Category Archives: Op-eds

Chris Whiting

Lib Dems must get tougher on wealth inequality

By Chris Whiting | Wed 14th August 2024 - 10:25 am

It’s beyond infuriating.

We’ve waited 14 long years for a so-called centre-left Chancellor, only to find ourselves on the brink of more belt-tightening when we desperately need bold, transformative action. After the havoc of a global pandemic, a bruising cost of living crisis, and a recession that destroyed the livelihoods of millions, Rachel Reeves is already sounding the alarm for further austerity. Instead of rallying for the public investment we so desperately need, she’s searching for corners to cut and taxes to squeeze from the working and middle classes. But let’s be clear: the money to fund our public services is out there. The only thing missing is the political will to seize it.

We’re teetering on the edge of an inequality crisis so severe, it threatens to tear the very fabric of our society apart. The problem is not those on six figure salaries, it’s not even really the millionaires—it’s about the billionaires at the summit, whose wealth allows them to wield power and privilege in ways that are as undemocratic as they are dangerous. 

If we don’t embrace radical wealth redistribution, we’re condemning ourselves to a future where the super-rich rule over the rest, unchecked and unchallenged.

In the last few years alone, UK-based billionaires have seen their fortunes soar by 1000%, concentrating economic power in the hands of a microscopic elite. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is the poster child for this grotesque disparity. When Musk bought Twitter, he acquired a global loudspeaker to broadcast his toxic, transphobic race-war baiting rhetoric. This is not benign accumulation of wealth; it’s a direct assault on democracy itself. In a country like the UK, where social tensions are simmering at best, Musk’s actions are a recipe for disaster.

And let’s not forget  J K Rowling. Her wealth has given her a platform to dismiss the rights of trans people—a group she neither belongs to nor understands.

The influence of billionaires isn’t just a moral abomination. It’s a fundamental threat to the economy. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of billionaires in the UK rose by 20%, while the rest of us were plunged in to a cost-of-living crisis and the highest tax burden in a generation.

When a handful of individuals control more wealth than millions of citizens combined, they can bend politics and policy to their will, sidelining the needs of the many.  This isn’t just wrong – it’s a betrayal of the social contract, a breach of the promise that every person should have a fair shot at success.

The billionaire class doesn’t just hoard wealth,  they weaponise it. They use their riches to lobby for tax breaks, deregulation, and policies that entrench their power and rig the system even further in their favour. This isn’t simply an economic issue,  it’s a moral crisis. A society that allows such staggering inequality to flourish is one where the social fabric is ripping at the seams, where the chance for upward mobility is little more than a cruel joke.

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Mick Scholes

Beacons

By Mick Scholes | Mon 12th August 2024 - 9:45 am

The beacon is lit! North Shropshire calls for aide!

Such was the cry in December 2021 on the Facebook HQ page of the by-election campaign that eventually saw a stunning victory for Helen Morgan and her team as the campaign went into the final week.

The fantastic result this July has given us a huge boost, especially coming on the back of a great set of May election results, where we displaced the Tories and came second in the seat table in England for 2024 – now sadly overlooked by the national media.

What I want to consider is the effect winning, and keeping certain seats has on the regional and in the case of Wales and Scotland, national scale, and how they shine a light into their surrounding areas.

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 12 August 2024 – keeping a calm head…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 12th August 2024 - 7:30 am

It’s been a somewhat disconcerting week or so in British politics, especially if you’re not at home. Where I am, people are responding to the news of riots with concern – is your country safe, will things settle down soon? And it’s easy to get defensive in response. But the response of the police and the judiciary, as well as that of thousands of decent, thoughtful people rallying to protect the vulnerable, appears to have dissuaded significant follow-up in the days that followed.

That’s a reassurance for many of us who worry about the ability of foreign actors to threaten our democracy, undermine societal harmony and weaken the state.

We have, I think, learned a few things. There are those amongst us who, whether the puppets of foreign powers or not, believe that there is political advantage is creating divisions in our communities. They may, like Nigel Farage, skate along the border between reasonable comment and deliberate provocation. Others, far less subtle, seek to encourage others on to the streets to intimidate, to destroy. The fact that so many of those arrested have been found to have had previous criminal records is probably not a coincidence.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 11th August 2024 - 10:21 am

United States

Weird is the new catchword of the American presidential elections. It is weird that Donald Trump – a convicted felon – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird that J.D. Vance – an anti-abortionist who claims that America is run by a miserable “bunch of childless cat ladies” – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird because both those images sound totally “un-American” and thus unlikely to win the votes of the American electorate. So it is weird that those two men have been nominated for the two highest offices in America.

Not weird is that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, has been chosen by Kamala Harris to be her running mate in the presidential elections. Governor Walz is – as they like to say – as American as apple pie.

For a start he is from the mid-West which is often viewed as the traditionally American part of America. He attended Nebraska State College where he met his wife Gwen. They have two children – very American.

He taught high school social studies and coached the football team. The team went on to win the state championships. That is very, very American story almost worthy of a based-on-a-true-story Netflix film.

Walz was in the National Guard for 24 years, and reached the rank of Master Sergeant. Military service is almost a requirement for American politicians.

He served six terms in Congress before being elected Governor of Minnesota in 2018. He was re-elected in 2022. It was while he was Governor that Republicans have veered away from his all-American roots and towards what they might regard as weirdness. Walz legalised marijuana, passed strict gun laws, affirmed abortion rights, introduced free school meals and free college tuition. The liberal democrats love him. Which could explain why he is also chair of the Democratic Governors Association.

Walz is also credited with coming up with the catchword “weird” to describe Trump and Vance. President Biden had been focused on Trump’s threat to democracy. Walz reckoned that threat talk was a bit of a stretch for most American voters. “Weird” is easier to understand.

Bangladesh

From Nobel prize-winning micro-banker to leader of Bangladesh is quite a leap. But at the tender age of 84 Professor Muhammad Yunus has made the jump.

He replaces Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed who has fled the country after an estimated 400 people died in student-led riots against her quota system for the civil service.

Yunus probably doesn’t need the headache of running a country of 170 million people. He already secured the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the micro-finance banking system which has lifted millions out of poverty.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank pioneered micro-credit which is acknowledged as one the factors that transformed Bangladesh from the world’s second poorest country to the 38th wealthiest.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Creator of the Great Replacement Theory

By Tom Arms | Sat 10th August 2024 - 10:15 am

Holed up in a 14th century castle in southwestern France is the philosophical architect of the far-right right race riots that have recently swept Britain and inspired White supremacists around the world.

77-year-old Renaud Camus is the man responsible for the “Great Replacement Theory.”

This race-driven conspiracy theory claims that a liberal elite is plotting the destruction of White civilisations by encouraging African and Asian immigrants to replace European culture with their own.

So who is Renaud Camus? For a start he is quite bright and quite driven. He has degrees in history, literature, philosophy and law and has taught at American and French universities and contributed to various encyclopaedias. At the age of 21 he came out of the closet to help establish a gay brigade during the 1968 student riots in Paris. For the next 20-odd years Camus established himself as one of France’s leading gay icons as an award-winning journalist and prolific author.

In 1992 Camus sold his Paris apartment and moved to the crumbling hilltop Chateau de Pilieux. While taking a break from restoring the castle to edit a local guidebook Camus noticed that the demography’s of the populations in France’s old villages had “totally changed,” and, in his view, not for the better.

He described this realisation as an “epiphany” which quickly morphed into The Great Replacement Theory. This was elaborated in three subsequent books: “Abedarium of No Harm,”  “The Grand Replacement “and “You Will Not Replace Us.”

Camus asserts that ethnicity plays a defining role in a country’s identity and he warns that “immigrants are flocking to predominantly white countries for the precise purpose of rendering the white population a minority within their own land or even causing the extinction of their own populations.”

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Adrian Sanders

After the riots

By Adrian Sanders | Fri 9th August 2024 - 1:11 pm

I have never not been proud of my country, but there have been historic events and current unrest that has made it difficult with my daily international contacts to promote all the wonderful things the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has to offer.

My work brings me into contact with people across Europe, Asia, Australasia and North America and since Brexit, that was seen as a massive own goal by people overseas, our image and reputation has been damaged. This past week only reinforced an image of decline that the previous 9 years with 5 Prime Ministers, one referendum and three general elections had imprinted on the minds of many looking in from outside.

These most recent events have worried everyone, and yet the violence was a consequence of deliberate misinformation, lies and political opportunism by the likes of Farage and others with an agenda to disrupt and divide.

The very descriptions of the riots the mainstream media has used have themselves misled. These were not far right riots. Far right inspired yes, but most of those taking part wouldn’t know the difference between right, left or centre.

The local politicians who then pop up to claim this is all the work of outsiders, and their community is not like this, were also misleading, mostly themselves, because the people arrested have largely turned out to be local to the riots.

The reality is every community has a few extreme right-wing nutcases, and a much larger number of people, disgruntled, upset and failed by the system who for years now have been wound-up by irresponsible media outlets and politicians blaming foreigners and people of difference for the very real challenges they have to face.

Add in social media massaging, reinforcing and heightening prejudices and you have a tinder box waiting to be ignited, and all it took to light the fuse was a false name and back story circulating within minutes of the dastardly and tragic incidents in Southport.

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Obituary: Andrew De Freitas

By Ed Fordham and Ian Barfield | Wed 7th August 2024 - 4:49 pm


Liberal Democrat former councillor Andrew De Freitas has died: he was truly a unique and special man who deserves a prominent place in our history. As his friends we have jointly written this tribute.

Based on outdated inaccurate perceptions, very few people expected that Grimsby and Cleethorpes would be bright blobs of gold on the UK map of local government control. Few people ever thought that the Leader of North East Lincolnshire Council might be a Liberal Democrat, that he would be of Caribbean descent, and that his tenure as Leader would …

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Hina Bokhari

Hina Bokhari writes…I don’t want to keep talking about Islamophobia

By Hina Bokhari | Wed 7th August 2024 - 7:28 am

“Are you ok? Was the first question Natasha Devon on LBC asked when she interviewed me about the rising Islamophobia.

We really shouldn’t be talking about Islamophobia. We should be talking about the tragedy of three little girls being brutally killed, the continuing violence against women and girls and the factors that led to these terrible murders.

But instead, the news is focussed on extremist thugs who have spread disinformation and caused chaos on our streets. Quite rightly Starmer and Davey have called it out.

And now our leaders have also said that these were not legitimate protests but riots targeting Muslims, asylum seekers and communities of colour.

I’m glad that there has been progress here. Words matter. And it shouldn’t take Muslim groups like the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) or Muslim commentators or Muslim politicians having to call out the racism we have seen recently.

Muslims need allies. They need the Government, MPs from all parties and community leaders to call it out too. When a riot starts because disinformation is spread about a killer being Muslim and then those rioters shout “f*** Allah” and attack a mosque – that’s called Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred or just simply racism!

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Richard Kemp

The role of social media – a crisis of conscience for Lib Dems?

By Richard Kemp | Tue 6th August 2024 - 10:25 am

One of the issues that has come to the fore following the appalling murders then just as appalling lawlessness in Southport earlier this week is the question of free speech. There can be no doubt that misinformation has caused much of the rioting and sheer criminality of the past few days. There are a lot of similarities between what happened in the 1981 Toxteth riots and what happened in 2024 in Southport but there is one crucial difference – social media and the various mobile phones and appliances that supercharge them. 

Just to recap within a couple of hours of the murders false information was put out through social media that the person who committed the murders was an immigrant who came over on small boats and was a Muslim. The Police are bound by law to restrict information about suspects, but they did release one nugget of information that, in a rational world, would have shut down the rumours. They said that the suspect was from Rwanda. 

The UK has few Rwandan refugees, and they came over 30 years ago at the time of the massacres and genocide in that Country. Rwanda is a member of he Commonwealth of Nations although we were not the colonial rulers. Commonwealth membership gives Rwandans greater rights to come to our Country just as we Brits have greater rights to go to their countries. So, the perpetrator was not a ‘boat person,’ his family came here with the support of the UK government all those years ago and was not a Muslim. 96% of the population of Rwanda are Christian and only 2% is of the Islamic faith.

I believe that this means that we must think carefully of the advantages and disadvantages of social media. I use social media a lot. I blog for example. I tweet. I regularly communicate with my grandchildren, using facetime. I email which is a process which saves so much time and paper. So social media must stay but there must be constraints on it.

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Leon Duveen

The real conflict in the land between the Sea and the River

By Leon Duveen | Tue 6th August 2024 - 7:44 am

The real conflict in the land between the Sea and the River is not between Palestinians & Israelis, it is not a religious war (there are Jews, Muslims, Christians & believers of other religions supporting both sides).  It is a conflict between, on one side, those who want that land exclusively for their side, realising that it will mean an ongoing war for the foreseeable future, a war that neither Palestine nor Israel can win but both Palestinians & Israelis will lose, and, on the other side, those who are willing to trade exclusivity for peace, who are willing to accept that both Palestinians & Israelis have the same right to claim the land as their people’s homeland and to be a free people in it.

The exclusivists on both sides are very good at painting the 100+ years of conflict in black and white, us or them, win or lose terms.  Indeed, the exclusivists on both sides are not above working with each other to stop those who accept the need to compromise being accepted as the real patriots.  Even the recent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh can be seen like this, the removal of a relatively moderate Hamas leader in such a way as to strengthen the hawks on both sides.

The reality is the opposite, it is those who believe Palestinians & Israelis  both have rights to that small sliver of land, who believe both people have ancient ties to it and that they both need to learn to live alongside each other who are the real patriots, the people who really love both the land the people who live there & want to see an end to the continual violence.

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Mark Valladares

5 August 2024 – today’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Mon 5th August 2024 - 11:50 pm

Ed Davey responds to COBRA on riots

Responding to the Prime Minister chairing COBRA following riots across the country, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

The country has rightly been appalled and outraged at the despicable actions of a tiny minority. All those thugs who have rioted and carried out racist attacks must face the full force of the law.

Everyone has the right to feel safe in their homes, communities and places of worship.

We welcome the actions taken by our brave police officers and the new measures announced today by the government to clamp down on criminals attempting to terrorise our

…

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Charlie Murphy

Liberal Democrats must drive the new government hard on housing

By Charlie Murphy | Mon 5th August 2024 - 4:39 pm

It is a familiar story that parties find it politically expedient to oppose new homes being built, particularly within a given politician’s local area. It happens time and again, even among those who profess an understanding or recognition of the scale of the housing crisis and its injustice.

We desperately need more homes nationally, but problems with housing affordability are most acute in the South East of England and the Home Counties surrounding London. When we talk of “the right homes in the right places” it is all too easy to think that means “not here”.

The reality for the Liberal Democrats is now that “not here” doesn’t work. We have been enormously successful in selling a vision of a progressive, forward looking and practical politics to large parts of the South East and Home Counties. In the East of England we won seven MPs, and in the South East we won twenty-four – around 3,500 votes off of supplanting the Conservatives as the second party in the region.

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Dr Lucy Peake

The Independent View: Kinship Carers in the Spotlight: A Call for Continued Commitment and Support

By Dr Lucy Peake | Mon 5th August 2024 - 2:26 pm

Kinship carers play a vital role in our society, providing loving, stable homes for more than 141,000 children in England and Wales whose parents are not able to care for them. 

Grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, other relatives and family friends step up, often at a point of crisis and in very challenging circumstances, to prevent children from entering the care system. 

Despite their critical contribution to the lives of many, kinship carers have been overlooked by successive governments. As a result, most kinship families receive little to no support, and according to our research, many are at breaking point. Nearly 1 in 8 told us a lack of financial support and help with their children’s needs meant they were concerned about their ability to continue caring for their children in the next year if their situations didn’t improve. This could mean devastating consequences for children, families and the state. 

The previous Government’s National Kinship Care Strategy (December 2023) finally gave kinship families some recognition, but the ‘radical reset’ proposed by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care has yet to be delivered. 

Kinship carers and the children they are raising need security and support as a matter of urgency. 

2024: turning the tide?

This summer has been a watershed moment. For the first time, kinship care was mentioned in the manifestos of England’s three leading political parties. Tireless campaigning over many decades by kinship carers – themselves already overstretched by the challenges of caring for children with little support – has got us to this point. 

And they’ve had some welcome help. 

In recent years, Liberal Democrats have stepped up to bring the experiences of kinship carers and the case for greater support for kinship families directly to Westminster. 

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Lord William Wallace

What our new MPs bring to the political debate

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 5th August 2024 - 11:35 am

Liberal Democrats who are frustrated at the modest media impact of our 72 MPs in the first month since their triumphant election should remember how long it takes to recruit new staff, discover the intricacies of parliamentary life and the surrounding media, put their diverse skills to effective use, and decide which specific issues they are going to make their own. In the last Parliament our 11 MPs had to cover the full range of issues thrown at them, with a skeleton supporting staff, with each by-election winner making a welcome difference to the load. When our Lords group met together with our new MPs, Ed Davey generously thanked us for the policy support and advice we had provided (with our larger numbers, though very limited staff) in combatting Tory legislation in the past 3 Parliaments. A much larger Commons Party, with significantly-increased staff both in MPs’ office and attached to the Whips’ Office, will transform our capabilities.

Few of us will yet have discovered the wealth of experience and expertise our new MPs bring to their new, fulltime, responsibilities (I’m still discovering constituencies that I didn’t realise we’d won…). Clearing some papers today, I discovered a memo on the government’s data strategy that Tim Clement Jones and I had written four years ago with a Liberal Democrat expert called David Chadwick – and realised that I’ve already met our new MP for Brecon and Radnor, and that he’s an established expert in a delicate field of public policy. A rapid look through our MPs’ short biographies shows a wealth of local Council experience, with all that provides for grappling with issues of social care, public services, environment and housing. I see that Gideon Amos, our Taunton MP, is also an architect and town planner by profession.

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Roger Shelley

Devolution – but not as we know it…’

By Roger Shelley | Sun 4th August 2024 - 1:30 pm

Great to see William Wallace’s recent critique of the elected Mayoral system   This creeping assault on local democracy by the usual unholy Labour-Conservative alliance is now gathering pace, with the new Labour government committed to its expansion.  

William is right that the Mayoral system is a mess, but so too is local government as a whole, weakened by decades of underinvestment, now undermined further by the mayoral expansion process.

England currently has a chaotic patchwork, with largely the north being used as a ‘test bed’ for the mayoral system.  I use the term advisedly, and note Liz Kendall’s call last week that ‘we need to experiment to get evidence’. Quite.  Where is the empirical evidence that Combined County Authorities, like the ‘East Midlands’ one, just imposed on Notts and Derbys, are going to work efficiently, let alone democratically, in improving people’s lives?  As a district councillor on the only non-Labour or Tory led authority in the new Mayoral authority area, I feel I am entitled to some proof, on behalf of my residents.

I am concerned that the LGA, and for that matter, think tanks with a role in public policy analysis, seem at best uncritical, at worst supine in their acceptance of this false devolution. I’ve tried hard and cannot see who is providing essential critical analysis of the democratic deficit and effectiveness of delivery or projects, targets and growth that these Mayoral authorities actually give – and crucially how ‘Metro Mayors’ are performing compared to the Combined County Authorities.

I can sort of understand that cohesive predominantly urban areas like Greater Manchester and London might achieve some improved delivery, in for example, public transport, but where is the evidence that this is working in diversely dispersed combined urban-rural authorities?  I would like to see our new overwhelmingly southern MPs wake up to this issue, before it is presumably rolled out inexorably across their counties.

Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire’s new EMCCA has a desultory budget of £38m over the next 30 years – unless it raises extra through higher local taxation, or where a lucky few councils may succeed in bidding for extra central government grants, filtered through the Combined Mayoral Authority, in a divisive competitive race.  

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The importance of saying “Thank you”

By Jean Low | Sun 4th August 2024 - 11:30 am

As someone who first got involved with the Liberals at the General Election of February 1974, I suppose I might be described as a veteran of election campaigns.  At various times over the decades I have been a candidate (national and local), an agent, and a foot soldier.

Last month I was excited to be able to help out in three target seats, two of which were fairly close to my home, and one which involved a lengthy journey.  Some health issues prevented me from doing as much as I did 50 years ago, but I am of course delighted that in all three constituencies, Lib Dem MPs were elected with very healthy majorities.

Like all the other 69 MPs that were elected, none of these three would now be in Westminster if it had not been for the thousands of volunteers up and down the country who faced up to fierce dogs, fiddly gates and difficult letter boxes, who knocked on hundreds of doors, and who wrote interminable envelopes.  Like others I guess, I was shouted at, barked and growled at, had balled-up leaflets thrown at me, and also met some lovely people.

Whilst I appreciate that new, and returning MPs, have a huge amount to cope with in their first few weeks, not least finding somewhere to live, setting up an office, and coping with the inevitable flood of case work, there is one thing which I believe they should all do, as a priority, and that is say “thank you” to those whose sterling efforts ensured that they were elected.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 4th August 2024 - 9:35 am

Donald Trump is the “Great Obfuscator.”

When asked to clarify his outrageous claims he muddies the political waters even more in an attempt to be all things to all people.

Last Friday he told the Christian political pressure group Turning Point Action that if they voted for him in November they wouldn’t have to vote again. He would “fix it.”

Liberals immediately raised the anti-democracy hue and cry. Donald Trump, they said, planned to either abolish elections or rig the system so that conservative Republicans would stay in power forever.

No, no, no, say the MAGA people. That is not what he meant at all. He meant that they won’t have to vote for Donald Trump again because he is prohibited by the constitution from running for a third term.

It was left to Fox News—Trump’s chosen television medium—to clarify the muddle. Interviewer Laura Ingraham pressed him to explain. Trump said the statement was made to encourage Christians to vote in November because American conservatives don’t often vote. He added that the same could be said for gun owners.

This was patently false. As a group, America’s Christians and gun owners are among the largest proportion of voters in the US. His clarification made no sense. So what did the Great Obfuscator mean?

Just as confusing…

…is Trump’s position on the much-discussed Project 2025.

For the benefit of those who have been trapped in a sealed cave for the past six months, Project 2025, is a 900-page report compiled by the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation. It sets out in great detail a programme for Donald Trump if he is inaugurated president in 2025.

Among its provisions are proposals to gut the FBI and Department of Justice and replace tens of thousands of federal civil servants with loyal MAGA Republicans. It wants a national ban on abortion and restrictions on contraception and IVF treatments. Project 2025 proposes a strong “unitary executive branch;” an “end to civil rights protections” and no more “safeguards on drinking water.” All efforts to combat climate change would end” and America would focus more on drilling for fossil fuels. The Department of Education would be scrapped along with all economic ties to China.

Democrats immediately denounced Project 2025 as anti-constitutional, anti-Democratic, anti-American and verging on the illegal. And they added that all those antis pretty well summed up Trump himself.

A fair amount of the mud stuck and Trump quickly started to distance himself from Project 2025. This proved difficult because one of the main contributors to the report was his former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The Director of the Heritage Foundation, and the main impetus behind the report, Paul Dans, was Trump’s Chief of Staff for the Office of Personnel Management.

This week Mr Dans resigned as Director of the Heritage Foundation and claimed that Project 2025 was not meant to be an action plan for Donald Trump. Instead, he said, it was merely some thoughts for any future conservative administration.

The Trump campaign immediately put out an “I told you so” release. But then we need to look at what Trump has personally promised to do: Gut the Department of Justice and the FBI and put on trial for treason the “Biden Crime family” and political opponents such as Liz Cheney. “Drill, drill, drill for oil.” Raise tariffs on Chinese exports for between 65-100 percent. Pardon most of the Capitol Hill rioters. Round-up and deport up to 15 million illegal immigrants and “fix it so you won’t have to vote for me again.”

What next in the Middle East?

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Great green box ticker

By Tom Arms | Sat 3rd August 2024 - 9:55 am

As a box ticking exercise it is difficult to beat the Great Green Wall of Africa.

For those not familiar with this incredibly important and ambitious project, the Great Green Wall (aka GGW) is an international undertaking to prevent creeping desertification in Africa. It proposes to plant and maintain on the southern border of the Sahara Desert a nine-mile wide forest stretching 4,831 miles from Dakar on the Atlantic to Djibouti on the Red Sea.

It is estimated that the GGW will create 10 million jobs in one of the most poverty-stricken regions of the world. That means 10 million people less likely to seek survival in Europe and America.

More jobs means more income for governments which means increased political stability and improved governance in one of the most of the world’s most politically unstable and corrupt regions.

From a climate change perspective the GGW is potential wonderful news. The proposed grass and tree coverage is projected to restore 250 million acres of degraded land and capture 250 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Trees also play a major role in reducing global temperatures.

So far about $30 billion has been pledged from a variety of sources to complete the project by 2030. There has already been extensive planting in Senegal, Chad and Ethiopia.

But according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, one of the GGW’s major sponsors—the Great Green Wall is in danger of collapse. The number one threat is violence. Nine of the countries through which the GGW crosses are in the top 20 of the 2024 Global Terrorism Index.

They are the victims of civil war; Jihadist terrorist attacks; the withdrawal of French troops from the Sahel region and their replacement by Russian forces. The Jihadists in particular—and the Russians to a lesser degree—feed on political instability. The GGW encourages stability, so the Jihadists do whatever they can to disrupt the planting regime.

Violence is not the only problem. Critics also claim that the environmental initiative lacks political leadership. That is not surprising. Its roots stretch back to 1952-53 when one of the early climate change activists, British explorer and botanist Richard St Barbe Baker, first proposed the Great Green Wall. He went on to found the International Free Foundation which has since planted an estimated 26 trillion trees.

Many of the foundation’s trees were planted in the Sahel Region. But the foundation is a charity. Governmental coordination and vast amounts of aid were needed to ensure success. In 2002 the project was revived at a special African summit in Chad to launch World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. In 2012 the African Union took it on as a flagship project and in 2014 they were joined by the EU and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). At the One Planet Summit in 2021 various partners pledged $14.3 billion.

But the widespread interest also created problems. At the beginning of 2024 the project involved 21 countries and the same number of international organisations as well as a plethora of charities at international, national and local level. The wall needs directed political leadership and instead is plagued by a confusing babel of competing interests.

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Michael Taylor

The importance of the presumption of innocence

By Michael Taylor | Sat 3rd August 2024 - 7:55 am

Innocent

There is a tradition dating back well over 1000 years that any person accused of a crime  is presumed innocent until proved guilty. In other words, an accusation doesn’t make someone guilty, it a court that hears the evidence and decides, either magistrates or, for serious offences a jury.

There is a worrying tendency today to pronounce someone guilty merely on the basis of an accusation and to demand that that person be treated as a criminal, losing their job and being shunned by society.

Take Huw Edwards. He was accused of dreadful crimes involving children and has, after a trial in which he pleaded guilty, been convicted. This is the point at which he should have lost his job, not back in 2023 when the accusations surfaced. Many years ago, I attended a CHE bonfire party held at the independent Labour Party tearooms somewhere outside Burnley. An older man recalled that prior to the sexual offences act he was charged and convicted for homosexual acts. His employers, the local council, waited till he had been convicted and then, and only then, handed him his dismissal papers. Of course, today he wouldn’t even have been in court, but the council did not assume he was guilty and continued to employ him until after the conviction.

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Simon Banks

A SWOT analysis for the Liberal Democrats?

By Simon Banks | Fri 2nd August 2024 - 7:22 pm

Long ago, working in primary care management, I was struck by how the partners of an excellent GP practice, replacing a retiring partner, had not even asked themselves how their area might change over 20 years or so and whether this might influence their choice. In my Liberal Democrat local party and region, it was clear to me many local parties were stumbling on, doing what they knew, grumbling about too much work and not enough people, knowing their activists were ageing, but doing little to find new ones: plenty of hard work, but no vision, no strategy.

So I became an advocate for local party Development Plans before the English Party pushed the issue and made a development plan a constitutional requirement for local parties (that’s fixed, then).  As Chair of my Region’s Development Committee, I’ve been encouraging and advising on the things ever since.

If you’re in a hole, discover how deep the hole is and how to get out of it. If you’ve made progress but reached a plateau, identify the pinch points and what can be done. A basic tool for this is a SWOT analysis (not to be confused with heavily armed police: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.).

If this is a good idea for local parties, as I’m convinced it is, what about higher levels?

Regional Parties will have strategies, but they may well not include a hard look at existing strengths and weaknesses. The English Party and the Federal Party have various plans, often quickly forgotten, but apparently nothing like a Development Plan; strategy means the next election (as in Ed Davey’s “Guardian” interview) and SWOT analysis could be embarrassing.

What would a SWOT analysis for the whole party right now look like?

Of course, strengths would include 72 MPs, with the credibility the election result brings us. Another would be an HQ election operation, unlike 2015 and 2019, that listens to local feedback, looks at Connect input and opinion polls and reacts accordingly. Then, a comparatively open and democratic party, compared to Labour’s obsessive top-down control; and many hardworking councillors.

Weaknesses? Are there any? There are. For a start, after the surge in 2019, by all accounts party membership went into deep and spectacular decline, though figures have not been published for some time. Our campaigns need activists; activists are drawn from the membership; so a deep decline in membership is serious, possibly fatal. Increases at general election time are normal; we hear this has happened, but how much? Without openness about the figures, no judgment can be made. But will new members fall away as most of the 2018-9 recruits did? Local parties should prioritise not just recruiting members, but engaging them, and not just in leafleting. Yet the pressure from the centre is for an almost Soviet programme of getting them working and harder, harder, harder! Fine, but can they also have fun?

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Carl Cashman

The two child cap is just the beginning

By Carl Cashman | Fri 2nd August 2024 - 2:09 pm

Without fail at every council meeting, well, at every opportunity they can, my local Labour Party will bring up the Coalition.

They wheel out the same line, each and every time. For them it’s entirely the Lib Dems fault that austerity happened, even more than that each of our members bear a personal burden for cuts made. But they will gladly sidestep the impact of Labour Mayor Joe Anderson – whose legacy is alleged corruption, poor governance, wasted millions and Tory commissioners we’ve just gotten shot off.

Now let me get this out of the way – I’m not an apologist for the coalition, it got some things right, but it got a lot of things wrong. The most lasting damage is that the coalition broke the trust that voters had in the Liberal Democrats, and we’ve lost our status as the non-establishment party, the Greens are mopping up that vote in many of the urban cities in England. We must work on that as a priority.

At my last council meeting, we moved my group’s motion on scrapping the two-child benefit cap.  I was on the end of a condescending lecture from the Deputy Leader about “political choice”, she was referencing the coalition. But I fired back on this because, let’s be honest, now that the Labour Party are in Government they are going to learn a lot about “political choices”.

What was their first political choice? To keep the two-child benefit cap, a decision that Newham Labour Councillor Joshua Garfield celebrated as “Country before Party”. The most bizarre thing is that the King’s speech isn’t a binding commitment anyway – the Conservatives have demonstrated that multiple times – it’s simply an indication of a government’s aims for that coming parliament.

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Robert Jones

In defence of EHCPs

By Robert Jones | Fri 2nd August 2024 - 12:04 pm

Local authorities across England have a duty to assess children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and produce ‘Education, Health and Care Plans’. EHCPs are vital for identifying the needs of children and ensuring that those needs are communicated to and met by the local authority, schools, nurseries or other services and settings. Key parts of an EHCP are legally enforceable and provide a guarantee for children and their families.

EHCPs were introduced with the Children and Families Act 2014 by the coalition government. Much of the initial work on EHCPs was carried out under Lib Dem minister Sarah Teather, with the draft legislation published in her name in 2012. Today EHCPs have a mixed reputation. They have played a significant role in the rise of local government expenditure on social care. Across England spending on SEND provision by councils is predicted by some to reach £12 billion by 2026. It is unsurprising then that there is ever more pressure to reduce those costs and we can see numerous examples of councils formulating strategies to push down the ‘demand’ for EHC assessments.

My local authority, Shropshire Council, is no exception. In response to a question to cabinet on July 17 on the worsening rate of assessments being completed within the statutory 20-week window, it was explained how the council is working to “address the increase in demand” with a proposed framework for ‘Ordinarily Available Provision’. The view apparently taken is that too many children who could have their needs met without an EHC Plan are requesting them anyway. Now, there is little doubt that a much more inclusive approach to education across mainstream schools which could offer provision that meets a broad range of needs as a matter of course needs to be a central priority for education policy nationally. This will involve reform of our approach to education, schooling and the curriculum at all levels of the system. Councils like Shropshire and others which claim to pursue such goals at only a local level are at best optimistic and, it would appear, are more concerned about their own financial sustainability than meeting the educational, health and social needs of children.

A report produced by researchers at ISOS Partnership for the County Councils Network and the LGA was published on July 25. It has drawn a lot of comment from across the SEND community, including charities and independent campaigners, much of it critical. The report focuses its attention on the rising pressures the current system for SEND provision in England creates on local authorities’ budgets, suggesting that up to one in four councils could face an existential threat. The report calls for a number of measures, not least the need for reform that looks at the education and schooling system as a whole, promoting inclusivity and addressing children’s needs as early as possible within existing settings, reducing the need for children and young people to require additional SEND provision, particularly in special schools, except in the cases of the highest need.

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Janey Little

The Party of young people: The critical contribution of young members

By Janey Little | Thu 1st August 2024 - 6:01 pm

Young people are the life and the soul of the Liberal Democrats.

Having long forgiven the party over tuition fees, young people played a pivotal role in the party’s successes in the General Election. We in the Young Liberals have built a reputation over time for being committed campaigners and enthusiastic door-knockers, but even we were amazed at quite how much young people across the party poured their hearts and souls into this election. We have come leaps and bounds from where we were in 2019. Since then, the Young Liberals have professionalised, built capacity and communities across states and regions, and worked together more effectively to ensure that we could maximise our impact in the General Election.  As members, volunteers, party staff, candidates, federal committee members, state executive members, and across all levels of the party, Young Liberals led the way during the General Election.

We had the pleasure of being at the forefront of the campaign. The YL Development Officer fed back to HQ where the Young Liberals were campaigning at different points in the election, helping to inform decisions about where best to organise action days and divert resources throughout the rest of the party. Young people’s commitment to the party strategy and campaigning efforts helped to lock down seats earlier in the campaign, meaning that resources could then be diverted elsewhere, ultimately helping the party to achieve the phenomenal result of 72 MPs.

Each one of us contributes to what we can achieve and what we can become as a party, and we should be nothing but proud as young people in the party for what we collectively accomplished in the General Election.

But more than our efforts on the ground, Young Liberals helped to shape the narrative and the policy offer of the Liberal Democrats in this election. Firstly, it was the Young Liberals who championed carers a few years ago, before it became a key piece of the party’s identity under Ed Davey’s leadership.

Moreover, at autumn conference, Young Liberals worked with the Lambeth local party to pass a policy on ending period poverty. The result is that we were the only major political party to even mention periods in our manifesto. We as a party are leading the way on this issue.

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Mo Waqas

Standing against hatred: A call for unity in the face of tragedy

By Mo Waqas | Thu 1st August 2024 - 3:41 pm

The horrific deaths of the three young girls at a dance class have sent shockwaves through our country. This senseless attack, which rightfully should be condemned, has left families and the wider Southport community in mourning. My heart aches for those affected by this tragedy.

In the wake of this incident, we have seen a troubling rise in Islamophobia. This is an issue I have spoken about extensively. It began with the Leeds Riots, where many, including right-wing figures like Nigel Farage, incorrectly assumed the unrest was linked to the South Asian community. In reality, the Muslim community in Leeds was actively working to calm the situation. However, individuals like Tommy Robinson and Lawrence Fox have fanned the flames of sectarianism and populism, perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

The far-right narrative that blames immigrants and Muslims for societal issues is damaging and untrue. They portray my community as terrorists, rapists, and benefit scroungers. This scapegoating has reached a point where many third and fourth-generation Muslims, like myself, feel fed up. We are British—we embrace the quirks of British life, from its famously unpredictable weather to enjoying a vegan sausage roll and chips with gravy. We are proud of our nation, and our grandparents fought against fascism for this country. My great-grandfather served in Burma, and our families have contributed blood, sweat, and tears to be part of this society.

Our contributions are undeniable. My grandfather started working in a mill in Bolton in the 1960s, and now his descendants have become barristers, nurses, investment bankers, care assistants, and bus drivers. They play integral roles in the fabric of Britain. I am the first in my family to stand as an MP and the first to chair my local party. We break glass ceilings every day.

To the far-right, I have a clear message: you will not win. This Britain is for the tolerant and welcoming. We have friends from diverse backgrounds—atheists, theists, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those who think Wigan have a better football team than Bolton (obviously incorrect) . We focus on what unites us rather than what divides us. We care about the Lionesses and whether it’s called a bread roll, barm, or cob. We debate whether to put cream or jam first on a scone. These are the things that make us British.

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Rob Parsons

MPs and other jobs

By Rob Parsons | Thu 1st August 2024 - 2:12 pm

I have a proposal for dealing with MPs who have other interests. It’s a solution I have proposed a number of times in different places, and in every case it has been very difficult to get reactions from others. This puzzles me. If there is something fatally wrong with my proposal, would somebody here please tell me, so I need not bother myself with it any more. If it is not fatally flawed, then I think it deserves a hearing.

I believe my suggestion is more liberal than the current free for all, and also more liberal than banning second jobs. My suggestion is not to ban MPs from having other jobs or other interests, but simply to ban them from voting on anything in which they have a financial interest (and maybe other kinds of interests as well). This is in line with practice in local authorities where representatives routinely recuse themselves from issues where they have declared an interest.

This might cause notable changes in the selection process. How eager would local parties be to appoint someone who had a directorship of a medical company and hence could not vote on any health issue? It might give rise to different, and more ethical, internal conversations among candidates. They would have to calculate their net worth as a candidate with and without their interests, and might thereby arrive at a more realistic assessment of what they can offer to the political process. It won’t in many cases; of course; people will continue to calculate purely in terms of political advantage, but it might change some conversations. Imagine all those Tory landlords who would not be able to vote on anything to do with housing.

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Richard Kemp

A flashback from Southport 2024 to Toxteth 1981

By Richard Kemp | Wed 31st July 2024 - 2:58 pm

Last night I had a flashback to when I was relatively young councillor representing Dingle which was part of Liverpool 8. The media had turned remorselessly to focus on the so-called Toxteth riots and the “disgraceful and illegal behaviour” of the people who lived in that area. Well, that was the description from the right-wing press about what was happening there although that did not accord to reality.

Yesterday I visited Southport on behalf of the people and council of Liverpool to show solidarity with the people of Southport and Sefton Council.

On Monday three children died after the stabbings and five more plus two adults are on the critical list. The children are in one of the best children’s hospitals in the world at Alder Hey and we can only hope for a successful outcome to all the medical procedures. 

Over the years to come the parents and families of the children killed will always be thinking, “what would my child have been doing and shaping up into as they grew older”. In 12 short, short years perhaps the oldest of the children killed would have been celebrating their own University graduation, or A Levels, or GCSEs. How they would have developed nobody will ever know because those opportunities will never be available to them

As I attended the vigil it was clear that I could see a massive coming together of the people of Southport and further afield. People came to show their support for ‘their’ children and ‘their’ community. Many were a bit dazed and numbed as indeed we all were. How could you not be taken aback by such an event? However, there was no anger there.

No one was there to point fingers, assign blame or cause trouble. A couple of attempts by individuals to heckle and make points out of the proceedings were quickly hushed by the those surrounding them. There was a respectful silence as the Mayor of Sefton spoke and when I accompanied her to lay flowers in the Atkins Park outside the Town Hall.

We went from Liverpool to express our concern for the council of Sefton and the people of Southport as we have ourselves faced up to tragedies involving the death of young people, albeit it not at this scale. We have never had to face up to a situation where so many young lives have been taken or put at huge and continuing risk. 

But shortly after I left for home another tragedy occurred to scar the life of the people of Liverpool. The rumour was circulated that the killer was a Muslim immigrant from Rwanda. The police quite rightly have not issued much detail other than to say that he had been born in the UK of parents of a Rwandan background. I know the Rwandan community within Merseyside well. They are a peaceful hard-working community who put back into the community more than they take out. 

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Hina Bokhari

The Nasty Side of Labour and the Two Child Benefit Cap

By Hina Bokhari | Wed 31st July 2024 - 1:25 pm

“You are the co-architects of austerity” grimaced the Mayor of London, pointing his finger at me, when he responded to a simple question of asking him to write to the new government to scrap the two-child benefit cap. 

For many, it was shocking that the Mayor was so aggressive and angry in his response, which can be viewed here.

But for Liberal Democrats active in Labour facing areas like London, we have too often seen this nasty side of Labour Party where councillors, members or activists are attacked for daring to question Labour and daring to question what Labour see as their monopoly on progressive politics and government.

The response is too often entirely predictable, start shouting about the coalition as way to avoid them answering for their own actions. Well, they are in the driving seat of National Government now and have nowhere to hide. Rachel Reeves’ speech this week already outlined what will likely be Labour’s very own version of austerity. 

I’m really proud that the London Assembly started to raise the issue of the two-child benefit cap very early on, before it really came to national attention. 11 per cent of children in London are impacted by the two-child cap and a staggering 33% of children in the capital live in poverty. 

Various London Assembly committees heard evidence from expert panels on the extremely damaging nature of the two-child benefit cap, particularly on ethnic minority communities in London. A later cross-party report for the Cost-of-Living Working Group on the Assembly also made clear recommendations that removing the cap was one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to reduce child poverty in London. 

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Wera Hobhouse MP and Daisy Cooper MP

Creating a fairer, greener future for all

By Wera Hobhouse MP and Daisy Cooper MP | Wed 31st July 2024 - 11:55 am

The climate-nature crisis remains an existential threat to the future prosperity, wellbeing and security of the UK. We can see its effects all around us—from last Monday being the hottest day ever recorded, to the deafening silence of birds and butterflies across our once wild isles. The recent Climate Change Committee report shows that the UK Government is off track to meet its 2030 target (to cut emissions by 68%) and that only a third of current plans are credible.

Our natural environment is being destroyed at pace. The last State of Nature report set out the drastic declines in our native biodiversity, stark reductions in our woodland cover, and the collapse of many of our precious species. Nature is deeply intertwined with our climate. They’re two sides of the same coin. When viewed holistically, it’s clear that we cannot solve the climate crisis without also solving the nature crisis, and vice versa. 

The science is crystal clear. We’re now operating on a knife edge of breaching our Paris Agreement obligations to do all we can to limit “global boiling”. With June marking the twelfth consecutive month of global temperatures of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, it’s clearer than ever that the (already small) window for action is rapidly closing. We must act as fast and as fairly as possible to get the world on track for a liveable future.

The new Labour Government has inherited one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. A country where 75% of our rivers pose a serious risk to human health—a country where an ever changing climate is damaging our health, prosperity and security. But the mandate given by the British public on 4 July is clear. We need a new approach that puts climate-nature action at the heart of our decision-making. We Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for a fairer, greener future; a UK where everyone can benefit from—and help shape—the huge opportunities of the just transition to a zero carbon, nature positive future. 

Crucially, we recognise that our once world leading legislation no longer meets the challenges of today. The Climate Change Act was passed seven years before the 2015 Paris Agreement was agreed—and our biodiversity targets don’t align with the 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in Montreal. As internationalists, we believe that the UK now needs to lock these global commitments into law. 

As MPs, we have a duty to send a strong message to the public, civil society and businesses that we’re serious about improving their lives and livelihoods. In the years ahead to 2030, we must reverse biodiversity loss and we must rapidly reduce our emissions via a new, joined-up approach. Small, incremental changes won’t cut it; especially given the last Government’s inaction, delays and U-turns.

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Callum Robertson

We are a major force in British politics again – let’s update elements of our support processes to reflect this

By Callum Robertson | Wed 31st July 2024 - 10:25 am

We have 72 Members of Parliament, it would be the easiest thing in the world to sit back and be a bit smug for six months. However, that would be a mistake – with the Conservatives hell bent on internal warfare and Labour in a honeymoon period, we are the de facto opposition. Consequently we have to start acting like it. To my mind we succeed where there is local leadership and being blunt, our selection process is unnecessarily slow in getting candidates in place.

Parliamentary Selections – including seats where we are third, should take place in the next 18 months.

The most effective way of electing MPs remains selecting early and embedding those candidates in as genuine local champions, ready to hold their local Member of Parliament to account.

We are second in 27 seats, selecting these seats early will allow us to bed in candidates ahead of time and give us a more realistic chance of building on the incredible gains next time.

However, there are also a large number of seats where we are a good third (15-25% of the vote) and should be challenging for second place in 2029. We know that in these seats, credibility can be a challenge – so equally building our vote in these seats is important too.

Understandably there needs to be some time for reflection – however post 2019 we were far too slow in selecting candidates. We can grow on our success if we have all our target seat candidates and most of our moving forward seat candidates, selected by December 2025.

Large Seat Selections – these should be treated as advanced seats are, or we will not be able to prove what we would do differently.

We have built clusters of victories in seats around Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Surrey. This concentration of parliamentary seats should help us win some larger seats such as Mayoralties and Police (Fire) and Crime Commissioners at the next election for those seats.

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Should Lib Dems rethink our new fiscal rules after our successful General Election campaign?

By Michael Berwick-Gooding and Katharine Pindar | Wed 31st July 2024 - 8:55 am

Following the announcement of the new (so-called) £22bn ‘Black Hole’ in the Government’s finances, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has announced over £3bn in departmental spending cuts, making the winter fuel allowance mean-tested, and scrapping the previous government’s social care reforms (which set a maximum of £86,000 on a person’s personal care costs) meant to be implemented eventually in October 2025.

During the General Election it was generally recognised that there would need to be cuts to the non-protected departmental budgets, which the Resolution Foundation said could be as much as £33bn and the IMF said could be about £30bn. During the General Election the Labour Party talked of less than £10bn in extra government spending.

In our Manifesto we suggested how £19bn more could be raised from increased and new taxes. These included  buy-backs, increased taxes on social media firms and tech giants and reforming capital gains tax, as well as including one copied by the Labour Party, higher taxes on the energy giants (but raising £900 million less than ours).

There is a way forward, which our pre-Manifesto passed in the Autumn Conference of 2023 proposed. We stated that we would  “safeguard the UK’s economic prosperity while making the investments our country needs. We will make sure that day-to-day spending does not exceed the amount of money raised in taxes over the medium term…”

However, in our Manifesto those words were replaced with, “Foster stability, certainty and confidence in managing the public finances responsibly to get the national debt falling as a share of the economy and ensure that day-to-day spending does not exceed the amount raised in taxes, while making the investments our country needs.”

Why make that change? It would leave us on the same horns of a dilemma as the new Chancellor has. You can’t simultaneously pledge to reduce the national debt AND pledge to make the investment the country needs, in one parliamentary term.

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