Category Archives: Op-eds

Mary Reid

Let’s celebrate the Lionesses!

By Mary Reid | Fri 18th August 2023 - 12:08 pm

I’m not a football fan, but even I watched the Lionesses win their semi-final on Wednesday morning. And I will be glued to the television on Sunday from 11am. What a treat for England, and indeed for the whole country!

Of course, many people love watching big matches in the friendly atmosphere of their local, and that also helps the local economy. Unfortunately, the timing on Sunday is awkward to say the least, because most pubs won’t be able to sell alcohol until 11am at the earliest, or even 12pm, according to their current licence. Which is why the Lib Dems have made a bold move and called for a recall of Parliament today to introduce emergency legislation to allow pubs to open in time for the match.

Daisy Cooper said:

This is an open goal for the government. The Lionesses have made history by reaching the final, it’s only right that people across the country can come together and show their full support on Sunday.

MPs should get down to Westminster tomorrow and score a last minute winner for our pubs and the Lionesses.

Now it MAY be a coincidence – but Michael Gove has sent a letter to Council leaders encouraging them to open pubs early this Sunday. But there is a catch: Pubs have to apply in advance for a temporary extension to their licences and the deadline for applications for this weekend was 11th August. Gove is simply asking Councils to expedite any existing applications, not to allow last minute ones.

Wherever you watch it – enjoy the match! And good luck to the Lionesses.

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Mary Reid

Those A level grades are actually good news

By Mary Reid | Fri 18th August 2023 - 9:35 am

Students who got their A Level, BTEC or T level results yesterday have had a tough few years. They took their GCSES in 2021 after 18 months of major disruption to their studies. That then had an impact on their choices at 16 and their ability to benefit from the next stage. This has all been well understood by their teachers, by exam boards and by universities. We should celebrate the students’ resilience and tenacity, and the ingenuity of the teachers who have been working through some very serious challenges.

Some of the headlines in the press have been rather strident. “Thousands miss top grades as A Level results plummet” is the headline in the print version of the Guardian, modified to “Thousands fewer students in England awarded top A-Level grades” online. That seemingly minor change in wording indicates that the situation is actually more nuanced than it first appeared.

This year the spread of A level grades has returned to close to that in 2019, which means that fewer students have been awarded the coveted A or A* grades. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that their futures are going to any different from their peers in 2022.

A levels and their equivalents act as gatekeepers to Higher Education. In theory, it doesn’t matter where the grade boundaries lie as long as the students’ achievements are ranked correctly. This enables the Universities to identify the students best suited to their courses. (Of course, it is more complicated than that, because we don’t have post-qualification admission, and offers have to be made on predicted grades – that introduces some inaccuracies into the system that may or may not be compensated for during clearing. But that’s a topic for another time.)

As it happens, Universities were aware that grades would be returning to “normal” this year so adjusted their offers accordingly, which should mean that the transition to Higher Education will be smooth for most students. In fact, 79% of students who applied to University this year achieved the grades to get into their first choice, compared with 74% in 2019 – so that left more students happy with their results than pre-pandemic.

Whilst that is the overall picture, there is one striking anomaly. The Guardian article mentioned above includes this statement: “Independent and grammar schools had the largest drop in top grades compared with last year”. Put another way, the students who benefitted most from the temporary assessment processes used during the pandemic were those in selective and fee paying schools – the very pupils who are already advantaged by our skewed education system.

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack’s monthly report to members

By Mark Pack | Thu 17th August 2023 - 10:47 am

Hello, Mid Bedfordshire

We don’t yet know for sure about when a Mid Bedfordshire by-election will take place after Nadine Dorries redefined “immediately” with her promise to step down straight away turning into a longer-running saga. But there is an active Lib Dem campaign up and running for Emma Holland-Lindsay, with some lovely letter boxes to admire.

Please do help if you can, in person or remotely, as Sarah Dykes’s stunning victory in Somerton and Frome shows just what we can achieve when we pull together behind a by-election campaign. A huge thank you to everyone  who contributed to that victory, a great burst of national media coverage and creating an abundance of Sarahs in the Lib Dem Parliamentary party.

What we stand for

One thing we do know the date of for sure is our autumn federal conference coming up in Bournemouth in September. The agenda and policy papers have now been published, and registration is open for both in-person and online attendance.

The agenda includes our pre-manifesto document, For A Fair Deal. This is both an up-to-date summary of our overall policies across all the main areas, and also has in its second chapter our overall story about the sort of society we want and how to get there. Well worth a read whether you’re coming to conference or not.

I look forward to meeting many of you there or in Mid Bedfordshire.

The importance of residents’ surveys

I’ve just been reading an advance copy of a fascinating new book coming out later this year about our party, and this nugget of data leapt out at me:

“In 2010, in nearly two-thirds of Liberal Democrat target seats a substantial amount of effort was put into running resident surveys during the pre-election period. This figure dropped to just a quarter of target seats in 2019.”

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Caron Lindsay

Radio phone-in highlights reality of homophobia

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th August 2023 - 12:40 pm

If i’m out and about with my husband and we hold hands, nobody bats an eyelid. If we see something that makes us laugh, we can look at each other and have a hug, we can o so without being hassled.  If he is meeting me off the train, I can rush up and give him a kiss. We can be pretty much as spontaneous as we like.

The stabbing outside The Two Brewers in Clapham on Sunday night, which is being treated as a homophobic incident, shows that not everyone can take the simple act of being out and about with their partner for granted.

In response to this appalling attack, the Young Liberals said:

Our account is run by two LGBTQ+ people who live in south London.

The appalling homophobic attack on two men in Lambeth on Saturday night is an horrific reminder that prejudice is alive and well in our capital.

Our thoughts are with the victims at this incredibly difficult time, and we would like to join @Ben_Curtis_1 and @LambethLibDems in sending our best wishes to the staff at the wonderful @2BrewersClapham for their response.

This incident is a reminder that we need to do so much more to tackle the hatred that our community faces, and we are glad to see the Met Police are treating this with the seriousness it needs.

A Radio 2 phone-in yesterday highlighted the everyday prejudice to which the LGBT+ community is subjected. Gay men described how they wouldn’t dare hold hands for fear of attracting trouble. Lesbians gave horrendous accounts of being sexually assaulted by men who were apparently trying to “turn” them. Even in a country where the majority of people back LGBT rights, too many can’t properly be themselves in public.

A friend told me that he and his partner of almost 10 years hardly ever hold hands in public and if they do, they do a risk assessment first. We also talked about how lesbians face both homophobia and misogyny.

It’s worth listening to the discussion on the programme to understand what LGBT+ people have to put up with.

Earlier this year, the UN’s independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity said that abusive rhetoric from politicians was to blame for a surge in hate crimes against LGBT+ people. In his report, he said:

Bolstered by strong protections of freedom of information in the UK, news media and social media are instruments for advocacy and visualizing violations of the human rights of LGBT persons. On the other hand, government authorities and civil society representatives in the UK informed the Independent Expert that those media channels are also spreading anti-trans discourse and stereotypical imagery of LGBT persons as dangerous, often employing homophobic and transphobic rhetoric.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey calls for action to help those struggling with rising bills

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th August 2023 - 8:48 am

As inflation falls to 6.8%, Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey appeared on Sky News this morning to give our party’s reaction:

While it was positive news that prices aren’t using quite so fast, he said, but they are rising fast,  faster than they are in many other countries and faster than they have for many, many years.

Families and pensioners when they go and do their shopping, when they get their energy bill, when they pay their mortgage, their rents, they are still seeing them go up by huge amounts. And what is worrying Liberal Democrats today is that this month’s inflation figures will be used to calculate rail fares for next year and we are calling for a freeze as some way of helping people who are really really struggling.

Challenged that the Government has to balance the books, Ed said that we always do balance the books and go to the country with a fully costed manifesto, compared to the Conservatives who have been reckless with Government money and that’s why the country is in such a mess.

I listen to Conservative ministers and they seem so out of touch with the realities that most families and pensioners are facing. When we talk about these sorts of figures they seem quite complacent and give themselves a pat on the back when families are really struggling out there. I just want a Government that seems to care a bit more and this lot just don’t.

Let’s just pause a minute there. This “families and pensioners” phrase irks me a bit. It isn’t quite as bad as the awful “hard working families”, but it completely ignores a huge swathe of people who are struggling just as much as the soft Tory voters in the blue wall seats we are going after. They like the “families and pensioners” language because it has a comforting ring of deserving poor about it but that’s no excuse.

We need to make sure that the young people struggling to get by on low incomes, earning less and getting less in benefits despite living costs being just as high feel included, or the growing number of single person households with only themselves to rely on.

What’s wrong with just using people? Our mission as Liberal Democrats is to build a fair, free and open society where NO-ONE is enslaved by poverty, ignorance and conformity and our language should reflect that universality. We have so many good ideas that would help all people who are struggling so it seems a shame to limit our language.

Rant over and back to the interview. Ed was challenged that our plans to help people were not realistic. He said:

The real world is that the economy is struggling and we need to get people back to work. If you took up Liberal Democrat ideas to boost the economy, you would get more people using public transport which is more important for our economy, for the environment and so you have many benefits.

I just think the Government is so out of touch. They don’t seem to get how the combination of  price rises, mortgages, rents, energy bells railway fares, is hitting people.  We’ve calculated that a commuter family is going to be clobbered by an extra bill of £300 every month due to the combination of mortgage, food and rail fares. This is a huge amount and when I hear government ministers saying they can’t do anything. They could do something but they don’t. The fact that they don’t backs up my argument that they are out of touch and don’t care.

He was asked whether the energy price cap should be rethought as it harmed competition:

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Paul Walter

Trump Georgia indictment – this is different

By Paul Walter | Tue 15th August 2023 - 10:45 am

Embed from Getty Images

It’s easy to think that the latest Trump indictment in Georgia is more of the same – 33 more charges to add to his existing 78 – and that people have grown numb to all of this.

But the Georgia charges are significantly different in several ways.

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Tom Reeve

Reality barges into Small Boats Week

By Tom Reeve | Mon 14th August 2023 - 11:55 am

As commemorative weeks go, it’s been a bad one for Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman. They waited all year for Small Boats Week only to have it spoiled by Leftie Lawyers, so-called fire safety ‘experts’ and an outbreak of lethal bacteria. 

On top of that, they suddenly had half the country shouting at them about human rights, compassion and other foreign ideas after six people drowned in the Channel. 

Never mind that they had done what their base wanted and blocked safe passages for refugees, given the French state-of-the-art kit to harass the migrants and even bought the immigrants a yacht. 

Ok, not exactly a yacht but close enough, right? They spent £1.6bn and then, inexplicably, no one wanted to move into their Barge of Death. 

You have to feel for them – no one had ever organised a Small Boats Week before, so they were in uncharted waters. Even if they’d had a map, how could they be expected to know what ‘Danger – Rocks’ meant, let alone ‘Danger – Moral and Ethical Hazard’? 

You may accuse them of setting sail without, a skipper, a rudder or even a destination, but what you have to understand about the Tories is that their approach to disaster planning is quite literal. 

Whether you are talking about the Asylum Crisis, the Sewage Crisis, the Housing Crisis, the Cost of Living Crisis or the Climate Crisis, the government knows that failing to plan is the first step in winging it. It gives ministers, backbenchers and tabloid hacks free rein to make up policy on the hoof – what could possibly go wrong? 

You may fret that a backlog of 175,000 asylum cases, costing the government £6m a day in temporary accommodation fees, is a sure-fire indication that something has gone wrong with their immigration policy, but the government knows it’s money well spent. 

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 14 August 2023 – whilst there are still some grouse left…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 14th August 2023 - 8:15 am

The newspapers seem to be full of stories either questioning what future the Conservative Party has given the prospect of a solid thrashing at some point in the next fifteen months or so or bemoaning what it might do in the time it has left. It does require a sense of manic optimism to believe that a government which appears to have given up on addressing the issues that actually matter to the public can actually turn things around.

And yet, the public mood is fickle. It isn’t that long ago that the Conservatives were leading in the polls fairly comfortably, …

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th August 2023 - 11:17 am

Pakistan

Pakistan is sliding back into military rule. Actually, it never really left it. The military and its friends in the intelligence services have for decades been the puppet masters pulling the strings of successive nominally democratic governments. Quite often they don’t even bother with the veneer.

Imran Khan knew this. That is why he came to a modus vivendi with the army early in his premiership. Unfortunately for the cricketing star that arrangement did not last. He tired of both the orders and the corruption and decided to be his own man and clear the Augean Stables. Unfortunately he ended up being cleared out himself.

He is now languishing in gaol and barred from elected office. His crime was failing to report an estimated $600,000 in gifts from foreign dignitaries. It is an interesting crime. If properly enforced a large chunk of the Pakistani political establishment would be sharing Imran Khan’s jail cell.

Not satisfied with jailing their opponent, the military have also organised a postponement of elections. Under the Pakistani constitution, elections have to be held within 90 days of the dissolution of parliament. The Pakistani parliament was dissolved on Thursday, but new army-friendly Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif said elections would be “postponed for several months”. This was ostensibly because the electoral commission needed time to re-draw constituency boundaries following the acceptance of a census report just last week.

But before dissolution, the government did manage to rush through two bills increasing the powers of Pakistan’s omnipresent intelligence agencies. They can now search and arrest anyone they suspect of a “breach of official secrets”. Furthermore, anyone who reveals the identity of an intelligence agent will now be automatically sentenced to three years in prison.

Possibly in anticipation of this new law, 157 Pakistani political activists “disappeared” last month.

History control

George Orwell famously wrote in his book “1984”: “Who controls the past controls the future.”

The words are profound, wise, correct and often followed. Which is why we have two examples of history control this week. The first, perhaps not surprisingly, is out of Moscow. Vladimir Putin’s educationalists have rushed through a new secondary school textbook aimed at “educating” 16-18-year olds about the Ukrainian political facts of life.

The new “patriotic curriculum” declares that Ukraine is an “artificial state.” Russia launched its “special military operation” as part of a programme of “denazification and demilitarisation.” The goal of the West is to “destabilise Russia” and Moscow is “a victim of Western aggression and fighting for its very existence.”

On the other side of the world, in the sunshine state of Florida, we have another attempt to control the political debate through teaching. There the target is wokeism. To battle it, presidential hopeful Ron de Santis has employed the skills of Prager University to produce a series of history online and off-line videos.

Prager University is not a university. It is a conservative video production company run by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager with the avowed intent of spreading conservative values to counter the “evil liberal elitist values” of most American universities. Its videos are completely unaccredited and disavowed by most serious educationalists.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Immigration – Analysis and Suggestions

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th August 2023 - 10:12 am

There is a total absence of holistic joined up thinking on the emotive topic of immigration.

The solution does not lie simply in quotas, walls, barbed wire, African exile, indecipherable application forms or even hunting down people traffickers.

It needs to be recognised that the human souls washing up on the shores of the developed world did not materialise out of the ether. And furthermore, that demographic realities dictate that immigration is not an unalloyed evil.

But politicians – especially the more populist variety – prefer to pander to an electorate which has been fed a diet of fear of cultural and racial pollution. They offer short-term solutions and headline-grabbing sound-bites while failing to acknowledge the causes or offer long-term resolutions.

The fact is that immigrants are being driven northwards by basic survival instincts. If given the choice, few people would choose the maybes of immigration over the safe certainties of family, financial security and their own familiar culture. Millions of Palestinians and Syrians have lived for decades in overcrowded refugee camps because they nurture the dream of returning “home.”

Unfortunately, the home grown safety nets are being destroyed in increasing numbers by war, famine, and climate change

There are currently famines in Afghanistan, Haiti, Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Madagascar and throughout the Sahel Region to name but a few. There are wars in the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia and South America. Gang Warfare in Central America has displaced 600,000 people.

There are 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh; six million Syrians in refugee camps in five countries and 2.7 million Afghans who have fled the Taliban. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported recently that there are 108.4 million displaced people in the world—the largest at any time in history.

Climate change is causing the world’s deserts to grow, displacing even more people. Scientists reckon that by 2050, 25 percent of the world will be desert. The Sahara is expanding by 30 square miles a decade. Even faster-growing is the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and Northwest China. 2023 is the hottest year on record with temperatures reaching 58 centigrade in the Sahara, 50 in India and 48 in Kuwait.

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Catherine Royce

The NHS, doctors and government – it’s ideological, stupid

By Catherine Royce | Fri 11th August 2023 - 11:31 am

So here we are in the 8th month of the doctors’ dispute with the Conservative government for pay restoration of 35% to repair salary losses over the past decade plus.

We are not talking about a pay increase just restoration, not unreasonable. How did this happen? – well, in short, because doctors are excluded from any of the pay awards made to other NHS staff because doctors pay is the remit of a so-called independent pay review body which takes care of doctors (and dentists) pay, except it doesn’t, and when it finally made a recommendation, the government deemed it unaffordable, so ditched it.

To put this in context, the judiciary were given 15% in 2018 without so much as a shot fired in anger; the doctors got 1% that year. The justification for such a high settlement for judges and barristers? – recruitment and retention.

That rings a bell, oh yes, there’s a crisis of recruitment and retention in the NHS medical workforce too.

Could the fact that many MPs have a legal background and vanishingly few a medical one be a factor? – a case of us and them?

During the pandemic which followed soon after, I don’t remember the judiciary stepping up to the plate, in fact the courts more or less closed down, at least for the first year, and are now getting back up to speed.

No judges or barristers were called upon to help turn patients who were on ventilators in ITU every 2 hours, wearing inadequate protection, up close and personal face to face, day after day, week after week, month after month.  Doctors were going in to work every day, as was the whole health and care workforce, throughout that national nightmare, not working from the comfort of their homes on Zoom and in their pyjamas, too many paid the ultimate price in that first year.

Prime Minister Sunak recently stated, before he went off on holiday, that  ‘a generous offer of 6% is final and no further talks will take place’ – hmmm, that doesn’t quite do it, does it?

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Richard Shaw

Introducing … Lib Dem Friends of Cycling

By Richard Shaw | Thu 10th August 2023 - 2:52 pm

Enter the words “lib dem councillor cycling” into a search engine and you’ll find more stories about Lib Dems criticising or being negative towards cycling infrastructure than positive stories about Lib Dem active travel successes. Search for “lib dem cycling policies” and you’ll find little information about our cycling-related policies that is concise or compelling.

Lib Dem Friends of Cycling aims to change that. We are an informal group of party members, ranging from armchair members to seasoned campaigners and elected politicians, who all share a desire for the UK to be a safer and more friendly place for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to get around by bike.

We offer a place to discuss and promote Lib Dem policies in relation to cycling and other forms of active travel, share campaign materials and promote best practice. We support not just leisure cycling but also cycling as transport for work, education, shopping and other everyday activities.

We aim to promote policies and campaigns for safe and inclusive cycling infrastructure for all people who ride bikes, regardless of whether they ride “standard” bicycles, specially adapted bikes, cargo bikes, push bikes or e-bikes.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, cycling was seen as a radical, liberating mode of transport for women, who gained greater independent mobility without relying upon, or being chaperoned by, male relatives. Increased road danger from motor vehicles and car-centric planning and social attitudes over the years changed this dramatically and these days cycling in the UK is overwhelmingly “young, male and pale”.

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Laurence Howe

Grid capacity

By Laurence Howe | Thu 10th August 2023 - 12:00 pm

In order to meet the needs of moving to carbon zero over the coming years, it will be necessary to increase the power transmission capacity of the National Grid by a factor of at least two. Currently, the perceived view is that a large number of additional grid links will be needed to facilitate the increased capacity. That would require extensive planning applications and would further delay any project planning and design development. It is thought that this could involve a delay of up to fifteen years. However, there is a simpler solution that would not require any additional power lines. Of course, there would be additional work to be done on the infrastructure, but it should not involve any additional planning permissions.

Outline Solution

Additional power can be transmitted via the existing grid. Now power is the product of voltage and current, so increasing either or both would increase the capacity of the grid. However, there are problems with both potential solutions.

Increasing the voltage would be the most problematical because the distance between adjacent phases may need to be increased and the distance between the transmission lines and the pylon may also need to be increased. This is because, particularly during damp conditions or periods of high humidity, leakage between phases or between the transmission lines and the pylons may be an issue. That may involve the complete redesign and replacement of all pylons. It would also involve replacing the transformers and upgrading the voltage rating of the infrastructure within the grid substations.

Increasing the current would require increasing the diameter of the transmission lines. Such an increase may cause the physical load capacity of the pylons to be exceeded, requiring additional strengthening of the pylons and insulators.

It is clear that increasing the current would require significantly less work than increasing the voltage. Therefore, increasing the current is the preferred solution.

Practical Considerations

Doubling the diameter of the transmission lines would enable the grid to carry four times its present capacity. However, there would need to be a significant increase in the capacity of the grid substations and local transformer stations. Increased capacity between the grid and local transmission networks would also be required. The loadbearing ability of all existing pylon designs would need to be assessed to ascertain whether or not any strengthening work or insulator replacement would be necessary.

Another consideration is the connection of the onshore converter stations to the grid. It will be necessary to construct links between the converter stations and the existing grid. It is assumed here that the planning of these connections has been incorporated into the converter station project plans. However, some reconfiguration of the converter stations may also be required in order to feed increased current to each grid link.

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Janey Little

Lib Dems should show courage on the housing crisis

By Janey Little | Thu 10th August 2023 - 9:47 am

We are in a housing crisis. This crisis means that people are struggling to afford the cost of renting, let alone home ownership.

But we know this, Priced Out recently gave evidence to the London Assembly which said that it would take the person on an average income 19 years to save for a deposit. Those who deny a housing crisis are simply ignoring the largest issue that is crushing the lives of younger people in our country.

In the Young Liberals we have young barristers, doctors and teachers who cannot afford to get onto the housing ladder. If it is affecting professionals in this way then it becomes obvious the impact on those earning below the national average.

With such a serious problem facing people in this country, the Liberal Democrats should be leading from the front in championing building enough homes to tackle the ever-spiralling cost of owning your own home.

However, to describe our response as lacklustre would be to do a disservice to the word lacklustre. The housing motion and policy paper coming to conference proposes the abolition of the national housing target, to be replaced with a nimby charter allowing local councils to pass the buck to the next council for housing young people.

But the worst part is the fact that the party has been told no twice, yet still persists in going against common sense and wanting to actively block the building of enough homes, perhaps believing that they stand a better chance of overturning the will of the party at a physical conference.

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Caron Lindsay

Review: Vince Cable at the Edinburgh Festival

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 10th August 2023 - 6:55 am

Our Glorious Former Leader, Vince Cable, came to Edinburgh yesterday to talk to Iain Dale. It was great to see him for the first time Bournemouth  Conference in 2019. He looks well and hasn’t aged even now he’s turned 80.

There was a time when our press office held its breath whenever he came to Scotland. I remember one Conference in particular, ahead of the independence referendum where he said something that wasn’t quite our line which the press and the SNP made hay with. Today, he could not have been more on message, praising what Ed Davey was doing in terms of building the party’s infrastructure and campaigning capacity.

Talking of Ed, he’s going to be here on Saturday at 4 pm, talking to Iain and his For the Many partner Jacqui Smith. You can get tickets here. If you haven’t listened to this podcast, do, it is bloody hilarious and you need it in your life. And if you are going on Saturday, get in touch with me ([email protected]) and I’ll let you know where we are meeting beforehand.

Iain started by asking him about his time as a Labour Councillor in Glasgow in the 1970s. Vince described how he was chief whip at a time when corruption was rife, and four of his group ended up in Barlinnie. He left for the SDP and has never felt  tempted by Keir Starmer’s Labour who are not offering anything positive. He criticised Wes Streeting for saying that it is better to offer no hope than false hope and thinks that they should be doing more to inspire people.

Education, he says, should be the priority at the next election, rather than the NHS. The Tories have failed so comprehensively on it and it desperately needs investment to improve attainment.

He reckoned that there was not much chance of us going into coalition after the next election. We would be heavily outnumbered, and the party would be reluctant to go there again.

Iain asked him if he was “pissed off “that he was seen as too old to go for leader back in 2006. He was, but he accepted the mood to hand power to the next generation

He talked about the coalition years, saying that he winced along with many of us at the Rose Garden scenes.  He says he’s probably the last man standing, though, who thinks that we were right to go in to the coalition and reeled off a long list of things that we had done,  the Green Investment Bank, the industrial strategy, investing in children from deprived backgrounds in school.

He vigorously defended privatisation of Royal Mail saying it was the only option to enble it to modernise as it wasn’t allowed to borrow.  He blamed the union for not co-operating. Iain pushed back on him as he thought the union leader was pretty reasonable from his interviews with him on LBC but Vince said that if they had co-operated, the privatisation would have brought in more money for the taxpayer. He also said that the most recent problems within Royal Mail were the result of bad management rather than the privatisation.

He considered resigning several times during the coalition years – over the  sting when he said some inappropriate things about the BSkyB takeover, when cuts started to hit his department, particularly in the further education sector and  towards the end when it was all going wrong.

He talked about his time as leader and the stroke which led to him stepping down. While he made a full recovery, he decided to stay quiet about it at the time in case it was seen as s sign of weakness.

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Caron Lindsay

Review: Iain Dale interviews Penny Mordaunt and Harriet Harman in Edinburgh

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 8th August 2023 - 7:53 pm

It’s Festival time in Edinburgh and I’ve been to my first shows since 2019. On Sunday, I went (with my parents, who would, I am sure, want me to make very clear that they are definitely not Lib Dems) to see Penny Mordaunt talk to LBC presenter Iain Dale.  It was probably the first time we had been to a show together since we saw The Great Soprendo in Wick Assembly Rooms circa 1980.

The venue, Edinburgh’s EICC, once the scene of a Lib Dem Spring Conference, is lovely. I was a bit worried that the unusually comfortable seats and low lighting would lull my Dad to sleep in the same way as he denies doing in front of the tv every night. But no, he was paying attention throughout.

There is also an ice cream stand to tempt you while you wait for the show with some very delicious flavours. This one is Lotus Biscoff and vanilla.

It’s worth saying at this point that Vince Cable will be appearing tomorrow at 1pm and Ed Davey on Saturday at 4pm. Click on the links for tickets.

A funny moment just as the show started. Someone’s phone went off and Iain started to berate the offender before realising it was his own.

Inevitably, the first part of the conversation  with Penny Mordaunt centred on her  starring role in the Coronation, how the incredible outfit she wore was designed, how it felt to carry those swords and the surprise of becoming a social media sensation.

The intention of these interviews is not to drag someone to Edinburgh and hand them their backside on a plate. However,  Iain doesn’t pass up the chance for news lines, asking her if she thought she would have been promoted had she not pushed so hard to cause a contest when Liz Truss stood down and if she still wanted to be Prime Minister. She very tactfully got round this by saying that she just makes the best of every opportunity she is given. She did say how much she loved working at the MOD though.  Possibly a job application.

Her long game seems to be to keep out of any of the existential arguments in the Conservative Party and bide her time. I can’t imagine that she would shy away from a third go at becoming Tory leader at some point in the future.  Her strategy seems to be outward looking. At one point she came out with “Everybody is a Conservative, they just don’t know it yet.” Had I not been within range of my mother’s death stare, I might have argued that one.

She slated the SNP for portraying a fierce nation as victims of Westminster and talked about how those of us who want the UK to stay together had to appeal to people’s hearts. She spoke about the importance of kindness and empathy in politics, exactly the sort of qualities  that are almost non existent in the Government of which she is a part.

It was a funny, classy hour with more light than heat. I wanted a wee bit more challenge to her but Mum and Dad loved it.

Yesterday’s conversation with Harriet Harman, however, gave me everything I wanted. The Labour MP has always been one of my heroes. Seeing a young, pregnant woman in a pink dress elected to Parliament inspired 14 year old me to believe that politics wasn’t just for shouty men. 

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th August 2023 - 10:07 am

Ukraine

The Ukraine war has resulted in the world facing a shortage of every grain product and the prospect of widespread starvation in the developing world and spiralling food prices in the developed.

Shortages of corn and wheat – Ukraine and Russia’s two biggest grain exports – have increased demand for that other major grain product – rice. This has led India to ban exports of non-basmati rice “to ensure adequate domestic availability at reasonable prices.” India exports 40 percent of the world’s rice.

To compound the problem other major rice producing countries – Thailand, Pakistan and Vietnam – have all suffered bad harvests this year due to deteriorating weather conditions.

But back to Ukraine where Vladimir Putin has ended the Turkish-brokered deal to allow grain ships past the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. He followed that up with a devastating drone attack on Izmail which handles about a quarter of Ukraine’s grain exports. An estimated 40,000 metric tonnes of grain bound for Africa, China and Israel was destroyed and the port has been closed indefinitely. Since withdrawing from the grain deal on 27 July, Russia has destroyed an estimated 200,000 metric tonnes of grain as well as civilian ships, port facilities and grain storage silos.

It should also be noted that Ukraine’s Izmail is at the mouth of the Danube and on the opposite bank is NATO member Romania.

Putin

Vladimir Putin has weaponised food. He has created a worldwide shortage and is now using access to Russian-produced grain to blackmail/bribe selected countries.

This was obvious at the recent Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg where he promised free grain to carefully selected African countries. Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Eritrea and the Central African Republic have all been rewarded for their support at the UN and links with the Wagner Group.

The summit, however, was not the big success Putin hoped for. The last such gathering was in 2019 when 45 African leaders turned up in Sochi. This time only 27 made the trip north to Russia’s Baltic port.

The drop in numbers was largely due to Putin’s failure to deliver on his promises. In 2019 Russia promised to quadruple direct investment in Africa. But since then it has dropped by two thirds and now represents only one percent of the total inflow of Sub-Saharan Africa’s capital investment.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: The Big Lie is finally in court

By Tom Arms | Sat 5th August 2023 - 10:06 am

Donald Trump will get his wish. He desperately tried to air his election fraud claim in court. He made over 50 attempts to do so, including two to bring it before the Supreme Court.

But Trump’s problem is that the wrong person – or entity – is charged with lying. It is not the swamp, deep state, establishment elite or the blob that is being hauled before the court accused of porky pies in pursuit of naked power. It is Donald Trump.

The cornerstone of the case of Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice is that Donald Trump lied when he claimed electoral fraud. That he – and his co-conspirators – knew that he lied and that he used the lie in the criminal pursuit of subverting the US constitution, the electoral laws and the proceedings of Congress.

If he didn’t lie. If Donald Trump is indeed the victim of an elaborate conspiracy involving the Department of Justice, his own Vice President, over 50 courts and tens of thousands of individual vote tellers, then Jack Smith’s case collapses into an ignominious legal heap.

Trump’s lawyers hope they have a constitutional ace up their sleeves – the right to free speech as enshrined in the First Amendment. Freedom of speech protects the right to lie – up to a point.

Bill Barr, Trump’s Attorney General, was prominent among those insisting that the ex-president accept the election results and attacked him for not doing so. This week, the country’s former top lawyer, dismissed the First Amendment defense. He said: “They (the Department of Justice) are not attacking his First Amendment rights. He can say whatever he wants. He can even tell people that the election was stolen when he knew better. But that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

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Mary Reid

Victory in ULEZ campaign

By Mary Reid | Fri 4th August 2023 - 10:13 am

On the doorstep, and on social media, in the ward where I live there has been one main topic recently – ULEZ. And of course it hugely influenced the by-election result in Uxbridge, which should have been a pushover for Labour. Sadiq Khan’s rollout of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (and a daily charge of £12.50) to the whole of Greater London at the end of this month has been greeted with anger and derision, not to mention conspiracy theories.

This has put Liberal Democrats in a position which is sometimes difficult to articulate in political soundbites. On the one hand we firmly support measures that reduce air pollution and prevent unnecessary deaths. On the other hand we recognise that the implementation of the scheme could cause real hardship to people already angry about the cost of living crisis. But there is some good news at last.

When ULEZ was first introduced in inner London it covered an area with excellent public transport. Few of us in the suburbs would think of driving into the centre anyway because the Congestion Charge already applied. And there was an 18 month period in which residents could prepare for the new charge.

This time the Greater London extension to ULEZ was announced only months before it was due to come into effect, and across an area with far greater reliance on cars, where the tentacles of London’s transport system spread more widely. Now some 90% of cars are already ULEZ complaint but there is a real issue with the remaining 10%, which are largely older vehicles. Those owners most affected are people who are least able to afford to change their cars, especially given that their old ones are going to be virtually unsellable. There have also been heartfelt pleas from sole traders whose livelihoods are dependent on their aging white vans.

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Gavin Stollar

Together, Israel and Morocco are striding towards a peaceful future

By Gavin Stollar | Thu 3rd August 2023 - 2:59 pm

Peace in the Middle East, and throughout the Arab World, has always been hard-won. We’ve had to measure its progress in small, deliberate steps, whether that’s from letters to handshakes, missions to embassies or treaties to trade deals.

Ever since the Abraham Accords were signed in 2020, Israel and Morocco have been solidifying their diplomatic ties in recognition of their shared interests and responsibilities to global and regional security.

But this week the two countries made a historic leap forward – a leap that should give the international community renewed confidence in the stability of the Arab World and the Middle East.

As a very welcome relief from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s significant domestic issues, the Prime Minister officially recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara and indicated that Israel would consider opening a consulate in one of the region’s key cities, Dakhla. At the invitation of King Muhammad VI, Netanyahu also agreed to conduct a state visit to Morocco in the near future – his first to any of the Arab nations involved in the Abraham Accords three years ago.

In the space of just a week, these are remarkable developments. This October, it will be just 50 years since the two countries were on either side of the Yom Kippur War – and they are now moving towards an alliance that could be critical to the stability of the entire Middle East.

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Lord William Wallace

Taxing and Spending

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 3rd August 2023 - 11:58 am

It’s astonishing that leading Conservatives are still getting away with calls for tax cuts before the coming election without any challenge as to where they will cut spending to pay for them.  Our economy is flat-lining, our public debt rising, our population ageing, our young children smaller than their counterparts across the Channel, our schools and health services losing workers to higher-paid jobs – and yet serious Conservatives think we should cut taxes and spend less?

Paul Johnson’s just-published Follow the Money: how much does Britain cost? is a clearly-written guide to Britain’s dilemmas on public spending, and the failures to invest sufficiently in public infrastructure and services in recent decades. He’s been director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (a body respected by all except supporters of Liz Truss’s economic strategy) for many years, and before then served in several government departments, so he knows what he’s talking about.

He sets out how progressive cuts in defence spending since the end of the Cold War in 1989-90 have funded rises in welfare spending.  Without going into details on the defence budget, he underlines that defence spending is more likely to rise than fall further: the Ukraine conflict has shown has stretched the UK’s stores of equipment and ammunition have become.  He doesn’t remark that rising North Sea oil revenues in the early 1990s (and the one-off gains from privatization) allowed Margaret Thatcher to cut taxes without deep cuts in services – though in retrospect she would have been wiser to accumulate oil revenues in a sovereign wealth fund, like Norway, or allocate them to improving the UK’s infrastructure.

North Sea oil revenues are now running down; and privatization has long since run its course.  So any government is faced with hard choices, about the level and distribution of taxation and about priorities in public spending.  ‘There are no easy solutions to the problems we face.  Tax cuts do not pay for themselves.  Debt cannot rise forever.  Spending implies taxing.  Economic constraints are real.’  (Tell that to Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.)

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Jack Meredith

Shattered Dreams – the human cost of Brexit

By Jack Meredith | Wed 2nd August 2023 - 3:50 pm

“£350m a week more for the NHS”.

That was the tagline used by the Leave Campaign to peddle Brexit. It was plastered over the official Brexit bus, promoted by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Major news outlets, including the BBC, debunked this, which revealed the UK was sending closer to £161m a week.

This falsehood was not the only lie perpetuated by the Leave Campaign.

They claimed working people would save money by not having to pay tax contributions – a report from the Resolution Foundation and LSE has since found that Brexit has exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis, with working people predicted to lose as much as £470 a year by 2030.

They claimed Britain would be free to reach out across the world and make trade deals that would make the EU pale in comparison – the Office for Budget Responsibility found that Brexit had a “significant adverse impact” on British trade, reducing by 15% compared to if the UK had stayed in the EU.

They claimed Britain’s fishing industries would thrive, promising renewed power related to regulation, access and quotas, with over 90% of fishermen opting to vote in favour of Brexit based on these claims – a report from the University of York, New Economics Foundation, University of Lincoln and marine consultancy service ABPmer has found that these “new powers” are at best below modest, and at worst non-existent. The report also includes findings from the UK Government’s Sea Fisheries Statistics 2020 report, highlighting that the fishing industry’s GDP fell by 29% between 2019 and 2020.

To cover everything said by the Leave Campaign or by the successive Tory governments defending Brexit would make this the next “War and Peace.” More importantly, what they have not said needs to be covered.

Leading Brexiteers Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson claim we have “reclaimed our sovereignty;” all at the cost of opportunity for future generations, European comradeship with our neighbours, the ability to decide policies on a continental scale, and our standing as a world leader? Former Home Secretary Priti Patel celebrated the ending of “Freedom of Movement,” which meant EU citizens would require a visa to enter the UK and vice versa. Who is this a win for? Certainly not for working people, students, or anyone looking to enrich their lives through experiencing other cultures.

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Paul Reynolds

Accelerating economic decline and the political long game

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 2nd August 2023 - 12:58 pm

Conservatives of all shades seem resigned to being in opposition after the next General Election. Apart from minimising losses by trying to trip up Kier Starmer, what is the strategy ? What are they thinking about the future, and are there any useful potential implications for other parties ?

The idea gaining traction amongst some senior Conservatives is that, since the economic fundamentals are so bad, conditions for almost all of the population will continue to deteriorate during 2024 and 2025. 

Therefore it is better to get Starmer and the Labour Party into government as early as politically possible. The logic goes that after six months or so, high expectations of a Labour government will lead to disappointment, and Labour will start to be blamed … initially for not reversing the decline, but then gradually for the decline itself.

Adding to this idea amongst some Conservatives is the view that a Starmer-led Labour Government, boxed in by right wing authoritarian factions, public sector trade unions, Corbyn supporters, and ‘internationalised’ donors, is not in a position by itself to work out how to manage the continuing decline, let alone reverse it. This will result in a Starmer government relying heavily on Treasury and Bank of England officials to handle the worsening crisis; the same folk who have brought the UK to this point in the first place, it is claimed. 

Therefore, the view goes, the scene is set for a new and refreshed Conservative Party back in government soon. This seems to be the leading Tory ‘long game’ strategy; by the time the next election comes along three to five years from now the public will be blaming the new 2024 government.

This strategy is clearly predicated on three main things.

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Caron Lindsay

A huge moment in the US

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 2nd August 2023 - 9:36 am

It’s worth taking a moment to think about the enormity of the events in the US.

I remember that day, not far off 49 years ago, when the resignation of a US President was of such monumental importance that there was tv at breakfast time.

Almost half a century on, there’s a 24 hour news cycle and social media to chew over the fact that a former leader of the free world has been charged with trying to fraudulently overturn the result of the election in which he was defeated by Joe Biden.

You can read the whole indictment here on the Guardian’s website.

Its opening paragraphs are shocking:

Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than 2 months following the election day on 3 November 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false and the Defendant knew they were false. But the President repeated and disseminated them anyway, to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger and erode public trust in the administration of the election.

It’s about as far from the presidential oath, in which he promised to preserve, protect and defend the US constitution as you can get.

The indictment relies heavily on the fact that Trump and his co-conspirators knew what they were doing. A significant part of the evidence is based on the contemporaneous notes of Vice President Mike Pence. Trump had asked him not to declare the results of the election in Congress on 6 January and at one point, when Pence refused, told him that he was “too honest.”

The team from Pod Save America, one of my favourite US politics podcasts analyse the indictment here. Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor were all staffers during the Obama administration and set up Crooked Media in 2017.

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Ambition for Cambridge

By Joshan Parmar and Emma Munda | Tue 1st August 2023 - 10:25 am

Embed from Getty Images

For most young people, the prospect of ever owning a home seems perpetually out of reach. With the average house costing over 75% more (in real terms) than 10 years ago, is it any surprise that young people are not optimistic about their chance to own a home?

Ultimately, this leaves young people stuck in exploitative rent contracts , being charged ever-increasing rent and holding back Britain. And this is getting worse. Conservative, Labour and Coalition governments failed to build enough homes for decades, and we live with the consequences. Skyrocketing rents, ever more unaffordable house prices, and an unprecedented cost of living crisis have left millions, especially young people, feeling completely helpless. The medicine here is simple: we must build more homes.

On Monday, Michael Gove gave a speech in London on just this topic. Amongst several prescriptions, of varying practicality, to boost the UK’s housing supply, one truly radical vision stuck out.

Gove wants to see hundreds of thousands of homes built in Cambridge, more than doubling the city’s size. This ambition is laudable, but we have little faith in Gove, or the Government, to deliver it.

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Paul Walter

495 Uxbridge voters tip the whole UK climate policy into madness

By Paul Walter | Tue 1st August 2023 - 8:07 am

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Labour’s vote at Uxbridge went down (by-election compared to last general election). Our vote at Frome went up in the same comparison.

Within that context, it is not fanciful to suggest that if Labour had bussed in an extra 10 helpers the day before the Uxbridge by-election, they could well have won it.

So, it is therefore incredibly frustrating to see Rishi Sunak’s behaviour since July 20th.

We have seen “global boiling”, in the words of the UN Secretary General, becoming normal in July. Rhodes burning, Europe melting. The UK, so far, getting off luckily with fresh weather.

Yet, it seems that just 495 voters in Uxbridge have tipped Rishi Sunak (and Keir Starmer) into climate madness.

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Tom Reeve

The battle hum of the internal combustion engine

By Tom Reeve | Mon 31st July 2023 - 5:40 pm

The ballots are in, the votes have been tallied, and the defining issue of the next General Election has been determined by 495 voters in Uxbridge & South Ruislip.

Is it the Cost of Living, the NHS or the imminent breakdown of the global climate system? No. To paraphrase Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville (drum roll please): “It’s the automobile, stupid.”
Tories and Labour alike have rushed to endorse the new zeitgeist, the Tories because it distracts voters from those issues that really matter and Labour because they are timid and always let the Tories set the agenda.

As issues go for the …

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Michal Siewniak

The impact of the inflation and cost of living crisis on individuals and families

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 31st July 2023 - 2:43 pm

It would be a huge understatement if I was to say that the inflation, the current energy and the cost of living crisis is negatively affecting people’s lives. There is no doubt in my mind that we are not even close out of the woods and as predicted by many economists, the aftermath of the ongoing hardship will continue for many months, if not years.

The consequences of government policies, since COVID but also in recent years, has dominated many of my conversations with my friends and colleagues. There are thousands of stories of people, who are having to make a …

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Lord William Wallace

Why we should defend the BBC

By Lord William Wallace | Sat 29th July 2023 - 9:18 am

The ‘Huw Edwards affair’ has been another round in the long-running Murdoch press campaign against the BBC.  The exact details behind the charges against him as published in the Sun remain unclear; the Sun has now retreated from its initial story, and the police have said that there is nothing to justify pressing charges.  The Times fired off shots in support, listing the highest salaries of BBC presenters with a disapproving commentary – not noting the remarkably high fees that Talk News, owned by the Murdoch press and promoted ad nausea in the pages of the Times, pays to right-wing MPs and chat-show hosts for doing a few hours’ work a week.  Other papers have hinted at the not so defensible private behaviour of Dan Wootton, a former Sun journalist now with GB News and Mail Online, on which the Murdoch press has remained silent.

 The BBC attempts to hold together debates within the British national community.  The Murdoch press, from its first incursion into British media nearly 50 years ago, ha been a disrupter and divider.  Rupert Murdoch has also seen himself as a political player, expecting political leaders in Australia, Britain and the USA to court him for his support – or, at least, to moderate his opposition.  Tony Blair travelled to Australia to meet him; Keir Starmer has reportedly met him twice this year.  The aggressive style of the Murdoch media has made British politics more raucous.  But it’s in the USA, without a well-funded public broadcasting network, that it has had the deepest impact.  Fox News has given voice and encouragement to the populist right, to climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists and closet racists, preparing the ground for Donald Trump to make a successful run for the Presidency while dismissing as ‘fake news’ the evidence-based policies he was rubbishing.

While all active and fit Liberal Democrats were out delivering leaflets or knocking on doors in Somerton and Frome the BBC showed its quality in the underlying message of the opening concert of the summer Proms.  Dalia Stasevska, Finnish but born in Kyiv, conducted a concert of mainly Nordic patriotic music, Sibelius and Grieg, as well as a new commission from a Ukrainian composer.  It carried a strong implicit message of British solidarity with Ukraine and of the links we have with countries on Russia’s western border.

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David Gray

Act now to prevent the death of cash

By David Gray | Fri 28th July 2023 - 2:08 pm

I recently returned from Scandinavia, where I busked my way around for a few weeks. I spend a lot of my time travelling in this way – often around half the year. This time, I’d planned my trip around various Bruce Springsteen gigs that were occurring in the area – a tactic that had worked wonderfully well in other countries.

Scandinavia, though, is now one of the toughest busking destinations in the world. I’ve made easily more money in Peru and Bolivia than I did in Norway. The reason is nothing to do with a lack of generosity (I was last there in 2016 and did very well indeed), but the almost total elimination of cash from their societies.

The UK is not far behind. A recent report suggests that the number of cash transactions amounted to 10% of all payments in 2022, down from 27% in 2019. This is still higher than the 4% in Sweden and Norway, but the downwards trend should give us pause for thought.

Few would suggest that these figures indicate a need to restrict card/contactless payments. To do so would be to inconvenience people for no obvious benefit. But it is vital that politicians act to protect cash before it is too late. In the example of Norway, the law stating that it is illegal to refuse cash as a payment method has been widely flouted, and only very recently have lawmakers stepped in to strengthen it. But this has been done too late. We should act now before we get to a similar point.

It is understandable that many will wonder why this is necessary, or claim that the death of cash is simply an inevitable indicator of progress, and I am aware that as a professional street musician, I have ulterior motives for championing its survival that may not be thought to be particularly important. However, the destruction of busking as a form of work is not the only effect that a cashless society would cause (at this point I should say that I’m aware buskers, including myself, can and do accept contactless payments, but these do not go anywhere close to replacing the amounts earned through cash, for reasons that would take another entire article, so please do take my word for it!).

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