Category Archives: Op-eds

Shakespeare the Liberal

By Andrew Venning | Thu 7th April 2016 - 11:00 am

Time and time again people have questioned Shakespeare’s ethics, religion, sexuality and politics. Nothing can really be deduced about the man from his works. It is considered a dangerous trap when we start to assume that the words of Shylock or Romeo are conduits for Shakespeare’s personal feelings. However, he writes powerful arguments that chime with Liberal ideology. Do I have bias and wish for Shakespeare to be a liberal? Or is it my love for Shakespeare both as a theatre-goer and as an actor that turned me to liberal politics at a young age? I believe so.

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Tagged william shakespeare | 23 Comments

First Scotland, now the EU: how did young English progressives end up fighting to save the status quo?

By Adam Bennett | Thu 7th April 2016 - 9:24 am

“I believe that the way things are is not the way things have to be”. The first line of Nick Clegg’s opening statement in ITV’s ‘First Ever TV Election Debate’ was my political awakening. It unlocked my passion for politics and it made me not only want to change the world, but it made me believe the world could be changed. I followed that passion pretty religiously- I signed up to the Liberal Democrats, volunteered everywhere from my local party in Hertfordshire to Edinburgh for the Scottish Referendum. I even ended up working for Nick in Westminster, first as an intern and then as a Communications Assistant between 2014 and the crushing blow that was Election Day 2015.

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Why Liberal Democrats oppose the Cameron government’s education reforms

By Jamie Dalzell | Wed 6th April 2016 - 3:45 pm

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society. For our party, a strong education system, freely available to all, is the key to building the society we strive towards.

This year, David Cameron’s government has announced an extensive programme of reform to the British school system, including the much publicised forced conversion of all schools to academy status, the resulting abolition of the Local Education Authorities, the removal of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), the end of parent governors and the extension of the school day.

Currently any opposition to the education reforms are being attacked by Nicky Morgan’s Department for Education as “playing politics with our children’s future”. This comes despite these sweeping reforms having been brought forward with almost no consultation with teachers or with parents. The scale of these reforms were not included within the 2015 Conservative General Election manifesto and therefore there is no clear mandate.

Liberal Democrats are committed to strengthening the democratic process and ensuring that there is a just and representative system of government. The Cameron government appears to be showing a total disregard for our democratic processes. This alone gives our liberal party ample reason to oppose these reforms until they have been subject to proper consultation and discussion.
However, reviewing the basis and impact of the proposals raises further significant concerns.

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Tagged education and enforced academisation | 10 Comments

What next for Lib Dem drug policy?

By Henry Fisher | Wed 6th April 2016 - 12:45 pm

Wow, what a month March was for Liberal Democrat drug policy. First, the Lib Dem-commissioned independent panel report on cannabis regulation was published, advocating a framework for a fully legal regulated market for cannabis. Secondly, Norman Lamb proposed a motion to adopt the framework of the panel report as official party policy, which was subsequently voted in near-unanimously at conference. Finally, Norman presented a 10 Minute Rule Bill to the Commons, presenting our newly adopted policy to the rest of the House with an impassioned speech. The motion was voted through without contest and will now receive its second hearing later this month, on April 22nd. Progress indeed, although sadly it is deeply unlikely that the Bill will get past its second hearing.

However, before we congratulate ourselves too much having the most progressive drug policy of any UK party, we must ask ourselves what next? Where do we go from here? To know this, we must look at our existing policies, at what declarations we may have forgotten, and what new evidence can be brought to bear in shaping a truly liberal, evidence-based drug policy.

Ewan Hoyle, a long-time activist for drug policy reform within our party, alluded to this at conference, where he reminded the audience of the wider aims of our drug policy. In particular, he pointed out that much of the harm associated with drug use is often related to harder drugs, and it is these harms that it is essential we mitigate with intelligent policy interventions.

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Tagged drugs policy | 19 Comments

Reducing the Government’s Deficit is not the same as reducing the UK’s Deficit. 

By Peter Martin | Wed 6th April 2016 - 9:45 am

Now that the immediate fuss over the recent Budget has died down a little it is perhaps time for some more considered reflection on the nature of any criticism on the failure of the government, and George Osborne in particular, to make anywhere near the progress promised on the question of cutting the budget deficit. Maybe we can get it right for the next time it hits the headlines. The deficit problem is not going to be solved any time soon.

Naturally, the duty of an opposition is to constructively oppose, and so if the government’s deficit does not fall and total debt does rise, when the Government has a clear policy for just the opposite, then the Lib Dems, together with the other left of centre opposition parties, need to point out the failure of that policy. However, we need to be careful. That argument can be easily turned around. So we are in favour of even higher taxes and even more drastic cuts in public spending, are we? And when we say we are not, how does that chime with the public? Will they accept we are really being constructive? Aren’t they just going to think we want it both ways?

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Tagged debt, deficit and economy | 8 Comments

Laws on Osborne v Duncan Smith

By Joe Otten | Tue 5th April 2016 - 10:15 am

I wrote here recently on the claim by Iain Duncan Smith that he had been unhappy with the extent of cuts that George Osborne was demanding from the welfare budget.

Some light has been thrown on this by David Laws’ book Coalition, written before IDS’s resignation but published since.

Largely it seems to confirm Duncan Smith’s position. Not that he is a welfare dove by any means – for example when a complete welfare freeze for 2012 was proposed, while inflation was running at 5 per cent (p102)

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Tagged george osborne, iain duncan smith, welfare and welfare cuts | 24 Comments

Ethnic minority pupils outclass white British pupils

By Mary Reid | Mon 4th April 2016 - 3:26 pm

Embed from Getty Images

There are some interesting nuggets of information in CentreForum’s Annual Report on Education which was published today. Amongst other things, it identifies a north/south divide in attainment at secondary school and notes that there is still a significant gap between the achievements of disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

I am particularly pleased to see how well London pupils are doing. It wasn’t that long ago that London secondary schools were seen as failures. The London Challenge was an ambitious programme set up in 2003 to combat this and as a result some inner London local authorities went from being amongst the worst performing to the best performing nationally.

But the finding that has been picked up by the media relates to the performance of white British children. It seems that when they start school these children are ahead of their fellow pupils, but by the time they reach 16 they are well below average compared with other ethnic groups.

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Tagged BAME, centreforum and david laws | 44 Comments

LGBTI Scottish hustings reveals consensus on gender recognition law change

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd April 2016 - 3:15 pm

The five main Scottish Party leaders participated in a hustings organised by Stonewall Scotland, the Scottish Transgender Alliance, the Equality Network and LGBTI Youth Scotland. Those four organisations do ground-breaking work to support LGBTI people. Their role in providing positive and practical help can’t be under-estimated and they are helping to change the culture of the country.

If you are a young person struggling to come to terms with your sexuality or gender identity today, you can see that five party leaders, including the woman who runs the Scottish Government talk about how important it is that in school, at work, in society, you are free to live your life without discrimination. They agree that health services need to improve so that they meet your needs. Compare and contrast to even 20 years ago, when Section 28 (or 2A as it was in Scotland) was in force. It’s such a powerful signal of acceptance for all leaders to participate in something like this. It will help those young people walk taller, with more confidence.

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Tagged lgbti, Scotland, scottish parliament elections 2016 and willie rennie | 17 Comments

Enforced academisation plan is “bonkers”

By Paul Walter | Sun 3rd April 2016 - 12:14 pm

Embed from Getty Images

The chairman of the Conservative 1922 backbench committee and Tory councillors are reported to be angry with the government’s plan to force 17,000 schools in England to become academies by 2020.

Melinda Tilley, cabinet member for education in Oxfordshire said:

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Tagged academies, education and enforced academisation | 27 Comments

Willie Rennie: I want Scotland to be the best

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 3rd April 2016 - 8:36 am

In today’s Sunday Herald, Willie Rennie talks to political editor Tom Gordon about the Scottish Liberal Democrat campaign. He sets out the key Liberal Democrat themes:

I want to get Scotland back up there, with an ambitious programme for investing in education with a penny on income tax.

Protecting our civil liberties, getting our police force to be the best again so that it’s got the confidence of the public but also police officers themselves.

On the environment, making sure we have a very strong programme on fracking and not cutting Air Passenger Duty . And on the health service, making sure mental health services get the support they need and recruiting more GPs. You couldn’t be more positive than that.

As Holyrood gains new tax powers, Lib Dem plans to increase income tax by a penny to invest in education is the most radical in a set of fairly modest measures put forward by all the parties. The SNP have always talked a good fight, but when they are actually given significant power, it’s like they’ve been given a Ferrari that they won’t take out of second gear. Willie talked about the SNP’s timidity:

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Tagged Alistair Carmichael, Scotland, scottish parliament and willie rennie | Leave a comment

Agenda 2020 Essay Competition #22: What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 2nd April 2016 - 3:55 pm

The party ran an essay competition for members of the Liberal Democrats, to submit 1000 words on the theme “What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today.” The deadline for contributions was in November and the winner was announced at Spring Conference. If you would like us to publish your submission, send it to [email protected]. This one ended up on the shortlist, as Essay #9. It was mine. It dawned on me that I’d never actually published it on here and, as I’m currently en route for a week in the gorgeous Highlands, now seems to be a good time to let you read it. True to form I wrote it in about half an hour and submitted it about 10 minutes before the deadline.

The most important thing about being a Liberal Democrat today is that it is not a spectator sport. Liberalism is under threat from the politics of blame, fear and isolationism. Everyone who believes in freedom, social justice and the need to look after our planet needs to roll up their sleeves and live those values in every aspect of their lives. We need to find ever more creative and effective ways of countering the forces that threaten liberty, scapegoat groups of people and perpetuate inequality.

At the core of our belief, uniquely, is respect for the individual. Enforced or even encouraged conformity makes us weep. Our optimistic view of humanity drives us to create the conditions for all to thrive. While education is the cornerstone of human development, we understand it’s difficult to learn without food and shelter. We will stand up for the rights of those who don’t conform to society’s norms and will challenge attitudes which impose an oppressive expectation of behaviour. Unless it harms others, let it be.

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Tagged agenda 2020 essay competition | 3 Comments

Will North West Region choose to become a state party?

By Iain Donaldson | Sat 2nd April 2016 - 8:56 am

The Liberal Democrats are a growing party and week on week new colleagues join us in the battle to create a democratic and liberal nation in which success is founded on merit, policy is founded on evidence and citizens are treated equally.

This party has always championed the concept of subsidiarity, decisions being taken as close as possible to the people they affect. We were the party that pressed hardest for a North West Regional Parliament, and we are the party that in government delivered Devo-Manc and real prospect of Devo-Merseyside. It is not our preferred option of devolution and it does not devolve enough powers, but it is a beginning in the quest to achieve the Liberal Democrat ambition of a Federal United Kingdom within a Federal European Union.

The North West Region finds more General Election candidates than the Party in Scotland, the Party in Wales or the Party in any other region in England. We not only fill our own seats but we also export candidates to other regions and train candidates for other regions.

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Tagged constitution and north west region | 32 Comments

Problems identified with enforcing prohibition of legal highs

By Tobie Abel | Fri 1st April 2016 - 1:45 pm

There was an excellent article on Victoria Derbyshire show yesterday about the dramas the legal highs legislation is going through now the Police are having to consider its enforcement. The problems centre on the practical difficulties for police of proving that a substance is ‘psychoactive’, that is, that it actually gives people a high. Whilst this might lead to a surreal career opportunity for someone, the very process of defining what a legal high is shines a wonderful light on the futility of prohibition, with legal experts straining to find a form of words which makes mind altering substances illegal whilst still allowing for the use of substances as diverse as Super Tennants and Incense used by the Church of England!

The obvious answer is of course to end prohibition, gradually, and start proper regulation and control. Cannabis is an excellent first step, and it would be wise to make a success of that before moving on to other drugs, but the legal highs legislation is a wonderful opportunity to make the wider point whilst the country is listening. The government aim is to avoid the risks to users health and well being from dangerous legal highs, which is a noble aim. The entire thrust of the legislation however is now concentrated on giving police the powers to define legal highs in order to the shut down the shops selling them. This only makes sense in a very narrow ‘technical’ manner. If successful, the shops might be closed down, or maybe the sellers will either tweak their products to side-step the definition or simply move into the darker parts of the internet, which will only increase the risks to the end users. In the meantime the police have wasted money and man-power, the exchequer has raised not a single penny in taxation, and if anyone still believes that prohibition will stop the end users demand for these legal highs then they’re probably indulging in some mind altering substances of their own.

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Tagged legal highs and Psychoactive Substances Bill | 11 Comments

Tim Farron kickstarts local election campaign with 48 hour tour of key battlegrounds

By Tim Pickstone | Thu 31st March 2016 - 1:26 pm

Tim Farron is today kick starting the party’s local election campaign, with a two day tour of key battlegrounds. He will be campaigning with activists in Sheffield, Hull, Newcastle, Southport and Liverpool over the next 48 hours.

In just five weeks’ time Liberal Democrat campaigners will be defending 351 council seats across much of England, and campaigning for gains in many areas.

Local elections are, of course, about local issues. What matters to local people and what we campaign on can be different from ward to ward, never mind in different parts of the country.

But there are some key themes that will resonate across all of us:

Public Services

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Tagged local elections 2016 and tim farron | 5 Comments

Doing more for refugees

By Adam Hanrahan | Thu 31st March 2016 - 11:58 am

Last week, I was in Lesvos for a fieldclass. The module was ostensibly meant to focus on island economies, what issues does Lesvos’ economy face by virtue of being an island. On the second day of the class, it became clear that the real focus had to be about refugees not as statistics on a page. But as people.

We arrived in Lesvos on 19th March, the day the EU-Turkey deal came into effect. The next day, we went on a walk around Mitilini (the capital of Lesvos) when I took this photograph. It was meant to be a picture of the Greek Statue of Liberty, which celebrates their liberation from the Ottoman Empire. But in the bottom right hand corner of the picture, you will see a large ship, full of people waiting to leave.

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Tagged refugee crisis | 5 Comments

The vision for a Liberal Britain needs to be ours!

By Michael Beckett | Thu 31st March 2016 - 10:15 am

As a dyslexic, I am probably not the best person to write anything as others are often much more gifted and fluent with the written word than me. As someone educated at a comprehensive school, I’ve enjoyed the benefits of a fairly well rounded education. As a survivor of child sexual abuse, I have gone through some struggles, and I know I am not the only one who has had to overcome impediments in order to cope with life. I really appreciate those who, for whatever reason, have had barriers (that I know in a truly Liberal Britain wouldn’t be in their way), and have been able to overcome and unlock their potential.

So many people in the Liberal Democrats have stories of overcoming adversity and making a difference. I believe that this is why many of us are part of Team Lib Dem. A good start to making a Liberal Britain would be to celebrate our Lib Dems members’ achievements and then invest in helping them to advance to whatever their next level is. We are the party of education and our human capital is our most precious asset. We have often worked our volunteers hard at by-elections, but if we give more thought to investing in them, then we can expect to earn dividends of a more Liberal future.

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Tagged your liberal britain | 5 Comments

Papers score Willie Rennie as debate winner

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 30th March 2016 - 2:30 pm

After the second televised Scotish Leaders’ debate of the election, three newspapers have judged Willie Rennie to be the winner. The Press and Journal, not known for its undying devotion to the Liberal Democrat cause, gave him and Labour’s Kezia Dugdale the winning 7/10 score, saying that he “spoke with a personal touch.”

The Scottish Daily Mail, similarly without a history of Lib Dem love, also gave him 7/10, but made him the outright winner.

The Courier gave him 8/10 and also called him the winner.

Here’s a summary of the media coverage:

The verdict on #ScotDebates is in. @willie_rennie had so much fun he wants another debate https://t.co/9mHboQ1gVW pic.twitter.com/gks5rfJn3o

— Scot Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) March 30, 2016

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Tagged featured, Scotland, scottish leaders' debates and willie rennie | 10 Comments

Welfare welfare welfare – part of the LibDem Fightback

By Dean Crofts | Tue 29th March 2016 - 11:03 am

The Conservatives are tearing themselves apart and showing their true colours on cuts for the disabled and people on low incomes.

Welfare policy and tax within the Liberal Democrats are the areas WE can define ourselves as a party.

Beveridge, always stated that a welfare system is required to protect people who need protection but must avoid idleness and encourage individuals to take up their responsibilities.

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John Pugh writes: Our vision for Education

By John Pugh | Mon 28th March 2016 - 4:16 pm

In 2010 Michael Gove, acting before the ink was dry on the Coalition agreement, rushed the Academies Bill through Parliament. Governors were free to turn their school into an Academy Trust, without canvassing parental or local opinion . This being a little high-handed, I moved an amendment during the Commons debate requiring school governors to consult parents – particularly important as the government were pressing on with this radical change during the school holidays.

Gaining the support of Ed Balls, then Labour party Education spokesman, I pushed it to the vote and divided the House. We lost as most of my colleagues voted against and the Whips angrily informed me that trying to amend government legislation, however crass, was not how coalition in the Commons was meant to work. Now in 2016 we have even school governors sidelined as the Academy bandwagon, courtesy of the Tories smashes through every barrier.

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Tagged academies, education and featured | 19 Comments

The #LibDemFightback: things to look for on May 5th

By John Grout | Mon 28th March 2016 - 2:03 pm

I’ve never been one for negativity. I’m all for realism, however stark – provided that one is permitted to also consider how to change one’s circumstances if the current ones are dire. This is one of the many reasons why the Lib Dems attracted me as a party – evidence-based policy, and a ‘well, let’s fix it’ attitude to tackling problems, offering solutions and alternatives instead of simply complaining.

The membership surge after last May’s elections, and the ensuing #LibDemFightback have been extremely heartening. Outside the comfort zones of the Liberal Democrat community, the evidence for that fightback is there, but the new reality we face is that it is much harder to make ourselves heard than it was before last May.

So, I thought I’d try some evidence-gathering myself from council by-elections; you can see what I found here.

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Tagged #libdemfightback and local elections | 7 Comments

A longer read for the holiday weekend: The tangled path ahead for Liberal Democrat pacifists and non-Interventionists

By Jonathan Ferguson | Mon 28th March 2016 - 11:15 am

Embed from Getty Images

Lib Dem pacifists and non-interventionists will no doubt have had difficult adjusting to the decision to assist the government in supporting the coalition that is currently intervening in Syria and Iraq. Here, I will provide a few simple suggestions for how we can keep to our principles, but also avoid irresponsibly divisive behaviour.

No Irresponsible Dissent

Disagreeing with the decisions a party makes is perfectly reasonable. And criticism, per se, is not inadmissible. But criticism of one’s own party is not the same as criticism of individuals and organizations outside one’s own in-groups. Even if party loyalty is not an absolute, it is certainly a very weighty consideration.
As with so many matters pertaining to liberalism, the true test of loyalty is not the issues where most members agree, but the issues where there is a fundamental split on an issue of grave ethical importance. The true test for us is for grassroots and top level Lib Dems to maintain unity, even when it is genuinely heartbreakingly painful to go on.

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Tagged liberal interventionism, non-interventionism and pacifist | 13 Comments

Willie Rennie’s week – a whirlwind start to the campaign featuring children, animals and the other party leaders

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 27th March 2016 - 4:55 pm

You can tell there’s an election on. This week, Willie Rennie has painted Easter eggs, sung songs with children at a nursery, visited a farmers’ market and fed seals.

Here’s a look at a whirlwind week in Scotland. Some of it is quite funny.

Monday

Willie was supposed to be going to Amazon in Dunfermline to discuss working practices and pay with employees. At the last minute, Amazon cancelled the meeting. Undeterred, Willie went anyway and recorded this video outside the depot:

Locked outToday, I was supposed to visit Amazon in Dunfermline.At the last minute, they cancelled the visit, because they were too embarrassed to let me see conditions in the center – and too embarrassed by the wages they pay their staff.Big companies like Amazon, that receive government grants, should pay their staff the living wage.That’s why we will never pay government grants to companies that don’t pay the living wageAgree? Add your name here: scotlibdems.org.uk/livingwage

Posted by Willie Rennie on Monday, 21 March 2016

Tuesday

He was on Scotland 2016 to talk about the SNP’s tax plans, or lack of them. In short, they say they can raise £1.2 billion without anyone paying any more tax. That seems to defy the laws of any sort of finance.

Last night I was on Scotland 2016 talking about the SNP’s tax plans and challenged John Swinney’s claims over what this would mean for public services. The truth is that their plans will not raise an extra penny to invest in schools and deliver the transformation in education that we need.

Posted by Willie Rennie on Wednesday, 23 March 2016

Wednesday

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Tagged scottish parliament elections 2016 and willie rennie | 3 Comments

Lib Dems and the Middle-East: are we prepared to address the obvious?

By Jonathan Coulter | Sat 26th March 2016 - 6:22 pm

I am a “Newbie-Oldbie” and joined the Party after the 2015 elections. With a lifelong interest in international relations and career with much overseas work, I particularly wanted to find out where the Party stood on Middle Eastern affairs.

I decided to attend the York conference which had interesting fringe meetings dealing with both Israel/Palestine and Syria. What really struck was the contrast between the two cases. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a relatively straightforward clash between a settler-colonial movement and indigenous people, but that of Syria is really complicated, with many moving parts:

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Tagged middle east | 41 Comments

Can the Lib Dems learn from the Church?

By William Dyer | Sat 26th March 2016 - 1:25 pm

One of the obligatory truths of being a university student is that you become nocturnal. Staying awake until the small hours of the morning and rising just in time to get to your next lecture, even if that lecture is in the afternoon. It was on one of these nocturnal sessions that led me to watch ‘The Battle for Christianity’, written and presented by Professor Robert Beckford currently Professor in theology at Canterbury Christ Church University. This documentary took a look at where the heartbeat of Christianity is today, debunking the myth that church is still uniformly done to the keys of an organ.

As a practicing Christian, I have often perched myself on an uncomfortable pew, listened to the preacher, sat back and thought to myself, ‘the church and the Lib Dems are incredibly similar.’ This thought has occurred to me far too many times for me not to share it. Using ‘The Battle for Christianity’ and my own experience within the Liberal Democrats, I will seek to explain how to church has changed over my (relatively short) lifetime and what the Lib Dems can learn from this.

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Tagged church of england and liberal democrats | 22 Comments

Lord William Wallace writes… Fighting both the local elections and the EU referendum

By Lord William Wallace | Sat 26th March 2016 - 11:45 am

Whether we like it or not, the European Referendum campaign is already under way, threading in and out of the May elections. UKIP is hoping to make gains in the Welsh Assembly, and will be standing candidates in many local elections across England. Competing Leave campaigns fill the pages of the Mail and the Telegraph every day; leaflets are beginning to drop through letter boxes. LibDem activists who protest at the ‘distraction’ that the referendum campaign presents to local campaigning between now and May forget that voters don’t think about local and national politics in sharply-differentiated compartments. They also ignore the extent to which Conservative and UKIP candidates will be using nationalist and anti-EU themes in their pre-May campaigning.

Immigration is an issue that affects voters’ choices in local as well as national elections. Attitudes to asylum-seekers, and how far they should be welcomed into local communities, shape voting intentions. Internationally-minded people, generously-inclined towards outsiders and non-citizens, are likely to be natural Liberals – and potential members and activists. I recall canvassing on a former Council estate in Hull in 2004, with a Washington journalist who had asked to come with me to pick up attitudes towards the US after the Iraq invasion. The first person who opened his door to us started with complaining about cars parked on the grass verges; but 2 minutes later he had reached Iraq and how strongly opposed he was to British intervention alongside the Americans – without any prompting to move away from local issues.

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Tagged elections may 2016 and eu referendum | 11 Comments

EU Referendum: Are you still undecided?

By John Marriott | Fri 25th March 2016 - 12:55 pm

Those wishing to stay in the EU will point to the economic benefits of membership of what is still the world’s largest single market in an increasingly dangerous world and the unnecessary risks of our coming out, while those opposed to continued membership will cite the need to take back sovereignty ceded gradually to Brussels over the past forty years and to regain control of our borders. Their view is that then we could strike deals with the rest of the world and have a much more money to spend as we would not be paying into the EU coffers.

Neither side of the argument is in any way watertight. The ‘Common Market’ which some of us voted to remain in over forty years ago was very different from what we have created today. There are serious questions about the democratic deficit and whether it is still fit for purpose. Despite delivering prosperity and a certain degree of stability for over half a century there are some serious question marks over its its long term future. The Euro has hardly been a massive success and the EU GDP is currently shrinking. Probably the single biggest crisis for us all both in and out of the EU is how it will deal with migration from the Middle East and Africa, which currently shows no sign of abating.

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Tagged eu and eu referendum | 45 Comments

Fighting the war and peace in Libya

By Steve Walpole | Fri 25th March 2016 - 11:25 am

MP Tom Brake asked for input on whether we should support a war to defeat Da’esh in Libya. I would support such a war but with these provisos.

First, we must have an unequivocal resolution from the UN Security Council supporting any such action. The paltry effort which usually emanates from the council is not enough. Then the UN in general must put its money where its mouth is, both in gold and in its personnel. Here I do not mean just the usual suspects – the US, Canada, the UK, other european countries and a few from further afield but as many countries as is possible to convince to do so. We cannot do it without the support of the Arab League, the African Union and countries like Russia, Pakistan and others We must also have invitation and confidence from the Libyan government.

Second, in order to properly play our part and still be able to defend ourselves adequately, we have to take our Armed Forces establishment to the levels of before the coalition. The equipment we supply to our troops must be correct for first the war fighting and then afterwards the peacekeeping. We have to learn from our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, Urgent Operational Requirement notices were used to replace equipment which was failing our troops, or to fill a need existing equipment didn’t cover. This must not happen in Libya, our troops must have the best equipment on offerWe also have to have the willpower to keep the necessary troops in theatre to stop the debacle of our time in Helmand, when we were unable to hold the ground we patrolled and so took unnecessary casualties.

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Tagged foreign affairs, libya and military | 14 Comments

Federal Policy Committee meeting report

By Geoff Payne | Thu 24th March 2016 - 4:10 pm

This report concerns the meeting of the FPC that took place on 23rd March 2016. This was not the best-attended meeting of the cycle but there were some very interesting discussions nonetheless.

Consultation Session on Liberty and Security Working Group Paper

Brian Paddick attended to offer the committee an opportunity to comment on the consultation paper that was taken to Spring Conference by his working group. The consultation session at Spring Conference was standing room only and there were a number of views expressed in that meeting.

Brian explained that the Investigatory Powers Bill is starting its committee session in the Commons shortly. The committee was delighted to hear that the chair is to be Nadine Dorries MP.

Members of the committee made a number of points in response to the consultation. There were comments surrounding the rushed nature of the legislation, the need to keep the rhetoric on the proposed powers proportionate to the threat, the issues in relation to bulk retention and the privacy implications thereof. There were also comments about the need to ensure that legal professional privilege is inviolable,that there should be proper judicial oversight with submissions potentially being made by special advocates for the other side and the need to ensure that there are no hidden ‘back doors’ into encrypted data. Others made comments about identifying those things that we disagree with and those things where there is a debate to be had about the detail, for example judges versus minsters issuing authorisations. Others queried the effectiveness of the measures and made the point that the provisions may have a disproportionate effect on minority communities.

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Tagged committee reports, federal policy committee and internal party communication | 5 Comments

Minority Rule: The power dynamic of social liberalism

By Eden Watkins | Thu 24th March 2016 - 1:27 pm

A few weeks ago now I started using a different name. First, I told my close friends and family about the change, then mentioned it in passing to acquaintances who asked how to address me, then I changed my Facebook, Twitter, email adress, all of my public facing profiles and simply began to expect people to use it as if it was the name I was baptised with. Yet curiously, even the most classically liberal of my classical liberal friends tolerated this action. Without consulting them, I made a decision about how they would use language, informed them of my choice and simply expected them to obey. Why did they accept this blatant disregard for their liberty to refer to me however they wish?

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5 Comments