Category Archives: Op-eds

Let’s scrap external exams

By Ben Andrew | Thu 20th September 2018 - 12:45 pm

When it comes to education policy, we need blue sky thinking. And I think that scrapping external exams would be a fantastic example of this.

Let’s remind ourselves of some of the negative consequences of our exam system:

Stress – Student wellbeing is considered collateral damage. Having yearly exams which have such a huge impact on your life is incredibly stressful, and I doubt that adults would cope any better than teenagers do. We are sacrificing our young people to a system which we know is harming their mental health, but which we

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Why I tried to amend devolution policy -and how I was misrepresented

By Michael Kilpatrick | Wed 19th September 2018 - 6:30 pm

At Autumn Conference I moved an amendment to F8 “Power to People and Communities”. Our amendment, concentrating solely on English regional devolution was opposed not by a rebuttal of its text and my speech but, sadly, by means of mischaracterisation and misrepresentation of what was written and said.

Since attending the Agenda 2020 session at Autumn Conference 2015 and then the East of England Regional Conference (which near-unanimously passed my motion “Fair Devolution for the East of England”) I have proposed additional criteria to the policy of “devolution on demand” – three little words encapsulating a seemingly straightforward and liberal approach but in fact opening a can of worms.

Quoting from my speech: “Civil Servants drawing lines on the map in dark rooms in Whitehall is a dreadful prospect. An entirely locally-led permissive solution, without additional qualification, is equally flawed because it implies self-selective, first-come-first-served devolution. Those first off the blocks will form regions within no framework and with no obligation to consider the ability of other neighboring districts to form viable regions themselves. We can have neither a top-down imposed solution nor an unmanaged, unfettered free-for-all. This is all about process, not about lines on the map. There must be a clear direction and goals: no areas disenfranchised or disadvantaged by the prior actions of others”.

Also posted in News | Tagged 2018 Brighton Conference | 15 Comments

2018 Brighton Conference – Reporting by Journalist

By Cara Jenkinson | Wed 19th September 2018 - 10:30 am

John Crace of the Guardian made a snide comment on Monday – in his piece about Gina Miller’s speech he said we took a “two-and-a-half-hour lunch break. Presumably, because there wasn’t much more business to discuss.”

I couldn’t disagree with him more – and that’s not just because I’m a member of the Federal Conference Committee. Of course, there was plenty to say on Brexit, where Tories and Labour are tearing themselves apart. However, we debated so many other important issues – how we enable people to thrive in a world of rapid technological change, how we address increasing inequality through wealth …

Also posted in News | Tagged 2018 Brighton Conference and conference | 12 Comments

2018 Brighton Conference – Affordable Housing

By Tahir Maher | Wed 19th September 2018 - 7:40 am

This was my second conference as a member of the Federal Conference Committee (FCC). I had just joined FCC for the Spring conference and was really an observer. For the Autumn conference, I was involved from the start. The whole thing was well organised, and the team work well together (you have to give credit where credit is due). There were approximately 2400 members – more or less in line with previous year.

One note of sadness, I learned about, was the passing of Robert Adamson (Chair of the Liberal Democrat Disability Association). My Condolences to the bereaved family. Rest in Peace Robert.

Other than the sad news about Robert I enjoyed the conference. I enjoyed the interaction with the members, late-night meals and the different parts of the conference I was involved in. Outside the hall, I did see a lot of homeless people which I found distressing. Listening to a journalist on the TV talking about the Lib Dems he speculated that our policies need to reflect the concerns people talk about in pubs. One of the examples he gave was affordable housing, interesting he didn’t mention Brexit. I had the opportunity to speak to Gina Miller, we discussed why she had launched her new website “end the chaos”, she said she did this after listening to thousands of people and was surprised to learn that majority of them didn’t even know what Brexit was. The website was set up to provide core facts.

Also posted in News | Tagged 2018 Brighton Conference and affordable housing | 8 Comments

Time for hard headed realism on immigration

By Alex Wilcock | Sat 15th September 2018 - 1:30 pm

Liberal Democrats members have attacked the proposed Migration paper A Fair Deal for Everyone for reasons ranging from fairness, to morality, to family, to economics. But for a political party, it has another fatal flaw. Its well-meaning, wishful-thinking naivety is just terrible politics. It’s time to get politically streetwise with a bit of hard-headed realism. Let’s ask the tough questions, get back to evidence-based policy and demand better.

Meaning Well and Wishing Are Not Enough

I’m sure the people who wrote the paper and its defenders mean well. And I can see how they got themselves into this mess. Two of the deepest Lib Dem instincts might be put simply as ‘Stand up to bullies’ and ‘Why can’t everyone get along?’ And most of the time those go hand in hand. But at times like these, when the country’s split, hate’s on the rise and things seem to be going horribly wrong, cracks can appear between the two. The proposed Migration paper feels upset at how nasty things have got – and I feel the hurt of that too – and wishes, really hard, that everyone would be nice to each other again. ‘Why can’t everyone get along?’ And so it compromises: a bit for immigrants; a bit for people who hate them and want them all gone. But in the real world, wishing doesn’t cut it, and there comes a time when you have to choose standing up to bullies instead of hoping they’ll turn nice if you only half-encourage them.

In thirty years of the Liberal Democrats, there can’t have been many more wince-inducing juxtapositions than one month ago. On August 14th, Lib Dem Leader Vince Cable said unequivocally that, hard as it might be, there was no room for racism in the Lib Dems. On August 15th, Lord William Wallace – a peer I have a lot of time for and usually agree with – gave an apologetic defence of the proposed Migration paper by saying that we have to pander a bit to racists otherwise they won’t vote for us (I paraphrase, but not unfairly).

The proposed Migration paper has the point of view that policy and the British polity should be kinder and gentler, wishing that people were nice, assuming everyone means well deep down and really agrees with us, and if they don’t yet then compromises in good faith will help them agree with us, and if nothing else maybe they’d vote for us after we tell them we agree with them, really, just a bit, and please, please, don’t hurt us. I can empathise. The problem is that the evidence supports none of it. I believe the Lib Dems backing these proposals mean well. But I’m realistic enough to know that not everyone else means well, and that wishing won’t make it so. The fight to make Britain better can be won. But it will take a fight, and if Liberals don’t put up a fight, who will? It won’t be won by acting as if we’re non-combatants who won’t take our own side in a quarrel, saying, ‘If you don’t want immigrants then you have a point’.

I don’t want to take this unduly personally, but when the proposed Migration paper puts forward a well-meaning compromise and I realise, ‘I’m the son of an immigrant and had this proposed Lib Dem policy been around when my parents met I’d never have been born’, it loses its appeal. That’s the trouble with compromising between haters and the people they hate; it always makes things worse for the ones who are already getting all the flak, but never goes far enough to satisfy those who want them gone. The proposed Migration paper proposes as a moderate compromise that I shouldn’t exist. What would I have left to give on the next compromise?

Stop wishing. Look at the evidence. Ask the difficult questions.

Look back ten, twenty, thirty years: the attitudes and policies and hostile environment against immigrants that are now ‘mainstream’ were confined to a few vicious hatemongers like the British National Party and then UKIP. How did we get here?

Has compromising bit by bit to defuse racists worked or encouraged them? Has mainstream politicians talking about ‘valid concerns’ increased harmony? Has fanning flames extinguished them? Has encouraging xenophobia quietened it?

Tagged autumn conference 2018, featured and immigration | 16 Comments

Liberals need to be bold and impatient for reform

By Joyce Onstad | Sat 15th September 2018 - 11:27 am

This Op-Ed is inspired by an article in the latest Economist, A Manifesto for Renewing Liberalism, which caught my eye because the author and I are in agreement that Liberals must be bold and impatient for reform! The only way they will prevail in society, the writer says, is “if their ideas are unmatched for their ability to spread freedom and prosperity”. I could not agree more, my thoughts exactly. Not freedom for some or prosperity for some, but freedom and prosperity for all of society in its diversity.

We as a party, and Liberals at large, have spent a huge amount of our energy in recent years on Identity politics and that was the right thing to do. As a result, we have seen significant gains in reduction of discrimination on the bases of Gender, Sexuality, and to a lesser extent, Race, Religious identity and Disability.

Without completely abandoning identity politics, in order to regain our rightful place in the centre of politics, we must re-focus and now move with renewed vigour to fight for Universal Freedoms and Rights, including Economic Rights, first at home, but also abroad as we are by our nature internationalist. It is good that we have been spearheading the fight to remain close to our neighbours with Brexit and must claim the lead as the party for a People’s Vote, a position that Labour and other pretenders are keen to claim. We must use this to re-launch our universalist agenda on Freedom and Prosperity.

In recent years here at home, Freedom of Speech has increasingly been under threat, and people’s prosperity has been dependent on geography and class. As the writer in the Economist suggests and I concur: “In all sorts of ways, the liberal meritocracy is closed and self-sustaining”. This is true in society as well as in our party. Success at one point brought complacency.

6 Comments

The paper on migration, even amended, is not good enough

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 15th September 2018 - 9:35 am

While there will be lots of chat about Vince’s plans for party reforms, the main controversy on the floor of Conference will be the paper on migration which is being debated on Sunday morning.

It’s a measure of just how controversial it is that there are FIVE amendments.

Even if they all pass, there are still so many structural problems with the paper. I wrote about some of the fundamental problems I have with it over at Liberator and my article is reproduced here with their permission.

It won’t cut it at the hairdresser’s

We should reject timid, half-hearted, apologetic immigration paper

I went to the hairdresser recently. And along with some nice caramel and copper highlights, I was served up some casual racism.

Everyone in there loved Boris’s comments about the burqa and the niqab and laughed along with his deeply offensive metaphors. Just two days after the attack in Westminster I was told that Muslims didn’t really help themselves. I pointed out that men rape and murder women every day of the week, but we never, rightly, say things like “men don’t really help themselves.”

I pointed out how Boris’s comments, playing to the extremist right, were not consequence free. No, it’s not the fact that he’s had a tiny bit of heat from his own party. It’s the fact that every woman of colour, whether she is wearing a hijab or niqab or not, is more likely to be abused on the street as a result.

I think that me taking on the arguments directly and robustly had an effect. At the very least it made them think. I looked them in the eye and told them they were wrong. In a very dignified and civilised way, but with confidence and assurance.

This is not something to be timid about. We have to tackle this sort of prejudice wherever we find it.

That’s why I and others will be doing all we can to ensure that the migration policy paper coming to Conference does not pass.

The motion is an exercise in embarrassed shuffling and mumbling. Every vaguely decent policy (and there are a few) comes with an plaintive “but it’ll save us lots of money” caveat.

It does not compare well with the ideals of the Preamble to our Constitution:

Our responsibility for justice and liberty cannot be confined by national boundaries; we are committed to fight poverty, oppression, hunger, ignorance, disease and aggression wherever they occur and to promote the free movement of ideas, people, goods and services.

There are two particular paragraphs, one in the motion and one in the policy paper, that have become the focal points for criticism.

The first is in the motion.

Our goal should be a positive, liberal consensus on immigration, partly by rebuilding people’s trust in the system, and that this requires us to listen and engage with those who do link pressures on public services and housing to immigration and to reject the argument that merely labels such people as racist.

We should never pander to those who scapegoat immigrants as the cause of problems because they are wrong. We should unequivocally argue about the benefits of immigration and show that the real failure is of successive governments to adequately invest in said public services.

Tagged autumn conference 2018 and migration paper | 10 Comments

It’s not enough to open up the party

By Jim Williams | Fri 14th September 2018 - 8:00 pm

Millions of people know that Britain is heading down the wrong path. Very few know what they can do about it. The Lib Dems have to become home for the despairing liberal millions. It’s now or never.

What’s so wrong with Britain today? Well, we can’t find room for even 3,000 child refugees for starters. We let freeloading multinationals take us for a ride. We’re not doing enough to stop climate change. Millions of families struggle to afford to eat. The young have to earn twice as much as their parents did to afford a house. Women and minorities earn less than white men for the same work.

Focus on this one for a second: the UK is so transphobic that last year a British trans woman was granted asylum in New Zealand. Seriously.

The list goes on and on – and that’s not even to mention Brexit.

Millions of people in the UK today are horrified about exactly these causes. We all know them: our family, our friends, our colleagues.

Take a second to count them – how many do you know? Ten, twenty, more?

Now ask yourself this: how many of them do you think would do something – as small as to sign a petition perhaps – to help tackle any one of those problems listed above?

Fewer, right? But still a good number. Let’s think of these people as liberal activists in the making.

Final question: how many would want to think of themselves as a card carrying Lib Dem? I’m guessing very few

Tagged autumn conference 2018, party reforms, vince's big speech and your liberal britain | 2 Comments

Power for people and communities

By Tim Pickstone | Fri 14th September 2018 - 6:27 pm

I am very pleased to be presenting the policy paper Power for People and Communities at Conference, having chaired the group that developed the paper.

The proposals set out a strong agenda for devolution and localism within England. We are arguing for greater financial autonomy for local authorities, STV in local elections, making it easier to establish Town or Community Councils in urban areas, strengthening the powers of local government over issues from education to health to planning, and also reforming the Social Value Act to encourage the use of public or not-for-profit providers when commissioning local services.

Judging by the amendments submitted, a focus of the debate will be on devolution within England. The paper develops and strengthens existing policy on this since the last major policy debate in 2014. We set out a clear ambition to achieve a comprehensive devolved tier within England, while recognising that the appetite for devolution is different in different areas and we need to take people with us.

Our approach is to enact permissive legislation to empower groups of local authorities to come together to establish devolved governance in their areas. We will proceed by consensus as far as possible, but will not allow one local authority to veto a coherent proposal.

The geographical makeup of the devolved authorities should reflect local opinion. The decision should reflect local views, traditional boundaries and community identification as well as economic units, current council boundaries and travel-to-work areas. In some areas this could be city regions, in others sub-regions or a whole region as one unit.

Tagged aldc, autumn conference 2018, Local government and tim pickstone | 16 Comments

Will party reforms really lead to more democracy?

By James Baillie | Fri 14th September 2018 - 8:55 am

As anyone glancing down the Lib Dem Voice homepage will become rapidly aware, Vince has recently laid out his plans for the future of the Liberal Democrats, and party grandees and official social media accounts are pumping out a slickly coordinated and prepared promotional run of articles and ads. Whether this is remotely appropriate during a consultation on a draft paper, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader – but I wanted in any case to discuss the detail, so let’s cut the rhetoric and talk about the fine print that’s been conspicuously missing from recent articles. Do these proposals actually present a blueprint that will turn the Lib Dems into a much larger “movement for moderates”? And is that what we want to become?

It’s unclear either how the party will validate supporters effectively and efficiently, or how conflicts between member and supporter votes will be balanced if they arise in this two-speed system. The issue of tensions between Federal Policy Committee’s priorities motions and the proposed priority ballots for supporters has likewise been unaddressed, especially if HQ rather than FPC intend to write those ballot papers. A non-MP leader also raises the constitutional problem of how the parliamentary leader is then selected – if members are entirely cut out of selecting our parliamentary leader then we risk a worrying gulf opening between our policy-making members and our policy-delivering MPs. The right to choose our parliamentary leader is not one I think that Lib Dem members will be happy to give up lightly.

Tagged featured, party reforms and vince's big speech | 18 Comments

WATCH: Jo Swinson on cheating pairs, adorable babies and the realities of working and breastfeeding

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 13th September 2018 - 9:30 pm

Here’s Jo Swinson’s speech in the debate on allowing proxy voting for MPs who have had babies.

It was one of the most real and honest speeches I’ve ever heard. Jo talked about her fury when Tory Chairman Brandon Lewis broke their pairing arrangement in July to vote in a key Brexit vote.

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.

Tagged breastfeeding, featured, Jo Swinson and proxy voting | 5 Comments

Where is our tough on the causes of Brexit package?

By Chris Bowers | Thu 13th September 2018 - 8:00 pm

I’m somewhat amazed that the slogan ‘Tough on Brexit, tough on the causes of Brexit’ hasn’t caught on over recent months. It should have done, and we Lib Dems should have appropriated it.

It was a brilliant slogan when deployed by Tony Blair in the early 1990s. Labour was always known as a party that cared about people whose difficult starts in life led to them committing crime, but it was never going to be elected to government unless it showed that it cared about the damage crime inflicts on victims. With one three-second soundbite, Blair dealt with both sides of the issue.

We have rightly been tough on Brexit, and we’re right to say it’s not the solution to the problems many who voted for it hoped for. But even if our ‘exit from Brexit’ campaign is successful, what kind of country is it going to leave us with? We’ll sigh with relief that the Brexit nightmare is over, and wake up to a country that’s even more angry and divided than it is already.

There’s growing evidence that austerity – in which we had a part as coalition partners 2010-15 – was a leading contributor to people’s anger with the EU. OK, so we know the EU wasn’t to blame for most of the ills, but when the industries you’ve grown up with die out, when automation threatens thousands of jobs, when the livelihoods of fishing villages are trashed seemingly by a ‘Common Fisheries Policy’, and when the gap between rich and poor seems to be widening with those dealing in finance and asset trading seen to be doing very well thank you, it’s little wonder people take it out on Britain’s membership of the EU.

That’s why we as a party need to develop a package of policies that will act as a reward or dividend for abandoning Brexit. We can call it our ‘Tough on the causes of Brexit’ policy if we want, but it has to make clear that we have heard the angst and anguish that led to the Brexit vote, and we’re not simply saying patronisingly that it was all a nightmare based on a misreading of the facts.

Tagged autumn conference 2018 and brexit | 20 Comments

Anonymised incident reporting – a way forward for our disciplinary processes

By April Preston | Thu 13th September 2018 - 6:30 pm

Last Spring, I spoke against our party’s disciplinary motion. “Our party aims to be agents of change and we do so by producing progressive policy’, I nervously spluttered, my first ever time speaking in that bright-lit yet mustardy stage-space. So it is a natural progression then, that this Autumn conference I have submitted my first ever amendment. Heart palpitations aside, I am hoping to positively reform the Party’s disciplinary procedures, so that we can take an innovative and user-led approach to tackling the scourge of sexual harassment and assault.

My proposed system, Anonymised Incident Reporting (AIR) maximizes complainant control when reporting or logging an offence, offering victims a variety of ways to anonymously detail what has happened to them or what they have been witness to.

To summarise, AIR allows survivors of sexual assault to securely create encrypted, time-stamped records of their assault, and to only formally hand their report to the party as a full complaint when they’re ready to take action. It encrypts all information on both the complainant and assailant, and offers victims multiple options in how they handle their report and whether to turn it into a formal complaint.

Callisto describes itself as “a non profit organisation that develops tech to combat sexual assault and harassment.”

A year after deciding to report my assault, I ended up finding the process of reporting to be more traumatic than the event itself. Feeling not believed by the people who I thought were there to project me was incredibly destabilizing.

said its creator Jessica Ladd.

An AIR system would allow the party to offer some initial support and advice to anonymous victims both about how they move forward with their report and what other support they can seek.

I, along with others, have developed these ideas along similar lines to the Callisto system used on US college campuses – the technology is now available and using encryption we can give more and better options to survivors. This amendment is nonetheless intentionally open-ended about some of the precise details of the system, in order that we can move towards an AIR system that is well researched and workable for all those concerned. It therefore offers the party scope to see what they are able to adopt, whilst pushing for a radical new approach that puts victims’ agency and their choices at the heart of our disciplinary procedures.

Tagged autumn conference 2018, disciplinary processes, sexual assault and sexual harassment | Leave a comment

Let’s have a proper debate about Vince’s party reforms

By Jennie Rigg | Thu 13th September 2018 - 5:07 pm

The last several days have seen these pages full of unalloyed cheerleading for Vince’s Moderate Movement scheme from the great and the good, and even people who have set up rival parties to our own. We have also been assured repeatedly that these changes will not be imposed on us, that we will have chance to debate them, that we are a democratic party, but here is what I, as a member of Federal Conference Committee, have seen:

– a total lack of communication with the federal committees about this
– all the MPs being brought out to bang the drum for how marvellous these ideas are
– an exponentially larger number of emails to members and supporters alike about this than there were about conference
– a survey which amounted to “do you agree with us that the leader’s ideas are marvellous, or do you want to doom the party forever?”
– insinuations that anyone who so much as raises a question about the proposed reforms is a saboteur, or not behind the leader

Here is what I have not seen:
– any meaningful attempt to engage with the existing party structures
– any meaningful attempt to consult with members
– any meaningful attempt to listen to anything existing members have to say.

Tagged featured, party reforms and vince's big speech | 47 Comments

Vince is right: we must revisit our rules

By Kishan Devani | Thu 13th September 2018 - 3:30 pm

Vince is most definitely right: our party’s 12-month rule is arbitrary and should be removed. The randomness of such a timescale before a member can stand as a candidate for MP, mayor or the GLA is exposed by the fact that Scotland’s rule is only nine months. It also makes new members feel unwelcome, their commitment automatically doubted.

I hope no-one would doubt my loyalty or my passion for our party, which is my natural home. Since joining the Lib Dems in December I have campaigned and spoken at innumerable associations across the length and breadth of London, helped out in St Albans and have been asked to speak and assist in Cheltenham, Leeds and Stratford-upon-Avon. I have probably met more Lib Dems than many lifelong members.

Someone like myself, who has campaigned at grassroot level for months for the London local elections, who stood for council within six months of joining the party, should also have the opportunity to stand as an MP, London mayor or the GLA.

Yet the 12-month rule says, in effect, that I do not know the party well enough to do so. If that is the case, why has the party appointed me as Vice-President of the Liberal Democrats Campaign for Racial Equality or elected me Vice-Chairman of Lib Dems in Business? Or Mike German sought me out to be the Treasurer’s envoy?

Tagged candidate selection rules and party policy | 20 Comments

Tim Farron MP writes…Vision before vanity

By Tim Farron MP | Thu 13th September 2018 - 1:15 pm

Former leaders probably shouldn’t write articles in the run up to a party conference, but here goes…

Let’s start by turning the clock back eleven years. In September 2007 we arrived at our conference in Brighton with Ming Campbell as leader, expecting an early election.

Gordon Brown had just succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister without a fight.

Actually, there had been quite a fight as the Blair / Brown psycho drama had played out over the course of a fractious decade in Downing Street. But there had been no electoral contest as Gordon took the top job. David Miliband had bottled it, and John McDonnell had tried and failed to get enough signatures to get on the ballot paper.

Perhaps this one horse race struck many in Labour as not being terribly healthy and whilst they might not have sympathised with McDonnell’s hard-left views, they felt – on reflection – that it would have been better if he had got enough signatures to ensure that Brown had to experience some democracy before stepping into Tony’s shoes.

I suspect that McDonnell’s experience led to many Labour moderates choosing to sign the nomination forms of Diane Abbott in 2010, and of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015… A word to the wise: never back someone if you don’t want them to win.

Whatever we Liberal Democrats might have said at the time about his lack of democratic legitimacy, there really wasn’t an enormous clamour for Brown to seek his own mandate having taken on the role a few months earlier. After all in 2005 Blair and Brown had very much been presented as a joint ticket.

Nevertheless, Labour looked good in the polls. They were ten points ahead of a fairly wobbly looking Cameron and Osborne (who looked like a kind of very wealthy, poor-man’s Blair and Brown, if you see what I mean…). Brown fancied his chances of crushing the Tories and so the weather was set fair for an October 2007 election. Westmorland and Lonsdale Liberal Democrats had 40,000 flying start leaflets printed, 25,000 target letters stuffed and a thousand poster boards pasted up ready…

But – two weeks after our conference – on the same day that the England Rugby Union team surprisingly defeated Australia in the 2007 World Cup semi-final, Gordon Brown delivered his own surprise. He backed down, there would be no early election. A decision that trashed his reputation and ultimately led to his defeat in 2010… and to the formation of the coalition.

Gordon’s decision to march his troops back down the hill was to make a difference to the Liberal Democrats in 2010, but it also affected us there and then in 2007.

Ming Campbell had taken on the mantle of leading the party in the sad turmoil after Charles Kennedy’s resignation in early 2006. Ming chose to step down following Gordon Brown’s announcement that there was no longer the prospect of an early election. Ming gave immense service to the party by putting his own ambition to one side in the party’s interest.

In the Autumn of 2007, the party needed an Acting Leader to take the helm. Up danced our Deputy Leader Vince Cable. Having been PPS to Ming, I became Acting PPS to the Acting Leader – I was the lowest of the low! But I got to see first hand the cross-party respect that Vince built, not only for his deft handling of PMQs (who could forget his observation that Gordon Brown had transformed from Stalin to Mr Bean?) but also for his integrity.

Fast forward eleven years, and as we gather again in Brighton this September, Vince is back at the helm of the party, and has shown the same selfless strength that Ming showed in 2007.

As we approach the third decade of the 21^st century, the structures of all political parties are still locked into the Victorian model. Reform is greatly needed. Not everyone will agree with the proposals that Vince has put forward for reform, but the fact that he has put the cat among the pigeons and opened up the debate should be seen as visionary and vital.

Tagged featured, party reform, tim farron and vince's big speech | 27 Comments

This Weekend You Can Help Stop the Climate Emergency

By Alex Meredith | Thu 13th September 2018 - 12:00 pm

I’ll admit it, I do not always come to conference fully prepared. Well, to be honest, I’m often reading the motions or amendments for the first time in the hall. As a result I have sat in debates and wondered “why has Y been carved out” or “why hasn’t this great idea been extended to X” and occasionally “how on earth has line Z made it in”!

I know I am not the only one –speakers in debates often raise everything from minor tweaks to wholly new directions in policy in their speeches and interventions, only for a summation speech to respond with the reproving reminder “some good points have been made and we would have liked to have considered them at the consultation stage but alas they were not raised…..”

Well conference-goers, do not spend your weekend being (as I have) a disappointed would-be policy tweaker. Bring your ideas to the Consultative Sessions!

In particular, as a member of the snappily-titled Climate Change and Low-Carbon Economy Policy Working Group I want to urge you to come and spend your Saturday lunchtime in our clean, green company.

The Working Group has produced an initial consultation paper, but detailed policy formulation is still at an early stage so your thoughts, ideas and inspiration on this cornerstone of Lib Dem policy would be very welcome. We put forward some excellent policies in the 2017 manifesto that have been developed recently by the Vision for Britain: Clean, Green and Carbon Free report. Our task as a Working Group is to build on this strong base.

Also posted in Conference | Tagged climate change, green economy, green policy and renewable energy | Leave a comment

My view on our conference motion to end discrimination in mental health care

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 13th September 2018 - 8:09 am

The problem with conference is that it is impossible to get to everything! I was hoping to speak on Sunday morning in our debate on the policy motion entitled, “Ending Discrimination In Mental Health Provision”. Regular readers of LDV know that mental health policy is an area I feel strongly about, so I am gutted I can’t get there due to a conflict.

So I’ll blog my speech instead…

Currently, in our country if you are someone without a mental disorder you have an absolute right to refuse medical treatment or refuse to be detained for medical purposes.

However, if you have a mental disorder or have learning difficulties you lose that right and can be detained and treated under the Mental Health Act 1983 without giving consent.

As the charity Mind has pointed out, anyone with capacity who does not have a mental disorder should not be involuntarily detained. Forcibly detaining someone based on disability is completely discriminatory and should be stopped. As this motion says in lines 17-18, such detentions are in breach of the UN Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities.

I am particularly concerned that the Mental Health Act 1983, as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007, justifies the involuntary detention of those with learning difficulties whose behaviour is “abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible”. Behaviours in those with learning difficulties often have unrelated causes (sensory overload, for example), so understanding the cause of such behaviour, and treating the underlying symptoms is what is needed, not involuntary detention.

Also posted in Conference | Tagged mental capacity act, mental health and mental health act 1983 | Leave a comment

We need to seize our opportunities as they arise

By Sarah Olney | Wed 12th September 2018 - 7:37 pm

I was taken aback when Ed Davey, a former Cabinet minister no less, suggested I should consider running for Parliament.

It was October 2015 and I had only been a member of the Liberal Democrats for five months. I’d joined after the General Election because I was so dismayed that Cameron’s Conservatives had won a majority. I was keen to do whatever I could to help the Lib Dems locally and cheerfully took on leaflet rounds and canvassed for a local by-election. I had never remotely considered being an MP.

As we got talking further during a curry night in Kingston, I realised that there was, in fact, no better time for someone like me to stand. The party needed to rebuild and present a new face to the country, and as one of the many thousands who joined in the 18 months after the 2015 election, I could be one of those new faces.

I received prospective parliamentary candidate approval the following month. It was unusual at that time for people to be approved after such a short time in the party, but selections were coming up for the GLA elections. In the event, there were only two candidates for the South West London constituency seat – if I hadn’t been approved in November, it would have been an uncontested selection.

Tagged candidate approval | 17 Comments

You’re the Lib Dem Chief Exec – what three things would you do first?

By Elaine Bagshaw | Wed 12th September 2018 - 2:00 pm

When I joined the Liberal Democrat ExpandTeam as Honorary President in August I said I was “looking forward to bringing together people and groups that want to make it easier for members to get involved and give them a great experience when they do”. At our workshop, on 1 September that’s exactly what we began doing. We invited a small group of Lib Dems from our network to discuss Liberal Democrat Expand’s work and to ask the big questions about how we can all do something to improve member experience in the party.

We began by looking at some of the sources of inspiration for Lib Dem Expand, which launched in 2016 following a strong set of local election results in certain areas. The question then was: how do we replicate this across the country? What is it that makes certain seats thrive, and what can we do to transplant that into other areas?

The 50 State Strategy of Governor Howard Dean was the inspiration then. This committed the Democrats to invest in training and development across the country. And since then, new models have emerged: from Ship Creek in Alaska (read more here) to Onward Together (the video is recommended watching!).

Also posted in News | 6 Comments

Coalition Years – The Good, The Bad and What of the Future

By Tahir Maher | Wed 12th September 2018 - 10:25 am

I wanted to do an article on the coalition years by looking at what we did well, what we could have done better and the consequence post-coalition. I want to make it clear that I was not in favour of an alliance with the Tories and would have preferred to have supported the Tories on a case-by-case basis (a bit like the DUP) with the main proviso that we get PR (and not a billion pounds) first before offering support. I would not have advocated joining the government because it’s difficult to critically question your partner in government and take credit for your policies. I wouldn’t quite go as far as holding up furry handcuffs as Linda did (I believe) in Birmingham but I felt it was a mistake to go into coalition with the Tories simply because they cannot be trusted.

Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers and other senior ministry proved their high calibre in government. They did a great job and were easily equal to any Tory minister. Our party brought forward some excellent initiatives that have benefited this country: the Green bank, pupil premium, increased support for mental health patients, same-sex marriage legislation and reducing the threshold where you start to pay tax to name but a few achievements.

Thirteen years of Labour government marginally increased pensions whereas we, led by Steve Webb, introduced the triple lock on the state pension. In the five years we were in government we built more homes than labour had done in the last thirteen years. Other achievements can be seen in an article written for LDV by Robin Bennett dated Friday 19th May 2017: https://www.libdemvoice.org/achievements-of-the-libdems-in-coalition-20102015-54382.htm

Also posted in News | Tagged coaliiton | 74 Comments

A Movement for Liberal Change

By Gordon Lishman | Wed 12th September 2018 - 7:22 am

One of the most common responses to Vince Cable’s suggestions about “creating a movement” and “supporters” has been to focus on the army of people who already help us locally with leaflet delivery, cake-baking, fund-raising and loyal votes. I support the idea that those links should be greater and that we should involve supporters in the national party rather than just backing a local candidate or two. However, Vince’s ideas go a great deal further.

He quotes from the resolution on strategy agreed at our Southport Conference in March. That commits us “To create a political and social movement which encourages people to take and use power in their own lives and communities at every level of society”. When I wrote those words, they were connected to two other commitments:

“Developing a mass campaigning movement both within and outside the party that is of a scale and effectiveness to match the scale of our ambitions, which supports both elections and issue-led campaigns;

Run issue-led local and national campaigns to help create a liberal society and secure immediate change though harnessing pressure from outside the political system with our own power within it”.

Also posted in News | 26 Comments

Vince’s brave reforms: To fix our broken politics we need a fresh approach, not simply a new party

By Adam Knight | Tue 11th September 2018 - 1:30 pm

It is clear to everybody that our political system is increasingly out of step with the real world and that the status quo is failing to deliver a fair deal for millions of people. Our country is not grasping the challenges and new opportunities of today’s changing society, with too many rightly feeling let-down, unrepresented and powerless.

Despite the very obvious and formidable challenges, I was backing the formation of a new political party from outside Westminster in the hope that an alternative could turn the tide against a worsening, divisive and toxic national debate and focus instead on solving the very real problems in our communities and for our country – rather than fighting pointless internal battles, each other and Brussels. But it is in my experience over the past year, and by listening to the many people I have met on that journey, that I now believe a new party and the false promise of strong leadership just risks perpetuating the very same broken politics that we have today.

Tagged party reform and vince's big speech | 18 Comments

Liberal Democrats need to reform

By Ed Davey | Tue 11th September 2018 - 8:30 am

A central tenet of Liberalism is trust in the people. That’s why reforming our party must be built on greater trust in our members and supporters. And why for me this new reform process must itself be open and belong to the members.

The most exciting change to our party in the last 3 years has been the increase in members.

In Kingston, people who’ve joined us since the 2015 General Election have been key to our revival: from getting the fantastic Sarah Olney elected in North Kingston to our best ever Kingston Borough Council results this May – with a dozen “newbies” now councillors.

Tagged featured | 25 Comments

Jo Swinson: Why I’m voting for our bold new immigration policy

By Jo Swinson MP | Mon 10th September 2018 - 5:15 pm

Over the past few weeks, the debate on our immigration policy has unfolded on these pages and elsewhere. I’ve read with interest the arguments on both sides, and now I’d like to take this opportunity to explain why I’ll be supporting that motion in Brighton on Sunday.

Before delving into the detail of the policy, it’s worth considering the big picture, and the recent troubling developments that form the backdrop to this debate.

Look across Europe, where anti-immigration populists have risen to government in Italy, Poland and Austria. Hungarian nationalist Viktor Orbán won another landslide victory in April; his ally …

Tagged autumn conference 2018, immigration and Jo Swinson | 55 Comments

Payday politicians, please!

By Alison Eden | Mon 10th September 2018 - 3:05 pm

If you haven’t been in this situation, you do not know at all what it feels like for your four walls to start crashing in on you, the poignancy of your little girl, leaving her pocket money on your desk because she wants to help and heard you crying in the night over the bills. People who have not ever had to picture for themselves the reality of no money, no job, no home, cannot easily appreciate the paralyzing terror, the feeling of time and hope slipping through the cracks leaving you trying not to vomit as you brightly slap …

Tagged candidate selection and diversity | 21 Comments

So farewell then Sunday Politics…

By Ruth Bright | Mon 10th September 2018 - 12:45 pm

Way back in the early eighties there was a sitcom called “Butterflies” where the mum was lampooned for her terrible cooking and all round failure as a homemaker. I pride myself in being the 21st century version of that mum. I drown noodles, explode baked beans in the microwave, incinerate duck and pancakes (even though Mr Marks and Mr Spencer provide simple instructions) and the hoover gathers more dust than it picks up.

And yet, despite it all I know I am a reasonably ok parent because I have at least managed to impart to my children an interest in politics.

Most …

Tagged nostalgia and sunday politics | 6 Comments

Scottish Lib Dems back strategy for Adult ADHD

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 9th September 2018 - 7:33 pm

Yesterday, the Scottish Liberal Democrats passed a comprehensive motion calling on the Government to produce a detailed strategy to deal with undiagnosed and untreated ADHD in adults and to ensure that health professionals and those working within the justice system are trained in the diagnosis and management of ADHD.

I summated the motion. My son was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year. We are fortunate to live in the only part of Scotland where there is a clinic for adults with ADHD and we are currently on the journey of finding out …

Tagged adhd, ross stalker and scottish autumn conference 2018 | 3 Comments

Votes 4 Life

By Liberal Democrats in Europe | Sun 9th September 2018 - 3:10 pm

3,000,000 – that is the estimated number of UK citizens who currently have no right to vote in UK parliamentary elections, despite the fact that decisions made in Westminster affect their lives in their countries of residence. Currently, only those UK citizens who have lived abroad for less than 15 years are entitled to vote at their last place of residence. At the last General Election, our manifesto supported the claim to a “Vote for Life”, as did the Conservative one, but the government announced no legislation in the Queen’s Speech. Fortunately, Conservative MP Glyn Davies introduced a private members …

Tagged overseas voters and voting reform | 8 Comments

Vince: Lib Dems are about openness, equality, civil liberties and protecting democracy and environment

By The Voice | Sun 9th September 2018 - 2:00 pm

Much has been written about Vince’s proposed reforms to our party. However, we thought it might be worth fishing out that bit of his speech where he talked about our values and where he set out what he wants to achieve as leader:

I used the break to give some thought as to the role my party should be playing in the British political system.

The country is bitterly divided over Brexit and the politics of the main parties leaves millions of voters, broadly those in the ‘centre ground’, feeling ignored while they get on with their internal civil wars.

And little attention is being paid to some of the big long-term challenges around climate change, an ageing population, new technologies and stagnant productivity.

To be sure, the sense of political malaise is not unique to the UK. Ever since the global financial crisis, frustration over the failure of market economies to deliver rising living standards, and a sense of unfair rewards, has fed the politics of extremism. Parties in the liberal and social democratic traditions have struggled.

Liberal democracy itself is under threat notably in the USA, in Eastern Europe and perhaps here. Authoritarians and extremists of both right and left are on the march and are coordinating their tactics and propaganda: an Illiberal International.

The problem is obviously not the same everywhere and in some countries – France, Canada, Ireland – there are encouraging counter-currents and we need to learn from them.
But in Britain there is the additional problem of a first-past-the-post voting system which entrenches the position of the two established major parties.

This system has worked after a fashion when politicians aimed for common ground. But when, as now, the main parties are driven by their party fringes, politics become dangerously polarised.

And when democracy also seems unable to deliver, the frustration opens up a space for various forms of ugly populism. The summer of 2018 offered us verbal attacks on Muslims and Jews as the staple of political debate. And, of course, wall to wall Brexit.

It is a worrying picture. So, as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, I have naturally asked myself how I, and my party, can help protect, and develop liberal democracy in Britain, at a time when it is in grave danger. Perhaps the gravest since the 1930s.

I see two big steps we need to take:

Tagged vince cable and vince's big speech | 12 Comments

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