Category Archives: Op-eds

John Marriott

The Thorpe Affair – What if?

By John Marriott | Sun 17th June 2018 - 8:55 am

I am one of those with a fascination for history, who sometimes indulge in the practice of ‘What if?’. Some of you may know what I mean; but, if not, here are a few examples. Let’s start with 1066. What if King Harald had actually defeated Duke William of Normandy at the battle of Hastings? Scroll forward some eight hundred years and ask yourself what if President Abraham Lincoln had not attended Ford’s Theatre on that fateful night in April 1865? What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s driver hadn’t taken a detour in Sarajevo in June 1914 or what if Adolf Hitler hadn’t shortened his speech at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich in November 1939 and left early? And finally, more recently and perhaps nearer to home, what if Nick Clegg hadn’t accepted David Cameron’s ‘generous offer’ in May 2010? I’m sure you get the idea.

So, you might say, what has this got to do with Jeremy Thorpe and the Liberal Party? Well, what if, following a massive surge in support (around 20% of the popular vote) which, thanks to FPTP, resulted in only a derisory 14 MPs, he had managed to win over his colleagues and the party grassroots and accept the offer of Ted Heath to join a coalition government following the ‘Who governs Britain’ general election of February 1974?

The ‘baby boomers’ will surely remember the early 1970s, which started out with Heath’s surprise victory in the ‘70 General Election, when his government embarked upon a race for growth with the infamous ‘Barber Boom’, that, despite the inflation it eventually unleashed, especially in the housing market, appeared to many, even up to the summer of 1973, to be bearing fruit in economic terms, despite storm clouds on the horizon.

What really derailed the ‘project’, besides the Heath government’s inability to deal effectively with Trades Union militancy and ineffective management, was the OPEC oil embargo following the Yom Kippur War between the Arab states and Israel in October 1973 which saw oil prices quadruple in a matter of months, thus presenting unions such as the NUM with an open goal. Just to think that, only a few years earlier, the Economic Minister of the booming West German economy, Karl Schiller, had confidently claimed that “the future belongs to oil”.

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The Voice

Christine Jardine: Make medical cannabis available for all who need it

By The Voice | Sat 16th June 2018 - 9:00 pm

The Home Secretary should make medicinal cannabis available to all who need it, says Christine Jardine, after Sajid Javid granted an emergency licence for Billy Caldwell to be treated with the drug. His supply had been confiscated by customs earlier this week.

Christine is supporting her constituentKaren Gray, whose son Murray has Epilepsy and needs the drug to control his seizures:

Sajid Javid has done the right thing for a young boy enduring unimaginable pain.

These treatments can have enormous benefits for patients like Billy Caldwell and my constituent Murray Gray.

The Home Secretary should now take common sense steps to ensure

…

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: British shambles

By Tom Arms | Fri 15th June 2018 - 8:55 am

What a shambles! Theresa May is clinging onto the north face of the parliamentary Eiger by her finger nails while Remainers bay for her blood on one slope and Brexiteers on the other.

The only thing keeping the prime minister on her increasingly precarious perch are behind-doors conflicting promises that must be kept secret because if they leaked Mrs May, the government, the conservative party and Brexit negotiations would tumble.

The Labour opposition, meanwhile can’t decide whether to oppose or join the government, and is, if anything, more divided than the Conservatives. Anti-European Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn instructed his MPs to abstain in key amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill—the essential piece of legislation needed to take Britain out of the EU.

In an unprecedented party revolt, six members of Corbyn’s front bench resigned to vote their conscience and a total of 90 Labour MPs ignored their leader’s instructions. Rebel Hilary Benn said: “There comes a point when we have to stand up and be counted.”

Then there is the Scottish National Party. Parliament allowed only 15 minutes to debate the government’s plans to take control from Brussels of legislation related to Scottish fisheries and environment  instead of devolving them back to the Scottish Parliament. The SNP leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, was expelled for refusing to sit down and shut up. The other 55 SNP members of parliament walked out with him and a ton of grist was poured into the Scottish independence mill.

Why is there such a chaos in the Mother of Parliaments? Is it because of Mrs May’s paper-thin majority? Is it because of Corbyn’s spinelessness on the overarching issue of Brexit?

No. It is because the Brexit policy is built on a false premise. It is a sandcastle built in a thunderstorm by political figures wearing nostalgia-tinted spectacles.

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Caron Lindsay

Alistair Carmichael: Voting for what the SNP wanted would have left Scotland weaker

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th June 2018 - 7:21 pm

There’s been a lot of ill-informed nonsense on social media about the way the Liberal Democrats voted, or in fact didn’t vote, on devolution in the Commons the other night. I was going to write a post to explain it all but then found I didn’t have to, because Alistair Carmichael had done it for me, and better.

What I think was the problem is that we didn’t really get our story out in good enough time and allowed the SNP to put it about that we had somehow not stood up for Scotland. We need to learn from this and explain it all beforehand.

Actually, and unsurprisingly, the situation is very different. As Alistair explains here, if we’d voted the way the SNP wanted and had won that vote, we’d have gone back to the original clause of the Bill, which was awful because it would have repatriated all the EU powers to Westminster to be doled out from there. No thanks.

So, Alistair now takes us through what happened and comments on the extraordinary PMQs session yesterday.

There was a single motion voted on which was a government motion to agree with an amendment from the House of Lords (apologies some jargon is unavoidable here but I shall try to keep it to a minimum). This amendment related to the inclusion of a new clause in the bill dealing with the transfer of powers coming back from Brussels post-Brexit. I was not going to support that motion as there is not yet any agreement between the Scottish and UK Governments – the reason why Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament quite rightly voted against granting the legislative consent motion for the Bill.

At the same time, however, the Welsh Government HAVE reached agreement with the UK Government and that is what is now contained in the bill. If it is wrong to vote against the Scottish Parliament’s view then surely it is wrong to vote against the view of the Welsh Assembly. There was an amendment to the government motion from the Labour Party on the order paper that reflected the true position and it was originally my wish to vote for that. Unfortunately, however, that amendment was not put to the vote so, in the circumstances described, an abstention seemed like the appropriate thing to do. In this view we were joined by the Labour Party.

One further consideration. It may not have been what they intended but the actual effect of the SNP vote (if successful) would have been to restore the Bill to the position that it was in when it left the Commons – a much weaker position for Scotland than the one that the Bill currently provides!

There are serious points at issue here :

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Kirsten Johnson

Parity of esteem for mental health – petition to change Health and Safety legislation

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 14th June 2018 - 12:30 pm

Back in 2016 I wrote a blog explaining my efforts to raise awareness of mental health first aid which led to an Early Day Motion being submitted by Norman Lamb MP.

There is now a further campaign led by MHFA England to change health and safety legislation so that there is parity of esteem between mental and physical first aid. Where’s Your Head At? is calling for every workplace to provide Mental Health First Aid as well as physical first aid.

The call is simple:

By law, all workplaces, schools and colleges must make provision around physical first aid. Why not the same for mental health?

Mental health issues including stress, anxiety and depression are the biggest cause of sickness absence in our society. Mental Health First Aid courses teach people to spot the signs of mental health issues, offer initial help and guide a person towards support. When support and treatment is accessed early, people recover faster and have better outcomes for their health.

Training people in mental health awareness and skills also helps to build an open and supportive culture around mental health. This can stop preventable health issues arising in the first place, and empower people with mental health issues to thrive in work.

We believe that mental and physical health should be treated equally – because we all have mental health. Let’s change the law to reflect this.

Besides the profound benefit this will have to those suffering mental ill-health but remaining unsupported and undiagnosed, changing this legislation will also save businesses an estimated £35 billion per year.

Please consider signing the petition. It can be found here.

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Caron Lindsay

SNP stunt kills off chance of devolution debate

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 13th June 2018 - 9:42 pm

Well, I suppose a bit of drama at PMQs brightens up the day, but what exactly was the point of the SNP’s mass walkout and their leader depriving himself of a vote as one of the most crucial pieces of legislation ever to go through the Commons. Not only that, but he had an application in for an emergency debate on the devolution related issues that everyone except the Scottish Tories are livid about. That fell because he was no longer allowed to be there. Presumably the SNP decided that a walkout would get them more attention on the news than a 3 hour debate. It did, but when this news cycle is over, what have they actually achieved? The square root of bugger all, to be honest.

At the heart of all the fuss is the issue of what happens to powers that were enacted by the EU when/if we leave. There is no agreement between the two governments about what should come to Westminster and what should come to Holyrood. The Scottish people don’t seem to give two hoots either way, to be honest. However, the Scottish Parliament voted by a large majority (everyone except the Tories) for the Scottish Government’s Continuity Bill rather than give consent to the EU Withdrawal Bill. This means that the two Governments are not in agreement and the Tories think that the way to resolve that is for Westminster just to dictate what happens. That is simply not acceptable.

However, there isn’t likely to be a settlement that satisfies the SNP. Their prime motivation is to drive as many wedges as they can between the two Parliaments. The clue is in their name. Everything they do is about trying to get independence.

So today, Ian Blackford, the SNP leader, had a justified go at May at PMQs and then pulled one of the biggest diversionary Parliamentary stunts in the book – moving a procedural motion for Parliament to sit in private. That would have meant that the public galleries would have been emptied and that the broadcast would have been stopped, but only if MPs had voted for it. Speaker John Bercow decided to flambe the situation rather than calm it down. He was all over the place on the procedure. First of all he said that the vote should happen straight away. Then he said he was minded to have it at the end of PMQs. Then he gave the SNP a choice. They all said they wanted it there and then and he insisted it would happen later. If he had just held the vote in the middle of PMQs, the SNP would have lost it and normal service would have been restored. Instead, Bercow went over the top and threw Blackford out. I know I’m always saying that Bercow should be throwing people out, but not like this. I meant the people who jeer and behave like toddlers.

The result was that Bercow’s dithering gave the SNP much bigger headlines than they were expecting. The Speaker isn’t usually so ignorant of procedure. You might be forgiven for thinking that he knew exactly what he was doing. He certainly seemed quite chuffed with himself.

But this excitement will die down. And we’ll be no further forward.

Tim Farron has form for this sort of stuff and he thought they’d made a mistake:

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Tahir Maher

Artificial Intelligence and Liberty

By Tahir Maher | Wed 13th June 2018 - 2:30 pm

Last year a computer program used by a US court for risk assessment was biased against African/Caribbean prisoners. The program was much more prone to label these defendants to re-offend.  Again in 2016 Microsoft released its Chatbot Tay in Twitter to engage in conversation.  In less than a day Chatboy Tay began uttering racist and sexist comments. Facebook last year experimented by allowing two AIs to interact freely. They had to shut them down as they very quickly developed their own version of the English language.

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is coming. We are moving from automation to intelligent application to eventually super intelligent A.I. There seems to be no clear plan or any real risk assessment of super-intelligent A.I. and how we will, in the long run, interact with such A.I.

Computers will not become biased on their own. They will learn from us. Up to now, computer science algorithms have focused on machine learning, often having programs performing work we would do, collecting and analysing data, identifying patterns and automating processes. However, as A.I. is built by human beings who have implicit biases, even if you could design an A.I. algorithm to be entirely agnostic for a race, gender, and religion, they will, through interaction, learn from our experience and the world we live in.

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Tahir Maher

Interview with the new Chair of FCC – Geoff Payne – Part 3 of 3

By Tahir Maher | Wed 13th June 2018 - 12:30 pm

 

Do we need to have more radical fringe meetings – i.e. Invite more thought provoking / radical guests to fringe meetings;

Yes! I would love to see more radical fringe meetings.  Without wishing to be seen to cop out though, I should add that FCC is not directly responsible for running the fringe.  We make the rooms available and promote the opportunities to book but we are dependent on party members and other bodies coming forward with radical ideas.  I would like to see more fringe meetings focussed around controversial items on the agenda.

 

Do you feel the different number and variety of …

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Tahir Maher

Interview with the new Chair of FCC – Geoff Payne – Part 2 of 3

By Tahir Maher | Wed 13th June 2018 - 10:25 am

Geoff Payne

Repeatedly I hear from members that they want more policy motions to be discussed at the conference and to hear directly from more of the senior figures in the party

Given that we only have a finite amount of agenda time, there can be a tension between those two things!  I agree that those are the priorities of many of our members though.  People do enjoy speeches from spokespeople but they also attend to debate policy.  I am committed to wringing as many minutes as we can from the agenda.  That said, there are other important aspects of a conference such as the fringe and training.  The challenge we have is to balance the competing demands of them all

What will you do to encourage more AO’s and SAO’s to be at the party conferences especially as a lot of them are tight for funds

I completely understand the pressure on funds having chaired an SAO.  When I was Vice-Chair of FCC, I developed an agreement with many party bodies to enable more of them to take advantage of the concessionary party body rate for the exhibition and fringe.  We are going to continue that and are always interesting in hearing ideas about how we can make the experience better for them.  Many of them hold their Annual General Meetings at the conference and I really want to encourage that.  SAOs and AOs are part of the lifeblood of the party and they belong at the conference.

Do you have any plans to assist new members or members who have not attend a conference to attend?

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Kevin Lang

Obituary: George Grubb: The epitome of all that is best about the party

By Kevin Lang | Wed 13th June 2018 - 8:55 am

It is often said, rightly, that the Liberal Democrats are like a family. We share good times and bad. We sometimes quarrel and we frequently spend more time around each other than is healthy. It also means that, when we lose one of us, we feel it as intensely as losing a close relative.

That’s certainly how I and other Liberal Democrats feel at the loss of George Grubb. The first ever Liberal Democrat Lord Provost (mayor) of Edinburgh, George was not only a friend and mentor, he was an inspiration to me and so many other Liberal Democrats in the City.

He was the very epitome of all that is best about the party. A radical liberal at heart, it was quite something to hear George rail against institutions (even the monarchy) in the softest and most polite of tones. He devoted his life to helping others, first as a church minister and then as a local councillor. However for me, George was more than a role model. He was a good friend, a confidant and guide, who not only married my wife and I but oversaw the funeral of my grandmother.

Politically, George first stood for the party in 1999 for the “unwinnable” ward of Queensferry in west Edinburgh in order to “get some experience”. He found himself elected with a majority of 300. In fact, George is one of those rare liberals who stood for office and never actually lost an election!

George also broke the infamous ‘Queensferry curse’, where no party had managed to hold the ward beyond a single term for more than 20 years. Not only was he re-elected, he was returned with a thumping majority four years later and well over 50% of the vote.

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Tahir Maher

Interview with the new Chair of Federal Conference Committee – Geoff Payne – Part 1 of 3

By Tahir Maher | Wed 13th June 2018 - 7:30 am

Members at a conference
Congratulations on being elected the new FCC Chair

Thank you! It is a really exciting job to have; one of the very best in the party.

 

What changes do you think that Andrew Wiseman brought to the FCC as Chair?

Andrew was a great chair.  He steered us through the immediate pre-coalition period, though the years we were in government and then the period of re-building afterwards.  He oversaw increases in attendance, vast increases in commercial revenue from 2010 and more recently the attendance of huge numbers of new members at conference.  One of the most significant changes that he successfully navigated us through was the abolition of conference representatives and the move to one member, one vote.  He will be a very hard act to follow.

 

What attracted you to put yourself forward to be Chair of FCC as compared to another representative body of the LD?

The simple answer is that I love party conference.  We are unique in having a conference that actually makes the policy of the party.

Any member, from a person who joined just a few weeks ago, to the Leader can submit a motion to the conference and make a case for it being passed. All votes are equal.  Success depends on the power of argument and the strength of the idea.  The same goes for individual motions on particular issues, wide-ranging policy papers and indeed election manifestos.

The FCC plays an incredibly important role in refereeing conference, ensuring debates are fair and selecting an agenda that is interesting, varied and which contains things that members actually want to talk about.

We have a great committee comprised of members elected from across the party.  It is a real privilege to be its chair

 

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Caron Lindsay

EU Withdrawal Bill: This isn’t over yet

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th June 2018 - 9:49 pm

Anyone feeling a bit jaded after today’s events in Parliament?

I mean, honestly, you have at the start of the day a very smug Arron Banks blithely telling anyone who would listen that Leave.EU “led people up the garden path” (that’s lied to you and I).

A few hours later, at the other side of the Parliamentary Estate, MPs fail to adequately hold the Government to account on their atrocious, democracy-undermining, devolution-busting disaster of an EU Withdrawal Bill.

The day had started quite promisingly with the resignation of a Government Minister who then proceeded to buy the Govenrment’s concession and abstained …

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David Thorpe

The decline of the high street: a liberal solution

By David Thorpe | Mon 11th June 2018 - 8:11 am

The death of the great British high street is an event rarely out of the popular press, and it has been so for a decade.

Mary Portas was appointed in a hail of publicity by David Cameron to find ways to save the high street as far back as 2011, nothing came of that and the problem has become much worse since the increase in business rates introduced last year, the creation of the national living wage and the dent to consumer sentiment caused by the UK’s vote to leave the European Union.

Now I quite like the national living wage announced …

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Ruth Bright

Cyril Smith: “Scurrilous hearsay?”

By Ruth Bright | Sat 9th June 2018 - 10:25 am

11 minutes and 19 seconds into Sunday’s final episode of “A Very English Scandal” Hugh Grant as Jeremy Thorpe spoke the immortal lines: “All that new blood coming through – Clement Freud, Cyril Smith. Exciting Times”.  Of course the lines are fictional but the point is well made. We now know a very great deal about those “exciting times” and how abusers hid in plain sight behind a 70’s larger than life, English eccentric, man of the people image.

All the more astonishing then that Lord Steel said on Monday’s Newsnight that the allegations against Smith were “so far scurrilous hear-say”. 

This when the CPS has already admitted that Smith should have been prosecuted in 1970 or again in 1998 and 1999. On September 16 2017 the Chief Executive of Rochdale Borough Council gave an apology to the victims. The late, great Liz MacKean’ s  extraordinarily moving Dispatches documentary from September 2013 is still available. MacKean hears from those who say they were abused by Smith. I defy anyone not to at least give those witnesses a hearing.

The Independent Inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) issued its interim report about Rochdale on April 25. In no way shape or form does the interim report implicate any Liberal or Liberal Democrat figures in abuse conducted by Cyril Smith. But, terrifyingly, it makes it clear that it is very likely that Smith abused over many decades. It hears from those who say they were abused by Smith in the 90s at Knowl View School and is astonished by the decision to make him Chair of Governors in 1994. Smith’s abuse does not just relate to allegations in the 60s when he was a member of the Labour Party.

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Peter Barton

Lewisham East: Why I came for an afternoon and stayed for the whole campaign

By Peter Barton | Fri 8th June 2018 - 11:55 am

Great atmosphere, great training, great opportunity

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks volunteering on the Lewisham East campaign. There is a tremendous buzz at the by-election HQ, with more and more volunteers passing through the doors every day. I came down to volunteer for an afternoon, but saw the impact we were having and have stayed for the remainder of the campaign. 

Members and activists are still clearly on a high following this year’s successful local elections – our best in over a decade. They’re bringing optimism, good humour and a real sense of fun to this campaign on a daily basis.

Best of all, there’s been a really good mix of helpers: Young, old. MPs, peers. Seasoned campaigners and newbies like myself. Regardless of their experience, the team here are offering unmissable hands-on training opportunities – so that volunteers are not only having a great time and making a difference, they’re also developing their skills and returning to their seats equipped with extra tools to help them win.

Thankfully, the days of simply treating volunteers like delivery machines have gone. You’re guaranteed a warm welcome, a decent coffee and more cake than you can imagine!

It is our wonderful candidate, Lucy Salek, at the centre of it all, setting the tone. Always smiling, always listening and always buzzing with energy.

This by-election represents a huge opportunity for the party. Not only can we make a considerable dent in Labour’s majority, but we can send a clear message on Brexit, putting real pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to do the right thing on the biggest issue we have faced since World War II. 

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Lib Dem Immigrants

Dear Vince, Please stop and think before blaming immigrants

By Lib Dem Immigrants | Fri 8th June 2018 - 10:25 am

On Wednesday, Vince Cable spoke at an Open Britain event where he talked about EU immigration being “managed” from within the EU. Later in the day he tweeted: “Fully support proposals to ensure that #Immigration is managed. Compatible with membership of #singlemarket and #EuropeanUnion. Pity his government and mine acted too late to stop disastrous #Brexit vote. But not too late to stop Brexit.” So we’ve written him this letter to tell him what we think:

Dear Vince,

We know you’re trying to help; really, we do. We know that you want the UK to stay in the EU; …

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Too much of a good thing

By Tom Arms | Fri 8th June 2018 - 8:55 am

Too much of a good thing is bad for you. That’s what my mother always told me. Her pronouncement was echoed by my father, teacher, doctor….

That appears to be the case for environmentally-friendly green technology. I mean, how can you go wrong with windmills, solar panels, tidal power and pedal power? They are the good, politically correct thing.

Well, according to a report recently published by Cambridge University, green technology could cost the world economy up to $4 trillion by 2035. This, is of course, grist for the mill of the climate change denial lobby—until you examine the fine print. The cost is the poorly planned transition from non-renewable to renewable energy.

The reasons for the potential problem are manifold: It is costing more and more to extract fossil fuels from the earth; the additional extraction cost requires time and heavy investment; green energy technology also requires investment and time before it can come fully on stream; and the transition between the switch over from fossil fuel to environmentally-friendly energy production will be very expensive.

The countries that will hurt hardest will be the ones who currently benefitting the most from recently increased fossil fuel production—the US, Russia and Canada.

Canada and the US, especially, are now heavily into shale oil production. The US invested $22 billion from private equity sources alone in the US shale oil business in the first three months of 2018. Oil production is this year set to reach a record high of 9.7 million barrels a day. American investment in green energy was about half of the money put into fossil fuels.

According to the International Energy Agency, the world invested around $700bn in oil, gas and coal in 2016. China is leading the way in investment in renewable energy. It is still building coal-fired power stations, but in 2017, according to Bloomberg, it poured $132.6 billion into green energy resources. This was more than twice the investment of the US and EU combined and half the world total invested in renewable energy.

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The Voice

Surely we should be concentrating our energies on Jeremy Corbyn, not people who are already supporting a people’s vote

By The Voice | Fri 8th June 2018 - 7:55 am

Tom Brake has written a letter, a nice letter, to Chuka Umunna and Anna Soubry asking them to support his Amendment, to be debated in the Commons this week, to the EU Withdrawal Bill, calling for a People’s Vote on Brexit. He said to them:

Dear Chuka and Anna,

Over the last two years we have worked cross-party to convey to the country the benefits of the UK remaining in the European Union.

Ahead of next week’s debate in Parliament, I urge you to support my amendment 19a to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill which provides for the people to have the

…

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Kirsten Johnson

82% back increase in taxes to fund NHS

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 7th June 2018 - 12:30 pm

Several NHS stories have caught my eye over the past week, and I wanted to bring them together into a blog that emphasises, yet again, that our NHS needs funding, and needs it soon. I have a heightened awareness now, having travelled the length and breadth of North Devon over recent weeks and seen the lack of provision in the communities there, with the nearest hospital for some being an hour away – and the nearest hospital for many non-urgent appointments being two hours away.

The NHS matters to all of us and needs sorting. We as Lib Dems are proposing a 1p rise in income tax to fund health and social care services. A poll announced yesterday in the Mirror shows that 82% of the population would back a 1p rise in National Insurance to fund the NHS. In answer to the question, “Would you be willing to change your vote in favour of a party who pledged additional NHS funding?” 18% of the respondents said ‘definitely’ and 33% said ‘probably’.

We set out our plan to put 1p on income tax in our 2017 manifesto. Our plan includes an eventual restructuring of National Insurance contributions with ring-fenced money for Health and Social Care. It is party policy that the NHS needs funding and taxes will have to be raised to do it. In the ComRes Mirror poll, almost an equal number of Tory (81%) and Labour (86%) voters agree.

This ComRes poll follows on the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Health Foundation joint report released two weeks ago showing that

Just to keep the NHS providing the level of service it does today will require us to increase spending by an average 3.3% a year for the next 15 years – with slightly bigger increases in the short run to address immediate funding problems.

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John Hann

Financialization, Manufacturing and Public Services

By John Hann | Wed 6th June 2018 - 3:00 pm

To most of us who are not economists or in government, it is regarded as common sense that we need manufacturing and other producing businesses to pay for public services.

The financial sector, which includes insurance, pensions, accountancy and retail banking is a valuable part of the UK economy.

However, there are serious concerns that the casino banking sector is extracting rather than producing wealth, and that it is harming rather than benefiting the economy.

One of the concerns relates to the huge level of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, which means that UK companies can easily be taken over by foreign companies. There is a theory that it does not matter who owns UK companies, only how they are run. This is wrong. Inevitably, and this may take decades, manufacturing is moved abroad.

The other, just as serious, the problem with the open market in UK companies is that the continual threat of hostile takeovers deters long-term investment.

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Tahir Maher

Brexit causes UK to lose £3.5bn in science and research

By Tahir Maher | Wed 6th June 2018 - 1:30 pm

Currently, the UK ranks 3rd in the world for the scientific research behind the USA and China. For the period 2007/13, the UK received €8.8 billion out of a total of €107 billion expenditure on research, development and innovation. In the same period over 3,000 UK-based researchers received funding to work overseas (mainly in Germany and Italy).

EU’s flagship research and innovation programme are Horizon 2020. Since 2014 we have received about €3.6 billion in new grants, and over 10 per cent of research income for top UK’s university comes from the EU. By leaving the collaborative research community in the EU, the UK may well be isolated, and because of the international standing of UK in scientific research, it will also affect Europe’s overall standing in the world. In the UK, there is concern that if we no longer part of Horizon 2020 and implement a strict immigration regime, the UK will find it harder to attract the best scientists from around the world. University College London stated that 30% of the applicants for their research fellowship were from EU countries and this year there have been no applications.

Research Councils UK highlights that we benefit significantly from the investment and growth resulting from the EU scientific grant. The grant has already leveraged an additional £229 millions of funding from other partners. The government has so far stated that they will continue to fund scientific research to 2020, but there is no firm funding plan after that.

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Paul Reynolds

The Israel-Palestine Peace Process in 2018 and the UK Lib Dems

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 6th June 2018 - 11:15 am

A cross-party Early Day Motion (EDM1169) currently in the House of Commons deals with the imminent demolition by the Israeli military of a whole Palestinian Bedouin village, Al Khan Al-Ahmar, in the Occupied Territories. This raises broader concerns over aspects of the current Israeli Government’s policy on Israeli ‘settlers’ in the West Bank.

So far only Tom Brake MP and Norman Lamb MP among the Lib Dems have signed this EDM, which to date has enjoyed the insufficient publicity. I wish to bring this EDM to the attention of our MPs with the aim of having more Lib Dem MPs sign it.

Public controversy on Israel-Palestine issues in the last two weeks has been focused on embassies moving to Jerusalem, and related protests on the Gaza/Israel ‘border’. However, this EDM refers to something more important for long-term prospects for peace.

Speaking personally, I am neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestinian; I am ‘pro-peace & prosperity’, for the whole Eastern Mediterranean region.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem MPs support abortion rights for women in Northern Ireland

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th June 2018 - 8:55 am

Three Liberal Democrat MPs took part in yesterday’s Commons debate on giving women in Northern Ireland access to legal and safe abortions without having to travel. The recent vote to repeal the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution, paving the way for legislation allowing abortion up to 12 weeks in Ireland and the provisions of the 1967 Act in the rest of the UK. The issue has been devolved to the Northern Ireland assembly since 2003, but that Assembly is not currently sitting. The Irish referendum and a UN report from earlier this year which stated that:

the situation in

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Zoe O’Connell

Federal Conference Committee Report Back

By Zoe O’Connell | Wed 6th June 2018 - 7:30 am

Firstly, Andrew Wiseman stepping down as Chair of Federal Conference Committee (FCC) and Geoff Payne’s subsequent election as his replacement left a vacancy for one of two Vice Chair slots on the committee. As has been reported previously on LibDemVoice, Nick da Costa won the subsequent election and joined me as Vice Chair. Andrew’s departure from the committee also left a vacancy for an ordinary member and based on a recount of the original election result we can now welcome Jon Ball back on to FCC.

FCC then had the chance to question a representative of Your Liberal Britain about their …

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Gordon Lishman

Four go in search of big ideas

By Gordon Lishman | Tue 5th June 2018 - 4:12 pm

In the recent Social Liberal Forum book, David Boyle asserts that “free trade and anti-trust lay at the heart of Liberalism and Liberal economics from the start of the party”. His essay overlaps with David Howarth’s contribution in returning Liberal and LibDem economics to its roots, rejecting the false claim that “neo-liberalism” in any way represents the liberal tradition.

David writes that: “The original Liberal idea of free trade was not a simple license to do whatever you want, if you were rich and powerful enough. It was thoroughly aware of Adam Smith’s original warning that collusion between entrenched businesses can end in “a conspiracy against the public”. Liberal free trade “was designed as a means of liberation – so that the small could challenge the big, the poor could challenge the rich with the power of the new approach, the alternative provider, the imaginative, liberating shift”.

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Martin Thomas

A Very English Scandal

By Martin Thomas | Tue 5th June 2018 - 9:21 am

There are two incontrovertible facts concerning the Thorpe saga. First, that the dog Rinka was shot dead. Secondly, that Norman Scott wasn’t. Everything else depended upon the various and varying accounts of a number of highly unsatisfactory witnesses.

The BBC theme music swings with a jauntiness which matches Jeremy’s brown titfer. The story is based upon Peter Bessell’s discredited account in court. Bessell was extracted from California to give evidence on the promise of an immunity from arrest for fraud, and with £25,000 in his pocket from the Telegraph plus the promise of a further £25,000 if Jeremy were to be convicted. From the prosecution point of view, he was a nightmare witness but they called him anyway, more in hope I would think, than with any confidence he could withstand George Carman’s withering cross-examination. What material for a defending counsel! Bessell bombed. One anecdote must have gone down well with the jury: he told them that Thorpe had initially proposed to have Scott poisoned in a pub but that when it was pointed out to Jeremy that it would not look good if Scott fell off his barstool dead, he replied that the hired hit man should simply enquire of the barman the way to a convenient mine shaft. Even though the BBC show was played as farce, that revealing gem of Bessell’s evidence was omitted.

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Jeremy Hilton

Liberal Democrats must fight every PCC election in 2020

By Jeremy Hilton | Mon 4th June 2018 - 12:30 pm

Like most Liberal Democrats I opposed the introduction of Police & Crime Commissioners, and I still do. I would support abolishing them and returning the governance of our local police constabularies to boards of elected councillors.

In Gloucestershire where we have co-terminus boundaries with the county’s constabulary we could be even more radical and hand back the governance of police to Gloucestershire County Council.

Under this government we know major governance changes won’t happen and that in 2020 we shall have elections for the PCCs in England and Wales. In 2016 Liberal Democrats only stood candidates in 30 out of 40 PCC …

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Caron Lindsay

Layla Moran talks about her bariatric surgery on Any Questions and calls for focus on wellbeing in schools

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd June 2018 - 8:06 pm

Layla was brilliant on Any Questions on Friday night. You can listen to the whole thing here. The bit I especially appreciated was when she spoke very frankly about her own experience when answering a question about obesity.

11 year old Olivia Metcalfe asked:

Given the the amount of media coverage relating to childhood obesity has had little or no effect on the problem, what would be the panel’s favourite option – taxation, legislation or education and why?

Layla said that as a former teacher, she’d be very proud of any of her students who came up with a question like that and then made a revelation.

You will be unsurprised to hear that I think education’s top of that list. But I will also reveal something very personal about myself. I was an obese child for most of my childhood and well into my twenties and  ended up having a bariatric operation and lost pretty much half my body weight…

…I think there are elements of this that are genetic and I will say that the largest reason why for me that this was a problem was more about mental health and wellbeing and confidence and feeling good about yourself. It wasn’t necessarily a lack of opportunity of all of those things but the point I’m trying to make is that it was a much more complex, much more personal issue than I think sometimes the debate about this has become. We’ve kind of got to the point where we say oh, just eat less, exercise more and that will solve the problem.

The fact is that there are lots and lots of different reasons why people are obese. Lots of them are out of their control and I do think that there are some things that society can help with. So I do think that things like the Sugar Tax are helpful. I don’t think we should be advertising junk food to children at all. I think there is a wider question about why we are advertising to children at all about anything.  But I do think a large part of it is that we need to look at ourselves wider in society. It’s not going to just from government that this is going to work, it needs to be a much broader issue and crucially I do think we need to bring wellbeing back into schools and make time get to know children and know them as people and help them not just about this but in all sorts of issues to help them become healthy adults and I was very lucky to have that opportunity.

I think Layla’s perspective is crucial. I have spent much of my life struggling with my weight. Many of you will already know that I lost seven stones a couple of years ago. I’ve found a bit of it in the intervening period but I’m trying to keep it under control.  have never managed to do is to lose weight when my mental health or self image has not been good. Confidence and wellbeing have always been crucial for me.  Shaming people is very likely to have the opposite effect.

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Helen Flynn

The housing crisis – long overdue for some “big ideas”

By Helen Flynn | Sun 3rd June 2018 - 2:55 pm

You can tell things must be getting really bad when even the Conservatives are concerned about the shortfall of affordable houses. Survation recently polled 121 senior Conservative councillors, on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation ahead of the government’s publication of its social housing green paper, expected in the next few months.  The poll found 71% were concerned that the £2bn Government set aside for affordable housing in the Autumn Budget will be insufficient to meet the needs of their constituents.

So what solutions do we need?  Alex Marsh, a housing policy expert, has set out some truly radical proposals n the Social Liberal Forum’s new book, Four Go In Search of Big Ideas.  After setting out the commonly accepted “truths” of our current housing crisis, he crucially asks, “Is it all about new supply?”  He argues:

A more profound criticism of this approach to dealing with our housing problems is that it is based upon a misdiagnosis. The argument is that if we view the issue in terms of the amount of housing available relative to the number of residents then the country is not suffering from a significant shortage of accommodation. The issue is its distribution .  Some people are occupying a lot more housing than others, many households are squeezing into overcrowded accommodation and others are squeezed out of the market entirely. In this respect the problems of the housing market are in part a manifestation of broader social and economic changes, including changes in income and wealth inequality or welfare reform and increased use of benefit sanctions. We see problems in the housing market, but they are not necessarily problems of the housing market.

It is through these kinds of radical ways of looking at our current problems that we can generate new ideas and new solutions.  And Alex proposes some truly radical liberal ideas—ideas that should be of interest to any true Liberal.  He says: 

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Caron Lindsay

Vince on how the Lib Dems are transforming British politics – but can we do better?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 2nd June 2018 - 11:52 am

In an article in the New Statesman, Vince outlines the three elements necessary to transform British politics from its current divisive, dystopian, dysfunctional state.

The first is following the example of the Canadian Liberals who went from third place to Government in just a few years.

Justin Trudeau was the result of a concerted effort to open up the Liberal Party to a wider support base through open primaries for the national leadership and MPs.

He talks a lot about open primaries these days although we’ve yet to see proposals of how this would work in practice and already many of our …

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