Category Archives: Op-eds

Oliver Craven

Power to the people

By Oliver Craven | Tue 27th March 2018 - 8:32 am

I’m sure that many members will agree with me that it is often very difficult to succinctly describe what the party stands for in terms that they understand. Some will choose to quote the preamble of the constitution, that we wish people to be free from “poverty, ignorance and conformity” yet this is difficult to expand into a set of principles that apply to every different area of thought and policy. Others would choose to talk about liberty, running into the difficulty of having to carefully define what liberty means. I would suggest that we return to the roots of community politics, towards bringing power to the people in all spheres of society.

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Mark Argent

Was Corbyn right to sack Owen Smith, after he advocated a referendum on the final terms of a Brexit deal?

By Mark Argent | Mon 26th March 2018 - 12:45 pm

One answer is horror: there’s a compelling case for asking the British public whether the Brexit that is negotiated is what they actually want — not least because the dishonest and contradictory messages from the Leave campaign mean that many who voted Leave will find a large gap between the deal that is offered and what they thought they had voted for.

But an Exit From Brexit means healing the deep divisions that it has exposed, not just a narrow vote the other way in a referendum. That means bringing across many of those who voted Leave, and engaging …

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Mark Valladares

British exceptionalism – why even the Liberal Democrats need to get over themselves

By Mark Valladares | Mon 26th March 2018 - 8:12 am

One of the most dispiriting aspects of British politics over the past two years has been the often expressed view that Europe needs us more than we need them. We are the fifth (or sixth, maybe soon seventh) largest economy in the world, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, etc etc. And yes, we have influence, for good or ill. Other countries look to us for support, or for leadership, and we have some of the world’s leading operators in a range of fields.

But it is all too often what is seen to be good for Britain which …

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Helen Flynn

What Liberals need to do for the ‘left behind’

By Helen Flynn | Sat 24th March 2018 - 8:58 am

‘Left behind’ is a relatively new term to describe communities in the UK who have, economically speaking, fallen behind the more prosperous parts of the country.  The reasons for this socio-economic phenomenon are varied, but amongst them are: de-industrialisation; the effects of globalisation; and power that is over-centralised to Westminster.

As Liberals, why should we care about the left behind?  Some may argue it is because there were large numbers of voters in these communities, generally speaking, who voted to leave the EU (though whether it was anything to do with the EU is arguable).  Therefore, getting them ‘on side’ would increase our chances of an ‘exit from Brexit’.

However, as Liberals who fundamentally care about social justice, we should now be responding urgently to these communities, as these are the very people who stand to gain the most from Liberal policies.  Liberal values are at the heart of progressive policies that respect and value the individual, regardless of background and personal characteristics, and seek to maximise opportunities for all, so that it is not only the individual who gains, but whole communities and ultimately the country.  By targeting the ‘left behind’ we can move society on more significantly than by targeting any other group.

Paul Hindley, in his chapter in the SLF’s most recent publication Four Go In Search Of Big Ideas, makes an eloquent case for a new system of social rights, that at this moment in time, would give the ‘left behind’ a stake in our society, some dignity, and hope. As he says:

The intractable problem of our political age is: how do liberals and progressives reach out to left behind communities? How do we defuse populism, tackle economic inequality and revive a positive sense of community in the age of Brexit and identity politics? If liberals cannot reach out to the most deprived and alienated communities, to the places that most need social justice, then there will be no meaningful future for progressive politics.

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Caron Lindsay

Review: Read Towards a Liberal Future by David Howarth and Bernard Greaves

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 23rd March 2018 - 11:55 am

In his conference speech, Vince Cable talked about having a party “fizzing with ideas.” But to be able to present a liberal vision with liberal ideas, you have to have a clear understanding of liberal values and of how they should be applied in every area of our lives. In Towards a Liberal Future, David Howarth and Bernard Greaves set out their view of what liberalism is all about. They look at how the party has failed to practice and communicate its core values and set out how we can fix this. I’m very excited to say that they have allowed us to share their book with you here.

The authors have a long history in the Party. It’s nearly 40 years since Bernard Greaves co-wrote “The Theory and Practice of Community Politics” and 10 years since he co-wrote “The Theory and Practice of Community Economics.” David Howarth is a former Liberal Democrat MP and Councillor who has returned to the academic life since he stepped down from Parliament. More recently, he’s developed the idea of Core Vote Strategy with Mark Pack and it’s no surprise that that plays a part in the book’s strategy for our recovery.

Vince seems to take the implied criticism in their analysis of how we got to where we are on the chin in his foreword to the book:

It starts from the proposition that the party has ‘lost its way’ producing an incoherent mixture of ‘local champions and national pragmatists’ (the latter, presumably including me, being the people who went into Coalition).

It seeks to revive the party’s long term vision and, in my view, does so brilliantly.

The authors don’t merely blame the coalition for our demise. That, they argued, started with the concentration purely on winning local elections without a national over-arching vision.

From where it all went wrong, Howarth and Greaves take us through a definition of liberal values and some examples of how we could translate them into various policy areas. 

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Claire Turner

Who knew knocking on strangers’ doors could be such fun?

By Claire Turner | Fri 23rd March 2018 - 10:25 am

“I don’t mind delivering leaflets, but I wouldn’t want to do canvassing.” My thoughts exactly, a few months ago. I joined the Lib Dems in the aftermath of the EU referendum, determined to do something to demonstrate my frustration at the direction the Tory Government was leading us. Delivering leaflets was a positive activity and in the excitement of the 2017 General Election, I felt I was doing my bit. But over time, it has become clear that the task to influence public opinion and make the Government take notice of the 48% is huge. The leaflets were great, but I couldn’t help wondering how many of them went straight in the recycling bin. What could I do that would make more impact with my time?

I began to wonder again about canvassing. Research shows that people are 20% more likely to vote if they have been visited by a canvasser: even a just a smile and a friendly greeting is enough to make a difference. But I was worried about what it would be like. Would I be on the receiving end of angry householders determined to give me chapter and verse of their views, or would there be endless doors slammed in my face? Eventually, I summoned up some courage and went along to an action day to find out.

I was surprised to find how pleasant the experience was. When I arrived, I was paired up with an experienced canvasser and we went to each house together. We only called at houses where previous canvassing had shown that the owners were open to voting Lib Dem, which meant that we had a friendly reception at nearly every house. There was a list of questions to ask, depending on how much the householder wanted to chat: a surprising number were happy to stand on the doorstep and tell us their concerns about the local area and Brexit. It was fascinating to find out what people thought and how they saw the local scene and the national picture. When we found someone who was willing to join the mailing list, have a stakeboard in their garden or even become a volunteer, it was a cause for celebration! At the end of the morning, we all gathered at a pub for lunch and to share our stories. After that, I was keen to have a list of my own to do.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Facebook faces the music

By Tom Arms | Fri 23rd March 2018 - 8:55 am

Facebook’s stated mission is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

It also has an unstated mission: To make a shedload of money.

It is incredibly successful at both.

There are 2.2 billion active Facebook users.  Mark Zuckerberg is worth $67.7 billion.

But the rest of society is discovering that there is a price to be paid in invasion of privacy and erosion of political liberties.

The problem is that the posted holiday snaps, political opinions and declarations of love don’t belong to you.  They belong to Facebook who run the data through clever algorithms  to work out just what you are likely to want to buy. They sell that analysis to advertisers who use the information to micro-target consumers on Facebook.

No longer do advertisers have to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a page in a glossy magazine to reach 200,000 users of which possibly only two percent will be interested in their product. They now pay a fraction of the old price to reach 200,000 Facebook users whose information  that they entered on their  Facebook page reveals them as a prime target.

What is wrong with that? Advertisers reach a highly targeted international market which opens the possibility of global trade  while consumers are offered the opportunity to buy the sort of goods and services they want at the best possible price.

That must be a good thing. Yes it is. Unfortunately it does not stop there.

Enter Cambridge academic Professor Aleksandr Koga and Cambridge-based digital analytical firm Cambridge Analytica. Dr Koga, a psychology professor who invented an app which extracted information on 250,000 Facebook users AND all of their connections—a total of 50,000,000 Facebook users. He said he wanted the information to produce psychological profiles.

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Tahir Maher

Has social media compromised liberty?

By Tahir Maher | Thu 22nd March 2018 - 5:12 pm

Do we lose the right to privacy when we involve ourselves in social media? The obvious answer to this question is “of course not” and that should be the case, but is it?

Facebook, a business that started around 2004, has announced it has over half of all internet users in the world on it; in six years Twitter had over 100 million users. Recently, the US State Department asked Twitter not to carry out regular maintenance during the recent demonstrations in Iran as information was being disseminated through Twitter. A similar use was made of Facebook during the uprising in Egypt. Social media platforms on the face of it can be a profoundly pro-liberty force. John Stuart Mill wrote about liberty as freedom not only from coercion by the government but also from the constraints of social conventions, so is social media the answer?

Unfortunately, social media companies focus really on advertising. Google, for example, generates 23% of all US advertising revenue, more than twice that of all print media. The ever-increasing user base of social networking sites tends to require your name, date of birth, and in many cases education and employment details. Many identity thieves tend to hack their victim’s email accounts by simply using the personal information available from such sites and, for example, use the “Forget Password” facility or get access using spyware. Selling data to advertisers is lucrative and this is being done by social media companies and unscrupulous people.

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Kirsten Johnson

The dire state of mental health services

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 22nd March 2018 - 12:32 pm

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recent report on mental health provision is damning.

Titled Maintaining momentum: driving improvements in mental health care, Rob Behrens’ analysis confirms what we already know: mental health services are in crisis and people are suffering and dying because of it.

The case studies are harrowing. Mr Behrens’ says:

The cases highlighted in this report starkly illustrate the human cost of service failures. These cases are not isolated examples. They are symptomatic of persistent problems we see time and again in our complaints casework and, moreover, they represent failings throughout the care pathway.

In the most severe cases,

…

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Kirsten Johnson

Bercow, Ten Years On – the #SLCN campaign

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 22nd March 2018 - 8:20 am

I CAN, the children’s communication charity, and The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists have launched Bercow: Ten Years On. This report delves into the support, or lack of support, children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) receive in England.

Over 2,500 people were consulted about speech and language therapy provision for children and young people. Only 15% thought that adequate speech and language therapy is provided.

Why is this a liberal issue? Well, we advocate free speech, in its many forms, one of which is oral. If we do not help children and young people with speech and language difficulties, they face a lifetime of communication hindrance.

We, as Lib Dems, also want to give children the best start in life. We are behind free school meals, the Pupil Premium and shared parental leave, so we should also get behind the call to improve speech and language services so that these children can better engage with education, more easily make friends and have communication skills for life.

Only 50% of children and young people with speech and language communication difficulties are identified. So one of the calls in this report is for early diagnosis and early intervention.

I was surprised to learn that 60% of young offenders in England have been found to have speech and language communication needs. With early intervention, many of these young people would not have communication difficulties.

Some of the recommendations of what must be done to improve the situation at a local and national level address social mobility:

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Lib Dem Immigrants

The party’s immigration consultation: Liberalism deserves better

By Lib Dem Immigrants | Wed 21st March 2018 - 5:45 pm

Liberal Democrat Immigrants exists to represent those members of the Liberal Democrats who have chosen to come to live in the UK from elsewhere. It also seeks to represent the interests of immigrants to the UK in general and to highlight those issues that disproportionately affect immigrants.

The challenge for Liberal Democrats should not be “how do we make a broken and inhumane system work a little bit less badly?”, but how we discard the broken system and in its place build something better, so that Britain can reclaim the reputation of an island of hope and welcome.

As you may have seen, the party is asking for members’ opinions on immigration. As Lib Dem Immigrants, we are fully committed to a liberal immigration policy. This should have been great news.

Sadly, on reading the consultation document, all that excitement faded, to be replaced with frustration at the nitpicky, timid mess of leading questions.

  • Expecting current policy and structures to be made fit for purpose with the barest of tweaks.
  • Failing to distinguish between actual problems and perceived problems — and naively assuming that addressing perceived problems with more “robust” policy will somehow placate tabloid-fuelled xenophobia. (hint: it won’t).
  • Focusing almost entirely on the benefits of immigration to the host country and barely at all on the benefits to the immigrants and their families.
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Tahir Maher

Euratom was not on the ballot paper

By Tahir Maher | Wed 21st March 2018 - 4:00 pm

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The Treaties of Rome of 1957 founded the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) to create a European market for nuclear power. Its membership includes EU member states and has cooperation agreements with third-party countries like Canada, the US, South Africa.

In its Brexit White Paper that invokes Article 50, the UK will be leaving Euratom. Euratom is legally distinct from the EU but is governed by EU institutions and therefore this UK Government is …

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Tom Morrison

The Liberal Democrats must own the Northern Powerhouse 

By Tom Morrison | Wed 21st March 2018 - 11:16 am

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I was delighted to chair Liberal Reform’s panel discussion at Spring Conference with Wera Hobhouse MP, Laura Gordon (PPC for Sheffield Hallam) and Stephen Smith (Transport for the North). The debate explored the opportunities, threats and politics surrounding the Northern Powerhouse agenda and how the Liberal Democrats should take on the challenge of owning the agenda going forward.

The statistics speak for themselves: as a region, the North has an economic worth of around £304bn and would be the 10th largest economy in Europe if it were a single city. However, the region is grossly underperforming and whilst the initial objectives of the Northern Powerhouse agenda was to rebalance the UK economy, since Theresa May’s election as Prime Minister the Conservatives seemed to have cooled on this subject.

Elsewhere, Labour is nowhere. Calling the Northern Powerhouse a “toxic brand”, Labour’s devolution spokesperson Jim McMahon has offered very little on how the North can grow.

It was only last week that Ed Cox resigned as the Director of the IPPR North and stated that, “neither of the mainstream Westminster parties have properly grasped the critical importance of devolution in unlocking the nation’s potential and their own attempts to govern”.

It is clear that the Liberal Democrats are the only party with the know-how to deliver true economic growth and devolution to the North.

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Diane Reddell

How the Access Fund can help you to attend Conference

By Diane Reddell | Wed 21st March 2018 - 9:58 am

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The Liberal Democrats and its members are like the fans of North East football teams – passionate, hopeful, want their team to succeed and aspire to be number one.  In addition to this they have good networks, a sense of community (both have a social endeavour to collect for their local foodbank) and are willing to help each other out if a crisis occurs.  They are resilient, similar to the Liberal Democrat membership.

North East fans are welcoming (unless it’s a local derby!) like the Liberal Democrats when new members join the party and attend conference for the first time with their first timer events.

Both, North East football team fans and the Liberal Democrat membership have had a rollercoaster ride with the highs – promotion and increasing number of MPs to share a place in Government, and lows in recent years – relegation, losing MP seats and have had a few changes in Leadership.  Despite these lows both have been resilient and have had a fighting spirit.

The Liberal Democrats would love you to support them on campaigns, vote for them, join them and perhaps become a councillor or MP for them.  In particular, the Liberal Democrats would like people with disabilities, people from BAME, LGBT+, unemployed and low wage people backgrounds to come to conference and let their voices and votes be heard to create policies which will empower their lives.

The Liberal Democrats have set up the Access to Conference Fund to help with the costs of attending conference. I had help from the Access to Conference fund to allow me to pay for my support worker costs to attend conference to listen to the debates and take part in several fringe events.  Hopefully, at the next conference I will be able to get on stage to speak for a motion.  I need to get the mechanics planned properly.

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Lee Dargue

Mental Health is not a finished campaign – we need you more than ever.

By Lee Dargue | Tue 20th March 2018 - 11:55 am

I was excited to be speaking with many of our dedicated members, and many energised new members at the fantastic conference in Southport this past weekend. To my joy, I found that mental health is still very much a key focus for our Party.

In Coalition, thanks to Norman Lamb, Paul Burstow before him, and Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister, government finally had a focus on Mental Health – something shamefully ignored by previous governments. We introduced the first ever waiting times for some areas of mental health, and enshrined “parity of esteem” in law – the requirement for the NHS to give equal consideration to mental and physical health when offering treatment.

Despite some light words from the Prime Minister, since the Lib Dems left office, mental health – as with the NHS and social care in general – has not had the proper funding it requires. This means the waiting times aren’t being met and the 2020 target is likely impossible to meet.

Daisy Cooper put forward a great motion to celebrate the NHS at 70 at Conference. Speakers followed with passionate stories about their call for the NHS to be protected and given the funding to fulfil its obligations. Indeed, only the LibDems are being honest about adding 1p to income tax in order to plug this funding gap, before seeking to introduce a dedicated Health and Care tax in the future.

Norman Lamb spoke with passion on how it’s an outrage for mental health to still be the Cinderella of our health service. Mohsin Khan talked about the horrors of people being sent hundreds of miles away from their homes just to gain a bed for treatment. Daisy then reminded us how the Lib Dems are the Party of the NHS.

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Martin Horwood

Martin Horwood writes…The real issue about Trump, Facebook’s ‘data breach’, why The Observer missed the point and Liberals should care

By Martin Horwood | Sun 18th March 2018 - 2:00 pm

The Observer‘s front page today lays into Facebook for a massive ‘data breach’ in which 50 million Americans’ data were harvested by the infamous Cambridge Analytica and used with great effect to target Trump messaging at US voters. They “built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons” their whistleblower Christopher Wylie is quoted as saying.  It was a powerful tool for a campaign based on fear and paranoia.  Little surprise then that Cambridge Analaytica is also being investigated by the Office of the Information Commissioner and by the Electoral Commission in the UK in connection with their work on the Brexit referendum.

But the main Observer story oddly misses the point. It focuses on how long it took Facebook to own up to the ‘breach’ and suspend Cambridge Analytica’s access to the service.  It describes the accessing of the data itself as “one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches”.

But it wasn’t.  And that’s not the importance of this story.

Anyone can harvest data from the web.  I harvest it when I can’t remember someone’s birthday or their kids’ names.  The Lib Dems harvest it indirectly when they use targeted Facebook advertising.  My engagement team in a previous job harvested it using smart algorithms to find possible engagement targets, ironically, to promote better data, openness and transparency.  The point is that all this information is out there and – a point confusingly referred to in the Observer piece – platforms like Facebook don’t regard it as their data but their users’ (“it may be data about people who are on Facebook that they have gathered themselves, but it is not data that we have provided”).  Facebook’s suspension of CA appears to be because of technical breaches to their terms of use, particularly the sale of data to third parties.

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Judith Jolly

Baroness Judith Jolly writes…Brexit must not put public health at risk

By Judith Jolly | Fri 16th March 2018 - 5:56 pm

Liberal Democrat spokesperson for health, Baroness Jolly, asks for your support on a crossbench Public Health amendment to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill which will be debated at Committee Stage in the Lords on Monday.

Fellow Peers and Liberal Democrat supporters. Whatever your stance is on Brexit, an issue on which we can all unite is the health of our nation. That is why I will proudly stand alongside fellow Peers next week to make the case for a ‘Do No Harm’ amendment to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill.

The amendment was tabled by ex-Health Minister Lord Warner (Crossbench) and will be supported by co-signatories to the Bill, Labour frontbench spokesperson for health, Lord Hunt, and Crossbench Peer Lord Patel who previously chaired the Long-Term Sustainability of the NHS Committee. While we are all co-signatories to the amendment, we have welcomed a significant amount of support from Peers across the House and we will be strongly encouraging them all to speak in support of this amendment next week. We already have strength in numbers and together, we can make sure that Brexit will do no harm to the public’s health.

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Andy Briggs

Why Lib Dem members were right to reject a “progressive alliance”

By Andy Briggs | Fri 16th March 2018 - 1:16 pm

At Spring Conference in Southport last weekend, Liberal Democrat members from across the party came together to back an amendment submitted by Liberal Reform members to the party’s strategy motion, removing a reference to a “progressive alliance of ideas”.

Liberal Reform organised this amendment not because we are against working across party lines, but because we saw this as a clear first step on the slippery slope towards a formal electoral pact. There is a general understanding that this is what has come to be meant by the term “progressive alliance”: in a publication by pressure group Compass entitled “What Is The Progressive Alliance?” there is talk of “electoral deals and tactical voting”, whilst a post for the Social Liberal Forum (whose Chair spoke against the amendment) blog on “The Progressive Alliance” discusses non-Conservative parties standing down in order to avoid “long periods of Conservative domination.”

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Victor Chamberlain

ALDC’s Local Elections appeal

By Victor Chamberlain | Fri 16th March 2018 - 11:55 am

Victor Chamberlain, standing as a candidate in the Borough and Bankside ward, Southwark Council in this May’s local elections, tells us why ALDC’s appeal needs your generous support.

The challenging set of elections taking place across the country on Thursday 3 May provide a fantastic opportunity to put the Liberal Democrats back on the map in local government.

As a candidate, I wanted to help promote ALDC’s Local Election Appeal, knowing first-hand how important this financial support is for teams fighting to win this May.

HOW YOUR DONATIONS WILL HELP

In Southwark, we’re up against a well organised Labour party who can call on more activists than we can. As a result, we need to do everything to ensure our supporters’ voices are heard and we know they’re far more likely to vote if they have a postal vote.

Most residents in my ward lead very busy lives and are rarely in when we call round to speak to them. And the majority live in blocks of flats that we struggle to gain access to.

This is where ALDC’s Local Election Appeal is helping to overcome these problems by targeting postal voters in key battleground wards across the country.

HOW YOU CAN DONATE:

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Chris Key

Why Tory pilots for improved integration feel like a microwave dinner

By Chris Key | Fri 16th March 2018 - 10:25 am

The government’s pilots for improved “integration” among immigrant communities in 5 English councils feel much like a microwave dinner – reheated and lacking fresh ingredients. As the government launches yet another “integration agenda” it’s worth examining how the Conservatives and their friends in the media who support them are in fact, hindering integration in a number of ways.

Government funding for teaching English as a second language (ESOL) has dropped from £203m a year in 2009/10 to just £90m in 2015/16. If it really was concerned about new arrivals speaking English, perhaps cutting funding for ESOL was not the best way of going about it.

When a friend recently complained that some immigrant communities do not integrate, I reminded him that bus drivers, taxi drivers and shop workers (jobs often taken by immigrants) cannot afford house prices where we both live in Richmond Upon Thames. The local Conservative run Council has failed time and again to stick to its target of 50% affordable housing when approving new developments. Until we stop hollowing out communities in this way, and support economic integration, things are unlikely to change.

Another area where the government and elements of the Conservative leaning press have been utterly hypocritical is when it comes to adhering to so-called “British values”. A key “British value” children are required to learn about is the rule of law. Had it not been for Gina Millar , Article 50 would have been triggered without recourse to Parliament.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Trump and the Korean Swamp

By Tom Arms | Fri 16th March 2018 - 8:55 am

Hey, hey, hey, Donald Trump is off to Pyongyang. Or is it Beijing, Moscow or Seoul?

Anyway, that is not important. What is important is that he will before the end of May hold summit talks with North Korea’s Kim (rocket man) Jong-un to secure the disarming of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons. The master of the art of the deal will negotiate peace in our time.

Maybe. More Likely, maybe not. Donald Trump has failed to master the dark arts of diplomatic negotiation. And he refuses to accept that discussions between governments require a different perspective and skill set than those practised by New York real estate moguls.

It is quite possible to read about a potential acquisition in the morning; walk into a boardroom in the afternoon; and walk out in the evening with the title deeds to a skyscraper.  Saving the world from the threat of nuclear annihilation is more complex.

There is a set procedure which involves months of careful preparations by diplomats who are experts in their field. These diplomats go by the nickname of “Sherpas” because their job is to prepare the way for the meeting of heads of government at “The Summit”. By the time  country leaders walk into the grand chamber, every ‘I’ has been dotted and ‘t’ crossed.  The only thing left for the political leaders is to sign the documents, shake hands, smile for the cameras and take all the credit.

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Paul Reynolds

How much should the Lib Dems focus on UK foreign policy?

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 15th March 2018 - 4:59 pm

I once used the phrase ‘No-one is going to vote Lib Dem because of our policy on Azimstana’. The point is an obvious one; surveys show us that the average British voter is more concerned about domestic issues such as health, education, welfare, employment, immigration and crime. Understandably so.

However, there are three very good reasons why, notwithstanding, we need to invest time in foreign policy, international relations and the global economy.

First, UK foreign policy does from time to time come to the fore in the mind of the voting public and we have to be on top of the issues, …

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John King

The dream of a wonderful Brexit

By John King | Thu 15th March 2018 - 1:28 pm

Much has been written about the negative feeling which drove Brexit, but it easy to forget that there is a positive and indeed a romantic aspect too. We fondly cherish the wartime image of Britain carrying the torch of liberty, standing alone against the dark forces which were engulfing the continent.

Beyond that, Britain still retains a dim but influential memory of its empire, of the great and global power we once were. The pens I used as a child at school were inscribed “empire made”, and it was an empire on which the sun never set. Europe, where was that? You might learn a little French if you were lucky but certainly not German, and in any case everyone should speak English.

In those days, just after the war, all Germans were regarded with suspicion and it was not until I was older and travelled to Germany that I realised they were normal human beings. The crucial experience for me came in my early twenties, when I took part in an international workcamp. For the first time, among young people from all over Europe, I realised what it meant to be British.

But for many who voted Leave, the opposite holds true: you can only be truly British by keeping the other nationalities at arm’s length. Why is that? Perhaps because sadly, there are millions of older Britons who have never had the opportunity to go abroad, unlike the modern generation. Why go abroad anyway, when Britain is the only country that matters, and Brexit will restore all our past glories?

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Stephen Harte

Managing staff – a chance to show liberalism in action

By Stephen Harte | Thu 15th March 2018 - 10:45 am

There has been much in the news about MPs and, in Scotland, MSPs behaving inappropriately towards staff – whether this be bullying or inappropriate sexualised behaviour. Many of the current examples relate to other parties but most of us will be aware that we too have had our problems and can be no more complacent than any other party. For example, I can think of one former Parliamentarian (who, to this day, I greatly admire) who, when stressed, could shout at staff in ways that fell far short of good HR practice. There are many other stories within our party of much worse behaviour from other Lib Dems towards staff and volunteers. This is simply not good enough.

This all makes me wonder if every Lib Dem who employs or engages with staff (whether at a party level, directly as their own staff or as staff of the body on which they serve) or manages volunteers should undertake a training course on how to manage staff in accordance with the law, good HR practice and, importantly, our liberal values.

The late, great Maya Angelou told us “When people show you who they are, believe them.” What we do is a showcase for what we believe liberalism looks like in practice. While no one is perfect and we all have times when we fail to live up to our ideals, how we behave shows people what we truly believe.

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Tahir Maher

A day in the life of…a newly elected member of Federal Conference Committee

By Tahir Maher | Wed 14th March 2018 - 11:58 am

As a newly elected member of the Federal Conference Committee (FCC) I was keen to get involved. I left home at 10:00 am in the morning to get to Southport and my first FCC meeting at 2:30 pm. Unfortunately, due to the traffic, I didn’t get to the conference until 3:00 pm and I got to the meeting half an hour late. A few heads were raised as I walked in – I think I made an impression!!

A discussion was in progress on the amendments and emergency motions, I thought it was quite detailed and well thought through. A very good article written by Zoe O’Connell for LDV  details the discussions.

After the meeting, the members of FCC were taken on a tour of the main Auditorium to familiarise themselves with the setup. I met one of the Stewards who was clearly exhausted. He informed me that he has been there since Thursday helping to set things up.

After the tour, there was a meeting to go through the rather complex conference standing orders. I thought the training and discussion on standing orders were very good and it reassured me that different scenarios that arise when motions are discussed can be managed consistently and fairly. On Saturday morning, and I arrived on time, there was another meeting to discuss the arrangements and motions for Sunday. 

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Caron Lindsay

17 days to shape Lib Dem policy on immigration

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th March 2018 - 10:25 am

The first events of the Southport Conference last Friday afternoon were three policy consultation sessions. These sessions are the intermediate stage of the policy development process. The first is the establishment of a policy working group which looks at the key issues and takes evidence and then produces a consultation paper to be discussed at Conference and which is also accessible online for members to comment on.

The three papers discussed at Spring will be finalised in light of the consultation and then put to Conference for a final decision.

I went to the session on Immigration. I  should have read the consultation paper weeks ago when it first came out, not on the way down on the train. However, when I did read it, I pretty much spontaneously combusted. I am pretty much a “people should be able to live wherever they want” sort of person. I am not daft enough to think that that is going to fly in the current political environment but I do think our policy should reflect the fact that people are falling in love with life partners from all over the world and we should do all we can to keep them together. 

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Joe Otten

Corbyn slapped down over point-scoring reaction to Salisbury

By Joe Otten | Tue 13th March 2018 - 11:54 am

A nerve agent – like Polonium in the Litvinenko case – is the sort of murder weapon used to send a signal. It is the sort of murder you want people to know you are guilty of because it burnishes your “strongman” image. And there are elections due. They will be rigged of course, not because they have to be for Putin to win, but because neglecting to rig the elections would show weakness.

So the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday struck the right tone.

This attempted murder using a weapons-grade nerve agent in a British town was not just a crime against the Skripals, but an indiscriminate and reckless act against the United Kingdom, putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk. We will not tolerate such a brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince talks to Voice Part 1: Open primaries

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 13th March 2018 - 7:04 am

Twenty minutes after Vince finished speaking yesterday, I was sitting in a room with him,  his wife Rachel Smith eating delicious egg sandwiches.

We only had a few minutes to chat, but we covered a fair bit of ground.

I did the geeky party hack thing and started by asking him about his ideas for the party. I mean, he was talking about open primaries, wasn’t he, when he said this?

Our sister Liberal Party in Canada, under Justin Trudeau, leapt from third to first in a ‘first past the post’ system every bit as unforgiving as ours.

I have turned to them for advice on modernisation on how we can apply their successful model here.

The Canadian liberals engaged all their registered supporters – their voters – as well as their members in leadership elections and candidate selection.

They became a new party; a movement.

Building on our own traditions, we must address how we in the Liberal Democrats can become a movement for those who are alienated by the Conservatives and Labour.

He reckons it’s worth a try to connect with more people:

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Rich Wilsher

Local Liberal Democrats join leading charities to condemn Bromley voter ID pilot

By Rich Wilsher | Mon 12th March 2018 - 12:32 pm

In the upcoming local elections, for the first time ever, Bromley residents will have to produce verifiable ID at polling stations to cast their vote.

The Borough has volunteered to take part in a pilot scheme which, if successful, could see this scheme rolled out across mainland UK. The move follows a Conservative government report which claims such moves are necessary to prevent voter ID fraud.

On the face of it, this doesn’t seem unreasonable. Many other countries insist upon ID before you can vote. Surely people can do the same when voting here?

But here’s the thing – millions of people in …

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Mark Valladares

Macdonald Report goes back for a rethink – a member of the English Appeals Panel reflects

By Mark Valladares | Mon 12th March 2018 - 8:15 am

The news that the Macdonald Report, and its allied recommendations, had been narrowly referred back came as something of a surprise, as least to this observer. The ground is normally pretty well prepared for changes like this, and whilst the debate about the Party’s internal disciplinary procedures has been going on for some time now, there appeared to be agreement that something needed to be done. And whilst that possibility isn’t ruled out – yet – there must be some doubt as to whether the proposals will, even if amended, be accepted by a Federal Conference at some future date.

Having …

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