Category Archives: Op-eds

Kris Brown

Liberal Democrat success in Liverpool

By Kris Brown | Sat 7th May 2016 - 11:45 am

I tend not to write pieces for political websites as I don’t consider myself a great writer and often shy away from the challenge.

However, I couldn’t resist an opportunity to talk about, and thank our many volunteers, for the excellent results we had in Liverpool on Thursday night and Friday morning.

First, a bit of context.  When I became Chair at the end of 2014, the Liberal Democrats in Liverpool were facing an enormous challenge.  Once the largest Lib Dem groups in Europe could soon face having just one councillor left with Erica Kemp CBE. As brilliant as she is, I’m sure she wouldn’t have enjoyed the council on her own.  So we put in place a strategy to identify a number of different wards where we could hold and finish a strong second – not just spread our resources too thinly across the city.  We decided that a huge door-knocking effort would be to key to success alongside lots of hard hitting leaflets.  The result was holding on to Richard Kemp CBE with an increased majority and a good result in our target wards going forward.

A year on, nearly 11,000 doors knocked and hundreds of thousands of leaflets delivered we have reaped the rewards of our strategy.

Richard Kemp secured 21.1% of the Mayoral vote (up from 6% previously), finishing second and cutting into the ‘gutter politics’ Labour Mayor’s vote, and finishing well above the Greens.

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Caron Lindsay

From elation to sadness: my mixed emotions on the Scottish results

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 6th May 2016 - 6:53 pm

If you had told me six months ago that we would retain 5 seats in the Scottish Parliament and win mainland constituency seats from the SNP, I’d have laughed in your face. It didn’t seem possible when polls were giving us 3% and 4% in the polls. It’s a testament to the bright, bold and ambitious campaign Willie Rennie has run.

@timfarron saying congratulations to @agcolehamilton and @willie_rennie for GAINING constituency seats. pic.twitter.com/c5PxBsf53l

I’m finally home now. I might be a little more flaky than usual as I have now been awake for approaching 34.5 hours. I’m desperately trying not to go to sleep for another couple of hours so I can just go to bed for the night then. I’m not sure that’ll work.

It’s been a while since I left a count or ended an election night smiling. For most of the last 4 weeks, I’ve been helping Alex Cole-Hamilton’s campaign in Edinburgh Western. Getting Alex elected to Holyrood is something I’ve tried to do for the past 9 years. In 2007, he topped the list in Mid Scotland and Fife but our success in Dunfermline stopped him getting in. In 2011, he stood in Edinburgh Central and was 2 on the Lothians list, but the coalition made that an impossible election for us. It was at that point that he made his tweet which was immortalised in Nick Clegg’s resignation speech:

In 2011, after a night of disappointing election results for our party, one of our candidates in Edinburgh, Alex Cole-Hamilton said that if his defeat was part-payment for the ending of child detention then he accepted it with all his heart.

Those words revealed a selfless dignity which is rare in politics but common amongst Liberal Democrats.

We will never know how many lives we changed for the better because we had the courage to step up at a time of crisis.

So this time, I really wanted him to win, not least to reward the huge effort he has made in building the team around him, knocking on 25,000 doors in the constituency and running a textbook campaign.

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Paul Walter

The last risk I expected on polling day was sunstroke

By Paul Walter | Thu 5th May 2016 - 11:00 pm

IMG_2856Well done and thank you to everyone who has done anything for the Liberal Democrats in our campaigns culminating today.

What a glorious day it was here in the south of England! – and apologies if the weather in your area wasn’t as great.

My straw hat got its first outing of the year and, as I tramped round the streets of Newbury, I couldn’t believe how lucky we were to have such glorious sunshine and warmth.

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Jonathan Brown

March with Medics Under Fire – ‘Newbie’ Saleyha Ahsan leads the way

By Jonathan Brown | Thu 5th May 2016 - 10:35 am

Many Lib Dems will remember Junior Doctor Saleyha Ahsan’s rousing conference rally speech (37:45) in York, in which she joined the party ‘live on air’ and blasted Hunt for his attacks on our NHS. Of course, you may also recognise her from her work on the BBC’s ‘Trust Me I’m A Doctor’ or know her from the 2013 BBC documentary ‘Saving Syria’s Children’ in which, while working in Atareb Hospital in northern Syria she was required to help treat the dozens of casualties brought in from one of the Assad …

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Caron Lindsay

How Caroline Pidgeon would change London for the better

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th May 2016 - 8:00 pm

Caroline Pidgeon is spending the last day of campaigning for the Mayoral Election out in Putney with Nick Clegg

LBC has a list of ten ways London would change if she were Mayor.

1) £20 from your council tax will be used to build new houses
The Olympic precept will be maintained, but the money turned to building 50,000 council homes to rent and 150,000 for sale.

2) Tube fares before 7.30am will be half-price
The Lib Dems promise to “introduce half price fares for Tube, Overground rail and DLR travellers before 7.30am – to reduce the cost of travel for thousands of hard-working Londoners and ease peak congestion.”

3) All London’s buses and taxis will become fully electric
A Lib Dem plan is to switch London’s buses and taxis to be fully electric as well as helping to switch commercial vans too.

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron MP writes…The Government must deliver for refugee children 

By Tim Farron MP | Wed 4th May 2016 - 7:30 pm

In October 2015 I used my first PMQ as leader to urge David Cameron to give a home to 3,000 vulnerable unaccompanied children who had fled war and persecution and were now in Europe. Save the Children, who launched the campaign, had calculated that 3,000 was the UK’s ‘fair share’ of the 26,000 unaccompanied children estimated to have arrived in Europe since the start of the refugee crisis. Six months on and with the numbers of unaccompanied children in Europe having skyrocketed to 90,000 the Government has finally capitulated in principle to take some children from Europe.What started as a …

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Caron Lindsay

From new member to candidate – the Lib Dem newbies fighting their first election

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th May 2016 - 6:29 pm

Snow doesn't stop Becca Plenderleith and team campaigning Inspired by a post in one of those Lib Dem Facebook groups, I thought it would be a good idea to give a special shout-out for these wonderful new members of the party who have become so involved that they are standing for election this year. This is by no means an exclusive list, so please feel free to add to it. The enthusiasm of our new members has really invigorated the party the length and breadth of the country this year. In Scotland, people like Rebecca Plenderleith, a fantastic campaigner for mental health who has written for us about why she became a Lib Dem, Charity Pierce, Giovanni Caccavello, Bryn Jones, Lauren Jones, Kaitey Blair are flying the Lib Dem flag. Rebecca and colleagues are pictured above campaigning in the worst snow the Scottish Winter had to throw at us. Another of our regular contributors Alex H is standing and co-ordinating campaigns across his town. Greg Webb is running for the Council in Derby and gaining valuable experience for the future. In London, Rachel Waitt is standing in a Council by-election in Figge’s Marsh ward in Mitcham tomorrow. Julie Ireland is standing for the constituency of Bexley and Bromley.

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The Voice

Kirsty Williams: Vote Lib Dem to make more nurses and smaller class sizes a reality

By The Voice | Wed 4th May 2016 - 4:55 pm

Kirsty Williams has made her final pitch for Lib Dem votes in Montgomeryshire, supporting candidate Jane Dodds, where she will say that the Welsh Liberal Democrats are the only party to consistently work to achieve results and put narrow party-political interest aside, their leader Kirsty Williams has said today on the eve of the Assembly election.

Tomorrow’s vote is your chance to make a difference for your community. Before you cast it, I want you to ask yourself: who has delivered the most for you and your family?

More often than not, the people I talk to across Wales aren’t interested in the cheap party-political point-scoring. What they always ask me is, ‘What have you done to make my life better?’ As a Welsh Liberal Democrat, I always have a long list of things to tell them about.

When Labour wanted to cut the numbers of apprenticeships in Wales, we used our influence to stop them. When rural councils were getting a raw funding deal, it was us who secured more money. When our poorest pupils were consistently underachieving in our schools, it was us who stepped in and gave them that extra support.

Unlike the other parties, we’re not content with whinging from the sidelines. Welsh Liberal Democrats always roll up our sleeves and get things done for our communities, and for the people of Wales.

If our record over the last five years shows anything, it’s that a vote for the Welsh Liberal Democrats is a vote for our policies being put into action. Tomorrow will be no different – your vote could help make our ideas a reality.

If you support smaller class sizes, if you want more nurses on hospital wards, if you want an Opportunity Economy that enables people to get on life, then you have to vote for it – you have to vote Welsh Liberal Democrat. Only then can we begin to deliver a Wales that works for you.

The last few days of her campaign have been a whirlwind of campaigning that has seen her everywhere from Ceredigion to Cardiff to North Wales to her home patch of Brecon and Radnorshire.

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Phil Aisthorpe

Billingsgate – a crisis for Labour that can be solved by tactical voting for Lib Dem Joe Otten

By Phil Aisthorpe | Wed 4th May 2016 - 3:38 pm

I live in Rotherham and on May 5th I will vote to elect a Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire. Since its inception in 2012 the post of South Yorkshire PCC has been held by Labour. The first incumbent, Shaun Wright did not stay the course and was forced to resign in 2014 following a report into the Rotherham child abuse scandal.  His successor, Labour’s Dr Alan Billings has fared little better and was last week caught up in the aftermath of the Hillsborough inquest verdict. He bungled the suspension and replacement of the South Yorkshire Police chief constable and has subsequently failed to answer questions about the £18m of public money his office authorised to be spent on lawyers who unnecessarily presented false allegations against innocent people throughout the Hillsborough inquest. Incredibly Dr Billings failed to see any of this coming. On the very day of the Hillsborough verdict he was occupied launching his re-election campaign by declaring war on litter.

If the ballot papers for the election had not already been printed it seems unlikely that Dr Billings would have survived to fight another day and his ill-timed poor performance has placed Labour in an impossible position. They must back their candidate 100%, but if successful they can hardly be looking forward to the prospect of facing a growing crisis that seems likely to lead to Dr Billings’ resignation. Win or lose Labour is in trouble. The electorate will decide the good doctor’s immediate fate, but if a historic turnout for South Yorkshire PCC elections of under 15% is maintained a Billings victory is unlikely to convince the general public that he has a legitimate mandate.

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Caron Lindsay

Ten ways Willie Rennie made Scotland smile during #sp16

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th May 2016 - 12:45 pm

Many of the defining images of the election in Scotland have come from Willie Rennie. He has had a lot of serious points to make during this election, highlighting the need to invest in education, transform mental health, stand up for civil liberties, protect the planet from climate change and stop the SNP’s suffocating control and centralisation of public services, but he’s had tonnes of fun illustrating them.

In 2006, his by-election victory in Dunfermline was helped by an image on the front page of the Courier from the top of the Forth Rail Bridge. He’s had some similarly fantastic photos and videos this campaign.  On Monday he went go-karting and his photo on the podium afterwards, doing the “Schumi Jump” that Michael Schumacher always used to do when he won, made it into virtually every paper.

His bright and exuberant campaign has had loads of coverage and has caught people’s imagination. You know you are on the right track when people start repeating your campaign messages on the doorsteps. From a very challenging outlook, he has brought the party to the very real possibility of gaining a constituency seat against the SNP tomorrow. The media is watching Edinburgh Western and Alex Cole-Hamilton.

A lot of these photo-ops were very risky. Some could have been disastrous. Imagine the headlines if the canoe had capsized. Of course, one did go memorably wrong, but a few packets of Percy Pigs later, the journalists were laughing with rather than at us.

The manifesto launch was bright, exuberant and unforgettable. He got interviewed on a slide, for goodness sake.

There was the day they let him fly a plane.

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Paul Tyler

Lord Paul Tyler writes…Liberal Democrats force government climbdown on Trade Union Bill

By Paul Tyler | Tue 3rd May 2016 - 9:53 pm

This evening sees the culmination of five months’ work, led by the Lib Dems, which will finally knock some fairness into the Government’s proposals for reforming the relationship between Labour and the Trade Unions.

Late last year, the Left was raging – with some justification – about a Tory plot to remove up to £6m a year of funding from Labour, by restricting the right of trade unions to collect donations through a political fund.  While the principle of requiring individual ‘opt-in’ consent for such donations is an important one – with which Lib Dems agree – the Government’s endeavour was a naked, one-sided attempt to hobble the opposition.  Real party funding reform cannot be for only one party.  It must also restrict millionaire and big business donations too.

The question our team had to ask was how to amend these elements of the Trade Union Bill without it sounding like simple special pleading for anti-Conservative forces.  Clearly, our party is in a good position to start with, since the Lib Dems do not benefit from trade union political funds.  But we still needed to demonstrate in as non-partisan, dispassionate a way as possible that the what the Government proposed was simply lop-sided and self-interested.

So on the day before the House broke up for Christmas our small Lib Dem Bill team discussed a little-used mechanism to corral principled opposition to the party funding clauses of the Bill.  I suggested that we try to shift this issue to a special Select Committee of the Lords, where Ministers, the Unions, democracy academics, and all the parties could make their case.

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Simon Pike

Vote Labour in the local elections if you do not care about your community

By Simon Pike | Tue 3rd May 2016 - 3:01 pm

ppb 2106

Lib Dem Party Election Broadcast April 2016

Yesterday evening (Monday), Labour aired its party election broadcast for the local elections next Thursday. I know this because it said so at the beginning of the broadcast: I certainly could not have guessed this from its content.

This broadcast was entirely devoted to knocking the Tory Government, without any mention of the work of local councils. This single message of the broadcast was summed up by Jeremy Corbyn at the start: “This Thursday’s elections are a chance to send a message to David Cameron and his Government. It’s become increasingly clear – they simply cannot be trusted. They certainly cannot be trusted to make sure that the richest their fair share of tax…”

In contrast, the Lib Dem election broadcast on 20th April was entirely devoted to the work of local councillors, serving their communities. Tim Farron summarised this excellently: “You have the opportunity to use your vote to support somebody who will make a difference for your community, work hard, keep in touch and get things done all year round. Who won’t just disappear the day after they’ve got your vote, and not show up for another four years, but will be committed to your community. Because that is what the Liberal Democrats are all about.”

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Jonathan Ferguson

The last thing the Liberal Democrats need is an ethical foreign policy

By Jonathan Ferguson | Tue 3rd May 2016 - 10:25 am

 

In yesterday’s article I alluded to ‘a central contradiction going on in the Liberal Democrats at the moment: the incompatible melange of pro-asylum seeker and pro-interventionist rhetoric and ideology.’

Today, I will say firstly that I do support accepting some asylum seekers in the UK; in accordance with a rather hard-headed ethic of prudence and restraint, rather than the gushy sentimentality that so often afflicts our party (of which more shortly). I will also say that my reasons for accepting asylum seekers are completely different from some dominant lines of discussion in the Liberal Democrats; and that this is far from inconsequential.

What does this mean?

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Chris Key

It’s nurses and midwives who really need our support

By Chris Key | Tue 3rd May 2016 - 9:08 am

 

The ongoing junior doctors strike has unfortunately focused the attention of the public and the media away from the plight of nurses and midwives. I believe this group deserves much more sympathy.

Nurses and midwives, while not required to study for as long as doctors, nevertheless have to complete a degree course. Nurses’ standard hours are usually 37.5 to 40 hours per week and many work extra nights, weekends and evenings to earn enough to provide for themselves and their families. A Royal College of Nursing report from 2015 found that 35% of nurses have to work 12 hour shifts.

Unlike junior doctors  they are more likely to have to go home on public transport than jump into a car after a night shift. Even those  nurses and midwives who can afford a car are often required to pay for parking in hospitals, at a cost of up to £600 a year, while the Chief Executive has their nominated free parking space.

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Jonathan Ferguson

No criticism is bad criticism (and none is worse)…

By Jonathan Ferguson | Mon 2nd May 2016 - 11:00 am

Not long ago, I wrote a piece on how pacifists and non-interventionists might respond to the recent decision on foreign intervention.

Although, on balance, I don’t regret writing it, I am deeply dissatisfied with some aspects of my article. The feedback from a large number of people has been very helpful not only in helping me clarify my own views to myself, but also to think very carefully about matters of presentation and framing.

If I am reading them correctly, some commenters felt that my stance was not robust enough. My problematic reference to ‘maintain(ing) unity’ and worse still, to the purported risks of ‘irresponsible criticism’ (sic) could easily be read as conformist, condescending, authoritarian, or any combination of these things. Certainly, there were some poor choices of words.

I will acknowledge that as I only recently joined the Liberal Democrats, it is possible that I have a distorted view of the boundaries of criticism. Certainly, I would not wish to indulge in tone policing. I am as outraged at anyone else at the recent decision to go along with David Cameron and the self-styled ‘International Community’s’ self-serving crusade in the Middle East; the latest in a long line of cynical interventions.

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Holly Matthies

Blogging Against Disablism Day

By Holly Matthies | Mon 2nd May 2016 - 8:29 am

 

As well a day for dancing around maypoles or celebrating workers and labour, the first of May is Blogging Against Disablism Day.

As explained on the blog of the person who started it, “This is the day where all around the world, disabled and non-disabled people blog about their experiences, observations and thoughts about disability discrimination (known as disablism or ableism).  In this way, we hope to raise awareness of inequality, promote equality and celebrate the progress we’ve made.”

There’s an example of disablism in a recent Lib Dem Voice article by Henry Foulds. He says he was told “by a senior activist that I should crop my cane from campaign photos or somehow hide it, I was horrified. I stumbled over my response and changed the subject. I’ve since explained to them that disability is nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of.”

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie gets the biggest cheer of the final Scottish Leaders’ Debate

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st May 2016 - 11:57 pm

Seriously, I’m not joking.

See for yourself.

I thought he would do well, but I wasn’t quite expecting cheering, and rapturous applause for him.

On this occasion, it was his answer to a question on a second independence referendum which got the audience on his side. He said that the Parliament and Government needed to concentrate on the neglected issues like health and education, to concentrate on making Scotland the best country in the world again. You can’t do that, he said, while having a groundhog debate about independence. He told Nicola that she was the one being anti-democratic by refusing to accept the result of the poll just 20 months ago.

“When you don’t get the result you want, you just want to do it all again.” he shouted in an exasperated tone that had the audience with him.

I somehow managed to pass the BBC’s rigorous selection test, which consisted not just of an online questionnaire but also a phone interview. Here I am, on the right, in the blue dress, behind moderator Sarah Smith as she introduces the debate, captured on my friend Jade’s tv.

BBC Leaders' Debate

The debate was, rather bizarrely, held in the opulent surroundings of Hopetoun House in South Queensferry. From there, you can just about see where Willie Rennie rocked the political establishment by winning the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election in 2006. I arrived to discover that there was no internet signal. Being offline for four whole hours during  waking hours is almost unheard of for me, but I somehow managed.

Unfortunately there wasn’t enough signal to tweet that for some reason the BBC didn’t trust us to walk a few feet from the place where we registered to the ballroom where the debate was being held. They hired a bus to take us over. I kid you not. You could walk it in less than a minute. The ballroom is more used to hosting weddings than political theatre. There was certainly plenty of drama.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Obama’s final White House Correspondents’ Dinner

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st May 2016 - 4:59 pm

Obama’s rocked all of his 8 speeches at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. This year is full of occasions that will be his last in the White House. It took me a while to warm to him, but he’s certainly been one of the best US Presidents of my lifetime. He hasn’t got it all right, by any manner of means, but his tenacity in getting his healthcare reform through despite everything the Republicans threw at it was particularly commendable.

Anyway, this speech doesn’t quite have a Lion King moment, but the bit where he has a go at Prince George was hilarious.

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NewsHound

When the Minister didn’t quite get Alistair Carmichael’s sarcasm…

By NewsHound | Sun 1st May 2016 - 3:30 pm

This week, Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael  put down an Urgent Question to the Home Secretary after she all too casually said that the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights. It’s clear that ,whatever the result of the Referendum, the Tories are desperate to have a big bonfire of all of our most basic rights. What they could object to about things like the right to privacy and freedom of expression is beyond me.

Anyway, Theresa May didn’t bother to turn up to face Alistair. She sent Attorney General Jeremy Wright instead. He didn’t really answer her question, prompting Alistair to say:

I am grateful to the Attorney General for that answer. I should make it clear that I hold him in the very highest regard; I enjoyed working with him as a Minister in the previous Government. But he is not the Home Secretary, and he should not be responding to the urgent question today. The Home Secretary was the one who could make the speech yesterday and she can, apparently, come and make a statement tomorrow. She should be here today. Yesterday she went rogue; today she has gone missing.

There is total confusion at the heart of Government policy. What the Attorney General has just said at the Dispatch Box contradicts clearly what has been said previously. Yesterday the Home Secretary said:

The ECHR can bind the hands of parliament, adds nothing to our prosperity, makes us less secure by preventing the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals – and does nothing to change the attitudes of governments like Russia’s when it comes to human rights. So regardless of the EU referendum, my view is this: if we want to reform human rights laws in this country, it isn’t the EU we should leave but the ECHR and the jurisdiction of its court.”

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg tells the inside story of how the Conservatives put party before country

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st May 2016 - 9:30 am

A couple of polls have suggested that Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservative Party might just edge ahead of Labour to become the official opposition in the Scottish Parliament. That is a truly horrible thought. Just imagine it, the timid, illiberal, centralising SNP opposed by David Cameron’s representative in Scotland. Their leaflets don’t push the fact that they are Conservatives. They are trying to make their campaign all about Ruth, as if she is somehow the saviour of the union. That, of course, is an argument that does not stack up, as this video from the Scottish Liberal Democrats shows.

It was the Scottish Conservatives who pretty much kept the SNP in power during their first term of minority government.

Do we really want them, with their contempt for benefit claimants, nonchalance about inequality and poverty and disregard for human rights and civil liberties, as the official opposition to an SNP government that is already so fiscally conservative and illiberal?

Their claim to be the only ones who care about the union has been shown up to be a pile of hogwash by Nick Clegg. In an article originally published in the Times and now on the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ website, he said:

As the Holyrood elections get closer and closer, I have become increasingly bemused that Ruth Davidson and others have sought to claim that the Conservatives are somehow the authentic opposition to the SNP.

It jars starkly with my experience when governing alongside the Conservatives in Coalition in Whitehall for five years.

In that time, I witnessed an odd ambivalence in the Conservative Party towards Scotland: indifference one minute; confrontation the next.

My party frequently disagreed with the Conservatives on Scottish issues, which was perhaps unsurprising since the only Scots around the Coalition Cabinet table were Liberal Democrats.

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Ruth Bright

A time to speak out?

By Ruth Bright | Sat 30th April 2016 - 10:27 am

It was in fact the mid-seventies but looking back it seems more like Victorian times. Rows and rows of little kids in red and grey uniform and we chirruped in unison from a hymn we were far too little to understand about how to “master self and temper, how to make our conduct fair, when to speak and when be silent, when to do and when forbear”.

When as Liberals should we be silent and when should we speak out?

Three examples for your consideration:

On the school run I walk alongside a mum, like me, whose family go back many, many years in this town. She has assumed we are on the same wavelength. We make small talk about how the town has grown and changed. Out she comes with: “There weren’t any black people here when we were young were there Ruth?” I hesitated, I admit I hesitated, the school run is not a political occasion but her tone and inference were clear and I replied as gently as I could by asking her if she had a problem with that (ie that the town was now multi-racial). She scuttled back into her shell and waffled about how “it” just showed how the town has changed. She has hardly spoken to me since.

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Jonathan Brown

As war accelerates again in Syria it’s time for us to act

By Jonathan Brown | Sat 30th April 2016 - 8:57 am

“Time is running out to save Syria’s ceasefire” warned Dr Haytham Alhamwi of the Manchester-based Syrian Rethink Rebuild Society three weeks ago “otherwise Assad will get the message that he can persist with ever more egregious violations”. Now the always limited ‘cessation of hostilities’ is, in the words of UN envoy Staffan de Mistura “barely alive“.

On Thursday one of free Aleppo’s last remaining paediatricians was killed along with colleagues and patients in the “broader pattern of systematic targeting of hospitals by the government of Bashar al-Assad”. The Syrian government is doing what it always does when dragged to the negotiating table: distract, prevaricate and take the opportunity to step up repression of non-violent activists and organise a security build-up for the outright military victory Assad promised no sooner had the ceasefire been agreed.

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Tom Brake

Tom Brake MP writes…It’s time to reform renting

By Tom Brake | Fri 29th April 2016 - 7:40 pm

Recently at my surgery I met a distressed young woman who came to see me with her mother. Repairs are outstanding on their rented property. The landlord is refusing to sort them out while at the same time putting pressure on them to leave their flat. She didn’t know where to go or what to do.

This is a familiar story and it is no exaggeration to say that we have a national emergency in housing. There are vast numbers of people living in fear and uncertainty and in 2016 that is simply unacceptable.

We clearly have a rental sector which is broken. Many people are spending over half their disposable income on rent and yet a third of homes fail to meet the Government’s decent homes standard, with over 60% of renters having experienced either damp, mould, leaking roofs or windows, electrical hazards, animal infestation or gas leaks, according to a recent survey commissioned by Shelter.

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Richard Robinson

Earthquake in Austria

By Richard Robinson | Fri 29th April 2016 - 2:32 pm

Austria Hofer

 

Last Sunday, the post-war consensus in Austrian politics was swept away. Nobert Hofer, from the far right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), came top with 35% in the first round of the presidential elections and faces a run off Alexander van der Bellen, a former leader of and supported by the Greens, who received 21% and came first in most cities including Vienna. Turnout was a respectable 69%. The campaign for the second round ballot on May 22 is likely to be bruising and divisive. Forecasts suggest that Hofer will win.

This was no earthquake as the FPÖ had performed well in local elections last October. This time Hofer’s result was significantly better than the polls had predicted. The Greens were also pleased with van der Bellen’s result. NEOS, our young sister party, had backed Irmgard Griss who came third with 19%. They are now supporting van der Bellen ‘for the Republic’.

Austria van Bellen

The candidates supported by the two main parties came fourth and fifth with around 11% each. The Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) have provided all previous presidents since the Second World War and are currently governing together in a grand coalition. The coalition is now responding by tightening asylum laws and building more border fences.

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Tim Pickstone

Tim Pickstone writes…Help make the difference next Thursday

By Tim Pickstone | Fri 29th April 2016 - 12:59 pm

Farron in EdinburghAll Liberal Democrats will remember what it felt like on Friday 8th May last year, the morning after the terrible 2015 General Election results .

This Thursday is our first big chance to build a more positive story about the progress we’ve made since, with voters going to the polls in one or more elections right across the UK.

A lot has been said about the Lib Dem ‘fightback’, but in politics it is elections that matter and our opportunity to ensure the Party makes a massive step forwards from 2015.

How well we perform next week will largely be up to us: Lib Dem members, activists and helpers.  We will make the difference between Lib Dems getting elected, or the opposition winning.

Thousands of people – candidates, activists, helpers, party staff have already been working hard for months.  But to get across the finish line we need everyone to help. 

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Suzanne Fletcher

A lifetime achievement, but still much to be done

By Suzanne Fletcher | Wed 27th April 2016 - 1:50 pm

Suzanne Fletcher 2

Suzanne Fletcher with Guy Verhofstadt

Our visit to Brussels has been one of terrific highs and awful low points.  The only thing that was consistent was the pouring rain, and the lovely welcoming help from people wherever we went.

I was there at the invitation of the committee of the regions for the ALDE-LeaDeR Awards.  I had been taken aback by being shortlisted for the Lifetime Achievement Award for long service as a councillor, for my work on environmental issues long before everyone woke up to it ( I got the first bottle – and then can – bank in Stockton in 1982), and more recently as founder member and chair of LD4SOS, an organisation within the Liberal Democrats that stands up for and campaigns on issues around asylum seekers and refugees.

The room filled with those nominated from throughout the EU for a range of different awards. There was only one other from the UK, Ray Georgeson from Otley, up for a different award from me.  I didn’t want to win; what I wanted more than anything was for the amendments from the Lords to be agreed in the House of Commons in the immigration debate that afternoon.  I silently prayed for 3,000 unaccompanied children to be given safety in the UK.

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Sally Hamwee

Baroness Sally Hamwee writes…How Lib Dem Lords are making the horrible Immigration Bill a little better

By Sally Hamwee | Wed 27th April 2016 - 12:21 pm

This is my third attempt at writing this piece. Events have been moving quickly on the Immigration Bill as the Government tries its hardest to push it through before the end of the session.

Last night the House of Lords got the Bill back from the Commons who discussed it the previous night.

The debate there concentrated on the amendment that would put into legislation the call for the UK to offer sanctuary to 3000 unaccompanied child refugees who have already arrived in Europe.

Of course the Government does not need legislation to do this, but it seems the force of votes in Parliament is required.

That vote was defeated by a narrow majority in the Commons and it was left to us in the Lords yesterday to reinstate it, inflicting another heavy Government defeat. This gives the Commons – and those Tories who talk of ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ – another chance to do the right thing.

Apart from this amendment we also won votes on putting a 28 day time limit on immigration detention of and restricting the detention of pregnant women. Detention should be imposed only in the most exceptional circumstances, and the calculation of the time limits gives too much wriggle room.  Safeguards were also inserted similar to those which apply to children which we insisted went into legislation during the Coalition Government.

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Simon Horner

And the biggest threat to the Union is….Ruth Davidson

By Simon Horner | Wed 27th April 2016 - 10:00 am

If short-term party political advantage is the aim of the game, then you can understand why the Scottish Tories have chosen to play the unionist card in the Scottish election. Ruth Davidson knows that Tory economic and social policies do not win elections (or even the runner-up spot) in Scotland. She must despair at her colleagues supposedly running the show in London who are tearing themselves apart on Europe and rapidly abandoning any claim to economic competence or social conscience.

Instead, she has put the independence question at the front and centre of her party’s Scottish programme. This is a headline currently on the “Herald” website:

“Ruth Davidson: SNP wants to keep wounds of independence debate open.”

I did a double take when I first spotted the story because at first glance I didn’t take in the “SNP” part. Of course, if you read it without the “SNP” it still makes perfect sense. Every time Ruth Davidson harps on about the union – and she does it an awful lot! – she is poking at the scab.

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Lord William Wallace

Could Trumpland reach Britain?

By Lord William Wallace | Tue 26th April 2016 - 2:43 pm

We all hope that Donald Trump will not be the next US President; even if he wins the Republican nomination, it’s unlikely that he will win over a majority of states and voters. But his astonishing success so far, in mobilising the embittered, marginalised and nostalgic, all those who feel they have lost out through rapid economic and social change, has lessons for British politics.

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Joe Otten

Inquest verdict: The 96 were unlawfully killed #JFT96

By Joe Otten | Tue 26th April 2016 - 1:04 pm

Today the Hillsborough inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing of 96 people.

Errors and omissions by the South Yorkshire Police are ruled to have caused and contributed to the deaths on a number of counts, and also errors and omissions by the city council as the ground safety licensing authority, the engineers Eastwood and Partners, Sheffield Wednesday FC and the ambulance service.

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