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Category Archives: Op-eds

Burnham, Andy: Could do better

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

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

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

What did they want?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tagged andy burnham | 5 Comments

Could Andy Burnham rival William Beveridge in impact?

By Katharine Pindar | Fri 4th September 2026 - 11:59 am

In the midst of the Second World War, the Liberal Civil Servant William Beveridge wrote of the terrible state he saw that Britain was in, and in his report, ‘Social Insurance and Allied Services’ published by the wartime Government in December 1942, he proposed remedies which gained immediate attention and after the war much Government-directed successful action.

Can Andy Burnham, despite the threat from hostile powers requiring now major escalation of British Defence forces, find remedies for the terrible mess which so many Britons believe defines the current state of our nation?

Are the perceived problems comparable?

Beveridge defined Five Great Evils in his report, naming them as Want, Disease, Squalor, Ignorance and Idleness. Modern interpretations describe his views as defining Want as poverty and inadequate personal income, Disease as lack of healthcare and widespread ill-health, Squalor as inadequate housing and unhygienic and overcrowded living conditions, and Idleness as reflecting high unemployment and lack of gainful work. Ignorance was seen as arising from inadequate national education. The parallels for the Labour Government today are clearly many, although the evil of ignorance can be perceived now in the spread of harm to young people through dangerous algorithms and the Social Media influencers, matters which the Burnham Government must tackle urgently.

Beveridge’s eventual great success was in matters relating to ‘Disease’, or healthcare and extended National Insurance. His conviction of the need for disease control and extended healthcare led to the creation of the Welfare State under the post-war Labour Government of Clement Attlee. Social insurance had begun under the Liberal Governments at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and Beveridge advocated a flat-rate universal contribution from working people, in exchange for a flat rate universal benefit. National Insurance provisions were extended after the Second World War.

The challenge for Andy Burnham’s government in this area now, apart from the continuing great need to improve the effectiveness of the NHS, is how to continue to pay for adequate Universal Benefits for working people and Pensions for the retired. The Prime Minister is known to wish to improve the living standards of all, reduced by the austerity programme of the Tory hegemony and the rapid rise now, partly the result of the continuing war in the Middle East, of the cost of living. What would be the point therefore of cutting the Pension triple-lock payments, which give pensioners a modest minimum income, or reducing the rates of Universal Credit, Child Benefits and PIP, which also barely keep many households afloat?

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Tagged andy burnham and william beveridge | 41 Comments

World Suicide Prevention Day, 10th September

By Ron Aitken | Fri 4th September 2026 - 9:30 am

This article discusses suicide and could cause distress to some readers.

On the 10^th September The World Health Organisation will promote World Suicide Prevention Day. This is a three-year programme, supported by The Samaritans, MIND, and ithrive Edinburgh as well as other organisations, with the theme “Changing the Narrative”.

This initiative is aimed at encouraging people to speak about mental health, the complex reasons why people take their own lives, extending empathy and confronting stigma. Good early intervention can help a person in crisis so that they can be supported at crisis level then have timely access to treatment which will address the underlying issues which have caused them to go into crisis.

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Tagged suicide and world health organisation | 1 Comment

What can we really do to influence the situation in the West Bank?

By Alan Juriansz | Thu 3rd September 2026 - 9:43 am

Every day we hear of more attacks by settlers on Palestinian villagers, driving them off their farms and out of their homes. We’ve seen in the Israeli election campaign, a continued hardening of support for annexation of all the occupied territories, with the E1 settlement policy leading to further condemnation in parliament by Callum Miller as our foreign policy lead who recognises its impact on the viability of a Palestinian State.

Our parliamentary party of 72 MPs have led the way in parliament on this issue calling for equal rights, freedom and security for Palestinian people. Many of our MPs have been on fact finding visits to the West Bank, returning with harrowing accounts of the treatment of Palestinians by the settlers and security forces.

Recognition of Palestine, and the recent government interest in a ban on trade with the settlements, could be seen as a success of our longstanding policy positions. However, so many of our demands have made little impact on this government, not least the willingness to apply international law to Israeli Government ministers charged with war crimes.

What more can we do?

In local government, we lead 76 councils and have outright majorities in 40 of them. In some of these we are in the process of developing ethical, responsible investment policies for pension and or other council funds. However, this is proving to be slow and difficult. In my own council, the process needed to show it will not have a detrimental financial effect on the fund and that the stakeholders support ethical investment, has significantly slowed progress. It is essential to make sure the process is transparent, robust and has the support of stakeholders to ensure against potential challenges from groups opposed to ethical investing.

What else can we do?

In Oxford, we have seen city council twin with Ramallah with Lib Dem support. What if all our councils did that or something similar? Twinning is costly, but the first step towards it, developing a friendship agreement is relatively simple.

76 Lib Dem controlled councils forming official friendships with 76 different Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank. It would send a clear signal that we believe the West Bank is Palestine and still believe the two-state solution is possible.

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Tagged palestine | 5 Comments

Welcome to Lib Dem Friends of Gaelic Language and Culture

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 2nd September 2026 - 4:24 pm

A bheil Gàidhlig agaibh? Do you speak Gaelic? Would you like to learn? Are you interested in Gaelic language and culture?

If so, read on.

Four years ago, I started learning Gaelic on Duolingo after my son bullied me into it. Since then, I have completed the online introductory course at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Scotland’s Gaelic College and have just started on the next course. I spent a week at the college on Skye in the Summer being taught by a very funny German, Michael Klevenhaus, who has a real passion for finding traditional Gaelic melodies in Beethoven’s work. There’s even a BBC Alba documentary about it which, sadly, is no longer on the iPlayer.

The course was brilliant and very well paced. Michael would do a heavy grammar session and then get the Tesco website up and get you to say how much things cost, or ask you the date. He had us making up stories in Gaelic a line at a time.

We also had to sing two songs at the ceilidh on the last evening. One was a pretty rowdy drinking song but the second was quite emotional. Michael has written Gaelic words to Ode to Joy, the European anthem that is very close to our hearts as liberals.

I initially started learning to support my son. I did not expect to fall in love with the language. I mean, how on earth can you not when (one of) the words for bluebell translates to “cuckoo’s shoe”?

It’s connected me to my heritage in a way that I didn’t expect and made me understand so much more about my family. My Granny’s parents were born around about the time as the 1872 Education Act, a major part of which was to suppress the language. Children were belted in school for speaking it and all education was carried out in English. Gaelic Medium Education was only reintroduced in the 80s.

So my Granny grew up in a culture where there was a deep sense of shame about speaking Gaelic. We discovered from census records that her dad had Gaelic, and conflicting information about her mum but she didn’t. However, I now realise that she spoke English in a very Gaelic way.

Language suppression is never a good thing and the work that is being done now to keep the language alive is vital to preserve an important part of our Scottish identity. I think that there are some things we could do better in making the language a lot more audible as well as visible and getting it out there into communities. The new award winning Kilbeg development near Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye aims to be a community where Gaelic is regenerated and we need to see how that works out and if it can be extended.

I will confess to being relatively indifferent to Gaelic until my first visit to Wales in about 2012, seeing how Welsh was embedded everywhere, that changed my mind. In 2016, I went to Welsh Conference and was really amazed to see Welsh speakers and headphones with for translation between the two languages.

Gaelic was once spoken virtually everywhere in Scotland except Caithness and East Lothian. There are, according to a BBC Alba documentary about the Fife Coastal Path, more Gaelic place names in Fife than in the Isle of Lewis.

There’s a lot to think about how we ensure that Gaelic not only survives but grows in the future. This matters to so many of the communities to represent. Angus Macdonald recently asked a question about it at a House of Commons committee. The point he made about Gaelic being essential to the economic development of rural communities in the Highlands is a good one. Watch below.

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Tagged Angus MacDonald, gaelic, highlands and Scotland | 10 Comments

Going for four in a row in Scotland

By Grant Toghill | Wed 2nd September 2026 - 10:59 am

As parliament is back from recess and Scotland’s adventure at the World Cup start to feel like a distant memory, what better time to start to look forward towards the election year ahead.

Scotland has seen for the last three elections a growth of Liberal voices across all levels. From local councils to Westminster and Holyrood. While we are still celebrating our big wins in May, now the attention is turning towards next May and making it four in a row of gains for the Scottish Liberal Democrats under the leadership team of Alex and Wendy.

The results at Holyrood saw that in every constituency our list vote increased on 2021 so there are people out there ready to give us a chance. 87 councillors was our election total in 2022 and the ambition of getting back into three figures next May has been clear in almost all the time since being announced our autumn conference of that year. Which would be the first time since 2007 when we were last into the three figures range at Scottish local elections, and the only time we have done it so far under STV.

The opportunities to grow in our strongholds of Edinburgh and the Highlands are clearly there but May has shown that we also have the potential to grow in other areas to. If that be Aberdeen and Dundee in the North East of Scotland, continuing our growth in the Borders or starting to make comebacks across my home of the west central belt. There is no area off limits if we put in the work.

Multi-party politics is not new to us here in Scotland as it might be to other parts of the UK so we know that we can’t afford to take our foot off the gas. With Reform and the Scottish Greens being new challengers in urban and rural seats that has not been the case before, we have work to make sure not just that we win in our targets but that we keep our held seats.

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Tagged 2027 council elections, featured and Scotland | Leave a comment

Lib Dems call for action on smart spectacles – some constructive feedback

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 2nd September 2026 - 9:26 am

Whenever a new piece of technology comes out, I always think about how it might be used to assault and abuse women and girls. It’s sad that I have to, but that’s the world we live in.

Air tags – brilliant idea for someone like me for those moments when my husband is not around to use his superpower of Knowing Where I Have Put Things. Not so brilliant if they are used by an abusive partner, or even a stranger – most often a man on a woman – for stalking purposes.

At least if you have an app on your phone, like some members of my family do, you can choose to do that, or you at least know it is there. I had a message from my sister a couple of years ago asking me if I’d been murdered and put in a skip because the Google earth photos Life 360 uses were out of date. I was in fact at the Book Festival in Edinburgh’s new venue which had been a building site a couple of years before. But I knowingly gave her the ability to track my every move.

Similarly, if someone, again, most often a man, is filming, again, mostly women for God knows what purposes using a camera phone, at least you have a chance of being aware that he is doing it, although often you won’t be aware. Not so much if he is using smart glasses, which allow you to see an augmented reality and can be used as a camera. As a friend told me “I’ve been filmed by men before and at least with a phone you can see that they are doing it.”

These things have the potential to bring a whole load more pain to an already unsafe world for women and girls.

So it was really good to see that the party is aware of this. Yesterday they put up a social media image saying:

Nobody should be secretly filmed through smart glasses and have it shared with millions online.

Liberal Democrats are demanding stronger safeguards, including a ban on convicted sex offenders being able to purchase them.

How on earth is that solution enforceable?

And anyone with nefarious purposes doesn’t have to purchase them. They just have to borrow a mate’s.

And if it is enforceable, surely anyone convicted of domestic abuse, particularly coercive control, should not be allowed within a million miles of these things.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but education and awareness is a huge part of it, as is making sure that anyone who films someone with or without their knowledge and shares it online faces very serious consequences that significantly restrict their liberty.But the biggest problem with yesterday’s social media post was the accompanying image:

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Tagged smart specs, tech and violence against women and girls | 13 Comments

AI has moved from future threat to present reality

By Sean Worrell | Tue 1st September 2026 - 12:00 pm

Embed from Getty Images

There is a temptation to treat the latest warnings about artificial intelligence as another round of technological alarmism. We have heard predictions about AI transforming society before, and some have proved exaggerated. But two very different developments over the last three months suggest that we need to pay much closer attention.

The first is Bill Gates warning that AI could fundamentally reshape employment, cybersecurity, biological security and the relationship between humans and machines. The second is an extraordinary cyber incident involving an autonomous AI agent being tested by OpenAI that ultimately compromised infrastructure belonging to Hugging Face.

Taken together, these developments raise a bigger question than whether AI is good or bad. They force us to ask whether politics, government and society are keeping pace with what is happening.

Gates’ warning deserves attention because it goes well beyond the familiar debate about whether AI will take people’s jobs. He has raised concerns about permanent disruption across parts of the labour market, AI being used to facilitate cyberattacks and biological threats, the psychological effects of increasingly persuasive systems and the danger that governments respond only after disruption has occurred.

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Where next for the Lib Dems in London?

By Josh Lucas Mitte | Tue 1st September 2026 - 10:16 am

Many of us in the capital woke up on the 8th May with mixed feelings. We made significant gains in boroughs like Ealing, Brent and Sutton, but felt short of our ambitions in other boroughs, with the Greens upsetting our momentum and the Labour and Conservative vote proving more resilient than expected.

So what does this mean for our next election? Recent polling shows us at 10% in the mayoral race – one of our best results in decades, yet still last among the major parties. But our success in London shouldn’t be judged on our mayoral results, it should be measured on three things

London Assembly Seats, where for the first time in history we could become essential to passing the Mayor’s budget.
Strengthening prospects in target Westminster and council seats, and preventing other parties from obtaining bar charts that steal our momentum.
Building up on-the-ground infrastructure across London, which remains a key factor to our winning formula.

Our next scheduled election is regional, and our Regional Party will be central to setting the strategy that helps make or break momentum. Having spent two years on the Regional Executive, with campaigning experience across local parties of every size, from Lewisham and Merton to Richmond, I’ve seen how the Region could do more to lift us everywhere.

Building a London Brand

London’s transient population has weakened the effectiveness of localism; London-wide and national issues increasingly weigh more heavily on voters than they used to. We also have to be realistic about our national message: most of our promising prospects remain in the Blue Wall, so we’re unlikely to see the federal party shift that dial in London’s favour.

Since the last GLA election, we’ve doubled our MPs and added dozens of councillors, many fighting on shared priorities for Londoners. Whether it’s Lambeth Lib Dems’ win for tenants on housing disrepairs, Luke Taylor MP championing the Bakerloo extension or Cllr Anton Georgiou calling out Labour’s deal with the Tories. We have the stories and actions, but we must do more to collaborate to turn these into a cohesive regional message.

That’s where the Region must be more proactive, taking ownership of our messaging ahead of the London Elections and getting better at amplifying local successes. Reposting local content isn’t enough. We need to work with local parties to turn their successes into a shared regional narrative, and improve how our councils, GLA team and MPs collaborate.

Digital Campaigning Strategy

On-the-ground campaigning alone is no longer enough to win across London – the air war matters more with each election. The Green Party and Reform UK have shown how social media can be used effectively, with Labour and the Conservatives already catching up. We cannot be left behind.

A London brand with coordinated messaging must include a much-expanded digital presence, particularly on short-form video. Social media is replacing email for many voters, and for London’s younger, transient population it’s often the only channel that reaches them at all.

The Region must equip key members and volunteers across London with the skills and support to produce this content – building on Charlie Clinton’s work on digital campaigning, turning great local content like Southwark and Camden’s into regional narratives, and championing the organic reach already coming from members like Elin Kingston and Sarah Anderson.

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Tagged london | 19 Comments

Winning Britain’s Cities: A Liberal Vision for Urban Britain

By Patrick Stillman | Sun 30th August 2026 - 11:55 am

The Liberal Democrats have achieved something remarkable in recent years. The strategy that delivered 72 MPs in 2024 demonstrated once again the extraordinary power of community politics, strong local candidates, and disciplined targeting. The mood at the last two conferences have been of celebration, but there’s a growing disquiet amongst many following the May local elections: what comes next?

In Britain’s cities, liberal values ought to have enormous resonance. These are places shaped by diversity, mobility, economic opportunity, civil liberties, and the daily negotiation of how people with very different lives live alongside one another. Yet despite pockets of success in May, our reputation of being the party that “fixes the church roof” struggled to cut through.

In areas where we campaigned hard, had established local candidates, and our eyes on the prize of sizable opposition groups or even control of Councils, our gains were considerably smaller than they might have been. Across London in 2026, Liberal Democrat vote share fell to 12.4%, below both 2022 and 2018, while inner London recorded its weakest Liberal Democrat vote share since 1978. This happened despite a major effort to stand candidates across the capital and despite Labour fighting in an exceptionally difficult national environment.

The same pattern appeared at ward level. In several places, Liberal Democrat campaigns followed the local election playbook: repeated literature, extensive canvassing, and significant local activity, while Green candidates secured substantial support with limited or in some cases no visible local campaigning.

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Tagged 2026 autumn conference, party strategy and urban policy | 9 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 30th August 2026 - 9:36 am

CIA

Why did CIA Director John Ratcliffe fly to Moscow? It definitely was not the “semi-routine” visit that Donald Trump claims.

The last time the head of the Central Intelligence Agency visited the Russian capital was in November 2021 – and that was hardly routine.

A study of the available reporting and surrounding circumstances point to a similar reason—with a few additional twists. The first reason is that American and British intelligence are reported to have picked up indications that Putin is considering testing NATO’s Article 5 commitment by taking some sort of action against a NATO country. The most likely target is one of the Baltic states.

America’s stock of Patriot interceptors in Europe has reportedly fallen to critically low levels because of their enormous consumption in the Iran war. If Moscow believes Washington is militarily distracted and European air defences depleted, Putin could conceivably think this is an unusually favourable moment to test NATO.

Another complementary reason for the visit is likely to be Ukraine. Ratcliffe is reported to have given his Russian counterpart—Sergei Naryshkin–a distinctly pessimistic assessment of Russia’s position and urged Moscow to enter serious negotiations before its military and economic circumstances deteriorate further.

Iran would also have been discussed. Russia is closely aligned with Tehran, and Washington is trying to increase pressure on Iran while pushing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz back towards normal. CBS reports that Ratcliffe warned Moscow about further sanctions connected with the Strait. Reuters says Russian support for Iran was among the subjects discussed.

In November 2021 President Joe Biden sent CIA director to Moscow to warn Putin not to invade Ukraine. In August 2026 President Donald Trump sent John Ratcliffe on a similar mission. Putin ignored the first CIA director. Why should Washington believe he will listen to the second?

Mid term elections

Time for some detailed analysis of US mid-term election data. Using Cook Political Report, one of America’s best established non-partisan election analysis organisations, the figures show the Democrats in pole position to win the House and with a 50/50 chance to gain control of the Senate.

But let’s take a closer look. Republicans currently have a five-seat majority in the House of Representatives. This means that the Democrats need to win only three seats to gain control. Analysts reckon that they have a chance of gaining 2-10 seats. This means that at the bottom end of the range the Republican retain control with the narrow majority of one and at the top the Democrats have a solid 15-seat majority.

As of 25 August, Cook reckons that there are 21 congressional election races that could be considered toss-ups worth closely watching. They are: two Republican-held seats in Arizona; one Republican-held seat in California; one Republican-held seat in Colorado; two Democrat-held seats in Florida; one Democrat-held seat in Washington state; two Republican-held seats in Iowa; two Republican-held seats in Michigan; one Republican-held seat in New Jersey; one Republican-held seat in New York; one Republican-held seat in Wisconsin; one Democratic-held seat in Ohio; three Republican-held seats in Pennsylvania; one Democratic-held seat in Texas and one Republican-held seat in Virginia.

A quick count of the above reveals that of the 21 toss-ups 16 are currently held by worried Republicans. This means that the Republicans are defending more than three times as many toss-up seats as the Democrats.

Now for the Senate where the Republicans currently have a healthier 53 seats and the Democrats 47. Therefore, the Democrats need a net gain of four to win control. There are seven Senate seats which Cook regards as marginal. They are: Alaska (Republican), Iowa (Republican), Maine (Republican), Michigan (Democrat), Ohio (Republican), Texas (Republican) and North Carolina (Republican).

Cook reckons that North Carolina has moved from marginal Republican to what they call “lean Democrat.” Texas is heading that way with Attorney General Ken Paxton trailing the Democrat James Talarico candidate. The campaigns of the Democrat candidates in Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Alaska have all been given a boost by Trump’s trade war with Canada as the tariffs both sides have imposed will have a big impact on the economies of all those states.

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Tagged Central Intelligence Agency, france, germany and united states | 6 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Canada

By Tom Arms | Sat 29th August 2026 - 10:30 am

What is the British government doing to support Canada? It is one of our closest allies. Our relationship with Canada is more special than that with the US. King Charles is their head of state. Canada is a fellow member of NATO, the G7, Five Eyes, the Commonwealth and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

This question should be asked on the floor of the House of Commons. And the person to ask it is Lib Dem leader Ed Davey. He has made his opposition to President Donald Trump crystal clear. The US-Canada trade war is an opportunity to translate opposition rhetoric into specific policies.

But he should be prepared for the answer which is a lot of waffle which will amount to – nothing.

And where is the rest of the world? Since becoming Canada’s Prime Minister, Carney has made 23 foreign trips to 29 countries. Almost all of them to promote his vision of a powerful new bloc of “Middle Powers” who can provide a collective bargaining front to the US and China. In a few weeks he will address the European Parliament.

Everywhere Carney has gone he has been given a sympathetic hearing and important agreements have been signed with the UK, the EU, Japan and Australia. But there is no sign that Canada’s friends are prepared to translate their sympathy into meaningful support in its confrontation with Trump.

The rest of the world is simply frightened of the mercurial American president. If they explicitly back Carney then they run the risk of retaliation from Trump, and virtually all of Carney’s allies are also allies of the US and dependent on the American nuclear umbrella for their ultimate security.

But they don’t need to explicitly join a retaliation against the US. The American political equation is about to dramatically change with the mid-term elections. The Democrats are strongly favoured to win control of the House of Representatives and have a chance of also securing a majority in the Senate. The latest forecasts give the Democrats an 87 percent chance of winning control of the lower chamber and a 55 percent chance of doing the same in the upper chamber. Trump’s tariffs against Canada—in fact Trump himself—are deeply unpopular and a political shift in Congress is likely to mean the end of tariffs against Canada and personal problems for the president.

Carney’s supporters in Asia and Europe don’t need to join his trade war per se. They could show support for accelerating trade agreements; increasing purchases of Canadian goods; offer investment; coordinate critical mineral deals and increase defence procurement cooperation. The framework for the above has already been established by Carney’s diplomacy. It just needs to be activated.

If it is then that would be a giant step towards establishing Carney’s vision of a network of countries and organisations representing 1.5 billion people. This would give members of the network collective bargaining power in any negotiations with the US and China.

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Tagged canada, featured and mark carney | 5 Comments

Remember why we started: What the Hong Kong Alliance case means for Hong Kong’s future

By Arthur Wu | Fri 28th August 2026 - 12:19 pm

As I write this, I am looking at my small model of the Goddess of Democracy (民主女神像) on the shelf. It takes me back to my student activist years in Hong Kong, when democracy was something my generation argued about, organised around and fought for.

The original Goddess stood in Tiananmen Square for only a few days before it was destroyed in June 1989. Its image survived. In Hong Kong, one organisation kept that memory alive for more than three decades: the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (支聯會).

On 21 August 2026, the Hong Kong Alliance and its former leaders Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung were convicted of inciting subversion under the National Security Law. Albert Ho, another former leader, had previously pleaded guilty. Central to the case was the Alliance’s longstanding call to “end one-party dictatorship”. The court held that this sought to undermine the constitutional leadership of the Communist Party of China.

The Alliance organised the annual candlelight vigils in Victoria Park commemorating the victims of 4 June 1989. Its politics were always contested. The pro-Beijing camp opposed its objectives. As a member of the pan-democratic camp, I defended the tradition of June Fourth remembrance. Some right-wing localists opposed the vigil for very different reasons, questioning its focus on democratisation in China and arguing for a future centred more exclusively on Hong Kong.

Those arguments could be fierce. Looking back, what stays with me is that we were able to have them.

That was part of the Hong Kong I grew up in. Pro-Beijing politicians, pan-democrats and localists had radically different ideas about democracy, identity, China and Hong Kong’s future. Even the meaning of June Fourth was openly contested.

Much of that political space has disappeared. Political participation now operates under the principle of “patriots administering Hong Kong”, with national-security requirements shaping who can stand for public office. Pan-democrats and localists no longer participate in formal politics in anything resembling their previous form.

The Alliance case captures this change. Hong Kong once argued openly over competing political futures. Today, advocacy directly challenging the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power can fall within national-security law. It raises a basic liberal question: how much room remains for peaceful political disagreement?

Pluralism requires space for people with fundamentally different ideas to argue, organise and persuade. We can profoundly disagree with a political movement while defending its right to take part peacefully in public life. That freedom once allowed pro-Beijing politicians, pan-democrats and localists to argue over Hong Kong’s future. Its loss should concern liberals everywhere.

The Alliance also carried something beyond politics. For decades, candles in Victoria Park allowed Hongkongers to remember publicly what could not be openly commemorated in mainland China. A replica of the Goddess of Democracy stood at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) from 2010 until it was removed in December 2021. As political space narrowed, so did the space for public remembrance.

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Tagged hong kong | 1 Comment

Are the Liberal Democrats invisible?

By Veronica-Mae Soar | Tue 25th August 2026 - 9:37 am

The Liberal Democrats are currently a significant force in British politics, attracting millions of votes. We hold a substantial number of parliamentary seats, control local councils across the country and have a loyal base of support. Yet, listening to the news or watching political programmes, you could often be forgiven for thinking there are only two major parties. Is this something we should worry about?

I have voted Liberal and Liberal Democrat for around 60 years, and in all that time I have never had my own candidate win. That is quite a sobering thought. It also makes me wonder how much of the problem is the way our electoral system works, rather than simply how well we communicate. What do others think?

At present, so many people vote tactically. They may support us but decide that they need to vote for someone else to prevent another candidate from winning. When we eventually get PR, will that change? And will it be enough?

This is not simply a question of getting more publicity. It is also about voters understanding what we stand for.

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38 Comments

Being a Councillor – 35 years on

By Chris Nicholson | Mon 24th August 2026 - 10:00 am

On May 7th I was elected as a Councillor on Lambeth Council – 35 years after standing down as a Councillor in Kingston after a 9-year spell.

So, what have I found is different – and what is the same?

The first big difference is the amount of casework – it is far greater – I would estimate 5-10 new items per day, plus the follow up on existing cases.

I think the big difference here is emails and mobile phones/WhatsApp. They have made it far easier to contact a Councillor with associated increased expectations of speed of response.

The outgoing Labour Councillor prided herself on responding to emails within half an hour! The other Labour candidate made a public pledge to respond to residents within an hour throughout his 4-year term!

Residents have come to expect that – within 3 weeks I had an email on Wednesday at 8.05am complaining that I had not responded to an email sent at 9.40pm on the Monday evening. Such expectations make it difficult for anyone who has a full-time job and/or caring responsibilities to fulfil the role. That to me is a real concern about how representative Councillors can be of their local community.

Secondly, the shift to a Leader/Cabinet model means that a backbench Opposition Councillor has relatively little power compared to a committee system. Even though we hold the balance of power on the Council the only power Full Council has is to set the Budget, the Borough Plan which is the policy framework for decisions and to elect the Leader. When I was previously the Leader of a No Overall Control Council the Opposition Councillors had real decision-making power. The Leader/Cabinet model in local government in my view is fundamentally undemocratic.

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Tagged Local government and notes from a new councillor | 3 Comments

Roz Savage MP writes: Liberalism is having a Moment. But does it have a future?

By Roz Savage MP | Sun 23rd August 2026 - 10:58 am

Liberalism seems to be going through an identity crisis. Within a few months, three very different thinkers have published books asking the same question: what has happened to Liberalism, and what would make it relevant again?

Adrian Wooldridge has given us Centrists of the World Unite!, David Howarth Being Liberal, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu What Happened to Liberal Democracy?

We are halfway through this parliament, barring Andy Burnham calling an early election. So it’s a good time to search our collective Liberal soul in a quest for clarity of purpose.

We have 72 MPs, our largest parliamentary party in a century, yet remarkably little influence over the national conversation. If people still struggle to say what Liberal Democrats are for, perhaps we haven’t told a sufficiently compelling story.

I approached Wooldridge’s Centrists with some scepticism. To me, “centrists” implies the mushy middle between left and right, administered by nice people who want to be everybody’s friend/tactical voting choice.

Fortunately, that isn’t Wooldridge’s Liberalism. His is restless and insurgent. Historically, Liberals challenged aristocratic privilege, monopolies and inherited hierarchies. His complaint is that this bold tradition became associated instead with a cautious, managerial establishment.

His challenge is worth hearing. We are good at being reasonable, evidence-led and practical. But competence is not a destination. Liberalism should feel radical.

David Howarth’s Being Liberal explores the Liberal disposition: open-minded, suspicious of abuses of power, uncomfortable with hierarchy, treating people as individuals rather than categories, and accepting that reasonable people can disagree.

It captures something policy programmes miss. Liberalism isn’t only about what government does. It is about how we treat other people – and how we behave when given power ourselves.

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Tagged featured, future of liberalism and liberalism | 31 Comments

Reinvigorating the Royal Navy

By Ben Edginton-Thomas | Fri 21st August 2026 - 9:30 am

On the 20^thJuly this year, a Russian Navy frigate conducted live-fire exercises approximately 40 nautical miles south of Plymouth, in the English Channel. The vessel was shadowed by a Royal Navy ship and a French military aircraft. A week earlier, a separate Russian frigate had fired warning shots at a British yacht south of the Isle of Wight.

These are not distant signals picked up by intelligence. They are warships firing guns off the English coast. And the Royal Navy response required a French aircraft because we did not have enough of our own to spare.

Welcome to the state of the Royal Navy in 2026.

In 1991, the picture was very different. The Senior Service had 50 destroyers and frigates. Today it has only 11. Six Type 45 destroyers and five Type 23 frigates, most of which are ageing. Combine that with the two hilariously unreliable aircraft carriers the UK has, which spend more time in maintenance than at sea, and you wind up in our situation, where the UK had zero deployable carrier strike capability at points this year.

Adding to the general embarrassment, the Royal Navy has only 60 active and commissioned ships total. To command these, we have 134 admirals and flag officers, a ratio that would embarrass any organisation, and much higher than any of our allied partners such as France or the US. The Ministry of Defence also employs 57,445 civil servants, which is nearly twice the number of people serving in the entire Royal Navy.

We are top-heavy and underperforming. What rarely gets told alongside these defence statistics is that we did not just lose the ships. We lost the factories, the engineering expertise, the apprentices, the supply chains, the institutional knowledge and the communities that built them. The decline of the Royal Navy and the decline of British manufacturing are the same story told from different angles. In trying to save money through privatisation and outsourcing, we achieved neither defence efficiency nor industrial growth.

The Royal Ordnance Factories, publicly owned, were privatised in 1987 and subsequently acquired by BAE Systems. It is one of many. Defence Electronics, shipbuilding, aerospace design, one by one these sovereign capabilities were sold or allowed to atrophy on the grounds that the private sector does these things better. The private sector then consolidated, reduced competition, and settled into a comfortable arrangement of monopoly, returning significant profits to shareholders whilst delivery programmes run late and over budget. BAE Systems returned £1.5bn to shareholders in 2024, the very same year they were managing UK programmes years behind schedule. The MoD, as a captive customer, simply absorbed the cost overruns and you and I, as taxpayers, paid for both.

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Tagged defence, defence procurement and royal navy | 5 Comments

Global Power or Euro-Atlantic leader?

By Peter Chambers | Thu 20th August 2026 - 10:56 am

What is Defence for?

Recent governments seems reluctant to define national security goals. There are needs around the Home Islands, the Falklands, Cyprus, Ascension, Diego Garcia, Gibraltar, the Caribbean, and various nations that the government has given “iron clad” security guarantees. There are also commitments to NATO and the Northern Group, in Europe.

For a politician there is a large and vocal demand for defence, but we are told there is no more money. And industry will want certainty – for investment – to start large capital investment and skills pipelines. People around government talk of there being no headroom.

So is there headroom by reducing the requirement? Is government trying to defend Europe, create an Atlantic Bastion, police the Caribbean, hold the Falklands, give guarantees in the Indian Ocean, maintain a presence in Cyprus, provide a US base in Diego Garcia, have a shipyard in Gibraltar, maintain an air-link via Ascension, and other things?

So can we look at the defence needs and remove some to find headroom? The current tasks seem to fall into two categories: Global Power and Euro-Atlantic, and the government gives signs that it wants to do both. But not to fund both to the point of credibility.

Who are these categories for? The Global Power side seems to support a vision of a lost Empire that has not found a role. The needs here include the major centres mentioned above and a large list of “lily-pads” that can be rapidly reinforced by military mass that no longer exists. It may also include the role of riding to help US power, on request.

The Euro-Atlantic category is easier to explain to the public. It includes the UK home islands, the associated airspace and economic zone. It also includes support to all the nations who stand between us and the main regional threats.

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Tagged defence | 10 Comments

Lib Dems at the Edinburgh Festival

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 19th August 2026 - 11:22 am

If you happen to be visiting Edinburgh in the next few days, you’ll find that choosing the Fringe show you want to go to is even more challenging than working out your Conference diary.

Over the four weeks, 3649 shows take place over 268 venues, for a total of 53000 performances in the biggest cultural festival in the World. And that’s before you start on the Book Festival.

Two Scottish Lib Dems are performing in shows this week and beyond.

Fife Council candidate Eliza Twaddle appears in The Real Housewives of the Zombie Apocalypse.

The dead have risen! But that won’t stop our seven housewives from serving high-camp drama in the most high-body-count reunion episode yet! Can our favourite OG queens of reality TV survive the hordes – and each other – and manifest their way to the end? Clydebuilt Theatre Company’s original musical returns! ***** (MusicalTalk’s Pick of the Fringe 2025, podcast). **** (Scotsman).

The reviews refer to technical problems on one performance but these are easily resolved.

Elsewhere, Charles Dundas, the Scottish Party’s Campaigns and Candidates Convener, is appearing in a whole load of improv shows between now and the end of the Fringe. He has very usefully listed them all here.

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Tagged edinburgh festival fringe | 1 Comment

Diversity, standards, and the treatment of Professor Jason Arday

By BLAC Liberal Democrats | Tue 18th August 2026 - 1:10 pm

An Open Letter from BLAC Lib Dems

The tragic story surrounding Professor Jason Arday has left many of us deeply troubled. Let us be clear: plagiarism is unacceptable. Academic standards matter, and allegations of academic misconduct must be investigated properly and fairly.

But we also need to ask a bigger question about the culture in which this controversy has unfolded.

There is a growing anti-inclusion movement in Britain — one that has imported much of the American culture war and increasingly portrays diversity, equality, and inclusion as threats to standards rather than essential parts of a healthy society.

At its heart is an ugly assumption: Black people who attain prominent positions must somehow have got there because standards were lowered, because of preferential treatment, or because their background mattered more than their ability.

We have seen versions of this narrative repeatedly. In sport, figures such as Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford have been targeted. In media and culture, Ed Enninful and Misan Harriman have faced attempts to diminish their achievements and attribute their prominence primarily to diversity initiatives.

This is not an argument against scrutiny. Public figures should be scrutinised, universities should uphold rigorous standards, and institutions should be accountable.

But scrutiny is not the same as suspicion.

If there were legitimate concerns about Professor Arday’s academic work or his readiness for a senior role, those concerns should have been identified and addressed through proper processes. If Cambridge failed in that responsibility, it should acknowledge it.

What we should not do is turn one Black academic’s difficulties into evidence for a wider ideological argument against diversity.

We are particularly concerned by the way some critics have celebrated what they regard as the exposure of a supposedly corrupt diversity agenda. Nathan Cofnas, described by the BBC as a “self-defined race realist” and who left Cambridge in 2024, has publicly claimed credit for exposing Arday. Whatever one’s views of Cofnas, his reaction illustrates the wider ideological context in which this controversy has been seized upon.

We should be wary of allowing American racial politics and culture-war narratives to become normalised in Britain.

There is another uncomfortable truth.

We failed Professor Arday too.

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24 Comments

Labour has the promise on business rates – We have the plan

By Pawel Urbanski | Tue 18th August 2026 - 9:32 am

What just happened

The new Prime Minister has put business rates at the heart of his first Budget on 28 October: 20 per cent relief for pubs and clubs, and a promise to “look at business rates more broadly for high street businesses“.

An uncomfortable truth first: ask on any high street who stands up for the shopkeeper, and few will say the Liberal Democrats. Yet on business rates we have carried the best answer for eight years. Labour is now campaigning on ground that has been ours for years, though the message has never reached most voters.

Why this is liberal ground

A high street is not just an economy. It is where a community sees itself: the baker who knows your order, the salon giving a teenager her first job, the pub where the ward hears its own news. It is also liberalism in practice: hundreds of people running their own lives, answerable to their customers rather than a head office, with power spread along a street instead of held by one chain or one landlord.

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Redirecting the funds to the jobs Britain cannot do without

By Edward Marsh | Mon 17th August 2026 - 4:30 pm

Britain has developed a curious contradiction in the way it values essential work. We routinely express admiration for soldiers, nurses, care workers and other public servants whose labour sustains the functioning of society, yet the material rewards attached to many of these professions frequently bear little relationship to their social importance. At the same time, the state commits substantial resources to supporting people outside employment.

This raises a fundamental question about the architecture of welfare and public policy: should a proportion of welfare expenditure be reconceived not merely as a mechanism for supporting people outside employment, but as an investment in making socially indispensable work more economically attractive?

The objective should be to construct a sufficiently compelling economic and social proposition that moving from welfare into essential employment becomes an attractive choice rather than merely an obligation.

This would require us to think more imaginatively about the concept of a “core service profession”. Certain occupations possess an importance that extends beyond their immediate economic function. A nurse does not merely provide a service to an individual patient; the profession is integral to the resilience of the entire health system.

These occupations could therefore be recognised as a distinct category of employment: professions in which the state and society have a strategic interest in recruitment, retention and long-term participation. Recognition, however, should amount to more than ceremonial appreciation.

The state could construct a comprehensive package of fiscal and social advantages for designated core-service occupations. These might include substantial income-tax relief, preferential access to affordable housing, heavily discounted public transport, enhanced pension contributions, subsidised childcare, training opportunities and other employment-related benefits.

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Tagged employment and public services | 37 Comments

Israel and the West Bank

By Andy Daer | Mon 17th August 2026 - 12:45 pm

Please note that, in accordance with our established policy on this particular area of international politics, comments will be moderated prior to publication.

Last Friday, we heard David Mencer, an official Israeli spokesman, defending the Israeli government on the BBC Today programme, after increasing settler violence in the West Bank had been condemned by the British Foreign Office.

It was put to him that failure to protect the West Bank Palestinians was a breach of Israel’s legal obligation to protect people in territory where they were the occupying force. Mencer denied that Israel was failing to protect the Palestinians from violence, but went on to say that although he thought the violent settlers were a minority (a few juvenile delinquents), the invading settlers were in effect the true owners of the West Bank, because Abraham had lived and died in Hebron many thousands of years ago, and that conferred on all Jews ownership of Judea and Samaria for all eternity.

I accept, as an atheist, that there are people with very deep belief in the divine intervention in human affairs described in the Bible, and there are no doubt many Israelis who think the way David Mencer seems to. However, it does seem surprising that God intended such open-ended support to people like the Russian immigrants to Israel and the West Bank, who are converts, not descendants of biblical Jews, and are unrelated to Abraham.

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Tagged annexation of West Bank and israel | 30 Comments

Getting ready for Conference – Directory now out

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 16th August 2026 - 2:42 pm

There are two ways you can prepare for party Conference.

Six weeks out, when the agenda and the directory come out, you could sit down with a nice cup of tea and work out a tentative plan for how you are going to spend the 4 and a bit days in Brighton.

If you are new to Conference, the agenda has all the motions up for debate – (you can read more about that here) so you can start to plan whether you might like to put in an amendment or a request for a separate vote before the deadline on Monday 7th September at 1pm.

The directory has all the details of things like the exhibition, the fringe and the marvellous array of training on offer. There will be at least five things in every time slot that you want to do and that’s before you even think about catching up with your friends.

The other way of doing it is to follow my all to often example. Leave it all to the last minute and end up filling in your schedule in the excellent Conference app on the way down while you are trying to write speeches and fill in speaker’s cards. Ditto with packing. Rather than plan what I’m going to wear and travelling light, I usually end up throwing every piece of clothing I possess into a big suitcase half an hour before I leave the house. Or I panic that I don’t have enough to wear and buy things I really don’t need on next day delivery.

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Tagged 2026 autumn conference | 1 Comment

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th August 2026 - 9:55 am

West Bank

The actions of Israeli settlers in the West Bank must be truly horrific for Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador in Israel, to call them “terrorists” and denounce their actions in Qusra as an “horrific act of terror.”

In the past, Ambassador Huckabee, has been the chief American cheerleader for Israeli settlement of the West Bank. In 2017, before his ambassadorial days, Huckabee said: “There is no West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria.” Later he added: “I think Israel has the title deeds to Judea and Samaria.”

After he was nominated ambassador in 2024, Huckabee was asked if Israeli annexation was possible in Trump’s second term. “Well, of course,” he replied.

It is quite possible for Huckabee to approve of West Bank annexation while disapproving of the tactics being used to achieve that end. But it is unusual.

Those tactics are indeed the tactics of terrorists. Settlers lay siege to a Palestinian home; cut off the water and electricity; pelt the property with stones and threaten to kill the occupants. When the terrified Palestinians flee for their lives, the settlers simply move in and occupy the home.

Their actions are illegal under international law. In fact the Israeli settlements are illegal and almost every country in the world has called for their withdrawal. The Israeli government, however, is committed to supporting the 600,000 West Bank settlers. In fact, some of the Cabinet are settlers themselves.

But the violence is growing. Some observers believe that the settlers are increasing the pressure on the Palestinians—and the Netanyahu government—because they fear that an anti-settlement government may emerge from the October general election and this is their last chance to establish facts on the ground.

The United Nations has reported that in recent months the number of attacks on Palestinians has grown to six a day.

The Israeli government has ordered the army into the West Bank, allegedly to try and reduce tensions and restore order. But Palestinians are reporting that, in some instances, the army appears to be helping the settlers. In one instance, the IDF ordered a besieged Palestinian family out of their home and then occupied it themselves.

What does Ambassador Huckabee have to say about that?

US water supplies

No one is dead—yet. They are, however, seriously worried that hackers have hacked into computers controlling the water supplies in at least a dozen American states. Even more worrying is that the FBI’s lead suspect is Iran.

In theory, control of the company computers could enable the hackers to poison water supplies. One thing the computers do is regulate the chemicals used to treat drinking water. So far, there has been no sign they have done so, but one Minnesota water authority reported some flooding and loss of water pressure.

America’s water supply industry is a hacker’s dream. It is comprised of tens of thousands of separate companies and water authorities—all hooked up to the internet. There is no federal law governing cybersecurity at these companies. The Environmental Protection Agency tried to impose one in 2023 but was blocked in the courts.

Neither, does it seem, that any federal authority responsible for the cyber security of the country’s critical infrastructure. At the moment a fistful of Washington acronyms –led by the FBI—are involved in investigating the breach.

There is, however, a wider and potentially more dangerous issue at stake. NATO has explicitly said that a cyberattack constitutes an “armed attack” for Article 5 purposes. Article 5 says an attack on one member is an attack on all.

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Tagged iran, israel, us midterms and west bank | 4 Comments

Observations of an Expat: The Mecca Agreement

By Tom Arms | Sat 15th August 2026 - 9:51 am

It is time for another round of musical chairs—Middle Eastern style. The region’s countries are notorious for changing their friends and allies as often as their socks and the Mecca Agreement announced this week complicates the issue by throwing up a sandstorm of unresolved questions.

But start with history. The region’s first postwar security alliance was the British-inspired Baghdad Pact. Formed in 1955, it included the UK, Iraq, Iran,, Pakistan and Turkey. After the Iraqi revolution in1959, Iraq pulled out. At that time the Americans—who had been active non-members of the pact—became even more active non-members. Thus the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) was formed. It lasted until 1979 and the Iranian revolution.

But how did the Mecca Agreement come about. Well, according to Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, the pact has been three years in the making. The two chief architects appear to be Fidan and Pakistani Defence chief Field Marshal Asim Munir. They kept their talks fairly quiet until this week’s announcement.

Fidan has been heavily involved in Turkey’s foreign policy for decades. He was head of the country’s intelligence services and President Erdogan’s national security adviser before his appointment as foreign minister. For Turkey, the Mecca Agreement is the culmination of Erdogan’s long-standing policy of shifting Turkey away from Europe and towards the Middle East and Islamic world.

Ankara brings a significant contribution to the alliance: a large NATO-trained military and an established and sophisticated defence industry.

Saudi Arabia lacks military muscle but it makes up for that with hard cash. The alliance’s secretariat will be based in Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan’s biggest contribution could be its nuclear arsenal of about 170 weapons. The most interesting thing about the Mecca Agreement is its NATO-style three musketeer clause that commits all the member states to come to the defence of any member state that is attacked. The agreement is ambiguous about the role of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and leaves open the question of whether Saudi Arabia now shelters under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella. The Saudis have for years spoken of acquiring a nuclear capability as a deterrent against attack by a possibly nuclear-armed Iran. Now it may have it.

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Tagged egypt, Mecca agreement, pakistan, saudi arabia, turkey and united states | 4 Comments

Politics at School

By Geoff Reid | Thu 13th August 2026 - 3:22 pm

When I was a secondary school student at a single sex council Grammar School in Newcastle in the mid-sixties some subjects crept into staff-student conversations in unlikely ways. An enlightened Anglican priest decided to include some sex education in his Religious Education efforts. The English teacher had no worries about students looking at the world hrough current party political eyes. We could do that because we were not short of youthful activists. There was Henry, an old-style Conservative, who would struggle to find a home in today’s Tory party. Julian was what some would call soft-left Labour. Robert was Labour and Co-op (he worked at the Central Co-op on Saturdays, privy to the high levels of theft amongst workers). I had never discussed my party affiliation with the English teacher. He simply noted my attitude to events and out of the blue one afternoon he simply announced during a debate “Ah, but Reid’s a Liberal.”

This was not the only reason why I enjoyed sixth form life after being somewhat bored by my previous five years in the school. Someone had the bright idea of putting me in charge of the newspapers. Day by day I read the Guardian (continuing to do so to this day) and looked at the others. There were some options in the sixth form curriculum. I opted to take an extra A-Level in religious studies, which I thought could reinforce the beginnings of my training as a Methodist Lay Preacher – yes, I know, probably ridiculously precocious! The price of this was missing the weekly “Civics” lesson. I reckoned that as a Young Liberal I could sharpen up my political awareness elsewhere.

That, of course is ancient history. Fast forward half a century to my stint as Lord Mayor of Bradford. This I saw as a prlvileged learning experience, which came with a temporary high profile, from which the only continuing status was getting your name carved on the wall some twelve months after the event. This was heretically minimalistic for some of my predecessors who thought it guaranteed being somebody special forever. Mind you, that was not the worst heresy I committed. Nothing compares with the chagrin of the council media office when I insisted on writing my own speeches!

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Tagged civic education and education | 4 Comments

Zack Polanski on the Fringe

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 12th August 2026 - 8:55 am

My weekend at the Edinburgh fringe continued with Iain Dale’s All Talk event with the Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Zack Polanski.

I’m usually one of the younger people at Iain Dale’s shows. This time I felt positively geriatric. The audience was very young. The event didn’t have to be moved to the bigger theatre, like Nicola Sturgeon’s earlier that day, but the smaller theatre was full.

Polanski talked about his decision to change his name to one that reflects his Jewish heritage. He had thought originally that his family had changed their surname because of the persecution they faced in Nazi Germany. In fact, he said, it was because of anti-semitism in the UK.

He also talked about the tensions of his childhood and the impact of his parents’ messy divorce had on him.

I found it quite strange that someone who has barely been out of the public eye in the past year spent a good while whinging, Lib Dem style, about the Greens not getting decent media coverage. He said that he was frequently booked to appear on shows, cancelled at the last minute and the same stations would run stories about how he had disappeared. He did say that Sky and LBC (two of the biggest broadcasters in the UK) were better at giving them a fairer amount of coverage, which feels like more than we get.

The impact of being in the public eye, though, had taken its toll on him and his partner. He talked about his housemates being worried for their safety because of his presence and his decision not to go on the electoral roll because he was worried about his address being circulated to all political parties. It is awful that any politician should have that sort of fear and that those around them felt threatened.

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Tagged edinburgh fringe, greens, iain dale and zack polanski | 9 Comments

Enough is enough: Women and girls deserve better

By Lib Dem Women | Tue 11th August 2026 - 8:58 am

We are sick and tired of being told by those in power that tackling violence against women and girls is a priority, while women and girls continue to be failed by the very systems that are supposed to protect them.

The case of Simon Levy is yet another devastating reminder of what can happen when warning signs are missed, information is not properly acted upon, and agencies responsible for protecting the public fail to learn from previous mistakes.

This cannot continue to be treated as a series of isolated incidents.

For years, women have been told that lessons are being learned. We have heard commitments to tackling violence against women and girls, improving police responses, strengthening the criminal justice system and better protecting victims. Yet too often, the same failures emerge again and again.

By the time Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered by a stranger in a London park, Levy had reportedly already been offending for years. By the time Sarah Everard was murdered by a serving Metropolitan Police officer, Levy had been offending for even longer. His first conviction came in 2021, yet further serious offences followed.

The question we have to ask is simple: when will enough be enough?

Women should not have to wait for another tragedy before institutions examine what went wrong. Nor should responsibility simply be passed between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and probation services, with each failure treated as an individual mistake rather than part of a wider systemic problem.

The prosecution described Levy’s victims as vulnerable women, and told the court that Levy believed targeting women in these circumstances would make it more likely that he could get away with his crimes.

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Tagged featured, lib dem women and violence against women and girls | 7 Comments

To paraphrase Shakespeare’ ‘something is rotten in the state of Britain’

By Judy Abel | Mon 10th August 2026 - 4:45 pm

In Hamlet, the Prince memorably says, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”. When looking at the economic mess we are in, I think we can safely say that about how much of big business and finance operates in the UK today.

Corporate life and responsibility – or the lack of it

We have seen, for decades now, a string of scandals which can only undermine our faith in how public and private corporations operate in our country. One of the most egregious examples is that of the, publicly-owned, Post Office, which saw ordinary people go to prison for crimes many in senior management knew they had never committed, in the infamous Horizon scandal. It took years of effort by the victims to clear their names. At the same time, postal services run by the sold-off arm, Royal Mail, have declined since privatisation, with fewer deliveries and sky-rocketing prices: the cost of a first-class letter has risen by more than 100% in the last five years! The HS2 gravy train is another example of mismanagement and even, potentially, some fraud. Something has clearly gone badly wrong if we are paying up to £100bn for a 150-mile stretch of railway.

The mergers and acquisitions system is also broken. Foreign companies are taking over UK businesses and then many are going to the wall. For example, Raleigh bikes, founded in 1887, has just started insolvency proceedings; the Dutch Company Accell bought the company in 2012 and then sold it on to a US private equity company in 2022, since when the business struggled. Private equity also bought the WH Smith chain, now also gone from our high streets. Let’s hope EasyJet fairs better as it has just been taken over by another US company, Apollo, which is reportedly loading it with £3bn in debt.

In the fossil fuels sector, oil company BP has also just reported record profits, despite the foreign wars affecting several oil-producing countries, some concluding it has been cashing in on these crises. And all this despite oil fuelling climate change, which is now costing lives and farmers millions in lost food production. Amazon, another US company – whose growth in delivery services has surely only hastened the demise of the British high street – paid only the equivalent of 7% tax on their UK profits in 2025. Why is this tolerated? And the involvement of private equity companies in providing social care in England – which Andy Burnham has at least said he will stop – has been a stain on our social care system. These companies have made good profits out of the most vulnerable in society – not always delivering a good level of service for it – in some cases quite the reverse.

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Tagged public services and value for money | 94 Comments