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Category Archives: Op-eds

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

Merry Christmas to you all

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 25th December 2017 - 12:00 am

The LDV team wishes all of you the most peaceful, healthy, happy festive time.

We send our love and support to those of you who face Christmas for the first time without someone you love. A loss that is acute every day can feel especially intolerable amongst all the jollity.

We should also think of those whose lives are a constant struggle with poverty and those who put so much time and effort into helping them. I’m thinking of those at welfare rights organisations and charities who prepare and represent them at appeals, of the food bank volunteers who try to make …

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Tagged featured and Merry christmas | 8 Comments

Merry Christmas from Cheltenham (even though politics is a steaming pile of mess)

By Max Wilkinson | Sun 24th December 2017 - 2:55 pm

This is a Christmas message with a difference. I make no apologies for the colourful nature of the story and I assure you it is absolutely 100% true.

When I was delivering the Liberal Democrat Christmas cards the other day I noticed on the pavement the largest pile of dog’s business I had seen in some time. “What a calamity,” I thought “That’s a big problem for whoever steps in it.” I was heartened, therefore, to see a man approaching the mess with a purposeful stride.

I could see he was going to solve the problem for the good of other people in his road, probably by picking it up and finding a bin. That was until I noticed he was carrying a large bucket of hot water. He then proceeded to pour it over the offending deposit. Naturally, rather than solving anything, this merely compounded the problem by spreading it around. I was carrying out my final campaigning act of 2017 and my political brain was therefore weary, but when reflecting on the scene I had witnessed later on that day I concluded it was the most appropriate metaphor for the political year: a fundamental problem was correctly identified by a public-spirited individual, but the chosen solution was ill-judged and left everyone else with a steaming mess to clear up. It’s not all bad news, though. In the spirit of good will to all, I’ve passed the person’s address to Theresa May with a suggestion he is promoted to Brexit Secretary. With problem-solving skills like those, he’ll fit right in.

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Tagged brexit, cheltenham and max wilkinson | Leave a comment

Willie Rennie’s Christmas Message: Scottish Lib Dems stand up for better mental health, education and police services

By The Voice | Sun 24th December 2017 - 10:55 am

Embed from Getty Images

Here is Willie Rennie’s Christmas Message:

May I wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

2017 was the year the Liberal Democrats turned the corner. We started winning elections again with more MPs and in charge of more councils. I believe that winning is not just good for the Liberal Democrats but is also good for the country.

It means that we have moderate, outward looking, optimistic voices making the case for change and challenging authority and government.

It means that we can shout louder for people who need mental health services. The services are inadequate and must change.

It means we can challenge with greater impact the government and police chiefs on the running of Police Scotland. Without the Liberal Democrats many of the problems of Police Scotland would have gone untested and unchallenged.

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Tagged education, featured, mental health, police, Scotland, scottish liberal democrats and willie rennie | Leave a comment

Wera Hobhouse MP: Only the people can finish what the people have started

By Wera Hobhouse MP | Fri 22nd December 2017 - 1:27 pm

This is the speech delivered by Bath MP Wera Hobhouse in favour of a referendum on the final Brexit deal during the debate on the EU Withdrawal Bill on Wednesday.

I rise to speak to amendment 120. Since I arrived in this place in June and started taking part in the Brexit debate, one thing has intrigued me: have the Prime Minister and many other remain MPs changed their minds? We all know that the Prime Minister supported remaining in June 2016. Has she changed her mind since? This is important because she and her Government use one big argument for pressing on with Brexit: it is the will of the people. Is it? For the Government and the hard Brexiteers, the referendum result is fixed forever. The people cannot change their minds. The Prime Minister and other MPs can change their minds, but the people cannot.

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47 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: Dear Santa

By Tom Arms | Fri 22nd December 2017 - 8:55 am

Dear Santa,

To start with I would like a new pair of cufflinks (nothing too flashy), a kindle, a good thriller read and the time to read it.

Then there a few other items which I don’t usually place on my Christmas list.

For a start do you think you could work on some magic dust. I know you know how to make it. It’s magic dust that makes your reindeer fly.

So could you just make some dust to scatter while flying around through the night sky which would restore a veneer of civilisation to the world. Something that would remove the perpetual scowls and angry body language of presidents—and lots of lots of other people. Something that makes them at least look as if they are searching for a solution rather than a fight.

By the way, do you ever take back presents? You know, if the boy or girl has misused them or doesn’t play properly? If so, would you please collect all the megaphones that you handed out to politicians a couple of Christmases ago. Oh, and while you are it, could you remove the cotton from their ears.

At the moment opposing politicians spend too much time shouting at each other through giant bullhorns while the cotton wool—plus their uncivilised behaviour—prevents them from listening and discussing.

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Tagged observations of an ex pat | 1 Comment

Robots here and now

By Kirsten Johnson | Thu 21st December 2017 - 12:56 pm

We are living in an increasingly automated, digitalised and interconnected world. I recently had the opportunity to tour an exhibit on automation, robotics, and future technology in Belgium.

There was a robot for feeding babies:

Not sure that I’d want this to be common-place. Bonding between parent/carer and child is ever so important. There is definitely a role for human contact in feeding a child.

A robot doll for reminding older people when to take medicines and eat. I can see the practical benefits here, but I would not wish a robot

…

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Tagged automation, digital economy and technology | 12 Comments

Paul Tyler writes…What next for the Lords?

By Paul Tyler | Wed 20th December 2017 - 3:12 pm

The Leader of the Liberal Democrats peers, Dick Newby, has warned that the Prime Minister may try to pre-empt an agreement to restrict the ever-increasing size of the Lords by packing in new Tory appointments in the New Year.

The forecast that Theresa May would follow the plea of St Augustine – “Lord, make me pure, but not yet”. In the debate in December he set out the Party’s position on short term plans to present:

The proposals from the noble Lord, Lord Burns, offer an alternative way forward. From these Benches, as I say, we support their principal features: a significantly reduced size of your Lordships’ House, party membership based on electoral performance, and a gradual phasing in of the new arrangements. We do not of course resile from our policy of having elections for the political Members of your Lordships’ House, but we are realistic enough to know that this is not going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, it is highly desirable that something is done to reduce our size….

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9 Comments

A Newbie’s reflections

By The Voice | Wed 20th December 2017 - 10:25 am

When I first walked in to the offices of Eastbourne and Willingdon Lib Dems in April of this year, I had little idea just how swept up in it all I would get. Like many new (and more established!) members, I had got to the point with politics in this country where I felt “something must be done”!

On the first action day of the GE, I was warmly welcomed and soon sent out with the first of many walks to deliver. The bonhomie, and feeling that we were all working towards a greater good has stayed with me ever since. Being on the ground for the tail end of the local elections and the full GE campaign gave me an appreciation of how many other people shared my new-found passion for challenge and change. It also made me appreciate the necessity of an army of supporters to ensure we can continue challenge the big money (business or union) backing of other parties.

After the briefest of introductions to the local elections, the GE rapidly got into full swing. Election night in Eastbourne was bittersweet for us, our local success being tempered by the knowledge that despite working just as hard, Lib Dems across the country were meeting a brick wall. It was also the night that fully cemented my anti-Tory sentiment – as the results were announced in the town hall by the returning officer, the Tories, each and every one, booed the Green party candidate. The Tories, true to pantomime-villain form, picking on the weakest member in the room.

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Tagged eastbourne and general election | 2 Comments

Some news about AdLib

By Rachel Palma-Randle | Tue 19th December 2017 - 6:55 pm

A lot has changed since 2014 – the biggest part of which is the fact that we now have around 100,000 members.

This is amazing, and it is radically changing us as a party but also challenging us to do things differently.

One challenge is that the cost of producing AdLib has escalated to the equivalent of the entire staffing budget for the Party’s Membership Department.

Because of these high costs, with regret, the Federal Board has decided to cease publishing it as a printed magazine in 2018.

I understand that this will be disappointing for many of you.

It has been a much-loved publication but we wanted to make sure you were aware of this change.

I am committed to exploring all opportunities in 2018 to make sure we have better, two-way communication with our members. That means using all sorts of tools, channels and formats.

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Also posted in News | Tagged AD LIB and membership | 38 Comments

Blocked

By Darren Martin | Mon 18th December 2017 - 12:45 pm

Imagine waking up one morning in the not so distant future. You reach for your phone and none of your apps work, you can’t access your email, all your social media accounts have been deleted.

You can’t get any money out at the bank because your facial recognition is not working and you have no way of hailing an autonomous taxi.

You find out you have no job because you can no longer access the app that gives you shifts on a flexible basis.

People on the street avoid you, they all know you have been blocked.

Maybe you criticised the big monopoly tech …

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Tagged digital bill of rights and technology | 22 Comments

The better angels of our nature

By David Warren | Sun 17th December 2017 - 8:55 am

The US state of Alabama went to the polls this week in an election that can hardly have been more polarised.

In what is normally rock solid Republican territory, the GOP candidate Roy Moore faced Democrat Doug Jones. Mr Moore, a right winger opposes abortion in all circumstances, thinks homosexuality is a sin and believes Muslims should not be allowed to hold government jobs.

However Moore’s political views were not what made this race competitive.

The surfacing of allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour was the issue that dogged him during the campaign. It made his principle opponent a contender in a state that the Democrats hadn’t won for decades.

Jones, who has never held office, but is well known in the state for his involvement in a high profile prosecution of Klansmen, was sneeringly described by President Trump as a liberal Democrat in a statement endorsing Moore.

This from a man who with every passing day reminds the Stephen King fans amongst us of the megalomaniac politician, Greg Stillson, from the Dead Zone.

That said these days most Republicans are pretty scary.

You have to go back a long way to find a GOP liberal of the Rockerfeller variety.

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Tagged Alabama, donald trump, special elections and us | 7 Comments

Poll gives Remain a 10 point lead over Leave – what does this mean?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 16th December 2017 - 10:27 pm

A BMG poll for the Independent shows a majority of those asked are now in favour of remaining in the European Union. In fact, Remain has a 10 point lead over leave which widens to 11% when you exclude the don’t knows:

When a weighted sample of some 1,400 people were asked: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union, or leave the European Union?” – 51 per cent backed Remain, and 41 per cent backed Leave.

7 per cent said “don’t know” and 1 per cent refused to answer.

After “don’t knows” were either pushed for an answer or otherwise excluded, 55.5 per cent backed Remain and 44.5 backed Leave.

Polling since this time last year appears to demonstrate a clear trend; Leave enjoyed a lead last December which gradually shrank, before turning into a lead for Remain in the month of the general election, that has since grown.

So by the time the Government drags us out of the EU, it is likely that a majority of people will be in favour of staying. How can that possibly be legitimate?

This poll does come with a bit of a health warning. The fieldwork was carried out during that week where the deal over the Irish situation was unravelling in slow motion in front of our eyes. However, the deal that was reached on 8th December, the final day of the fieldwork, is simply a bit of fudge covered with sticking plaster resolving none of the key issues. Those problems will loom large in the early months of 2018.

What if the polls turned? Surely the Government would be compelled to test whether their deal has public sympathy.

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Tagged brexit, exit from brexit, featured, Polls, the independent and vince cable | 137 Comments

Most Read

Op-eds

ALDC by-election report – 5 November (Charles Quinn)
Tom Arms’ World Review (Tom Arms)
Observations of an Expat: Post Election Worries (Tom Arms)
How Liberal Democrats can ride Britain’s youth wave on the pro-EU shift (Rupinder Singh)
Just growth by lowering deadweight losses through tax (Tony Vickers)

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@Peter Davies I'm not talking about young people in general, though - according to the polls, 10% of younger voters support the Lib Dems, same as any other age...
PM
@Tom, You're not the only one who's suffered from writers block when it comes to describing the recent social unrest in France and other EU countries. No-one...
Kevin Hawkins
Here is my usual monthly summary of the last fifty local by-elections. It does not include the by-election on the 5th November as I like to give summarise at m...
Peter Davies
@cim You are massively over-generalising about young people. The proportion that believe we were wrong to declare war against Germany in 1939 is tiny. So is the...