Category Archives: Op-eds

Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem parliamentarians mark #timetotalk day

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 4th February 2016 - 11:16 pm

Today has been Time to Talk day, Time for Change’s annual initiative to get more people to talk about mental health. It’s something we’ve done to great effect over the last couple of years. You can read the many moving and personal articles our readers have written here.

One Liberal Democrat parliamentarian who was definitely talking about mental health today was Welsh AM Eluned Parrott. She led a debate in the Senedd this afternoon.

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Caron Lindsay

Tim on Tour – talking, campaigning and almost not getting fed

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 4th February 2016 - 8:50 pm

Tim Farron has been out and about doing what he loves best around the country – campaigning with big groups of Liberal Democrats, knocking on people’s doors and spreading the Lib Dem word.

In a hectic 36 hours, he fitted in stops in Manchester, Edinburgh and Cardiff. He’s actually going to Cardiff again on Saturday to speak at Welsh Conference, too.

He recorded this video from the campaign office of Alex Cole-Hamilton, candidate for Edinburgh Western and one of the few human beings who could challenge Tim for sheer campaigning energy:

My latest TimTalks, straight from Alex Cole-Hamilton’s campaign office in Edinburgh Western!

Posted by Tim Farron on Wednesday, 3 February 2016

His theme was partly about motivation and encouraging people to get out on the doorsteps and partly one-party states – highlighting the situation in Manchester where Labour hold virtually every Council seat and the SNP’s stranglehold on power in Scotland.

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Baroness Kath Pinnock

Baroness Kath Pinnock writes…Flexible childcare: Another Lib Dem victory

By Baroness Kath Pinnock | Thu 4th February 2016 - 5:55 pm

Who is going to look after the children?

One of the biggest worries for working parents is finding high quality and affordable childcare. It is also one of the biggest barriers, especially for women, to getting back into work.

So, when the chance came to ease those worries by improving what childcare the Government were offering, we grabbed it.

Liberal Democrats, of course, recognise that childcare is a critical issue for parents of pre-school children and successfully introduced childcare for two year olds from disadvantaged families. An increase in hours available for all 3 and 4 year olds was in our Manifesto. So we were in broad agreement with the Government Bill to increase the free childcare offer to 30 hours per week during school times.

Throughout the Bill we argued that this was a great opportunity to extend the free hours to school holidays and outside the normal school day. Parents and providers told us that the school holidays often turned out to be a nightmare to organise and could cost a small fortune. Parents who worked non-standard hours in a great variety of jobs such as nursing, cleaning, social care, and catering told us that they ended up paying for childcare when parents who worked during the school day were able to have free childcare.

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Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes… Sources of UK extremism

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 4th February 2016 - 12:56 pm

Part of our role in both houses of Parliament is to hold the government to the commitments they – often reluctantly – give.  One of the five conditions Lib Dem parliamentarians established in return for supporting the extensions of air operations over Iraq to Syria was that the government should set up an enquiry into sources of funding for extremist versions of Islam within the UK.  Alastair Carmichael in the Commons, and myself in the Lords, are holding the Conservatives to the promise they made to report on this by ‘the Spring of 2016’. Alastair has pressed ministers on the size and quality of the ‘Extremism Analysis Unit’ set up in the Home Office to cover this.  I asked an oral question in the Lords yesterday (February 3rd) on how thoroughly overseas funding will be investigated, from both foreign government and from private sources. In both cases, the answers have been that the government is acting on this commitment, but there are clear reasons why we should continue to put pressure on them to deliver.

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Shoaib Bajwa

Do we need to reinforce our open-minded, tolerant and liberal credentials?

By Shoaib Bajwa | Thu 4th February 2016 - 10:24 am

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities represent a growing proportion of the UK. In 2010 they made up a total of 14% of the population and 8% of the voters. Yet at the last general election the majority (52%) of BAME voters cast their ballot for Labour not the Lib Dems. In fact over two thirds – 67% – of the black community voted Labour, with 38% of the Asian community voting Conservative.

Lib Dem opposition to the Iraq war in 2003 won the party a legion of new supporters, many from BAME communities, who felt let down by Labour’s march to war. The result was that in the 2005 general election the Lib Dems polled 16% from ethnic minority voters, with support particularly high amongst Pakistani voters amongst whom they polled 25%. Fast forward a decade and Lib Dem support among BAME voters in 2015 had collapsed to just 4%. It’s clear that the Party urgently needs to address this, and find neat innovative ways to appeal to BAME voters whose trust has been lost perhaps because of lack of engagement and lack of attention at the top of the party.

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Caron Lindsay

Is the Basic Income Guarantee an idea whose time has come?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 1:40 pm

Way back when I was first involved in politics, the ideas that everyone should have a basic income and that tax and national insurance should be integrated were mainstream SDP/Liberal Alliance ideas.

The Greens have in recent years been the only party to advocate such a change but during the General Election, Natalie Bennett was unable to convince people that it was affordable.

This week, think-tank Reform Scotland has come up with a costed scheme to give every adult a basic income of £100 per week and every child £50. The authors, Liberal Democrat Siobhan Mathers and Scottish Green candidate James Mackenzie, acknowledge that there would be a cost, around £2 billion in Scotland, £12 billion across the whole UK and that personal taxation rates would have to rise by about 8%, but that nobody earning under £26,000 a year would be worse off. However, with 2 children, a £100k household would be over £1200 a year better off

It’s certainly radical, with those on lowest incomes gaining and those on £100,000 without children being around £2,200 a year worse off, but isn’t that what a progressive tax system is supposed to do? There is a question, though, around whether a £100k household needs to be mae £1200 a year better off courtesy of the state.

The report argues that there are seven big advantages of such a scheme:

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Phil Aisthorpe

Is protecting wildlife a political issue?

By Phil Aisthorpe | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 12:25 pm

Viewers of BBC’s Winterwatch last week were treated to some wonderful coverage of the private lives of key Scottish Highland predator species such as the golden eagle, fox, and pine marten and a species of particular interest here, a non-predator, the mountain hare. Mountain hares as their name suggests live in upland areas and this includes grouse moors. A grouse moor is an odd environment that at first sight looks natural but is in fact intensively managed in favour of a single species, the red grouse. The perceived villains here are the predators such as the crow, fox and weasel that take a share of the grouse eggs and chicks earmarked for a demanding clientele during the shooting season, and many such predators are routinely removed by gamekeepers in order to maintain artificially high numbers of grouse. However it may come as something of a surprise to learn that the inoffensive mountain hare is also high on the gamekeeper’s hit list. The mountain hare’s crime is to be a warm blooded mammal and therefore a potential host for the ticks that transmit louping-ill disease (don’t ask) to the hapless grouse.

Because the mountain hare is believed to transmit disease to the grouse it is intensively culled. In December 2014, Scottish National Heritage alarmed by the destruction, led calls for grouse moors to exercise ‘voluntary constraint’ on excessive mountain hare culling and last year a group of ten conservation groups in Scotland called on Scottish National Heritage to upgrade this to an immediate three-year ban to allow a breathing space for the conservation status of the species to be accurately determined. And this is the point of the story, the grouse moor manager is entitled to cull the mountain hare without restraint on little evidence other than supposition, whereas the conservationist has to scientifically prove beyond reasonable doubt that protection of the species is justified. The dice are therefore loaded; the jury is rigged. A far higher burden of proof is required to protect wildlife than that needed to destroy wildlife.

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Paul Walter

Migrants’ benefits debate is a proxy channel for xenophobia in some quarters

By Paul Walter | Wed 3rd February 2016 - 9:39 am

“EU referendum: David Cameron wins Theresa May’s backing” – reads the Guardian headline this morning.

Hello? Theresa May is the Home Secretary! It is incredible that her backing for Cameron on this is presented as some sort of surprise. What the Prime Minister does should automatically have the backing of the whole cabinet. Are we saying that there are cabinet ministers who do not support the Prime Minister on his referendum stance?

The cabinet’s support for the PM on a crucial national matter appears to be in question. This is quite an extraordinary state of affairs.

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David Warren

Blue Collar Liberals update

By David Warren | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 2:50 pm

In October 2015 I wrote an article for Lib Dem Voice entitled ‘We Need More Blue Collar Liberals’. Since then I have been attempting to keep the issues raised by the article ‘live’, turning statements by leading figures in our party regarding encouraging people from lower socio economic groups to become more involved in the Liberal Democrats into concrete actions.

These efforts haven’t met with any success so far.

With the notable exception of EMLD, the dialogue has not resulted in anything concrete and a cynic might say that the party hierachy appears more than happy with the comfort zone of the status quo.

This has led me to consider launching a group probably called  ‘Blue Collar Liberals’, (although I am open to alternative suggestions), with the following founding statement:

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Kevin Lang

Adventures of a Liberal Democrat at the Iowa caucuses – Part 3

By Kevin Lang | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 1:20 pm

Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 11.10.23Monday 1 February

It’s a polling day of a different kind. Rather than 15 hours of voting, everything is crammed into just 2 hours.
Across the state, individual caucuses will be held in an astonishing 1,681 locations. There is one caucus for every precinct (polling district) with each one requiring a chair to oversee proceedings and a speaker for each of the candidates. It requires a phenomenal level of planning and organisation by both the Democrat and Republican state parties.

I get out during the day and visit the Iowa Historical Museum with its brilliant ‘first in the nation’ exhibition, including memorabilia dating back to the first caucuses in the early 1970s. Geoff, my guide, easily wins the prize for the most overexcited Iowan of my visit so far. He can of course be excused on this, his day of days. He reels off facts and joyously regales the tale of when his neighbour offered his house as a caucus site in 2008, only for it to be overrun with voters in that record breaking turnout year. “He put the Clintons in his front room, the Edwards in his kitchen and Obamas upstairs”, he said, “he was able to fit all the Dodds and Bidens in his bathroom!”

And so caucus hour arrives at 7pm. I’m covering Polk County’s 80th precinct caucus, held in the Wright Elementary School on the south side of Des Moines. It’s a precinct in which Obama beat Romney by over 30% in 2012 so there are lots of Democratic voters for the three campaigns to haggle over.

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John Marriott

Putting our faith in ‘Leaders’ – There are lessons to be learned

By John Marriott | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 12:01 pm

The recent acquittal of the former Executive Head of the Lincoln Priory Chain of Academies and his Director of Finance appears to have caused a few raised eyebrows in many areas. It is not my intention to pass my own personal judgement on the rights and wrongs of the case. What concerns me more is the fact that the Department of Education considered there to be sufficient grounds to ask the local police to conduct an enquiry which eventually led to a court case that is set to cost the taxpayer a considerable amount of money.

This is not the first time that so called ‘Super Heads’ have made the headlines following revelations about their conduct. If you add to that the affair in 2013 of Lincolnshire’s Acting Chief Constable, who was first suspended by our Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), was exonerated by an enquiry and then reinstated with an apology from the PCC at a cost to the taxpayer of around £160,000, you can see that putting our faith in the judgement of individuals without effective and stringent checks and balances can land us in a great deal of trouble and cause embarrassment to institutions that ought to have our respect.

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Robin Teverson

Lord Robin Teverson writes…A greener future? It’s not in the Tories’ nature

By Robin Teverson | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 10:58 am

No-one can say that this Government has not fully embraced David Cameron’s mantra to ‘cut the green crap.’ Since getting to power they have, one by one, removed, restricted and reduced the green initiatives put in place under the Liberal Democrats’ watch.

Today, in the House of Lords, we will stand against the latest cuts. The Government plan to cut the Feed-in-Tariff scheme early will result in nearly 20,000 losing their jobs and half of the solar sector disappearing more or less overnight. The Government snuck this past the Commons, and now, given a chance in the Lords, we will send it back.

Today we will remind the Government that supporting green industry is vital to building an economy fit for the future, and, more importantly than that, it will save the world in the long run.

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Joe Otten

Theatre review: King Charles III

By Joe Otten | Tue 2nd February 2016 - 10:12 am

Picture Charles III, risen to the throne after a lifetime of waiting, ready to be consulted and give his advice on affairs of state, finding his views ignored and being unwilling in good conscience to give royal assent to a bill to regulate the press.

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David Allen

Why the polls really got it wrong

By David Allen | Mon 1st February 2016 - 6:38 pm

The statisticians appointed by the British Polling Council have spoken.  The cause of the 2015 opinion poll disaster was – wait for it – statistical sampling error.  Pollsters chose the wrong mix of people.  Never mind that they had previously blamed bad statistics for their 1992 disaster, and thought they had then sorted out how to do the maths.

Meanwhile, professionals and pundits agreed that asking which party had the best leader was, consistently, a more reliable guide to who would win.  Thus, if they’d just relied on the finding that Cameron led Miliband in 2015, they’d have called it right.

Hang on, though!  If the problem was really a faulty, Labour-biased sample, then why should that sample be any less biased when asked “Who’s the best leader?”  If you have a biased sample, changing the question you ask them cannot possibly get rid of the bias!

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Tim Farron MP

Let’s celebrate LGBT history month

By Tim Farron MP | Mon 1st February 2016 - 5:01 pm

LGBT history monthLGBT History Month is a wonderful opportunity for us all to celebrate LGBT’s contribution to society and promote a more equal and diverse society which benefits us all.

The Liberal Democrats have been steadfast in campaigning for LGBT equality and inclusion working with a variety of organisations to make sure that a multiplicity of voices are heard and considered in Westmister and beyond.

The last Parliament marked a historic step in challenging the status quo. The Equal Marriage Act driven by the Liberal Democrats in Government was celebrated up and down the country but it is not always just the big things that count. We have been calling for proper sex ed in schools, an end to discrimination against transgender individuals by the state and better representation of LGBT individuals in public life. This change will not come overnight but I am certain that with a coalition of organisations, activists, politicians and public personalities all working together with common purpose change will come.

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Peter Martin

Are we targeting the wrong deficit?

By Peter Martin | Mon 1st February 2016 - 1:56 pm

 

Keynes and his contemporaries did not share our present day casual attitude to the imbalances we see in international trade. The monthly, or quarterly, trade figures were a regular and prominent feature of our business news, at one time, but we have to look much harder to find those same figures now.

Keynes’s proposal that international trade be separated from domestic trade by the use of a separate international currency, the Bancor, formed part of the official British proposals at the 1944 Bretton Woods  conference  which set the international financial and monetary arrangements for the post war period. Unfortunately this was a step too far for the Americans at the time. The proposal, had it been adopted, would have penalised the surplus nations, making it less attractive for countries to run large export surpluses and would have encouraged the deficit nations to re-align their currencies to reduce their deficits.

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James Baillie

Community – a liberal value in a changing world

By James Baillie | Mon 1st February 2016 - 12:45 pm

 

Community is – rightly – considered a fundamental part of our values as liberals. Beyond its inclusion in our basic creeds, however, it is perhaps one of the less discussed and debated parts of Liberal Democrat belief. Whilst much ink is continually spilt over our positions on equality and liberty, what “community” means is perhaps too often taken as a given.

I want to suggest that we need to think about this more, because community has to stand at the core of a liberal society – and not just in the sense of localism that “community” is too often restricted to in discussions I’ve seen. If we are to be a party that seeks to liberate the people of our country, community is a crucial part of that process. The interpersonal links people make are vital on all sorts of levels; for exchanging information, for coming into contact with new people, for mental and physical health. These things form the difference between being able to positively use economic and social freedoms and condemning people to soulless individualism; nobody is liberated by being thrown as an isolated object into a rat race.

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Jane Dodds

A visit to Calais

By Jane Dodds | Mon 1st February 2016 - 11:26 am

Jane Dodds Calais

Last week I left Welshpool with my car rather more heavily loaded than usual- with sleeping bags and tarpaulins, all donated by caring Montgomeryshire people wanting to help refugees living in the cold of a Calais winter.

I’ve reported in full on my visit to the Calais refugee camp last week in several posts and videos on my facebook site. Please click the link to have a look.

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Kevin Lang

Adventures of a Liberal Democrat at the Iowa Caucuses Part 2

By Kevin Lang | Mon 1st February 2016 - 10:06 am

Iowa caucuses C-Span busSunday 31 January

After a rather dramatic and delayed journey to the US,  I’m finally in Iowa. Most folk on my flight from Chicago are either news reporters covering the caucuses or members of the US Congress stumping for one of the candidates.

The buzzword is ‘turnout’. There’s hope the numbers turning up to tomorrow night could break all records. Folk seem most excited about the weather….or the lack of it. At this time of year, Iowans are normally wading through feet of snow. Not this year. It’s cold but not painfully so and there are no snow storms predicted. “It’s perfect caucusing weather” my car rental guy told me.

The latest polls suggest a tight race on the Democrat side with the respected Des Moines Register poll showing it too close to call. There’s some scepticism about whether all these young students who have gone nuts for Bernie Sanders will actually turn out. I remember hearing something similar in 2008 about the supporters of some guy called Obama…

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Caron Lindsay

Should MPs have second jobs?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 31st January 2016 - 12:22 pm

There’s been a bit of a stooshie this week about SNP MP Philippa Whitford earning a small fortune working as a locum consultant for the NHS. From the Irvine Times (so I don’t have to link to the Daily Fail):

It’s been revealed that Philippa Whitford MP worked seven times for the cash-strapped hospital over the Christmas period.

The SNP’s Westminister health spokesperson earned £57.60 an hour on August 20-21, the equivalent of £490 a day, as well as working on September 25 during conference season.

But Dr Whitford says it is “absolutely ludicrous” to make an issue of her work saying it had no effect on her parliamentary duties.

This, for me, is an example of bashing political opponents for the sake of it. If MPs want to do other work outside Parliament, that’s up to them and their constituents. In some cases, it’s particularly important that they do, if they have professional skills to maintain. If they are working in public services, they will also have an insight into what is going on in these services and the pressures that people are under. 

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Caron Lindsay

Rennie to SNP: Are you conservative or progressive?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 31st January 2016 - 10:25 am

Willie Rennie will challenge the SNP in a parliamentary debate on their budget this week to actually use the powers that are coming the Scottish Parliament’s way and raise the rate of income tax to pay for a £475m investment in education. The SNP, of course, are holding out for independence and have no intention of showing that the powers they have can make a huge difference. In their 9 years in office, they’ve not even used the tax-raising powers that came to Scotland with devolution in 1999.

Willie’s penny on tax for education is a bold move. Saying you’ll put up taxes is a risk for a party in our position, but this is no time to play it safe. Anyway, just from talking to people, I think that there is a sense that you get what you pay for and if you want world class public services, you need to put money into them.

Willie said:

Liberal Democrats will be using this debate to challenge the SNP to show whether they are conservative or progressive, whether they’ll keep talking left but walking right.

Liberal Democrats are the only ones calling for Parliament to actually use the new powers we’ll get in April. Why wait? There is no point in sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, when we could make a real difference to the life chances of Scots.

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Shas Sheehan

Baroness Shas Sheehan writes…Europe’s humanitarian crisis and how you can help

By Shas Sheehan | Sun 31st January 2016 - 8:55 am

Tim Farron has been superb on the issue of the humanitarian crisis in Europe. He was the first Leader of any party to visit the camp in Calais; in Lesvos he witnessed the desperation and fear of those fleeing Assad; for many months he has been calling for 3000 unaccompanied children in Europe to be brought to the UK.

Whilst lawyers and parliamentarians challenge the Government to implement the safe and legal routes into the UK, thousands upon thousands of people on the run from brutal regimes are suffering the most appalling conditions.

Humanitarian aid is needed.

What you can do to help

Many Liberal Democrats have been asking what they can sensibly do to help. So here are some suggestions:

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Kevin Lang

Adventures of a Liberal Democrat at the Iowa caucuses – Part 1

By Kevin Lang | Sat 30th January 2016 - 4:55 pm

As if Scottish and UK politics aren’t enough, I’ve long had a curiosity, a voyeuristic fascination with politics and elections in America.

It’s not just that elections there really matter and have an impact well beyond the US domestic border. It’s also the energy and enthusiasm (no matter how superficial or manufactured) that I’ve found infectious. It’s why I, along with my best mate (and 2016 Holyrood candidate) Alex Cole-Hamilton, went to help Obama’s first campaign in 2008. We did our little bit to help the Democrats win Virginia for the first time in a presidential election since 1964.

I also learned a lot about campaigning, especially the impact of reaching out and meeting voters face to face along with the importance of continually making your volunteers feel valued and appreciated. That said, as a Liberal Democrat, it was somewhat unnerving to campaign in a place where door to door leaflet delivery was against the law and subject to pretty stiff fines.

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Shas Sheehan

Baroness Shas Sheehan writes…The refugee crisis on our doorstep

By Shas Sheehan | Sat 30th January 2016 - 10:45 am

In a situation that goes from bad to worse, with no end point in sight, there has been one ray of hope.

On 18 January, the Upper Tribunal ruled that three  unaccompanied minors and a vulnerable young man with mental health problems, from the camp in Calais, had a bona fide case to be allowed to join relatives already resident in the UK.

Thanks to a legal challenge coordinated by Citizens UK, the Home Office has been told to immediately allow the three children and one adult to join their families.

Hitherto, the Government had been arguing that, under the Dublin III convention, applications for asylum must be made and processed in France. However, the reality is that the French system is broken, and applications from asylum seekers with family already resident in the UK are not being processed and passed on to the UK. In effect, the safe and legal route has been denied to asylum seekers who have done all that has been asked of them.

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Caron Lindsay

Caroline Pidgeon “feistiest performer” in first London mayor debate

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 29th January 2016 - 2:34 pm

The first London Mayor debate took place last night and Caroline Pidgeon came in for praise from commentator Martin Hoscik:

Pidgeon was the panel’s feistiest performer, pointedly contrasting her own 8 year term on the London Assembly with her rivals’ lack of City Hall knowledge and experience.

And she provided the evening’s only real flashpoint when she denounced UKIP candidate Peter Whittle’s support for leaving the EU as an “insane” threat to the capital’s economy.

But, perhaps aware of her own bruiser-like tendencies, Pidgeon ensured that her opening statement was peppered with references to her own experiences as a part-time worker and a mum, real-world experiences which could help her connect with enough voters to reclaim the party’s traditional status as the third biggest on the London Assembly to which she’s also seeking re-election.

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Celia Thomas

Baroness Celia Thomas writes…Like a WRAG to a bull

By Celia Thomas | Fri 29th January 2016 - 1:17 pm

What was the issue which caused the House of Lords to defeat the Government so spectacularly on Wednesday? It was George Osborne’s latest attempt to save on the Welfare Bill by cutting sick benefits.

At the moment, if you aren’t well enough to work, having had the Work Capability Assessment, you are either put into the support group or the work-related activity group. In the support group you don’t have to look for work, but if you are in the work related activity group, you are expected to be able to get back into some kind of work eventually. Under the Bill, those in the work-related activity group (the WRAG) will have their benefit cut to align it with Jobseekers’ Allowance.

The Government say that not enough of those in the WRAG are getting into work, so they want to ‘encourage’ them by cutting their benefits, putting some of the money saved into giving this group more specialised support to get into work. However, there are no details about how this will work.

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Lee Dargue

Why Luciana Berger was so wrong to attack Norman Lamb

By Lee Dargue | Fri 29th January 2016 - 9:11 am

When you start a fight, you should choose to fight the side who is damaging you or the cause the most. You should also make sure you have the right backing and tools at hand to win the fight.

Luciana Berger has decided to both ignore the current Government’s reneging on spending for mental Health, whilst also choosing to attack Norman Lamb who has done more to put mental health on the political radar than anyone, whilst she has…well…what, exactly?

The point-scoring attempt this week to blame Norman for the continuing crisis in mental health services finally broke the straw that I’ve been carefully balancing for a while now.

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Paul Halliday

The case for making refugees welcome

By Paul Halliday | Thu 28th January 2016 - 5:30 pm

Over the last year there has been a lot of talk about refugees in the UK, much of it based on the politics of fear. Newport, in particular, has seen is fair share of wolf whistle politics around the issue. “1 refugee for every 319 people” is the latest attention grabbing figures in the South Wales Argus. I don’t blame the editor though, in fact his editorial on the issue, although not a position I fully agreed with, was at least honest and brought some humanity to the issue.

What is often forgotten is that for years refugees weren’t distributed around the UK, they were concentrated in the South East costing the government a huge amount of money on private housing. The decision to distribute refugees was made in Westminster, last time Labour were in power, to reduce the costs to the government finances. This was a decision that even our own wolf whistle politician, Paul Flynn MP, voted in favour of.

The truth is that, in Newport, it is only 0.3% of the population that are refugees. A tiny fraction, we are told, that is putting undue pressure on our health service and on our schools, but any system that can’t handle an increase of 0.3% has much deeper rooted problems. Take a look at the Royal Gwent Hospital, as an example. It is overstretched, with A&E based out of Portakabins. For years, Labour have been telling us it is going to be replaced with a new Critical Care Centre, but every announcement seems to be about another delay. The creaking infrastructure is not due to an increase of less than 500 people in a population of 147,000. It is a symptom of many years of under-funding and poor political leadership from the Welsh Assembly. Newport’s population is growing much faster from commuters than it is ever likely to from refugees.

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Caron Lindsay

Tom Brake signs cross-party letter to Prime Minister asking him to drop the “rape clause”

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 28th January 2016 - 4:20 pm

Tom Brake is one of MPs from nine parties who has signed a letter to the Prime Minister asking him to withdraw the ill-thought out “rape clause” which was part of the measures brought in in the Budget.

George Osborne capped tax credits and benefits at two children, a measure Liberal Democrats had blocked throughout the Coalition years. Within the detail, SNP MP Alison Thewliss discovered a clause which said that women who had had a third child as a result of being raped would be exempt. How do you actually prove that to a DWP official? It’s such an ill-thought out, cruel policy. As if the principle of capping benefits at two children wasn’t bad enough, this took its cruelty to a whole new level. No woman should have to prove rape to access basic benefits for her child.

Since then, Alison has been pursuing the Government at every opportunity to say how exactly this policy will be implemented, but hasn’t had an answer, satisfactory or otherwise.

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Mohsin Khan

MPs must work together to safeguard our healthcare

By Mohsin Khan | Thu 28th January 2016 - 11:48 am

As a doctor, every day I see the enduring effects of short-term political spin on my patients.

Hospitals bursting at the seams, short-staffed and lacking beds, are told desperately needed nurses will only be available if there is ‘surplus winter funding’. Patients ready to leave hospital wait weeks for ‘exceptional funds’ to secure specialist accommodation, while we face a 12% rise in delayed hospital stays. 

The Commonwealth Fund rightfully praised the NHS’s quality. Yet BMA Chair Dr Mark Porter warned we mustn’t be complacent over the perils of short-term partisan meddling. ‘A combination of rising patient demand, staff shortages and falling funding is undermining the very foundations of the NHS, as is the constant short-term interference from politicians of all colours.’

Reinforcing his counsel, unprecedented strikes showed the peril of capriciously uncosted manifesto pledges. This week NHS Chief Executive Simon Stevens called for a national consensus on social care by 2018, as we learned we lag behind similar countries in spending.

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    The political chatterati may view the Holborn & St Pancras by-election as a proxy for the next London Mayoral election, but the locals will just see it as a...