Category Archives: Op-eds

House of Lords has a chance to stand up for democracy

By Caroline Pidgeon | Mon 26th October 2015 - 10:49 am

View image | gettyimages.com

Today’s vote in the House of Lords on tax credits has rightly attracted much media attention, but tomorrow a further vote on the subject of electoral registration also deserves serious attention.

In an act of immense arrogance the Government is planning to ignore the clear advice of the independent Electoral Commission and remove hundreds of thousands of people from the electoral register by the end of the year, a full year earlier than originally set out in the current legislation. Young people and people living in private rented accommodation will be disproportionately affected by the Government’s proposals.

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Tagged electoral registration | 12 Comments

An Ideology for the Liberal Democrats?

By David Allen | Mon 26th October 2015 - 9:24 am

The new Agenda 2020 consultation on Liberal Democrat Philosophy appears on a special page of the Libdems website which provides the consultation paper and a box for members to submit comments. However, these would then seem to disappear without trace, so that only the privileged will see what anyone else has said. Not a very liberal start. LDV provides a better forum for open discussion, so – here’s my shot.

The consultation paper says:

All political philosophies are based on a view of human nature. … We believe in the essential goodness and improvability of humankind.

Deep breath. Well, OK, I do believe that humans are capable of doing good as well as evil, and that much of the time they don’t really do either. But – surely this is far too unworldly, too trusting, too out-of-touch with life’s harsher realities?

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Tagged agenda 2020 and liberalism | 34 Comments

Steel, nuclear and graphene – a new industrial strategy?

By William Hobhouse | Sat 24th October 2015 - 12:28 pm

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It seems a long time since Vince Cable was leading the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. During his tenure, one of his greatest achievements was the Industrial Strategy. In automotive, aerospace, nuclear and renewables, long term partnerships and structures had been set up to ensure that UK manufacturing stayed at the cutting edge of R&D and that we grew the skills and capacity to manufacture the next generation of products.

The visit of the Chinese President Xi Jinping to the UK has clarified the new government thinking. Taking three industrial issues in turn:

Steel: everyone knows that steel prices go up and down and competitive advantage changes with exchange rates and oversupply. At a time when the automotive industry in the UK is flourishing, the closure of steel mills demonstrates that government sees no link between a UK steel industry and UK automotive. We can, the argument goes, quite happily import steel at the cheapest price at the time and retain our long term success in automotive. The counter argument is that we will not retain our leadership in the industry if the next generation of cars uses steel technology developed in Germany or China – because other things being equal it would be better to assemble the car closer to the supply chain.

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Tagged industrial policy | 16 Comments

Lord Tony Greaves writes…Crisis on the streets of Lancashire

By Tony Greaves | Sat 24th October 2015 - 8:56 am

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When the new lot all arrive we’ll have 112 Liberal Democrat peers and we need to use them. For some of us that means local as well as national stuff since some of us are still actively campaigning in our local areas! So when changes to the police funding formula were announced that mean one of the best forces in the country risks being “annihilated”, in the word of the commissioner, it was time to put down a topical question in the Lords.

The Lancashire police force is “outstanding”. That’s the conclusion of the review of police force efficiency by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. It’s one of the most cost effective police forces in the country at only 49p per head, it’s made savings of £74m since 2010, yet it will be hammered by further cuts up to £161m. Police officers will drop from 3,611 in 2010 to 1,699 in 2020 and the PCSOs (community support officers) will disappear. Chief Constable Steve Finnigan says these cuts would severely limit the capabilities of Lancashire Constabulary which by 2020 will only be able to provide an emergency- service, responding to 999 calls and a few priorities.

The potential impacts include closing all enquiry desks and the loss of specialist support units, mounted officers, dog units and road policing units, and dramatic cuts to departments that deal with serious and complex crime. In addition the county-wide network of neighbourhood policing teams – community beat officers and community support officers – will be swept away.

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Tagged house of lords and police | 37 Comments

A lesson for Tim Farron from Justin Trudeau?

By The Voice | Fri 23rd October 2015 - 2:40 pm

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Liberals around the world are cheered by the Canadian Liberals’ emphatic victory this week. There are many serious lessons we can learn from Justin Trudeau’s party, both in terms of grassroots organisation and messaging. Not for the Liberals any talk of “we’re not them and we’re not them so vote for us”. For months there was a clear message of #realchange. The Canadian Liberals are a bit like Liberal royalty. They can be pretty establishment, but they managed to show that they wanted to reform politics and Canadian society in a way that resonated with people.

This video from May this year shows how Trudeau was happy to step out of the normal space allotted to politicians. He took his kids to Comic Con in Ottawa, wearing a Superman t-shirt and talking about his lifelong enjoyment of the Superman series. It was fun, authentic and natural.

I guess it kind of helped that he didn’t look terribly unlike the movie version.

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Tagged Justin Trudeau and tim farron | 10 Comments

Agenda 2020 Essay #2 What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today

By Toby MacDonnell | Fri 23rd October 2015 - 9:37 am

Editor’s Note: The party is currently running 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 is 2nd November. If you would like us to publish your submission, send it to [email protected].

To be a Liberal Democrat today is to be tilting at windmills. After decades of being the wasted vote, we broke into coalition government. Then we collapsed. But the need for Liberal Democrats is more pertinent than ever.

Ignorance: The Cycle of News

Whichever paper I am reading, the same themes return again and again: that public trust has collapsed, that few people believe that politics has the power to deliver change, and that our society is divided between the nihilistic, the apathetic, and the outraged. With every case of child abuse, each random murder, every scandal of public expenditure, the news asks ‘What are the politicians doing about it?’ The government replies, and the opposition scoffs. The news cycle begins again.

The news wields Occam ’s razor as a maiming instrument. Issues of dynamic complexity are boiled down to yes-or-no answers. Questions are posed to politicians which no-one could answer, and when the politician stumbles it is held up as a triumph of journalism or a failure of political leadership. If the politician replies with nuance, he has avoided a straight question.

Our media landscape is dominated by duality: by left and right, us and them, yes and no, right and wrong, government and opposition, Conservatives and Labour. The pace of television news has accelerated and amplified the basic conflict our constitution is predicated on: the two party, first past the post system. This is carried over to the online world where debates between nuanced and considered comment pieces are hijacked by the us-and-them narrative in the comment section.

The glut of news belies our ignorance of government.

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Tagged agenda 2020 essay competition | 1 Comment

A liberal postcard from South Africa…

By Luke Akal | Thu 22nd October 2015 - 12:57 pm

Dear Liberal Friends,

It is a great privilege to introduce myself to you all as the new Coordinator for the Africa Liberal Network (ALN). The ALN is the largest network of political parties in Africa and has been strongly supported by the Liberal Democrats, through the work of the International Office, since its inception in 2001.

I have recently taken up the position and the Secretariat remains based here at the Federal Head Office of the Democratic Alliance in Cape Town, South Africa.

I am originally from Nelspruit (Mpumalanga), South Africa, but grew up and lived majority of my life in Cape Town. I began my interest in politics as an activist and volunteer. This passion was then pursued during my undergraduate studies at the University of Stellenbosch and the University of South Africa, where I graduated with a degree in Politics and Communication Science.

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Tagged a postcard from, africa liberal network and luke akal | 1 Comment

Drug reform should be our new flagship policy

By Tristan Gray | Thu 22nd October 2015 - 10:38 am

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In my past two articles I argued for a more muscular liberalism that was more strident in championing liberal causes and for occupying the liberal ground whilst still appealing to a broader audience than ourselves.

In the interests of achieving this aim we need to pick our fights and causes carefully. We need a new flagship policy, one which wipes away the memory of tuition fees and sets us apart from our opponents. We must lead the charge on an issue and make it our own in a way we never quite managed in the public perception of equal marriage and green energy in coalition.

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Tagged drugs policy and featured | 49 Comments

We must take Oldham seriously

By Jonathan Fryer | Thu 22nd October 2015 - 8:00 am

By-elections caused by the death of the incumbent are always an occasion for sadness, so our first reaction to the passing of Michael Meacher, Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton, must be a sincere expression of sympathy to his family and friends. However, politics is politics, as Michael would have said himself, and therefore we have to face the fact that there will be a by-election before too long. Even if we should not campaign until after the funeral, that does not mean we should avoid thinking about the challenge ahead.

During the Coalition government the Liberal Democrat powers that be took what I believed to be a misguided decision to virtually ignore northern parliamentary by-elections, with predictably disastrous results. In a couple of cases there was, however, a tremendous surge towards UKIP, almost causing shock Labour defeats. We lost our deposits spectacularly, despite the hard efforts of by-election candidates and mainly local party support. The impression given to the wider public, however, was that in the North of England the LibDems are rubbish, even irrelevant. We must not allow that to happen again.

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Tagged featured, michael meacher and oldham west and royton by-election | 54 Comments

What were your hopes for today?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 21st October 2015 - 1:55 pm

This is a post aimed at those of us who were around in the ’80s when the Back to the Future films first came out. Today, of course, is the day Marty McFly and Dr Emmett Brown arrived in the future. People are marking the occasion in all sorts of ways. One of my favourites was Ayrshire Police’s post this morning – although it was in fact 12 hours early, it was a savvy use of social media. They posted on Facebook:

About 0728 hours today, Wednesday 21st October 2015, police received reports of a suspicious vehicle causing concern in the car park of an Irvine supermarket.

Witnesses report the stainless steel DeLorean vehicle to have been damaged and two men to have been within the vehicle. One man is described as being around 17 years old, slim build with dark hair while the other is only described as being older with grey hair and wearing a white coat.

A spokesperson for Ayrshire Police Division commented “on arriving at the location the vehicle almost collided with two members of the public on hover boards. Luckily the hover board’ collision avoidance system prevented any injuries. We are keen to speak with the two men seen within the vehicle.”

#JustForFun #BackToTheFuture

My Facebook timeline was full of comments about hover boards, but my feelings were mostly mild discomfort. After all, a day that I had thought was a very long time away when the film first came out in 1989 is now here. I wonder if people who read 1984 when it was first published in 1949 felt when that date finally arrived.

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Tagged back to the future and nostalgia | 6 Comments

Agenda 2020 essay #1: What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today

By Kirsten Johnson | Wed 21st October 2015 - 11:55 am

Editor’s Note: The party is currently running 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 is 2nd November. If you would like us to publish your submission, send it to [email protected].

What it means to be a Liberal Democrat today, to me, is about fairness, equality and freedom. Freedom for all us to be who we wish to be and to develop our talents to the full. Equality that no matter who we are, our origins, our abilities or disabilities, we are given equal voice and valued equally in society. Fairness is about combatting structures in our society which promote the few over the many, so that all are enabled and empowered.

To be truly free is not a singularity. It happens in relationship. Being a Liberal Democrat is about being in relationship: we are stronger together than we are alone.

WE are the world. Not me. Not I. The rise of individualism, and the emphasis of individual freedoms without the context of relationship, has brought us to this point. The 21^st century is a self-serving society. What is best for me? What can I achieve? How much more money can I make? The emphasis on me, me, me is a losing ticket. Me can only win if WE are at the forefront of policy and decision making.

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Tagged agenda 2020 essay competition | 3 Comments

Lib Dem Lords will try and kill off Tory tax credit cuts as Farron decries Osborne’s “Poll Tax”

By The Voice | Tue 20th October 2015 - 9:30 pm

George Osborne could be told to think again on tax credits by the House of Lords next week if a “regret motion” co-sponsored by Lib Dem peer Archy Kirkwood is successful.

Party leader Tim Farron has asked all Lib Dem peers to support it, making a government defeat possible.According to the Guardian, though, some Labour peers might get the collywobbles about challenging a government’s financial bill. According to the Guardian:

By custom and practice, the peers do not challenge financial measures, but Farron has been arguing that the specific tax credits measure was not in the Conservative party manifesto and was even specifically denied by David Cameron in a leaders’ TV election debate, after the Guardian revealed a document leaked by the Lib Dems showing that the government had been considering cuts to tax credits.

This has also attracted coverage in the Express and Star, Sky News and the Evening Standard.

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Tagged archy kirkwood, tax credits and tim faron | 23 Comments

We need more blue collar Liberals

By David Warren | Tue 20th October 2015 - 9:50 am

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There is plenty of debate across the political spectrum about how unrepresentative of the overall population our elected politicians are.

Much of this discussion focuses on the lack of women and BAME people in the corridors of power.

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Tagged alan johnson, dennis skinner and featured | 43 Comments

Tom Brake MP: Why I’m fasting for Shaker Aamer

By Tom Brake | Mon 19th October 2015 - 6:55 pm

haker Aamer is the last British resident held in Guantanamo Bay, which still stands as an icon to the Iraq War, a war which only the Liberal Democrats, led by Charles Kennedy, were brave enough to stand up against. Shaker has been held for the last thirteen years without charge or trial. He has been cleared by two successive US Presidents and yet is still held captive.

Baroness Ludford correctly said in 2012 ‘the continued existence of Guantanamo is a stain on the record and reputation of President Obama’; it is truly depressing that Guantanamo continues to be used to incarcerate people and that there are many reports of abuse and violence within the prison.

On 25th September, Shaker learned that he would finally be freed, however as Congress has to be given 30 days’ notice before Shaker can be released, he is unlikely to be released before the 25^th October at the earliest.

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Tagged guantanamo bay, human rights and shaker aamer | 4 Comments

We need to make internal selections affordable for all

By Zack Polanski | Mon 19th October 2015 - 11:55 am

What makes a great candidate? It can be an incredibly demanding job and I imagine it’s lots of things. A strong ability to communicate, to listen, to represent people effectively. To demonstrate generous leadership, to inspire and to continually learn. These are all what I’d consider the headlines.

What about fundraising? It’s certainly vital – but I’d argue that not only is it not the single *biggest* priority. It’s certainly not more important than the above qualities. It’s one of the skills that can most often be generated truly as a team effort whilst potentially being most successful when lead by the candidate themselves.

I learnt so much during the recent GLA London List Election. As a first timer I was clearly delighted with the result and I loved the opportunity to speak to literally thousands of members. Having phone canvassed for lots of candidates as part of the Team 2015 efforts in the General Election, it was a really interesting next step to be phoning and listening to people’s concerns as the potential candidate myself.

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Tagged diversity, featured, fundraising and internal selections | 30 Comments

Scottish Conference Countdown: What’s on the agenda? And get writing your amendments today

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 18th October 2015 - 10:35 am

Scottish Liberal Democrats gather for their Autumn Conference in Dunfermline on Saturday 24th October. The agenda contains no fewer than 8 policy debates – not bad for an event that lasts for just 7 hours. There are keynote speeches from Willie Rennie and Tim Farron and the day ends with a tribute to Charles Kennedy.

The policy motions to be discussed are:

A penny on tax for the NHS: This one will be controversial. The MSPs will be very scared of it passing because it’s way more radical than they can cope with. Perhaps Conference needs to give them the confidence to say something bold. One of the great tragedies of the current constitutional debate in Scotland is that nobody seems to have any great ideas for using the powers we already have, which are pretty significant. Paisley and Renfrewshire local party have put the cat among the pigeons with this motion. Will it pass? Expect to see an amendment from the Policy Committee.

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Tagged Scottish liberal democrat conference | 10 Comments

The condescension of Camila

By Ruth Bright | Sun 18th October 2015 - 8:55 am

Two years ago I was in acting charge of a London day care setting for the elderly not a million miles away from the fabled Kids Company. My young colleague put together a craft afternoon for our clients. She sent off for £20 of glass beads on Ebay. A lot of elderly people with dementia had a lovely time making jewellery thanks to her. The £20 was authorised by my manager beforehand and accounted for afterwards. Of course it would have been nice to give handouts to our clients, many of them in great need, but we had to vouch for every penny spent.

It was therefore utterly bewildering to watch former head of Kids Company Camila Batmanghelidjh give evidence to a select committee yesterday and admit that large sums were handed to young people just because she and her colleagues deemed them vulnerable.

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Tagged featured, kids company and southwark | 17 Comments

Catherine Bearder MEP writes: Europe is about more than the economy, it’s about opportunity

By Catherine Bearder | Fri 16th October 2015 - 1:05 pm

At the official launch of the Stronger In Campaign on Monday it was great to see such a huge range of people, of all ages and from all walks of life, prepared to work together to secure Britain’s place in Europe. The board of the campaign represents all sections of society – students, the arts, business and trade unions – and almost half its members are women. This couldn’t contrast more with the male, pale and stale line-ups of the Vote Leave and Leave EU campaigns.

The challenge now for Stronger In will be to translate such a broad base of support into a coherent and positive message. We don’t just need to win over undecided voters, we need to make sure those who are broadly in favour of remaining in Europe turn up to cast their vote and play an active role in the campaign. Young people in particular are historically the least likely to vote, but the latest polls show 83% of them want to stay in the EU. They probably won’t get passionate about dry economic facts on the impact of Brexit on trade and investment. We need to develop a powerful and uplifting narrative about why Britain’s future in Europe matters to them and their everyday lives.

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Tagged eu, eu referendum, featured and young people | 32 Comments

In video: Nick Clegg on Newsnight

By NewsHound | Wed 14th October 2015 - 7:22 pm

In case you missed it, here’s Nick Clegg talking on last night’s Newsnight about the EU referendum. When asked whether hope or fear would win the day for the In campaign, he said that the simple fact was that it was in our national interest to be part of the EU.

He also said that he regretted sitting next to David Cameron at PMQs for five years, saying it looked like we were passive rather than architects of many aspects of the government’s programme.

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Tagged featured, newsnight and nick clegg | 29 Comments

Jeremy Corbyn’s kinder, more caring politics in action #2: social media commentary

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th October 2015 - 5:35 pm

Remember Jeremy Corbyn’s kinder, more caring politics where there will be no personal abuse? He said in his Labour conference speech:

I want a kinder politics, a more caring society. Don’t let them reduce you to believing in anything less. So I say to all activists, whether Labour or not, cut out the personal attacks. The cyberbullying. And especially the misogynistic abuse online. And let’s get on with bringing values back into politics.

To be fair to Corbyn, at least he said it. However, some of his party weren’t listening.

You just need to look at the Twitter feed of Labour MP Mike Gapes to see the abuse he’s getting from Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters for not toeing the party line. Like Corbyn clearly used to do for all those years Labour was in Government. To be fair, Corbyn himself has a more realistic outlook than some of his supporters, who are shaping up to rival the cybernats.

Gapes decided to go in for a lengthy spell of troll feeding yesterday and copped a load of abuse for his pains.

In today’s Times (£), Lucy Fisher uncovers evidence of the hard left seeking to deselect moderate Labour councillors:

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Tagged kind caring politics, labour and labour uncut | 19 Comments

Reminder: How to contribute to the Federal Policy’s Agenda 2020

By Geoff Payne | Wed 14th October 2015 - 3:55 pm

The Federal Policy Committee (FPC) is presently in the process of a major review exercise called ‘Agenda 2020’ to consider,

The challenges that the United Kingdom will face over the coming years, (economic, social, environmental, political), and, in the light of it, to prepare,
A statement of the distinctively Liberal Democrat approach and,
A map of the policy development that the FPC needs to carry out in order to achieve it.

Given what happened to the party in May, it is now more important than ever that we assert our own identity and project to the electorate what it means to be a Liberal Democrat and why the country needs Liberal Democrats.

The Agenda 2020 group (of which I am a member) has put together a paper for discussion. It was the subject of two very lively sessions at conference and now it is out for wider consultation from members of the party. We really want to hear your views.

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Tagged federal policy committee and party organisation | 3 Comments

Vote “Leave” get “Yes” free

By Michael Cooke | Wed 14th October 2015 - 2:33 pm

Generally, the status quo has the upper hand in referenda. However, in the wake of the global financial crisis and subsequent recession, the anti-incumbency trend might not just be contained to first-order elections, with voters punishing governing parties of all stripes for letting economic misery occur on their watches. It could be that this trend extends to the far more fixed and aggregate level. For example, in the Scottish Referendum, Better Together warned against Labour voters acting on this anti-incumbency impulse to end Tory rule permanently, as opposed to just temporarily at Westminster General Elections.

However, for a voter it is perfectly rational: if given the chance to either a) end something unpleasant for at least five years, with the possibility of it returning or b) end it permanently, any Rational-Choice model would dictate the latter. Many in the Scottish media laughed at a recent intervention by the UKIP Leader that he could persuade Scots to vote Leave. There have also been comparisons between the ‘Yes’ movement in Scotland in 2014 and UKIP and the wider Brexit campaign.

The English voter who was told to not vote for UKIP in May if they really wanted a referendum, and instead, vote Conservative, now has that chance to vote in that referendum.

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Tagged eu referendum and Scotland | 6 Comments

What they don’t tell you about TTIP

By Adam Corlett | Wed 14th October 2015 - 10:25 am

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Countless articles, emails and campaigns have expressed anger about TTIP. This is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would cover over 800 million people in the EU and US, as well as helping determine the shape of future agreements the world over. There are numerous concerns – some entirely misguided, some merely exaggerated – and from reading the literature of campaign groups like 38 Degrees it might be hard to know whether there are any benefits at all from this trade deal. So supporters of free trade need to straightforwardly spell out some of TTIP’s advantages.

In particular, lost among the scaremongering and obscure debates has been the very foundation of TTIP: an abolition of almost all the remaining import and export tariffs between the US and EU. It’s true, as both supporters and opponents of TTIP say, that tariffs are only a part of the deal: harmonising regulations (without lowering standards) is now often more important. But when the entire process is under attack, the scrapping of tariffs should not be glossed over. I hope it’s not too insulting to suggest that many of those attacking TTIP or signing petitions (not to mention those who haven’t heard of TTIP) may have no idea that it includes the scrapping of import and export tariffs.

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged featured, international, trade and ttip | 69 Comments

Throw out Theresa May’s Immigration Bill

By Joyce Onstad | Wed 14th October 2015 - 8:59 am

Teresa May’s Immigration Bill should be rejected by Parliament and will be opposed by Liberal Democrat MPs. This is a totally illiberal bill which deeply erodes civil rights and diminishes human liberties by giving immigration officers and the executive extreme powers. It is proposed that immigration officers get powers to enter premises, strip search and arrest, breaching the rights of legal or suspected illegal immigrants. We all know about unconscious bias and BAME people will be adversely affected, bearing the brunt of the proposed legislation. It also extends the powers of the executive in unwarranted ways and undermines the independence of courts by removing people without power of in-country appeal. It also includes electronic tagging and threatens the rights of children in detention, possibly leading to children being separated from their parents. This is unacceptable as children should be protected regardless of who their parents are. This bill could make discrimination even worse when landlords fearing prosecution do not rent homes to migrants or even to people who may appear to be migrants or have non-British names. Evidence shows that migrants and those with foreign-sounding names are already likely to be discriminated against.

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Tagged immigration bill | 32 Comments

The perils of ignoring the physical health of people with mental ill health

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 14th October 2015 - 8:20 am

I feel a bit sad this morning.

The reason for that is this story on the BBC which outlines how the physical health of people with mental ill health can be ignored as GPs assume that the reason for all their symptoms is related to their mental state. In a study of medical records over a five year period, researchers found that just a fifth of emergency admissions to hospital among patients with mental ill health were for their mental state.

In the final year, for every 1,000 people with mental health problems there were 628 emergency admissions, compared with 129 among those without – five times the rate.

Visits to A&E units were also three times higher, with more than 1,300 attendances for every 1,000 patients with mental health problems.

The researchers said many of these could have been prevented with better care.

Report author Holly Dorning said: “It is striking that people with mental ill health use so much more emergency care than those without and that so much of this isn’t directly related to their mental health needs.

“This raises serious questions about how well their other health concerns are being managed.

“It is clear that if we continue to treat mental health in isolation, we will miss essential care needs for these patients.”

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Tagged #timetotalk mental health | 1 Comment

Fiscal Charter causes chaos in Parliamentary Labour Party

By Joe Otten | Tue 13th October 2015 - 5:39 pm

Tomorrow Parliament debates the Fiscal Charter, this debate being a political wheeze designed to test and expose Labour’s position on public borrowing, that appears to be working beyond George Osborne’s wildest reasonable expectations.

The charter demands

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Tagged fiscal charter | 49 Comments

Why we need to develop hard-edged campaigning

By Helen Flynn | Mon 12th October 2015 - 6:02 pm

View image | gettyimages.com

No one can deny that the Tories ran a stunning campaign to get back into power in May. It wasn’t a nice campaign. It wasn’t the kind of campaign that we would ever want to run, based – as it was – on the politics of fear and division. But, my God, it worked. We must learn from it. Not to repeat similar messages, but to replicate the style and method.

What absolutely clinched it was that the messages had a hard edge, were simple, and were delivered multiple times on a variety of platforms. You would have had to have been living underneath a stone on a far flung Hebridean island not to have picked up the messages that Tory HQ were pumping out. How much that then influenced the undecided (of which there are increasingly a large number) can now be clearly gauged by the fact that the Tories now reign unhindered for the next five years. And then they will employ a similar style of campaigning to quite possibly be in charge again. They need proper competition.

Time for us to wake up.

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Tagged eu referendum and tim farron | 32 Comments

How sad it is to see England out

By George Smid | Mon 12th October 2015 - 4:30 pm

Despite the brilliant performance against Uruguay, England is out of the World Rugby Cup.

I watched the matches, I urged them on, I wished for victory. It did not help. England is out with the rest of the home counties in:

How sad it is to see England out. How frustrated I was … and I started thinking about England and her position in the rugby world and her position in the world at large.

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Tagged eu referendum and rugby | 34 Comments

The UK and the EU have a chance to stand up for drug policy reform

By Henry Fisher | Mon 12th October 2015 - 10:04 am

View image | gettyimages.com

Nick Clegg made a big announcement on Thursday 1st October that has as yet gone unreported on LDV – he’s going on a jolly around Europe. Well no, not quite. He’s actually going on a tour of the EU to try to convince its leaders to stand together on the subject of international drug policy reform. Nothing like a challenge, eh Nick? But this is a serious issue, and at an absolutely crucial time. In April next year, the UN General Assembly will be holding a Special Session (UNGASS) to debate how to approach global drug policy over the next ten years and beyond, at a point where different parts of the world are diverging ever more rapidly on the issue of how to tackle the problems associated with drug use.

If the EU stands together united at UNGASS in calling for certain reforms to the UN conventions, and I sincerely hope Nick succeeds with his mission and it does, it has a much greater chance of making a positive impact. But what reforms can the EU agree to stand on? At one end countries like France and Sweden do not endorse any kind of change to their (relatively) strict drug laws, whereas countries like the Netherlands and Portugal have lead the way on liberal, evidence-based drug reforms for years. In the middle we have countries moving both ways too, with both Germany and Italy making noises about reforming their cannabis policies, Ireland voicing its support for drug decriminalisation and supervised injecting rooms and the the UK… well the less said about that the better. In fact, it has been noted that the EU can be seen as a near-perfect experiment for comparing the efficacy of a spectrum of subtly varied drug policies on relatively similar populations.

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Tagged cannabis, Drug Policy, drugs, european union, nick clegg and united nations | 49 Comments