Category Archives: Op-eds

Clare Smalley

We need to be ready to take on Labour

By Clare Smalley | Mon 24th June 2024 - 2:08 pm

As we likely approach an incoming Labour Government, Liberal Democrats must not waste any time before turning our campaigning firepower on Labour.

The helpful zeitgeist in this General Election has been the self-destruction of the Conservatives. However, the quiet non-aggression between ourselves and the Labour Party needs to end at 10pm on 4th July.

At times it has felt extremely lonely fighting Labour in the last decade. As the party races to win the Blue Wall, Red Wall communities are abandoned in too many areas between an awful Labour/Conservative/Reform dog fight. Liberal community politics in Labour-held cities and towns is absent except …

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 24 June 2024 – it would take a heart of stone, wouldn’t it?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 24th June 2024 - 11:31 am

Greetings from Lithuania, where your Day Editor is currently located following a rather enjoyable weekend away on Party business. Think of it as one of the side effects of a snap General Election…

Having spent much of the weekend surrounded by European liberal colleagues asking optimistically after our prospects, I’ve been talking them down a bit. After all, I’ve been around a long time and I know that the evil Tories always have something up their sleeves to unleash upon us at the moment of greatest vulnerability, usually courtesy of their mates in the right-wing press.

And yet, and yet, I fret that something beyond our control might harm our prospects. However, despite my vague disquiet, our campaign still appears to be running as smoothly as you could reasonably ask, and our key messages continue to resonate.

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Richard Wood

First Past the Post failed English local democracy this year

By Richard Wood | Thu 20th June 2024 - 4:53 pm

This May the Liberal Democrats made remarkable gains in local elections across England. From winning the second highest number of seats in councils up for election (pushing the Conservatives into third place) to returning to third place in the London mayoral election and winning our first ever London Assembly constituency seat, the Liberal Democrats are on the cusp of regaining our place as Westminster’s third largest party come 4 July.

That rise is a major story of the 2024 local elections, one deserving more media attention. But the story of how the elections were skewed by First Past the Post must also be heard.

Once again our archaic voting system distorted the link between citizens and their representatives, an outcome that will be seen again in July. Take a look at Fareham council where the Conservatives secured a majority of seats on just 41% of votes cast. Then there’s Plymouth where Labour won a majority of seats up for election on 44% of the vote. Lib Dem-run councils aren’t immune from this either. That’s not to take away from the hard work of local campaigns across the country (if anything we often have to work harder under the current voting system and two-party system to win seats!), but to recognise we operate within a flawed system. First Past the Post consistently warps the link between seats and their votes just as much at the local level as at Westminster.

Furthermore, this May we also saw the consequences of the government’s Elections Act, which abolished the Supplementary Vote for mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner elections. The Supplementary Vote was far from perfect – preferential voting would be preferable for single-member executive positions if we are to have them at all – but it gave mayors and PCCs a broader mandate than they otherwise would have. In the first ever York and North Yorkshire election this year, Labour’s David Skaith became mayor on just 35% of the vote – on a turnout of less than 30%. If we are to have directly elected executive mayors, it is vital they have a broad mandate to represent their region effectively. The status-quo isn’t delivering but there are alternatives to our failing First Past the Post system.

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Ben Wood

The Liberal Democrat Manifesto: Politics for the Common Good

By Ben Wood | Thu 20th June 2024 - 12:47 pm

In 1912 Britain was a surprisingly shabby place. Despite the country’s immense foreign possessions and vast export trade, the UK was suffering the enfeebling effects of a drastic readjustment of global trade. In the decades to come, these economic tides would cause the British Empire to recede into the history books. But for the Edwardians, these future chimes of doom were felt first as industrial sluggishness and mass hardship. The grand Imperial centre was witnessing an explosion of poverty, malnutrition, and ill-health, decaying infrastructure and insecure work.

E.M. Forster memorably dramatized this national condition in his 1913 novel Maurice through the metaphor of the tumbled down country house of Penge. This once-grand seat of the genteel Durham family is now beset by staff-shortages, leaky roofs and pathologically complacent owners. And to compound the estate’s troubles, the working-classes over whom the Durham’s bestow their parasitic patronage no-longer see the point of their old masters. The aristocrats grumble that the scullery maids have become unreliable while the game-keepers have gone socialist. As Forster puts it wryly: ‘ people had the air of settling something; they either just had arranged or soon would arrange England. Yet, the gate posts, the roads…were in bad repair, and the timber wasn’t kept properly, the windows stuck, the boards creaked.’ Plutocratic pretentions were finally hitting the cold and unforgiving buffers of economic reality. It is impossible to read Forster’s description of this sad and decaying estate without seeing something of ourselves.

Since the 2008 Financial Crisis the UK economy has stuttered along, struggling with low productivity, stagnant wages and a rising tide of social need. But if we find ourselves resolutely within the walls of Forster’s dilapidated Penge, the avoidable shabbiness of the Edwardians points us towards something like a remedy. Forster knew (and in time would become part of) a new circle of intellectuals, often dubbed ‘the New Liberals’. In the face of an ‘individualism which ignores the social factor in wealth’, that depletes ‘the national resources’ and deprives ‘the community of its just share in the fruits of industry’ (L.T. Hobhouse), New Liberals sought to establish a new set of political principles:

  • Wealth is produced by a dynamic partnership between personal initiative and social organisation
  • Society possesses common goods which must be met collectively
  • Government (on behalf of society) has a right to demand a reasonable portion of private wealth in recognition of the social dimension of all personal initiative

As Hobhouse summarised this posture: ‘The prosperous businessman who thinks that he has made his fortune entirely by self-help does not pause to consider what single step he could have taken on the road to his success but for the ordered tranquillity which has made commercial development possible, the security by road, and rail, and sea, the masses of skilled labour, and the sum of intelligence which civilization has placed at his disposal …If he dug to the foundations of his fortune he would recognize that, as it is society that maintains and guarantees his possessions, so also it is society which is an indispensable partner in its original creation’.

And yet an atmosphere of structural individualism pervades our lives. Common needs are repeatedly neglected and common sources of prosperity are frittered away. The country is ailing, with an extractive economy, characterised by high rents, low savings and even lower investment. The jaded house-maids and socialist gamekeepers have morphed into precarious renters who yearn for a humane collectivism to rescue them from what Forster called the rootless ‘civilisation of luggage’.  This was once the grand mission of our public services, but they are looking increasingly threadbare and dysfunctional, with their maintenance falling on shoulders that simply cannot bare them.

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Michal Siewniak

EU nationals and the Lib Dem manifesto

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 17th June 2024 - 11:26 am

I wonder how often any of us actually read political parties’ manifestos. I agree; we have much better things to do. I also know that so many of us are simply fed up with reading stuff that promises lots and delivers very little.

However, I do believe that it is our democratic responsibility to ensure that we educate ourselves and vote in any elections in line with our moral, social and political conscience. This can be achieved by being well informed and not only by voting with our gut feeling.

Although this issue will not entertain a lot of people and it will not win many seats across the Parliament, I feel that for many of us it is hugely important. I am delighted that the Lib Dem Manifesto makes so many concrete pledges in relation to the lives of many European nationals living in Britain.

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 17 June 2024 – and we have liftoff?…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 17th June 2024 - 8:55 am

It’s been an unexpected campaign in many ways. And whilst, as a member of the Party’s Federal Council, I’ve been fortunate to be in receipt of briefings from the centre about campaign strategy for some time, my expectations were not high. It was feeling like a bit of a grim slog to pry loose a bunch of limpet Tory MPs for, the most part, somewhere far from my corner of East Anglia. Certainly worthwhile, and certainly necessary, but not necessarily designed to make spirits soar. Discipline was, and still is, the watchword.

But, there was the consolation that we were going to be on the front foot this time. There was a sense that, even if we weren’t going to reach the heights of the turn of the century, we were going to improve our position significantly in terms of seats at least.

So, colour me surprised to find that this campaign has been far more fun than I could have dreamed of. Yes, a degree of grim determination is still in order – leaflets and canvassing don’t do themselves – but there is a certain joie de vivre that I don’t think many of us could have anticipated. Ed is seemingly living his best life which, compared to the crabbed, cautious approach of Keir and Rishi, our modern day political Chuckle Brothers, does at the very least give the impression of self-confidence and a sense of fun. And campaigns should be enjoyed. Did you have Jason Donovan describing Ed as sexy on your “bingo card” for the campaign.

Much kudos must go to the Campaigns Team who, with our social media team, have entertained and engaged us, the media and, somewhat unexpectedly, the public.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th June 2024 - 9:28 am

Gaza

 Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership share a common interest: It is to neither’s advantage at this stage to end the Gaza War. But neither is in either party’s interests to be seen as the bad guy.

In the case of the Israeli prime minister it is the fact that once the war is over he will face an overpowering clamour for a general election. It is an election which he will almost certainly lose as the Israeli electorate will hold him to account for the events that led up to the October 7th Hamas attack.

And then, once he is out of office, Netanyahu is likely to exchange the prime minister’s official residence for a prison cell via a trial on charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. Fleeing the country is not an option because by then the International Criminal Court will have issued an arrest warrant for war crimes – unless he flees to America.

With Hamas the story is different. There are two wars being fought in the eastern Mediterranean. One is on the ground and in the air over a strip of land 26 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. The other is a war in the court of international public opinion. Hamas is losing the first and winning the second.

The longer the military war continues. The greater the disproportionate losses in human terms between Palestinians and Israelis and the greater the victory for Hamas. Already it has secured diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state from six EU countries—Norway, Spain, Slovenia, Cyprus, Sweden and Ireland.

Hamas has repeatedly proven that it puts political objectives before Palestinian lives. A string of historical precedents would have told them that the October 7th attack and the taking of hostages would have resulted in a highly disproportionate number of dead and injured Palestinians. It is also clear that Hamas has used hospitals, schools and Palestinian civilians, as shields.

So, where does that leave the prospects for peace and the diplomatic brokering of the US, Egypt and Qatar? At the moment US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is focused on the lack of Hamas’s enthusiasm for the latest peace proposal. Hamas say they have responded with “positivity” but Blinken says that the Hamas’s “positivity” includes “unworkable” changes.

Part of the latest problem is ownership of the plan currently on the table. It was announced by President Biden. But in his announcement he said it was an Israeli plan. However, as Hamas’ has been keen to point out, no Israeli official has publicly endorsed the plan.

In fact, official Israeli pronouncements continue to focus on continuing the war until Hamas’s “governing and military capabilities have been destroyed and the hostages returned.” There is also the political problem that Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners will withdraw from the government if the plan outlined by Biden goes ahead. This would result in an election which Netanyahu would lose.

Israeli problems and positions in turn appear to be in direct conflict with a Hamas demand that Israel commit in writing to ending the fighting before it agrees to any plan from anyone. Until this deadlock is resolved and the Americans come up with a plan that allows both sides to achieve the aims they want without fighting, then the war continues.

Ukraine

Shortly after the Russians invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the West froze $325 billion in Russian assets.

Almost immediately the call went out to hand the money over to Ukraine to finance its war against Russia. But there was a problem with this tactic which can easily be summed up with one word – hypocrisy.

Putin was being condemned for contravening international law with his naked war of aggression. But confiscating Russian assets and handing them over to Ukraine would also break international law. And respect for international law is at the root of what Ukraine and the West is fighting for. Putin wants to create a world where might is right. America and its allies want to retain a world based on respect for international law.

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Michal Siewniak

Republic of Ireland, Brexit and the EU Elections

By Michal Siewniak | Sat 15th June 2024 - 1:18 pm

A few weeks ago, I visited Dublin for the first time. The Republic of Ireland is a wonderful place. During my trip, I’ve learnt about the symbolism of the Irish flag. I visited the Society and State exhibition at Dublin Castle, which was truly fascinating! I now feel much stronger connected with the country, its culture, people, and at times very difficult history.

However, during my short stay in the capital, I immediately noticed a huge difference; the city was full of posters in relation to the upcoming European Elections. In contrast, in Britain, we spoke very little about these elections, which in my view, will have a major impact on the “European project” and the direction of the EU as a whole.

Apart from the Green and Liberal Democrats and of course the Reform Party, I am still surprised that the major “political powers” are avoiding discussing the B word. Yes, I get it, we left the EU. We can all agree that, with a bit of sarcasm, the journey has been a successful one! We have regained sovereignty, we are able to control our borders and the net migration has been reduced to tens of thousands…The current government produced 5 manifestos in the last few years. In all honesty, they have really badly let down the country, its people and the society as a whole.

Our politicians must realise that the relationship with our closest neighbours should be embedded in their policies. Every single subject that has been discussed at various national debates needs to be looked at also from the European perspective; immigration, employment, high and low-skilled economy. All of it is so closely interconnected. The most recent figures; NO growth in April, the NHS waiting list went up to 7.57 million people. Scary stuff. Would re-joining the EU help to address all of these issues? No, however it is impossible to square some of it without talking about it. I simply don’t buy the rhetoric of people like Mr Farage, who claims that the county must reduce the immigration to zero. Some of these promises are simply unachievable and unworkable.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Macron’s Gamble

By Tom Arms | Sat 15th June 2024 - 10:23 am

Emmanuel Macron is either a fool, a political genius or – what is most likely – supremely arrogant. Or perhaps it is a confusing mix of all three.

His decision to call early parliamentary elections is – on the face of it – a gamble worthy of a high stakes Las Vegas poker game.

But then, within hours of the president’s televised announcement, things were looking up for Macron as France’s political right started tearing itself apart. Then there is the strong possibility that a far-right victory could prove to be the poisoned chalice that keeps Marine Le Pen out of the Elysee Palace after the 2027 presidential vote.

That must be Macron’s goal. He is barred from running for a third term, but he firmly believes that Ms Le Pen and her National Rally (RN) is an existential threat to France, Europe and the wider world. He is determined that his political legacy should not read: “The man who put Le Pen in power.”

Most pundits agree that Macron had to call an election soon, but they expected it in the autumnal afterglow of the Paris Olympics. The poll has been on the cards ever since Macron lost his parliamentary majority in 2022. Since then he has either had to shift to the right or resort to ruling by decree with Article 49.3. The latter meant that he would eventually face and lose a vote of censure which would have forced him to hold an election. This way he chooses the date and the context.

Marine Le Pen has worked hard to de-demonise the far-right National Rally founded by her father as the National Front. She went so far as to expel her familial predecessor from the party and changed its name to National Rally.

Bowing to opinion polls, she has even also diluted the party’s euro-scepticism. Calls for “Frexit” and withdrawal from the Euro have been abandoned. But some of RN’s other policies make it hard for the party to shed the extremist label. RN opposes French intervention in Africa; wants to leave NATO’s integrated command structure, supports economic intervention and protectionism; seeks a “privileged partnership” with Russia; is anti-globalist and supports a policy of zero tolerance on law and order issues.

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George Cunningham

The Overseas Vote: Please encourage your British family and friends abroad this weekend to register!

By George Cunningham | Fri 14th June 2024 - 1:00 pm

An additional 2.1 million Brits abroad will be eligible to vote at the General Election on 4th July, but many still don’t know about their new rights. There’s just five days left to get the word out and have them register, as registration closes on Tuesday at 23.59hrs UK time, whether at home or abroad.

The abolition of the 15-year rule – which had previously stopped the right to vote for any Brit who has been out of the country for longer than that – means that all British citizens abroad of voting age who have ever lived in the UK have their right to vote restored since January this year for general elections and some referendums.

This has more than doubled the number of eligible British voters abroad from approximately 1.4 million to about 3.5 million, a sizeable increase!

Please take action – send your family and friends abroad an email straight away or give them a call. They should go online this weekend and register at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote if they have not done so already. They will be registered to vote at their last constituency address they lived in.

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The Voice

Election heroes: Agents

By The Voice | Fri 14th June 2024 - 11:30 am

We are now half way through the election campaign and most of us will be feeling a bit knackered.

Elections are a bit like the Tour De France. A massive daily effort with actual and metaphorical daily climbs and sprint finishes.

We thought we’d take a minute to appreciate the key people in the election in a series of posts which will hopefully sustain us through to polling day.

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack: How we decide to ask people where to campaign

By Mark Pack | Thu 13th June 2024 - 8:48 am

Why it matters

A stark fact from this May’s local elections: just 97 more people switching from our opponents to us would have given us outright control of three more local councils.
That is the brutal reality of first past the post elections. Votes in the key places count for much more than votes in safe seats and in lost causes.

It is why we want to get rid of first past the post. To do that, we first have to win under first past the post. That means concentrating our efforts where they can make the most difference to how many seats we win.

Asking people to help in the right places

Having people from other areas come to help them is a key part of any successful target seat campaign at a general election. It is also the best way to value and respect people’s time – by directing it to where it will have the most impact.

But asking people to go to the right places is not straightforward and it is something we did not get right in 2019. So here is how we are approaching the task this time around.

Running through all this is a simple dilemma. For five general elections in a row, the party has been too optimistic about how many seats it was sensible to target (and although there was rightly lots of wisdom after the event, much of the pressure internally from members during each of those campaigns was to be more optimistic, not less).

Yet the Conservatives, our main opponents in our target seats, are currently polling at a level which, if reflected on polling day, will see them get their worst result since the roll out of letterboxes.

To guide the campaign through this, a wide range of sources of information therefore is being used: what the results on the new boundaries would have been in 2019, local election and devolved bodies election results since then, all the public MRPs published (more than 10 already!) with their seat-by-seat figures, our own private polling and of course the data coming in from our canvassers on the doors and phones.

As well as using all those sources of information to get a balanced overall view of our best prospects, we then have to divide up possible help sensibly. Each target seat is allocated a number of other constituencies where members and supporters are asked to help them.

Because we have to balance the amount of help to each place accordingly – and because of course transport options and travel times vary depending on where in a constituency you live or work – this sometimes means that the seat people are being asked to help is not the nearest or quickest to get to.

If there is another seat you would like to head to because it is easier to get to, because a group of friends are also campaigning there or to return some favours for previous help in a local election, by all means drop an email to [email protected] and the team can confirm if it is indeed a seat we are in with a serious chance of winning and encouraging people to go to.

If you cannot make it in person, help on the phones is also very valuable. You can sign up for our group phoning sessions here or again email [email protected] to be put in touch with the local team in a target seat who can give you details of who to phone.

Building our capacity

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Victor Chamberlain

This is the Liberal blueprint we desperately need to solve our housing crises

By Victor Chamberlain | Tue 11th June 2024 - 10:02 am

The preamble to the Liberal Democrat constitution states the party exists to ensure “no-one shall be enslaved by poverty”. The many housing crises we currently face are plunging millions into poverty, substandard homes and an unfair and unaffordable housing market. People suffer worse health, children don’t receive the opportunities they deserve and our economy is less productive because our housing sector is broken. Fixing the housing crisis is central to creating the more equal and fair society our party believes in. I was delighted to read the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the 2024 General Election. It offers a clear, comprehensive, and pragmatic roadmap to addressing the housing crises that have long plagued our country.

The commitment to building 380,000 new homes annually, including 150,000 social homes, is particularly significant for cities like London where in a councillor. Every day I see how the lack of good quality homes residents can afford is leading to worse health outcomes, forcing families into temporary accommodation and schools to close and leaving swathes of young people living with parents or in poor quality shared housing. The chronic shortage of genuinely affordable housing has driven up costs and poverty and made home ownership a distant dream for many. By advocating for new garden cities and community-led developments, the manifesto promises to inject much-needed diversity and sustainability into urban planning, ensuring that growth benefits all residents. Liberal Democrats should be proud to be a YIMBY (yes in my back yard) party – we need a lot more homes and a lot more variety of homes to solve the many different housing challenges we face. It’s great to see the party committing to being the party of home building – that’s the liberal approach to the housing crisis.

The manifesto’s focus on renters’ rights is another critical area. In my borough (Southwark) we have tens of thousands of social renters who are ignored by the Council and housing associations, so I’m especially delighted to see greater protections proposed for social renters. We need better enforcement of standards, quicker repairs and greater transparency and accountability. The proposed ban on no-fault evictions and the establishment of three-year tenancies as the norm will provide much-needed stability for renters. Many of our residents live in constant fear of sudden evictions, disrupting their lives and communities. Creating a national register of licensed landlords will further enhance accountability and improve living conditions across the rental sector.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th June 2024 - 9:57 am

Gaza War

Sometimes the most shocking statements are the most obvious. Especially when they are spoken by those encumbered with having to be the most diplomatic.

This week President Joe Biden publicly stated what everyone knows but he has been reluctant to confirm: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dragging out the Gaza War as a way to stay in office.

He might have also added that the war is keeping Netanyahu out of prison as he has been indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. As long as he is prime minister he cannot be tried.

The latest Israeli opinion polls indicate that if an election were held in Israel today Netanyahu’s Likud-led coalition would win 46 seats compared to the opposition parties’ 68 seats. But, at the same time, polls show strong support for the war and its goal of eliminating Hamas. If Netanyahu achieves the total destruction of the enemy then the voters might just forgive him for creating the conditions that allowed the 7 October attack to happen.

Biden’s comments came in an interview with Time magazine and only a few days before he announced another plan to end the Gaza War. This one is in three phases.

Phase one would last six weeks and include a total ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Some hostages would be released. Hundreds of Palestinians would be released from Israeli prisons and there would be an immediate and massive influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Under phase two the remaining hostages, including soldiers and the remains of any dead hostages would be released and the IDF would complete its withdrawal from Gaza. Phase three would involve reconstruction which would last three to five years. The two-state solution is not mentioned in this latest plan.

Despite the fact that President Biden has made it clear that there would be no future role for Hamas, the terrorist organisation has said that they view the plan “positively.”  Biden claimed that his phased proposal had been endorsed by the Israeli government, but then a spokesperson said: “Israel has not changed its conditions to reach a permanent ceasefire. That will only happen after our objectives are met including destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities.” He added that that is estimated to take seven months.

Meanwhile, a new front is opening on the border with Lebanon. Actually, it is an old front, but the fighting between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel is worsening. Hezbollah is now using explosive drones which are more difficult for Israel’s iron dome to stop and can reach further south. Israel, for its part, is levelling the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. Within the Israeli cabinet there is talk of creating an Israeli-occupied “security zone” in southern Lebanon, similar to the one Israel maintained until 2000.

The US has responded to the Lebanon threat with another three-part plan. First part is a ceasefire to allow residents on both sides of the border to return to their homes. Phase two is US economic assistance for financially-strapped Lebanon and the final phase calls for a newly demarcated border to improve security.

The problem is that the negotiations are with the Lebanese government while the power is with Iran-backed Hezbollah. They are unlikely to accept any ceasefire until a truce is agreed and implemented in Gaza. And, as President Biden acknowledged, that truce is against the political interests of Bibi Netanyahu.

European Parliament

Europe’s far-right is expected to sweep the board in this weekend’s elections to the European Parliament. This could mean problems ahead as a centre-left council and commission clash with a right-wing parliament.

This didn’t use to be a problem. It used to be that the European Parliament was a talk shop with limited oversight powers. The real power lay with the member states through the European Council which in turn effectively appointed the President of the European Commission and the 27 commissioners.

But over the years, increasing pressure has meant that more and more power is vested in the directly elected parliament rather than the indirectly elected council. Parliament has progressed from an advisory body to a co-decision maker.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Modi – The Winner Loses

By Tom Arms | Sat 8th June 2024 - 9:53 am

Narendra Modi won and lost India’s general election.

His Baharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its absolute majority in parliament. But with the help of 23 smaller parties has cobbled together a working coalition.

But more importantly, the BJP lost big in the expectation stakes. Modi’s party was predicted to romp home with 400-plus seats. This would have given the BJP the super majority it needed to complete the transformation of India from the world’s largest democracy to an autocratic Hindu nationalist nation.

As it is the BJP dropped from 303 to 240 seats. And, to add insult to injury, some of its biggest losses were in the BJP heartland of Uttar Pradesh.

Modi faces additional problems. A big chunk of his new coalition partners are secularists. They do not share his Hindu nationalist vision. This will make it difficult for 73-year-old Narendra Modi to achieve his goals in what is almost certain to be his third and final term as prime minister. And because Modi has stooped to cult politics to realise his ambitions, there is no BJP successor in sight.

Modi’s failed expectations has several causes. As usual, economic is near or at the top of the list. At a macro level India looks fantastic. GDP growth is an astonishing 8.4 percent a year.  There are 200 Indian billionaires, putting the sub-continent third behind the US and China. But trickledown economics have failed in India just like everywhere else. Twenty-two percent of Indians live below the world poverty line. The per capita income is $2,023 a year.

The number and quality of India’s higher education institutions has dramatically increased from 723 in 2014 to 1,113 in 2023. But so has youth unemployment figure at 23.22 percent. Many of the young people brandishing impressive university degrees have been forced to return to the countryside and poor paying agricultural jobs. So yes, there is a growing national pride. But its benefits are diluted by growing inequalities.

Another problem is the caste system which has inflicted Indian society for centuries. The British colonials imposed an affirmative action programme which was later enshrined in the Indian constitution. This provided a guaranteed quota in parliament, jobs, education and other sectors for the Dalits (untouchables), other low castes and minorities such as Christians, Muslims and Anglo-Indians.

The problem was that no one knew for certain the size of the pool of Dalits in order to calculate a reasonable quota. This is because that there had been no caste census since before independence in 1947. Last September, however, there was just such a census in the Bihar state. It revealed that the size of the Dalit caste was much larger – and thus more of a problem – than expected.

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Mary Reid

“When they go low, we go high”

By Mary Reid | Fri 7th June 2024 - 3:24 pm

The Leader’s Debate on Wednesday was a miserable affair. In fact, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the whole hour.

It wasn’t so much what they said, which was pretty predictable, but how they said it.  The tone was one of bad tempered school boys itching for a fight. Insults were exchanged – sometimes quite subtly, but they still landed. In fact Sunak and Starmer lived up to everyone’s stereotype of opposing politicians, substituting personal attacks for carefully argued criticism. It wasn’t helped by the chairing which seemed to egg on the sparring.

One response that we hear on the doorstep to this way of doing politics is “Why don’t they all work together to solve the problems?”. Of course that is possible, as the work of many unsung Parliamentary committees demonstrate, but for major policy areas and budget setting the scrutiny role of the opposition is absolutely essential. Indeed, the presence of an effective opposition is a benchmark for democracy. But effective opposition does not have to include personal animosity.

The layout of the House of Commons doesn’t help. It is designed for adversarial debate, with the opponents only kept apart by the statutory two sword lengths between them. The architecture encourages personal attacks on the people sitting opposite, and indeed the structure of PMQs is designed to work in that very space.

Last week I attended the funeral for a former Labour councillor. In fact I had chosen her to be my Deputy when I was Mayor, and we had developed a good friendship. At the reception afterwards I met up with former Labour councillors and activists, and a former Tory Mayor, and we all greeted each other warmly. It is perfectly possible to have respect for members of other parties and to recognise that we share some fundamental values about community and democracy. This can, and did, translate into lively debates in the Council Chamber, but conducted in a courteous manner. Passion and compassion are not incompatible.

And then we come to election campaigning. When parties are pitching themselves to gain the support of their voters it is important that they address policies held by other parties. That, of course, is very different from having a go at the candidates themselves.

Some of you will recognise an LDV theme here. We ask commenters to “Play the ball, not the (wo)man”.

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Ruvi Ziegler

The European Parliamentary Elections 2024: all EU citizens are equal, but some are more equal than others

By Ruvi Ziegler | Thu 6th June 2024 - 8:22 pm

Between 6-9 June 2024, nationals of 27 member states are voting in the European Parliamentary elections. These are the first European elections to be held since Brexit: I had the privilege of standing in the South East of England in 2019.

Millions of EU citizens living in the UK are  eligible to vote  in these elections, and many, like myself, will be casting their votes using postal votes, proxy votes, voting in person in  embassies/consulates, and/or e-voting – the available method(s) depending on their member state’s arrangements. In contradistinction, Italians would need to travel back to Italy to vote, despite being able to vote from abroad for national elections, generating justifiable anger.

Worse still, in five EU member states, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta, Denmark, and Bulgaria, national legislation prescribes that most of their citizens residing in a ‘third country’, which the UK now is, are legally disenfranchised. These countries tend to follow the pattern they adopt for their national elections. Of the four nations of the UK, this legal reality is particularly challenging for Northern Ireland, given that, pursuant to the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement, anyone born in NI may choose to be Irish, British, or both; hundreds of thousands of residents of Northern Ireland hold Irish citizenship.

Prior to the conclusion of the withdrawal agreement, I highlighted the ramifications of this scenario. In my role as Chair of the charity ‘New Europeans UK’, we have recently held at Stormont, the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly, an event entitled ‘EU citizens – rights and wrongs’, which explored the effects of Brexit on voting rights of EU citizens in these European Parliament Elections. The event was co-sponsored by members of several NI political parties, and featured alongside civil society activists a representative of the Irish republic.

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Lord William Wallace

Campaigning – and thinking about what we are campaigning for

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 6th June 2024 - 10:04 am

Most readers of LibDem Voice, now that the election campaign is under way, will be opening its messages as they come in from leaflet delivering or canvassing.  So far the weather has been good, and there’s been real advantage where we’ve managed to be the first on the doorstep to voters disillusioned with politics and parties.  In spite of the growth of social media and the internet, face-to-face discussion remains key to winning  voters’ support.

Voters are much less willing to come out to public meetings than they were a generation ago.  In the 1979 campaign, when I was mainly working on policy in Liberal HQ, I spent a long weekend driving from village to village in the Skipton constituency, as the warm-up speaker to usefully large groups of people gathered in village halls to hear Claire Brooks, the candidate, when she arrived; as you can imagine, she got later and later as the evenings went on.  Now contact has to be doorstepping, or electronic, or by phone, or by personalised leaflets wherever possible.  Helen and I have just finished hand-addressing our first chunk of envelopes for a target seat. Like other older readers (no doubt), I’ve been banned from the frenetic leaflet-delivery and canvassing that used to mark my campaign participation; now I’m a backroom helper.

It’s a characteristic of the Liberal Democrats that everyone mucks in on tasks like this.  I recall folding leaflets with 8 others round a large dining room table in Sheffield a campaign or two ago, and reflecting that everyone at the table had at least a doctorate, including the lady in a headscarf who had collected me from the station.  Yesterday we were writing with a committee member of the National Liberal Club, and someone who explained ‘I’m not actually a Liberal member; I’m a tactical voter.’  We also serve, who only sit round and fold leaflets or write blue envelopes.

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Andrew Chandler

Neglected Assets: A case for a radical rebalancing and reform of our Tax System

By Andrew Chandler | Wed 5th June 2024 - 12:25 pm

In a twist worthy of a Shakespearean comedy, The Financial Times—yes, the very bastion of capitalism—has thrown its weight behind the call to increase taxes on the wealthy. It’s as if Ebenezer Scrooge himself woke up, not just offering Bob Cratchit Christmas off, but also turned his business into a consumer mutual. 

This surprising endorsement underscores a deeper, more troubling reality: the Tories have, over time, alienated their once staunchest supporters — pragmatic economic thinkers and investors. The people who’d toast their morning coffee to the Conservatives, secure in the knowledge that their financial acumen was reflected in sound government policy. 

However, even the FT don’t try to hoodwink their audience against their own interests; understanding the reality of how years of economic stagnation has impacted our country and the wealth imbalance. 

The Tories have managed to estrange themselves so far from these stakeholders, pushing them away with a series of economic imbalances that act more like tragicomedies than strategy. Gone are the days when Tories  were seen as reliable economic stewards. 

The Tories seem intent on peddling narrow, faux-capitalistic dogma than fostering real, sustainable growth. The FT would appear to not be as easily fooled. They understand that the economy needs careful tending, like a well-pruned garden, not the reckless abandonment of letting a child  loose with garden shears. 

The article claims that parties need to the bolder on the economy. Now you might think, bold from FT writers, we’ve all been here before; savage tax cuts, privatising the police force, parading with “We Love Liz” t-shirts and having a national “Margaret Thatcher day”. Except no. Instead, amongst many other arguments, the article states that arguments by the right that better economic rebalancing and higher taxes will impact the economy is just nonsense. They say that due to the state of public finances and a public interest to see robust investment into public services that we need to be honest about increasing taxes if we are going to prevent going through a cliff-edge. They have even argued that due to lack of private investment that it would be in our interest if a major re-balancing of wealth in this country through a series of targeted tax rises on the wealthy be implemented as the government can efficiency invest into the economy. The extreme position the Tories have left us in means we have no major infrastructure going on in the UK – the need is obvious. 

While it stop short of calls for any kind of Wealth Tax or increasing top earners’ tax rates it, the author argues that we should be looking at reforming our overly complex tax system which courts the favour of people with big pockets and good accountants. Amongst its arguments was  using revenue to bring VAT down and combining NI and Income Tax together. 

I have always been a strong advocate of reforming our tax systems.  The current tax system is deeply unfair where wealthy individuals who make their earnings by selling assets pay less tax than someone who is on a paid salary but earning considerably less. 

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As China continues its squeeze on Hong Kong’s liberties, how will an incoming UK administration respond?

By Christopher | Mon 3rd June 2024 - 11:45 am

I believe Hong Kong immigrants in the United Kingdom are paying a lot of attention to the upcoming UK General Election. Over 100,000 Hong Kong people have immigrated to the UK in the past few years. This will be the first time in their lives that they can directly participate in deciding who leads their new country. Obviously, the stance of each political party on Hong Kong affairs will influence how they vote.

On May 30th, the court in Hong Kong delivered a verdict on the Hong Kong pro-democracy primary election case. In July 2020, the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong …

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 3 June 2024 – social media, your hostage to fortune?…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 3rd June 2024 - 7:30 am

We’re well into the second week of the campaign now, and whilst the polls don’t appear to be showing any signs of significant movement yet, there’s still that slightly nervous sense that, surely, the Conservatives have a trick or two up their sleeve to turn things around, even a bit.

Admittedly, having blown a whole bunch of the obvious advantages that being able to call the date of an election offer – the element of surprise being one, and choosing the best feasible scenario for persuading voters that things are getting better – and with time inexorably passing, you do begin …

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 2nd June 2024 - 10:00 am

South Africa

Three decades of ANC rule in South Africa look set to end. The final votes from Wednesday’s election have yet to be counted and are expected to be announced on Sunday. But the general consensus is that the party that ended apartheid will garner about 45 percent of the vote. Which means it is coalition time.

The downfall of the ANC vote is evidence of the well-worn political truism that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. In 2004 the African National Congress won 70 percent of the vote. It dropped to 57 percent in 2019 and is projected to drop between 10 and 15 points in this election.

The reason for the collapse of the ANC vote is corruption, poor governance and economic mismanagement leading to a flight of capital and an unemployment rate of 37 percent.

Corruption reached its peak under the presidency of Jacob Zuma whose misuse of government funds led to his ousting in 2018. In 2020 he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for contempt of court. He served only three, but he is still barred from serving in parliament.

Zuma’s successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, made some progress towards resolving the corruption problem, but it was too little too late> Unemployment – especially among the urban youth – remains troublingly high. Zuma, in the meantime has emerged as leader of a new KwaZulu Natal-based political party, Umkhonto we Size (MK) or Spear of the Nation.

MK has surprised political pundits by beating the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to take third place in the polls. Both the EFF and MK have adopted radical agendas which include the expropriation of white-owned land and widespread nationalisation. MK also wants to return more political power to the traditional trial chieftains.

MK took votes away from both the ANC and EFF. Another winner from this week’s was the Democratic Alliance (DA) who appear to have won the confidence the white South African voter. A fifth party is the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is—like MK– also based in Natal. The most likely coalition is between the IFP, Democratic Alliance and ANC.

Europe

Europe’s far-right parties appear set to sweep the boards in European Parliament elections held on 6-9 June.

Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy are on the rise. Marine Le Pen is current favourite to win the 2027 and her National Rally party is currently at 30 percent in the opinion polls. Viktor Orban’s Fidesz has a stranglehold on Hungary and Geert Wilder’s Party for Freedom won elections in the Netherlands. Far-right parties, in Spain, Belgium, Slovakia, Sweden and Austria are growing or having a stake in government.

There is, however, a chink, in the far-right armour: Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (Afd) has swung too far to the right even for Europe’s far-right. Recently, there top candidate for the European Parliament, Maximilian Krah, said that members of the wartime SS were not automatically “criminals.” Krah is also being investigated by the police for accepting payments from China and Russia. His problems followed a secret meeting in a hotel outside Berlin where senior officials in the AfD discussed the mass deportation of non-ethnic Germans, including German citizens.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Uncharted Waters

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st June 2024 - 9:56 am

Twelve New York jurors set the Good Ship USA adrift on uncharted waters in a troubled political sea.

They had no choice. They were chosen from nearly 200 Manhattanites and forced to listen to weeks of complex and at times lurid testimony while fully aware that the entire world awaited their decision.

And after carefully weighing all the evidence they delivered their verdict: Guilty in the first degree on all 34 felony charges. Now the real trial begins – the political trial with the verdict coming – as Trump has said – on November the fifth.

Because of the totally unprecedented nature of this election it is impossible to predict the voters’ verdict and the impact of the New York trial. Socialist Eugene V. Debs ran for president from a prison cell in 1920, but never before has a convicted felon been the candidate of a major political party and not since 1860 has America been so politically polarised.

Eric Trump Jr declared after the trial that May 30 will go down in history as the day that Donald Trump won the 2024 election. Antony Scaramucci, former Trump Communications Director, said it will be noted as the day he lost it.

The country appears hopelessly divided. On one side of the political equation is those who argue that May 30th was an historic moment in which the US showed the world that no one is above the law. And on the other, that an American president is prepared to use the law to attempt to destroy their political opponent.

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Michal Siewniak

Should 16 year and 17 year olds be allowed to vote?

By Michal Siewniak | Fri 31st May 2024 - 12:21 pm

Here we go again! Elections: endless campaigning, debates, discussions with friends, family members, plenty of promises from all parties to convince the electorate to vote for them.

I find the whole election process fascinating. How do people vote? Do they vote in line with their conscience and political beliefs? Do they, to deselect the opponent, decide to support the “lesser evil”, as we often say in Poland? Do we actually believe in what we hear? Do we trust our politicians?

These elections will be no different. They will, in my opinion, magnify the political polarization. We will inevitably be talking about the immigration, NHS, education, social care, the economy, and the very challenging geo-political landscape. I don’t think that any of the main parties can offer a set of meaningful solutions to address a mountain of problems and issues that we face.

I was actually quite surprised when the Labour Leader suggested to potentially allow 16 and 17 years old to vote. It was one of the first policies that he announced. I actually like the idea. I think that it is really important to enable younger voters to shape our communities and their neighbourhoods. It is a no brainer, isn’t it? If you are 16, you can work, open a bank account without parent’s permission. If you are 17, you can hold a licence to drive a car.

To ensure that my opinion is evidence based, I asked this question to my daughter, who is currently taking her A-level exams, one of which is politics. I was actually surprised as my daughter thinks that it is too early for 16 year olds to vote. She also said that they can be easily influenced by their parents and in some cases, their schools. She also said that not all, but many teenagers are disconnected with the democratic process and therefore they are not “civically mature” to cast their vote. I disagreed and said that many adults might not be interested in the political process and often, their decisions are easily influenced by e.g. social media and/or by seeing a particular heading in one of the national newspapers. Do we, often enough, conduct of our own research to determine and decide our political choices?

However, there is one point raised by my daughter, which I would fully support. Particularly today, when so many people are simply fed up with “ping-pong politics”, negative campaigning, we need to do so much more to encourage healthy democratic debates. Our schools should teach, from a very early age, our children and grandchildren how politics tangibly affect lives. And it does! Some of these “civic values” should be strongly embedded in our curriculum so that we all understand the process behind making any informed decisions.

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Ben Wood

Stodgy Fabianism haunts Britain. The Liberal Democrats can offer an alternative

By Ben Wood | Thu 30th May 2024 - 1:50 pm

In just over a month’s time we will have a new government. But what kind of government will it be? We already know that Starmer is in love with councils, arms-length commissions, and quasi-public bodies of all kinds. Labour is committed to a British Infrastructure Council, a National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy (all under the sponsorship or direction of a Treasury Enterprise Growth Unit). There has also been a commitment to centralise policy delivery in Downing Street.

The reflex to embrace concentrated bureaucratic power has deep ideological roots in the party, going all the way back to the Fabian Society in the 1890s. For someone like the redoubtable Beatrice Webb, Socialism could only become a serious political proposition if the intellectuals and managers within the young Labour movement learnt to use the State-machine more efficiently and imaginatively than Britain’s traditional stilted governing class. In this regard, the Fabians agreed with George Orwell’s later assessment that ‘(England) is a family with the wrong members in control’.

But in time Labour administrators became just as stodgy as the elites they sought to replace. Rachel Reaves, and Keir Starmer are inheritors of a long Labour tradition of peculiar complacency in the sphere of political economy. They display the naive assumption that Labour at the helm is enough to steady the ship. They dare not check to see if the ship is leaking.

It is easy of course to mock the Labour leadership’s current pretensions, but it’s not as if the contemporary Centre-Right has a compelling alternative. Confronted with bureaucratic blight, Conservative politicians (and on occasion some Orange Book Liberals) have alighted on two dubious remedies.

The first is to leave the structure and functions of the state intact but starve agencies of funds in a bid to drive up efficiency. Bureaucracy may wither in the short-term but faced with the social fallout of a dysfunctional governmental machine, pressures inevitably begin to mount for renewed expansion. The machine slowly drifts back into its old position, sometimes more centralised than before.

The second response of the Centre-Right is to leave state liabilities unchanged while contracting out core public functions to the private sector. Nearly thirty years on, we have seen the results. A ballooning public apparatus concerned with tendering, compliance, and targets has replaced inhouse services. The government spends ever more on consultants. Accompanying this explosion of external providers, we have seen a proliferation of arms-length semi-public bodies (Academy chains, Universities, the water utilities) that are neither fully accountable to citizens, nor to Parliament. We appear caught between life-sapping statism on the one hand and unresponsive corporate power on the other.

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Andrew Chandler

ITV debate is an insult to democracy

By Andrew Chandler | Wed 29th May 2024 - 8:50 pm

In a recent announcement, Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer have agreed to participate in a head-to-head televised debate on ITV. While it’s always good to be able to get that prime-time real estate during an election campaign, that reaches a wider audience and encourages healthy exercise in democratic engagement, the lack of mention of third-party participation from such a debate is not just an oversight; it is a deliberate slight against democratic diversity and civic participation.

It’s like organizing a dance-off and only inviting two dancers – talk about a political two-step with no room for a …

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Jack Lee-Brown

The Tories throw the unfunded kitchen sink at the election

By Jack Lee-Brown | Tue 28th May 2024 - 8:17 am

Desperate. The only word I can think of to describe this faltering, backfiring, sinking ship of a government. Oh wait, no, I accidently came up with four others. Not hard, I guess.

The Tories have, in the days since the announcement of the election, made some characteristically random and seemingly unfunded commitments for the sole objective of scraping up whatever support they have left. First, the announcement of national service, mandatory for all 18 year olds if they win. Thankfully, the government will give these young adults a choice: one year of military service or 25 days of community volunteering. Or they don’t do it at all because the government says they won’t arrest anyone who refuses. So it’s not mandatory. Now, at the time of writing this, they also announce a ‘triple lock plus’ or ‘quadruple lock’ meaning that pensioners will not pay income tax on their state pension. Punishing the younger generation as, to pay for this, everyone else will have to pick up the slack.

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David Brunnen

Fresh thinking required

By David Brunnen | Mon 27th May 2024 - 2:42 pm

As global climate concerns underscore capitalism’s flaws, who will lead the transformation of economics?

“A toxic combination of 15 years of low economic growth, and four decades of expanding inequalities, leaves the UK poorer and falling behind its peers” – not my analysis but that of the highly respected Resolution Foundation. And they go further, ‘Productivity growth is weak. Public investment is low. Wages today are no higher than they were before the financial crisis.’.

The view from the doorstep concurs, “We now pay far more for much less to enable wealth to be extracted by the few.”. That general despondency contributed massively to the anti-Tory sentiment that yielded so many LibDem Council seats earlier this merry month of May. But few local campaigners could confidently answer the question that will be asked time and again before the General Election. What do your lot think they can do about it?

Our parochial economic despair is symptomatic of a far larger malaise – an existential climate crisis. Mass migration is inevitable as large parts of our world are laid to waste, as nature is depleted, as societies collapse, wars rage, and coastal habitats shrink.

On top of a self-inflicted Poverty Pandemic and global unrest, we seem stuck – fresh out of imagination. We need to tackle the climate crisis and reverse societal decline. Fortunately, there is no shortage of guidance, but there is a political vacuum where none of the main Parties dare tread – rethinking our economic foundations. There is near zero confidence that anything can be done.

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Jack Nicholls

The National Service proposal is an authoritarian disgrace: liberals should call it out as typical coercive Tory populism

By Jack Nicholls | Mon 27th May 2024 - 10:06 am

Perhaps it was all a grand bluff. It is just possible that when the various panicked policies currently coming out of CCHQ were conceived, Rishi Sunak’s true intention was to hit enough trigger points for enough people that they rouse themselves in fury, join other parties and reinvigorate popularly engaged democracy on a mass scale. Maybe that is the true Sunak legacy, revealed like the final move in an elegant game of chess. I doubt it though.

The Conservative Party believe in a mythical creature – ‘ordinary people’ – and thinks it understands what they want. It has an instinctual, hazy vision of who that is. The ordinary person is probably employed, probably not in the public sector unless they are in the better paid white-collar end of it, probably has or wants children, has or wants to own a home and run a car, probably aspires to the suburbs – homo economicus, with a quietly patriotic sheen. MacMillan had a version of this concept, so did Thatcher, Major and Cameron. Johnson refocused it to make it altogether more brexity, and temporarily changed the Tory coalition to his short-term benefit and long-term cost (wide, shallow lakes cover more space but evaporate more easily).

The key thing to understand about this mindset is the way it informs policy announcements, especially in the build up to or during elections. When DWP ministers talk about punitive and vilifying reform of welfare services, they’re not talking to people who use them, they’re talking to the ‘ordinary people’. When education ministers pronounce upon the apparent dangers of ‘contested ideology’, all while insisting schools make explicit statements on British values (a contested concept if ever there was one) they aren’t addressing the parents of children who are questioning their gender and need empowering support – they are addressing their mythical ordinary people. So today, when Sunak announces that 18-year-olds will be conscripted into either military service or community ‘volunteering’, he is not talking to the young people he is planning to force into work; he’s offering bromides and comfort to his unicorn of ordinariness in the hope that it will vote for him. Never let it be said that the right don’t virtue signal.

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Paul Reynolds

What should we make of the increasing rate of government scandals ?

By Paul Reynolds | Sun 26th May 2024 - 1:55 pm

Scandals. Lots of them.

The sub-postmaster scandal. The contaminated blood scandal. The DWP carer scandal. The continuing Windrush scandal, The Grenfell prosecutions scandal. The HS2 costs debacle.

There are others not so much in the headlines.

The scandal of unused border facilities post-Brexit. The long list of NHS IT scandals. The TFL and rail contract scandals. Regulation of Thames Water. The Crown Court backlog scandal. The GP appointments and finances scandal. There are dozens more; most the public doesn’t get to hear about..

But the general public is the victim, and the general public knows it.

There is also an extensive list of decades-long astonishing military procurement scandals, that have weakened our defences; Scout/Ajax, al-Yamamah, Warrior CSP, £8bn aircraft carrier problems, and the £100bn+ Dreadnought submarines. Billions and billions wasted. When money is short.

Any scan through the NAO and Public Accounts Committee archives show not only an accelerated rate of major government scandals, but that the public harm from them is increasing.

Are all the problems scandal-specific or is there something wider underlying the problems ?

Here’s an analogy. Your football team goes a whole season without a win. The supposed causes are all match-specific; that missed penalty, your player wrongly sent off, the substitution mistake, the goalkeeper injured… Wouldn’t you find it odd if deeper, season-wide issues are never raised ? Well, that’s where we are in the UK with government scandals.

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