Category Archives: Op-eds

Paul Walter

Is being an MP a rubbish job?

By Paul Walter | Sat 16th April 2016 - 7:54 pm

Nigel Morris in the i reports:

Lonely MPs are finding it almost impossible to balance their jobs with ordinary family life, according to a survey of politicians who quit Parliament at last year’s election.

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Paul Walter

Timely reminder – when the Guardian’s attempt to influence US politics backfired spectacularly

By Paul Walter | Sat 16th April 2016 - 11:54 am

Owen Jones in the Guardian recently wrote an article entitled: “I signed an open letter to Donald Trump, and you should too”:

Trump’s unapologetic embrace of racism, xenophobia and misogyny vindicates all of those ugly prejudices the world over. And millions of Americans are horrified about Trump. They deserve our solidarity and support. There is, after all, another United States, one forged by immigrants and transformed by courageous Americans who fought racism, sexism and homophobia. That is a United States millions of us believe in. And that is why we should sign this letter.

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Caron Lindsay

The “trailblazing, hell-raising rule breaking Rennie”

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 15th April 2016 - 4:28 pm

Another Friday, another day Willie Rennie wins the internet.

I don’t think there has ever been such fun at a manifesto launch ever.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats’ manifesto is centred around opportunity in so many ways. Children are at the very heart of it, so it seemed appropriate that the event took place in a soft play event in Edinburgh. And if you are going to go there, you need to get into the spirit of the place. You can’t afford to look too stiff and sober. And Willie didn’t.

The team got three specific things right. First a bit of humour, reminding everyone how you won the internet last week too.

And, let’s be honest, it’s a bit of a treat to imagine hard-nosed political hacks being asked to wait in a room like this:

Finally, if you have a leader who can do a 3 second pitch while going down a slide, then that’s a talent you have to exploit.

Jamie Ross from Buzzfeed absolutely loved it:

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The Bearing Group – helping to build a more liberal UK

By Anonymous Lib Dem | Fri 15th April 2016 - 3:00 pm

In the wake of the electoral wipe out of the Liberal Democrats in May 2015 I was thoroughly disappointed. Disappointed by a national election campaign that was lacklustre and had lost the pulse of the British public. Disappointed by the voters so easily caught up in the scaremongering of a Labour/SNP alliance. Disappointed at those who ran to the Conservatives in blind hope of a stable economy that had been achieved not through Tory cuts but Liberal Democrat moderation.

In all honestly I lost faith in the ability of the Liberal Democrats to deliver the liberal Britain we need. The PR disaster was so staggeringly absolute that it seemed to sound the death knell for liberal politics at a national level for years to come. I was delighted that my expectations were exceeded by the surge of membership and a new leader who seems to have real change on his mind.

However, in that gap I decided to take a step myself – towards doing my best to personally shift public discourse back towards liberalism in a way not bound to the fortunes of political parties and the party political tactics which grow increasingly divisive as more parties join the fray. That initiative created The Bearing Group.

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Baroness Emma Nicholson

Baroness Emma Nicholson writes…We must maintain momentum to end sexual violence in conflict

By Baroness Emma Nicholson | Fri 15th April 2016 - 11:59 am

On a ferociously hot day in Baghdad a few months ago, I listened as a young Yazidi girl slowly and carefully told me her horrific story.

Captured by the monstrous Daesh when her village in Northern Iraq was overrun, Nadia had been sold to the highest bidder, an elderly thug called Selman, who proceeded to rape this poor girl on a daily basis. Any resistance was met with fists and boots.

As we finally abandoned the sweltering heat of the garden for the cool of the hotel lobby, Nadia burst into floods of tears as she told me about one particularly gruesome day.

Selman had become outraged at her attempted resistance to his vicious sexual assaults which left her battered and bruised. So in revenge he allowed all six of his bodyguards to drag her into the bedroom and rape her. One after the other, over and over again.

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Claire Tyler

Claire Tyler writes…We need to invest in all our young people

By Claire Tyler | Thu 14th April 2016 - 2:02 pm

When it comes to the big debates on education, invariably the focus is on schools and universities. It’s all about academic success, exam league tables and access to higher education. On the rare occasions that the focus isn’t on institutions, it’s on apprenticeships. The attention governments of all hues have paid to these flagship policies have obscured one very important fact: the majority of young people—53%—do not follow the ‘traditional’ academic route into work.

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Alice Thomas

Offshore 101, or: Can we please stop asking David Cameron to resign?

By Alice Thomas | Thu 14th April 2016 - 12:56 pm

One of my favourite things about the Liberal Democrats is members don’t just get stuck into debates – they go looking for the evidence to back up what they’ve got to say. That’s why this week’s furore around what David Cameron did or didn’t do has been so frustrating.

The Panama Papers are fascinating to me, as a lawyer and a would-be tax specialist. It looks likely that when the dust has settled there will be evidence of money laundering, of tax evasion, of tax avoidance and of regulatory failings. But so far most journalists and commentators are throwing around words like fund and trust as if they’re the same thing, and treating tax avoidance, tax evasion and money laundering as equivalent acts. Unfortunately, much of the social media discussion so far has accepted these red herrings.

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Paul Walter

Is Leeds showing the way forward on prostitution?

By Paul Walter | Wed 13th April 2016 - 1:50 pm

Considering our own forward-thinking policy on prostitution, I wonder if readers approve of the scheme currently being run in Leeds. The BBC reports:

A suburb in Leeds is the first place in the UK where it is permitted for women to sell sex between specified hours. The “managed approach” was introduced to try to control the trade.

…in this specified network of roads, street prostitutes can sell their services from 19.00 to 07.00 BST, without being stopped by police.

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Paul Walter

Africa’s Super Sunday

By Paul Walter | Wed 13th April 2016 - 12:20 pm

Recently on holiday in West Africa, I was somewhat torn. There was a strong temptation to leave my political conscience in a left luggage locker at Gatwick. Indeed, I think I did to an extent. I was, after all, on holiday and, being in a rural “eco lodge”, I was able to mix with ordinary Africans and provide some support to the local economy.

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Paul Walter

St Ives referendum – Is this the way forward to stop seaside idylls being ghost towns?

By Paul Walter | Wed 13th April 2016 - 10:50 am

The idyllic, but seagull-dive-bombed, seaside town of St Ives is holding a referendum, as the BBC reports:

On 5 May, the council will ask residents to vote on a new town plan, which includes a promise to restrict second home ownership.
If the vote is passed, new housing projects will get planning permission only on condition that the homes are reserved for people to live in full-time. Developers will not be allowed to sell the buildings to anyone who has a residence elsewhere.

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Paul Walter

The government’s EU “remain” booklet hits the doormats…and it is spookily reminiscent of its 1975 counterpart

By Paul Walter | Wed 13th April 2016 - 9:50 am

P1010392 (2)Here’s the very booklet I received yesterday from Her Majesty’s government. It’s a rather dry looking document, but the message is clear, as it is repeated, more or less, three times on the cover of the booklet:

Why The Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is in the best decision for the UK.

…on the front and:

The Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK.

and

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Caron Lindsay

Seven candidates and an electorate of three – the strangest by-election ever?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th April 2016 - 7:53 pm

By next Tuesday, we’ll have a new parliamentarian, a new hereditary member of the House of Lords. A House of Lords by-election is being held following the death last month of Eric Avebury, who is already very much missed.

I’m not going to lie, that doesn’t sit terribly comfortably with me. The idea that you could get a place determining the laws we all have to live by just because you were lucky enough to be your parents’ firstborn son is the first big problem. The second logically follows on – it’s an all male electorate deciding from an all male field.  Half of me wonders if we couldn’t have just said “No, this is archaic, we aren’t going to do it.” However, is it really that much worse than a parliamentary chamber that’s appointed? We don’t like it, but there’s a lot of good work it can do. We’re saddled with a majority Conservative Government stitching up the political system in its favour despite having been elected by just over a third of the electorate. The Lords have frustrated them on several occasions over really important issues like housing, immigration and tax credits.  Another Liberal Democrat on the benches has to be a good thing.

There are seven candidates for the place and an electorate of just three, the remaining Liberal Democrat hereditary peers, Dominic Addington, Patrick Glasgow and Raymond Asquith.

Ballot papers are available from today and the result will be announced on Tuesday 19th. Electoral Reform Services have been engaged for the not very onerous task of counting the ballot papers and determining the result.

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Joe Otten

Brexit as political arson by David Miliband

By Joe Otten | Tue 12th April 2016 - 10:40 am

It isn’t the done thing here to link to opinion pieces in the newspapers by Labour politicians. So much that I’m not even sure what category to use. We have LibLink for links to articles by Liberal Democrats, and we have the slightly oddly named “Independent View” for articles by non-members.

But sometimes, hang the taxonomy, this is important enough to link to anyway.

David Miliband steps away from arguments over the costs of membership and Brexit, of whether we could get back the agreements on trade, policing, etc, that Brexit would tear up, the implications, if any, on immigration. Instead he looks at the bigger picture.

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Benjamin Sims

Why, after a year of being involved with the Lib Dems, I’ll be renewing my membership

By Benjamin Sims | Mon 11th April 2016 - 6:51 pm

I was sad to see Josh Lashkovic’s article explaining why he won’t be renewing his membership. I was one of the enthusiastic newbies he refers to; I met him in that summer of 2015, and I thought he was a great guy with interesting ideas for ways the party could move forward after its electoral wipeout.

I’m a great enthusiast for the idea of the Lib Dems as a startup, and I share his desire for the party to change. My experiences over the last year though have been completely different to his, and I’d like to explain where I think he’s wrong and see if he might reconsider.

Just because we need new methods, doesn’t mean we should throw out the old ones

I have indeed knocked on a lot of doors and I’ve delivered a lot of leaflets. But just because those methods are old doesn’t mean they’re obsolete. My first full campaign was, yes, ‘another council by-election’ and we did ‘spend evenings and weekends knocking on doors’. But we came second somewhere we’d never had a candidate before (a new entrant disrupting an established market, you might say) and we learnt a lot.

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Chris Key

The erosion of British local democracy

By Chris Key | Mon 11th April 2016 - 2:54 pm

 

Slowly but surely, local democracy is being eroded away by the Conservatives and crumbling into the sea, like parts of the British coastline. Not everyone in Britain knows this is happening. Here is how…

The decision of forcing all schools to become academies, far from improving local democracy, will see decisions taken by Academy Executives who may live hundreds of miles from your school. Take the example of the E-ACT Academy trust, which has decided to remove local governing bodies entirely.

According to the Local Government Association, there is a forecast need for over 880,000 new primary school places in the UK over the next 10 years. This will require coordination and planning to ensure new schools and places are located in areas of need, rather than the free-for-all which will now ensue. In future, when parents of children at academies want to complain, they will have to go to a mandarin in Whitehall and getting a timely response and action will be as easy as getting Ryanair to give you compensation for a delayed flight.

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Mark Pack

Looking for more women

By Mark Pack | Mon 11th April 2016 - 12:58 pm

Margaret WintringhamThe Liberal Democrat History Group faces a double bind when it comes to finding authors and topics for our articles, books and meetings cover the history of the Liberal Democrats and our predecessor parties.

The superficial explanation is that our output is bound to be dominated by men because that is how political has been. Just look at the ranks of male party leaders, for example. And look at how nearly all the biographers of our party leaders have been men. So whether we’re looking at topics or authors, you might think we’re bound to be dominated by men for understandable reasons. No problem there. Move along please.

Except it there is rather more to it than this, for when you scratch under the service it is clear things do not have to be quite this way.

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Jonan Boto

The EU Referendum – Don’t believe UKIP, believe Sir Winston (and his fellow Liberal Democrats)

By Jonan Boto | Mon 11th April 2016 - 11:22 am

Current soundbites aren’t doing this vote justice…

The arguments are well rehearsed by now. Boris’ land of milk, honey from Canada and ‘Nike tick growth’ versus Cameron’s doom, despair and economic shock. The land of Farage and UKIP freedom fighters versus job-destroying years of negotiation on separation terms (Canada’s EU trade deal: 7 years and counting).

The EU is fairly imperfect, and EU free movement makes immigration policy that much more difficult (although over 50% of migration to the UK comes from outside the EU). Cameron’s renegotiation, grand tour of Europe, and media-focused town halls are a fair attempt to address issues. But they don’t quite do it for me. (Why not travel the UK instead, to better understand people’s concerns and bolster the renegotiation?) As for UKIP, forget them: they have become the damn establishment, and their MEPs don’t even turn up for UK interests (see FT 2014 analysis).

There’s one statesman, however, I would go into battle with. So, what would Churchill have said?

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Lynne Featherstone

Baroness Lynne Featherstone writes…The State killed my nephew

By Lynne Featherstone | Mon 11th April 2016 - 10:00 am

It’s true. Nick was a haemophiliac and was infected with Hepatitis C and exposed to CJD through NHS treatment. And the Government knew the treatments were contaminated. They were warned. The NHS used blood treatment which bought blood – from American convicts. But the government carried on using contaminated blood products despite those warnings.

The result was 4670 haemophiliacs in the UK infected with HIV, Hepatitis C or both – and many exposed to CJD. In regard of the latter the consequences of that exposure are still unknown. In terms of HIV and Hepatitis C almost all haemophiliacs were infected with one or other or both. Over 2000 have died.

Nick died of Hepatitis C – or rather he died from a treatment meant to cure it. Nick was 35 years old, and left a 10 month old daughter, his partner of fourteen years. Nick’s mother (my sister), his father and his twin will never get over that loss. And that loss is made worse by the battle to get financial support and to get the government to admit its fault. It has never done so. The crucial papers were destroyed according the Department of Health.  Lord David Owen, former British Health Minister said ‘I can see why some people would be unhappy with having all the facts revealed because it will show negligence’.  No public inquiry has taken place. It must.

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Caron Lindsay

Should politicians publish their tax returns?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 8:33 am

Here’s Tim Farron telling Sky News on Friday that he is going to release his tax return, regardless of whether anyone else does. He said he made his decision because he thought that people had “a right to have their confidence in their leaders enhanced and not further diminished.”

Tim Farron: “I’m Going To Publish My Tax Return”“It’s up to him. I’m going to.” Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron on whether David Cameron should publish his tax return.

Posted by Sky News on Friday, 8 April 2016

And so, David Cameron has now published his tax return. It doesn’t really tell us anything that we didn’t know already. We discover that he’s a rich man. We discover that he and his wife get more in rent for their Notting Hill home every year than some of our homes are worth. They are getting in more than £7,500 per month.

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Tom Brake

Tom Brake MP writes….On International Romani Day we should all remember the need for human rights to be given to all groups in Europe

By Tom Brake | Fri 8th April 2016 - 11:51 am

Today is International Romani Day, a day to celebrate the culture and raise awareness of one of the most misunderstood groups within Europe. Romani people have faced severe persecution over the last century but are tragically often forgotten and that is why this day is important.

Tragically, Romani people are still facing persecution and are being denied equal human rights within Europe.

Our continent is buckling under the strain of the greatest humanitarian crisis it has faced since the last World War, tensions are running high in areas struggling to cope with an influx of men, women and children who have had to flee their homes to escape the destruction and tyranny of terrorist groups and dictators. Sadly, as these people reach the borders of states unable or unwilling to welcome the number of people who have arrived needing protection, human rights are often being forgotten and protection and fair treatment is not being given.

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Caron Lindsay

Is it Game Over for Cameron?

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th April 2016 - 10:24 am

A few years ago, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives had to resign effectively because he’d taken a few taxi journeys that he shouldn’t on parliamentary expenses. This was the result of the much stronger freedom of information rules in Scotland and was part of our own expenses scandal in 2005.

If those are the standards which merit resignation, David Cameron should perhaps have been a little more careful over the statements he made earlier in the week over his personal financial dealings. He might have told us that he didn’t have any shares now, but holding back the information that he had held shares in his father’s offshore trust for 13 years before selling them just before he became Prime Minister demonstrates a lack of candour. Why couldn’t he just have been up front about it at the beginning of the week? We should expect more from our political leaders.

Tim Farron agrees, telling the Mirror:

The Prime Minister has for days denied that he had offshore funds but has been dragged to the truth.

For ordinary taxpayers to have faith in the system they have to be able to have faith in their leaders. They deserve better than half truths and qualified statements.

It might be an idea for the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to review the matter to make sure that Cameron always kept to the rules on registering these shares. At first glance, it looks as though he did. The rules for registering shareholdings are as follows:

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Henk van Klaveren

What the UK can learn from the Dutch referendum

By Henk van Klaveren | Fri 8th April 2016 - 8:55 am

With just under three months to go the EU referendum, the low turnout and overwhelming majority against the Ukraine-EU Association Treaty in a Dutch referendum is not a good omen. It is a good moment to take stock. The campaign is about to start, with the official designation of the Remain and Leave campaigns due soon. What lessons can the UK learn from the Dutch referendum experience?

The good news first: the UK referendum really matters, whereas the Dutch one did not. The Ukraine-EU Association Treaty is important geopolitically but for the average Dutch voter, ratification will not change their daily lives. It allowed them a protest vote seemingly without consequence. Those that could bother to vote – less than a third of voters, with many supporters staying at home in the hope that the required 30% threshold would be missed – predictably took that opportunity with both hands.

Here, the EU referendum will have a very real impact on people’s daily lives. That should focus minds but there is a risk: a referendum is rarely about the subject on the ballot paper. Only when the question is crystal clear and on a topic of relevance to the voters will the campaign focus on that. The Scottish referendum campaign was a good example of where that worked well. Everybody could relate to the question at hand and because it was such a momentous decision, people were extremely engaged in the debate.

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Andrew Venning

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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Adam Bennett

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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Jamie Dalzell

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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Henry Fisher

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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Peter Martin

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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Joe Otten

Laws on Osborne v Duncan Smith

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

David Laws CoalitionI 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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Mary Reid

Ethnic minority pupils outclass white British pupils

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

 

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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Caron Lindsay

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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