Category Archives: Op-eds

Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 20th September 2026 - 9:30 am

The Falklands

The Falklands are back in the news. Argentine President Javier Milei has restated claims to “Las Islas Malvinas” and support from America and Chile—which was vital in 1982—is now doubtful.

But 2026 is not 1982. In 1982 there were about 100 Royal Marines at Port Stanley to protect the islands and the Royal Navy ice patrol ship HMS Endurance was facing withdrawal. After the Falklands War the government decided that deterrence was the best strategy.

There are now roughly 1,200–1,500 British military and supporting personnel in the South Atlantic, centred on the Mount Pleasant Complex, where the Royal Air Force bases four Typhoon FGR4 fighters, together with a Voyager tanker and an A400M Atlas transport aircraft. The islands also have radar, ground-based air defence and a rotating infantry company.

At sea, HMS Medway, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, replaced HMS Forth in January 2026 as the Royal Navy’s permanent South Atlantic patrol ship. An attack on the islands would therefore risk giving the attackers a very bloody nose.

Argentina, however, is increasing defence spending. Early control of the air would be key. Argentina has recently purchased 24 former Danish F-16s. The first six operational aircraft arrived in December 2025.

Milei would also need to beef up his navy. The initial 1982 invasion was by sea. Once the airfield at Port Stanley was secured, the Argentines flew in troops on transport aircraft. Defence planners would anticipate a similar requirement today, but this time Argentina would have to neutralise Mount Pleasant and overcome a much stronger British garrison and air-defence system.

The diplomatic position is as important as the military line-up. In 1982 Chile and Argentina were at loggerheads over the Beagle Channel. As a result, the government of Augusto Pinochet provided Britain with vital intelligence, reconnaissance and logistical support.

The Beagle dispute is over and recently President José Antonio Kast reaffirmed Chilean support for Argentina’s “legitimate sovereignty rights” over the Falklands, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. He stressed, however, the need for a peaceful resolution to the dispute.

More important is the US position. In 1982 Defence Secretary Caspar Weinberger led the way in pushing for strong American support for Britain. The result was the supply of Sidewinder missiles, satellite communications, intelligence, reconnaissance assistance, logistical support and other supplies. Weinberger was later rewarded with an honorary knighthood.

In 2026 the Pentagon has considered using the Falklands issue as leverage over Britain because of disagreements over the Iran War. On 31 August Trump said Washington was reviewing its position on the islands.

Javier Milei heard Trump. He responded with some sabre-rattling and this week announced tougher sanctions against companies involved in oil exploration around the islands.

Milei is highly sensitive to popularity and retaking the Falklands would be politically explosive. But even without American and Chilean support, a successful Argentine military operation would be extremely difficult. The islands are far better defended than in 1982 and Britain still possesses two aircraft carriers, modern destroyers and nuclear-powered attack submarines.

American help would be useful. But Trump’s help is not necessarily essential.

How is the new Hungarian government doing?

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Caron Lindsay

What’s on at Conference today?

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 20th September 2026 - 7:30 am

First up today is a wide-ranging motion on music covering things like AI, planning around music venues, support for music and the right to education in music. That last is so important. Playing an instrument or singing is such a good way of getting out of your own head and the links between musical tuition and attainment are clear.

Then it’s on to active travel – walking, wheeling and cycling with three amendments, one from the Lib Dem Disability Association looking at making active travel safe and accessible for disabled people from the start, one from Lib Dem Women looking …

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Phil Wainewright

Lib Dems need a 25-year vision that sets out how we’ll change Britain

By Phil Wainewright | Sat 19th September 2026 - 11:47 am

Lib Dems desperately want a message that cuts through.

Something that lifts our standing in the polls with the same gravity-defying ease as we’ve seen Reform and the Greens achieve. But I’m afraid there is no single magic phrase or policy position that will do that. (Nor, by the way, is there some charismatic new leader who could instantly rally voters to our cause. We don’t do leadership cults.)
If we want to cut through, we have to be authentic. True to ourselves. True to our values.

People are disillusioned with politicians of all stripes. They see no vision, just tinkering at the edges and broken promises. Politicians have been treating voters like consumers that want to be bribed with pleasing offers. But the focus-group approach to policy formation has failed.

Since voters don’t believe any of these bribes, they feel they may as well vote for the newcomers making the most outrageous promises. Give it another roll of the dice.
But voters aren’t stupid. One woman I called on in my local area is typical. Politics has let her down, along with others in her community that she sees struggling to get by. She wants to believe that things will get better, but knows it will take a very long time to put things right. “It’s too late for me. It’s my grandchildren I’m thinking of,” she tells me. “What kind of a future are they going to have?”

We need to fix what is wrong in Britain, but voters like this woman know it won’t happen overnight. Britain needs a generational shift in how the country is run. Today’s policies set the tone, but they should be just the starting point for a credible vision of reform stretching out over the next 25 years. Without that overarching vision, it ís as though our policies are just plucked out of the air or decided on the whim of the leader (which is ironic considering how democratically our policies are decided).

How do other parties do this? A century ago, when the Labour party replaced the Liberals as the main progressive party, it wasn’t by having a more appealing set of policies at each successive general election. On the contrary, Labour made huge missteps in the 1920s and 1930s. It finally triumphed in 1945 because it had built up a consistent vision for state socialism and welfare (with help from some key Liberal thinkers along the way) that put working people first. Irrespective of its specific policies, voters could see what it stood for.

Liberal Democrats are not going to form the next government, but if we’re going to build up our core vote, then voters need a sense of what we’d aim for in government. They need to know the bigger picture behind our commitment to carers and the NHS, our desire to fix the cost of living, our opposition to sewage in rivers, our commitment to PR and to Europe. Not just the values that we all share – a society in which no-one is held back by poverty, ill health or lack of education, where everyone is valued and empowered to choose their path – but a true sense of what that would look like.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Kompromat

By Tom Arms | Sat 19th September 2026 - 9:30 am

Donald Trump has undermined history’s most successful defence alliance. He is engaged in an all-out trade war with America’s closest neighbour and ally. He is threatening to take control of the territory of another ally. His tariffs have destabilised the world trading system. His repeated attacks on American elections have damaged confidence in one of the cornerstones of US democracy. He is crude, rude and politically divisive. He has cut support for democratic Ukraine while repeatedly accommodating authoritarian Russia. And finally, he has embroiled the United States in a Middle East war that is pushing up energy and food prices around the world.

If the aim of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping is to weaken the power of the United States and the Western alliance, it is difficult to imagine that they could have asked for a more disruptive occupant of the White House.

Donald Trump claims that the Mueller Report exonerated him of allegations of collusion with the Russians. That is false. Robert Mueller concluded that his investigation “did not establish” that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its interference in the 2016 election. He also documented numerous contacts between Trump associates and Russians, confirmed that the Russians did interfere and concluded that Moscow expected to benefit from a Trump victory while the Trump campaign expected to benefit from material stolen and released through Russian efforts.

Trump refused Mueller’s request for an in-person interview and instead provided written answers which Mueller later described as inadequate and incomplete. Given everything that has happened since Mueller, it is worth re-examining the allegations and asking the question: Does Moscow have kompromat on Donald Trump?

Kompromat is Russian shorthand for “compromising material” and has entered the vocabulary of intelligence agencies around the world. To ask whether an intelligence service has kompromat on someone is to ask whether it possesses damaging information—true, exaggerated or fabricated—that can be used to blackmail, pressure, manipulate or otherwise exert leverage over that person.

According to the Steele dossier, the Russians possess kompromat on Donald Trump. The details are hazy. The compromising material could involve sex, questionable business dealings, or both.

Republicans frequently say that the Steele dossier has been “debunked.” That is too sweeping. Many of its most sensational allegations have never been substantiated, and some were weakened or contradicted by subsequent investigations. But the broader context in which the dossier was written was very real. Russia interfered extensively in the 2016 election, Trump associates had numerous contacts with Russians, and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee later concluded that Paul Manafort’s position in the Trump campaign created opportunities for Russian intelligence to exert influence and obtain confidential information.

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Steve Mason

A different story of hope for Liberalism in the 21st Century

By Steve Mason | Fri 18th September 2026 - 6:45 pm

The failures are plain to see. Rivers are treated as drains. Homes are left exposed to floods and heat. Public services are forced to pay tomorrow for damage that should have been prevented today. Families face higher bills, weaker services and a natural world in retreat, while Westminster still asks its narrowest question. Has GDP gone up?

GDP is not the enemy. It measures economic activity, and that still has value. The mistake is treating this narrow measure as the test of national success. A business would not sell its factory roof to flatter this year’s accounts while exposing its machinery to the rain. Yet that is what politics does when it runs down the living foundations of our prosperity and calls the transaction growth.

It is time to put GDP back in its place. Let it count activity but not define purpose. Our economy needs a compass, not just a speedometer. It must ask whether growth is widening freedom, strengthening communities, renewing the natural systems on which life depends and increasing the wealth we hold in common.

This is the question for Liberal Democrats. Are we brave enough to tell a different story of sustainability and hope? The liberalism Britain needs now is not thin individualism, nor a faith that remote markets or centralised ministries will save us. It is freedom rooted in dignity, community, stewardship and democratic power. Clean water, secure homes, healthy people, thriving nature, decent work, trusted services and power in people’s own communities are the footings on which liberty stands.

There is no liberal future on a polluted, depleting island. When rivers are unsafe, landscapes are stripped, neighbourhoods are vulnerable and services are hollowed out, people do not become freer. They become more exposed. That is not liberty. It is abandonment dressed up as choice.

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Victoria Collins MP

Victoria Collins MP writes.. The ask that changes everything

By Victoria Collins MP | Fri 18th September 2026 - 4:45 pm

There’s a moment every candidate remembers. Not the selection meeting, not the count on election night but the moment before when someone else believed in you, when someone asked you to stand. For most of us, we’d never have got there on our own. Someone else saw it first.

That’s the thread I kept coming back to recently, when the Joint Candidates Sub Committee brought together our Diversity Affiliated Organisations and Campaign Groups to talk about candidates. We heard a lot of honest, thoughtful feedback about our approvals and selection process – what’s working well, and where we must keep improving.

For me, this isn’t an abstract policy discussion on how we get more diverse candidates approved, selected and elected. It’s personal.

The new Candidates team have done a fantastic job of improving candidate onboarding and setting up a referral programme, we well as working on candidate support. Now, we need you.

Standing for Parliament didn’t feel like something for people like me. I only made it through because people in organisations like Chinese East and South East Asian (CESEA), the Campaign for Gender Balance and the Stellar Programme backed me with time, with mentoring, and with the money I didn’t have. Take any one of those away and I’m not writing this as an MP. I went from delivering leaflets to becoming the 656th woman ever elected to this Parliament, and our party’s first MP of East and South East Asian origin. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because people and programmes chose to invest in me.

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Shevaun Haviland CBE

The Independent View: To get Britain growing again, we must cut the cost of doing business 

By Shevaun Haviland CBE | Fri 18th September 2026 - 2:45 pm

 As the Liberal Democrats gather in Brighton, some of the discussion will focus on how to build a stronger, more productive and increasingly inclusive economy. The Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce argues that at a key component of this debate should be consideration of how to cut the costs of doing business.

On a recent visit to Lancashire, I met some incredible businesses from the manufacturing, construction, retail, and hospitality sectors. They all told me how squeezed they felt by rising cost pressures. 

But the picture that emerged from our conversations, wasn’t just of the pain businesses are feeling, but of the consequences. One firm said it had previously taken on 25 apprentices, but this year, under the weight of mounting costs, it is hiring just one. 

That story, unfortunately, is repeated across the land. British Chambers of Commerce research shows the cost stack facing a typical small or medium-sized business, built up from a decade of government policy decisions, has increased by more than 70%. A quarter of that increase has landed since the Autumn Budget of 2024. 

Ask business owners what worries them most, and the answer isn’t complicated: inflation, taxation, and business rates, in that order. According to our latest survey, just 17% of firms say they plan to increase investment in the coming months. That’s the lowest level since the pandemic.

 This should worry us all. Every pound a business spends absorbing higher costs, is a pound that doesn’t go towards hiring a young person, upgrading technology, or lowering prices on the shelves. An economy that works for everyone, depends on businesses having the confidence to back themselves. Currently, too many are hamstrung by costs outside their control before they even get the chance to hire, invest, or grow. 

 That is why, ahead of this year’s Budget, the British Chambers of Commerce is calling for urgent action to cut the cost of doing business.

 First, we must tackle the NEETs crisis. Over a million young people out of education, employment or training is a national scandal. Employers want to do their bit, but the incentives to hire young people have been removed, while the risks have grown and the environment toughened. An Employer’s National Insurance holiday for under-25s would make it cheaper and easier for firms to take on a young person rather than pass them over. 

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Christian de Vartavan

Can Britain build a sovereign military AI?

By Christian de Vartavan | Fri 18th September 2026 - 9:04 am

On Monday evening, during our APPG AI meeting in the House of Lords, we discussed whether Britain could develop its own sovereign artificial-intelligence language models for military use. One speaker with expertise in military AI suggested that this would not be feasible, at least initially, given the cost involved.

The Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, said that Project ASGARD is helping British soldiers make faster decisions and save time in combat operations through AI agents and targeted large language models (LLMs), with the capability being developed and tested by soldiers in Estonia.

The Army is also developing AI-enabled training. In July 2026, the Ministry of Defence announced a £2 billion, 15-year contract for an AI-enabled training capability intended to support the training of approximately 60,000 soldiers each year through AI and analytics.

The most ambitious element is the new Digital Targeting Web, designed to digitally connect sensors, intelligence systems, commanders and weapons to enable faster decision-making and targeting. The Defence Investment Plan commits nearly £2 billion in new funding to the capability, with the wider programme and supporting digital infrastructure receiving additional investment. Its aim is to reduce the time between detecting a threat and deciding how to respond.

In June 2026, the Ministry also established the ‘Rapid AI Delivery Taskforce’, or TF RAID. Its priorities include machine-assisted intelligence fusion, operations when communications are disrupted, automated military planning and AI-enabled swarms of uncrewed systems. It has been allocated ‘£100 million’.

These are significant programmes. However, they do not yet amount to a clearly identifiable, sovereign British equivalent of France’s military-AI ecosystem.

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Chris Nelson

Are the men of violence back in British politics?

By Chris Nelson | Thu 17th September 2026 - 3:06 pm

The brutal killing of Ann Widdecombe earlier this year has given us all cause to pause about the state of our politics. We do not yet know why she was killed, and it would be wrong to speculate. But Britain already knows where political violence can lead: Jo Cox. David Amess. Still others whose plots were mercifully foiled by the police.

In a previous era of political murder and intimidation, Margaret Thatcher said after the Brighton bombing:

“We must never never never be stopped; never be stopped from going among the people by a few men of violence, because that is what they want, and if they stop us democracy would not be able to continue.”

As Caron Lindsay pointed out on this site two years ago, political violence is nothing new. Yet today the danger is not merely that violence happens. It is that we are starting to accept it.

The rot starts with smaller acts. Intimidation becomes ordinary; violence becomes accepted, even mocked. What was forbidden becomes normal.

My withdrawal from restanding as Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Kettering in 2024 was never just about the treatment of my stammer. It was about intimidation, threats and the fear that the next angry encounter might not remain verbal. A fear that too many candidates and councillors have come to expect.

Nine years ago, during a council by-election in Barton Seagrave, a man squared up to me on the doorstep, so angry that his own wife had to hold him back. The cause? My opposition to a Parish Council tax rise to fund a village hall.

Seven years ago, during the 2019 General Election, I was called a “traitor” online and at least one local man fantasised about hanging me from a lamppost. I stopped feeling safe alone in my own hometown. I went to the count in a Christmas jumper, but did my Christmas shopping elsewhere.

Five years ago, while delivering leaflets during the local elections, a man recognised me and chased me down the street. I ran and hid. By then there were places I would not canvass alone, fearing verbal abuse might become physical — as later happened to our own Kevin Lang.

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Gareth Roberts

London needs more social homes – and Liberal Democrat boroughs are determined to deliver

By Gareth Roberts | Thu 17th September 2026 - 12:57 pm

The housing crisis in London needs little introduction. One in 50 Londoners are homeless and living in temporary accommodation organised by their local borough. More than 336,000 households languish on waiting lists for social housing in the capital. Many of London’s 2.7 million private renters face spiralling rents they can barely afford. Young people in our communities find themselves priced out of the places they call home.

London is struggling – but Liberal Democrat boroughs are determined to tackle this crisis.

Housing is about creating sustainable communities, improving lives, and ensuring that local people can continue to live in the areas they know and love. Affordable, high-quality housing brings immense individual and social benefits. Housing policy cuts across the other major challenges of our era, including the state of the economy and the need to address the climate crisis.

If it doesn’t sound too grandiose, I’d suggest housing policy is one of the fundamental building blocks upon which liberal democracy rests.

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Mark Corner

Andy Burnham’s devolution reforms go only half-way

By Mark Corner | Thu 17th September 2026 - 10:40 am

None of us who remember the terrible time local government endured in the 1980s as budgets were sliced and powers reduced can be unhappy to see greater powers given to local government now. In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher’s government looked across the Thames at the unemployment figures draped over the side of the Greater London Council building, and to her it might as well have been the flag of a foreign power raised over her homeland (reminding her after the Falklands episode that there were ‘enemies within’). Away went the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. In practice it was a time of massive centralisation.

The Lib Dems are right to be concerned about where county councils fit into the picture now with the rise of ‘metro mayors’ and whether there’s too much of an urban takeover, but the move towards more control at local level is a welcome one in principle. However, devolution isn’t just about giving power away. It’s also about sharing power.

I’m not sure that Andy Burnham really understands this, despite his recent meeting with the leaders of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it is with the ‘nations’ outside England that the danger lies. If you think that all you’ve got to do is give powers away (‘Can we control policing in Wales?’ ‘Yes, maybe we can agree to that’) then you will find that eventually whoever receives additional powers will want more until eventually it seems logical to ask for complete control. I’m not saying that this would be a danger in the case of the English regions. Giving Kim McGuiness a budget over transport policies in the North-East is not likely to lead to a demand for an independent Northumbria. But in the case of those parts of the UK where there are already strong forces calling for full independence, it is arguable that those who say ‘giving some powers away is bound to be a foot in the door leading to demands for more and eventually everything’ have a point.

It is for this reason that devolution must have an element of sharing power as well as giving it away. James Dennison’s recent exploration of governing structures in the UK in Lib Dem Voice talks of a change to the second chamber. He suggests ‘around 300 voting members of the Lords elected by first past the post in territorial constituencies, giving the second chamber a deliberately different mandate rooted in place.’ This would be an excellent development giving the House of Lords a distinctive role in bringing together representatives of the regions and nations. It’s maybe a little like the German ‘Bundesrat’ but it doesn’t have to be the same. James also talks about appointed experts adding to the numbers in the second chamber.

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David Vigar

Reform donations row shows how facts get trampled at Westminster

By David Vigar | Wed 16th September 2026 - 10:25 am

“Comment is free, but facts are sacred” wrote The Guardian’s editor CP Scott in 1921. A century and a bit later, the story of Reform UK’s £72 million of donations shows how Westminster has become a battleground of comment where facts get trampled underfoot. 

What are the facts? On 25 March, Steve Reed, then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government, announced that there would be “an annual £100,000 cap on total political donations” made by any overseas elector. He said the government would apply the restrictions retrospectively to donations received from that date. The changes would be tabled as amendments to the Representation of the People Bill.  

The letter said that once the law was in force, political parties would have 30 days to return any donations received on or after 25 March.

And what would happen if an overseas elector moved back to the UK? That was cleared up on 6 July when Samantha Dixon, Minister for Elections, announced that any such person would remain subject to the cap “until they have been resident in the UK for a whole calendar year.” 

All pretty clear. The only loose end I can see is that the bill would still allow UK-based donors to donate eye-watering sums and the government is reportedly considering whether to propose a cap on all donations. The Lib Dems have been ahead of the game again in calling for such a cap already.

Meanwhile, months after the proposed law was set out, Reform are claiming  that their £36m donations from Ben Delo and Christopher Harbourne are legitimate. 

Reform’s Richard Tice said: “These donations are made in accordance with the rules and the regulations, and you’ve now got a hyperventilating hypocrisy from the socialists ruining this country, who are trying to change the rules retrospectively, which is it’s not the fair way, it’s not the British way…”

Did you see what he did there? Tice is of course right to say that the donations are in accordance with the current rules. But then he says the government is “trying to change the rules retrospectively” as if they had done this after the Reform donations, rather than before them – and whistles to his fans by ranting about “socialists” and “the British way”.   

The trick is simple. Garnish distortion with a sprig of truth. Then whip up so much heat that emotion drives the story and cold hard facts get left behind. 

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Jack Coulson

The Independent View: Turning back the tide on free speech

By Jack Coulson | Wed 16th September 2026 - 8:55 am

Eagle-eyed Conference goers this year may spot enlarged Brighton beaches, thanks to a scheme extending them to combat coastal erosion.

Dumping tonnes of rocks is hard work, but the simplicity has a certain beauty. Sadly, the tide is not so easily turned on free speech.

We have all seen it. Octogenarians arrested for holding bits of paper, terrifying examples of trials for tweets, and the unedifying spectacle of ‘free speech absolutists’ banning journalists they do not like from events.

Big Brother Watch has just published a major review: Britain’s Free Speech Problem – How growing restrictions are stifling speech online and offline. It highlights issues including a heady mixture of draconian legislation, partisan hypocrisy and an absence of people willing to stand up for the rights of people with whom they do not agree.

Some of these problems are timeless, but technology means some are genuinely new and require new answers.

Until recently, one could straightforwardly argue that people should have access to more information: anything less was censorship. Then people worked out that with the right algorithm, they could convince people to spend hours in bed watching nonsense, 15 seconds at a time.

Effectively infinite information, presented in an order nobody is directly accountable for, with enough flashing light to tempt even the most performative of readers away from their books.

How free is the public discourse if an algorithm chooses what is seen?

For their next trick, the tech bros invented a novel Google search that seems to talk to us and can sort of do many white collar jobs.

We learned something sad – lots of what we thought made us special is easy to mimic. From the good, like creative writing and music, to the bad, like an intern who swears something is true until you make them check their source: AI can do it all.

As the gap between having an idea and executing it is filled by AI, old notions of who is responsible, and accountable, need reevaluating. For years I have tried to rewrite Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours into an album about Brexit. I am sure Claude could do it for me, but that is definitely not ‘me’ doing it.

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James Dennison

Britain has too much government and too little democratic power

By James Dennison | Tue 15th September 2026 - 1:30 pm

Britain has accumulated government without accumulating democratic power. A citizen trying to discover who is responsible for a major decision can now encounter ministers, councils, combined authorities, mayors, regulators, agencies, commissioners and public-private partnerships—often with overlapping responsibilities and no obvious person whom an election can remove. 

This is not simply a problem of having too much government. It is a problem of power becoming difficult to see and therefore difficult to control. The liberal answer is neither centralisation nor another wave of institutional invention, but to make the state smaller where possible, stronger where necessary, and democratic wherever public power is exercised. Ten Liberal Democrat policies could begin that process. 

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Larry Ngan

Foreign interference in British politics: How the Liberal Democrats man meet the challenge

By Larry Ngan | Tue 15th September 2026 - 9:08 am

The Brexit referendum was a watershed moment in British politics. Ten years on, the British political landscape is still very much carved out between ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’. Among Remainers, there are also beliefs that the campaign was heavily affected by influence from Russia and far-right figures in the United States. Nigel Farage, one of the leading figures in the Brexit campaign, was recently involved in an alleged case concerning unsolicited donations, and allegations about Reform UK’s links with Russia and the Trump Administration continue to make newspaper headlines.

At the same time, far left politics is similarly highly susceptible to disinformation campaigns. Let us look at China and George Galloway’s campaign as an example. Mr. Galloway hosted ‘Taiwan Untangled’, a documentary TV programme broadcast by China Global Television Network (CGTN). The series blatantly skewed the wording of the United Nations Resolution 2758. That resolution makes no mention of Taiwan’s sovereignty, let alone China’s claim on Taiwan, and yet China tries claim it does through misrepresentation. In effect, firstly, CGTN has used Galloway as a speaker from the UK to try to show its citizens that Europeans support Beijing’s views. And, secondly, the CCP has sought to promote its ‘One China policy’ in Europe.

But mere suspicion is not healthy for a democracy. We must rise to the challenge posed the breadth and depth of foreign interference in British politics.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: It’s time to take big money out of British politics

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 14th September 2026 - 5:02 pm

If ever there were a moment to have a serious conversation about how we fund our politics, this is it.

In the space of just 48 hours, Reform UK received an extraordinary £72 million from two billionaire donors – £36 million apiece from crypto entrepreneurs Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne. Let me be clear: my argument isn’t that Reform should be singled out for rules that don’t apply to everybody else. The problem is the system itself.

At present, there is no overall limit on the amount a permissible donor can give to a political party. That means our democracy remains vulnerable to the simple fact that somebody with an enormous bank balance can attempt to wield a financial and potential political influence unavailable to the overwhelming majority of citizens. That cannot be healthy.

I believe the answer is a proper system of State funding of political parties, coupled with strict limits on large private donations. Yes, I can already hear the objection: why should taxpayers fund political parties they don’t support? But democracy isn’t free. We already publicly fund elements of our politics, including policy development grants and parliamentary support such as Short Money. The principle has therefore already been established.

A properly designed system could allocate funding according to electoral support while retaining a modest role for membership fees and individual donations. It would mean parties spending less time courting wealthy benefactors and more time trying to persuade voters. And it would help to create something liberals should instinctively support: a more level political playing field. Democracy should ultimately be a contest of ideas, values and visions for our country’s future. It should never be a contest to see which political party can attract the billionaire with the biggest chequebook.

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Josh Matthews

The liberalism we need: a platform for people to thrive and live their version of a best life

By Josh Matthews | Sun 13th September 2026 - 10:30 am

We need a single guiding point that policy, communication, and a revitalised brand can flow from. Without losing the breadth of values that makes us strong

Most liberals and Liberal Democrats have instincts – and often detailed, powerful, personal articulations – for why they are liberal and/or Lib Dems. Our constitution is also an impressive illustration, as is the history of liberal ideas and achievements. We have many pillars: internationalism, environmentalism, liberty, equality, community, and more – all working together. But that breadth which is so often a strength also presents a struggle: communicating a single, clear vision or “north star” that means the public instinctively and immediately know who we are and what we stand for. 

What liberals and Liberal Democrats often lack is a single guiding beacon for both storytelling and policymaking. 

The idea of a platform – for every individual to thrive and live their own version of a best life –   is increasingly my own personal way of understanding my progressive/social liberal politics… as well as what policy and decision making can ultimately strive toward. It works well on the doorstep. But that needs a conversation to hold long enough that the platform idea becomes natural enough to weave in.

There’s something about the platform that still isn’t quite boiled down enough to make me confident in it as the finished idea. That’s where I’d love some help from anyone who either resonates with or sees the problem in this idea – alongside everyone who has already helped shape it, of course – thank you and we’ll talk more in Brighton! 

A single framing for liberalism: A platform to live your version of a best life.

From that platform comes three core concepts: freedom, fairness, and opportunity. From these our broader value set and policy can flow in all its forms.

  • Meaningful freedom. 

A platform sees freedom really mean something. That meaningful freedom must come from a solid foundation (NOT a safety net for when something goes wrong) that includes health, housing, environment, purpose, political voice, community, education, and all the elements that allow individuals and communities to thrive under their own definitions.

  • Freedom in a fair society that works especially for the least advantaged.

A platform means a fair society – and goodness knows that could be defined in many ways. For me, and I see for many liberals, fairness in many ways means the version of society that works best for the least advantaged. A society that you would think is fair not knowing who you were in it (the “veil of ignorance”). 

  • Genuine equality of opportunity, not just theoretical opportunity written in law.

Opportunity that feels real. Underpinned by all the foundations of meaningful freedom… again: health, housing, environment, purposeful work, political voice, community, education, and more.

What a platform is not…

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th September 2026 - 8:30 am

Saudi Arabia

Since the Strait of Hormuz largely closed, Saudi Arabia has increasing amounts of its oil through a pipeline to its oil terminal in Yanbu on the Red Sea. This way they can transport their Asian-bound products through the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean and beyond.

That route goes past Yemen and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait  which is another one of the sea-going world’s chokepoints. On Thursday it was announced that the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have taken control of the city and seaport of Mocha and much of the shoreline of the Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb strait. The oil price jumped to $109 a barrel.

Control of the Red Sea has repercussions beyond the price of oil and fertiliser. Sandwiched between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean, it links Europe and Asia. Twelve to 15 percent of the world’s maritime trade sails through the Red Sea. All of it is within easy range of any missiles or drones on the Yemeni side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. That trade is valued at over $1 trillion a year.

The Houthis are in a struggle against the Saudi–backed Yemeni government who told Reuters this week that hundreds of officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are currently in Yemen directing the attack on Mocha and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

According to CNN, more than 100 US military advisers are in Saudi Arabia as part of a new joint forces command, providing the Saudis with intelligence and helping them find Houthi targets. Thus, the war widens and escalates. What began around the Strait of Hormuz is acquiring another front—and another strategic chokepoint.

North Korea

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un  has commissioned two new 5,000-ton destroyers. They will form, he says, part of the country’s “nuclear counteraction system.” The ships have vertical launch systems and are assessed to be capable of firing cruise missiles such as the Hwasal-2, which North Korea claims can carry nuclear warheads. Pyongyang is also developing an 8,700-ton nuclear-powered submarine, whose hull Kim inspected in late 2025.

The North Koreans have come up with the technology amazingly quickly, which is why many intelligence analysts are detecting the Russian hand behind these developments. Kim has sent an estimated 15,000 North Korean troops to fight in the Ukraine War as well as thousands of tons of munitions according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, up to another 50,000 North Koreans are expected.

The technology to build a nuclear-armed navy is likely to be part of the bodies for technology agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Donald Trump responded to the new North Korean threat by drastically curtailing and postponing the annual “Freedom Shield” US-South Korean-Japan military exercises. Originally scheduled for 17-27 August. They did not start until 7 September

South Korea’s response to these machinations is interesting. Seoul is moving towards its own nuclear-powered submarines. President Lee Jae Myung’s government has formally advanced the Jang Bogo N nuclear-powered submarine programme. These would be conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines. They will not, however, be armed with nuclear missiles.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: West Bank Settler Sanctions

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th September 2026 - 9:37 am

Competing demographic trends inside Israel and its Western traditional supporters in are stacked against the Jewish state.

This week’s round of British-led sanctions against goods produced by West Bank settlers is a recognition of changing Western attitudes towards Israel.

Democracies by their very nature are dominated by short-term electoral cycles of two, four or five years. Demographic attitudinal changes, on the other hand, run over decades. Governments can postpone responding to the demographic realities because the electoral penalty is initially small. Then, quite suddenly, the accumulated change becomes impossible to ignore. Especially if there is a catalyst such as Gaza and the Iran War.

Israel was founded by a political elite with broadly European social-democratic institutions. In the first decades of its existence, Western publics — particularly after the Holocaust and during wars in which Israel appeared to be the vulnerable underdog — identified strongly with it. Living on an Israeli kibbutz became one of the “IN” ways of spending the summer or gap year.

But Israel also changed as its demographic make-up became less European  and more Asian, African and home-grown. These Israelis grew up on the constant shadow of war and they became preoccupied with security and nationalism and increasingly distrustful of Palestinians, Arabs and Iran. Young people in the West became more aware of human-rights-based issues and the Palestinians.

During the 1967 Six-day War a Gallup poll showed that 56 percent of Americans backed Israel. Only four percent supported the Arab cause. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War American support was up to 54 percent. Support for the Arabs remained in single figures.

The arrival of Benjamin Netanyahu and a shift towards more right-wing, nationalistic and security-focused policies started a shift in Western attitudes. In 2010 America’s favourable attitudes towards Israel dropped to 40 percent. The drop was even more marked in Europe. Only 17 percent of Britons expressed support for Israel in 2010. In France the figure was 20 percent and in Canada 23 percent.

After Gaza and the Iran War the drop is more acute. In June 2026, American support for Israel had dropped to 37 percent for Americans and 25 percent among the British. But, more important, was the generational gap because that is the best indicator of future trends. In 2026, among 18 to 34 year olds, 23 percent expressed support for Israel while the figure for the 50-plus generation was 49 percent. In Britain the figureswere16 percent and 30 percent respectively.

Polls in Israel reflect a markedly different picture. Only 13 percent of Israeli Jews 18-34 supported a detailed two-state peace package solution compared to 40 percent for the over 55’s. The disparity is mirrored in issues such as Gaza, the Lebanon and Iran.

In Israel the demographic trends are moving in opposite directions from that of young Western voters. In the West the young especially are becoming increasingly critical of Israel, while young Jewish Israelis are generally more nationalistic, dismissive of the two-state solution, tougher on security issues and more hawkish  than their parents.

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George Cunningham

Recollections of 9/11

By George Cunningham | Fri 11th September 2026 - 5:29 pm

George Cunningham was present in New York on 9/11. Here are his personal recollections of what happened taken from his book, “Journey to Become a Diplomat” ISBN 978-0871242136

At first, I did not know anything had happened. It was one of those typically summery Septembers in New York in 2001, and I was attending as an EU diplomat the traditional international prayer breakfast at the start of a new United Nations (UN) General Assembly. Mr. Hang Seung-soo of South Korea stood up to make his speech. There was a hush to hear his words, but something made my ears prick up, …

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Dominic Sokalski

Why we need a Trade NATO

By Dominic Sokalski | Fri 11th September 2026 - 3:31 pm

Mark Carney was right: if middle powers aren’t at the table, they’re on the menu. A credible ‘Trade NATO’ would make the great powers think twice.

At Davos earlier this year, Mark Carney delivered a stark warning: the rules-based international order no longer works and a new architecture is needed. We are living through a “rupture”, not a transition, in which great powers increasingly use tariffs, supply chains and economic dependence as tools of coercion.

At the Lowy Institute in March, Carney put more flesh on the bones. He called for a “dense web” of middle-power partnerships and “variable geometry”: different coalitions working together on different problems, from AI and critical minerals to trade and supply chains.

But he stopped short of proposing a standing pact committing those countries to defend each other against economic coercion. I think that matters.

In 2023, the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan signed a joint declaration pledging to deter and address economic coercion. Three years later, Canada is finding out the limits of political declarations when governments change.

If Carney’s rupture is real, we need something legally binding with teeth.

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Alan Dai

‘I Fear a Target on My Back’ — A Liberal Democrat’s fight for Hong Kong’s freedom

By Alan Dai | Fri 11th September 2026 - 1:22 pm

Hong Kong, September 2019. I was on the streets every other day, having just joined the Protect the Children Action group (PtCA). It was the height of the pro-democracy protests. The Hong Kong police shot two people in the eye, a nurse and a journalist, and tear-gassed care homes full of elderly residents. Hong Kongers fought back. Young people may have been the backbone of the protest, but the whole of society mobilised. Alongside those marching peacefully, others handed out food and drink, and the Methodist Church in Wan Chai opened its doors to everyone, offering shelter and comfort.

PtCA was made up of older people who could not run as fast as the young, or whose other commitments kept them from the frontlines. Yet we stood at the forefront of the protest, facing the police directly. One of our members was beaten by more than 40 police officers in a back alley. We formed human chains, trying to separate police from civilians. We stood as lookouts, warning people of approaching police so they could decide whether to stay or go. We made sure the young stragglers — one as young as 13 years old — were not picked up.

This culminated in the university sieges. After a day of fighting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I remember the quiet that followed; the ashes on the ground still smelled of tear gas, assaulting my senses. The quiet sunrise over the mountains meant we had made it through another day. A week later, at the Polytechnic University, things were more desperate. I saw a girl curled up behind the entrance to the MTR (Hong Kong’s metro), screaming, as a water cannon hit the building at full force. That was my protest.

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Jonathan Brown

Making the most of the Government’s belated action on illegal Israeli settlements

By Jonathan Brown | Thu 10th September 2026 - 9:28 am

Most of the country clearly believes that the Government’s newly announced actions to be taken to curb the illegal Israeli settlements are overdue… but very welcome nonetheless. It’s not universal, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemning the change, but liberal Jewish groups, such as Yachad, made the obvious but important point that “These new policies do not target Israel; they target the occupation. They draw a clear distinction between the legitimacy of the State of Israel and the settlement enterprise which is illegal under international law.”

As a Liberal Democrat, and as Vice Chair of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine, I am really pleased that the Government finally appears to be taking strong action in support of international law, bringing it broadly into line with Lib Dem policy that’s been in place since 2021. I’m proud that Liberal Democrats have led the way on taking a tough, principled stand that respects the rights and aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians, while expecting and demanding that both sides abide by their obligations under international law.

I’m saddened however that the media and the public have so little awareness of our position, despite the best efforts of our Parliamentarians in the Houses of Commons and the Lords. I regret to say that I believe our failure to take this message strongly out of parliament and to the people has contributed to us underperforming in opinion polls and elections over the last year and more.

Both for reasons of seizing the moment politically – doing what we can to advance a just peace – AND to boost our standing with the public, I think it’s crucial that we take the opportunity that our Autumn Conference provides, not only to debate Israel-Palestine but to further advance party policy.

The Lib Dem Friends of Palestine have submitted an emergency motion addressing the role of the settlements and settlers in the collapse of the two state solution and making life – obviously and deliberately – unbearable for Palestinians. The deadline for submissions was prior to the Government’s announcements, but I’m pleased nevertheless that we correctly anticipated most of what Miliband introduced. We welcome the Government’s actions but recognise that it will all come down to implementation and our motion sets out in some detail how Liberal Democrats should engage constructively in the process of designing and enforcing the rules. Our motion also goes further in a few places where it would be useful to do so, namely calling for the suspension of all military cooperation and the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement while Israel remains in defiance of international law with regards the illegal settlements. We also propose exploring a programme of progressively banning travel to the UK by Israeli settlers, beginning with the most extreme.

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Sarah Dyke

Somerset’s farmers are on the front line of climate change

By Sarah Dyke | Tue 8th September 2026 - 8:37 am

This article is one of a set of essays about climate adaptation being published by the Green Alliance today. There is a launch event with the Environment All Party Parliamentary Group today.

Somerset is on the front line of climate change. Agricultural land makes up 66 per cent of the county and 91 per cent of the Glastonbury and Somerton constituency, so it is key to the nation’s food production. Without urgent intervention, the UK’s food security is under immense threat.

The scale of the problem is clear from the extreme weather we’ve experienced in 2026 alone. When Storm Chandra hit at the end of January, Somerset was battered by 50 millimetres of intense rain falling on already saturated ground, causing devastating floods. Six months later, on 25 June, the UK’s record for the hottest June day was broken in the Somerset town of Yeovilton, with temperatures reaching 36.4 degrees Celsius. This closed schools, put pressure on the NHS and led to drought stressed fields and compromised livestock welfare.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: Local Government Reorganisation review welcome

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 7th September 2026 - 8:00 pm

Angela Rayner’s announcement of a pause and rethink on much of the Government’s local government reorganisation is welcome. For months, those of us who believe passionately in genuinely local government have watched with increasing concern as plans have developed which would abolish district and Borough councils in large swathes of England and replace them with March larger, more remote unitary authorities.

Today offers an opportunity to think again.

District and Borough Councils are at the heart of the communities they serve. They empty our bins, decide planning applications, support our town centres, provide leisure facilities, put on community events, and deal with many of the everyday issues which determine how people feel about the places where they live. And, importantly, they are genuinely local. Residents know their council. The best Councillors know their patches. Decisions can be taken by people who understand the towns and villages affected by them. That matters.

The previous direction of travel risked replacing these genuinely local councils with enormous authorities covering vast geographical areas, with the centre of decision-making potentially many miles away from many of the communities served. Calling something ‘local government’ does not automatically make it local. As Liberal Democrats we understand this better than most. Localism is fundamental to liberalism. Power should be exercised as close as practically possible to the people affected by it, rather than constantly being dragged upwards into ever larger institutions.

There is also no hiding from the fact that district and Borough councils are places where Lib Dems have often prospered electorally. That is not an accident. Our politics works best when it is rooted in communities: councillors knocking on doors, listening to residents and fighting for improvements street by street and neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

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Michal Simon

Reform is winning because liberal Britain is not listening to its own society

By Michal Simon | Mon 7th September 2026 - 11:48 am

Liberal Democrats will not stop Reform by warning people about it. To understand why people listen, we must understand what Reform offers that too many feel they no longer get from us.

We have spent years failing young men — and by the time many reached adulthood, they had already spent years being failed as boys, especially when they were white and poor. Reform has noticed. It is turning our blindness into political support.

Education shows how early that failure begins. Boys fall behind from the start, are heavily overrepresented in special educational needs, more likely to be suspended or excluded, and less likely to enter higher education. A 2026 study by George Leckie and Konstantina Maragkou found teachers systematically predicted lower grades for boys than comparable girls, even after controlling for later achievement. An Ofqual review found bias favouring girls or against boys more often than the opposite.

If this evidence concerned girls, we would call it a gender-equality problem. When it affects boys, we hesitate. DfE data make that hesitation impossible to justify: 44% of White British boys on free school meals are identified as having SEN; boys account for 70.7% of pupils with Education, Health and Care plans; among White British pupils on free school meals, only 13% of young men enter higher education by 19, compared with 21% of young women.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th September 2026 - 9:30 am

Texas

Watch Texas. Especially watch the Senate race between Democrat James Talarico and Trump-backed Republican Ken Paxton.

Texas is a bright-red Republican state. Its Stetson-wearing inhabitants openly carry guns on their hips and year after year return a far-right Republican governor and legislature. A Democrat has not won a Senate seat since 1988.

For that reason, the prestigious election-watching Cook Report has consistently classed Texas as “lean Republican.” It has recently, however, changed its classification to a “toss-up.”

A big part of the change is cash. In America advertising wins votes. Advertising costs money so elections usually go to the candidate who has raised the most money. So far Talarico has raised $68.6 million—seven times the paltry $7.5 million raised by Paxton.

Texas’s other Senator, Republican Ted Cruz, has publicly said he is worried. So has Senate Majority leader John Thune. The reason for their concern is that holding Texas is now seen as vital if the Republicans want to retain control of the Senate.

Republicans are already under pressure in Maine, Michigan and Ohio, while Alaska and Iowa have also moved into toss-up territory. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control. If they can make the expected gains elsewhere, Texas could become the seat that tips the balance. If that happens then bright red Texas is all that stands in the way of a Democrat-controlled Senate, and, at the moment, opinion polls range from a dead heat to a slight lead for Talarico.

Paxton desperately needs money, and it may be riding over the horizon next week in the form of Donald Trump. The President’s MAGA Inc. Super PAC is sitting on a staggering $403.45 million. Even a fraction of that could transform Paxton’s campaign. Elon Musk has already started the cavalry charge: his America PAC has spent nearly $250,000 supporting Paxton.

Next week Trump rides into Dallas for the Republican Party’s first mid-term convention. It would be the perfect stage on which to announce a major financial intervention. The problem is that Trump has so far proved remarkably reluctant to open his enormous political wallet for other Republican candidates. But if he lets Paxton go under, he could help lose the Senate as well as the House.

United States

This week a new set of US tariffs took effect. They range from just under 25 percent to 100 percent and have been slapped on the importation of drones.

The official reason for the tariffs is national security. In the normal course of events this explanation would have been accepted without question. Drones have become an essential part of the country’s defence network and currently a big chunk of America’s drones come from China.

But there is much, much more to the story and it involves Eric Trump and Don Trump Jr who stand to financially benefit—big time—by the tariffs.

But there is much more to the story. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have investments linked to four US-based drone manufacturers — Anduril, Unusual Machines, Powerus and XTEND — all operating in a sector that stands to benefit from the new tariffs. Donald Trump Jr. became a strategic adviser to Unusual Machines in 2024 and was awarded 200,000 shares for his services, worth roughly $1 million at the time of a Forbes valuation in 2025. After the tariffs were announced the share price of Unusual Machines jumped 24 percent.

The potential conflict of interest has already attracted political scrutiny. A group of Democratic legislators led by Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked the Pentagon’s Inspector General to investigate 15 defence companies backed by funds associated with the Trump sons. According to the Washington Post, those companies have received at least $3.2 billion in federal contracts, investments and loans.

France

This week French President Emmanuel Macron crossed the English Channel (which the French call La Manche, or “The Sleeve”), to open the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum.

He then travelled across London town to Downing Street to become Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s first foreign visitor. The visit had major symbolic as well as practical reasons.

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Rosemary Runswick

Why Holborn and St Pancras deserves our all

By Rosemary Runswick | Sat 5th September 2026 - 2:35 pm

It is no secret that Liberal Democrats have become one of the first and foremost Parties in Local Government, having consistently made gains for the last seven years of Local Elections and this strategy was successful in giving us 72 MPs in 2024. But one place where we have suffered a great absence of success has been in Parliamentary by-elections, where we haven’t made a gain since 2023. This is obviously bad for a few reasons, by-elections often indicate loudly and clearly to the public who has momentum, and seeing a major victory can translate

…

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Bonds and the World

By Tom Arms | Sat 5th September 2026 - 10:23 am

This week’s G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Asheville ended amid unusually bitter divisions. Behind the arguments over China, tariffs, Iran and Russia lurked another problem which affects every country represented around the table: the world’s bond markets are in turmoil.

The practicality of funding the business of governments is an excellent demonstration of the interconnectability of the world. The fact is that no matter how high a tariff wall is built, the bond holders will find a way to scale it and their demands are based on global conditions.

At the moment, the global bond market is in tumult. This is simply because governments have borrowed too much money.  Inflation has proved harder to kill than expected, and investors are now demanding a much higher price for lending.

A bond is basically an IOU. A government borrows, say, $100 for ten years and promises to pay interest. If investors suddenly decide that inflation will remain high, that government debt is getting too large, or that the government may pursue reckless policies, they become less willing to hold that IOU. They sell the bond. When bond prices fall, bond yields rise. The yield is effectively the interest rate governments have to offer to persuade investors to lend to them.

That is what is happening now. US 10-year Treasury yields have climbed towards 4.8 per cent; UK gilt yields have moved above 5 per cent; Japan’s 10-year government bond yield has reached around 3 per cent, its highest level in roughly 30 years.

What is causing it? Global inflation is at the top of the list. Bondholders hate inflation because they are promised fixed sums of money in the future. If prices rise faster than expected than those future payments buy less.

The Iran War is probably the biggest concern as far as inflation is concerned. It has reduced the flow of oil from the Gulf which has in turn pushed energy prices to staggering levels. Energy is the basic building block of modern life.

Next, is that governments have borrowed too much. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 banking  crisis interest rates dropped precipitously. Borrowed money was cheap so governments borrowed heavily. At one stage, interest rates in Japan dropped below zero percent. That meant that investors were effectively paying the Japanese government for the privilege of lending it money.

What governments failed to consider was that in the bond market, what goes down eventually goes back up. Increased interest rates means it costs more to service a government’s debt. Governments are forced to either raise taxes, and or cut spending to pay the extra interest.  Pile on top of that the cost of covid, maintenance of the welfare state, more defence spending and bondholders begin to question the ability of governments to honour their bond commitments and start asking for more money. This in turn only increases the dangerous debt levels.

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Simon Banks

Burnham, Andy: Could do better

By Simon Banks | Fri 4th September 2026 - 7:49 pm

Andy Burnham became PM by surfing a wave of dissatisfaction with the Starmer government. This is now his honeymoon period. The whole thing is extraordinarily like the arrival of a new Labour government after a long period of Conservative domination: think 1945 and 1997, and maybe 1964 – not 2024. There are lots of hopes and not all can be realised.

Starmer’s managerialist centrism had opened up a gulf on the liberal left which the Lib Dems seemed unable to fill and into which the Greens were advancing; but the many questions about them left many currently Labour-inclined people deeply dissatisfied. Burnham positioned himself, whether by belief or calculation, to appeal to them.

What did they want?

PR for sure, a cause with majority support now in the Labour Party, plus overwhelming support in the Lib Dems and Greens. On this Burnham had spoken strongly and repeatedly.

A braver, more positive approach to Europe. He had backtracked for the Makerfield by-election, understandably, but now?

Genuine devolution significantly pulling power from Whitehall and (in the view of some) continuing all the way down to street level.

A clear commitment to net zero and a reconsideration of Starmer’s business-over-the-environment planning policies. A reconsideration, at the very least, of draconian anti-protest laws by which peaceful protesters were being sent to jail, and of cheap point-scoring at the expense of asylum-seekers in place of rational asylum and immigration policies.

A less rigidly pre-Keynes orthodox financial strategy to get the economy moving and action on the cost of living for low-and-medium-income people.

More openness so similar-minded people outside Labour, leading to a “Progressive Coalition”.

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