs at the coming snap election.

Unite to Remain is comprised of the three unequivocally pro-Remain parties with MPs elected in the House of Commons:- Plaid Cymru, Greens and ourselves.

In some seats, we have agreed that our candidate will stand aside to allow another Party to  have a clearer run in the election. In other seats, either Plaid Cymru or the Green candidate (sometimes both) will stand aside for us as the Remain candidate.

It is the sort of arrangement we successfully arrived at in Brecon & Radnorshire and which enabled our Welsh Leader, Jane Dodds, to defeat the pro Brexit Conservative and bring Welsh Liberal Democrat representation back to the House of Commons. 

These negotiations have been extremely complex and cover 60 seats between the three Parties – each with their own priorities and internal accountabilities. Significant amounts of time have been dedicated to this cause by Party President Sal Brinton, Chief Whip Alistair Carmichael and Director of Campaigns Shaun Roberts.  Together we have battled to ensure the best outcome both for the Party and for the cause of Remain.  Were that it had been possible to achieve this outcome without any seat Lib Dem seat being given up! Equally we would have dearly loved to have been able to expand the agreement to include more of our seats as beneficiaries.  But negotiations are not like that, and time has been of the essence.

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Caron Lindsay

Full details of historic Unite to Remain arrangement announced

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 7th November 2019 - 11:51 am

Full details of the seats affected by the Unite to Remain arrangement have been released.

The Liberal Democrats will stand aside in 17 seats while the Greens and Plaid Cymru will stand aside in 43 seats across England and Wales.

This will give us a better chance of getting more Remain MPs elected.

Scotland is not part of this because we are the only party advocating remaining in both the EU and the UK and so could not step aside for the SNP who are wanting an early independence referendum.

The seats affected are as follows:

Green Party: Brighton, Pavilion, Isle of Wight, Bristol West, Bury St Edmunds, Stroud, Dulwich and West Norwood, Forest of Dean, Cannock Chase, Exeter (9)

You will notice a lot of familiar names in this – seats we hold and key targets:

Liberal Democrats: Bath, Bermondsey and Old Southwark, Buckingham, Cheadle, Chelmsford, Chelsea and Fulham, Cheltenham, Chippenham, Esher and Walton, Finchley and Golders Green, Guildford, Harrogate and Knaresborough, Hazel Grove, Hitchin and Harpenden, North Cornwall, North Norfolk, Oxford West and Abingdon, Penistone and Stocksbridge, Portsmouth South, Richmond Park, Romsey and Southampton, North Rushcliffe, South Cambridgeshire, South East Cambridgeshire, South West Surrey, Southport, Taunton Deane, Thornbury and Yate, Totnes, Tunbridge Wells, Twickenham, Wantage, Warrington South, Watford, Wells, Westmorland and Lonsdale, Wimbledon, Winchester, Witney ,York, (40)

Wales

Green Party: Vale of Glamorgan (1)

Liberal Democrats: Brecon and Radnorshire, Cardiff Central, Montgomeryshire (3)

Plaid Cymru: Arfon, Caerphilly, Carmarthen East and Dinefwr Dwyfor, Meirionnydd, Llanelli, Pontypridd, Ynys Môn (7)

In addition to these arrangements, we can confirm that we are also stepping aside in three further seats: Beaconsfield, Broxtowe, Luton South

This arrangement gives us the best chance of not just getting Remain MPs elected, but a good number of Liberal Democrats.

Speaking after the details were announced, Jo Swinson said:

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Mark Valladares

We’ve had an e-mail from the Taxpayers’ Alliance…

By Mark Valladares | Thu 7th November 2019 - 11:05 am

Naturally, here at Liberal Democrat Voice, we receive a great many approaches from individuals and organisations, inviting us to publish something from them on our site. Many of them are the usual spam, telling us how wonderful the site is, how much they enjoy it and that an article on property renovation is exactly what our readers would most need. Oddly, we tend to ignore most of them so, if you’re one of those people, and you are reading this, please stop.

Yesterday, we had an e-mail from a (presumably) young man at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, headed;

New polling from the TaxPayers’ Alliance shows tax cuts are key to winning working class votes

I can almost hear you thinking, “Well, there’s a surprise!”. But I’m a generous soul, and so I responded, noting that, whilst the polling appeared to quite conclusively demonstrate that voters want to pay less tax, there didn’t seem to have been much effort to spell out the consequences, i.e. more tax in other areas or cuts to public services. The (probably charming) young man replied by saying that their methodology was the same as the NHS spending polling over the summer – and the recent Oxfam/Tax Justice UK poll from September on wealth taxes – i.e. they had tested propositions, not the implications of each proposition.

You may conclude, as I did, that he hadn’t really answered the question. And so, gentle reader, I turned down his offer to write something for us.

However, the polling is, in itself, interesting, if only to know how voters think when the consequences of the offer before them are not signposted. Here are the highlights as suggested by the Taxpayers’ Alliance;

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Caron Lindsay

Norman Lamb: My job was to give people a voice

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th November 2019 - 11:55 am

The thing I was most scared about during the 2015 election was not having Norman Lamb as a Minister any more. He had done so much for mental health and I was worried that some Tory (because I feared they would win) would just undo all his work.

A House of Commons without Norman in it is a poorer place. Yesterday he gave his valedictory speech in the Commons, and he talked about how important it was for politicians to give those without power a voice and change the system to give them power.

Norman, all the very best with whatever you do in the future. We have not always agreed, but you have been one of the best Government Ministers I can remember. Your compassion and understanding towards mental health and those who suffer mental ill health was an example we should all seek to follow. Thank you.

I very much endorse the remarks of the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir David Lidington) about the nature of our political discourse and the importance of treating each other with courtesy and respect.

The right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) talked about the truths that he was told by his wife in private and the very own special relationship that he had with his wife. I want to start by thanking my partner for life, my wife Mary, and our two sons Archie and Ned for the support that they have given me throughout the 18-plus years I have been in this place. There is no doubt that the work that we do here takes its toll on our families and our loved ones. We always have to remember that and acknowledge the enormous sacrifices that loved ones make as we try to do our work here.

I also want to thank my amazing parliamentary staff, in my constituency and in Parliament, who have shown such loyalty and dedication to me over so many years. I thank the Lib Dem party activists in North Norfolk who have shown me enormous loyalty throughout the time that I have fought there. I have spent 29 years campaigning in North Norfolk because it took me 11 years to beat that lot over there to win my seat the first place. So many people have stuck with me through that period, and I am enormously grateful for it.​

I thank the teams that have supported me in my role as Chair of the Science and Technology Committee and during the time that I was privileged enough to be a Minister of State in the Department of Health. Everyone will understand that, as a Liberal, I did not imagine for one minute that I would become a Minister, and then suddenly I found myself responsible for something that I cared a lot about in the Department of Health. It was the most invigorating time of my professional life, but it was made possible by amazing people who showed great dedication and commitment in supporting me through that journey.

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John McHugo

Rees-Mogg, Grenfell and Catholic social teaching

By John McHugo | Wed 6th November 2019 - 10:25 am

The Brexit of the Johnsons and Rees-Moggs of this world will free Britain from “the manacles” of the EU. This will enable Brexit to be used to slash and burn all those pesky regulations designed to protect workers’ rights. Johnson has now left them to be discussed in the non-binding political declaration, no longer preserved by the legally binding withdrawal agreement. Rees-Mogg concurs. 

Jacob Rees-Mogg is visible as a devout Catholic, sometimes ostentatiously so. But the social teaching of his church is set squarely against this Brexit vision, since it is often regulations inspired in part by Catholic social teaching that constitute those “manacles” of the EU. 

Modern Catholic Social Teaching evolved as a Christian response to industrial poverty in the late nineteenth century. Its principles chime impeccably with liberalism. Workers have the right to solidarity with each other (collective bargaining, trade unions), whilst private property is to be respected and entrepreneurship encouraged because it creates wealth. A collaboration between capital and labour that is fair and comprehensive is essential. The State also needs to be involved. As Pope St. John Paul II put it in Centesimus Annus in 1991: “the marketplace needs to be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the State so as to guarantee that the basic needs of the whole of society are satisfied.” 

He also taught that the State, “has…the duty to protect the rights of all its people, and particularly of its weaker members, the workers, women and children. It can never be right for the State to shirk its obligation of working actively for the betterment of the condition of .”    

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Caron Lindsay

Jeremy Corbyn embraces his inner Brexiteer

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 5th November 2019 - 12:30 pm

Jeremy Corbyn suggests today that we could leave the EU without damaging  our economy and public services. He’ll tell an audience in Essex, according to the Independent:

Mr Corbyn will say: “If you want to leave the EU without trashing our economy or selling out our NHS you’ll be able to vote for it.

He’ll outline a Labour policy that involves negotiating a new deal and then the Government will decide after that whether it will back the deal in a referendum or vote for Remain.

Kier Starmer sounded very uncomfortable as he explained all this on the Today programme this morning. When asked if Corbyn was a leaver or a remainer, he sounded very hesitant as he told us that Jeremy said he voted remain last time.

Starmer has spent the last couple of years being undermined by his party’s leader at every turn.

It’s significant that Corbyn is talking up Brexit the day after Nigel Farage said that his Brexit Party  was going explicitly after Labour votes. In fact, Labour stands to lose far more by failing to come out full throttle for remain. There has been a steady stream of Labour people coming across to the Liberal Democrats because  of our unequivocal position on Brexit.

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Caron Lindsay

Jo: Lib Dems will take any action required to make sure voice of Remain heard in debates

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 4th November 2019 - 9:15 pm

Surrounded by Lib Dem women candidates and MPs, Jo Swinson this afternoon said that the Lib Dems were considering legal action to make sure the voice of remain was heard in the leaders’ debates. Watch her here.

An hour or so later, Sky announced that she would be invited to take part in their debate:

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Jwamer Bakhtiar Mustafa

ALDE Party Congress – a first time delegate’s thoughts

By Jwamer Bakhtiar Mustafa | Mon 4th November 2019 - 11:33 am

In the shadow of the ancient Athenian acropolis where Aristotle and Socrates once lectured on ideas that would go on to change the world, Hans van Baalen, president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE) launched the organisations 40th congress under the banners “mission is possible” and “liberal renaissance”. His audience included delegations from 67 full and associate member parties, as well as individual members who had assembled from across the European continent.

I had applied to the International Office upon learning of the exciting opportunity to attend the ALDE party congress as a Lib Dem …

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Caron Lindsay

Labour’s refusal to back Remain is “Red meat for Lib Dems”

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd November 2019 - 11:55 am

Labour’s Rebecca Long-Bailey, talking to Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge, refused to say whether Labour would back Leave or Remain in a referendum on any deal.

The Labour position is that they would form a government, negotiate their own deal and then put it to the public, but can’t say at this stage whether they would back Leave or Remain in that referendum. They don’t dare say Remain because their leader is not committed to that position and they daren’t say Leave because they will lose even more votes to us. But if they have negotiated a deal, the presumption has to be that they will back it. I mean, they aren’t going to say to the people “Don’t back this great deal we’ve done”, are they?

And they think that this is credible? They want their voters to do the equivalent of buying a lucky bag.

Sky News reporter Rob Powell said that this was “red meat for the Liberal Democrats.”

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Socialism vs Brexit

By Tom Arms | Sat 2nd November 2019 - 12:30 pm

Boris Johnson made it clear. An election has been called to break the parliamentary deadlock on Brexit.  A “People v Parliament” poll.

Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn, however, appears to have failed to hear properly. In his opening salvo of the campaign battle he hardly mentioned Brexit. Instead the dyed-in-the-wool far-left Socialist took the opportunity to declare a class war on the “Establishment Elite.”

Corbyn is attempting to flip the 2019 election agenda away from Brexit in much the same way as he did in 2017.  This is for several reasons: 1- his party is hopelessly split on Brexit; 2- Corbyn’s plans to deal with Brexit are an inconsistent mish-mash 3- he needs an electoral platform that will appeal to both Leave and Remain Brexit voters and, finally, 4- the chaotic state of British politics offers  Jeremy Corbyn the best chance he has of ushering in the Socialist workers’ paradise that he has dreamt about for his entire political career.

The current disreputable state of British politics creates opportunities for demagogic figures to tout their over-simplified sound bite solutions to complex issues. What could be more simple – or divisive–than a clarion call to class war.?

On the other extreme end of the political spectrum sits a prime minister who appears determined to replicate the 17th century battle between the executive and parliament.  After a series of civil wars and a Glorious Revolution that battle ended with the establishment of parliamentary sovereignty. The 2016 referendum was not the “will of the people”. It was a narrow victory for an ill-conceived exit from Europe without due regard to the consequences. The country remains hopelessly divided on the issue and the parliament which Boris Johnson disdainfully dismisses is a reflection of that division– as it should be.

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Ewan Hoyle

Hope for a brighter future

By Ewan Hoyle | Fri 1st November 2019 - 6:02 pm

In this election there is everything to play for. Traditional voter loyalties have completely broken down, and nearly half the electorate are now regarded to be floating voters.

When talking to voters on the doorsteps and asking their thoughts on the current state of politics, the responses are dominated by the words “mess” and “shambles”.

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are not popular, and are not seen as being good options to lead our country. If we get smart we can easily present ourselves as the Stop Brexit, Liberal Democrat and None of the Above party, and hoover up enormous amounts of those floating voters.

It is fear that will deter people from voting Liberal Democrat. Not fear of our policies or any character flaws in our leader, but fear that voting for us lets in the populist or the revolutionary socialist, or fear that we will prop up Corbyn or Johnson in exchange for some scraps of power.

Saying we will support neither is not enough. We have to have an offering that shows our supporters that we have a path to power, and we have to have an offering that shows the floating voters that we can stop the cartoon villains that they so fear.

That offering is a proportional electoral system.

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack on “the other elections”

By Mark Pack | Fri 1st November 2019 - 12:45 pm

Quite rightly, nearly all our attention now is on winning public elections: winning those council by-elections coming in before the general election and winning then in the general election too.

There is also the tail-end of the party’s internal elections, with voting closing at 5pm on Friday next week (8 November) and most likely, given some of the problems with the voting system, quite a few members still to vote. (If you haven’t yet received your ballot paper, [email protected] can assist.)

Those internal contests matter. They will determine, for example, who is on the Federal Policy Committee (FPC), the group that will …

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Lord William Wallace

Lord William Wallace writes… Labour and the Liberal Democrats

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 1st November 2019 - 8:13 am

Labour at Westminster is angry with the Liberal Democrats. They were – several Labour peers have insisted – moving slowly towards accepting that there would have to be a confirmatory referendum. And they felt that Boris Johnson would end up with no other way out than to accept such a referendum. And now, they complain, we have ‘given’ the Conservatives the election they want.

Don’t fall for this Labour narrative, if you hear it from a Labour activist near you. Their underlying fear is that they are in no state to win an early election, so the …

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Donncha Hayes

We need to talk about how we use Facebook

By Donncha Hayes | Thu 31st October 2019 - 2:06 pm

For the AGM of our local party, our diligent party secretary recently emailed the local members outlining the elected positions (Membership Secretary, Diversity Officer etc.) of the local exec. He helpfully included a link to the party’s website with some guidance on what’s involved in each role, and what help and support is available from the party. For one role I looked at, the top 3 sources of support are:

It strikes me that, intentionally or otherwise, a large part of our party’s support network is being run through Facebook. This could mean that people who don’t have a Facebook account don’t get the support they need; or are put off from getting more involved in the party; or aren’t even aware of developments within the party. This strikes me as problematic:

  • Young people simply don’t use Facebook to the extent that people in older age cohorts do. If we’re relying on Facebook to organise ourselves, then we may be excluding a lot of people under 30.
  • Even for those people who do have a Facebook account, all the indications are that usage has dropped off a cliff, especially over the last 18 months.
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Caron Lindsay

Jo Swinson: The Prime Minister this country really needs

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 31st October 2019 - 12:00 pm

This country is suffering because we have a Prime Minister and a Leader of the Opposition who play up fear and division. Britain needs a leader who can cut through the noise and grab people in the heart, highlighting the best of us, not the worst. We need someone to inspire us to be for each other, not against each other. Jo Swinson is that leader.

She combines humour, candour and plain speaking to bring people in. She reaches well beyond the liberal democrat comfort zone of our party by connecting with people. The way she wrote about the birth of her son Gabriel for his first birthday in June was absolutely beautiful. Don’t click on that if you are at all troubled by descriptions of childbirth.

And, during the Summer, after Boris Johnson, the man who famously toured the country in a bus with a great big lie on the side,  revealed that he liked to paint model buses, there was this:

When you connect with people on that very human level, they are much more likely to listen to what you have to say about the future of the planet, about what needs to happen to make our lives better.

Jo has an exceptional ability to communicate complicated messages in a way that means something to people. “Putting people and planet first” is practical and engaging.

And when did you last hear a politician talking about a loving country? We need more of that.

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Paul Reynolds

“Get Brexit done” – the historic big lie

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 31st October 2019 - 10:30 am

In the General Election campaign, the electorate will be presented with a Tory promise to ‘Get Brexit Done’.

This is one of the slogans that will be repeated over and over again.

The message is that ‘chaos has reigned’, and now voters have a chance to vote Tory and ‘get it all over with’. The proposition is that if re-elected, PM Johnson’s regime will approve the two key pieces of Brexit legislation, and then immediately pull the UK out of the EU.

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Caron Lindsay

Jo: Is he going to run scared of debating with a girly swot?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 31st October 2019 - 7:47 am

The smell of chicken pervades the political atmosphere this morning.

Probably the most predictable aspect of this General Election is that Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn would try to cut Jo Swinson out of the Leaders’s Debates. I mean, why would they want to be completely shown up by a fresh, original opponent with compelling arguments?

And so it looks very much like they are doing just that.

Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesperson told the BBC

However, when asked about a three-way discussion with Ms Swinson, the spokesman replied: “There are only two people who can be prime minister at the end of this campaign and I think the British public have a clear right to see them debate head-to-head on TV and hear their cases.”

And when Jo put Boris Johnson on the spot in  Parliament yesterday, he ignored her, choosing to make some bizarre crack about how Lib Dems were about dither and delay on Brexit. You couldn’t actually get much clearer than “Stop Brexit.” Watch here:

The exchange in full from Hansard:

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Joe Otten

Brexit as a failure of process

By Joe Otten | Wed 30th October 2019 - 7:45 pm

It bothers me greatly that for months now, Boris Johnson has been attacking Parliament – in terms that question its legitimacy as the sovereign democratic institution of our constitution – for the crime of having a different opinion on something to himself. Normally, in a Parliamentary democracy, if the Prime Minister has a different opinion to the Commons, it is he, not they who is, constitutionally, in the wrong.

Now of course, Johnson is entitle to his view and to express it, as is every other MP, and perhaps the problem is that the “other side” does not seem to have a voice. And the reason for this is that it isn’t clear who the other side is. The official opposition has largely taken a ‘wait and see’ approach to the whole business. There are a number of groups within Parliament, some seeking harder or softer Brexits, or a referendum, or to remain, or to keep quiet while your opponent makes a mistake.

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Paul Walter

Fortune favours the bold

By Paul Walter | Wed 30th October 2019 - 8:54 am


And so we head into an election campaign as ‘the goose is getting fat’ and Brenda from Bristol boards up her front door to keep out invading journalists.

We’ve whirled around and around the entire gamut of constitutional and Brexit permutations many times, and so we end up with a general election when the Rubic’s Cube of parliamentary arithmetic will be re-spun. Then the whole darn thing will start again.

It is somewhat forbidding to face the prospect of knocking on doors in the ‘deep mid-winter’.

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