Category Archives: Op-eds

Two reports highlight ongoing need for feminism

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 31st August 2016 - 11:12 am

Two reports today show that feminism’s work is far from done.

A worrying analysis from the Children’s Society says that 1 in 7 girls are unhappy with more than 1 in 3 being particularly anxious over their appearance. Given the massive media pressure on what constitutes beauty, it’s hardly surprising that body image remains such a strong trigger of unhappiness.

Girls suffer significantly more unhappiness than boys and this feeds into greater rates of mental ill health.

It’s not difficult to see why if you look at the SRE Now tag on Twitter and read Laura Bates’ and Sarah Green’s recent Telegraph article which highlights the issues of sexual harassment girls face in school. Even in primary school, damaging attitudes about gender roles and consent are prevalent. Green and Bates say:

The evidence is not just anecdotal. A recent BBC Freedom of Information request revealed that 5,500 alleged sexual offences, including 600 rapes, were reported to police as having taken place in schools over three years. That’s an average of almost exactly one rape per school day. Meanwhile, a YouGov survey for the End Violence Against Women coalition revealed that almost one in three 16-18 year old girls experienced unwanted sexual touching at school.

Against this backdrop, we desperately need to educate children about concepts like consent, respect and healthy relationships. But at present, there is no requirement for schools to teach anything apart from the basic biology of sex.

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Tagged equality, feminism, Jo Swinson, laura bates and womens rights | 9 Comments

Open Britain divides opinion

By Joe Otten | Tue 30th August 2016 - 4:05 pm

Yesterday’s announcement of Stronger In’s rebranding as Open Britain pushing for greatest possible openness, and greatest retention of the benefits of EU membership post-referendum has divided opinion.

Statements like this one

Despite being drawn from different political parties, all of us campaigned proudly and passionately for Britain to remain in the European Union. The result was not the one we wanted, but of course we respect the democratically expressed verdict of the British people.

The UK may have voted to leave the EU, but the certainty ends there. What does Brexit actually mean? Europe will continue to be our biggest trading partner and

…

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31 Comments

Nuclear weapons policy: the zero option

By Kevin White | Tue 30th August 2016 - 2:21 pm

Members of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group are presenting their personal views as part of a wider consultation process into the party’s future policy on nuclear weapons. The full consultation paper can be found at www.libdems.org.uk/autumn-conference-16-policypapers and the consultation window runs until 28 October. Party members are invited to attend the consultation session at party conference in Brighton, to be held on Saturday 17 September at 1pm in the Balmoral Room of the Hilton.

1945, August 6, 8.15am. Slicing through the clear blue sky, a previously unknown “absolute evil” is unleashed on Hiroshima instantly searing the entire city, Koreans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, American prisoners of war, children, the elderly and other innocent people are slaughtered. By the end of the year 140,000 are dead.
Witness, a boy of 17: “Charred corpses blocked the road. An eerie stench filled my nose. A sea of fire spread as far as I could see. Hiroshima was a living hell

Witness, a girl of 18: “I was covered in blood. Around me were people with skin flayed from their backs hanging all the way to their feet – crying, screaming, begging for water”.

– Taken from the Peace declaration of the City of Hiroshima’s Mayor.

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20 Comments

Vince Cable writes: What Brexit means

By Vince Cable | Tue 30th August 2016 - 12:36 pm

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I appreciated the large response to my post-referendum blog on the 48 Movement. The Bank Holiday Sunday press reminds us that this issue will very soon return with a vengeance as the politicians come back from their holidays. The Brexit hardliners in the Tory party are already preparing their narrative of betrayal by Remainer ministers and sabotage by civil servants.

When I wrote my note there was agreement on many points, not least the negative impacts which still await us, but two things I said triggered a negative reaction. One was my argument that the result was final and could not be wished away by legal subterfuge or attempts to reverse the vote. I see that Owen Smith in the Labour leadership contest is arguing for a re-run through a second referendum and that position appeals to many in our own party. There will be debate on this issue at Conference. Since, unlike Labour, we have nothing to prove on the EU issue I hope we can be more realistic. The most recent polls show that almost all Brexit voters and half of Remainers accept the result however much we deplore it. Shock, anger and remorse are very understandable but not if these harden into the conviction that the majority of voters are gullible fools.

The second point of controversy was my view that the free movement of EU labour should not be regarded as an inviolable principle, but is now politically unsustainable and of questionable merit when at the expense of non-EU migration. There are better ways of being liberal on immigration: opposing the self-harming stupidity of the current ‘crack-down’ on overseas, non-EU, students to help Theresa May meet her absurd target; defending the position of EU nationals who are already resident here; promoting a less pusillanimous approach to refugees, as Tim Farron has been doing.

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Tagged brexit and eu | 41 Comments

How to treat a new Labour party

By Eduardo Reyes | Tue 30th August 2016 - 10:54 am

We need to talk about Labour. Specifically, we need to start talking about us and Labour.

Not the bit of the party that Jeremy Corbyn gets to keep after its leadership election – the trademark and some very shouty people – but about our attitude to, and relations with, the c.170 MPs who will likely decide that that they need another vehicle to jump into when Owen Smith loses, and who would then enter the next election as some mutated strain of Labour.

They will be attempting something quite difficult, and it will be messy.

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37 Comments

Save our MPs

By John Bicknell | Tue 30th August 2016 - 9:12 am

On September 13 we are due to see the deliberations on the proposed boundary review, which will reduce the number of seats at Westminster from 650 to 600. The number of parliamentary constituencies has varied over time; since the split of Ireland in 1922, it has ranged between 615 and 659, but it has not been below that range since the 18th century.

In 1921, the UK’s population stood at 44.027 million, so, in 1922, there were 71,589 people (not electors), per constituency. Under these propsals, with the UK population, based on the 2011 census, at 63.182 million, there will be 105,303 per constituency. If this change in ratio was replicated in terms of doctors or teachers, there would quite rightly be an uproar. Due to the low public esteem in which politicians are held, it is quite easy for the government to get away with it, on the basis of cost saving. Nevertheless, if a member of the public feels themselves aggrieved, they will often ‘write to their MP’, with the expectation that their problem will be resolved, or at least addressed, in a speedy manner. With a larger population to deal with, this will become harder for MPs to achieve. The cost savings, in terms of salary, and accompanying expenses, are negligible in the context of total public expenditure.

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24 Comments

To realms unknown

By Jacquie Bell | Mon 29th August 2016 - 3:46 pm

I have long used Voyages Jules Verne for interesting places to visit.

In 2012 one flyer caught my notice. The chance of a trip to the hermit nation, North Korea. I instantly booked up. This trip is no longer on offer and I am pleased I took the chance in May 2013.

To begin, it is the only country where I have had to fill in a pre visa application form. It is certain that my son, as a former RAF intelligence officer, would not have got in. I was pleased that, despite being a former East Lothian Councillor, I got a visa.

Flights are only on Air Koryo from Beijing. Eat well before – in flight food was a tasteless cold hamburger. The in flight magazine is Kim propaganda.

Having arrived you need to go with the flow and pay heed to regulations. I was on one of the first tours where tourists were allowed to keep their mobiles – although there was no connection anyway. First night food at the Koryo Hotel was grey boiled chicken, but it got better. One tour member rarely got off the bus. I wondered why she had booked given the clear statements by the tour company about severe restrictions on movement and food quality.

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Tagged north korea | 3 Comments

Liberal Democrats must enthusiastically occupy the clear pro EU space – nobody else will

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 29th August 2016 - 12:01 pm

The Liberal Democrats have historically been enthusiastically pro EU. The strength of that enthusiasm, it’s fair to say, has not always been uniform. While a small number of Liberal Democrats campaigned to leave the EU, the vast majority of us wanted to remain. That was very clear to the tens of thousands who have joined us in the aftermath of the vote to leave.

As a party during the referendum, we did more than any other to campaign for a Remain vote. That’s quite a staggering achievement given our size and resources compared to the Labour party.

However, there are signs now that the consensus is starting to develop some fault lines. Our position in the aftermath of the referendum has been very clear. We campaign to stay or go back in to the EU at the next election. We want the voters to have their say on the Brexit deal. It’s only polite, really, given that they weren’t given any indication about what it would look like before they voted.

I don’t want to over-egg this particular pudding, but it looks like our general unity as a party on this is now under threat. Many Liberal Democrats have been very concerned to see that Norman Lamb and Nick Clegg have endorsed Open Britain, the organisation formerly known as Britain Stronger in Europe. Open Britain accepts the referendum result as final even though they also accept that nobody knows what they actually voted for. They will not be calling for a second referendum which seems to be a bizarre and contradictory stance to me.

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Tagged eu, featured, liberal democrats, nick clegg, norman lamb and open britain | 93 Comments

Please understand what The Alternative is about

By Chris Bowers | Sun 28th August 2016 - 8:01 pm

Judging by the reaction to Andrew George’s post last week there seems to be a lot of unnecessary fretting among Liberal Democrats caused by ‘The Alternative’, the book I have co-edited with the Labour and Green MPs Lisa Nandy and Caroline Lucas. Allow me to explain why I think some people are getting the wrong end of the stick.

I fully understand the views of those who say Labour is not a progressive party, and that we sometimes have more in common with the liberal wing of the Conservatives than we do with Labour or the nationalist parties. Those views can be defended, but they don’t alter the practical reality of what we face.

Everyone is talking about how we were hammered at the 2015 election, which we were in relative terms, but the 8% of the vote we polled would have given us around 55 seats if we’d had a proportional election system, which was roughly what we had in the last parliament.

As a liberal, I’d happily accept whatever our core vote is – probably something between 8% and 20% – under PR. We’d probably never be a party leading a government, but we’d have real influence, and could pursue liberal-democratic policies in association with whichever other parties were receptive to our ideas.

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Tagged featured, progressive alliance and the alternative | 36 Comments

LDV at 10: Pick of the posts: The one with the naked man

By The Voice | Sun 28th August 2016 - 12:45 pm

On 27th August, LDV will be 10 years old. In that time, we’ve brought you over 24,000 posts and published over 337,000 comments. Over the Summer holidays, we’ll take you on a nostalgic meander through a decade of Liberal Democrat history, seen through the eyes of our editors and contributors. We hope you enjoy our choices.

This is one of our more iconic posts. Former co-editor Stephen Tall made a bit of a rash promise on the Daily Politics in 2013. He said that if the Liberal Democrats only won 24 seats in the General Election, he would run naked up Whitehall.

Well, sadly, the election result is history. Stephen could have got off on a technicality, but he did the run, on, of all dates, the anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth, pretty much naked and filmed for the Daily Politics. Enjoy.

Stephen Tall, formerly of this parish, has honoured the pledge he made to run naked down Whitehall if the Liberal Democrats were reduced to 24 seats.

This is what happens, kids, if you make a daft pledge on TV. You’ve been warned. http://t.co/r5SWfRmCCT pic.twitter.com/LYn5ob33St

— Stephen Tall (@stephentall) October 13, 2015

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Also posted in From the LDV Archive | Tagged LDV at 10 and stephen tall | Leave a comment

What would you do if you were Mayor of Nice?

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 26th August 2016 - 2:09 pm

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Nice is still in shock. It’s just about a month and a half since the appalling attack which killed 84 people. That sort of carnage happening on your doorstep takes some getting over. People experience a huge range of emotions from anger to fear. What should the authorities be doing to help people through this time?

They should be reassuring people. They should be helping the whole community stand together in solidarity.

Instead, their headline response has been to pick on innocent women because of their attire on a beach. I have rarely been more annoyed by anything than the sight of a sleeping woman on a beach being surrounded by armed police and being forced to remove clothing. All this in the name of protecting women from oppression. I’m not quite sure how that works as a logical explanation.

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Tagged burkini ban, equality, france and sexism | 21 Comments

Renationalising the railways is trendy but not smart

By Eddie from Edinburgh | Fri 26th August 2016 - 9:46 am

Who should own the railways? Both contenders for the Labour leadership, Owen Smith and Jeremy Corbyn, believe it should be the public sector. They point to rising ticket prices^., widespread industrial action and a lack of seating (or so Corbyn claims^.) as evidence that privatisation has failed. The public seem to agree, with 62% now in favour of renationalisation. But is it worth it?

It certainly wouldn’t be progressive. Households in the highest real income bracket make up 43% of yearly rail journeys, with those in the lowest income bracket making up only 10% of journeys. Nationalisation would mean that low-earners who very rarely use the train would be funding through their taxes reduced ticket prices and the maintenance of rail travel for the highest earners in the country. Such large amounts of public sector finances would be far better spent on services which low earners need most.

Nor would nationalisation eradicate large scale industrial disputes. Look no further than across the Channel: in the run up to Euro 2016 the French railways endured huge strikes. Even under a Socialist government the railways were not immune from clashes with the unions.

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Tagged railways and transport | 91 Comments

Are party consultations with members worth the paper they’re written on?

By George Potter | Thu 25th August 2016 - 10:28 am

At Liberal Democrat autumn conference party members will have the opportunity to debate a Federal Policy Committee policy paper and an accompanying motion laying out an overall vision for the social security system – the first such policy paper on the subject for over a decade. Sadly, however, the contents of the paper and motion are scandalous in their blatant disregard for the views of party members.

As part of the process of writing the policy paper, the working group which wrote it ran a members survey which included a question about which model should be used as the basis for social security.

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45 Comments

We shouldn’t criticize Jeremy Corbyn for finally doing a bit of reasonably clever “media”

By Paul Walter | Wed 24th August 2016 - 5:35 pm

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Jeremy Corbyn is getting a bit hammered, particularly by Richard Branson, for a video of him sitting on the floor of a Virgin Train.

You can read the ins and outs of “Traingate” elsewhere.

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Tagged jeremy corbyn, richard branson, traingate and Virgin Trains | 42 Comments

Andrew George writes…Can progressives unite to defeat the Tories?

By Andrew George | Wed 24th August 2016 - 12:30 pm

Failure to fully fathom the ‘shy Tory’ at the 2015 general election didn’t just leave egg on the faces of opinion pollsters. It produced shock waves across the political spectrum; from a delirious Conservative party to Paddy Ashdown’s exasperated milliner.

Of course psephologists weren’t really suggesting that a significant proportion of Tory voters are bashful by nature but were perhaps politely implying there may be a sense of ‘shame’.

Politics in its most basic form is polarised between, on the one hand, those who feel ‘shy’ about their self-absorption and (when the mask slips) their distaste for those they consider are ‘low achievers’, and on the other, ‘progressives’ who seek to appeal to our better instincts (for others, a wider community, the common good, future generations, the climate etc). Less bashful ‘progressives’ may believe they are in a majority when in fact the country may be evenly divided.

Indeed, there’s an assumption amongst many ‘progressives’ that the 2015 general election represented a high water mark for the Tories; that the pendulum will inevitably swing back at the next election, and that scores of Tory marginals will be comfortably won back. A reality check is needed.

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Tagged featured, progressive alliance and the alternative | 102 Comments

The UK and the rapid deterioration in global security

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 24th August 2016 - 11:00 am

Members of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group are presenting their personal views as part of a wider consultation process into the party’s future policy on nuclear weapons. The full consultation paper can be found at www.libdems.org.uk/autumn-conference-16-policypapers and the consultation window runs until 28 October. Party members are invited to attend the consultation session at party conference in Brighton, to be held on Saturday 17 September at 1pm in the Balmoral Room of the Hilton.

UK nuclear defence policy does not exist in isolation. As the Lib Dem’s Nuclear Weapons Working Group Consultation Paper makes clear, nuclear defence policy exists in the context of the UK’s broader policy on defence and foreign policy. Changes to Lib Dem nuclear weapons policy are best seen in the context of a changing defence and foreign policy environment.

From a UK perspective, the key recent shifts in the foreign and defence policy context include the continuing economic and military rise of China (and our Allies’ response to this), the adversarial turn in relations with Russia, and the rise of IS in the Middle East – together with its effects on Western Middle East policy, NATO and Turkey.

The most significant change in the foreign and security policy landscape for the UK concerns China and its relationship with the US. Up until 2013 China pursued what they called a ‘peaceful rise’ policy; rapid economic development avoiding involvements in conflict.

This changed with the new leader Xi Jinping, who, for example, announced the ‘String of Pearls’ policy, otherwise known as the ‘maritime silk road’. This is a string of Chinese-controlled ports and associated inland infrastructure that dots the world’s trade routes, with economic investment closely followed by military investment; for example in Pakistan/Afghanistan, Djibouti/Ethiopia, and Sri Lanka.

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Tagged nuclear weapons and policy | 8 Comments

Brexit and the path to a written constitution

By Ciaran McGonagle | Wed 24th August 2016 - 8:55 am

At the outset, I would like to make clear that, in writing this article, I am not lending my support to any argument that the EU referendum should be re-run or that the result should be overturned. In my view, any such argument is specious in the extreme, with its Liberal Democrat proponents appearing especially hypocritical. That the EU Referendum Bill received overwhelming support from all parties (the SNP excepted) is demonstrative of both the democratic inviolability of the outcome as well as the abject failure of Parliament to properly countenance the potential impact of an affirmative vote to leave the EU.

In presenting the question of the UK’s exit from the EU, a profound, multi-faceted and far-reaching change to the UK’s constitution, in such binary terms, the framers of the referendum question are arguably as responsible for much of uncertainty facing the nation as those on the Leave side who waged such a dishonest campaign. Indeed, the amorphous nature of the question posed unquestionably resulted in a vacuum in which the worst excesses of both sides were allowed to run wild, devoid of any common anchor to which voters could tie them. Loose talk of punishment budgets, hoards of Turkish immigrants descending upon our shores and overtly simplistic assertions on parliamentary sovereignty detracted from the very real and very significant constitutional resettlement that was being proposed. That such a complex and challenging endeavour should now be embarked upon following a relatively small and nationally disjointed majority is staggering.

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Tagged brexit and constitutuion | 41 Comments

Could train-gate derail Corbyn’s leadership campaign?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 23rd August 2016 - 5:36 pm

I travel up and down to London pretty frequently. I haven’t often had a problem getting a seat on the East Coast mainline – and when there has been an issue, it’s usually because there has been some extreme weather issue and two trains worth of people have been decanted into one train.

So when I saw that Jeremy Corbyn had had to spend a journey to Newcastle on the floor of a train, I was a bit surprised but didn’t let it distract me from enjoying my holiday.

Today’s development in that story is worthy of some comment though. It appears that the Labour leader could have had a seat on the train after all. Virgin’s media people have ridden a convoy of coaches and horses through his claims. In an unusual step, they have released CCTV footage and said:

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Tagged featured, jeremy corbyn and labour | 87 Comments

What is monetarism and what happened to it?

By Peter Martin | Tue 23rd August 2016 - 3:08 pm

In the late 70s and early 80s economic monetarism was espoused by Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph who wanted a radical alternative to the prevailing Keynesianism of previous governments. The theory seemed to be simple enough. The idea was that the money supply was a key parameter of our economy. Therefore, if we wanted to control inflation, and it did need to be controlled at the time, all Government needed to do was control the supply of money. Inflation would then fall and all would be well. Very quickly the Government and Treasury economists learned that they could not actually do that. It was difficult enough to define what money actually was let alone control the amount of it. Is it base money M0, which is just the amount of notes and coins in circulation? Or is it M1 which includes travellers’ cheques and demand deposits? Or, maybe M2 which includes savings deposits? Or M3 or M4? For anyone who cares to look it up they can find out what MZM means. There are lots of ways we can create money and lots of ways to try to define it. If I write out an IOU that is a form of money. As Minsky famously said, anyone can create money. It is getting it accepted which may be the problem.

But if we think about it, we can see that the money supply, no matter how we define it, does not tell us anything much at all. If the Bank of England were to, say, create £10 trillion of banknotes and keep them securely in their vaults they would have absolutely no effect at on the economy. But if they were stolen and scattered around the country by dropping them from a proverbial helicopter then they certainly would have an effect. They would be spent. So it is not so much the amount of money that exists that matters. It is the amount of money that is spent.

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Tagged economy, interest rates and monetarism | 36 Comments

Jenny Willott writes…Mending the Safety Net – our proposals for reforming working age social security

By Jenny Willott | Tue 23rd August 2016 - 12:30 pm

Since last October, I have been chairing the Social Security Working Group, which has been taking a fresh look at party policy in this area. We had a wide ranging remit covering all aspects of working age social security, from supporting people with disabilities to tackling child poverty. We have now published our policy recommendations: it has been a big challenge, but thanks to a working group of passionate, talented people, ranging from experienced policy makers to new enthusiastic party members, I think we’ve produced a paper of which Lib Dems can be proud. You can find Mending the Safety Net here.

I thought it would be helpful to set out some of the key things we are proposing. We heard a lot of different ideas and proposals from party members, experts and NGOs, and have sought to propose policy that is liberal and distinctive, but which, crucially, could make a real and practical difference to people’s lives.

Reducing child poverty

From the outset the group agreed that reducing child poverty should be our priority. We know that a child growing up in poverty will already be attaining less than their better off peers by the time they start school, they will be bullied more, have poorer health and are less likely to leave school with five A* – C GCSE passes. We felt strongly that it should be a real priority to tackle the barriers created for children that grow up in poverty.

Unlike when Labour first came to power, the majority of children growing up in poverty now do so in households where at least one person works. That’s why one of our key recommendations is to introduce a second earner’s allowance to Universal Credit. This could transform the lives of many children by dramatically increasing the amount of money going to some of the lowest paid families in our country. We also want to see an increase of £5 a week to the child element of Universal Credit for the first child in a family to help new families afford the high costs associated with a first child.

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Tagged autumn conference 2016, fwatured, policy and social security | 26 Comments

Corbyn and NATO

By Bernard Aris | Mon 22nd August 2016 - 2:57 pm

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That an absolute neophyte at serious politics like Donald Trump becomes the first American presidential nominee (from either the Democratic or Republican Party) to question Washingtons NATO article 5 obligation of “Collective Defense” shouldn’t surprise anybody.

But that a sitting Labour party leader fighting to continue in that job, and hoping to win the next general election, does the same is absolutely incredible. And the fact that he did so only a couple of weeks after flip-flopping over EU membership (from a very conditional “Remain” before, to a “get out now” the day after the Referendum) creates the impression that he thinks the UK can go it alone, without the support, let alone the trust of European partners, on all foreign policy issues.

At the Birmingham hustings for the leadership elections last week, Corbyn said that when Russia threatens to attack or invade any NATO country, he hoped to avoid that by diplomatic means, and that he “doesn’t want to go to war”. But any historian can tell you that diplomacy can only speak softly if you carry a big stick for people who don’t respect any other kind of argument. To put it in a Marxist metaphor: without the material fundamentals the political superstructure won’t function.

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Tagged jeremy corbyn and NATO | 33 Comments

Is Labour really the natural home for those concerned about human rights?

By John Kelly | Mon 22nd August 2016 - 12:11 pm

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I read the report by Shami Chakrabarti into alleged racism in the Labour Party over the weekend. It’s a good report and an interesting read for a number of reasons – but I was looking for lessons for our Party.

What particularly struck me was that right upfront she explains why she joined the Labour Party as soon as she was appointed to lead the Inquiry. She states that she has always supported and voted for the Labour Party but that her various jobs (Civil Servant and then Director of Liberty) required her to be non-Party political. She goes on to say that Labour is however the natural home for anybody concerned about human rights, that all significant legislative improvements in human rights in this country have happened on Labour’s watch, and that Labour has consistently been the first Party to accommodate immigrant voices and to achieve significant support among successive waves of immigrants -whether they be Jewish, Irish, BAME.

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Tagged labour and shami chakrabati | 33 Comments

Can the nation somehow unite around the values represented by Money Saving Expert, NSPCC, TK Maxx and M&S?

By Paul Walter | Mon 22nd August 2016 - 9:40 am

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Our esteemed editor, Caron, returned yesterday from a very well earned holiday and, revitalised by sun-soaked walks on Rosemarkie Beach, underscored the party’s need not to “go wobbly on the EU“. She concluded:

The future prosperity of our country depends on us winning these hearts and minds and we need to get on with it. We need to provide the glue that helps this very divided country to come back together and solve the problems it faces.

According to research based on years of mass polling by YouGov, uniting the country could boil down to somehow responding to the common themes represented by four brands: Money Saving Expert, NSPCC, TK Maxx and M&S.

Based on affinities identified in the polling, Emily James, chief strategy officer at advertising agency Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R says that the brands that are most likely to determine whether someone voted Leave or Remain in the referendum are:

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Tagged brexit, leave voters and remain voters | 9 Comments

In which I consume news like most people…

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st August 2016 - 10:31 pm

As I wrote earlier, I properly chilled out on my holidays. Very little work, next to no reading and lots of walks,silly games and fun. I could get used to that lifestyle…

This all meant that I consumed news like a normal person rather than an obsessive who has half an eye on Twitter and the rolling news channels at all times lest something might happen in the world and she might miss it. If the news happened to be on, I’d watch it if there was no gripping Olympic action going on at the same time, but I wasn’t too fussed about it.

I didn’t totally cut myself off. My car would probably fall to pieces if it wasn’t tuned into Radio 4, after all.

So, from my rather more normal news consumption over the past week, what sparked my interest? Four stories leapt out at me.

Of course the heartbreaking photo of Omran Daqneesh would break all but the hardest of hearts. The traumatised and blood covered little boy symbolised the effects of war on children. As these things go, though, Omran was relatively lucky. Most of his family are still alive, although his brother died of injuries sustained in the same airstrike. Children suffer horrendously every single day in Syria and other war zones across the world. The previous week’s horribly distressing footage of the chlorine gas attack showed tiny babies struggling for breath. This is a horrible, relentless reality for millions of people. We must never forget that. The pictures should provoke an empathy in us that leads us to push the Government to do more to help those still in Syria and those who have escaped. They should make us all realise that those who have fled had good reason to do so and we should challenge those who suggest otherwise.

Prejudice and punishment

I’m not a fan of anyone telling women what to wear. There’s nothing like a public figure telling women that they shouldn’t wear something to make me want to wear one in sympathy. When the mayor of Cannes banned the “burquini” it made me furious that the likely effect of this would be that those women who wear such a garment, who were guilty of no crime, would effectively not be able to access their own seaside for no good reason. And if they couldn’t go, then it would be likely that their children would be restricted, too.

Garments aren’t divisive. Banning them on a whim most certainly is.

There are few cultures in the world in which women are treated with the equality they deserve. France might want to have a wee think about how its own globally renowned fashion industry has forced unrealistic and often damaging expectations on to women, for example.

Governments should be setting an example of inclusiveness, not picking on specific group of people in a manner that effectively incites prejudice against them.

Should people start seriously arguing for similar bans in this country, I’ll be first in the queue to wear one in solidarity.

Fat lot of good that was

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Tagged burquini ban, news, obesity, olympics and syria | 24 Comments

What I learned on holiday

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 21st August 2016 - 11:30 am

I’m just back from the first two week holiday I’ve had since 2008. I was fairly determined before I went that I was going to have a proper break. My aim was greatly helped with the discovery that I’d managed to book a holiday cottage that had no wifi. I almost succeeded in keeping away from work for the whole time and I feel much better for it. After fighting two national elections and two referendum campaigns in 2.5 years, I was pretty close to completely knackered. I knew I had to switch off properly for my own wellbeing. I am very grateful to the team for covering while I’ve been away. They’ve done a great job even though some of them have been dealing with major life events.

I had planned to do what I always do on holiday – read lots of books. That didn’t work out either. I only got through the new Harry Potter book and the latest edition of Liberator. Instead, I found myself gazing at the views (and who could blame me?), watching the Olympics and walking for miles on Rosemarkie beach with the dog. The weather was so wonderful the second week that it would have been criminal not to have been out and about enjoying it while we had the chance.

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Tagged eu referendum and moray firth dolphins | 25 Comments

There may be a snap election – your country needs you to do your duty

By Chris Key | Sat 20th August 2016 - 10:49 am

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The key question on the mind of most journalists is whether Theresa May will call a snap general election. Personally as a supporter of fixed term parliaments I would not be in favour of this as we have had enough uncertainty of late.

Yet, there are very powerful reasons why she might do, which relate to the strength of our democracy.

Firstly the awkward squad of right wing Eurosceptics has far too much leverage in a government with a majority of just 12. A group of 25 Tory Brexiteers in the Commons (2016 lexicon for those Major called bastards) are already meeting to try to form a policy which would aim to minimise immigration at the expense of our membership of the single market. I am not too old to remember the paralysis and internal division of the Major government over Europe and he had a bigger majority than May does. Indeed we know that Boris and Liam Fox have already began a spat worthy of my six and four year old girls over who should have the ability to call decisions in the Foreign Office. Mother May it would appear, was not amused.

If Theresa May were to call an election and win big, then she would have a comfortable majority to work with where she could come up with a Brexit Strategy without the influence of the awkward squad. I am not sure the City or most international busineses would be happy seeing their role dimminished just to enable the sulky teenagers IDS, Fox and David Davis get what they want when it comes to immigration (i.e. bringing numbers down to the impractical tens of thousands level promised by Cameron).

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Tagged snap general election and theresa may | 27 Comments

Lib Dems Trident decision – stick or twist

By Greg Simpson | Fri 19th August 2016 - 5:07 pm

Members of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group are presenting their personal views as part of a wider consultation process into the party’s future policy on nuclear weapons. The full consultation paper can be found at www.libdems.org.uk/autumn-conference-16-policypapers and the consultation window runs until 28 October. Party members are invited to attend the consultation session at party conference in Brighton, to be held on Saturday 17 September at 1pm in the Balmoral Room of the Hilton.

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It’s great to be able to speak with my own voice for a change. I’m more used to putting words in other people’s mouths. As Ming Campbell’s foreign affairs adviser, Charles Kennedy’s speechwriter, and then Nick Clegg’s policy chief, I played a small part in the Lib Dems evolving policy on nuclear weapons for over a decade.

When I joined the Ministry of Defence in 2009 as a politically restricted civil servant, I thought my involvement would end. No such luck! From my berth in the MOD, I found myself supporting Nick Harvey as he out-foxed the steely men with cold eyes to set up the Trident Alternatives Review. I wrote Danny Alexander’s speech launching the review, helping him frame the options so as to fulfil the Lib Dems’ pledge of ‘no like-for-like replacement’.

Now, as an ordinary party member, free from any encumbrance, I’m able to contribute in my own name, as part of the policy working group bringing a consultation paper on nuclear disarmament to conference in September.

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Tagged nuclear weapons | 39 Comments

How to leave the EU without invoking Article 50

By Simon Pike | Fri 19th August 2016 - 3:00 pm

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It is generally assumed that the first step for the UK to leave the EU is to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. In his article on 10^th August, Paul Walter described how “Invoking Article 50 could be a disaster for the UK”. The referendum represented a democratic decision of UK voters that needs to be respected, but invoking Article 50 might not be the only way to do this.

Article 52 of the Lisbon Treaty states “The territorial scope of the Treaties is specified in Article 355 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.” Article 355 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states that the treaties “apply to the European territories for whose external relations a Member State is responsible”. However, it contains exceptions and special provisions for numerous territories of UK, Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands.

The European Communities Act of 1972 is “An Act to make provision in connection with the enlargement of the European Communities to include the United Kingdom, together with (for certain purposes) the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar”. Therefore, Gibraltar is distinct from the United Kingdom, in relation to its membership of the EU.

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Tagged article 50, brexit and gibraltar | 12 Comments

William Wallace writes: Could Brexit split the Conservative party?

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 19th August 2016 - 10:29 am

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How deeply could Brexit divide the Conservative Party, as the contradictory choices involved in negotiating an alternative relationship with the EU become clearer?

Media focus since the Referendum outcome has been on the widening divisions within the Labour Party. Press comment has praised the self-discipline of the Conservatives, by contrast, in resolving the issue of leadership so quickly – though in reality it was resolved by the implosion of ‘Leave’ candidates, one after the other, leaving Teresa May in command of the field. But the divide between practical Eurosceptics and ideological Europhobes is wide, and often bitter.

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Tagged brexit, conservatives, europe and featured | 22 Comments

While Brexit remains a mystery, ministers indulge in empire building and turf wars

By Paul Walter | Wed 17th August 2016 - 2:30 pm

The Guardian reports:

Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, made an attempted power grab on key areas of Boris Johnson’s Foreign Office, writing to his colleague and the prime minister, Theresa May, in an effort to wrest control of Britain’s overseas economic policy, a leaked letter has revealed.

Tensions have been escalating between the Foreign Office and Fox’s Department for International Trade, but the former defence secretary’s suggestion has apparently been given short shrift by No 10, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

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Tagged brexit negotiations | 11 Comments