Category Archives: Op-eds

John Knox

New thinking on job creation

By John Knox | Wed 26th July 2017 - 6:23 pm

 

One of the big challenges of our time is to provide work for all those who need it, work which is useful, fulfilling and which pays enough to live on. And although the British economy is creating around half a million jobs (net) a year, many of them do not satisfy those simple criterion.

The need for good quality jobs will increase as the population increases and working careers get longer, yet hardly anyone is thinking about where these jobs are to come from.  Government departments, unions and think-tanks tend to concentrate on where jobs have been created in the past or predicting where they may come in the future, or on skills training or how to improve conditions for those already in work. The private sector seems to regard jobs as a by-product, a necessary evil in the process of making a profit, and in the public sector the government wants to cut as many jobs as possible to save tax-payers’ money.  No one is actively looking at areas where new and worthwhile jobs can be created and how to do it.

Let me be bold and suggest six sectors where this might be done, in what I call the “infinite industries” ie where there is no limit to the amount of production that can be done: education, health, energy, environment, sport and the arts.

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Katharine Pindar

What should Liberal Democrats expect of our leaders?

By Katharine Pindar | Wed 26th July 2017 - 4:20 pm

 

Members are sovereign in the Liberal Democrat party. Members will be consulted on the overall party strategy at the next Federal Conference, prior to a motion being passed. Yet the party leader is expected, both by the membership and by the country, somehow to embody the image of the party. He or she is identified with its perceived success or failure by the media, regardless of how much control they may actually have had.

So what do we members think the first duty of the Liberal Democrat leader should be?

Surely he must show in outlining his political priorities that he is true to the party’s principles and values. This Tim Farron did, when elected in 2015. He said, for example,

We see people as individuals. The Liberal mission is to help us to be the best we can be. Standing up for the individual is not what we do – it’s what we are.

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Joe Bourke

Crackdown on unfair Leasehold Practices

By Joe Bourke | Wed 26th July 2017 - 12:37 pm

 

The Communities secretary, Sajid Javid, has issued a consultation to look at a range of measures to tackle unfair and unreasonable abuses of leasehold.

The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership and Carlex seek to represent the interests of residential leaseholders and end unfairness in this form of property tenure.  Carlex, the Campaign Against Retirement Leasehold Exploitation, represents the interests of retirement leaseholders. They provide the secretariat to the new All Party Parliamentary Group on leasehold and common hold, formed on September 7 2016.

Ed Davey MP, has been closely involved in the investigation of Cartel-like practices and Leasehold abuses in retirement homes.

England and Wales are unique in the world in perpetuating flat “ownership” in the form of a tenancy – leasehold – with all the vulnerability that that involves. Many who live in flats are young, old and single. Often knowledge of leasehold is very limited, and in disputes they are disadvantaged.

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Luke Reading

Two months with the Lib Dems

By Luke Reading | Wed 26th July 2017 - 11:10 am

 

Two months ago today I joined the Liberal Democrats amongst the peak of political campaigning for the general election (the first in which I was able to vote). Before this year I had seen myself as someone more on the right when it came to business and the economy but also felt strongly in favour of civil liberties.

As someone who has grown up in a Conservative stronghold in the South, and only really came to better understand politics under the Coalition government, I had always seen the Tories as the better choice out of the two major parties. Until the referendum last year, I was probably well on the route to putting a cross in the box next to Conservatives, not out of total agreement with Tory policies but seeing it as the lesser of two evils. When I found out the result of the referendum early the next morning, followed quickly by the news of David Cameron’s resignation, after the initial anger, confusion and disbelief, it left me reflecting on my own political stand point.

It emerged Theresa May would take over as Conservative leader several weeks later and earlier this year a general election was called for June. In the time from the Brexit result to the election being called, I found myself unable to be supportive of the Conservatives who had done nothing but shift rightwards on the political spectrum and witnessed a Labour party move much closer to its socialist roots. I was left unsatisfied with what the two major parties were offering, and so I looked elsewhere for inspiration.

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Azi Ahmed

I’m proud to be a be a Lib Dem newbie

By Azi Ahmed | Tue 25th July 2017 - 12:59 pm

During last month’s election campaign, I made the most important political decision of my life. I resigned from the Conservative Party, for whom I had stood as a parliamentary candidate in 2015, to join the Liberal Democrats.
As I explained in an article for The Guardian, I could no longer support a party trying to drive through an extreme Brexit with disastrous consequences for our country. Unlike Theresa May, I was not prepared to campaign for a cause in which I did not believe.

I was honoured to be asked to introduce Vince Cable at a packed election …

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Bill Fowler

Vince Cable, the next PM?

By Bill Fowler | Tue 25th July 2017 - 10:15 am

 

As a fan of Mrs Thatcher it might seem odd that I have just joined the Liberal Democrats. However times change, hard right policies are more likely to drive the large number of people depending on in-work benefits or working in the government into the hands of Mr Corbyn.  Labour, who shout loudly about democratic mandates, are likely to have another go at bankrupting the country as well as bring democracy into disrepute by promising endless giveaways.

The worst possible case for the UK is to have a Labour government and be outside the EU. Labour want out of EU because they can then rape and pillage the slightly rich – anyone who cannot bite back. Given the pasting that the EU gets from our press it is actually surprising that, as far as citizens’ rights go, it actually does work – and seems to be improving in many areas. It would be ironical if Brexit forces them to reform further in the interests of its citizens rather than its bureaucrats.

I would probably have not joined up had not Vince Cable become leader; he at least talks some reasonable sense – most of the time. Now he has the amusing task of saving the country from itself. The current fickleness of the British voting public means just about anything is possible but it will mean swallowing some liberal pride to get there. Looking from the outside, there is one little trick that might placate half the Brexiteers and that is a very strict residence test before there is any access to benefits, social housing, in-work benefits and possibly the personal tax allowance. By strict I mean at least five years…

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John King

Brexit: an idea whose time has passed?

By John King | Mon 24th July 2017 - 6:47 pm

One view of our divided country is that it was always a land of potential Leavers and Remainers, the rift being merely exposed by the referendum. On this theory, Remainers were born rather than made and Leavers, like leopards, will never change their spots.

Yet the truth is that Leavers comprise all sorts of people, as do Remainers. They are not a different species. I am coming round to the view that our current turmoil is not the fault of the people themselves, so much as the power of a virulent ideology that has swept the country like a tsunami, sweeping away common sense, but which is now slowly evaporating.

It has happened before: ideas have taken hold with a force disproportionate to their merit, and caused mayhem. There are reasons why these belief systems gain traction. Let us look at a couple of examples.

Lysenkoism

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Torrin Wilkins

Reintroducing Liberal Leave

By Torrin Wilkins | Mon 24th July 2017 - 11:38 am

 

Liberal Leave was formed as a part of Vote Leave during the EU referendum. It had the slogan “Liberal. Democratic. Internationalist.” and it mainly operated through social media. The most high-profile figure in the Group was an ex-MP called Paul Keetch who wrote an article in the Independent called “Think that if you are liberal you should vote to stay in the EU? Think again”. I was part of that group during the EU referendum and I now chair it.

I have tried to change the group so it is about a compromise between Remain and Leave, one that can be found in the ‘Icelandic option’ which differs from the ‘Norway option’ due to its use of safeguard measures. Compromise is what I feel Brexit should now be about, because otherwise hard-line groups on either side will shape it for us in the years to come.

We are against a second referendum. The argument used by Tim Farron during the recent election campaign was that we didn’t vote for a destination, just to leave the EU and that’s right. Therefore, we should have a referendum on just that, the destination. Do we want to remain members of the single market and do we want to remain members of the customs union? We should ask that rather than replaying the EU referendum.

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Sam Al-Hamdani

Liberals: a fresh message

By Sam Al-Hamdani | Mon 24th July 2017 - 9:02 am

 

Politics in the UK is changing faster now than ever before. This change gives us the opportunity to take our place at the heart of the UK by presenting a strong, passionate and persuasive liberal view of the world. It also means we may get lost among the crowd. We must make sure it is the former, and not the latter.

Clear, simple messages are crucial to how the country views us. Every opportunity to speak to people is a chance to present liberalism in its best light – distinct, valuable, and making our communities stronger.

The centre ground is stable, but it is also defined by what it isn’t. Strong messages must change that. The preamble to the Constitution of the party is a wonderful piece of writing; honest, inspirational, and clear, but it is not going to be read by 99 per cent of the population. What we need to do is distil its values: liberty, equality and community, and let that shine through our communications.

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Caron Lindsay

Happy 40th Birthday, Alex Cole-Hamilton

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd July 2017 - 8:55 am

Today, Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh Western, Alex Cole-Hamilton turns 40.

I have to confess to being slightly traumatised by this – much more so than by my own imminent Golden Jubilee.

You see, I don’t feel 50. I feel about 28. And I’m in much better shape physically and mentally than I was at 28, so it’s all good here. And the waiter at the Indian last night referred to me as a “young lady.” Even better.

Alex’s big day, though, provides inescapable evidence of the passage of time. I can’t help but remember that I first met him when he was a young lad fresh out of university. Now he’s a 40 year old father of three.

He hides it well, though. He’s probably even more irrepressible now than he was back then.

I’ve asked some of his friends to help me come up with 40 Legendary Alex Moments. Sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy a meander through the life of someone who is guaranteed to bring a smile to whatever is going on. Happy Birthday, Alex:

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew’s Musings -commentary on this week’s news

By Mathew Hulbert | Fri 21st July 2017 - 7:03 pm

Our new leader

I wish Vince all the luck in the world, in what is one of the most demanding jobs in politics today…ensuring we get enough coverage to break through and continue the Lib Dem Fightback which Tim Farron made a such a good start on during his time in the top job.

There’s no doubt that Vince has pretty good name recognition among the general public (for a politician, anyway) and is clearly a trusted voice on the economy, something which hasn’t always been the case for our leaders.

As the star of a past Christmas edition of Strictly Come Dancing, we can but hope that Strong and Cable Vince will glide across the political scene and ensure that liberalism and social democracy not only survive but thrive in the form of the Liberal Democrats in the years ahead.

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Michael Taylor

The sixties

By Michael Taylor | Fri 21st July 2017 - 11:55 am

I just visited an amazing exhibition in Montreal at La Musee de Beaux Arts, entitled ‘Revolution’, all about the sixties, when I was a teenager. The revolution in question was the change in art, ideas, politics, power, dress, music etc etc that occurred in the late 1960s, which culminated in the 1968 student riots, Expo ’67 in Montreal and Woodstock.

Many people today, especially young people it seems, criticise the sixties as a time of fantasy, forgetting what life had been like before the so-called swinging sixties. Before the sixties, (male) homosexuality was illegal, women were second class citizens, treated as appendages of their husbands especially in regard to finance, people were hanged for murder, computers and the internet were non-existent, books, plays and films were rigorously censored and non-white people were subject to overt harassment and discrimination. Who can forget the prosecution of the publishers of Lady Chatterly’s Lover – the book the prosecutor said you would not want your wives or servants to read! Or the shocking Tory campaign in Smethick in 1964, when the Labour MP Patrick Gordon-Walker lost his seat to a campaign of ‘If you want a ******* for a neighbour, vote Labour’.

During the sixties, homosexual acts between consenting adults in private were made legal, the Race Relations Act outlawed much discrimination based on colour or race, hanging was abolished, abortion was legalised up to 28 weeks and the voting age was reduced to 18.

The sixties saw an unprecedented revolution in fashion in which the UK through designers like Mary Quant and the Carnaby Street shops changed clothing forever from the somewhat staid post war styles to the modern ever changing fashions of today. The Women’s Liberation Movement started demanding equal rights for women and the end of patriarchy, which, in Britain, eventually led to the Sexual Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act in 1975.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Crooked or incompetent?

By Tom Arms | Fri 21st July 2017 - 8:54 am

Is the Trump team totally incompetent or crooked? Is it perhaps a combination of the two or an unappealing variation on the political spectrum?

For despite the never-ending stream of White House protestations and presidential tweets, not all of President Trump’s problems are the result of a witch hunt of historic proportions orchestrated by  the Democrats, the liberals, “ the dishonest media,” immigrants, refugees, Muslims, “so-called judges”,  turncoat Republicans, Chinese currency manipulators, Angela Merkel, Mexicans and Canadians.

Next week we may start to learn the answer to the questions posed. It is a major week for the Trump Administration.  Three big names from the Trump campaign—Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort – are all appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating the Russian hacking scandal.

A bit of background for anyone who has been living at the bottom of a mile-deep Tibetan cave for the past month.  Donald Junior—after initially denying he had met with any Russians—published a string of emails which revealed that in the depths of the presidential campaign he was keen to meet with a Russian lawyer who could dish the dirt on Hillary Clinton.

The White House made much of the fact that Trump Junior released the  correspondence rather than having  it  revealed by someone else. Little was made of the fact that he made public  the emails after the New York Times said they were going to publish them.

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Caron Lindsay

Vince’s manifesto shows just how far Tim took us

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 20th July 2017 - 8:55 pm

When Tim Farron stood for the leadership two years ago, his winning manifesto was quite internally focused. It had to be. We’d just had what could have been a mortal blow from the electorate. We were all in shock, devastated at the psychological impact of the loss of so many of our heartlands.

We knew we had to pick ourselves up, but in those early weeks, every time we tried to get ourselves off the floor, we couldn’t quite manage it. Then along came Tim with a jolt of electricity, a motivational message that energised us and got us going again. A lot of his manifesto was internally focused – about picking a ward and winning it, about tackling diversity, about how he’d make decisions in the party (with a diverse group of people in the room), and about having a festival of ideas. It was a time of innovation when newbies developed initiatives like Lib Dem Pint and Your Liberal Britain. But it was mainly internal.

Tim has left us in better shape and grew the size of the parliamentary party in an incredibly difficult election for us.

Vince’s manifesto is much more outward looking. He doesn’t really talk about internal stuff at all. It’s all about our positioning to the world.

He uses language about being ambitious for party and country that reminds me of Willie Rennie’s optimistic campaign in Scotland where we won two seats from the SNP. Where we could get that message out in sufficient volume, people liked it. It was full of heart and authenticity and optimism. People want something to look forward to.

Vince concentrates on five policy areas:

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Caron Lindsay

Vince takes the stage with a strong “Exit from Brexit” line

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 20th July 2017 - 6:07 pm

Vince is not our almost leader any more. Just after 4pm, Sal Brinton announced that there had only been one nomination received and therefore he was our actual leader.

Having one of the country’s most credible and authoritative experts on the economy at a time when the economy is at risk is no bad thing.

We will certainly see a change in style from Vince. He won’t be as Tiggerish as Tim, but he’ll fight the recklessness of the Tories and Labour and promote our Liberal Democrat values with energy and optimism.

Vince has huge intelligence, a way of telling it like it is that makes sense to people and a wicked sense of humour. I feel much more optimistic than I did on 9th June that we can actually get somewhere.

Watch this afternoon’s proceedings here. You can see speeches from Sal, Tim, Jo and Vince.  Some key points from Vince’s speech are below.

There is a huge gap in the centre of British politics and I intend to fill it. As the only party committed to staying in the single market and customs union, the Liberal Democrats are alone in fighting to protect our economy. It will soon become clear that the government can’t deliver the painless Brexit it promised. So, we need to prepare for an exit from Brexit.

Theresa May wants to take Britain back to the 1950s while Jeremy Corbyn wants to take Britain back to the 1970s. I will offer an optimistic, alternative agenda to power the country into the 2020s and beyond.

We have a government that can’t govern and an opposition that can’t oppose. Labour and the Conservatives have formed a grand coalition of chaos, driving through a hard Brexit which would deliver a massive blow to living standards.

Both parties have abandoned mainstream economics. I want to put economics back centre stage.

Under my leadership the Liberal Democrats will be at the centre of political life: a credible, effective party of national government.

We have doubled our membership and our new members have given the party enormous energy. I want to give leadership to that energy, hitting the headlines and putting our party at the centre of the national debate.

 

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Nick T

UK income inequality lower than a decade ago: three challenges for the Lib Dems

By Nick T | Thu 20th July 2017 - 9:09 am

Counterintuitive though it may seem to many, Britain is significantly more equal than it was a decade ago – especially in London, where the fall in inequality has been “dramatic” according to the IFS.

This poses several challenges for those who consider that reducing income inequality should be a policy priority, among whose number are many Liberal Democrats.

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62 Comments

New party: An opportunity, an unhelpful distraction or a timely kick up our posterior?

By Ben Maitland | Wed 19th July 2017 - 2:58 pm

A year ago Emmanuel Macron held is first political rally. 12 months on he sits firmly ensconced in the Elysee Palace and En Marche enjoy a comfortable majority in the Assemble Nationale.The obvious question this demands is whether, at a time when the gulf between the two main parties grows ever wider, there is an opportunity for a new centrist party to make a similar breakthrough here in the UK.

Last week, the team that created the Lib Dem Newbie Facebook group put a poll asking members of the group a simple question: If a new liberal centre party were to emerge as a result of the increasingly polarised state of Labour and the Tories, with the backing of more moderate MPs escaping the madness currently consuming those parties should we join the new party or stick to our guns and keep on focusing on the task of rebuilding the Lib Dems?

This was only ever a hypothetical scenario. That party does not exist yet. It may never emerge and unless it does, and is able to prove itself to be genuinely liberal in its heart and soul, then there is no question of anyone being asked to consider any steps that might negatively affect the Liberal Democrat party. It remains our belief that within the current political landscape the Lib Dems remain the best and most capable vehicle to promote and defend liberalism, to stand up for people’s rights and liberties, to make the case for a decent, fair, open and tolerant society and to wholeheartedly fight to stop the Eurosceptic ideologues delivering a hard Brexit that would be a total disaster for this country and future generations.

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Caron Lindsay

Tim’s Best Bits #3: His first Conference speech

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th July 2017 - 8:55 am

Tonight at midnight, Tim Farron hands over the reins of Liberal Democrat power to Vince Cable. We’re showing some of his best bits in his two years as leader.

Here is his passionate, heartfelt first speech to Conference, given just days after the death of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi who was killed while crossing the Mediterranean as his family fled to what they hoped would be safety in Europe.

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The Voice

Tim’s best bits #1: That first speech as leader

By The Voice | Tue 18th July 2017 - 6:10 pm

At midnight on Wednesday night, the mantle of Liberal Democrat leadership will pass from Tim Farron to Vince Cable.

Over the next day or so, in the tradition of our finest reality tv shows, we’ll remind ourselves of some of Tim’s best bits.

The frist is that amazing speech he made the night he became leader, just two years and two days ago. The text is below.

For years, I sat where you are now.

I joined this party when I wFor years, I sat where you are now.

I joined this party when I was 16 years old. I’ve watched some great liberal leaders give some incredible speeches.

Steel. Ashdown. Kennedy. Campbell. Clegg. Imagine following in their footsteps? To say it is an honour is an understatement of epic proportions.

I remember sitting in the winter gardens at Blackpool watching paddy give his first speech as leader in 1988. And I remember feeling guilty because I’d left home in Preston that morning and there on the kitchen table was my round of focus leaflets I’d not yet delivered. I returned home to find that my Mum had done them for me.

So, I get to lead the party I joined as a kid.

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Tony Lloyd

What should our policy on one of the defining issues of the age be?

By Tony Lloyd | Mon 17th July 2017 - 7:11 pm

 

Do not think about whether we should call for another referendum.  A referendum is a mechanism, not a policy. Instead, what should we ask our fellow countrymen and countrywomen to support?

Seventy years ago some of our forebears put forward the policy, in the ashes of our continent, to exchange the conflicts of nations for the cooperation of peoples.

It has been a spectacular success.

What, in those dark times, must have looked like a utopian fantasy has largely come to pass. In seventy years no member state, once admitted to the fold, has engaged in armed conflict with any other member state. Newly democratised Fascist dictatorships have been kept as stable liberal democracies. Newly liberated Communist tyrannies have had their economies and societies utterly transformed. In the continent that gave rise to both Communism and Fascism, and where destructive, terrible, wars were commonplace; that is a magnificent achievement.

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Steve Trevethan

Memorials?

By Steve Trevethan | Mon 17th July 2017 - 4:03 pm

 

We may not have a monument to Margaret Thatcher but we do have a monument to “Thatcherism”. It is the Grenfell Tower.

The foundation of Thatcherism is the minimisation of the state. It plans and proceeds to reduce government regulation and suppress its spending. It does this without the guidance of long term consequence and human cost.

Tower blocks, like Grenfell, lack sprinkler systems, alarms and secondary exit routes which, before the “bonfire of red-tape”, were the norm. They have been mandatory in New York since 1967. Grenfell proves that they are necessary and yet HMG has not yet withdrawn a press release of 03/04/2016, entitled “Government going to further cut red tape by £10 billion”. It has not reviewed or withdrawn its doctrinaire and dangerously unspecific “One-in, Three-out policy” under which three regulations must be removed every time a new one is introduced.

As well as its economic and social consequences, Thatcherism has affected attitudes, behaviours, relationships and language.

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Catherine Crosland

A powerful drama that must not become reality

By Catherine Crosland | Mon 17th July 2017 - 2:38 pm

 

Many of you will have seem the recent television adaptation of Mike Bartlett’s play, King Charles III.

Beautifully and movingly written, in Shakespearean style blank verse, the play is set in the near future, when “King Charles III” has just inherited the throne.

Charles is asked to sign a piece of legislation that would severely limit the freedom of the press. He refuses to do so. He is portrayed as principled and conflicted. He has no wish to cause a constitutional crisis. His conscience just will not allow him to sign.

When Parliament plan to proceed with the legislation anyway, Charles uses his legal right to dissolve Parliament.

I will not give away any “spoilers” about how this fictional situation is resolved. But the play made me wonder how likely it is that such a situation could occur in real life. The worrying fact is that it is quite possible. I am not suggesting that Prince Charles, when he becomes king, would ever behave like his fictional counterpart in this play. But unless the rules are changed, some future monarch could easily do so.

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Caron Lindsay

Social Liberal Forum Conference: The Retreat from Globalisation

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 17th July 2017 - 9:41 am

Saturday’s Social Liberal Forum conference in London  provided much food for thought as speakers challenged Liberal Democrat orthodoxy in various ways.

Beveridge Lecture

William Wallace kicked off proceedings by giving the annual William Beveridge Lecture. His theme was: Is a Liberal and Democratic society compatible with globalisation. His answer? Well, it disproportionately benefits the super rich and authoritarian states, so we have to change things to ensure that nobody is left out.

He started off by quoting Emmanuel Macron, who’s said he supported a market economy but not a market society.  He said our society was divided between the poor, unskilled and the relatively affluent highly educated. The gulf between them is cemented in successive generations. Globalisation had meant a substantial number of left behind people whose grievances were entirely justified. Those grievances led to the Brexit vote.

Challenging the idea that higher taxes harm the economy is key.  We need investment in public services and to recognise that the social fabric is damaged if there is too big a gap between wealthy CEOs and their workers.

He looked at business ownership and how little multi-national takeovers do for regeneration and how important it was that our financial and corporate leaders  tackled this.

We need to throw the “Citizens of Nowhere” thing right back at Theresa May, he argued, pointing out the super rich from across the world who dominate our economy.

One idea he had to improve social solidarity was to have all adults undertaking a year of Citizen’s Service working on a community project, or care home.

Giving people some sense of ownership and control over their destiny was key, whether that was by closer, more responsive local government or an increase of mutual ownership of companies.

Basic Income

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Caron Lindsay

The 13th Doctor: 3 reasons why the BBC have made a brilliant choice

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 16th July 2017 - 5:53 pm

There is only so much excitement Liberal Democrats can take. The prospect of a new Doctor and a new Leader in the same week is testing us to the limit. I suppose it’s just as well we had a General Election campaign to build our stamina. We should perhaps also be grateful to our MPs for sparing us the extra adrenaline rush of a contest. Just to get this out of the way, I know that there have actually been 14 Doctors, if you count John Hurt, the “War Doctor”, but the BBC aren’t going to screw up decades of merchandising by mucking about with the numbering.

There is something about the quirky, socially awkward time lord, traversing time and space, saving entire races from themselves over and over again that appeals to Liberal Democrats. So many of us would have been waiting for the announcement this afternoon. And so it came:

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Caron Lindsay

Follow the Social Liberal Forum conference today

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 15th July 2017 - 10:00 am

The annual Social Liberal Forum conference is always nourishing for the Liberal soul. There’s always some proper intellectual heft behind its discussions and deliberations.

It takes place today in London. By the time you read this, I’ll have been up since before the crack of dawn. That 6:25 flight from Edinburgh is not my favourite way to travel but I couldn’t justify the cost of the sleeper.  The last time I was on this particular flight, it didn’t even leave until after 11.

The theme of the Conference is “The Retreat from Globalisation.” That takes the morning and the afternoon will include a leadership hustings (free to all Lib Dem members to attend) and a look back at the General Election.

Here’s how the day will unfold:

Morning theme: The Retreat from Globalisation

10am: Refreshments
10.30am: Welcome
10.35am: William Beveridge Memorial Lecture “Is a liberal and democratic society compatible with globalisation?”, William Wallace
11.30am: Global conflict, Prof Sir Lawrence Freedman
12.10pm: Global warming, Ed Davey MP and Mark Campanale

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Caron Lindsay

Tim had already decided to go before the election – remember where you heard it first

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 14th July 2017 - 9:18 pm

When Tim Farron came up and cooked my breakfast 3 days before the election, I had a feeling it would be the last time I saw him as leader. I’m not sure where that feeling came from, but it turned out to be right – unless I randomly bump into him in the next six days.

A few days after his resignation, when I’d almost calmed down, I wrote:

In trying to piece together the events of this week, I hear, though, that Tim had returned to Westminster in a positive mood. Friendly sources close to him tell me that he

…

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Humphrey Hawksley

High, positive impact for a hard-fighting political machine.

By Humphrey Hawksley | Fri 14th July 2017 - 1:25 pm

The Liberal Democrats are preparing for new leadership at a time when a gaping vacuum continues across the British political spectrum. Our strong and motivating voice is needed more than ever. The challenge is how to make it heard.

I wrote earlier advocating broad brush changes to the party (Get clever, get brave and reform to win,). I now follow up with four examples of initiatives that could give us high, positive impact with minimal paperwork.

First, investigate bad practice. In March, the party brilliantly uncovered EU nurses quitting the NHS through a Freedom of Information request. There needs to be a stream of such reports. Within our membership is an array of skilled investigators from the security services, lawyers, journalists and others. Investigative units could uncover bad and illegal practice in housing, the environment, the health service and so on with results fed through our MPs and peers to hold government to account.  This would require an element of top-down management, but if handled effectively, one stunning investigation after another could have the public on the edge of their seats, expectantly waiting to see what appalling misdeeds the Liberal Democrats uncover next. 

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170 Comments
Theo Knott

No silver bullet for our Lib Dem doldrums

By Theo Knott | Fri 14th July 2017 - 10:25 am

While picking over the bones of our, what could charitably be called, ‘middling’, general election campaign, many Lib Dems have called on the party to develop a new identity of some kind. A single issue that we can define ourselves with. I respectfully think that such an approach is unlikely to lead to the electoral promised-land that some have hoped for.

I am yet to be convinced that there is such an issue, but even assuming one exists that the public likes, there is an underlying paucity at heart of the party in terms of councillors, vote share, seats and public trust. A new identity may help to address some of these, but realistically, much of our resurrection is only going to be based upon time, rebuilding our local base and effort.

We have constructed our parliamentary success historically upon the bedrock of strong and local campaigns.  Boiling down from national context to seat-by-seat contests, often with victories instigated at council level and then translated upwards. Not only did it help to breach out credibility gap with the public (the idea that we couldn’t win somewhere), but it also compensated for our relative lack of party profile and money, as compared to Labour and the Conservatives. 

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Also posted in Conference | 53 Comments
Joe Bourke

It’s time for an All Party Parliamentary Group on Land Value Taxation

By Joe Bourke | Wed 12th July 2017 - 10:55 am

The rioting in Hamburg on the occasion of the meeting of the G20 this month highlights the oftentimes violent confrontation that exists between alternative theories of capitalism and socialism, as represented by the established orthodoxy and those that would seek to tear it down.

 At the heart of this conflict lies differing interpretations of economic theory, often depicted simplistically as left v right; Keynes v Hayek; socialism v capitalism; social liberalism v economic liberalism; or progressives v conservatives.

Henry George’s Progress and Poverty envisioned a capitalism that would allow all people to own the product of their labour, but that things found in nature, particularly land, belongs equally to all humanity. 

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Ken Munn

What can we learn from the ages?

By Ken Munn | Tue 11th July 2017 - 11:16 am

With party leadership currently in play, and in an effort to acquaint myself with our history, I took a look at Liberal/Alliance/LibDem results of general elections since 1950. Here’s what I found.

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