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Category Archives: Op-eds

Taking action against Syria is not liberal interventionism

By David Thorpe | Thu 12th April 2018 - 12:13 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Watching the scenes of devastation and anarchy beamed at us nightly from Syria, the instant, understandable reaction is to demand that something must be done, and support UK military intervention in the country.

There is a debate for another time and another place about whether liberal interventionism is ever effective, even as it is often right.

The problem is taking action against Syria at this stage does not even qualify as liberal interventionism, for even if a coalition of the UK, France and the US were somehow, and against the odds, able to achieve through their military action a change in the direction in the present war in Syria, the outcome would not be liberal.

This is because if Assad falls, what will rise is either a fury of rival militia groups motivated by revenge and fuelled by the extremes of sectarianism, from such Hobbesian wars liberalism tends not to flourish.

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Tagged syria | 27 Comments

A new campaign to restore the political disability fund

By David Buxton | Wed 11th April 2018 - 5:08 pm

I’m taking part in a campaign launched by the cross-party group More United today, to restore the fund that supports deaf and disabled people into political office and I’m asking you to join me by sharing this video and signing the petition here

This campaign matters a lot to me. And this is why.

I was the first deaf British Sign Language-user elected to public office, when I was elected as a London Borough councillor in 1990 and again as a District Borough Councillor in 2007. From 1992, I lobbied Parliament and ministers to provide greater funding for candidates with disabilities. In 1997 and 2001, I stood for Parliament on a self-funded basis, raising money to pay for BSL interpreters and support in written English.

For the 2015 General Election, I obtained a grant of £40,000 from the Access to Elected Office Fund, which I used to participate in the Liberal Democrat candidate-selection process. But I could not have participated without the Fund’s support.

And, last year, I was effectively barred from standing in the 2017 General Election because of the absence of the Fund.

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Tagged access to elected office fund and disability | 3 Comments

Helping the Homeless

By Tahir Maher | Wed 11th April 2018 - 2:00 pm

A few friends and I decided about three years ago that we would raise funds to feed the homeless in Reading. Since then we have done that every Friday. I remember the first time we took food a homeless man pulled me to a side and said: “Listen, mate, I appreciate the food, but we do not do vegetables, only meat”. Over the weeks I got to know many of them and listened to their life stories, I can honestly say the difference between many of the homeless and me can be expressed by the proverb “There but for the grace of God, go I”.

From the induction on October 1980 of the right to buy the take up has been huge. In the Thatcher and Major years, the Tories sold off over 1.2 million council homes. Under the Blair and Brown years, Labour sold off over 420,000 council homes.

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4 Comments

The ‘Education battlefield’

By John Marriott | Tue 10th April 2018 - 11:02 am

It wasn’t always Tory v Labour, and it doesn’t have to be again!

State education, particularly at secondary level, is like the proverbial curate’s egg, thanks largely to mistakes made by politicians of all parties over the past sixty years – and I include the 2010-2015 coalition as well. However, much of the mess was already in place by the beginning of this decade so I suppose that we could call it a joint affair between Tories and Labour. However, much of the success of state education is down to Liberals, as were the ideas behind the Welfare State, which emerged from the 1942 Beveridge Report.

State education, that is to say, the education of the many not the few, really began with the 1870 Elementary Education Act, and drafted by Liberal MP William Forester, which established through democratically elected School Boards, voluntary elementary education for children from 5 to 13 (raised to 14 in the 1918 Fisher Act). What Forster wanted to achieve was to retain Britain’s competitive edge in world trade. To do that, he needed an educated workforce (where have we heard that before?). This was achieved in spite of massive opposition from certain quarters, who saw no reason to educate the working classes above a certain rudimentary level. The 1901 Balfour Act, opposed largely by the Liberal Party and non conformists, replaced local School Boards with Local Education Authorities and succeeded in allowing the C of E and Catholic Churches to get on board and possibly was the main reason why the Tories were virtually annihilated at the 1906 General Election.

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Tagged education | 29 Comments

Moldova: on the edge of the Union, looking in…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 9th April 2018 - 3:43 pm

The expansion of the European Union over the past two decades seems to have come to an end, at least for the time being, leaving the countries of the Western Balkans and the Black Sea region in a position of being accession candidates without much prospect of actual accession any time soon. It was with this in mind that I set off to find out about the situation in Moldova last week.

Moldova is a country with a unique set of challenges. First of these is its frozen conflict on the River Dnieper, where the predominantly Russian population fought, and won, …

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged moldova, russia and Transnistria | 1 Comment

The sugar tax is as liberal as they come

By Harry Samuels | Mon 9th April 2018 - 12:48 pm

Andy Briggs recently wrote on this blog that “any Liberal government worth its salt would repeal the sugar tax”. Certainly, the justifications that the government has given are to do with deterrence, and I agree that those are illiberal – but there is a much more compelling reason to support the principle of this policy, and one which goes right to the core of liberalism.

It is undeniable that a diet of sugary foods leads to obesity, and undeniable that obesity is one of the great killers in this country. But not only that, it’s costly – according …

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Tagged public health and sugar tax | 45 Comments

We must make a passionate case for staying in the EU!

By Chris Bowers | Mon 9th April 2018 - 8:12 am

Last week I wrote an email to an actively pro-Remain party colleague. Events had led me to believe that a referendum on the Brexit deal might indeed be possible, so what I wrote was: if we do manage to secure a second referendum, are there any plans afoot for the Remain camp to fight a vastly better campaign than it did in 2016? To lose one referendum might be considered a misfortune; to lose two would be the height of carelessness.

The key to winning a referendum on the Brexit deal lies in inspiring people that the EU is worth supporting …

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Tagged brexit | 86 Comments

Young Lib Dem Councillor Ben Lawrie talks about his experience of Depression

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th April 2018 - 11:55 am

I feel incredibly proud to know Scottish Liberal Democrat Councillor Ben Lawrie who has talked about his experience of Depression in this short film. It takes courage to talk so openly about something so personal. Doing so helps others immeasurably.

You should be aware before you watch it that it includes his description of an attempt to take his life.

He wants to share his experience to help others going through it, which I think it will. When I was growing up experiencing the sorts of things Ben went through, it would have been useful to know that I wasn’t alone and that this was an illness not some defect in my character.

It’s also great that his friends and family share how this all was for them.

His openness drew praise from Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie who, last weekend, ran 117 miles in 3 days to raise money for a Scottish mental health charity. It’s not too late to donate to his effort.

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Tagged depression and mental health | 1 Comment

Baroness Sally Hamwee writes: Developing a distinctly liberal policy on immigration

By Sally Hamwee | Sat 7th April 2018 - 8:00 am

If you follow the detailed development of party policy you may be aware that the deadline for written responses to the party’s current consultation papers passed yesterday although the online consultation remains open until 1pm on 12 April. As a member of the Immigration, Refugees and Identity working group I wanted to thank all of those who submitted such thorough responses to our own paper.

LDV has carried some articles about the paper and this seems a good moment to offer my own perspective on some of the criticisms that have emerged – which is by no means to dismiss comments or to attempt the final word, just another part of the process.

The group has taken evidence from a range of experts covering immigration law, the workings of the immigration system, refugees, integration and social cohesion, including attitudinal studies of those who have seen their communities evolve one way or another, due to demographic change. The approach that we have taken in the consultation paper has been informed by this.

We are seeking to develop a distinctively liberal policy on immigration, refugees and identity that is humane, treats people fairly and is effective. It is very clear to me – both from the evidence we have taken as well as any number of stories in the press over the past year and, most important, what I have heard direct from individuals and organisations working in the area – that the current system is failing on all three of these criteria. The government actively promotes a “hostile environment”; that makes me ashamed. It is one thing to seek to establish a controlled immigration system, but quite another to set up a system which is widely perceived as xenophobic. The UK should be trying to build its reputation as open-minded, open-hearted and welcoming of migrants, for hard economic as well as simple human reasons.

One line of criticism that has come through blogs and the consultation is that the paper is not ambitious enough and is seeking only minor adjustments to existing policy. This is not how I see it: the central proposal in the introduction to the paper is that we should promote a liberal and humane attitude towards migration that will enable people more easily to come to the UK for work, to be with their families and for sanctuary. Reference to procedure is because the group wants a policy that makes the migration process much more efficient (I include accuracy in that), while making sure that this isn’t abused by people smugglers who would bring vulnerable people here illegally.

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Tagged featured, immigration, lib dem immigrants and policy consultations | 45 Comments

Housing – where should it go?

By Kirsten Johnson | Fri 6th April 2018 - 4:00 pm

I’ve been doing some research into housing as it has become a hot topic in Oxfordshire where I am a county councillor.

Young people want to get on the property ladder but can’t, houses are just not affordable.

Keyworkers wish to take jobs but can’t afford to live locally.

Our social housing register in Oxford city has over 3000 people on it.

There is a housing crisis, but it won’t be solved by landowners building houses which can only be afforded by London commuters.

At the same time, government is pushing for growth in the south – we have a Growth Board in Oxfordshire which comprises all the district, city and county councils, and we have just signed a Growth Deal with government which commits us to building 96K homes in Oxfordshire up to 2031.

But shouldn’t we be growing our economy in the north? The country is already unbalanced, and it will become even more so if plans to build a million more houses along the proposed Oxford to Cambridge Arc proceed. The National Infrastructure Commission report on that proposal is here. On p. 28 there is a chart showing housing planned for 2016-2050: 130K extra houses for Oxfordshire as “additional development required to meet corridor-level housing need”, plus another 70K homes for Oxfordshire required “to reflect pressures from land constrained
markets”.

To get my head around this topic, I’ve been looking at recent government data on where houses need to go across the country as a whole. It includes economic growth and population analysis. Evidently, we don’t need as many houses in Oxfordshire as the last Strategic Housing Market Assessment of 2014 shows. However, all local plans are using the SHMA figures, not latest government figures.

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Tagged affordable housing, council housing, intergenerational inequality and social housing | 13 Comments

Any Liberal government worth its salt would repeal the sugar tax

By Andy Briggs | Fri 6th April 2018 - 1:30 pm

As the so-called ‘sugar tax’ comes into being, it’s worth remembering just how poor a piece of policy it is. The sugar tax is regressive, it is ineffective and it is illiberal; any Liberal government worth its salt would repeal it.

The pre-amble to the constitution of the Liberal Democrats commits the party to both the fundamental value of liberty and ensuring that no-one is enslaved by poverty, the sugar tax fails on both these counts.

First and foremost the sugar tax is illiberal. If we accept that philosopher John Stuart Mill’s ‘harm principle’, the idea that power should only be exerted over an individual against their will if it is to prevent harm to others, is a cornerstone of liberal thought, then quite clearly the sugar tax fails this test. The consumption of sugary drinks poses no threat of harm to others, and as such the state has no business attempting to reduce their use. Whilst you could argue that the ‘harm’ to others associated with the consumption of sugary drinks is the additional strain this may put on the health service, if you were to follow this argument through to its logical conclusion you would advocate taxing gym memberships, as injury sustained through excessive exercise would too place a strain on the NHS. Clearly, this is nonsensical.

To add to this, not only is the sugar tax illiberal but it is also regressive, as it will disproportionally affect those on the lowest incomes. This is both because they are more likely to consume non-diet soft drinks than wealthier individuals, and also because tax rises such as this will take up a larger proportion of the poorest individual’s budgets. Evidence suggests that for individuals with a high sugar diet, taxes do little to reduce their consumption, and as such the sugar tax is all cost and no benefit to those whose disposable income is already low. Far from lifting people out of poverty, the sugar tax further condemns them to it.

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Tagged john stuart mill, liberal values, sugar tax and taxation | 49 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: Russian spy evidence again and again and…

By Tom Arms | Fri 6th April 2018 - 8:55 am

It is time to look at the evidence a second time, and then a third, fourth and a fifth.

A large and important slice of the world’s governments—led by the British—have inflicted severe diplomatic damage on the Russians because of the British allegation that Moscow attempted to murder a Russian double agent and his daughter on British soil with the nerve agent Novichok.

The Conservative government of Theresa May is utterly convinced that Putin’s Moscow is behind the attack. It persuaded 24 other countries – and NATO headquarters—of the veracity of their case to the extent that they have all joined in expelling Russian diplomats.

But they have failed to persuade Opposition Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn or Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbot. The Socialist duo recently leapt on a slip by error prone Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to revive the reasonable doubt alternative.

The slip involves the investigations by Britain’s Porton Down Chemical Weapons Establishment which identified the nerve agent used against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The chief executive of Porton Down, Gary Aitkenhead, told Sky News : “We have not verified the precise source” of the nerve agent. This contradicts Boris Johnson’s interview with a German journalist in which he said that Porton Down had unequivocally identified the source as Russian.

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Tagged observations of an ex pat | 20 Comments

A Case for British Chapter 11

By Tahir Maher | Thu 5th April 2018 - 10:23 am

It takes many years to develop a business and for it to grow. Enterprises employ millions of people who support their families and are the building blocks of our national wealth. Should we not be more supportive, as a society, when a company fails?

Since 2000, the number of businesses in the UK has increased each year, by 3% on average. In 2016, there were 2.2 million more businesses than in 2000, an increase of 64% over the whole period. Businesses actual employment of people has fallen since 2000 from around a third, to a quarter. This decline is due to the growth in self-employment. The total number of company’s insolvencies from 2013 to 2016 was just over 70,000 (Office of National Statistics).

In most countries, there are two tests for bankruptcy:

A company that cannot pay its debts because there is not enough money in the bank (this would tip a company in the UK into liquidation);
A company with liabilities that exceed its assets (the company can avoid liquidation if it can negotiate a deal with its creditors).

The UK’s insolvency system, on the whole, returns more money to creditors (as it’s more creditor centric) and is faster and cheaper than the United States, for example. However, a common complaint among struggling firms under the threat of insolvency is that the time for decision-making is too short. Critics believe firms need a longer period to consider their options and take decisions without jeopardising the company’s supply chain and increasing pressure on their cash flow, both of which will accelerate the commencement of insolvency. Therefore, there is a desire to ask the government to copy the Chapter 11 system in the United States, where companies are allowed 90 days’ grace.

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Tagged bankruptcy, business, insolvency and small businesses | 6 Comments

Sure Start centre closures hit vulnerable families hardest

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 5th April 2018 - 9:20 am

One of my main election platforms last year when running for Oxfordshire County Council was the closure of our local children’s centre. I’m glad to report that it has re-opened as a community initiative, run by a committee of volunteers.

But that is not the case in many areas of the country. Research published today by the Sutton Trust and conducted by academics from Oxford University shows that as many as 1,000 Sure Start centres have closed since 2009, with 69% of local authorities reporting a budget decrease in the last two years.

Professor Kathy Silva, one of the authors of the “Stop Start” report, writes

We surveyed local authorities across the country and found reductions in senior staff and ‘hollowing out’ of open-access services, the kinds of non-stigmatising activities aimed at all families in the surrounding neighbourhood and not just those on the books of Social Services.

…Hard-pressed local authority officials described that cuts necessitated a major shift away from open access activities such as Stay & Play or Rhyme Time, to statutory duties of child protection or social work support for families whose children are ‘at risk’.

‘Stop Start’ has five key recommendations, one of which is

Children’s centres should reconnect with their original purpose. Shifting the balance too far towards referred children and families, away from open access, and merging children’s centres into preventative teams working with a very much wider age group, serves a very different function and requires very different skills. It does not seem to fit well under the label of a local ‘children’s centre’. A good mix of children is important for social mobility and children’s social development.

This report follows on last year’s paper Closing Gaps Early, which analysed the role of early years policy in promoting social mobility. As the party who introduced free school meals, the pupil premium and shared parental leave, we understand that children need a good start in life. Equalising opportunity is key in fighting societal inequalities. The Closing Gaps Early report states:

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Tagged early years education, education policy and sure start | 3 Comments

The day the arts took a swipe at cuts…

By Callum Robertson | Thu 5th April 2018 - 8:11 am

On March 31^st my colleague Alex and I went to see the play “The day the arts took a swipe at cuts”.

My friend Alex and I actually went to see the play “Victim” which is currently playing at the Kings Head Theatre in Islington. We did this after being contacted through our roles with Liberal Democrats for Prison Reform and a brilliantly hard-hitting show it was too.

“Victim” is a play that perfectly demonstrates how broken our prison system is. It tells the harrowing tale of the power struggle between the inmate and the guard, and the roles they play in a system that has been brutally hit by harsher-than-necessary cuts. This blog is not so much a review (such a phenomenal performance has no shortage of positive reviews) as it is a cry out for support and an end to cuts in this frankly broken prison system.

The Prison Reform organisation, Liberal Democrats for Prison Reform have, since our launch, been looking for a way to exemplify how much reform is needed to our prison system to make it fit for the 21^st century. This play does this in a way no article or speech has managed to do yet. Fydor Dovtoyevsky once said, “the degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” I must say that the fact that this theatre company wrote and performed this moving piece is testament to the scale of the challenge we as a country face.

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Tagged prison reform, rehabilitation and restorative justice | 8 Comments

So who’s missing from the coverage of the #genderpaygap?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th April 2018 - 10:33 pm

There’s someone missing in amongst all the coverage of the gender pay gap today.

It’s not entirely surprising that in 78% of companies men are paid more than women. However until recently, we didn’t have the evidence.

Thanks to a law passed in 2015, the facts have been laid bare. Companies have to face the uncomfortable truth about the disproportionate number of men in senior positions.

Much of the copious coverage of this today has missed something, though.

This crucial step forward was secured by none other than:

On 24th March 2015, Jo announced that she and Nick Clegg had worn the Tories down on this in the dying days of the Coalition. She wrote this article for LDV telling the story of how she did it. Here’s that whole article:

In the final days of this Government Lib Dems are still delivering our agenda against the odds, and against Conservative obstruction.

Under the coalition government the gender pay gap had fallen to its lowest level, at just under 20% – but this is still 19.1% too high. Despite our high levels of women’s employment the UK has the 8th highest gender pay gap in the EU.

Not only is the gender pay gap socially wrong in modern society, but economically it’s nonsensical not to reward our most talented female employees properly. We should value the contribution of women and men in the workplace equally, so our goal has to be eliminating the pay gap completely.

As a Business Minister and Minister for Women, I have worked very hard to persuade my Coalition colleagues of the virtues of tough action to tackle this long-term inequality. Their traditional resistance makes it all the more remarkable that Nick Clegg has, in the last few weeks of our term, secured a government amendment that guarantees all large businesses will have to publish the difference between average pay for their male and female staff. So today (Tuesday) I will proudly vote for our party’s manifesto commitment – for large companies to publish the difference in average pay between male and female employees – to become law.

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Tagged gender pay gap and Jo Swinson | 4 Comments

Brexit on the streets in Bishop’s Stortford

By Mark Argent | Wed 4th April 2018 - 11:55 am

On 31 March, as part of the Liberal Democrats’ national Europe Day of Action, Hertford and Stortford Liberal Democrats were out in the market place in Bishop’s Stortford.

This was mainly about talking with people about Brexit and hearing their concerns – though we also collected 136 signatures on a petition for a referendum on the final deal.

At a principled level, it’s essential to talk with people who voted Leave if there is to be a realistic prospect both of reversing Brexit and healing the divisions this saga has exposed.

Although many of the comments echoed previous stalls, this time felt different. My ear was caught particularly by people expressing deep worry over Brexit. I’m used to people being pleased to see us at a stall and keen to sign a petition, but what was new was the sense of people wanting to talk about why they are worried. The sense seemed to be “now it is getting serious”. The big difference here seems to be the emerging story of the involvement of Aggregate IQ and/or Cambridge Analytica in the referendum, and whistleblowing from people involved in the Leave campaign about possible rule-breaking. The realities of those will doubtless come into focus in due course, but it seems to have rattled people. It’s one thing to accept a vote that’s not gone the way you would like. It’s even possible to do that when you fear that some of those voting didn’t really understand the issues. But the fear emerging is that this has gone much further in the direction of undermining the democratic process itself That is unsettling people. If Brexit is to be understood to be legitimate, it is essential that these charges are investigated. A referendum on the deal won’t help people unless they can be sure that its result can be trusted.

Whatever its cause, the sense of worry is serious. Good government relies on those in power acting in a way that contains the anxieties of the population. Right now Brexit means the Tories are failing to do this, and Labour are not doing a good job of showing they would be better at it.

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Tagged brexit | 8 Comments

Your last chance to respond to policy consultations

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th April 2018 - 8:36 am

The party’s three policy consultations on immigration, refugees and identity, tuition fees and people and communities close today.

If you have something to say, you can find the information you need here.

My response to the immigration, refugees and policy consultation ran to 4,700 words but yours can be much more pithy.

The introduction to mine was as follows:

I am extremely disappointed with the tone of the consultation document.

This country is crying out for a strong liberal voice on immigration. Nigel Farage, the Daily Mail and the unpleasant anti immigrant lobby didn’t get where they are today by being subtle. They were bold and said things that were seen as way too controversial. In countering that message, we should be even more bold and confident.

Let’s get out of the shadow of the right wing press and be unashamedly liberal.

Any policy paper should be tested against the Preamble to our Constitution. This one is totally incompatible with this section:

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.

I’m pretty much an open borders live where you like person. Michael Meadowcroft reminded us at the Southport consultation session, the old liberal constitution called for a world without borders. Out commitment to a world where NO-ONE is enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity does not end at Dunnet Head or the White Cliffs of Dover.

I was horrified to see that the introduction to this paper had the word “robust” before “humane.” In my view that is pandering to the worst of the Farage/Daily Mail spin and is therefore completely unacceptable.

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Tagged policy consultations | 34 Comments

Time to stop wringing our hands on gender balance

By Ruth Bright | Tue 3rd April 2018 - 1:32 pm

Mark Pack has run another interesting analysis on the way we have stalled in recruiting women into local government.

When I was elected to Southwark council in 1994 our large Lib Dem group had already achieved gender balance. When I was selected as PPC in East Hants in 2002 our ruling Town Council group had also achieved gender balance. It is therefore very sad all these years later to see how things are stalling or going backwards.

I totted up the following figures on the counties some months ago. I put the figures together in a hurry, have not allowed for recent by-elections and I might have made the odd wrong assumption that a name is male or female. Please accept my apologies for any mistakes but even with those many health warnings I was shocked by the following balance of male and female Lib Dem councillors on the counties:

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12 Comments

Taking back control of our laws? A reality check, part 3

By Arnold Kiel | Tue 3rd April 2018 - 10:45 am

Following Part 1: Money, Part 2: Borders

The Government’s leaked impact assessments also summarise the economic impact of regulatory divergence: a gain of 0-1.3% of GDP, depending on the study and the pursued policy. The higher number would require repeal of elements across social-, environmental-, energy-, consumer-protection, product-standards, climate-change, air-safety, or banker bonus caps. A majority for such measures is unlikely even among leave-voters, and Government and opposition have already stated that they have no such intentions.

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39 Comments

Why I’ve changed my mind on Fixed Odds Betting terminals

By David Thorpe | Tue 3rd April 2018 - 8:55 am

As a liberal I have some rather quaint ideas, one of which is that I generally don’t like the state banning things, because generations of governments have shown they don’t know better than the people, but I make an exception for Fixed Odds Betting Terminals.

The hard wall of my instinctive view has been destroyed by the cold reason of my personal experience, the very process that powered liberal progressiveness for generations.

I began a new, and comfortably the most prestigious, job of my life in July 2017, it was akin to being flung into a scalding vat of water such was the pressure.

My way of dealing with it was, at the end of the day, to adjourn to a betting shop between my workplace and the train station, where I bet tiny sums on the outcomes of horse races.

The amount I have bet in the last nine months is comfortably less than I have spent on being a member of the Liberal Democrats in that time, and I win more often.

But while those of us betting on horses have an easy after work camaraderie, a dull intensity pierces the betting shop in the form of those huddled over the terminals, feeding wads of cash into the machines, convinced they have cracked the game of chance

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Tagged fixed odds betting terminals and gambling | 13 Comments

How can the Lib Dems get back to the centre of the pitch?

By Judy Abel | Mon 2nd April 2018 - 2:12 pm

In January, I wrote a piece about the Liberal Democrats needing to ask themselves some tough questions about their low poll ratings. At the time, I also promised to write a follow up article on some potential solutions. Here it is – for what it’s worth!

There is an open goal in the centre of British politics, but somehow the Liberal Democrats are not really scoring in the polls, despite some positive announcements on education, for example, which received good media coverage. What do we need to do to turn things around on a significant scale? It’s certainly not easy. …

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Tagged policy | 121 Comments

Child poverty is a disgrace in a rich country

By Oliver Craven | Mon 2nd April 2018 - 11:05 am

In 2010, Parliament set a target for the government to eradicate child poverty by 2020 in the Child Poverty Act. The big three parties at the time, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour all agreed that this was a worthwhile target and strived to achieve it. However since then, we have seen a majority Conservative government attempt to abolish this target, stopped only by the House of Lords, as well as seen child poverty trend upwards, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies forecasting that it will reach over 5 million children, or 37%, by 2021-22. The government set out a …

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Tagged child poverty | 24 Comments

Vince Cable on internet regulation

By Gordon Lishman | Mon 2nd April 2018 - 8:55 am

In the years before the 2008 crash, Vince Cable built a reputation for seeing further ahead than most in politics and economics. Vince’s essay in the new Social Liberal Forum book “Four Go in Search of Big Ideas” enhances this record.

Writing before recent revelations about Cambridge Analytica, he identified: “the heart of the worries growing deeper about the data giants: that by filtering the information we receive they can influence not just the goods and services we consume but how we vote and, indeed, what we think”.

Vince sets out the threat to democracy: “Even if the owners of the platforms are benign and well-intentioned, the systems they have created and now monopolise may threaten democracy as we know it”. “Their systems can be used for surveillance by building up a profile of targeted individuals. Elections in many countries often revolve around which candidate has the largest, engaged, Facebook following while the US President’s Twitter following has become a means of short-circuiting the checks and balances built into media coverage”.

Vince’s concludes that “the Internet is being constructed around a handful of companies of immense and growing power, notably Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Netflix, along with their Chinese equivalents, Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu”. “We are dealing with a particular case of regulated natural monopoly. If there are historical parallels it is with nineteenth-century railway companies which dominated the economy and society of the regions they opened up”.

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Tagged internet regulation and vince cable | 8 Comments

The town that wants its own Brexit

By NewsHound | Sun 1st April 2018 - 8:55 am

A campaigning group in Stratford-upon-Avon believes that Brexit does not go far enough. Or rather, come close enough. They want to implement Brexit locally, so that the townsfolk can enjoy the advantages in advance of the national negotiations, without being held back by delays or transition periods.

Jack Prince and Dick Vos, leaders of the new movement, see no reason why the principles behind Brexit cannot be rolled out immediately to benefit everyone in the town. The group they have founded, dubbed STRIP (Stratford Independence for the People), has expanded from a founding nucleus of 6 to a present total of 28.

“We are hoping the public will not refer to us as strippers, like they call UKIP voters kippers”, says Prince. “So far this doesn’t seem to have happened; I think people recognise that we have a perfectly serious point to make, which deserves to be respected”.

The aim of the group is to let locals take back control of their own affairs, without interference from bureaucrats in London who do not understand the town’s history and special status.

“Stratford was a great place in Shakespeare’s day, and we want to make it great again”, explains Vos, “but we must cut the red tape that has tied our hands for so long. Give the town back to those who actually live here, not the ones who are just passing through, taking advantage of all our facilities”.

Thousands of foreign tourists invade Stratford every year, traipsing through Shakespeare’s birthplace, causing damage for which locals must foot the bill. Not to mention the traffic congestion and additional road repairs needed. So should a wall be built for security, following the example of York and other famous English towns in the past?

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Tagged brexit | 5 Comments

“He was the only politician who was interested” in transgender rights

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 31st March 2018 - 10:14 pm

I am just back from a lovely afternoon at Transgender Pride Scotland. I hadn’t expected to be there but my plans changed – sadly too late to take place in the march in the biting cold and driving rain and sleet.

By the time I got there, the crowds were happily ensconced in a conference centre near the main student halls complex in Edinburgh. In the shadow of Arthur’s Seat, packed sessions on such subjects as tackling transphobia, what to expect at school, navigating gender identity issues as a non binary person, speech and voice as well as creative workshops took …

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Tagged alex carlile and transgender day of visibility | 1 Comment

It’s Transgender Day of Visibility – why it should matter to every liberal

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 31st March 2018 - 1:05 pm

Today is the annual Transgender Day of Visibility. This afternoon, I’m heading into Edinburgh for the Trans Pride Scotland event and I’m really looking forward to seeing the stalls, workshops, talks and meeting lots of lovely people.

Today really matters to me. As a liberal, I instinctively strive for the rights of people to be able to express who they are without fear. When I was at university, so many of my lesbian and gay friends weren’t out. When I went to uni in 1985, technically homosexuality had only been legal for five years in Scotland. Homophobia still exists, but we have come a long way since then and we have a job of work to do to maintain and continue that progress.

While rights and recognition of transgender people have improved in the last couple of decades, there is so much more to be done. Recent efforts to simplify the gender recognition system have inspired a bit of a transphobic backlash. Open any right wing tabloid these days and you’ll find scaremongering inaccurate bile which makes life so much more difficult for transgender people.

Imagine how you would feel if your very right to exist and be accepted as who you are was called in to question? Imagine how that must feel if you are a child or young person struggling to come to terms with your gender identity.

As a cisgender woman and a feminist, I’m not prepared to stand by why anyone is discriminated against and attacked. The words of Martin Niemoller are never far away from my mind and my love for my transgender and non binary friends is never far away from my heart.

The bottom line is that everyone should be able to express who they are, something very individual to them, as they see fit. They should be accepted and welcomed. For me, that’s a basic part of a liberal society.

I have been in total awe of my transgender friends these past few days. They have been under sustained attack on social media and have dealt with it with resilience, patience and humour. The bile and unpleasantness coming in their direction has been awful to see. That’s why I will always stand with them.

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Tagged featured and transgender day of visibility | 6 Comments

Your last chance to help us build a liberal immigration policy

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 31st March 2018 - 10:30 am

There’s been a bit of a confusion over the last dates to respond to the policy consultations that the party is running at the moment.

The policy papers themselves give Friday 31st March 2018 as the final date. However, you haven’t missed the boat as the party website says we have until 4th April.

This is just as well, as I have left my response to the 67 questions of the immigration paper until the last minute as usual. I have to say that the consultation paper is one of the most profoundly depressing things I have ever …

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Tagged autumn conference 2018, immigration, policy, power to people and communities and tuition fees | 10 Comments

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