Category Archives: Op-eds

Caron Lindsay

Greg Mulholland’s row with the Speaker – the obvious solution

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th July 2015 - 10:00 pm

Yesterday, Leeds MP Greg Mulholland tried to ask a question about the availability of a drug to treat a constituent’s rare disease – and was prevented from doing so by the Speaker for being “long-winded.”  ITV News has the story:

Speaker John Bercow had warned Mr Mulholland to be quick in his statement but after referring to missed decision dates given to families by health authorities, the Lib Dem was told to resume his seat.

Six-year-old Sam Brown from Otley. Sam, who has Morquio syndrome needs Vimazim treatment, mentioned by Mr Mulholland, but NHS England deferred a decision over whether to provide the drug, then last week announced it would wait for guidance from NICE, the health body consulting on the drug.

There is a video of the exchange on the ITV site and, to be honest, I’m quite annoyed with John Bercow. Greg was no more long-winded than many of the other questions that day – Hansard has the details so you can see for yourself. All Greg had said before he was interrupted was this:

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Callum Delhoy

Opinion: SLF Conference – a brilliant day focused on social liberal ideas

By Callum Delhoy | Wed 8th July 2015 - 2:54 pm

img_8090The Social Liberal Forum is, sadly, a point of contention in the Liberal Democrats for some. The candidate who went first at the leadership hustings towards the end of the conference was chosen by how fast they could name the former special advisor to Nick Clegg who made the case that all Social Liberals in the Lib Dems should join Labour (it was Richard Reeves, by the way, & he said it here). Reeves’ comments  show how far up in the party those critical of SLF are & how scathing their attacks can be. Nevertheless, I do wholeheartedly identify as a Social Liberal, so despite claims of the SLF attempting to turn the Lib Dems ‘socialist’ that I had heard from other members, I attended the conference & discovered I couldn’t have made a better decision.

Firstly, I was struck with how damn trendy the conference building was. It was hosted in the Amnesty International Human Rights Centre, & with all its exposed black bricks & flat-white-selling cafe’s I had to check if I was in the right building for a Lib Dem event. Thankfully it was, so I was escorted into the main room for the famous SLF Annual Beveridge Memorial Lecture, this year presented by Baroness Claire Tyler, but not before a quick remembrance to that champion of Social Liberalism, Charles Kennedy. It was done not with a 1 minute silence, but a 1 minute applause to recognise his achievements, which definitely captured his spirit & energy better than any mourning could have done. The Beveridge Lecture itself was intensely interesting, going over Beveridge’s 5 great evils in the modern day (squalor, ignorance, want, idleness & disease – the antiquated language of which was a large point of the lecture) & reminding us that a higher & higher GDP can’t alone tackle these issues, but national wellbeing should always be a priority too.

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The Voice

Budget Live Blog as Osborne helps rich – but casts young and poor adrift.

By The Voice | Wed 8th July 2015 - 12:35 pm

Caron Lindsay 12:30 pm

“A budget for working people” says George Osborne. We’ll see.  I guess if you are a rich working person, maybe.

I’ve had an official hiding behind pillow for all budgets in the last five years. I need it more than ever today.

So, let the budget live blog kick-off.

The measures we do know about seem very much about giving to the rich and taking to the poor.

People struggling to get by, stuck in private rented accommodation, will find it hard to see Inheritance Tax thresholds being lifted to more than £1 million while their entitlements to tax credits are being limited.

It’s worth pointing out that those are exactly the sorts of measure that the Liberal Democrats spent the last five years stopping or at least limiting. Everything announced today would have been done by now if it hadn’t been for us.

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Opinion: Lessons from Greece: why Liberal Democrats need to rethink their enthusiasm for the Euro

By Energlyn Churchill | Wed 8th July 2015 - 11:50 am

I can’t help but sympathise with Greece. In responding to the Eurozone’s latest debt offer, its people found themselves choosing between a rock and a hard place. The referendum was a bit like asking a vegetarian to choose between beef or chicken. The overwhelming rejection of the Eurozone’s proposals is the act of a nation with nothing left to lose: vote ‘yes’ and you sign up to breathtaking austerity and misery; vote ‘no’ and you take a huge step into the unknown that may take you down the same path, but one which also causes your creditors some pain, too.

The whole debacle clearly underlines why currency union without fiscal union does not work. It was something that Danny Alexander seized upon during the Scottish Independence referendum when he rightly pointed out that Scotland would have limited control over the direction of its economic policy if it kept Sterling in a post independence scenario.

And so it has proven to be the case with Greece. Faced with a single currency, and member countries with varying credit ratings under their old currencies, the banks concluded that all member nations should be offered the same one as the higher-rated nations. The seduction of cheap credit proved too much for Greece, which borrowed way beyond its means. A credit crunch later, and the wheels have well and truly come off.

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Caron Lindsay

Why My Sexy MP is not just a bit of harmless fun

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 8th July 2015 - 11:05 am

My heart sank yesterday when I saw courtesy of the Telegraph that reality TV star Francis Boulle had updated his My Sexy MP site for the new Parliament.

This horrible site gives you pictures of two MPs and asks you to choose between them. As the title suggests, it’s not their good works, values or key speeches you are being asked to judge. It’s not even just their looks. This site takes creepiness and objectification to a whole new level, asking its readers “Which MP would you rather have sex with?”

No doubt some readers will just dismiss me as …

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Maelo Manning

Opinion: SLF Conference: Why social justice must be at the heart of re-booting liberalism

By Maelo Manning | Wed 8th July 2015 - 10:15 am

social liberal forumThe Social Liberal Conference was held on one of the hottest days of the year so far but not even good weather could have kept me away from joining fellow Liberal Democrats for a day termed as ‘Re-booting Liberalism’. I am a social Liberal because I believe strongly in social justice as a means of addressing the problems of inequality. This must be our fight as a party if the Liberal Democrats are to gain relevance and support from the electorate in the coming years.

The keynote speech was a William Beveridge memorial lecture and was delivered by Baroness Claire Tyler. The whole speech can be found here. Her words as follows set the tone for the day:

I think it is entirely appropriate to be revisting Beveridge at a conference entitled ‘Rebooting Liberalism’. It’s neither regressive nor intellectually lazy to be looking to the past as we seek to move forward. Far from it – we are fortunate to have an incredibly strong intellectual tradition within the party and in seeking to both clarify and communicate exactly what we stand for, we could do much worse than draw on the ground-breaking work of one of the grandfathers of modern Liberalism.

The morning sessions were split into roundtable discussions, open sessions and two fringe events. A very generous and yummy lunch was served. It was a great time to network, catch up with friends and be canvassed for GLA votes.

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Darren Grimes

Opinion: Britain’s Liberal Youth Can Flourish In a Lamb-Led Liberal Democrats

By Darren Grimes | Tue 7th July 2015 - 4:33 pm

NormanLambBritain’s young liberals aren’t only more liberal than their elders, they are more liberal than any previous generation before them. That said, they are a liberal cohort not yet identifying as Liberal Democrats – this could and should change.

My liberty loving generation cannot comfortably sit within statist parties like Labour or the Conservatives, which is why the Liberal Democrats need to prove themselves to be the party offering this generation a truly liberal voice in British politics. We need to be more radical in our thinking, we need intellectual evidence-based liberal policy that grabs the attention of the electorate and exasperates right-wing media like the Daily Mail and Breitbart. We must be the defining intellectual powerhouse for British liberalism, and there is only one candidate who throughout this leadership election has offered just that.

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Catherine Bearder

Catherine Bearder MEP speaks… Britain after Brexit

By Catherine Bearder | Tue 7th July 2015 - 2:51 pm

Bearder Oxford UnionCatherine delivered the following speech to the Oxford Union, painting a picture of what life would be like after Brexit.

I want to take you to a land, not so far away. Close your eyes and think of Britain after Brexit.

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Also posted in Europe / International | Tagged | 14 Comments
Liz Makinson

Opinion: Why I am backing Tim Farron

By Liz Makinson | Tue 7th July 2015 - 12:14 pm

Tim Farron MP speaks at the rallyI heard Tim Farron speak at Conference this year. In a debate run by the Centre Forum his ideas and enthusiasm sparkled and I left with new inspiration and hope. I was feeling pretty deflated, not by the undoubted achievements of the Liberal Democrats in office, and as a teacher in an inner city comprehensive I know the great benefit of the pupil premium, but by the things that had gone through Parliament which I felt to be wrong and unjust. The bedroom tax stands out among them and it is to Tim’s credit that he did not support it. Improvements to schools can make such a difference but only by levelling the gap in our unequal society can you really transform life chances.

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Peter Jones

Opinion: Five suggestions for our new leader

By Peter Jones | Tue 7th July 2015 - 8:49 am

nick clegg-baby-bournemouthAs one of the newly-joined members of the party it might be presumptuous of me to offer advice to our new leader, whoever he turns out to be. Then again one of the great attractions of the Lib Dems is that each member is invited to contribute to policy making. So, here are a few ideas for Tim Farron or Norman Lamb to consider.

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Jamie Shaw-Stewart

Opinion: Who will be paying if the government drops free over-75s TV licences: the BBC or the over-75s?

By Jamie Shaw-Stewart | Mon 6th July 2015 - 7:54 pm

 

Tuning in briefly on Sunday to the Andrew Marr Show, appropriately belatedly via the iPlayer, I was amused and appalled in equal measure by what lay ahead (I didn’t actually watch it all, partly out of fear of what I would see, but mainly out of fear of boredom).

I was greatly amused by the format of the program. I’ve got used to listening to the Today program’s political correspondent “cut through the crap” immediately after a political interview, which I like to hear. However, it is a little odd when that correspondent does this before the interview is complete, which seems to have become more common, particularly when the politician doesn’t seem to challenge the interpretations of their spin.

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Jim Williams

Opinion: Regaining lost trust – the five-year campaign trail ahead

By Jim Williams | Mon 6th July 2015 - 4:35 pm

 

We all know the gloomy picture: I don’t need to re-hash the scale of our losses, or present you with the same statistics you know so well. Let’s leave it like this: we don’t just have to win back seats and votes.

We have to find a way to win back lost trust, in the face of anger, disappointment and – perhaps worst of all – plain disinterest.

That means finding a way to signal a clear break with the past, but without disowning the party’s achievements in government. It means offering a distinctive alternative to the Tories and Labour, but without chasing after protest votes. And above all, it means working out what we can say to make people listen, when many don’t even want to give us the time of day.

So – how should we go about it?

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Stephen Knight

Opinion: Building homes has never been more important  

By Stephen Knight | Mon 6th July 2015 - 2:54 pm

 

Conservatives claim that extending the so-called ‘Right to Buy’ policy to housing association tenants will give the possibility of home ownership to 1.3 million families.

But at what cost? And is this the right policy priority, given our housing crisis?

What isn’t explicit in the name of this policy (‘right to buy’) is that it involves selling off homes at a very large discount to their market value – over £100,000 per home.  This amounts to a huge give-away of public assets to the new owner-occupier of the homes in question – who are likely to be amongst the better-off housing association tenants and already benefitting from a secure affordable home.  The Institute of Fiscal Studies has estimated that the total cost of the policy is likely to be of the order of £11.6 billion over the next five years.  As Boris Johnson correctly warned on the 25th March, the policy “would involve massive subsidies.”  His scepticism of the policy has subsequently been revised, but he was of course spot on.

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Mark Argent

Opinion: Should we bomb ISIS positions in Syria?

By Mark Argent | Mon 6th July 2015 - 12:46 pm

 

Thursday’s news reported Michael Fallon’s statement to the House of Commons raising the possibility of another Commons vote on bombing Syria. Friday’s zoomed in on the one minute of silence to honour the victims of the shooting in Tunisia.

Quite how bombing ISIS positions in Syria would prevent a gunman doing crazy things near the other end of the Mediterranean is not quite so clear. Announcing this just before a public marking of the deaths sounds like a plea for revenge.

Later on Thursday Radio 4 interviewed two Conservative MPs about the possibility of bombing Syria, one who voted for this and one who voted against in 2013 — overlooking the idea that the proposal now is to bomb the positions of ISIS, who oppose President Assad’s regime.

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Toby MacDonnell

Opinion: Revolution is not a dirty word

By Toby MacDonnell | Mon 6th July 2015 - 11:21 am

 

Revolution is not a dirty word: it is the honorific given to moments of dramatic change by their benefactors, which became suspicious in its connection to the prophecies of Marx’s illiberal inheritors who wished to usher in an era of benevolent totalitarianism.

Constitutional change is a common revolutionary cause. The American Revolution founded the world’s first Democratic Republic out of the writings of Publicus and Thomas Payne; the Revolution in France turned an agrarian feudal monarchy into an Empire in the mould of Rousseau’s Social Contract; and the Glorious Revolution established the supremacy of our Parliament in the vein of Hobbes’s Leviathan, until today.

Devolution, multi-party politics, European governance, and the tide of frustration that has risen since the financial crisis all call into question Britain’s constitutional settlement. Whether EVEL, the EU referendum, fiscal autonomy for Scotland, or electoral reform, Britain’s constitutional settlement has become its most contentious political battlefield.

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Opinion: A life discarded

By Richard Edwards | Mon 6th July 2015 - 9:36 am

 

Mr K. had arrived on the wing at Brixton Prison on the Friday. By Monday morning he was dead. He had managed to hang himself using a sheet tied around the window bars. No-one knew what time he had died. It would be interesting to know whether the inquest showed up the notoriously lax attitude of Brixton night duty staff to night time cell checks.

No-one really remembered speaking to him and all anyone amongst the prisoners could really say was that he had arrived on Friday, was short and slight, had an Irish accent and kept himself to himself. He had stayed in his cell – one of the few on the wing for single occupancy – except for when he collected his food.

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George Potter

Opinion: Time for a real English party

By George Potter | Sun 5th July 2015 - 8:55 am

It’s time for Liberal Democrats to get serious about England. Although we are, in theory, a federal party, we certainly don’t act like it in practice. In Scotland we stand as the Scottish Liberal Democrats. In Wales we stand as the Welsh Liberal Democrats/Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol Cymru. But in England we just stand as the Liberal Democrats.

We have Scottish and Welsh conferences to handle Scottish and Welsh policy but no English conference so our “federal” conference is dominated by policy on England only matters. We have federal committees in the party but they have Scottish and Welsh representatives added on separately. We have Welsh and Scottish Lib Dem HQs but the greatest concentration of our staff and resources is at party headquarters in London where there’s no distinction between staff focusing on federal matters and England matters.

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Euan Davidson

Opinion: In defence of the Scottish Government’s plan for named persons for every child

By Euan Davidson | Sat 4th July 2015 - 1:36 pm

I am writing this article after becoming increasingly frustrated at the tone and level of debate with which many people in our party are subjecting the Scottish Children and Young People’s bill and in particular the provision for a “named person” for every child.

Many of you will be asking what a “named person” is. If you choose to listen to the Daily Mail, the Christian institute and an assortment of other hysterical social conservatives this represents the introduction of state sponsored guardians whose mission in life is to spy on families and enforce political correctness. However I choose not to listen to these groups. I choose to listen to the countless social workers, teachers, child protections professionals, youth workers and other professionals who are backing this legislation.

What this legislation actually does is provide for a single point of contact for every young person from the ages of zero to eighteen so if ever that young person requires support from services or a welfare issue is raised by professionals, these organisations are operating in tandem rather than working in isolation. This will operate in a similar manner as health visitors supporting mothers and infants. For the vast majority of young people the named person will be a midwife then a health visitor followed by their primary school headteacher and finally their secondary guidance teacher.

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James Sandbach

Farron and Lamb respond to questions from Liberal Democrat Lawyers

By James Sandbach | Sat 4th July 2015 - 9:11 am

The Lib Dem Lawyers’ Association asked our leadership candidates Tim Farron and Norman Lamb a number of questions to probe their positions on key legal issue debates. First off we asked about the rule of law as a liberal principle and as you might expect received positive responses. On all our questions both candidates gave good responses, though sometimes with a different emphasis – you can read the responses in full here. There were a number of themes:-

On Access to Justice both took anti-LASPO (the legislation which cut back the scope of civil legal aid) positions – although both at the time voted for the legislation, Norman said “We were wrong…. this was quite possibly our biggest mistake in the last government” whilst Tim said “I don’t think anyone could now defend the LASPO Act’s reforms and we need to think again.” As someone who lobbied all our MPs incessantly on this issue, I’m pleased to hear that, although much damage to free legal advice sector has already been done. On criminal legal aid, Norman also spoke about “modernising the criminal justice system” whist Tim spoke about “ending the deserts in provision.”

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Caron Lindsay

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez argues for quotas on boards – but warns that inclusive culture is also necessary

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 3rd July 2015 - 3:02 pm

Remarkably, we’ve seen a consensus between our two leadership candidates that some for of action such as all women shortlists or zipping in list contests, is necessary to do something about the party’s shockingly poor record on diversity.

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, as reported in the International Business Times, has called for quotas on company boards:

I am a reluctant supporter of temporary quotas. Intervention, on a temporary basis, is probably the only solution to make a big change. It irritates my legal mind because obviously discrimination cannot be sorted with another discrimination, but I’ve come to the conclusion that unless you make an intervention, change will to be difficult.

She did go on to say, though, that where there must be no tokenism. Companies must allow women on their boards to play a full part:

Boards have a specific role: controlling what the situation is for shareholders and the community as a whole, that is why they were created. Too many boards are either not diverse or diverse nominally and not inclusive. They sit women around the table but they don’t participate in discussions, those boards are not fulfilling.

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Zack Polanski

Opinion: Getting diverse in the arts

By Zack Polanski | Thu 2nd July 2015 - 3:15 pm

Last month, I was invited by my friend Danny Lee  Wynter to an event he had organised at the National Theatre called Act for Change. It’s a movement that was set up in response to a TV Advert in 2014 which trailed the upcoming season of TV but failed to feature a single BAME performer or disabled artist. AfC campaigns on a platform that the arts are for everyone, regardless of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, age or disability, and they should reflect the societies we live in. Sound familiar to problems in any other places of work?

The event at the National was wonderful, eye opening and angry all in different measures. Chaired by Shami Chakrabati with a host of interesting voices on the panel including the actor Adrian Lester who told a wonderful story about his daughter commenting on the lack of diversity among Hobbits whilst they watched together the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He tried to reason with her until she pointed out an exact passage in Tolkein’s books in which the hobbits are described as being dark skinned which had just been ignored in the casting process.

I think Phyllida Lloyd summed the situation up best in the event when she answered a question by saying:

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Caron Lindsay

Report shows how extensively this country fails vulnerable children

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 2nd July 2015 - 1:45 pm

Yesterday the UK’s Children’s Commissioners published a joint report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. It makes very grim reading. If a child is poor, bullied, suffers mental ill health, gets involved with the criminal or immigration systems or suffers the effects of domestic violence, this country simply does not provide them with what they need. I seriously recommend that you read the whole thing because a few headlines from the press doesn’t quite give the flavour of the extent to which we should be ashamed of ourselves.

We can have all the arguments we like about austerity measures and to what extent they were necessary but this report provides an extensive list of the sorts of problems that we liberals should be putting all our energies into solving. Top of my list would be access to justice and reversing the cuts to legal aid that prevent children being properly represented in cases that affect them. Second would be mental health. The range of things that affect young people’s mental health is huge and we need to look at prevention as well as treatment when things do go wrong.

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Paul Tyler

Paul Tyler writes…Lessons for our new campaigner-in-chief?

By Paul Tyler | Thu 2nd July 2015 - 11:00 am

I was lucky enough to be invited to a symposium of academics, pollsters and (a very few) politicians this week at Nuffield College on “Beyond General Election 2015”. It was sponsored by the British Election Study, which takes an in depth look at the voting behaviour and motivations of a 30,000 strong sample.

The discussion was held under the Chatham House rule, so I cannot disclose who said what, but here are some themes.

The incumbency factor for sitting Liberal Democrat MPs seems to have been worth some 11%+ on the national vote share. Our 334 lost deposits are very troubling but these figures do show that without fairly ruthless (some might say not ruthless enough) targeting, we could not have maximised what little advantage we had.

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Ed Moisson

Opinion: General election 2015 – The rise of UKIP and the Tory decapitation strategy

By Ed Moisson | Thu 2nd July 2015 - 9:16 am

Looking across the change in vote share at the General Election (analysing data from here) reveals that the Liberal Democrat vote was down 15.3 percentage points (pps) on average, but down slightly more in constituencies where the Lib Dems won in 2010 (15.7 pps). Excluding Scotland from these latter figures shows the Libs Dems were down by 16.8 percentage points.

The biggest winner was UKIP, both in England and Wales (up 10.9 pps) and in former Lib Dem constituencies (up 7.6 pps). The Liberal Democrats need to understand why so many previous voters switched to UKIP.

The Conservatives were up 1.1 pps overall, but actually down 0.5 pps in Lib Dem seats. However, in England and Wales this turns into a gain, albeit just 0.7 pps and again lower than their overall improvement. The Conservatives gained most ground against the Lib Dems in the South West, up 3.8 pps overall, and up 4.3 pps in seats the Lib Dems had previously won.

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Caron Lindsay

Catherine Bearder MEP doesn’t need men telling her what’s important

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 1st July 2015 - 4:30 pm

I have to say that I am incandescent with rage at a profile of the only Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder which has appeared in the New Statesman. The implied conclusion of both the journalist and the several Liberal Democrat sources quoted seems to be that Catherine is a lightweight who needs the back-up of a group of men. She’s criticised for not pursuing their agendas and her own concerns, on massive issues like wildlife and human trafficking are dismissed by the journalist as pet projects.  Yes, that’s right, protecting vulnerable people from the brutal exploitation of modern slavery somehow is a niche issue? Not in my world.

The thing is, despite the drip-drip of patronising criticism that comes through the article Catherine comes out of it really well. What I get is an impression of a politician who, heaven forfend, is well-connected to her constituency and the people she represents. Heaven forfend! It’s hard to do that across a single UK Parliamentary seat. Across a region? That’s more challenging and Catherine does it well. That is just as important as legislative achievement.

Dave Keating, the journalist laments that the lack of political heavyweights:

The Liberal Democrats lost their Brussels heavyweights like Graham Watson, Andrew Duff and Ed McMillan-Scott.

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Dominic Collard

Opinion: The habit of liberalism

By Dominic Collard | Wed 1st July 2015 - 1:26 pm

I read somewhere that it takes 30 days to make a new habit. By all accounts, predictable behaviour is what the old brain likes. When it sniffs out something new, something out of the everyday ordinary, it’ll fire up the fragile in us and persuade our will power into a quick surrender. Any attempts to break with our norm will be wrestled from us. Until 30 days. At 30 days, the brain tells itself…. hold on, I recognise this, this thing you’re doing – carry on, nothing to see here. 30 days for the reluctant plodder to transcend into the regular jogger; 30 days until the ciggie quitter becomes the “No thanks I don’t smoke”-er.

30 days ago I made a decision to make a new habit. I decided I was going to care more about what happens next in our country. I was a bit nervous; ‘caring’ isn’t really something that comes naturally to me. I am a prolific helper of old ladies with heavy suitcases, and I will confidently stand by my record for apprehending dog walkers with a laissez faire attitude to canine bowel movements; but give me bad things happening elsewhere, to other people, and my default is to lurch for my off switch. Out of sight, ‘n all that. The “And here’s where your money will go to” bits of Comic Relief, the “Scenes some viewers may find distressing…” – these are my tea brewing moments. It’s appalling. I know it’s appalling. But, you know… habits!

So that’s why I joined the Lib Dems, 30 days ago. I had voted for them in the General Election, and they had lost gigantically. I’m not suggesting the former led to the latter, but somehow I felt responsible that I hadn’t done enough. So what better place to kickstart a habit for wanting things to be better.

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Joe Otten

A small step for trust in the manifesto

By Joe Otten | Tue 30th June 2015 - 12:33 pm

It has been obvious since long before the election that we have a trust problem. We did the right thing on tuition fees, bringing more young people than ever from disadvantaged backgrounds to university, a contribution system that fairer in terms of graduate incomes than general taxation would be, and therefore more “left wing” in the distributional sense, if not in the clientilist sense. This, graduate tax in all but name, on a moderately generous interpretation (! yes I know) honoured the second half of the pledge “work towards a fairer system of student finance” in spades, and made the first half redundant.

But politics doesn’t work like that. Labour can repeatedly break their promises to students when they have a majority in parliament and money to spend and it does not define them. We can all but honour ours and face a massive trust issue.

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Also posted in Party policy and internal matters | 129 Comments
Stephen Harte

Opinion: A liberal postcard from Athens #2

By Stephen Harte | Tue 30th June 2015 - 8:25 am

I sent a postcard from Athens to LDV six months or so ago as we waited for the Greek people to elect a new government – bringing to power the curious mix of Syriza (a collection of hard left factions that would make the People’s Front of Judea blush) and the Independent Greeks (representing the Greek chauvinistic right). This odd mix of nationalism and hard –left rhetoric has been colourfully described by one academic as “ethno-bolshevism”. Since then, it has certainly been eventful and I have been very much aware that political choices have consequences.

In the Greek election campaign, Syriza promised to free Greece to make its own financial decisions without interference form the much hated “Troika” (the IMF, the Eurozone and the European Union) while, at the same time, ensuring Greece could stay within the security of the European monetary union – even receiving debt relief from its other members. Greece duly voted to have its cake and to eat it.

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Roger Lake

Opinion: Paddy Ashdown’s appeal to Green and Labour

By Roger Lake | Mon 29th June 2015 - 5:33 pm

 

Lord Ashdown’s call for ‘progressive forces’ to  collaborate before the next election  does not go far enough, especially now there is talk about Labour never winning again. He rightly talks about  Lib Dem collaboration with Labour and the Greens. But there can be no ‘progress’ without prior electoral reform: the alternative is the old see-saw, but worse – Labour’s Scottish  amputation has moved the pivot. ‘Progress’ demands the rout of the Tories and their money, and that can be achieved if all other parties gang up on them. That sounds unsporting, but the Tories know well that this is no game.

All those parties which together represent that huge majority which voted 2:1 against the Conservatives must grit their teeth and do the needful thing, for their several and their collective futures: they must form a Mayday Alliance: an Alliance short-lived, but irresistible as a rescue force.

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David Thorpe

Opinion: The twin intellectual conceits that damned the Liberal Democrats’ election hopes in 2015

By David Thorpe | Mon 29th June 2015 - 11:13 am

 

History has the delightful habit of rendering as fools those who propagate the consensus view of a contemporary event, not because the consensus is ever totally wrong, but because it is comfortable and provides comfortable answers to snuggle up to, rather than looking deeper into the harsh eyes of reality and the bigger truths that are revealed.

And so it is with the Liberal Democrat post election postmortem. The consensus view huddles around the notion that it was only tuition fees and anger about the coalition that lost it, but we knew about those from a long way out and still felt we would get more than twenty seats. Two slivers of reality that the Lib Dems could not bring themselves to acknowledge drove our total of seats down further.

The first of these conceits, and the one that is both the least contentious and the most uncomfortable, is that we were too blasé in believing that our traditional campaign tactic of talking up the local and ignoring the national would work. It has of course been effective in the past, but it was hugely conceited to assume that rival parties would not be working on ways to crack that particular code. Of course the coalition made it easier for it to happen, but we signalled what we were to do, with rhetoric in the national media about our ’57 by-elections strategy’, signposting the direction of our campaign to all.

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    @maurice - small world indeed! What course were you doing? It was a fabulous week. Did you stay on campus?...
  • John MacInnes
    The key issue is that whilst filming is generally legal in public, AI glasses process the audio and video with AI, transfer and often store the data on company ...