This week, the Scottish Government was told by the Supreme Court tae think again about the controversial Named Person law. The Court said that it couldn’t be implemented as it currently stood following an application from parents and organisations, among the the equally controversial Christian Action Research and Education (CARE). This law makes sure that there is one person with responsibility for bringing information together about a child and co-ordinating necessary interventions.
The Court was at pains to point out that the intention of the legislation was benign but there were concerns that some of the information sharing provisions in …
My time in the US is drawing to a close, and it’s been great to get to see the way they campaign first hand. I’ve not got as many tales from the campaign trail this week because I took the chance to go and do a bit of sightseeing. Sadly, I didn’t manage to get into the Daily Show, as I’d hoped to at the end of my last post. Although, I was in the office phonebanking when Hillary became our official nominee for President, and the cheering from the staff and volunteers was something I’ll never forget.
I think it’s important to note that a lot of people over here genuinely support and admire Hillary Clinton. That gets lost in the media coverage – sure, some people will cast a tactical vote. But most of us are here because we think she’d make an amazing President. Obama said on Wednesday that she is more qualified for the job than he or Bill ever was. That’s still too often the case – women have to be stellar and massively outdo men to even get a foot in the door of top positions. I support Hillary because I think she did great work for women and girls at the State Department. Her passion about women’s rights and disability rights absolutely shone through in her acceptance speech. This isn’t just a case of stopping Trump. I’m with her because she’s with me.
I have been a huge fan of Hillary Clinton for pretty much quarter of a century. I admired the way she fought for women and girls, children and particularly those with disabilities. These have been her priorities for all of her life.
I am thrilled to bits to see her as the Democrats’ candidate for President and I can’t wait to see her debate the divisive slogans of Donald Trump.
She has fought for things that we take for granted here. Her fight for universal healthcare in the 1990s was ahead of its time. When she was Secretary of State, she put women and girls at the heart of everything she did. Read more about the specific things she did in this excellent blog post.
Her speech accepting the nomination put forward a positive vision to counteract the negativity and division of her opposition. She did it effectively, unlike David Cameron and George Osborne when they needlessly forced a similar choice here.
Hillary stood up for values that every Liberal Democrat should embrace: workers’ rights, healthcare, positive on immigration, committed to tackling climate change – and, importantly, stewarding the planet for the future, as she put it “planting seeds in a garden that you will never get to see”.
She is the standard bearer for progressive, optimistic, inclusive politics in a fight that mirrors so much of what’s going on in Europe. It’s the job of every progressive to back her in these next crucial months.
Make a cup of tea, put your feet up and watch her whole speech.
This is the section where she sums up the broad vision of what she wants to achieve.
This edit-a-thon is a collaboration between the Club and the Wikimedia Foundation (which runs Wikipedia), to get better, more in-depth coverage of liberal issues and liberal history in the online encyclopaedia, updating and expanding articles.
Wikipedia is the seventh-most-visited website and the world, and is the first port-of-call for many basic background facts, so the National Liberal Club thought it would be helpful to offer its backing to improve coverage of liberal issues. The NLC will be making its library — full of rare material around liberal history — available for the event.
The NLC is particularly proud to be doing this, as it has long been the spiritual home of Liberals and Liberal Democrats. Founded by Gladstone in 1882, the club provides a sumptuous “home from home” for those interested in liberal politics and the liberal arts: you can read more about it here, on the club’s own Wikipedia page.
In 2013, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a long-lasting period of depression; a few weeks ago, I was discharged as an out-patient after spending several weeks under a mental health home treatment team, having suffered a manic episode crammed with delusions, little sleep and a somewhat adamant neglect of both food and hygiene (I lost weight and I’m still in desperate need of a barber due to a matted dreadlock that has formed from the absence of a comb during this period).
One of the doorstep comments staying with me from the referendum campaign is: Im voting Out: we havent beaten the Germans in two world wars to give in now.
The psychoanalyst Vamik Volkan talks of chosen traumas and chosen glories, as stories from the past get retold and shape collective identity.
The trouble is that how the events are remembered changes. The stories seem to be about the past, but also have a present-day purpose. At the celebrations of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, Margaret Thatcher pointed out that we had had a revolution a century earlier: she was quoting history, …
At the end of the primary season 8 years ago, relations between the Clinton and the winning Obama camps were not the warmest.
Thankfully, both were grown-up enough to sort it out and move forward. Bridges were built quickly and Hillary ended up as Secretary of State in Obama’s first term.
In 2008, it was hard to imagine that Michelle Obama would give a speech warmly endorsing Hillary as her husband’s successor, as she did last night.
It was a very well crafted speech. It had lots of positives about Hillary – but also it put the boot into Trump in a very classy way. She didn’t mention him by name, but she talked of the importance of reasoned, measured, calm judgement. “When you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips, and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions.”
There was also a bit of an indirect plea to Sanders supporters. “We can’t afford to be tired or frustrated or cynical,” she said as she implored everyone to get out there knocking on doors to recreate what the Obama campaign had done in 2008.
The bit that made me cry was when she talked of waking up in a house built by slaves every day and seeing her daughters playing with their dog on the White House lawn. She paid tribute to all those who had fought for civil rights and to break down the barriers, too.
It was an extremely well-crafted and classy speech.
As a 20 year old, I stood up in a French classroom, to teach children two years younger than me, it was literally life changing. I have gone on to live abroad three more times, speak two other languages, marry someone from another continent and work in multinational companies where I get to travel the world. I want these opportunities for my children, but fear that due to the selfishness of the older generation, that things will never be the same after Brexit.
Living overseas gives you a fresh perspective, it helps you to learn how to deal with other cultures …
In the run up to the EU referendum, former Prime Ministers John Major and Tony Blair visited Derry. With their deep understanding and appreciation for the nuances and sensitivities of Northern Irish conflict honed by their engagement with the topic for substantial periods of their respective premierships, they were both united in their bleak portrayal of a post-Brexit Northern Ireland.
During their trip, Major and Blair posed for photos on Derry’s Peace Bridge. Opened in Summer 2011, the Peace Bridge stands as an iconic focal point for the city’s cultural and artistic centre. Both a literal and symbolic bridge between the two communities (who have traditionally lived separately on either side of the River Foyle), the Peace Bridge stands as a testament to the ongoing success of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Funded by approximately €20m of the overall €1.3 billion of funds invested in Northern Ireland by the EU since the early 90s, the project is one of many in the province which has benefited from EU funding. The objective of this programme (known as ‘PEACE’) is to provide financing for projects which aim to improve cohesion between communities involved in the conflict in Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland, with a specific focus on providing shared facilities for young people. A further PEACE programme was announced in early 2016 with a promise of continued EU assistance and financing of up to €230m. Following the results of the EU referendum, this programme and the related financing for projects in Northern Ireland is clearly now at risk.
The referendum result came as a surprise to most people who naturally assumed that the electorate would seek to avoid the risks of change.
However, as the Prime Minister has been reported as saying “Leave supporters were not just voting against Europe but were delivering a cry of frustration about a range of problems afflicting British Society … Top among these concerns was the widening gap between working class voters who saw their wages stagnate…”
The loss of millions of well-paid jobs in manufacturing has been caused by the extreme financialization of the UK economy that has occurred over the last 35 years.
Financialization is the process whereby financial markets, and financial elites, gain greater influence not only over other sectors of the economy, but also over the economic policy of the country.
The financial sector has successfully resisted any attempts to restrict the UK’s takeover system. This has decimated the manufacturing sector while earning huge revenues for London and its financial sector. It is no coincidence that London voted Remain, while the former manufacturing regions voted Leave.
In a couple of previous posts I have looked at the effects of Brexit and possibilities for LibDem positioning and policy that may emerge. In many ways the EU is a distraction from the key political battles we face. The most pressing problem we have is inequality in its many manifestations and an economic and social system that works very hard to maintain and increase inequality while we try to redress the balance. That is the case whether we are in the EU or out of it. This is an opportunity to consider some key parameters of our policies without having to look at everything through the prism of the EU debate.
One constant in the debate is the thing called the establishment, a word as much misused as used. I cannot think of anyone more “establishment” than Nigel Farage, who has managed to make a career out of selling the lie that he is anti-establishment. Like many insurgent politicians he has no intention of changing the way the system works. He just wants to change the personnel at the top.
The nature and function of the establishment remains the same though its form has changed in recent decades. Whatever it is, it needs to be a focus of LibDem policy making so we need to consider clearly what it is, what it does and how to deal with it.
Let’s take a brief look at the list of things that are on my Letter to Santa:
Artificial intelligence
Quantum computing
In-vitro meat and vertical farming
Mass-commercialised 3D printing
Transparent solar panels
Li-Fi and 5G
Male contraception
Autonomous cars and electric cars
And so, so much more…
Yeah, I’m a nightmare to buy presents for.
Some of these are already causing stirs in the legal world.
Just the other week there were reports of telecoms companies promising 5G sooner if the EU crippled net neutrality. That’s a fairly clear statement of their desire that we need to be prepared to stand up to. The Lib Dem stance on that should be obvious: we can wait if it means maintaining net neutrality.
Caron, these are serious and weighty questions and deserve a proper answer.
Please forgive the long posting.
You ask:
How does this work in a First Past the Post system?
If they are going to fund every candidate who signs up to their principles, surely they could end up funding every candidate in a seat. There are some, if few, moderate Tories who could qualify. However, what if the manifesto of the party a candidate is standing for is in direct conflict with this. Someone might back electoral reform but their party probably wouldn’t and in government wouldn’t legislate for it so they would never get the chance to implement it.
In a First Past the Post system, funding more than one candidate could mean that none of them wins. They might allow their local members to decide which one to back as I said on Marr, but that could be open to manipulation by the parties.
In the case of two Candidates in the same Constituency, the members of MoreUnited.uk (NOT the members of their parent Parties!) in that Constituency will democratically decide which Candidate to back (think of how that would work in our target seats where Lib Dems join the organisation).
This works in an FTP system by electing more MPs committed to getting PR and so getting rid of FTP……
************
I am irked that there is no mention of liberty and freedom. I’m voting Lib Dem regardless, but if I wasn’t, I’d be darned if I was going to vote for a Labour candidate who might subscribe to the principles of More United but would then go and vote for things like control orders and 90 day detention. The absence of a civil liberties test worries me.
There is not a policy here which does not ooze Liberty and empowerment from every pore.
It is not like me to gratuitously share links to the Mail on Sunday but this time it’s worth it. Miriam Gonzalez Durantez has given an interview to the Fail to publicise her upcoming cookery book Made in Spain: Recipes and stories from my country and beyond (available for pre-order here). My husband has had enough heavy hints dropped that I want this book for my birthday next week.
At least the Fail called her by her proper name, although they had to slip a “Mrs Clegg” into the headline. You would think her readers would know exactly who she was given how vile the paper has been to her at every opportunity over the last six years. She is not and never has been “Mrs Clegg.”
…we have no reason to believe that the requirement for legislative consent for its repeal would not apply to all the devolved nations.
-That is, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The committee also concluded that, once Article 50 of Lisbon Treaty has been invoked, it can be reversed before the end of the two year negotiating period:
In a blaze on social media. the More United project, supported by Paddy Ashdown, launches this morning.
It’s certainly ambitious:
MoreUnited.uk is a new movement setting out to change British politics. We’re going to transform the way politics is funded, giving a voice to the millions of open and tolerant people in Britain who feel the political system no longer works for them.
It has a Facebook page here and you can follow it on Twitter here.
They intend to fund candidates who subscribe to a series of pretty broad principles:
A fair, modern, efficient market based economy that closes the gap between rich and poor and supports strong public services
A modern democracy that empowers citizens, rather than politicians
A green economy that protects the environment and works to reverse climate change
An open and tolerant society where diversity is celebrated in all its forms
A United Kingdom that welcomes immigration, international co-operation and a close relationship with the EU
This week I succumbed, only for the sake of family bonding, to the latest craze sweeping the planet, or at least that part of it that can afford a mobile phone with enough 4G data to do it. Pokemon Go is, actually, a good thing. If it does nothing other than get the nerds some Vitamin D, it will have succeeded. It’s also a pretty social occupation. It’s great to see crowds of people gathering around landmarks actually talking to each other. The speed at which phrases like “I only have to walk another 5k to hatch my egg” have become normal is quite staggering.
Everyone seems to be doing it. Even the Lib Dem Press Office claimed to me that they were hunting Pokemon in a London car park when they found this:
If you’re a prospective undergraduate student, you’ll have been shocked to see a number of universities, including Durham and Royal Holloway, offering courses above the £9000 a year threshold, which has now been increased to £9250. If you’re a current student or have confirmed your place for September 2016, you’ll be even more shocked to find out that your tuition fees could potentially increase, after you agreed on a price.
When applying for university, both student finance and my school assured me not to worry about the student loans: I would only be paying it back if I earned £21,000 and until I was 50 years old, and I would be getting a lovely bursary to support me through too, due to coming from a low income family. Of course that’s all changed and I will now be in about £60,000 worth of debt due to doing a four year course and my reliance on the bursary from Student Finance England. With tuition fees rising, is there really any incentive for students to go to university in the UK?
Jo Johnson said that ‘higher fees lead to better teaching’, yet the QS top 100 universities is not entirely dominated by British universities, with only 15 English universities making the top 100 and three Scottish universities making their way to top 100 (all of which are free to Scots and EU Nationals). In comparison there are a number of EU universities making the top 100 which have no tuition fees to EU students, including Germany, Finland and Denmark, with others offering incredibly low fees such as the Netherlands and France and many of these cheap or free courses are offered in English. That’s a lot better value for money if it’s £9000 a year (potentially more) cheaper for the same quality of education and same standard of universities.
One of the great things that Liberal Democrats ensured was that children would no longer be detained for immigration purposes. Instead, a pre-departure facility for families, Cedars, was set up with advice and support from Barnardos.
When we left Government, I feared it would be a matter of time before this excellent facility was closed.
And so, amid the flurry of announcements put out by the Government on the last day before the Summer recess, the news came yesterday. Cedars was being closed and families with children will once again be held in a detention centre Tinsley House.
Unsurprisngly, Liberal Democrats have reacted with horror.
Home Affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said:
Cedars was a civilised way of dealing with some of the most vulnerable young people in our care.
Ending the detention of children in lock-down institutions was something that the Liberal Democrats forced Theresa May as Home Secretary to do against her will. Now there are no restraints on her, she will indulge the more callous instincts of her party.
Having Tories in government is a bit like sharing your home with a cat. You may think that you have a domestic pet but the feral animal is never far beneath the surface.
He also sought assurances that families in Scotland would not be held in the Dungavel facility:
One of the first things that Lib Dems in government forced the then Home Secretary Theresa May to do was end the detention of children for immigration purposes. Days after coming to power she has thrown away years of progress.
What this decision means in practice is a return to situation where young children will find themselves in detention centres surrounded by razor wire and guards. This is a huge step backwards.
Previously, we had seen some children locked up at Dungavel for more than a year and there were damning reports on the level of educational support provided to children at the site. The last thing we need is a return to a situation where young people in the immigration system are treated like cattle, not children.
The Prime Minister needs to scrap her plans to close Cedars and we need urgent assurances that this inhumane decision will not open the door to a return to child detention at Dungavel.
It is with more than a little sadness and apprehension that I watch the drawn-out self destruction of the Labour Party, as its leader, a man who I once respected and liked, seems hell bent on bringing Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition to its knees. The details of this destruction have been covered extensively in other places, and I won’t repeat them here, but one thread does deeply concern me as a liberal: the seeming blindness the Labour Party has to industry and the traditional worker.
Britain’s industrial past, I believe, played a key part in the result of the EU referendum, where those who feel disenfranchised by the crippling of their communities, and the industrial centre that were once at their heart, did what they felt they needed to in order to enact a change. Labour’s solution to this has, broadly, been to carry on as they were and to promise a restoration of this industrial past.
Tim Farron has rightly taken a stand against the upsurge of race hate crimes post-Brexit, but as a party Liberal Democrats need to develop a coherent response that does more than state how repellent racism is or how much it jars with liberal values.
The issue is not likely to disappear soon. Just yesterday Scotland Yard’s deputy commissioner Craig Mackey reported that race crimes in the capital had doubled.
I’ve had the opportunity to go out to Cleveland, Ohio to campaign for Hillary Clinton for the next two weeks. My friends Ryan and James are out there working as campaign fellows and I thought that it would be fun to go and join them. It is great fun at the moment – I’ve met loads of friendly people in the office and out at events.
The Republican National Convention is downtown right now, as you’ll all probably know, and we were trying to register voters around the area. Ryan and James got a few, but I’m still learning the ropes …
In his first few hours as our EU Spokesperson, we’ve had more sense from Nick Clegg than we’ve had from the whole government in the four awful weeks since the referendum.
Tonight he was on Radio 4’s PM programme saying that it was really important that we started to see some detail from the Government on its plans for Britain’s exit from the EU. We need, he said, a very detailed plan to extricate ourselves from the complex web of economic and legal ties between us and the EU.
He said that if the Government wanted to retain the closest possible ties with the single market, their own backbenchers would kick off.
You can listen to his interview here from about 39:30.
In a piece for the i newspaper, Nick pointed out a few discrepancies between what the Tories say they want and the likelihood of it happening without compromise:
Theresa May can’t, for example, promise that we will be able to enjoy all the benefits to our economy that full access to the world’s largest borderless single market will bring, without accepting freedom of movement in return. So which is it? What matters more – our economy and jobs or clamping down on immigration?
David Davis, Theresa May’s new Brexit minister, appears to believe the single market is just a free trade arrangement. It isn’t. Free trade means removing tariffs so that companies can trade without paying different levels of tax on the goods they buy and sell. But the single market is much more ambitious. It is about harmonising all the standards and regulations that apply to goods and services across Europe, so that companies can trade with each other on a truly level playing field.
So it’s good that someone is on the case. He sets out his own plans:
I was astonished and saddened to discover this week that the Government appears to have downgraded the importance it gives to Youth Policy.
The ministerial role in which Youth Policy is included, the Civil Society brief, has been moved by no-mandate Prime Minister Theresa May from the Cabinet Office to the so-called ministry of fun, the Department of Culture of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS.)
When based at the Cabinet Office, youth policy was at the heart of government.
Now, of course, this didn’t by any means guarantee good decision-making on youth-related issues and, indeed, I disagreed strongly (and continue to do so) with the Tories doing virtually nothing to safeguard the future of vitally-needed out-of-school youth services and the role of professional youth workers.
But I think it a clear downgrading of youth policy that it’s been moved to DCMS.
Youth Policy, by its very nature, covers a full range of issues and to see it moved to a ministry whose sole focus is culture, media and sport (as important as all three are) means, to me at least, that youth issues are set to be all-but forgotten by this government.
At best, the former Chancellor’s economic policies merely stalled the post-recession economic recovery. At worst, they have stunted growth, further entrenched economic inequality and exacerbated social division throughout the country. The Liberal Democrats can take some encouragement from the fact that, when in coalition, they were able to moderate the more insidious and ideologically-driven elements of Osborne’s economic doctrine. One must only look to the unmitigated disaster of the Chancellors post-election budget where, for example, he sought to slash disability benefits as one example of what unfettered Osbornomics may have looked like.
For decades however, under both Labour and Conservative governments, the UK has suffered from persistently high levels of both wealth and income inequality. Socially, politically and economically, the geographic divide between north and south has grown. The north-east of England has for years been ignored when it comes to public investment with almost 25 times as much spent on infrastructure per resident in London. Osborneís proposed Northern Powerhouse appears to have done little to mitigate the long-standing effects of decades of under-investment in both people and infrastructure.
In purely demographic terms, the wealth divide between the old and the young is growing exponentially due to the institutionalized, structural deficit in public spending on the young (e.g. education and training) versus the elderly (e.g. pensions and health care).
On Tuesday, just two days before parliament starts its recess and less than a week after Theresa May first addressed the commons as Prime Minister, Sir Simon Stevens, CEO of NHS England, wrote about his priorities for the NHS.
For most of us his comments and overall strategy will seem eminently sensible. The question I ask myself is this: Will Theresa May’s government pay lip service to Simon Stevens’ strategy or will they actually commit to the funds and action needed to carry it through?
You might say I am being unduly cynical and that I am not giving this new PM a chance. You may be right, although keeping Mr Hunt as her Secretary of State for Health does not strike me as very smart, given that he is so toxic to the doctors.
Stevens expresses concerns about two policy areas in particular – obesity & mental health, both of which are not getting the focus they deserve.
He points out the vital importance of effective action on obesity. This is not a matter of the nanny state lecturing people on how much they should eat. This is a critical health issue that affects the whole health service, not just in terms of funding but through the need to treat a whole range of different diseases. Financially the cost to the Treasury is now more than the police and fire services combined. One result of the separation of our health care services into NHS, on the one hand, and local authority social care and public health responsibilities on the other, is that it is your under-funded local council’s job to prevent obesity but it is the NHS that has to treat the myriad of diseases that arise from it. However, there are strong rumours that the long-awaited obesity strategy has been weakened because of business lobbying since it was first mooted by the government last year, while the LGA reports that funding cuts are threatening councils’ ability to be effective in this and other areas of public health.
Nick Clegg has not had a major role in the parliamentary party over the last year. All that is about to change as he takes on a position that he is uniquely well suited to fulfil – that of European Union spokesperson.
It will be Nick who is holding Liam Fox and David Davis to account. Given Nick’s wide-ranging experience at the highest levels of the British Government and as a trade negotiator for the European Union, we can expect no bovine scatology from Fox and Davis to pass him by. Their feet will be well and truly held to the fire.
Nick is extremely well respected across European capitals, too. As Deputy Prime Minister, he was the highest profile pro EU voice in British politics for some time.
He is kicking off his role by announcing his ‘Brexit Challenge’ project. Over the coming months, Nick will be working with a range of experts, including academics and lawyers, to set out the difficult questions the Government has to answer in a host of areas that will be affected by Brexit. This is what Nicola Sturgeon has already done in the Scottish context and what Theresa May should be doing on a UK level.
George Thomas Reform and Conservative's opposed the nation of sanctuary policy in Wales which aims to improve integration. These parties, and those who understand and the pol...
Jana @Nick Baird
I think the explanation is more likely down to misunderstanding the difference between the rate of migration and the number of migrants in the coun...
Nick Baird Part of the problem preventing sensible discussion about immigration is that thanks to scaremongering by the right wing press and political parties, the British...
Dennis Delice Completely agreed! Liberal Democrats have to realise the importance of positive freedom too. Scepticism of any involvement of state to achieve liberty is mislea...
Rob Heale Surely people can't have real choices and freedom if they live in poverty. They won't have the decent home or the resources needed to exercise their rights. Soc...
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"We have blue passports, but everything else has gone south": Andrew George on the failure of Brexit
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