Category Archives: Op-eds

David Thorpe

What the Lib Dems can learn about economics from Donald Trump

By David Thorpe | Thu 8th February 2018 - 5:05 pm

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/4860335535/in/photolist-8puuqx-nH9KhK-x5gkW-a2Yx4D-8putCp-a32qpS-a2YbjP-9kJJvt-7b8177-8puprR-6SKbQG-6SKbZG-oKCWvp-dkaUyr-v2EDLi-r1tFvY-r1tFHm-9kNUaq-4Mph7K-ChcB23-8puqfH-8pxBCE-8pxDRo-9kJHqK-aWwhx4-9VBBzN-5WEQZB-a2Ybz8-9kJLQR-9kP8co-4icUAV-9kMMvL-9kMSBb-9kMNwd-bYafLo-8purhr-9kKZfe-nzKQ2n-yNYtG-8pup2p-8purRn-hKv96Z-8pupSi-8pust2-bZPiEm-9kP7hq-a32p7J-8upwDg-5MSyss-9kMKy9Not least among my irritating habits is that I often take the opposite side of the argument to whatever the consensus is at any one time, not because I necessarily believe it, but rather to test my knowledge of my own point of view.

But there are times when even my ability to agitate for an unpopular cause runs aground. Donald Trump’s presidency is one where the well of mischief runs dry.

But there is a lesson for liberals in Mr Trump’s economic policies, as his actions reveal the failings of trickle-down economics …

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Kirsten Johnson

Building on our green credentials

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 8th February 2018 - 1:30 pm

We are the party who introduced the 5p charge for plastic bags and set up the Green Investment Bank. We led the way on investment in renewables and in green technologies. So what’s next?

Party members would have received a recent newsletter with a link to the party’s vision on how we can save our seas from plastic pollution.

We are calling for the government to commit to a Plastic-Free Charter.

We need to tackle our throw-away culture by providing incentives to reduce, reuse and recycle.

I couldn’t agree more.

Aberporth, in West Wales,

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Caron Lindsay

Layla and Ed try to change laws on homelessness

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th February 2018 - 8:44 am

I was so incredibly proud of two of our Lib Dem MPs yesterday.

First, Layla Moran stood up at PMQs and asked Theresa May to abolish the “archaic, dickensian and cruel” Vagrancy Act which criminalises rough sleeping, adding another layer of indignity to an already horrific situation for vulnerable people.

Here’s the exchange in full:

Under the Vagrancy Act 1824, rough sleeping is illegal. The Act was used nearly 2,000 times last year to drag homeless people before the courts. Scotland and Northern Ireland have already repealed it, so will the Prime Minister support my Bill to consign this heartless, Dickensian law to the history books across the whole United Kingdom?

The Prime Minister

We recognise that we need to take action in relation to rough sleeping, which is why we are putting more money into projects to reduce rough sleeping. That includes projects such as Housing First, which are being established in a number of places to ensure that we can provide for those who are rough sleeping. None of us wants to see anybody rough sleeping on our streets, which is why the Government are taking action.

This is even more important given that the cuts to social security have torn such massive holes in the safety net that homelessness is on the increase.

Layla also introduced a Bill to repeal the Vagrancy Act. Here she is talking about it.

And a couple of hours later, with a speech that packed a real punch, Ed Davey introduced a Bill which aims to give homeless people access to housing and end of life care if they are terminally ill. Yes, that’s right, they don’t actually have it already.

It is bad enough being homeless, but imagine having a terminal illness like Cancer. How on earth are you going to have a chance of managing the pain if you have nowhere to live? Anyone who has ever nursed someone through an illness like that will know how valuable that end of life care is at keeping people as comfortable as possible in their final weeks and days.

How would you like someone you love to end up in those circumstances?

Here’s Ed’s speech in full. It made me sad and angry to think that we live in a country where this isn’t already happening.

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Michael Berwick-Gooding

Can we afford a Universal Basic Income?

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Wed 7th February 2018 - 2:55 pm

In the last few years there have been a number of reports which consider the introduction of a Citizens’ Income and how it can be funded. Towards the end of last year I came across the Compass report – “Universal Basic Income: An idea whose time has come?” written by Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley (and partly funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation).

Howard Reed and Stewart Lansley in the Compass report set out two schemes for a Citizens’ Income, both of which keep the existing means-tested benefits, the existing State Pension, replaces Child Benefit and increases the higher National Insurance rate to 12% and abolishes the Income Tax Personal Allowance. Their scheme 1 gives children a Citizens Income of £49 per week, adults under 25 £51, adults over 25 £61 and pensioners an extra £41. It also increases all Income Tax rates by 3%. Their scheme 2 increases the Citizens Income rates by £10 and all Income Tax rates by a further 2%.

The RSA report “Creative citizen, creative state: the principles and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income” written by Anthony Painter and Chris Thoungpointed out that there were big tax cuts in 2015-16 totally £19.5 billion (including £8 billion to increase the Income Tax Personal Allowance to £10,600) so we should not be too concerned about having a shortfall in funding as the Citizens Income Trust might have of over £10 billion. 

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Mark Pack

Towards a party strategy

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th February 2018 - 1:30 pm

Optimists and pessimists alike can find plenty to feed on about the current state of the Liberal Democrats. Dramatic council by-election gains. Stuck in single figures in the opinion polls almost constantly for over seven years, with our best monthly average only 11%. A massive growth in party membership taking us to all-time record levels. A local council base that has been shrinking steadily since the peak of 22.3% of councillors being Lib Dem in 1996. A distinctive position on the big policy issue of our times, providing plenty of political space for the party.

The list could go on. What even this short sample shows is that the Liberal Democrats have huge potential, the need for us to successfully argue the liberal and democratic position has never been greater and yet we’ve not yet found a way to turn that into sustained success.

It’s a challenge to us all to work out how we can raise our game, be smarter in what we do, raise more money and involve more people.

Which is where the strategy motion coming up at Southport conference comes in. Any party member who can make it to conference has the chance to debate and vote on it. It’s not a strategy from on high, but one based on widespread consultation with members last year, including two all-member surveys and on which members get the final say.

It is also, quite deliberately, a strategy. It is not a manifesto, a vision statement or an HQ business plan. It is not the one magic document that contains all the solutions for what the party needs to do. We will also need, for example, great manifestos for future devolved and Westminster general elections. So don’t expect to find the answers to everything in the strategy motion – it is (just) our propose strategy.

It is also, as any good strategy should be, a deliberate choice of priorities. There are plenty of things that could be in it which aren’t. That is because to prioritise everything is to prioritise nothing. You will, I suspect, have some things you’d love to see in the list of organisational priorities which aren’t there. I can certainly think of some I’m tempted to add. But even in an organisation overflowing with money, staff and volunteers, let alone in the reality of the Liberal Democrats, you need to prioritise to make meaningful progress.

So what the proposed strategy does instead is to set out a clear political approach for us – one which combines the mutually supporting aims of electoral success with the broader challenge of making our society and political system more liberal – and then sets out what sort of organisation we need to achieve that and how to get there.

If we get that right, we can rise to the challenge that the news brings us almost daily and turn far more of what we believe should happen into political change that makes our country more liberal, more green and more successful.

The text of the motion is below:

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Jo Swinson MP

Jo Swinson MP writes…Wringing our hands or shrugging our shoulders isn’t enough to fight discrimination

By Jo Swinson MP | Wed 7th February 2018 - 11:55 am

Editor’s Note: Out this month is Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson’s book Equal Power. Here she writes about the battle for equality and you can get her new book yourself from Amazon, Hive or The Guardian bookshop.

With rampant sexual harassment at a corporate charity dinner, the BBC accused of breaking equal pay law, and Easyjet’s new male CEO admitting he was offered £34,000 more to do the same job as his female predecessor, you don’t need to look far to find gender inequality in the news. And that’s just stories from one week.

When I was the Liberal Democrat Minister for Women, I learned that many seemingly different issues – the gender pay gap, violence against women, workplace discrimination, body image, division of caring responsibilities, gender stereotypes, women’s under-representation in politics – are all different parts of the same fiendishly difficult jigsaw. Tackling the problem of gender inequality means chipping away at all of these issues simultaneously because together they reinforce the entrenched power imbalance between men and women.

The backlash in the letters page of the Financial Times last week showed what we’re up against, as writers bemoaned the FT even covering the issue of sexual harassment, and referred to the women groped in their workplace as “silly young girls”. When I spoke out on television – albeit colourfully – against the everyday sexism and misogyny that sees schoolgirls sexually harassed, I was called a “little missy”.

It should be a core mission for us as liberals to challenge concentrations of power, including the power hoarded in the hands of rich, white men.

Gendered assumptions are everywhere. While women bear the brunt of these injustices, rigid cultural expectations about gender also harm men, not least in terms of their mental health. Men are also undervalued in their role as fathers, something I started trying to change with the introduction of shared parental leave.

Our party is not immune to the sexism that permeates through every part of society, but we can all act – individually and collectively – to be part of the solution. We need to recognise the nature of the problem: it is structural and ingrained in each and every one of us, absorbed from the surrounding culture. Changing it takes constant attention and proactive effort. Wringing our hands or shrugging our shoulders when few women ‘come forward’ won’t cut it for our party in 2018.

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Duncan Brack

Jo Swinson, the Liberal Party and Women’s Suffrage

By Duncan Brack | Tue 6th February 2018 - 6:44 pm

As we celebrate the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which gave the parliamentary vote to (some) women, for the first time, readers may be interested in two meetings and one publication:

In Conversation at the Mile End Institute: Jo Swinson MP (19 February)

At 6.30pm on Monday 19 February, at the Mile End Campus, Queen Mary University of London, Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrats’ Deputy Leader and Shadow Foreign Secretary and the MP for East Dunbartonshire, will join Professor Philip Cowley in conversation.

This is part of the Mile End Institute’s regular series of political ‘conversations’, the most recent of which was with Jacob Rees-Mogg. Phil Cowley, co-author of the British General Election series of books (he’s currently working on the 2017 edition) is an excellent and engaging interviewer, and the event will be well worth attending.

It’s free and open to the public, but registration is required. To book your ticket, visit the Mile End Institute’s website or Eventbrite. For those unable to attend, the conversation will be live-streamed, and podcast and a video of the event will be available afterwards.

The Liberal Party and Women’s Suffrage (9 March)

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Flo Clucas

100 Years and Counting

By Flo Clucas | Tue 6th February 2018 - 12:45 pm

My grandmother took me by the hand and said that we were going to do something special. Off we went from our house, to a local school.

The next thing I remember is being lifted onto a small shelf, being given a pencil and my grandmother telling me that we were going to vote for Mr Churchill. She showed me where I was to make my cross.

I voted. It was the 1951 election and I was four years old.

My grandmother had been a supporter of the suffragette movement and told stories of her exploits as a young girl. Ironically, she had demonstrated against Winston Churchill when he came to Liverpool, even breaking windows at the Town Hall. Though she had never been arrested, she told us what had happened to her fellow suffragists. How they were force fed and badly treated and of Emily Davidson, killed by the King’s horse.

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Andrew Haldane

Fragile family finances make Brexit unaffordable

By Andrew Haldane | Tue 6th February 2018 - 8:11 am

Over the last few days a frightening juxtaposition has emerged between the Brexit Impact forecasts and solid evidence of the precarious nature of family finances in the UK. Whatever the scale of the adverse Brexit impact proves to be it would seem that a substantial proportion of our fellow citizens lack the financial resilience to cope with any impact at all.

The RSA report “Seven Portraits of Modern Work” paints a vivid picture of an economy in which the tentacles of financial fragility permeate well beyond the lowest paid, penetrating the Tory-voting classes to the extent that around 70% of those in employment have reason to feel financially insecure.

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Caron Lindsay

The #Hungry4Democracy fast begins

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 5th February 2018 - 9:12 pm

As I wrote yesterday, I’m joining Sal Brinton, Stephen Kinnock, Natalie Bennett, Polly Toynbee and a few hundred others in fasting for 24 hours. It’s organised by the Make Votes Matter campaign and it’s to highlight that our democracy is broken and how badly we need Proportional Representation at Westminster.

Just before 8pm, I finished my meal of Macaroni Cheese and oven chips (going for the carb loading there) and that’s it until 8pm tomorrow. Unlike the brave women of the early 20th century  who went on hunger strike and endured unspeakably cruel force feeding, I doubt I’ll get to the end of the day without some significant whinging. It is very not like me to go without food for any reason. I expect I’ll whinge a lot less if some of you contribute to the fundraiser that’s going alongside it. The funds will be split between Make Votes Matter, the Fawcett Society and the food bank charity, The Trussell Trust.

So why am I doing it? Well, I’m lucky. My vote has elected someone to Westminster. Once. in 30 years and 8 elections. That’s just not good enough. In most of the country, the result of any election to the Westminster Parliament is a foregone conclusion. It first struck me as a teenager back in 1983 when there was less than 2.5% between Labour and the Liberal/SDP Alliance, yet Labour got 209 seats and we got 23.

We might all have a vote, but we really don’t get the Parliament we ask for. Channel 4 did an analysis after last year’s election of what the House of Commons might have looked under first past the post, the alternative vote and two PR systems. It’s a game changer. I don’t think it actually reflects how people would vote in those circumstances though, because there would be less need for polarisation. People would be able to freely vote for the party of their heart, or at least the one that comes closest.

Unlike a woman born 100 years before me, there was never any doubt that I would be able to vote. I’d like all my votes to count, though. As a Scot I am lucky enough to cast my local election vote by Single Transferable Vote and my Scottish Parliament vote has a top-up Additional Member System list.

Sadly, I’m being short-changed on my Westminster vote. It doesn’t work as well and it’s time for that to change. There haven’t been many governments that actually command the majority of the voters. In fact, Thatcher’s mammoth 1983 win gave her huge amounts of power that she didn’t deserve. She had a whacking great majority in parliament on less than half of the popular vote. 

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Tahir Maher

GINI Coefficient – is it really a measure of Press Power?

By Tahir Maher | Mon 5th February 2018 - 5:22 pm

The Gini* coefficient provides an index to measure inequality. A measure of 0 shows everybody is equal, and 1 where the country’s income is earned by a single person. Allianz calculated (in 2015) each country’s wealth Gini coefficient and found the U.S. had the most wealth inequality, with a score of 0.80. As a comparison Rome’s top 1% controlled 16% of the wealth (compared to America’s 40%, today) with a Gini coefficient of 0.44.

How can a modern, educated, democratic society allow such a massive discrepancy in the distribution of wealth? The distribution of news (TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines etc.) …

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Phil Wainewright

Liberal Democrats are the party where everyone belongs

By Phil Wainewright | Mon 5th February 2018 - 2:45 pm

What do Liberal Democrats believe? We strive for a society where everyone belongs and is free to be themselves.

Inclusiveness comes first, because freedom alone is not enough. Liberal Democrats value individual liberty, but at the same time we recognise that none of us can be truly free without the support and consent of everyone around us. And society as a whole is stronger, healthier and happier when everyone is able to play their part. We all win when we work together, while respecting our differences.

This historic Liberal tradition is today a thoroughly modern political philosophy, perfectly in tune with the …

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Caron Lindsay

Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #505

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 4th February 2018 - 9:00 pm

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 505th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (28 January – 3 February, 2018), together with a hand-picked seven you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox — just click here — ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

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Caron Lindsay

My first vote and why I’m still #hungry4democracy

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 4th February 2018 - 2:25 pm

I can’t remember if it was February or October 1974 but I do know that it was grey and cold. I was either  6 or 7 and I was walking up Tomatin Road in Inverness heading to Hilton Church Hall where my parents were going to cast their votes. That instilled in me that voting was something that was important to do. I didn’t really understand the issues, but I knew it was important that we were able to choose the Government.

Fast forward a few years to the weeks running up to the 1987 General Election. Although I was away at university at that time, I had decided to have a postal vote as I was keen to vote for Robert Maclennan, the SDP MP for Caithness and Sutherland for whom I had actively campaigned.

As I opened the envelope containing my ballot and, with due solemnity, cast my vote, I reflected that 70 years earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to do so. In fact, even 60 years earlier, I wouldn’t have had that chance. I would have been excluded from the electoral register purely because I was a woman (in 1917) or a young woman with no property (in 1927).  I thought about the women who had fought for my right to vote in different ways. Many had given their lives and liberty and were subjected to appalling treatment by the state as they fought for the right to vote. Their sacrifices made me determined to use my vote on every occasion. I only failed once, but I suspect that both Millicent Fawcett and Emmeline Pankhurst might have approved. I was working in the target seat of Chesterfield and had been there all week. I simply didn’t get a break from door-knocking to enable me to go home and vote. From that point, I have had a postal vote for every election.

On Tuesday, it will be the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Representation of the People Act which gave around 40% of the women in the country, as well as all men over 21, the vote for national elections. That and further extensions of the franchise don’t mean our democracy is in healthy state, though. Our antiquated First Past the Post system doesn’t give people the Parliament they ask for and it is the worst system for equality of  representation between men and women.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Jobwatch special – a Scottish Campaigns Chief

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 3rd February 2018 - 10:57 am

There were a few sore heads in Edinburgh on Thursday morning. Mine was ok, possibly due to the fact that my friend dragged me away at sensible o’clock and made me walk the half hour back to the station.

The occasion was gathering of everyone who was anybody in the Scottish Lib Dems to say farewell to our incredible Head of Campaigns, Adam Stachura, who is off to pastures new after getting the Scottish party back to winning form.

He took over the role just after the 2011 election. It had been a disaster and the party was in shock from the loss of two thirds of our MSPs. Weeks after that, our then much loved Head of Campaigns, Andrew Reeves, died suddenly at the age of just 43.

So Adam came in during the lean years and got us back to winning form. Hard working, irrepressible, cheeky as hell, determined and cheerful, he kept us going. His ability to develop a winning campaign on not much more than fresh air was legendary.

His are big shoes to fill. If you think you can, you have until this Friday to apply. 

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Chris Adams

How to be liberal, Christian and gay

By Chris Adams | Fri 2nd February 2018 - 2:55 pm

 

 

Recently, for better or for worse, Tim Farron has decided to make his theological opinions (not his faith) front and centre of his public persona as an MP. His decision recently to speak out on gay sex being a sin, yet again, this time to correct what he said on national television during the election campaign last year, has prompted me to want to tell the other side of the story.

I’m a Christian. I have been for over 13 years. It’s part of who I am and it’s what makes me a liberal. I read the bible and I read of a God who stands up for the oppressed; who loves all equally. He calls us to do the same – to love justice and hate inequality. As Christians it is our job on this earth to act out that love for all, to stand up for the oppressed and to do so justly, no matter who they are or where they are from. To treat others the way God treats us – in full acceptance. That’s why I’m a liberal: I believe in the value of each individual.

I am also gay. Which means I know that all too often, Christians don’t stand up for me or accept me as I am, in the way God does.

Let me be blunt: God is not two-faced. God does not judge me on the one hand and fight for me on the other. He doesn’t love me unconditionally, but tell me I’m not accepted as I am. That wouldn’t be the God defined by the perfect love described in 1 Corinthians 13. That’s not my God. Anyone who feels that they can truly stand up for my rights while believing that there is something fundamentally morally wrong with my being is kidding themselves if they believe they are acting coherently.

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Paul Holmes

Why a good targeting strategy is essential

By Paul Holmes | Fri 2nd February 2018 - 1:25 pm

Michael Meadowcroft makes an impassioned case against Targeting but the facts simply do not support his case.

In a First Past The Post electoral system good targeting of resources is essential whether you are a local party fighting Council elections or a national party looking to maximise the number of MP’s elected. A good but widely spread vote wins little for a small third or fourth party. This was most clearly illustrated in 1983 when our 25.4% returned just 23 MP’s compared to Labour returning over 200 MP’s with a more geographically concentrated 27.5% of the vote.

Michael does concede that targeting worked in 1997 but says its effect was disastrous thereafter. In fact more seats were targeted in 2001 and we won 52 followed by 62 (our best since 1922) in 2005. In 2010 we targeted even more although we saw a net loss of 5 due to being too ambitious and spreading effort too thinly. At the same time, far from being ‘hollowed out’ everywhere else, we won control of a greater number of councils than ever before –a clear sign of growth and expansion in campaigning capability.

In short the ‘hollowing out’ of the Party between 2011-2017 owes nothing to targeting and everything to our virtually overnight self destruction shortly after entering Coalition. Neither of course was there ever some sort of pre-targeting ‘Golden Age’. From 1945 -1979 the Liberal Party fluctuated between a high of just 14 MPs in 1974 and near oblivion in many other General Elections. From 1983 onwards we averaged around 22 MP’s. Only after serious targeting started did we double and then treble that figure.

Some comments, both by Michael and below the line, do both puzzle and concern me though. I was involved with target seats from 1995-2015 in one capacity or another as voluntary constituency organiser, PPC, MP and back to Constituency Organiser. I never heard any suggestion in that time that ‘no’ activity should take place anywhere else although I did hear it rather foolishly being said in 2017. Indeed back in 1995 onwards there were 3 tiers of seats, with PPC’s being urged to campaign at appropriate levels and in non target constituencies to include ‘helping in a target’ as a ‘part’ of their personal and constituency campaign/development plan.

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Mathew Hulbert

We’ve come so far, but the fight for full equality for LGBT+ communities is far from being over

By Mathew Hulbert | Fri 2nd February 2018 - 11:55 am

We’re now on the second day of LGBT History Month 2018.

One of the things that makes me most proud to be a Liberal Democrat is our record on LGBT+ rights and equality.

We have, indeed, always been there on these issues…leading the way, with pioneering policies and brave advocates.

From campaigning for an end to discriminatory legislation such as Section 28, which barred the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools, to enacting Same Sex Marriage legislation during the 2010-15 Coalition Government (by far, in my humble opinion, the best thing we did in office)…thank you, Lynne Featherstone!

From LGBT+ Lib Dems, to activists, Councillors, Parliamentarians and Ministers, Lib Dems have, overwhelmingly, been on the right side of history when it comes to the need for full equality for all of our communities.

As a gay man, I’ll always be so, so proud that it was Lib Dems in government who helped to ensure I and millions like me became as near to fully equal under the law as we’ve ever been.

The Labour government which proceeded the Coalition also deserves a good deal of credit on this agenda, to be fair.

But until everyone is equal, none are equal.

We must remember that in one part of these islands, Northern Ireland, Same Sex Marriage is still illegal…as the DUP, which props up the UK Tory government, continues to block progressive change in the province.

And until trans and non-binary folks are respected and made equal under the law, then we Lib Dems still have much work to do.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Let’s talk

By Tom Arms | Fri 2nd February 2018 - 8:55 am

It’s time to talk. And the Liberal Democrats should publicly say so.

Nuclear weapons, cyber weapons, drones, robots and rogue nuclear states have combined to move the Doomsday clock to two minutes before midnight.

The last time it was this close to Armageddon was January 1953. Stalin was still in the Kremlin. The Korean War was raging and General MacArthur was pressing for a nuclear attack on China. The Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb in 1949. The Americans exploded their first hydrogen bomb in 1952. Anti-communist witch hunter Senator Joe McCarthy was at the height of his powers, Post war Western Europe was struggling to rise to its knees and the Soviet thumb was busily screwing down Eastern Europe.

The international situation was bad. In 2018—say the committee that moves the hands of the Doomsday clock—it is as bad as the worst it has ever been.

And yet, despite the fear that is creeping into global diplomatic relations, very little is being done to encourage negotiations designed to push the minute hand away from midnight. We have become so obsessed with issues such as immigration, sovereignty and economic growth that we have lost sight of the dangers that threaten to obliterate any political and economic gains.

The dangers are as great now as in 1953 because the weaponry is more frightening and the threats are politically more complex and multipolar. In 1953 it was Moscow v. Washington. In 2018 it is Washington v. Beijing, Moscow v. Washington,  Washington v. Tehran, China v. India, Israel v. Iran and the Arab world, North Korea v. Washington, Pakistan v. India, Russia v the EU. Kegs of nuclear gunpowder are scattered across the globe just waiting for the spark to blow us all to kingdom come.

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Norman Lamb MP

Norman Lamb MP writes…On #timetotalk day tell Government to deliver on equal treatment for physical and mental health

By Norman Lamb MP | Thu 1st February 2018 - 4:30 pm

Imagine you have the misfortune to be diagnosed with cancer. Perhaps you have already faced this devastating illness, experiencing first-hand the distress, fear and uncertainty that comes with it. A small comfort for many is that, under NHS waiting time standards, cancer patients have the right to fast access to the best possible evidence-based treatment – a right which is fiercely defended by politicians, the media and the public.

But now imagine you are told that you won’t be given the treatment you need. Services are under-funded and under-staffed to the point where the full package of care isn’t available. You are told that you will only receive a shortened chemotherapy cycle; that you can only have chemotherapy when what you need is a combined course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy; or even that you won’t receive the full package because you are over the age of 35.

In short, you won’t get the treatment that will dramatically improve your chances of recovery – the treatment that you should be guaranteed under standards of care enshrined in the NHS constitution.

This would never be tolerated in the NHS, and rightly so.  Yet this is the reality for thousands of people with severe mental health problems, who are experiencing their first episode of psychosis but are being denied the standards of care they have the right to expect.

When the Liberal Democrats were in government, one of the most important steps we took towards achieving ‘parity of esteem’ in the NHS was the introduction of the first ever access and waiting time standards in mental health care. This included a guarantee that from April 2016, at least 50% of people with psychosis would receive a high-quality, NICE-approved approved package of care within two weeks of referral.

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Lord Roger Roberts

Why we need a vote on the deal – and include 16-year-olds

By Lord Roger Roberts | Thu 1st February 2018 - 3:10 pm

This is the speech Lord Robert’s gave in the Lords yesterday.

We need to confirm Brexit or otherwise, and we do that by voting. We voted in the referendum. People will say that we had one vote—that the people voted and made their voices heard—but it is unusual for people to rely on just one referendum.

In Wales, we had a referendum on Welsh devolution way back in 1979, when 20% of the people of Wales voted for devolution. Some years later, just over 50% voted for it, but people had changed substantially …

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Jen Yockney

LGBT History Month

By Jen Yockney | Thu 1st February 2018 - 1:00 pm

Today is the start of LGBT History Month, marked in the UK since 2005 to raise the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, their history, lives and their experiences.

In 2017, there was a clear unifying anniversary of fifty years since the partial decriminalisation for part of the UK of sex between men – enabled by then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, whose political career took him from Labour minister via SDP leader to the Lib Dem green benches.

2018 has key round-number dates too, though: forty years since the …

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Ruth Bright

#timetotalk – My story

By Ruth Bright | Thu 1st February 2018 - 8:40 am

It can safely be said that there are not too many articles on Lib Dem Voice inspired by Adele! But with LDV’s record of taboo-breaking posts on mental health she is a fitting heroine for her refreshing honesty about post-natal depression. She said in an interview a few months ago that it affected her so seriously that she hesitated about having more children. It is something many of us can identify with but few admit.

For me, it was very tied up with having a sick baby and the pressures of being …

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Kirsten Johnson

#timetotalk – Supporting Children’s Mental Health

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 1st February 2018 - 8:00 am

Today is Time To Talk Day – a day to talk about mental health with friends, family and colleagues. Time to Change organises #timetotalk on the first Thursday in February each year. Lib Dem Voice would love to have your stories and thoughts on mental health – please send them in and we will post as many as possible.

I will start with a post on children and mental health – we most likely won’t get any submissions from children today, but to me, getting children’s mental health care right is paramount.

“Half of all mental health problems manifest by the age of 14, with 75% by age 24.” And the alarming statistics continue. “Suicide is the most common cause of death for boys aged between 5-19 years, and the second most common for girls of this age.” Unless we get mental health care right during childhood, we are condemning many to a lifetime of mental ill-health.

Early diagnosis and treatment can change lives. If proper help and support are given to children when they first exhibit signs of mental ill-health, long-term prognosis improves dramatically.

There is currently a government inquiry on a green paper on this subject: Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision. It is being overseen by both the Parliamentary Health and Education Select Committees:

The Education and Health Select Committees recognise that the provision of mental health services to children and young people is of vital importance to safeguarding their wellbeing. Good mental health is not only of great value in itself, but it allows young people to take greater advantage of educational opportunities.

In light of the publication of the Government’s green paper on Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision, the House of Commons Select Committees on Health and Education have agreed to launch a joint inquiry to scrutinise the proposed scope and implementation of the green paper, and to follow up on their previous recommendations.

A huge amount of evidence was published on Tuesday with links here.

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Sal Brinton

Sal Brinton writes: Hungry for Democracy?

By Sal Brinton | Wed 31st January 2018 - 5:44 pm

Next Tuesday the UK will commemorate the centenary of the Representation of the People Act, which gave some women the vote and we will be marking the contribution of the commitment of suffragettes and suffragists over years to achieve it. I am sure, however, that many of them would be very concerned about the fault lines in our democracy one hundred years on.

The democratic deficit in our country is stark. First past the post denies representation to millions: in the 2015 General Election, the Lib Dems, Greens, and UKIP got over 24% of the vote, but won a mere 1.5% of the seats in Parliament. And in 2017 the Conservatives and the DUP received 43% of the votes between them, but hold a majority of the seats in the House of Commons.

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Caron Lindsay

Jo Swinson calls for misogyny to be made a hate crime

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 31st January 2018 - 11:58 am

Crimes motivated by prejudice such as homophobia and racism already carry stiffer penalties, so if we accept that principle, why on earth do we not include misogyny in that?

Jo Swinson this week made that very point using some colourful language on the Victoria Derbyshire show.

You can watch the whole thing here from 1:26:31

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Caron Lindsay

Reminder: #TimetoTalk Day tomorrow – tell your story

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 31st January 2018 - 10:25 am

You can’t be truly free if you are constantly fighting illness without the support that you need. That is why Liberal Democrats are so passionate about making sure that people have the right mental health support.

For five years during the coalition years, Liberal Democrat ministers were at the helm of pushing through positive change. Norman Lamb, as the Minister responsible, totally got it. Of the many things he did, the Crisis Care Concordat was a really good example of helping people when they most needed it .

He also fought for parity of esteem between physical and mental health.

In doing this he had the full backing of Nick as Deputy Prime Minister who made sure that he put as much funding as he could into mental health.

What I liked most about Norman’s many interviews on this subject, though, was his forthrightness. Rather than pretend everything was fantastic, he always said that what was happening wasn’t good enough and what he wanted to change.

Every year on the first Thursday in February, Time to Change hold Time to Talk Day.It’s aimed at ending the stigma around mental health and enabling people to be more open about the impact that mental ill health has on them.

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The Voice

Dick Newby: Withdrawal Bill exhibits Government’s arrogance and incompetence

By The Voice | Tue 30th January 2018 - 8:26 pm

As the EU Withdrawal Bill hits the House of Lords, here is Dick Newby’s speech in full:

It is now a year since Your Lordships House began its debate on the Bill triggering Article 50 and 10 months since the Article was triggered.

It is generally agreed that both the withdrawal agreement and the agreement on our future relations with the EU have to be concluded before the end of the year and so we are approximately half way through the entire period available for our exit negotiations. What has been achieved so far?

My Lords, Virtually nothing.

The Government has formally agreed on the future rights of EU citizens living in the UK, but this was something which from day one it said was going to do. It has agreed on a divorce bill – but again the Prime Minister had long been clear the Government was going to do so, even if some members of her Cabinet were not.

And on the status of Northern Ireland it has agreed a form of words which, far from settling the matter, are interpreted in a completely different way in Ireland from the gloss put on them here in London, as I discovered in a range of discussions I had in Dublin last week.

On our future relationship with the EU, beyond bland and meaningless platitudes, we have nothing.

In December we were told that the Cabinet would have agreed on our future trading relationship with the EU during January. Well January has come and virtually gone and there is still no sign of such a decision, or anything approaching one.

And the Prime Minister is now so cowed by a fractious and disunited Cabinet that she daren’t even make a speech on the subject. My Lords there are many Noble Lords in Your Lordships House with longer experience of governments than me, but I doubt whether any of them will have seen a Prime Minister and a Government in such a state of paralysis.

And in the real world, our growth rate has fallen from the highest in the G7 to the lowest, the head of the OBR describes the economy as “weak and stable” and the Government’s own assessments of the impact of Brexit on the economy are uniformly negative.

It is against this background that we begin our consideration of the Withdrawal Bill.  Of course it was never intended to be the Withdrawal Bill. It was supposed to be the Great Repeal Bill. That is until the Commons Clerks object to the use of the word Great. They could equally have objected to the word repeal, because this bill is not a repeal bill. It is a transfer bill, taking the whole bulk of existing EU legislation and turning it into domestic legislation.

ML whilst it is easy to dismiss the kerfuffle about the Bill’s title with a smile, it is very revealing of the Government’s overall approach to the Brexit process. It can be characterised as a combination of arrogance and incompetence which is now threatening the future of our country. And the background ticking of the clock is getting louder by the day. 

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Geoff Crocker

Brexit hits the buffers of logic

By Geoff Crocker | Tue 30th January 2018 - 4:20 pm

Brexit, the will of 52% of the people, now completely consumes the UK’s political energy. Yet the process itself is stuck in paralysis, because it is trying to confront incontrovertible logic head on. It has hit the buffers of reality. Hence Teresa May’s paralysed government, and the permanent state of internal feuding from Tory Brexiteers, who remain full of nationalist passion, but void of logical argument. The nightly appearance of their cheerleader Jacob Rees-Mogg on our TV screens needs countering with that logic. Here is some of it.

1 UK currently has the best trade deal available with the EU by being a member of the EU. Any deal as a non-member must by definition be worse. Therefore, UK should seek a deal as close to the existing deal as possible. Philip Hammond was totally right in saying this. His detractors are definitively wrong. This is a matter of logic and not of opinion.

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Michael Meadowcroft

Why targeting has damaged the Party

By Michael Meadowcroft | Tue 30th January 2018 - 12:49 pm

Editor’s Note: This article previously made reference to the alleged actions of an unidentified member of party staff. This reference has been removed on the request of that member of staff. Lib Dem Voice has apologised for its original inclusion – we have always sought to avoid such references on the site but our small team of volunteer editors overlooked it on this occasion

 

My fellow colleague kicked off a fascinating debate on how the Party might progress on Sunday. Amongst the comments was a contribution from Michael Meadowcroft which, according to one of our readers, deserved to be expanded upon. It’s a bit longer than our normal pieces, but I hope that it will be thought-provoking. Mark

I have a fellow feeling for Paul Holmes as another of the handful of Liberals who have gained seats from Labour, but it is perverse in his situation for him to defend targeting. I have acknowledged that it arguably works once in the ruthless way it has been carried out for twenty-five years with the diminishing and lethal returns we saw last year. It is a risk to execute targeting even once but the result in 1997 arguably justified its inception. It is the continuance of the strategy that has been disastrous. Indeed the evidence of its failure is visible in that the same seats have to be targeted election after election because we have been unable to build self-supporting organisations in those seats. How then can we rely only on this strategy to win a wide swathe of seats towards a majority in the House of Commons?

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