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Category Archives: Op-eds

Indirect and Direct Messages…

By Steve Trevethan | Thu 11th January 2018 - 10:36 am

It was only as I went out of the door of a local building society that I began to realise that I might have been given at least one powerful message through changes that had been made there!

The changes? Now there was a permanent mini-food bank, a collection bucket for the local food bank and a prominent collecting box for the “Samaritans.”

Previously, every banking place I had ever used only ever had items and notices, etc., to do with direct economics. For the first time, items to do with other aspects of life were there too. No longer was finance being kept separate from ordinary, everyday life, in practice if not in explicit theory. My “bank” was now dealing with socio-economics and so facilitating life-money questions and comments!

Does a bank collecting food and money for local people, in an area with high house prices, especially for sea views, suggests that something may be amiss with our policies for the circulation of money?

The growth of food banks is concrete evidence that some of us are starving.

Are starvation and malnutrition structural parts of current socio-economic policies and practices?

A “yes” answer leads us to question what could be done about it. Some might answer, “Nothing!” Others might answer, “Charity.”

A “no” answer results in the need to seek and apply ways to change our current economic policies so that we do not have starvation etc. as a permanent part of our society.

Answers may depend upon perceptions of “The Market”. Does it function efficiently with minimal to nil government involvement? For whom is it “efficient”?

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Tagged banking, food banks, inequality and resolution foundation | 4 Comments

Brexit is a luxury for the few – The EU is a necessity for the many

By Nick Hopkinson | Thu 11th January 2018 - 8:13 am

2018 is the year we need to #stopbrexit. Opposition to Brexit throughout 2017 was remarkably constant and evenly split. Private polling however suggests some ‘Releavers’ (effectively the softer remain half) have rejoined hard Remainers, and there is now a small percentage of ‘Bregretters’. Some leading pollsters argue 60% plus opposition to Brexit is needed for six consecutive months for enough Parliamentarians to start speaking out.

So the current direction of travel is towards Brexit even though some leading groups, notably half of EU27 ambassadors and High Commissioners in London, reportedly believe Brexit won’t happen. The May minority government has been longer lasting than many anticipated and to date has been able to progress Brexit legislation relatively unscathed. However, Brexit can still be reversed so the real question is how we might do so.

In this four part series, I shall briefly examine legislative developments and the upcoming timetable, prospects for the EU negotiations, mobilising public and political opinion against Brexit, and the prospects for a referendum on the terms.

To date in Parliament, there has been one significant victory with the narrow passage of Dominic Grieve’s Amendment 7 to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. Clause 9 of the Bill is now “subject to the prior enactment of a (separate) statute by Parliament approving the final terms of withdrawal”. This presents Parliament with additional opportunities to shape the terms of departure, including possibly to remain in the Single Market and Customs Union, and to provide for a referendum on the terms. The recently relatively quiet hard Brexiters could also cause trouble for the Government on the £40 billion settling of accounts. However, it appears the ideological EUphobes are ready to accept Brexit at any price as long as they secure their long-cherished ‘Independence’ day.

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Tagged #EURef, brexit, european union and remain | 26 Comments

Jeremy Corbyn empty-chaired at single market summit

By The Voice | Tue 9th January 2018 - 8:49 pm

This morning a summit took place in Parliament to discuss ways of working together to make sure that the UK stays in the single market on which so many jobs depend.

Our Vince was there

Spot which UK party leader is standing up for British jobs at today’s cross-party summit on staying in the single market and customs union pic.twitter.com/ZGN7e9WOeg

— Lib Dem Press Office (@LibDemPress) January 9, 2018

But there was an empty chair:

Here’s @JeremyCorbyn standing up for jobs and young people’s futures at today’s cross-party summit on protecting UK’s place in the single market and customs union pic.twitter.com/vrtwvHDjcY

— Lib Dem Press Office (@LibDemPress) January 9, 2018

Which was a real shame because most of the rest of the opposition parties showed up too.

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Tagged brexit, jeremy corbyn, labour and vince cable | 7 Comments

In 2018, let’s campaign for Councils of Sanctuary

By James Baillie | Tue 9th January 2018 - 9:01 am

2017 was a year when a lot of unpleasant events occurred – from the Trump inauguration, to a continued Tory government, to reminders every other week that Labour still think foreign policy is something that only happens to other people. One story you may have missed however – and one of the most shocking – was that of an undocumented migrant being arrested by border security after reporting her own rape to police. That modern Britain is in a situation where the police will simply hand over extremely vulnerable victims of violent crime to the Home Office’s enforcers – a practice both Labour and the Tories are defending – is deeply, deeply saddening.

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9 Comments

Towards more thoughtful, respectful debate

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 8th January 2018 - 7:22 pm

As the new term starts today, the LDV team has been discussing how we can encourage more thoughtful, respectful debate on the site. We are aware that many people tend to stay away because they feel that they are not given a fair hearing and their concerns are belittled, particularly on articles relating to women’s equality. Our comments threads are therefore lacking in diversity. If women and other often marginalised groups of people feel that they can’t give voice to their opinion on this site, then we need to change things.

We want our comments threads to be enriching, engaging and …

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53 Comments

The next time you think about saying “But what about the men?”, read this

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 7th January 2018 - 2:52 pm

Almost every time an article appears on the internet highlighting discrimination against women and girls, there is likely to be at least one man derailing the discussion by saying “but what about the men?”

Believe me, as a woman who dares to express her opinion on the internet, I come up against this sort of attitude a lot.

Does the same thing happen when someone highlights problems faced by men? I certainly haven’t been aware of it.

However, this week blogger Jessica Eaton wrote a thought-provoking piece about the different reactions she has had when running projects aimed at helping men and women.

Five years ago, she and her family set up a charity aimed at supporting adult men with addiction and mental health problems. They have done some amazing work in that time. When she writes about it, does she get abuse for not doing work for women?

I can’t tell you about the hundreds of messages or tweets we get asking ‘what about women?’ – because it’s never happened.

I don’t have any stories about the times we got sent a tonne of abuse when we conducted research with general public in the community about male mental health stigma – because it’s never happened.

I can switch over to the TEF twitter account right now and write literally anything about men and nothing bad will ever happen. Our Facebook page has thousands of followers and we never get threats, abuse or whataboutery.

That’s great and as it should be.

But what about when she does stuff aimed at helping women, including the research for her PhD thesis which is about victim blaming of women and girls in the media and other studies aimed at supporting women who have been victims of violence? That’s a completely different story.

I did one study where there was a free text question at the end and a whopping 9% of respondents chose to use that box to criticise me for not researching men. I say whopping because the free text box didn’t even ask them a question about that and 63 people still managed to use the box to whack in some ‘whataboutery’.

Not only that but a further 14% (over 90 people) left comments that were just plain nasty or abusive. One guy told me that my work was shit and he hopes I fail my PhD. And then left his full name and job title. He was an academic at a university. In my field. He even put some kisses on.

Why does she think this is happening?

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Tagged featured, feminism, jessica eaton and whataboutery | 46 Comments

A Happy New Year For Liberal Democrats?

By Katharine Pindar | Fri 5th January 2018 - 2:55 pm

To begin at the beginning, at least 2017 is over! It wasn’t a great year for us. Our 24-month climb back to prosperity since May 2015, buoyed by thousands of new members and encouraging Council election results, was paused at the June General Election. The two big parties in their nose-to-nose confrontation swept up more than 80% of the vote, leaving us with less than double figures, though now a dozen good MPs.

It seemed our progress was no more. We lost an inspiring leader in Tim Farron, though gained one of great experience and knowledge in Vince Cable. (It felt a bit like living in the old Rose and Crown joke routine. “They’re closing down the Rose and Crown. Boo! And building a new one. Hurrah!” But yet too serious to joke about just then.) Besides, our commitment to a referendum on the negotiated deal was continually queried, even within the party, though it was reaffirmed at the September Conference. According to the national opinion polls, the Leave voters weren’t coming over in droves to Remain, and our share of voting intentions stayed at around 7%.

All in all, we couldn’t rejoice too much that the quasi-presidential campaign of Theresa May and the Tories’ ill-conceived manifesto failed, so that a hung Parliament unexoectedly emerged. It still meant that the country would have to put up with a Tory minority government backed with expensively-purchased DUP votes. It still resulted in the Government backing a potentially ruinous ‘hard’ Brexit, with the apparent acquiescence of the pallid Janus-faced Official Opposition. The EU negotiations moved at a snail’s pace as impossible outcomes were sought. The Brexiters demanded minimal payments, no further jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and all to be as usual on the Irish Border – and, Why can’t we have trade talks NOW!?

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66 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: Tectonic shifts

By Tom Arms | Fri 5th January 2018 - 8:56 am

The Earth is constantly changing. There are something like 15 plates which comprise the Earth’s crust or mantle and they are forever moving towards and away from each other. Geologists call the movements tectonic shifts, and sometimes they cause massive earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

The geological shifts are mirrored in politics. Presidents, prime ministers, governments and countries move to the right and the left. They change alliances and sometimes disappear altogether.

Earthquakes are difficult to predict. The same can be said of tectonic political shifts. In one case we are dealing with nature with all its unknown variables. In the other we are dealing with equally unpredictable human nature.

The political world at the moment is going through one of its shifts. It is a shift which involves the rise of new powers, ideas, concepts, and resources and the decline of their older counterparts in different parts of the world. Just as with an earthquake, or volcanic eruption, these are likely to be disruptive at best and wreak death and destruction at worst.

Fifty years ago the world was locked in a Cold War between two powers—the United States and the Soviet Union—representing two separate and distinct political ideologies. Most of the rest of the world either voluntarily or involuntarily sided with one power or another.

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Tagged observations of an ex pat | 13 Comments

My advice to Meghan

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 4th January 2018 - 5:10 pm

In the spirit of the 12 Days of Christmas, which end tomorrow on January 5^th, here are 12 bits of advice I’d offer our future royal family member. I myself married into the establishment 23 years ago from across the pond – a different sort of establishment, but nevertheless, the esteemed role of being an Oxford don’s wife.

No matter how long you live here, people will hear your accent first. Not your words or what you’re saying, your accent. So just accept that you will always be ‘that American Harry married.’
Keep your sense of humour. The British are

…

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Tagged christmas and royal family | 8 Comments

How we could abolish relative poverty in five years

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Wed 3rd January 2018 - 11:57 am

Do we want to abolish relative poverty in five years? Here’s one way we could do it.

In December the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published its report UK Poverty 2017

The report states:

14 million people live in poverty in the UK – over one in five of the population. This is made up of eight million working-age adults, four million children and 1.9 million pensioners. 8 million live in families where at least one person is in work.

The question for Liberal Democrats is how can we eliminate relative poverty over the course of a five year Parliament.

The JRF report defines relative poverty as “when a family has an income of less
than 60% of median income for their family type, after housing costs”. They set out levels of income (after Income Tax, National Insurance and housing cost have been deducted) needed for different types of family units:

Family type £ per week, equivalised,

2015/16 prices

Couple with no children 248
Single with no children 144
Couple with two children aged 5 and 14 401
Single with two children aged 5 and 14 297

Source: Households Below Average Income 2015/16, table 2.2db

It is depressing to recognise that poverty among pensioners is increasing (from 13% in 2011/12 to 16% in 2015/16). In 2015/16 the Pension guarantee was set to £151.20 for single people and £230.85 for couples while the pension rates were only £115.95 (single) and £185.45 (couples). To eliminate poverty for couples we could increase the couple rate by 1.5% above the normal increase for 5 years (totally 7.73% compared to a shortfall of 7.43%)

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Tagged basic income and poverty | 37 Comments

The pointless question is….

By Steve Spear | Wed 3rd January 2018 - 8:55 am

No not the quiz programme. I am asking about the Liberal Democrats – a minor, centrist political party in the United Kingdom. A Party that for 86 years has espoused a fairer and more representative voting system but for some inexplicable reason in 2017 it lost all enthusiasm for coalition government.

Our current leader said during the last election campaign “I would be astonished if he (Tim Farron) countenanced any kind of coalition with Labour or the Conservatives.” So here is the very big SO – why bother voting for us, after all there was no chance that we would be forming a Government. If we weren’t going to countenance a coalition with either of the two main parties how were we going to bring our influence to bear in securing a second referendum, for instance.

This was a denial of our long standing, honourable and rational argument for a fairer voting system that more reflects the diverse views of the electorate. An argument first made by the Liberal Party in their 1931 General Election manifesto.

The conditions of the present Election are one more proof of the imperative need of a reform in the electoral system if the real wishes of the voters are to be truly expressed at the polls.

The purpose being that

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Tagged coalition government | 30 Comments

Where there’s a will, there may or may not be a way forward

By Steve Trevethan | Tue 2nd January 2018 - 12:15 pm

In December 2017, a report entitled “The Million Dollar Be-Question” by Laura Gardiner was published by the Resolution Foundation . It is a report worth examining and heeding by both individual citizens and political parties.

Below is the site from which you can download this report which takes less than 25 pages of A4 paper. 10 sides will give you the introduction and “Executive Summary” from which all quotations are taken and paraphrases, questions and comments derived.

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14 Comments

The loss of Adonis is a second blow to the county’s growth plans. Who will replace him?

By Andy Boddington | Tue 2nd January 2018 - 8:56 am

Few voters will notice the resignation of Andrew Adonis as chair of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC). Not many will know what NIC did. More people will have heard of Lord Heseltine, though outside Manchester and Liverpool, few may understand how important he has been to regeneration of urban areas. He was sacked for disobeying Theresa May over Brexit. Adonis resigned over Brexit and his disillusionment wit May’s government.

This country is rapidly running out of expert champions for regeneration, building infrastructure and growing the economy.

Surely the needs for regeneration and housing should rise above day-to-day political infighting?

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Tagged andrew adonis and infrastructure | 30 Comments

It has to be about more than just Brexit in 2018

By Mark Valladares | Mon 1st January 2018 - 10:15 am

2018 is, for the optimists, the year when the wheels come off of the Brexit chariot for once and for all. The process of negotiating “the best possible deal for the United Kingdom” obliges the Government to face up to the brutal reality that the European Union has to hold together at all costs, and that means an outcome for us that is less good than the current arrangements. Then, as rational people, Conservative MPs will look into the abyss and realise how bad things might be.

I’m not so sure. Remember, most of them campaigned, with various levels of enthusiasm, …

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Tagged future strategy, policy and public services | 84 Comments

Jane Dodds’ New Year Message: Welsh Liberal Democrats are fighting back

By Jane Dodds | Sun 31st December 2017 - 8:00 am

Dymuniadau Gorau i chi gyd dros y Blwyddyn Newydd/ Best Wishes to you all for the New Year.

2018 will be the year of the Welsh Liberal Democrat fight back, with renewed energy in our activists, key policies which will change the lives of Welsh people, and a focus on winning seats.

We want to see a Wales that has social justice as its backbone – rethinking a punitive benefits system which wages war on the poor. We want to see a Wales that looks out to Europe – leaving the EU would be a disaster for Welsh farmers and businesses. We want to see a Wales that welcomes refugees – building on its proud history of internationalism. We want to see a Wales that has a health system that is fair – English people have waiting times for planned operations that is half that of Welsh people. We want to see an economic plan for Wales that will breathe new life into its urban and rural areas – promoting innovation in green industries.

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Tagged featured, jane dodds and welsh liberal democrats | 8 Comments

LDV’s top 12 posts of 2017 – Number 8

By The Voice | Sat 30th December 2017 - 4:00 pm

Number 8 in our countdown is unique because it contains the words “utter bollocks” used by a senior Lib Dem MP. We do wish Alistair wouldn’t hold back and would just say what he means.

#8: Alistair Carmichael writes…The truth about those “secret Tory talks”

In early July, Twitter erupted in a firestorm of fury when it was reported that Lib Dems were in secret talks to prop up the Tories in Parliament. If people had stopped to think for a wee second, they might have quickly realised that a pro EU party was never going to form any sort of alliance …

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Tagged LDV top 12 of 2017 | 1 Comment

LDV’s top 12 posts of 2017 – Number 11

By The Voice | Sat 30th December 2017 - 10:00 am

We continue with our countdown of LDV’s most popular posts of 2017.

#11: Lamb and Mulholland to abstain on Article 50 vote: what does this mean for the Party?

The passing of the Bill to trigger Article 50 should have been one of the most dramatic, knife-edge parliamentary votes in the history of time. Unfortunately, because Labour decided that it would just let the Government do its thing, the Bill meandered through its parliamentary stages unencumbered by any sort of parachute to ensure either the possibility of the people having a final say on the deal, EU nationals being given the right to stay or a steer that we should stay in the single market.

There was a slight frisson of angst in the party when Norman Lamb and Greg Mulholland abstained on the principle of triggering Article 50. Caron Lindsay wrote about the implications for the party:

There is no “split”. Greg and Norman are absolutely behind everything that we are saying on a referendum on the deal and all the stuff we are saying about the single market. There is actually very little to divide us and the conversations that have been happening have been perfectly amicable. They have concluded that they can’t vote against something that the majority of the people decided was happening.

Personally, I veer more towards the A C Grayling line that Parliament should just vote the whole thing down. I certainly think that the Government should be made to go for a “Norway” style solution rather than just jump off the cliff from the single market and that Parliament could defeat the Bill unless they changed course on that.

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Tagged LDV top 12 of 2017 | 2 Comments

LDV’s top 12 posts of 2017 – Number 12

By The Voice | Sat 30th December 2017 - 8:00 am

In time honoured tradition, we bring you our dozen most popular posts of 2017 in reverse order.

#12: Election 2017 headlines – how many Lib Dem MPs are there and who are they?

After an emotional election night, you just want a simple post telling you the bare facts, and Nick Thornsby did that.

We’d experienced the highs of seeing Vince, Ed, Stephen and Jo back. We’d ensured the anxiety of the nail biting count in Westmorland where our leader was way too close to the Tories for comfort. We were relieved to see Norman, Tom and Alistair re-elected. We were delighted that Christine, Layla, Jamie and Wera had made it.

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Tagged LDV top 12 of 2017 | Leave a comment

New year, new us?

By Henry Madell | Fri 29th December 2017 - 10:27 am

As we come into 2018, surely it is time for our party to regroup and to push forward in the fight to renew our place in British politics.

A quick glance of the progressive press and you’d think the Lib Dems were about to collapse. Apparently we have come through this year, bruised and battered, only to find an entire lack of real resurgence under our new party leader in Vince Cable. Supposedly, our polls are at around 7%, and most of our MPs have slim and fading majorities. Unfortunately, an ex-leader is now embroiled in speculation over a knighthood which, deserved or not, has prompted more conversation about promises forgotten and failings foretold.

And yet there is hope, real hope, that if energy and commitment are driven in the right direction, our party has a genuine chance of becoming a powerful, and very necessary voice in the fight against the insidious face of populist politics. It is my firm belief that we see before us an incredible opportunity – the gap in British politics for a real progressive voice is vast and needs filling. This is our party’s chance to stand tall and present voters with a choice of calm and rational, liberal and progressive politics – that would ultimately stem the tide of decline and of difficulty that our country faces.

The time is nigh for a re-think of strategy. As one staffer recently put it, “are we a Charles Kennedy-catch-all opposition party or are we the SDP, an adjunct to another party? Are we first and foremost an anti-Brexit party, or not? I don’t know the answers to these questions”.

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35 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: 2018

By Tom Arms | Fri 29th December 2017 - 8:51 am

It won’t improve. The world is in a mess. The economy is a bright spot, but politically there is turmoil in every which direction.

Only a fool would offer predictions, but it is worth nothing some of the big events and issues for 2018 that could prove to be important catalysts and platforms.

Catalonia: The unilateral independence referendum declared in favour of independence from Spain. The Madrid-approved election also declared in favour of independence. Now it is up to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to make concessions that will prevent his country’s break-up.

It won’t be easy. Rajoy is a dyed-in-the-wool federalist. It was …

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Tagged observations of an ex pat | 6 Comments

Campaigning for higher and fairer taxes?

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 28th December 2017 - 5:00 pm

We need to talk about tax. The IMF’s annual report on the UK economy recommends that taxes should be raised, in order to reduce the deficit further without cutting public investment and services. Philip Hammond, it is reported, would like to do so; but he is opposed by the ideological (and Eurosceptic) right of his own party, and by the influential group of free market think tanks who were cheerleaders for the Brexit campaign.

The Taxpayers Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs have repeatedly argued that it’s impossible to raise more than …

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Tagged inequality, tax and tax reform | 45 Comments

Post-Christmas musings on the R word

By Merlene Emerson | Thu 28th December 2017 - 1:30 pm

The Queen has in her Christmas speech welcomed new members into the royal family in 2018.

Prince Harry will soon have a mother-in-law who is African American and the young couple’s future children will be of mixed race heritage. The society pages lap up the fairy-tale love story and we all cheer ourselves on how liberal we have become as a nation.

Vogue Magazine has a new editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful, and we can’t help but notice the change in the complexion of many of the supermodels that grace the glossy pages. Sir Mo Farrah has not only been knighted but has also …

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | Tagged diversity, equality, federal policy committee, party policy and internal matters and race relations | 9 Comments

Top skills a Local Party Organiser needs in 2018

By Steffan Aquarone | Thu 28th December 2017 - 12:44 pm

Local Party Organisers have a hard balancing act to maintain: running seemingly every aspect of election campaigns in their local area whilst also overseeing the long-term development of the local party.

It’s no wonder sometimes it can seem like an impossible task!

In preparing to recruit for a new Local Party Organiser (LPO) for North Norfolk and Great Yarmouth Liberal Democrats, I tried to think from scratch about the sorts of skills we were looking for. One of the first things we concluded was that we couldn’t expect to find everything in one person. So, having returned an executive with a huge …

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Tagged local party elections and local party organisation | 3 Comments

Everyday Sexism – a child’s experience

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 28th December 2017 - 8:36 am

As the mother of three girls, I am constantly aware of the sexism they face. It is endemic in society.

Last week, having tea with the family, my 12-year-old daughter asks for another drink, and the waiter says, ‘Right away, young man.’ It happens to her constantly – she has a very short haircut, but that’s all.

On holiday in San Francisco last year, the same child was allowed to (dangerously) hold on to the bars of a streetcar, half hanging out the door, having the time of her life, with the staff …

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Tagged children, everyday sexism, gender equality, harassment and women and girls | 12 Comments

Why you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers about the Lib Dems

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th December 2017 - 9:35 pm

It’s the annual “Trash the Lib Dems” day in the national press with gloomy analyses in both the Times and the Guardian. When the papers do SWOT analyses of us, they do tend to omit the strengths and opportunities and focus on the weaknesses and threats. We can quite often do that about ourselves, too, and talk ourselves down. There is no doubt that we face some pretty intense challenges in 2018, but there are signs of a plan coming together to meet them and also that the political environment is changing.

The Guardian tells us that we are facing a “fight for our political future”. People have been writing us off for pretty much the last century and we are still hanging in there. I’ve lost count of the times in my political lifetime that we have been told we are doomed right through from the disastrous election of 1979 to the present day.

Jessica Elgot talked to senior grassroots figures, academics and anonymous party sources about the party’s future. They cite our low poll rating, low staff morale, the departure of senior staff and the enormity of the political task ahead to regain seats as the main challenges facing us. They didn’t mention some key positives such as Vince being absolutely everywhere. He is doing so many broadcast interviews, and going to places you wouldn’t expect, like Nigel Farage’s show where he did a good job. He is breaking out of the echo chamber and positioning himself where he needs to be when the Brexit thing falls apart.

The Times has an article with similar themes (£) suggesting that Vince has failed to spark the Lib Dems into life.

Sir Vince, 74, has struggled to turn his political experience into increased support for his party, which is polling at about 7 per cent, according to YouGov.

An attempt by Sir Vince to encourage the party’s 11 other MPs and 100 peers to engage with each other to devise fresh policy ideas has yielded lacklustre proposals so far.

The “clusters” initiative, which refers to grouped areas of policy, has been nicknamed the “clusterf***s”. One insider remarked: “Like most things Lib Dem, there’s a lot of talking, but nothing ever comes out of it.”

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Tagged featured, liberal democrats and vince cable | 84 Comments

Sick absence figures reveal extent of strains on NHS staff as 45 million hours lost in Scotland alone

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th December 2017 - 12:53 pm

Last year, my husband spent 51 days in hospital. He received excellent care from compassionate and skilled staff at what was an absolutely terrifying time for us.

That experience gave us an insight into the strains and stresses that the NHS faces. The most common refrain from staff was that it was so stressful and the Winter hadn’t even started yet.

He spent a just over a month in a medical ward in our local hospital and a further three weeks in a specialist centre in our nearest city. On only one occasion in the whole 51 days did I see staff going home when they were actually supposed to. There were times when I was shocked to see the same members of staff on their 5th or even 6th 12 hour shift in a week. One day I arrived at the hospital in the afternoon to see a health care assistant who had been on night shift the previous night. Because the ward was so under-staffed, she had gone home, slept for a couple of hours and come back in for the busy stretch around lunch and dinner.

During their shifts, the nurses did not stop. They were dealing with multiple stressful situations at a time. They were stretched to the limit.

Obviously a situation like that is not sustainable. It’s going to affect people’s health in some way or another. Alex Cole-Hamilton now has evidence of that.

He revealed that more than 45 million hours have been lost by Scottish NHS boards to staff ill health during the past four years and said the immense pressure staff are under could account for rates rising.

Data obtained from health boards under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that the number of hours lost to illness increased from 11.4 million hours in 2014-15 to 13.1 million hours in 2016-17, with the number rising year on year.

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Also posted in News | Tagged Alex Cole-Hamilton, health and Scotland | 1 Comment

Lib Dems highlight plight of homeless young people

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th December 2017 - 9:45 am

45000 people. It’s the size of a small town. It’s also the number of young people presenting as homeless to local authorities across the whole of Britain. The wonderful people in the Lib Dem research team have uncovered this in a series of freedom of information requests which revealed the number of 18-24 year olds who presented themselves to councils as homeless or at risk of homelessness, who were subsequently assessed under the Housing Act, and who were then accepted as statutorily homeless in the year to September 2017.

You can see a full breakdown of the figures here. Notable points include that four of the top five areas for young people being declared statutorily homeless are in Scotland where this is devolved to the Scottish Government.

This was sadly all too predictable as soon as George Osborne announced cuts to Housing Benefit for young people. He did this at the first chance he had, just after the 2015 election when he didn’t have Nick Clegg there to stop him any more. Vince Cable made the point about benefits cuts in his comments:

These figures reveal the hidden homelessness crisis affecting thousands of young people across the country.

It is a national scandal that so many youngsters are struggling to find a permanent place to call home.

Young people should be hopeful and looking to the future. Yet instead thousands will be spending this Christmas without a roof over their head, worrying about where they will sleep at night.

The situation is being made worse by the Government’s heartless decision to strip young people of housing benefit.

The government must reverse cuts to housing benefit for young people, invest more in preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place and build more genuinely affordable homes.

The utterly heartbreaking thing is that these figures don’t even include all the young people where a final decision was made, not the full number who applied and may have been turned down.

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Tagged homelessness, vince cable and young people | 24 Comments

Will Nick Clegg be getting a knighthood at the weekend?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 26th December 2017 - 10:28 am

The papers are full of reports that The Cleggster is getting a knighthood in the New Year Honours. The right wing tabloids in particular are particularly enraged at this award for an “arch remainer.” The Mail even devotes a separate article to the question of whether Miriam Gonzalez Durantez will use the title “Lady Clegg” to give them another reason to remind readers of their twin obsessions with her being Spanish and not using what they refer to as her “married name.” The fact that she just has a name, not a married name, is lost on them as usual.

It’s much better for them, of course, to obsess on these things rather than her expertise on international and EU trade which leads her often to demolish the Government’s handling of Brexit as she did in this article in the Summer.

The best thing this government could do to appease the serious concerns of UK business leaders on Brexit is to rely on the business leaders themselves. This means no more toying with extravagant and ill-founded ideas. And it also means seeking an interim arrangement with the EU to continue benefiting from the single market and the customs union for as long as is needed until an alternative EU-UK deal is reached, as business leaders have proposed. This can be done by placing the UK into the European Economic Area on a temporary basis, and/or looking for an ad hoc arrangement extending the current status quo. Neither the extreme Brexiteers nor the extreme remainers like this option, but it is the only sensible thing to do right now. It allows the UK government to win time. And time is what the government needs – to get the skills it misses, to draft proposals it has not even started to draft yet and to negotiate with the serenity that the high economic interests at stake deserve.

An interim deal is the only way to deal with the ticking clock Michael Barnier hears because, as any trade negotiator knows, there is nothing worse than negotiating against time. Except for negotiating against time in pursuit of delusional and unrealistic ambitions.

But back to Nick. We won’t know if the knighthood story has any basis in fact, or is just something that the Brexiteer tabloids using to fill their pages in the post Christmas lull.

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Tagged new year honours 2018 and nick clegg | 102 Comments

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