Category Archives: Op-eds

Bernard Aris

Desperate Brexiteers try to pick and choose

By Bernard Aris | Thu 10th January 2019 - 2:03 pm

According to The Independent, during the second instalment of the Brexit ‘Meaningful vote’ debate, Downing Street has agreed to let the Commons pick and choose around the crucial Backstop articles in the agreement Theresa May and Brussels reached. The agreement is legally binding, an official agreement or treaty between London and the EU.

On the Institute of Government website last December, former IoG expert Simon Hogarth said such an option could mean Downing Street violating its international obligations it freely entered into. That’s what the Hugo Swire Amendment is proposing.

If the Brexiteers in Downing Street or the Commons think this is going to wash in international politics, they are completely bonkers and political ignoramuses.

The Dutch know from bitter experience how swift, tough and compelling the international reaction will be if any country, Great Britain or small Netherlands, tries to opportunistically tinker with such a legally binding international agreement.

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Tahir Maher

Intolerant democracy

By Tahir Maher | Wed 9th January 2019 - 7:35 am

We seem to be living in an age of ever-increasing fanatics, people who believe that they are always right and are intolerant of other views. I am talking about the abusive treatment of Anna Soubry. This government is ridiculously split over Brexit, and the referendum which many thought (wrongly, in my opinion) would put an end to the debate over Europe has actually fanned the flames of a possible bitter split. Views have been further polarised by this incompetent government and their mismanagement of Brexit. In general, the printed press has supported the case to leave Europe and they continue to make their crude case to leave. The printed press has been reluctant to objectively understand or discuss any opposing view, resulting in opinions being sharply divided. We are right; You are wrong – fanatics.

But why the abuse or violence from people who otherwise are educated and usually quite rational. This trait isn’t only being displayed against politicians but is also manifest in sports and social media. We seem to have acquired common values to a cause, opinion or a team and shut the world out to the rest. The real danger is the reluctance to consider other views, to ponder opportunities and respectfully acknowledge differing opinions.

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Caron Lindsay

No, the Liberal Democrats aren’t going to be absorbed by anyone. We have a job to do

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 8th January 2019 - 8:36 pm

Rachel Sylvester writes in the Times today (£) about the need for a realignment in politics. Her piece is pretty much a puff piece for Lovefilm founder, Simon Franks’ new vehicle, United for Change, which will apparently launch in the Spring. she makes an astonishing statement:

It’s too soon to say whether this will become the vehicle for the much needed reconfiguration but there is clearly an appetite for something different. Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former Downing Street chief of staff, is also co-ordinating discussions about a new political party. The Liberal Democrats have indicated that they would happily be absorbed into another party that shares their values.

Excuse me?

The Liberal Democrats have indicated that they would happily be absorbed into another party that shares their values.

Oh no, we bloody haven’t. Let’s be clear about that.

If any senior figure has said such a thing, then they have no right to do so. And they certainly can’t speak for our members who might have something to say about that.

The problem with these shiny new centre parties is obvious from a quick look at United for Change’s website:

Is there anything more vacuous than this:

BRITAIN IS GREAT, ITS POLITICS SHOULD BE TOO.

WE’RE BUILDING A PARTY PROUDLY BORN OUTSIDE OF WESTMINSTER.

Heavens. Donald Trump and Nigel Farage could sign up to something like that. What the hell do they stand for? The best thing I can say about it is that it didn’t put an apostrophe in the its.

The problem is that these sorts of centrist parties tend to be authoritarian in make-up and outlook. A member of such an organisation would have much less power than they would have as a member of the Liberal Democrats, where they could put forward ideas and vote on specific policy. Liberal Democrats are used to having much more say than I expect will be offered to supporters of United for Change.

Although note the similarities. Apparently UFC wants to sign up a whole load of supporters who will then get to vote for leader. Sound familiar?

My two biggest problems with our supporters’ scheme idea are that it’s a processy distraction from what we really need to be developing – our compelling and inspiring narrative of who we are and what we’re about and that it also distracts from the fact that we are a pretty open party that gives our members power.

UFC, from what I can see neither offers their members power nor has any compelling ideas. Two months before the SDP was formed, its four founders, Shirley Williams, David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Bill Rodgers, put out the Limehouse Declaration. It kicked some ass. 

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Tahir Maher

No Deal Brexit

By Tahir Maher | Tue 8th January 2019 - 7:35 am

It is now just over 11 weeks left before we leave the EU. We should have been a lot further with the negotiations that we are at the moment i.e. a deal agreed with the UK now in the process of negotiating a trade deal, this is what the Tories called a  ‘good deal’. But the bickering among the Tories that led us to a referendum almost sealed their fate in that they were never going to agree on what they considered was a good deal. Their bluster about how the EU would bend to their needs because BMW and …

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Patrick Maxwell

Brexit cannot be the sole issue of the Lib Dems

By Patrick Maxwell | Mon 7th January 2019 - 10:26 am

As the 29th of March comes ominously closer, the eerie reality of the political situation in Westminster is slowly becoming clearer. The Commons is in deadlock, with none of the solutions proposed gaining signification support on the green benches and party infighting rife. This is, however, nothing inherently new.

When faced with such monumental events such as these, the responsible and pragmatic response from our politicians would be a compromise.

A ‘Government of National Unity’ has been proposed, but in such times, the idea of unity it is, as always, an illusion. The country is evidently deeply divided, as is Parliament. No …

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Henry Wright

Words of warning on a Second Referendum

By Henry Wright | Mon 7th January 2019 - 8:12 am

I have been a member of the Liberal Democrats for nearly a year now and a supporter since about 2012. I respect the party’s decision to advocate a second referendum in order to give Britain the opportunity to remain. Since the PM came back with her deal, I’ve put a lot of thought into whether to personally support a second referendum or not and have concluded that as a party we are playing with fire, a fire that will catch to a tinder dry nation and isn’t something we’re going to be able to control. Even if you disagree with …

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Caron Lindsay

Theresa May’s abuse of power is the real threat to an already strained democracy

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 6th January 2019 - 12:15 pm

How dare Theresa May suggest that rejecting her deal is damaging to democracy? How on earth did we get to a place where a Prime Minister  of a minority government pushes the country to the brink, forcing false choice between two unpalatable options that most people don’t want. Two massive polls, of 25000 and 20000 people respectively, for the People’s Vote campaign and Channel 4 suggest that people want to remain in the EU.

Proceeding with Brexit without reference to the people, surely, is much more damaging to democracy. Andrew Marr could have challenged her forcefully on this to her face this morning but yet again he gave her pretty much a free pass.

She needs to be challenged as to why she is pouring billions into no deal preparations, some of them farcical,  for an outcome nobody wants, when she could go back to the people and ask them to mark her homework. It would be cheaper and would put some legitimacy back into the process. It seems she is scared of an outcome which will split her party.

She has every reason to lead on this. She is safe from challenge from her party. She has already said she’s not going to fight the next election. Does she really want her legacy to be driving the country off a cliff? Let’s be clear, her deal damages the economy, makes us all poorer and creates uncertainty. Although she didn’t actually say that she would proceed with no deal when asked to several times by Marr. MPs need to make sure that that option is taken off the table in the coming weeks.

May cannot be allowed to argue that she is defending democracy when all the evidence suggests that both her deal and no deal are unwanted by the majority of people. She needs to be ridiculed for saying that, often and publicly.

Anything less than People’s Vote is an abuse of power by a minority government. That point needs to be driven home by journalists, commentators and MPs. We can’t stand by and just let May get away with this.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s look at some things which are much riskier for democracy than, you know, asking people their opinion on the biggest issue in living memory.

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Judy Abel

It’s time for politicians who campaigned for Brexit to admit they were wrong

By Judy Abel | Fri 4th January 2019 - 1:30 pm

In most walks of life when people make mistakes, they generally have to admit to them, but not in politics it seems. If a press release goes out with the wrong data, a correction is quickly issued; corrections to factual errors are regularly printed in newspapers. But we’ve had no apologies from anyone about the current Brexit shambles.

Well, it’s high time the politicians who led us down the garden path on Brexit owned up to their mistakes. Their claims were false, their facts were wrong and many of their predictions were wildly inaccurate. People are weary of the ‘£350m a week for the NHS on the side of the bus’ example, but it encapsulates all the naïve, jingoistic and unresearched claims made by the Brexiteers. Liam Brexit said that achieving the Brexit deal would be “the easiest thing in human history.” Oh really?

Little concessions to the truth are coming out here and there: for example, last week Michael Gove admitted the ‘grim, inescapable’ reality facing farmers under a no-deal Brexit. But with the Department of Health ordering fridges to stockpile medicines at great expense, and the Department of Transport signing a contract with Seaborne (a sea freight company with no ships) to take goods in and out of ports other than Dover to relieve lorry congestion, it is clear that any so-called ‘Brexit dividend’ is fast disappearing.

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Caron Lindsay

MP slams Government for failure to improve health services for trans people

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 4th January 2019 - 10:25 am

Maria Miller, the Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, has slammed the Government for failing to improve health services for transgender people. And there’s a particular Liberal Democrat dimension to this as senior Liberal Democrats actually helped to collect the evidence on this in the first place.

Ms Miller said yesterday that basic healthcare taken for granted by the general public is “out of reach” for trans people.

From The Independent:

The committee is due to publish a new report on the care of LGBT+ people in the coming weeks but Ms Miller has already warned services are “going backwards quickly” – with trans people among the worst affected.

“Many trans people simply don’t have access to the basic healthcare that the rest of us take for granted – things like cervical smears are often things that trans men are not able to access,” Ms Miller told the Press Association.Theresa May did commit to reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to remove intrusive red tape for those legally changing gender, and launched a £1m LGBT+ health and social care fund in November.

However, Ms Miller said the focus on legal reforms has “eclipsed” efforts to improve trans people’s experiences.

“As a result there has been a debate focusing in on things that really are not as important as making sure that trans people have access to public services, and the debate has been focused in on issues that are much less important to trans people’s lives,” she said.


And that Liberal Democrat dimension? Well, almost three years ago, Ms Miller’s Committee published a report  on transgender equality. A fair bit of the evidence for the health section of that report was gathered thanks to our Sarah Brown and Zoe O’Connell, who asked for it using #transdocfail on Twitter. Zoe wrote about it on her blog in 2013:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Wanted: Brave British politician

By Tom Arms | Fri 4th January 2019 - 8:55 am

Wanted: Brave British politician

Experience: Must be a dyed-in-the-wool Brexiteer, preferably a senior member of Theresa May’s cabinet.

Duties: The person chosen for this demanding and vital role must be willing and able to swallow their pride, admit their error and put the interests of their country before self and party. They must be able to withstand abuse from former colleagues and friends;  even death threats from the public.

They must tell the British public in clear, concise and indisputable language that they were wrong. They must make it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that leaving the European Union was a misguided dream that is turning into a nightmare.  They must say that the Brexit negotiated by Theresa May will reduce the former greatest empire in world history to the status of European colony. Furthermore, that the only alternative being discussed by the British government—a No Deal Brexit—would seriously weaken Britain’s economic and political position in the world as well as threatening the livelihood and standard of living of every inhabitant of the British Isles.

The person eventually chosen for this position must be highly persuasive.  They must be able to convince voters who previously believed them that Britain would be better off outside the European Union that in fact—after more than two years of negotiations—it is painfully obvious that they would have been wiser to vote Remain in 2016.

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Mark Argent

Looking beyond Brexit

By Mark Argent | Thu 3rd January 2019 - 5:45 pm

The sense of things going horribly wrong is likely to get much worse as 2019 gets under way and #BrexitShambles becomes #BrexitFarce.

In the probable chaos of the coming months the country needs us to articulate our hope for the future.

Putting some flesh on those bones, in no particular order:

  • Improve Benefits. Universal Credit could have been a good idea, but under-funding has hit it hard and people are suffering. Improving the funding is a good place to start. We also need to go further. It is a scandal to have people needing to use food banks or losing the roof over their head because of the way the system works. I’ve spoken with people struggling to live on benefits, who voted Leave in the desperate hope that things would improve.
  • Wealth inequality. Back in the autumn, Vince Cable put forward a raft of tax reforms to make the system fairer, especially around inheritance and investment income and pensions. Univeral Basic Income has been on the edge of discussions for a long time. It is time to take it seriously — it can’t be done overnight, but it is time to start the conversation as a way to pick up where we are, and fears around the way in which technology is reshaping the world.
  • Brexit has pushed climate change from the top of the agenda. People have every reason to be worried. That means is that it is high time to turn that worry into action — around renewable energy, carbon capture and storage, nuclear power, zero carbon housing, improved public transport, and more.
  • The Blair government had some good ideas on devolution, with elected regional assemblies and pulling government offices and development to the same boundaries. The imbalances around devolution to Wales, Northern Ireland and particularly to Scotland would look very different if there was meaningful devolution in England.
  • It’s time to talk openly about federalism. Too often it’s a dirty word in British (or at least, English) politics. It’s time to dispatch the myth that it is about centralising power and put the case for doing centrally only what needs to be done there and pushing decisions as close as possible to the people they affect. That applies as much to devolving power from Westminster as it does devolving it from Brussels.
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Why be a Liberal Democrat and an ‘Orange Booker’?

By A Liberal Reform Board Member | Thu 3rd January 2019 - 10:00 am

A recent post in the ‘Why be a Liberal Democrat?’ Christmas competition on LDV had me nodding along in agreement for the first few paragraphs (yes, Labour are hopeless, and despite this our party is in a perilous position), but the nodding stopped at the abrupt veer into advocating for getting rid of ‘Orange Bookers’ in the party.

As a board member of Liberal Reform, which (fairly enough) is regarded as the pressure group for Orange Book fans, I’ve never really understood why some party members are so bothered by us. Though Liberal Reform members tend to be quite supportive of building more homes to lower living costs (and therefore sceptical of anti-development activism), see international trade as something to be encouraged, and take a dim view of attempting to regulate lifestyles (e.g. clamping down on vaping), these views are hardly anathema to liberalism. Nor do they constitute an excessively libertarian take on the role of government. You’ll find our board members advocating for restoring legal aid funding, as well as more ‘traditional’ Liberal Reform topics like taking a more permissive approach to drug policy and using competition to lower prices.

While the author of the post was happy to say he ‘respected’ Orange Bookers, the lurid claim that the book’s contributing authors (Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Susan Kramer, and Ed Davey among others) pursued market-friendly ideas to advance their own careers was an unfortunate slight on many of our current and former parliamentarians. I have no doubt that the Coalition damaged our electoral popularity, but can’t see how the electoral math in 2010 allowed for anything other than entering government with the Conservatives, with many of the policy compromises that came with this.

What matters now is how we position ourselves going forward. Wholesale disowning of our only time in government since WW2 is unlikely to bear fruit, so that leaves promoting what we got right (e.g. the pupil premium, lifting the lowest paid out of tax, and reducing carbon emissions), and crafting new policies on matters like legal aid access and immigration policy where we gave the Tories far too much say over.

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Kirsten Johnson

Paddy’s Dangerous Idea No. 2

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 3rd January 2019 - 8:14 am

Following on from my post last week on Paddy’s Dangerous Idea No. 1, I am delving into his second proposal. Paddy argued:

We have long understood that property owning rights are one of the foundation stones of democracy. Yet each of us gives away our most intimate of property free and daily to the most powerful corporations, who make millions and millions from it. I am talking of course, about our personal data.

Why do we Lib Dems not assert the citizens right to own their own data and to have control over how it is used? Why about proposing a law – perhaps a European one – which says to Messrs Amazon, Google, Starbucks etc, that they can use our personal data for their commercial purposes, but only with our permission and if they give us a share of the profits. Can you think of anything which would more alter the relationship between these masters of the commercial universe and the customers whose information they exploit for such enormous profit? Can you think of anything which would more empower the citizen in the market place? Isn’t that what we Lib Dems are supposed to be about? So?

I really like this idea. Ownership of our own data gives us not only control over who does what with our data but means we can expect to be paid if others use our data, especially if they make money from it. It might seem radical, but it makes a lot of sense.

The arguments over whether we own our bodies and separated bodily material have been extensively debated. If we do own our bodies, shouldn’t our data also be owned by us – isn’t our data inherently who we are?

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Merlene Emerson

We Demand Better for Race Equality

By Merlene Emerson | Wed 2nd January 2019 - 3:46 pm

Last week, the Resolution Foundation found that UK black and ethnic minorities (BAME) lost an estimated £3.2bn a year in pay gap and called for equivalent gender pay gap reporting for BAME workers. There was another report from the Centre for Justice Innovation on how community sentencing has decreased due to the loss of trust between the judges and magistrates and the probation service since the latter was privatised.

It seems like there is report each week of evidence of race discrimination or breakdown of trust between the UK establishment and the ethnic minority communities. …

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David Warren

Coalition blues

By David Warren | Wed 2nd January 2019 - 10:35 am

Back in 2010 after a General Election that left our party with the balance of power in a hung parliament the Liberal Democrats went into coalition with the Conservatives.

Every section of the party overwhelmingly supported this move and after decades out in the cold Liberals were finally back in government.

The circumstances weren’t ideal given the dire economic situation, and for a party that faced the Tories as the main opposition in many areas, it was sure to be difficult electorally over the coming five years.

That said options were limited, Labour were the clear losers, and the parliamentary arithmetic made a deal with them impossible.

A coalition or confidence and supply arrangement with David Cameron’s Conservatives were the only realistic choices.

Liberal Democrats joined the cabinet, became ministers, and an agreement was concluded on legislative priorities.

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Tahir Maher

CCTV – What of Liberty

By Tahir Maher | Wed 2nd January 2019 - 7:30 am

The UK has approximately 1 per cent of the world population and well over 10 per cent of the world’s CCTV cameras. London alone has around 422,000 CCTV cameras, and it is estimated that on an average day an individual, in London, will be captured on a camera at least 30 times. Third in line with the most CCTV cameras is Chicago, with at least 17,000. However, according to a recent report in the Chinese state media, People’s Daily, the city of Beijing now has a CCTV network that covers ‘every corner’ of the city. The total number of cameras is around 470,000. Without any obvious trace of irony, the system’s official name is ‘Sky Net’.

In George Orwell’s novel, 1984 one of the things that the protagonist Winston Smith hated was the surveillance by cameras and how the Thought Police could remotely talk to you. Someone mentioned to me that as he was coming out of Reading Station, about a year ago, someone dropped an empty packet of crisp on the floor, only to be told via a speaker to pick up the litter he discarded that had been spotted by CCTV.

We now learn that Christmas shoppers have had their faces scanned in central London as part of a police trial. The Metropolitan Police says it invited people to take part in testing the technology rather than scanning people covertly. Privacy campaigner Big Brother Watch has described the use of such technology as “authoritarian, dangerous and lawless”.  In a statement, the group said that “monitoring innocent people in public is a breach of fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of speech and assembly”. Investigations by them also revealed that the system at the moment is not fully functioning as it identified a large number of innocent people as potential suspects.

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Caron Lindsay

Highlights of 2018

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 31st December 2018 - 8:15 pm

As you are inclined to do on Hogmanay, I was looking back at the year. 2018 was far from a great year but there were some fantastic moments. Here, in no particular order, are six of mine.

Gabriel in the Commons

 

One of my favourite moments was seeing young Gabriel Hames in the chamber of the House of Commons. Earlier, his mum, Jo Swinson, had taken part in the debate on proxy voting. A few weeks’ earlier, Tory Chairman Brandon Lewis reneged on a pairing arrangement with her on a key Brexit vote that the Government won by a handful of votes.

Jo’s speech was very candid about the realities of working with a young baby:

She also spoke about some of the appalling comments she got on Twitter after that, including the criticism that she had gone to the Trump demo for 45 minutes but couldn’t manage to vote in Parliament, something which would have meant hanging around for 5 hours.

Jo talked about the intricacies of establishing breastfeeding and how you need to concentrate on it during the early days. Her voice cracked with emotion as she talked about the difficulties she had establishing breastfeeding with her first son. I actually cried too as I remembered what it was like to be syringing expressed milk into my baby, 19 years on. She got there, though, with all the support that she needed.

She was also open about the realities of expressing milk several times a day. I think it’s fantastic that she posted a picture of her breast pump on Instagram the other day.

She talked about the need to have proper breastfeeding and expressing facilities for all nursing babies who work on the Parliamentary estate, recognising it was easier for her as she had her own office and control over her diary.

The People’s Vote March

It doesn’t get much better than being amongst 700,000 like minds on a beautiful hot Autumn day. As someone said at the time, marches like this are rarely on the wrong side of history.

It was an amazing atmosphere. Not far off three quarters of a million people peacefully and with great humour, coming together to make their point.

And there’s young Gabriel again.

Radical Kindness

Another highlight was the fringe meeting we held at Conference, trying to inject some kindness and warmth into a horrible atmosphere which developed in the media surrounding  rights of transgender people.

Barely a week goes by without some ill-informed attack on trans people or the charities supporting them. However, in an hour in Brighton, Emma Ritch from the Scottish feminist organisation Engender and James Morton from the Scottish Transgender Alliance talked about how the atmosphere was so much better in Scotland and how feminist and LGBT organisations worked together in an inclusive way. The meeting loved the concept of “radical kindness” which underpinned their dialogue. You can read all about the meeting here. 

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Caron Lindsay

2018 – a year of missed opportunity for the country and the Liberal Democrats

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 31st December 2018 - 6:30 pm

This year was the year when hugely dramatic things should have happened. Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition should have gone. A referendum on the reality of Brexit, with an option to remain, should have been scheduled for early in the New Year and we should be celebrating a new feeling of hope and optimism as our politics changes for the better and starts delivering for the people who are really struggling and who have been let down by successive governments for decades.

Instead this was the year that media and the internet got very excited about Impending Drama, but that drama rarely delivered. Theresa May was supposed to be deposed in every season but she survived the post Chequers and post deal resignations. The greatest irony of the year has to be Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab resigning in protest at a deal he helped to negotiate.

The Liberal Democrats have had some electoral success with decent local election results and a net gain of 18 seats, more than any other party in by-elections. We’ve seen modest increases in our national polling and our leader is often the least unpopular. We would have hoped that as everyone came round to our way of thinking on Brexit, we might have reaped more of a dividend, but there hasn’t really been a national election to test that yet.

We should be doing better, though. We have diverted too much time and energy into developing a supporters’ scheme that we haven’t been able to capitalise on the thing that will get us the supporters and members in the first place – a strong message. We’ve done some good stuff on that with the new Demand Better strapline but we need to take it further. Our campaigns staff have excelled themselves with the Exit from Brexit campaign, too, but our overall story needs a lot more heart and soul in it. Paddy is so much in my thoughts at the moment, and I’m reminded of his very direct “Join us if you want to put an end to poverty and inequality” pitch. That is what we need.

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Lord William Wallace

Tribalism and party splits

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 31st December 2018 - 2:32 pm

Extraordinary circumstances force us to address hard questions. And the situation in British politics at the beginning of 2019 is the most extraordinary I can recall since I joined the Liberal Party 59 years ago. Both major parties are bitterly divided, with some long-term members talking almost openly of leaving for some other group. Neither of their leaders commands popular respect. Normal government has almost ground to a standstill, with ministers and officials overwhelmed by the uncertainties of Brexit. Either or both Labour and the Tories may find MPs, Councillors and activists splitting away.

Which raises, for …

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James Cox

Offer amnesty to end hostile environment

By James Cox | Mon 31st December 2018 - 12:04 pm

The Conservatives finally published their immigration white paper before the Christmas break, setting out their vision of how immigration policy would work after Brexit. 

The Lib Dem response was robust and clear, setting out redlines on scrapping the net migration target, limiting immigration detention and lifting the working ban on asylum seekers to name a few. But our approach to the estimated one million population of illegal migrations living and working in the UK seemed to be lacking a strong, decent and Liberal solution.

Windrush, after Brexit, was the biggest story of

…
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ALDC

ALDC’s New Year resolution – a year of MORE

By ALDC | Mon 31st December 2018 - 10:05 am

At ALDC we’re determined that 2019 is a Year of More:

  • More Liberal Democrat campaigning
  • More Liberal Democrat candidates
  • More Liberal Democrat councillors
  • More Liberal Democrat-run councils

We can only do that with your help. Here are six ideas for your new year’s resolutions:

1. Stand yourself, or recruit a candidate – In 2015 (when the same seats were up) we only stood a Lib Dem candidate in about 40% of vacancies. If we’re going to increase the number of Lib Dems on ballot papers, we need more of our members to stand. There’s help, support and advice in place to guide you through the process on our website.

2. Go and help – If you’re in a target ward for 2019 you’re no doubt already working hard. If you don’t live in a target ward, or don’t have elections in 2019, help a team that does. Go in person, help on the phone, donate your skills or make a donation. We can put you in touch with people who can benefit from your help.

3. Join ALDC  – If you’re serious about winning in May 2019, then our candidates, agents and our core campaign team members all need to join ALDC. They’ll get access to our advice, resources and training to help you win. ALDC members who successfully recommend someone to join us receive a £50 print voucher to spend on campaign materials! 

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Caron Lindsay

How dare we treat our friends and neighbours like this?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th December 2018 - 8:55 am

If you go to the shop and buy an iron, say, you expect it to work and for any manufacturer’s claims or guarantees to stand. You are entering into a contract that can’t be mucked around with. I should emphasise at this point that I would never buy an iron. The quality of my life improved immeasurably when I gave up ironing. But that’s beside the point.

You wouldn’t stand for the manufacturer contacting you a few weeks’ later telling you that you had to pay another £20 for the iron, or reducing the guarantee period.

Yet this is exactly what our government is doing to many people in this country.

Every time I see that Home Office tweet telling the 3 million EU citizens in this country that they will have to apply for settled status, I get angrier.

I am furious that my friends, my next door neighbours, the surgeons who saved my husband’s life two years ago, the nurses who looked after him and comforted him through a terrifying experience, my colleague and so many of my friends’ spouses or children are being put through this.

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John McHugo

The patriotic voice of Remain

By John McHugo | Fri 28th December 2018 - 11:00 am

One of the major difficulties for those the Remain side of the Brexit debate has been how to appeal to the patriotism of many Leave voters who instinctively feel that it is the Brexiters who stand up for Britain. In order to combat this perception, I have drafted the following pro-forma to send to MPs. In this I try to put an argument against Brexit in which patriotism is at the centre of the stage. 

If you like it, and your MP is not already committed to us remaining in the EU, please feel free

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The Voice

New Edition of Ad Lib out

By The Voice | Thu 27th December 2018 - 6:25 pm

The party has revamped its online magazine Ad Lib and you can read the new version, hot off the digital press, here.

It’s jam packed full of stuff – a profile of our candidate in the most marginal seat in the country. Wendy Chamberlain is working to take the seat where sitting SNP MP Stephen Gethins and his wife make up his majority.

There’s an interview with Lucy Salek, our brilliant candidate in the Lewisham by-election and articles from Vince on housing and Tom Brake on Brexit.

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Kirsten Johnson

Championing Freedom of Belief

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 27th December 2018 - 4:25 pm

Jeremy Hunt has ordered a review into the persecution of Christians worldwide. We are fortunate in this country to be able to practice our faiths, or have no faith, whichever the case might be. But in many countries of the world this is not the case. 

Our 2017 General Election manifesto called for the UK to lead on establishing the right to religious freedom around the world:

Appoint an ambassador-level champion for freedom of belief to drive British diplomatic efforts in this field, and campaign for the abolition of

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Tim Caswell

Why be a Liberal Democrat?

By Tim Caswell | Thu 27th December 2018 - 12:30 pm

My family had a century of Labour Party membership between us. I left after three decades, coming home, intellectually, emotionally and ideologically, by joining the Liberal Democratic Party.

After one year’s membership, as a candidate in a marginal ward, and part of the campaign to re-elect our popular Mayor, I am writing this in ancient Rome. A timely reminder that the name, “potholes” dates from when the Anglo Saxons dug up the clay from Roman roads to make cookware and that the history of ideas matters. In particular that England has been divorcing Europe since Henry VIII. In this context, why be a Liberal Democrat?

The first reason is the need to keep the ideas of Liberalism and Democracy alive. Our broken politics and failing democracy make this challenging. But the twentieth century taught us that the twin evils of totalitarian communism and nationalism will lead to barbarism every time that the freedom, tolerance and rule of law inherent in Liberal Democracy are abandoned. The works of Sir Karl Raymond Popper illustrate why.

In The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society And Its Enemies, Popper shows us that when the pseudo-scientific certainty of authoritarian dictatorship defeats liberalism and social democracy, barbarism is inevitable. He also elucidated the ultimate liberal paradox: freedom of thought and speech is sacrosanct but there must be limits on the actions of the enemies of freedom from the left and right.

Second, we are the true children of the enlightenment. Rational, evidence-based policy is already abundant. Taken together with the philosophy above and coupled with a renewal and extension of democracy will offer the best chance of a progressive hegemony in the twenty-first century.

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Kirsten Johnson

Digging deeper into No. 1 of Paddy’s Dangerous Ideas

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 27th December 2018 - 8:19 am

I think the time has come for us to do a lot more with No. 1 of Paddy’s Dangerous Ideas.

We persist in the medieval practice of taking students to medieval ivy-covered buildings, to receive their education in the medieval manner from minds, too many of which, when it comes to delivering education, are stuck in the middle ages. Yet distance learning was pioneered in Britain at the Open University when communicating with your tutor meant stuffing your academic paper in an envelope, licking it, sticking a stamp on it and putting it in the local post-box.

Today the whole planet is into distance learning. Many of our own Universities make tons of money providing distance learning degree courses to students all over the world. But none of them are in Britain! If we were to convert at least part of our tertiary education syllabus to distance learning we might reduce the cost of degrees without diminishing their quality, give students more flexibility, force lecturers into the modern age, widen access and create a superb platform for adult education all at the same time.

Why, beloved Lib Dems, do we allow medieval vested interests to preserve our ivy-covered tertiary education system exactly as it is, loading more and more debt on students and preventing us from doing what much of the rest of the world is doing already? Just asking?

This idea has come back to me in North Devon. A local councillor in South Molton, not realising that it was one of Paddy’s Dangerous Ideas, spoke to me at length about how wonderful the Open University was. How in places like North Devon, where there are no universities, and a real lack of opportunity to advance skills, one can still access the Open University and get a degree. He asked me, how can we build on this model and enable everyone in North Devon to upskill and train?

I am suggesting that one of our best ways of honouring Paddy is to bring some of his Dangerous Ideas into fruition.

Let’s champion life-long learning, as Vince has promoted, by building online learning platforms so that people, whether they live in North Devon or in Shetland, can achieve the same level of accreditation and training as those who live in cities. Let’s put in place 21st-century methods of education, and not be stuck in the medieval model of tutorials and physical lectures.

We have a real opportunity to lead here and I think it is a fantastic opportunity for us. Promoting virtual education is education-for-all, not just those who can take time off for university or afford three years of tuition without working at the same time.

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David Warren

Post-war Liberal leaders in perspective

By David Warren | Wed 26th December 2018 - 6:45 pm

There have been ten leaders of the Liberal Party and its successor the Liberal Democrats since 1945 as follows. I have resisted the temptation to rank them 1 – 10, but my top three are revealed later. The roll of honour is as follows;

Clement Davies 1945 -56

A reluctant leader who led a depleted parliamentary party in a chamber dominated by Labour.  He was credited with keeping organised Liberalism alive during one of our darkest periods.

Jo Grimond 1956 -67

A youthful breath of fresh air who oversaw a mini-revival with famous by-election victories at Torrington and Orpington. Ultimately his vision of a non-socialist progressive alternative to the Conservatives would falter with the return to power of Labour under Harold Wilson.

Jeremy Thorpe 1967 -76

Flamboyant and energetic. At the February 1974, General Election with the country polarised and the powerful miners on strike led the party to an amazing 20% of the vote but only 14 seats due to FPTP. Eventually, scandal affecting his personal life would force his resignation.

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Tahir Maher

Snippets

By Tahir Maher | Wed 26th December 2018 - 12:00 pm

I read an interesting article and came across a YouGov poll, the gist of which I thought would be worth passing on. The first was an article by pollster Peter Kellner in The New European.

Based on an analysis of demographic change, Kellner concludes that the Leave majority will disappear in January 2019. His analysis points out that approximately 600,000 die each year and a further 700,000 reach voting age. Allowing for the fact that most of those passing on are the elderly and who in the main did vote and voted to leave against the young who on the whole voted in the main for remain.

Kellner in his article concludes that because of the demography the leave majority is shrinking by 500,000 a year. As the leave majority was 1,269,501 that means they lose their majority (everything else being equal) by January 2019.

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Caron Lindsay

Merry Christmas, Everyone

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 25th December 2018 - 12:01 am

We hope that wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you are healthy and happy.

We are also thinking of those who have neither. This time of year without someone you love is pretty grim, especially if it is the first time you’ve been on that particular emotional rollercoaster.

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