Category Archives: Op-eds

Mark Wright

We should be sceptical of news, even when we agree

By Mark Wright | Wed 14th December 2016 - 11:58 am

Some may have been surprised to read recently that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved three trials of MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder – the final phase of validation required to turn the “dance drug” into a legal medicine. Surprised, probably, because we have been repeatedly told for over two decades that MDMA is a very dangerous drug and that “there is no such thing as a ‘safe dose’”. Doctors would surely never give a dangerous drug with no safe dose to someone just to aid therapy, so what’s going on here?

It has been known since the 1970s that MDMA had some potential in psychotherapy, but almost all research and testing on the drug was halted when it was globally criminalised in the mid-1980s. But the story of how we got to a place where MDMA is “Class A” (the most dangerous drugs) is a sorry story of misleading experiments, politicised research, biased scientific endeavour, wilful distortion of facts, and – most importantly – the silence of the scientific and medical establishments in the face of obvious manipulation of the truth.

Nearly all research on MDMA since the 1980s has been funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) or its predecessors. Its very name – “drug abuse” – gives away the goal of the organisation, which is to provide the evidence backing for politicians to promote the “War on Drugs”. In that goal it has been hugely influential.

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Ruth Bright

A Christmas Gift Guide

By Ruth Bright | Wed 14th December 2016 - 10:25 am

You know how it is. What with by-elections and all you simply haven’t had time to sort out your Christmas gifts. Before panic sets in relax, don’t worry, sit back and enjoy the LDV last minute gift guide. All the political pressies you could possibly want – and plenty you didn’t!

For children

It simply has to be the “Tiger Tim” cuddly toy. Like our leader, his qualities and all round niceness speak for themselves and he even has a miniature bird of liberty T-Shirt. Yours for £9.50 from the wonderful Lib Dem Image. The Parliament Shop has also has a lovely wooden toy – “House of Commons in a box” but a bit pricier at £19.99.

For the ageing activist

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Jenny Randerson

Southern Rail: The rights of passengers are more important…

By Jenny Randerson | Tue 13th December 2016 - 4:07 pm

For most people the new year brings the promise of a fresh start, a clean slate but customers of Southern will not enjoy the same optimism at the prospect of what 2017 will bring.

A month of strikes on the network began today, with the simply astonishing advice of not to travel. This shows how little the people sitting in the board room at GTR understand the needs of the thousands of people desperately relying on the understanding of their employers for their lateness or inability to make it into work. Some are even missing hospital appointments through no fault of their own, ones they have most likely waited months for.

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Joe Otten

The other Brexit negotiations plan

By Joe Otten | Tue 13th December 2016 - 10:11 am

There is an ongoing heated debate over how much if anything of her intentions Theresa May will reveal before triggering Article 50. Does she want to stay in the single market? Does she want UK citizens to have any rights (short of complete freedom?) to travel and work in the EU? Does she want to maintain the reciprocal arrangement on health care? Does she want all the policing co-operation to continue (we think so)? Does she want us to stay in the scientific research programmes? Etc. Etc.

This is all in our interests: does a sovereign nation that has taken back control have the right to enter agreements that are in its interests? Yes it does. That’s how we got in to the EU.

Presumably we want out of the Common Fisheries Policy, but some sort of agreement on fisheries will be desirable, to prevent overfishing. (Yes, I know that’s what the CFP is.) And do we want to expropriate the fishing quotas that have been sold by British fishermen to Spaniards? I wouldn’t think so – that’s not how the UK behaves – but in that case, what respite is there for British fishermen?

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Catherine Crosland

Two nations of animal lovers

By Catherine Crosland | Mon 12th December 2016 - 6:00 pm

 

The ancient Romans would have said that they were a nation of animal lovers. They doted on their household pets. Roman literature contains stories of dogs who were not just watchdogs but also much loved companions, and of pet starlings who were taught to talk by their adoring owners.

But these same devoted pet owners would visit the arena, where they would watch other animals – leopards, giraffes, antelopes, elephants – slaughtered for sport. Religious festivals, such as the mid-winter festival of Saturnalia, also involved the slaughter of animals, as sacrifices to the gods. The Romans seemed to see no connection between these animals, and their cherished pets.

We condemn the Romans as hypocrites, but are we in any position to judge?

The British are a nation of animal lovers. Like the Romans, we adore our household pets. Unlike the Romans, we do not slaughter animals in the arena for entertainment.

But many millions of pheasants are shot for “sport” in Britain each year. Far more than the number of animals killed each year in the arena in ancient Rome. It is true that most British people disapprove of pheasant shooting, and have nothing to do with it. Yet most just try not to think about it, rather than campaigning to try to stop it.

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Chris Key

How the Lib Dems can reach out to lower paid voters ignored by the Labour leadership

By Chris Key | Mon 12th December 2016 - 4:35 pm

 

This year’s revelations about Amazon and Sports Direct’s business practices have shown that even though we are in the year 2016 some companies still behave as if we were still in the Victorian age. As the Labour party drifts into an ocean of hard left anti-business irrelevance we in the Liberal Democrats have an opportunity to speak up for a better way forward.

In the area of low pay, many companies especially in the retail sector have taken advantage of the introduction of the living wage to chip away at other benefits. Take the example of Cafe Nero which took away the free panini from staff in response to the Living Wage.

Paying staff properly so that they do not have to take second jobs is good business sense. Making work pay reduces staff turnover and consequently recruitment costs as Costco found out in the US a few years ago.

We as a party should be calling for an expansion of the teams involved in enforcing regulations on pay and calling out companies who act in this way.

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Lord William Wallace

Our not-so-decrepit peers

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 12th December 2016 - 2:50 pm

peersinrichmond

If you read the Evening Standard the day before the Richmond Park by-election, you might have noticed this wonderful comment on the participation of Liberal Democrat peers in the campaign, which I suspect came from someone in Zac Goldsmith’s team who was overwhelmed by how many Liberal Democrat activists were on the streets.

One hundred Lib Dem peers were sent to knock on doors. Only a handful of the ill and very old were spared by-election duties – in echoes of James Graham’s play This House which recounts how MPs close to death were dragged to the Commons for crunch votes in the seventies.

If you’ve seen the play, you will appreciate the picture of the elderly and infirm being wheeled in to do their bit.  Of course it wasn’t at all like that.  I don’t think more than 25 of us were ever there together at one time, though many of us went as often as we could, and canvassed over the phone when we couldn’t:  not as a ‘duty’, but because we enjoy election campaigns, we’ve done a lot of campaigning in our time, and we’re committed to the party.

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Stuart Bonar

EU citizenship post-Brexit: one step closer?

By Stuart Bonar | Mon 12th December 2016 - 1:05 pm

 

Guy Verhofstadt is a hero in our unheroic age. Whilst confusion and fear over Brexit stalk the lives of many, Theresa May hides behind the camouflage of providing “no running commentary” – helpful cover for a government with no plan and no idea – and European Commission chief negotiator Michel Barnier understandably asserts that he cannot negotiate a British exit from the EU until Britain confirms it actually wants to exit the EU.

Into this vacuum steps Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian MEP and former prime minister who heads the Liberal group in the European Parliament. Relatively quietly, it is Guy who has put the first concrete proposal onto the exit talks agenda: opt-in EU citizenship post-Brexit for Brits who want it. It is something I have been making a pitch for here and elsewhere for the last couple of months, including two articles (here and here) in The New European newspaper.

In the last few days, Guy has made this commitment: “I, as Brexit negotiator for the Parliament, will ensure that it is included in the Parliament’s negotiating mandate.” With a single, decisive act, he has done more to include Britain’s pro-Europeans in the Brexit process than our own government has attempted in six months.

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Paul Reynolds

YEMEN: Boris bleats, Libdems lead

By Paul Reynolds | Mon 12th December 2016 - 11:40 am

Headline news last week was Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s speech in Rome where he criticised Saudi Arabia for ‘puppeteering and playing proxy wars’, by implication against Iran, and promoting sectarian extremism for political ends across the Middle East. He was immediately slapped down by PM May, who had seemingly instructed him to get even closer to the Saudis for trade purposes in the wake of Brexit.

Emphasising he had the war in Yemen in mind, as well as Syria, Boris then made a further speech in Bahrain on 10th December about the Saudi bombing of civilians in Yemen, and criticising his own government … which allegedly has special forces in Yemen assisting the Saudis, has trainers in Riyadh, and is a major weapons supplier to the Saudi regime.

Boris was expressing widely held views about the Saudis’ war in Yemen … and about their role in creating Islamic State.

A few days earlier in Warsaw, Poland, the Lib Dem delegation was busy in the annual Congress of ALDE. ALDE is the pan-European party of liberals and democrats with seven parties in government currently across the EU. On the agenda in Warsaw was a motion from the UK Lib Dem delegation, on Yemen, which was passed with an overwhelming majority and greeted with loud applause.

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Charles Lawley

If you thought our stance on tuition fees was controversial… – the case for Lifetime Education

By Charles Lawley | Mon 12th December 2016 - 9:50 am

 

Whether you are for or against our actions on tuition fees, we can’t pretend it’s not still an open wound for us. It’s an elephant in the room when talking to non-Lib Dems and when discussed between Lib Dems it leads to a row. The irony is that this all happened whilst higher and further education are in their death throes.

The current model of a child attending school, then choosing whether to enter the workforce until retirement at that point or to take a few years of higher education first, then never attending education for the rest of his/her life, will be archaic.

This week The Daily Mail took a break from bashing immigrants, judges or spinning the “What Can Give You Cancer” wheel and turned its attention on the threat posed by robots “ROBOTS TO STEAL 15M OF YOUR JOBS” their headline roared. Their headline isn’t wrong – whether it’s 15 million, 5 million or one in 11 jobs –many of the jobs humans do today will soon be automated by, for want of a less sci-fi description, “robots”. And, as the limitations of and the cost to produce these robots lowers, the more common they will become. We need to adapt to this.

Over the past 30-40 years the amount of careers available to people who enter the workforce without a higher education has reduced dramatically, with more people being accepted into universities and the ICT revolution of the 1990s seeing many low-skilled jobs move overseas – this, I would argue, has led to the rise of the anger against globalisation amongst the white working class. A generation ago you could leave school, find a decent career – working your way up the ladder until retirement.  This career narrative is now on the endangered list and robots will knock it into extinction.

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Caron Lindsay

Latest Brexit poll shows that Liberal Democrats are on the right side of the argument

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 11th December 2016 - 10:25 am

Back in August, I said that I couldn’t support the Open Britain organisation (the evolution of the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign) because it was too enthusiastic about restrictions on free movement of people and because it wasn’t calling for a referendum on any Brexit deal.

I still can’t sign up to them for the same reasons. However, I do accept that there are areas of common ground between our organisations. This weekend they have conducted some very useful research which shows that half of Leave voters are not prepared to be a penny worse off as a result of leaving the EU.

That YouGov poll, conducted this week, also obliterates the Leave majority. When asked how they would vote if the referendum took place tomorrow, 44% said Leave and 44% said Remain. That is a dramatic reversal of fortune.

Ed Miliband writes about this in today’s Observer:

This chimes with the experience in my constituency, where seven in 10 voted to leave. Many of them were desperate for a new beginning for themselves and their families. The government will rightly be subject to an almighty backlash from Leave voters if it makes decisions that make them far poorer and leaves less money for public services. Having voted for a better future, for them this would be the ultimate betrayal.

The evidence is already there that people will be worse off after Brexit. And this isn’t just Europhile hyperbole. It’s actual government fact as we saw in the Autumn Statement.   This is where Miliband’s article is so depressing. What on earth is the problem with giving the people the chance to determine for themselves whether the final deal on offer is in line with their expectations? What could possibly be more democratic?

Let’s look at it this way. If you decide you are going to buy a house, you state your intention to do so by putting in an offer. If it is accepted, you can still pull out if you don’t like the terms of the sale. The same thing applies to Brexit. If people realise the true extent of the cost, and that the stuff they were told was “Project Fear” was actually an underestimation, then they may well choose to reconsider their decision. The You Gov research proves that.

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The Voice

A longer read for the weekend: Baroness Kate Parminter’s Burntwood Lecture on Brexit and the Environment

By The Voice | Sun 11th December 2016 - 8:55 am

This week Liberal Democrat peer Kate Parminter became only the third woman (after Sara Parkin (1997) and Professor Julia Slingo (2013) to deliver the prestigious Burntwood Lecture to the Institution of Environmental Sciences.. She spoke of the challenges facing the environment from Brexit in a 45 minute lecture entitled “Separation Anxiety.” Read her full lecture below:

It’s an honour to have been asked to present the Burntwood Lecture this year, and to follow in the footsteps of such an illustrious parade of former speakers. Many of your previous guests have been eminent scientists or fearless campaigners; I stand here tonight to deliver this lecture (pause) as a politician. That’s not inappropriate, however: Lord Burntwood, the IES’ first Chairman, whose name the lecture commemorates, was himself a member of parliament and a minister in Clement Attlee’s Labour government. But more importantly, it’s not inappropriate because the great challenge of our time, the subject on which I’ve been asked to speak, is itself primarily political: Brexit.

How the United Kingdom manages its withdrawal from the European Union will shape this country’s future for decades. In the absence of any clarity from the government over what it sees as the final destination of this process, I hope I can enlist everyone here in helping me to draw up the broad approach the UK should adopt in dealing with environmental policy post-Brexit. I’m going to tell you what I think, and I hope you’ll respond at the end with thoughts of your own.

There are two competing visions for the future of the UK outside the EU. One – hinted at by some of the supporters of the Leave side during the referendum, but never fully articulated – is of a country free of the kind of burdensome regulations they liked to pretend emanated from Brussels; a fleet-footed, buccaneering, free-trading nation spotting openings in the global marketplace and exploiting them ruthlessly. This vision implies a deregulated low-cost low-tax low-value economy – with clear implications for environmental policy. In May this year, for example, George Eustice, the farming minister, attacked – quotes – ‘spirit-crushing’ EU directives, including, explicitly, the birds and habitats directives – and went on to criticise the use of the precautionary principle as the basis of EU legislation, a criticism echoed by many of his colleagues. You may remember that this kind of approach echoes Conservative ministers’ attempts, during the coalition government, to water down or scrap environmental regulations through such initiatives as the Red Tape Challenge and the balance of competences review – attempts which, happily, Liberal Democrat ministers ensured came to nothing.

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Caron Lindsay

Liberals across Europe mark Human Rights Day

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 10th December 2016 - 9:00 pm

Imagine living in a country where the government could just shove you in prison whenever it felt like it. And once they had you in their clutches, subjected you to cruel and degrading torture.

There are plenty people who don’t value their vote enough to use it, but imagine if we didn’t have it at all.

What if we weren’t allowed to voice opinions that were out of step with our rulers? Or assemble to protest against their decisions.

Anyone who has been brought up in this country will most likely not have had any direct experience of the things I’ve mentioned above. …

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Charles Lawley

How a boxer fighting in Manchester tonight typifies the horrors of Fidel’s Cuba

By Charles Lawley | Sat 10th December 2016 - 2:41 pm

Anyone with a slight interest in UK Boxing will probably be watching the unstoppable Anthony Joshua (17 wins, 0 losses, 17 KOs) defend his IBF heavyweight title tonight and almost certainly demolish Erik Molina. However, on the undercard is another heavyweight, Luis Ortiz, known as the “Real King Kong”, who has an equally impressive record (26 wins, 0 losses, 22 KOs). He’s quite interesting because Cuba has produced many great boxers, but no great heavyweights – Ortiz is considered the greatest ever Cuban heavyweight.

As you may know, despite producing legendary boxers, the Stalinist regime in Cuba forbids them from turning professional, so they have to stay amateurs for the rest of their lives – or defect.

Ortiz took the decision to defect to the USA in 2009, not to secure a lucrative professional contract, but to able to pay for his daughter’s illness. Despite the Cuban propaganda, the healthcare system in Cuba is terrible. Their answer to Ortiz’s little girl being born with necrosis in one of her fingers, despite everywhere else in the world being able to treat this, the only answer from Cuban doctors was to amputate. Ortiz was left with two choices, stay in Cuba, fight as an amateur for the rest of his life, stay in relative poverty and have his baby daughter go her life without a finger or risk his and his family’s life by making a perilous journey to America where he can make an incredible living for his world class talents and his daughter doesn’t have to have a finger cut off and face a lifetime of backwards medical practice. 

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Caron Lindsay

LISTEN: To Sal Brinton on Any Questions

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 10th December 2016 - 10:56 am

Sal Brinton Sal @ Crohns & Colitis Rec _2 CROPPED Nov 13At last, there was a Liberal Democrat on a political programme panel on the BBC last night. It was such a welcome relief after the recent rightwash on all of these programmes.  Sal Brinton did us all proud.

I lost count of the times she was cheered rapturously by the audience. This was not just polite applause, but real, vocal agreement as she gave great, clear answers on all the questions. The best, I thought, was on the daft idea of private schools wanting money to offer bursaries. Excellent comprehensive education is the answer, she said loud cheers.  She said that all the evidence suggested that the most disadvantaged families wouldn’t apply for these sorts of schemes because they thought it wasn’t for them. The bit I found most moving was when she talked about her friends being separated at the age of 11, something which “really mattered to them.”

This took place in Norfolk, a place that voted Leave in massive numbers, yet the most popular person on the panel was the Remain supporter who offered a say on the final Brexit deal.

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Ed Fordham

Lessons from Lincolnshire

By Ed Fordham | Fri 9th December 2016 - 7:14 pm

Elections come and go, but the memories and the camaraderie live on.  The telling of old by-election stories and hearing them re-written over time and years is part of the fun.  But they can also be sad and hurtful.  

It has taken me years to get over the deep personal trauma that I now realise I suffered in the aftermath of years of campaigning to win Hampstead and Kilburn, and the impact of losing on a recount.  And I probably will never fully lose that trauma.  Yet I am sitting here now in the wreckage of a by-election HQ and I’m beaming.

Here in the HQ it’s down to just me and the agent Ian Horner. Even Ada our host has gone shopping, and yet neither of us feel sad.  There is a positive mood about what we achieved and a satisfaction about a job well done.

You all know the result. You had predicted it and over analaysed it before the count had even commenced so I won’t attempt to drag over it again here.  But  let me offer some thoughts that I think are important for the Liberal Democrats, and for me, issues we urgently need to address and tackle.

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Celia Thomas

Baroness Celia Thomas writes…Disability rights and Labour wrongs

By Celia Thomas | Fri 9th December 2016 - 1:45 pm

Who would have thought that a valuable addition to the Licensing Act which would have made life better for disabled people had been scuppered by Labour Peers?  And yet that is what happened on Wednesday evening.

The amendment, which sought to improve the accessibility of licensed entertainment premises (pubs, clubs, restaurants etc.) for disabled people, was tabled by the Chair of the Lords Equality and Disability Committee, Baroness Deech, a crossbencher, and signed by me, as Liberal Democrat Disability Spokesperson, a Labour Peer and another crossbencher.

The Committee, which was set up last year at my suggestion, to look at how the Equality Act was working for disabled people, took evidence from, amongst many others, local authorities and from the National Association of Licence and Enforcement Officers. They were keen to help make premises more accessible but said they needed a small addition to the licensing objectives in the Licensing Act to be able to take action. Without the amendment, a licensing authority can only ‘suggest’ the provision of a ramp, for example, or that a restaurant should not store toilet rolls in the disabled toilet thus making it unusable.  With the amendment, the licensee would be told that if no reasonable adjustments were made, the licence would be in danger of being lost.  

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Helen Flynn

Why liberals should embrace the Steady State Economy

By Helen Flynn | Fri 9th December 2016 - 11:55 am

One of the saddest things about the lurch to extremism and the right wing of the political spectrum over the past few years—and especially these last few months—has been that attention has been taken away from the significant problems with capitalism and its reliance on continued growth that the 2008 crash had exposed.

The Classical Economists, in particular Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, had already theorised centuries ago that growth could not go on forever and that eventually states would enter the condition of being a “stationary state”.  John Stuart Mill wrote that the “increase of wealth is not boundless….the …

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Federal Policy Committee Report – 7th December 2016

By Geoff Payne | Fri 9th December 2016 - 10:25 am

The most recent meeting of the Federal Policy Committee took place on 7th December 2016 in Westminster. It was relatively sparsely attended but there were two good discussions nonetheless.

Composition of Federal Policy Committee

This was the last meeting of the committee as presently constituted. To say that the last two years of the Federal Policy Committee have been a journey would be an understatement! We started in the closing years of the last Parliament, when the Liberal Democrats were still in government, still had Ministers and at a time when we used to have a whole supporting cast of Special Advisors accompany them to meetings. We wrote the 2015 General Election Manifesto when the world was very different. We then, of course, suffered the cataclysm of the election itself. The chair of the committee changed. The party elected a new Leader. We re-built and fought back. We wrote another General Manifesto in the event that a snap election was called. It still may be. We have discussed policy papers, Brexit and our policy development plans looking forward. We ran the Agenda 2020 exercise and for the new policy working groups, we received over 800 applications from party members. Although the landscape is certainly not what it was in January 2014, we are building again and we have laid out a very good policy platform for the future.

There are several members of the committee who are not standing again. We will miss them. Whatever the outcome of the Federal Elections, the committee will be very different in just a few weeks from now.

This final meeting was spent dealing with two of the outstanding Policy Working Groups that are nearing their conclusion. It was relatively short, reflective of the fact that our work programme was coming to an end for now.

Nuclear Weapons Working Group

Neil Stockley attended the meeting to present the preliminary report of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group. This group has had to deal with one of the most thorny and difficult issues at the present time.

The remit of the group noted that the world had changed profoundly since the United Kingdom became one of the five declared nuclear powers in the 1950s. Britain’s nuclear posture has, however, not kept up. Following the Cold War position of mutually assured destruction, the post-Cold War era led to improved security but Britain nonetheless retained its nuclear deterrent. Many questioned the need but successive governments rejected the idea of giving up nuclear weapons. In this changed landscape, the group was charged with looking again at the case for Britain being a nuclear power.

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Ben Andrew

Why criminal records have to go

By Ben Andrew | Fri 9th December 2016 - 8:55 am

If you ask Lib Dems whether they suppport prison reform, they will say yes. A general chat about rehabilitation, drug laws, mental health funding and Scandenavia usually ensues – all of which I wholly endorse. But if we are really going to address our prison crisis, then criminal records are the elephant in the room.

Rehabilitation is about allowing people to become productive parts of society after they leave prison, and discouraging reoffending. One of the best ways to do this is to help people find employment (as page 8 of the Ministry of Justice’s Transforming Rehabilitation document confirms). If someone lands a stable job after leaving prison, then of course they’re less likely to reoffend. Employment gives people structure, income and purpose. It’s common sense that it helps them reintegrate into society.

But if ex-prisoners have to disclose their criminal records as soon as they apply for a job, why are we surprised that so many of them remain unemployed? What incentive do employers have to take a chance on them, when the job market is so tough as it is? We seem to paradoxically believe that it’s important for ex-offenders to find work, but that no employer should have to risk hiring them. Employers might feel safer being able to sivve former criminals out without hesitation, but it’s agonizingly counter-productive for society. Poor rehabilitation leads to an increase in crime, and puts all of us in danger. Freezing ex-offenders out of the job market makes everyone less safe.

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Caron Lindsay

Another late night waiting a by-election result: Lib Dems doing “better than expected”

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 9th December 2016 - 1:04 am

So who’s still up waiting for the Sleaford result then?

This would be the sort of seat where, in recent years, we’d have without question lost our deposit.

We just managed to retain it last year in the General Election, polling 5.7%.

So what would be a good result for us?

Well, anything above that would be good.

Very good would be double figures.

Absolutely miraculously excellent would be exceeding the results we had in 2010 and 2005 – 18.2%.

What does the party do when they are already focused on a highly winnable by-election in a held seat and another one happens? During the coalition years, we might have just ignored it, but this was an opportunity to try out new things in an area which had voted to Leave. So we sent a couple of our acest campaigners up there – Lincolnshire lad Ed Fordham who has form for inspiring the troops and pulling off unexpected results, and Yorkshire’s Ian Horner. They led a fantastic team of East Midlands activists who delivered an incredible campaign.

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Caron Lindsay

Trump and Johnson on the world stage. What could possibly go wrong?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th December 2016 - 9:18 pm

Sometimes I feel like I just want to get a big, soft cushion with Obama’s face on it to hide behind every time the news comes on after 20th January next year.

The US electorate has put a Twitter troll in charge. You would think that the person in the most powerful job in the world would have better things to do than take to social media to respond to every tiny criticism of him. The other day, for example, he said this of his call with Taiwan’s leader:

…

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NewsHound

Paddick: Police conduct in exploiting victims “totally unacceptable”

By NewsHound | Thu 8th December 2016 - 9:23 am

Responding to a report which found hundreds of police officers have been accused of abusing their position to sexually exploit people, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary and former senior police chief Brian Paddick said:

It is totally unacceptable that anyone in a position of power should abuse their position.

When those people are police officers exploiting people when they are at their most vulnerable, particularly women who are the victims of domestic violence and sexual offences, it is despicable.

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Edwin Moriarty

Banning the burqa is not the answer

By Edwin Moriarty | Thu 8th December 2016 - 8:14 am

Angela Merkel has this week called for a ban of the full-face veil (burqa) “wherever legally possible”. While many of us in the UK may be uncomfortable with the cultural assumptions behind the wearing of the burqa, it’s important for us to remember that, as liberals, we should enshrine wherever possible the right to decide how you live your life and practice your faith, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. A ban of the burqa is an illiberal assault on religious and cultural freedoms.

Unfortunately, there is another side to this issue – there is great concern, both from moderate muslims in the UK, and from wider observers, that some number of women are forced to wear the burqa or otherwise endure cultural or religious burdens that they do not want. Stripping away the rights of another, and forcing them to act as you will with threats of violence, exclusion, monetary penalties and more is abuse, and we need to tackle that with all seriousness.

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Sam Webber

Why we need to help in Sleaford and North Hykeham

By Sam Webber | Wed 7th December 2016 - 3:30 pm

Sleaford campaigning Okay,  it’s true I enjoy elections! I get a buzz, enjoy the friendships made and love the campaign. Every election has a different vibe, atmosphere – much set by the tone and timing of the campaign and much set by the candidate & campaign manager. I started with Brent East and have a string of by-elections under my activist belt – Leicester South, Bromley and Chislehurst, Ealing Southall, Henley, Norwich North, Oldham East and Saddleworth, Croydon North, Eastleigh, Rochester and Strood, Witney, Richmond Park and now I will be helping Sleaford and North Hykeham.

I don’t pick and choose my elections – in many respects none of us do. They occur and time and travel permitting we go. But there is a small outstanding issue it seems to me. People make a judgement based on their perceptions. They sit and home and become a specialist results predictor – who will win and who will lose.

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Scott Craig

Parliament needs to stand up to the Government on Article 50

By Scott Craig | Wed 7th December 2016 - 2:30 pm

Are there any Parliamentarians left in Parliament?  That was the question that kept occurring to me as I watched the submissions to the Supreme Court in the Article 50 case this week.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy an interesting court case as much as the next person. The Supreme Court will do an excellent job determining the law, and it has every right to do so. The problem is that it should not have been necessary for the court to consider the matter in the first place.

Parliament alone has the right to determine what the division of power between itself and the executive should be. As it has not acted to overrule the government’s claim that triggering Article 50 is an executive power, Parliament has implicitly accepted that the power is a prerogative. 

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems to vote against Article 50 “stitch up”

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 7th December 2016 - 1:30 pm

Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrats have confirmed that the party’s MPs will vote against any motion which backs the unconditional invocation of Article 50. Tonight’s vote will be a test for the SNP, too. Will they back the Liberal Democrat amendment calling for:

 the Prime Minister commit to a referendum on the final deal following the negotiations and prior to the UK departing the EU.

Tim Farron said:

We cannot support a parliamentary stitch up that would deny the people a vote on the final deal.

An amended motion would fail to include any meaningful commitment from the Conservative Brexit government to produce the equivalent of a White or Green Paper setting out its position on such fundamental questions as to whether it wants Britain to remain in the Single Market.

I call on the Labour Party to remember it calls itself the Official Opposition. It should not cave in to Conservative attempts to deny the public a final say on the most important question facing the country in a generation. It is appalling that a so-called opposition could allow itself to be muzzled by the Government on an issue that will face this country for years to come.

It is now clear that the Liberal Democrats are the real opposition to the Conservative Brexit government, striving to keep Britain open, tolerant and united.

At the moment, the SNP seems to be revelling in the constitutional mayhem. Willie Rennie called on them to back a referendum on the deal:

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Ashley Cartman

There are issues more important than Europe

By Ashley Cartman | Wed 7th December 2016 - 10:25 am

David Cameron famously told his party to ‘stop banging on about Europe’, are we in the Liberal Democrats in danger of doing the same? I fear we are.

With our seemingly exclusive focus on Europe we are missing a more fundamental concern for British voters, to paraphrase Bill Clinton’s campaign message ‘it’s the economy stupid!’

An Ashcroft poll conducted in September this year showed that although most voters agreed that negotiating the best Brexit deal possible was the top priority for the country as a whole when it came to issues facing themselves and their families it came fourth behind tackling the cost of living, improving the NHS and getting the economy moving. This doesn’t surprise me.

Like many I was dumbfounded by the result in June. For the first time I felt there were huge sections of our society that I neither knew nor understood. It would be easy to write off the 17,410,742 who voted to leave as xenophobic, racist, ignorant or just conned by an anti EU media establishment. That would be a mistake.

I have spent the last few months thinking about why, when to me the arguments for remain were clear, we as a nation voted to leave.  My belief is that confused by a torrent of dubious facts from both sides a significant proportion of the electorate assessed the ‘state of nation’ and concluded that it simply wasn’t good enough. With nothing to lose they voted accordingly.

Should we really be so surprised by this? Faced with falling real wages, declining social mobility, greater financial insecurity and government policy that rescued the banks but let the steel industry wither it really isn’t that shocking that so many voted as they did.

As Liberal Democrats we are certainly doing a great job articulating the publics concerns about Brexit. Since June we have become the rallying point for those deeply worried about the implications of a hard Brexit and a recent YouGov poll  showed that we could gain significant electoral advantage in the event of a snap general election. 

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Ed Fordham

Emotion, mischief, hard work and an absent friend: inside the Sleaford & North Hykeham campaign

By Ed Fordham | Wed 7th December 2016 - 8:55 am

Yesterday, sitting at my desk here in Sleaford and North Hykeham two of the best activists I have had the pleasure of working with over my 28 years in the party, were somewhat surprised to see me holding my head in my hands and crying.

The morning had been busy, too busy, the press have just noticed that this by-election is happening, and I have lots to do. Too much to do. In fact we are doing massive amounts and it’s going well. But I had a wobble and so went out delivering a round of leaflets or two. It’s cold here in Lincolnshire on these December mornings and it’s clears your head a little. But nonetheless I was thinking too much and making little progress. As I got back in the car and went to come back to the HQ we put the radio on and out came Snow Patrol’s Run.

Let me explain – my best mate Cllr Neil Trafford was killed in a car crash 8 years ago and at his memorial service – 8 years ago on 6 December 2008 (!) we played a recording of his sister Hannah singing Run.

Now this by-election in deepest Lincolnshire is going on and Neil is one of the people I would have turned to for help, advice and assistance. He would have loved it and been here and amusing us all, and he would have been causing mischief. As it is, I am causing enough mischief.

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Lord Roger Roberts

Lloyd George becomes Prime Minister 6th December 1916

By Lord Roger Roberts | Tue 6th December 2016 - 1:29 pm

“There are certain indispensable qualities essential to the Chief Minister of the Crown in a great war. . . . Such a minister must have courage, composure, and judgment. All this Mr. Asquith possessed in a superlative degree. . . . But a war minister must also have vision, imagination and initiative—he must show untiring assiduity, must exercise constant oversight and supervision of every sphere of war activity, must possess driving force to energize this activity, must be in continuous consultation with experts, official and unofficial, as to the best means of utilising the resources of the country in conjunction with the Allies for the achievement of victory. If to this can be added a flair for conducting a great fight, then you have an ideal War Minister”.

These words of Lloyd George summarise the weaknesses of Asquith as a Prime Minister in times of War and the picture Lloyd George had of himself as the “ideal War Minister” .Already Minister of Munitions he was facing the massive challenge of ensuring that the British Army had the ammunition necessary to fight the Great War.

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