Category Archives: Op-eds

Simon McGrath

The Lord Mayor, the packets of dates and the lie

By Simon McGrath | Thu 16th March 2023 - 8:00 am

An extraordinary case was concluded  in the election court in Birmingham last month    in which a former Labour  Lord Mayor of Birmingham  was given leave by the Election Court to withdraw an election petition  seeking to overturn his loss at the May 2022 elections to two Lib Dem Councillors.

The background is that in the election Labour’s Muhammed Afzal and a colleague were  defeated by Lib Dem Cllrs – Ayoub Khan and Mumtaz Hussain  – the  relevant bit of the result was:

Ayoub Khan (Liberal Democrat) 3012 votes

Mumtaz Hussain (Liberal Democrat) 2542 votes

Muhammad Afzal (Labour) 2463 votes

Nagina Kauser (Labour) 2223 votes

During the election the Lib Dem candidates had said that Mr Afzal   had been ‘treating’  voters –  by giving out packets of dates with a Labour sticker on while canvassing. Cllr Khan had said on his Facebook page

Such is Labour’s desperation in the Aston Ward…that the current sitting councillor has decided to bribe the people of Aston for votes by giving them a special treat. They ought to know better…this is not Pakistan where you can buy votes.

The election petition said that this claim was false  and intended to defame Mr Afzal’s personal character and that therefore  the result of the election should be overturned.

This was clearly a very serious allegation: apart from losing their hard won council seats, losing the petition would make the 2 Lib Dem councillors responsible for heavy costs putting their homes at risk, possible criminal charges and  and as Cllr Khan is a barrister it  may have had  very serious consequences for his career.

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Rob Parsons

I have about twenty years left

By Rob Parsons | Wed 15th March 2023 - 7:32 pm

I have about twenty years or so left on this planet. I very much hope that before I shuffle off, the UK will have rejoined the EU. I think it will be touch and go whether we manage it. Apologies to our more enthusiastic Europhiles if that disappoints you, but I think it is realistic.

The EU needs to see a steady majority in favour of joining over a period of time. We don’t have that stable majority yet, though I expect we will. It will then need to remain stable for a number of years (particularly important for us, given Britain’s current and immediate past tendencies towards exceptionalism and fascism). Then the process of accession will take several years even if, in the meantime, we have laid the groundwork by joining the EEA, rejoining the single market, rejoining Horizon, or whatever we choose to do.

It will take a lot of work, and although we are enthusiastic about this ourselves, it is very difficult to persuade other people of an objective that may be fifteen or twenty years off. So it is not necessarily helpful to make a greater noise about wanting to rejoin, as some would have us do. It may make more sense for us to stand for an intermediate objective, one which is necessary for this country, as well as necessary if we are to have any realistic prospect of rejoining.

If we are to hope to rejoin, we need to make this country different to what it is now. We actually need to do that anyway. Regardless of our chances of joining the EU, I do not want to live in a country where millions rely on foodbanks to fend off starvation while the Prime Minister changes the grid to have electricity delivered to his swimming pool; a country where a previous Prime Minister seeks to ennoble his wife-beating father; a country where the Home Secretary uses language about asylum seekers reminiscent of 1930s Germany (yes, I will say that, because it is true); a country where the heroism of NHS staff is rewarded with applause but not with a pay rise.

So I propose a slogan: “Let’s fix this country”. Let’s fix things so that they actually work for the people and not just the elite.

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Nigel Lindsay

Lib Dems and Europe – Scotland shows the way

By Nigel Lindsay | Wed 15th March 2023 - 1:24 pm

We know that if the UK were in the European Union, GDP would now be £120bn higher, and tax revenues £40bn higher every year. We know that the UK is the only major European economy not to have returned to its pre-pandemic size. And polling shows us that there is a growing majority view that Brexit was a mistake which has delivered negligible benefits and has done substantial damage to Britain. Yet the Party’s leadership at Federal level still does not seem keen to explain these things to voters, nor to offer leadership to the large number of people across Britain for whom becoming part of the EU again is a political and economic priority.

Grassroots members, fortunately, see things differently. On Saturday, the Scottish LibDem conference in Dundee considered a motion calling for the party to re-commit itself to re-joining the EU. Conference unanimously supported the motion, which also called on the UK government to develop a roadmap towards re-joining the EU and initially re-joining the Single Market and Customs Union. Speaker after speaker stressed internationalism as a fundamental thread of Liberalism, and the personal, cultural, and economic gains that would accrue if the UK could work its way back to full membership of the European Union. There were calls for MPs and MSPs to mount a communications campaign explaining the benefits of membership, and for activists and party members to support this.

The motion ended with a call for Liberal Democrats to put campaigning for our European future at the heart of our approach. Gratifyingly, Scottish LibDem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton gave a speech on the same day in which he committed himself wholeheartedly to a European future and stressed the importance of internationalism to his Liberalism.

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The Voice

Reactions to the Budget – “Conservatives so out of touch they are living on another planet”

By The Voice | Wed 15th March 2023 - 1:19 pm

Here’s some of the Lib Dem reaction to today’s Budget. Mary and Caron will keep updating it as the day goes on.

First up:

And Wera Hobhouse amplified this point:

Ed Davey’s first reaction was that the Budget showed how out of touch the Conservatives are:

This Budget shows the Conservative Party is so out of touch they might as well be living on another planet.

Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak had a chance to show they care about the cost-of-living crisis that’s hitting millions of Britain’s families and pensioners but they failed miserably.

People are desperate for real help especially a cut to their energy bills – but all the Chancellor could offer is empty words and more unfair tax hikes.

We also saw a total failure to invest in fixing our crumbling hospitals and supporting local health services. It shows the Conservative Party doesn’t understand that you can’t get Britain ‘back to work’ without fixing the crisis in our NHS and social care.

Tim Farron was quick to get a cheeky comment in after the story about Rishi Sunak paying for the grid to be upgraded for his private heated swimming pool.

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Jeremy Hargreaves

Raise a glass in York

By Jeremy Hargreaves | Wed 15th March 2023 - 9:03 am

Conference has always been a central element in my involvement in the Liberal Democrats. Like many of us, all year round I spend a large proportion of my waking hours doing things for the party – and being able to make links, exchange ideas and, yes, gossip with people from across the country at conference not only makes doing that year-round work easier, but also makes it very very much more fun. I have really missed them over the last three and a half years – with the final cruel punch of the last-minute cancellation for non-pandemic reasons of last autumn’s big return conference feeling particularly unfair.

So I will be thrilled to be back in York this weekend, surrounded by Liberal Democrats.

But as I finally get to catch up again with many of you, I will be giving more than a thought or two to some of those who I will not get the chance to see again at conference.

That last conference we held, in Bournemouth in 2019, “the one where Jo Swinson was leader”, was the last time I saw my former boss, Steve Hitchins, previously Leader of Islington Council. Steve was certainly not about to allow his walking difficulties stop him from getting up on to the stage and telling us how the health policies we were debating seemed to him as a former chair of an acute NHS Trust. Steve tragically and unexpectedly passed away just a few weeks later – a much too early sad loss of one of the party’s most robust campaigners and one of its most effective champions of frontline diversity.

In York I will, as always, go to an LDEG fringe meeting. But I will not see Derek Honeygold sitting – like Ted Heath – in a corner seat on the front row, as he must have done at pretty much every LDEG fringe meeting ever. In March 2020 Derek became one of the first victims of covid. LDEG fringes will not be the same without his twinkling eyes and intriguing contributions to the debate.

When I make it to the bar later, I will not turn round from ordering drinks to see there the beaming smile of Robert Woodthorpe-Browne, long a smiling stalwart of the party’s international scene, with something funny and interesting to say to me. Always so enthusiastic and encouraging, from LI Congresses in Africa and being chair of the international relations committee (FIRC), to the streets of London that I once went canvassing with him on, Robert’s utterly irrepressible energy made a huge contribution to the party before his very sudden death from a stroke this last autumn.

I will not have the chance to sup again from the well of the erudition of Jonathan Fryer – another deeply committed Liberal Democrat internationalist, former chair of the international relations committee and eternally super-enthusiastic MEP candidate. But too a regular BBC broadcaster, public Quaker, lecturer and so many other things – including, astonishingly, biographer and friend of Christopher Isherwood – before his awfully sudden and tragic death from a brain tumour.

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‘That’s if they really *are* children’

By Anonymous | Tue 14th March 2023 - 3:45 pm

I recently attended an event in a civic capacity. The event, although unrelated, was just next door to an underutilised hotel in which the Home Office has recently placed a number of refugee families with children.

Because of its isolated setting, I was concerned that the people housed there would have insufficient access to facilities including medical care, schooling and shops to supply small daily needs. I was also concerned that due the corporate nature of the premises it would be inappropriate for the needs of young children.

Accordingly, I arrived early at the event venue and had a quick walk about the outside of the hotel. As I expected, there was no evidence of any play equipment or any toys, which would have softened the experience a little for already traumatised children.

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David Chalmers

Liberal Democrat European Group visit to Berlin

By David Chalmers | Tue 14th March 2023 - 10:01 am

Last week Liberal Democrat European Group LDEG made its first study trip overseas since the pandemic to brave Berlin’s wintery weather. In the past, regular visits to Brussels helped to foster a greater understanding of European politics and develop relations with our sister parties. Germany was chosen as this year’s destination, because of its pivotal role in European affairs and because, post Brexit, we are going to need allies within the EU like our German sister party the FDP – who currently form part of the ‘traffic light’ coalition with the Social Democrats and Greens.

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Robert Harrison

The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank – what does it mean for the UK?

By Robert Harrison | Mon 13th March 2023 - 1:37 pm

A few days ago, I started writing a piece for Liberal Democrat Voice about the creation of the new Department of Science, Innovation and Technology and what it might mean for the entrepreneurial science-based economy. I was going to look at financing of science-based companies and how it could be improved. The news of the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on Friday came as the piece was almost finished and has overtaken some of my conclusions in that article.

It’s likely that most Liberal Democrats will never have actually heard of the SVB until this weekend. As its …

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Keith Melton

Multilateralist, respecting international law and learning from history

By Keith Melton | Mon 13th March 2023 - 11:38 am

International security is a hot topic since Putin`s “Special Military Operation” launched against Ukraine a year ago. Most people recognise it for what it was, an invasion by a despot of questionable sanity. A wide debate has been prompted by Putin having “moved the goalposts of the conditions under which Russia would launch a first nuclear strike.”

The Lib Dem “Defence Team” has put together a motion which is an ultra-cautious approach to defence policy, probably not wishing to rock the middle-of-the-road approach thought to be necessary in order not to frighten off the soft conservative vote. But it is a …

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 13 March 2023 – a Byrd in the hand?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 13th March 2023 - 8:54 am

This year sees the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd, one of this country’s great composers. As a Catholic myself, I am reminded that he converted to Catholicism in his thirties at some personal risk given the culture of the day. It is a reminder that state-sponsored attacks on minorities and other vulnerable people is not a new concept, and that the conservative right have never been afraid to secure power through the demonisation of others.

My colleague, writing about the Lineker saga over the weekend, said:

And of course what is particularly ironic is that Tory MPs, who are usually championing the right of people to be as racist, sexist and transphobic as they like in the name of free speech, are now going after Gary Lineker.

There is a perfectly obvious reason for this, which is that not only are these people hypocrites, but they don’t care that they contradict themselves over and over again. It’s all about stirring up anger and distracting attention from their failure and incompetence. Find the smelliest, deadest cat they can find and hurl its foul carcass on the table so that we’ll talk about that rather than stick to the issues that matter.

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Caron Lindsay

Sue Miller highlights falling breastfeeding rates in Lords International Women’s Day debate

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 12th March 2023 - 2:30 pm

Back in the day, I spent a few years as a breastfeeding counsellor, doing what I could to support parents when they hit trouble and helping them find solutions that worked for them.

I got involved in that because I wanted to give something back after my breastfeeding journey was helped back on track by a lovely and patient volunteer called Louise who came to my house and sorted me out with great empathy.

Her help motivated me to help other women who desperately wanted to breastfeed but hadn’t been able to overcome their problems but hadn’t had the support that they needed. The guilt that comes along with that is huge, but misplaced. It is not their fault. Those running the health services failed to provide it.

I also became very interested in the implementation, or lack of it, of the International Code for the Marketing of Breastmilk substitutes and the ways that formula manufacturers got round it and how their powerful lobbying of governments kept regulation at bay.

I was also struck by research at the time that, in this country that showed  a poor breastfed baby had better long term health outcomes than a formula fed baby from an affluent background.

You would hope that we might have made some progress with providing support and regulating the manufacturers in the intervening 15 years.

Unfortunately, Lib Dem Peer Sue Miller, in her contribution to the International Women’s Day debate, highlighted that we are actually going backwards. You can read her whole speech here, but here are the highlights:

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Chris Bowers

Standing up to government is the only way the BBC will get out of the corner it’s backed itself into

By Chris Bowers | Sun 12th March 2023 - 10:59 am

It would be easy to conclude that if you want to have an influence on British political life you have to be a name in top-level football.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford succeeded where many politicians had failed in getting free school meals to disadvantaged children. In the past fortnight, the England women’s football team, the ‘Lionesses’, have used the leverage from their 2022 Euros title-winning run to secure over £600 million in government funding to give girls the same opportunities in sport that boys currently enjoy. And over the past few days, the former England striker Gary Lineker has been the focus of opposition to the controversial proposals by Rishi Sunak’s government to severely curtail the right of asylum in the UK (although the story of Lineker’s future as presenter of the BBC’s football highlights programme Match of the Day is threatening to overshadow his opposition to the asylum policy).

If suggesting that footballers are more influential than politicians seems a flippant remark, it’s not. We may well have reached the point where ‘celebrities’ (however you define them) have more clout than politicians, in which case their comments have to be taken more seriously than just to dismiss them as celebrity fluff – they become part of the checks and balances of a democratic society. And when Lineker talks about something of which he has direct experience – he has taken refugees into his own home – his comments come with added gravitas.

It’s important to note what he’s actually said, as some of the more hysterical reporting of it might lead you to think he’s accused the British government of sending people to gas chambers. Having described the policy as “beyond awful” in an initial reaction on his personal Twitter feed, he said in a second tweet that the proposed new UK asylum policy was “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.” Note the important nuance that the reference to Germany in the 1930s was about the language, not the policy.

I must declare an interest here. My father’s side of my family came from Germany and were thrown out for being Jewish. My father came to Britain as a Kindertransport refugee, my grandfather spent 12 days in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and great aunts and great uncles perished in other camps.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th March 2023 - 9:42 am

UK

British Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s “Stop the Boats” policy is in danger of being torpedoed by the European Convention on Human Rights. But then Ms Braverman may have an answer to that problem: Withdraw from the convention and the jurisdiction of the administering European Court of Human Rights.

The Illegal Migration Bill – as it is officially called – is aimed at stopping the estimated 50,000-plus people who are expected to cross the English Channel in small boats this year. It is one of the five cornerstone goals of Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

A key element of the policy is that any small boat refugee crossing the channel to seek asylum in Britain will be detained for 28 days without access to the law. At the end of that period, if they are not granted asylum, they will be flown to Rwanda or transported back to their home country. There will be no right of appeal and anyone deported will be banned from future asylum applications.

Most legal eagles agree that the proposed law is a breach of the International Convention on Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights which binds the British government to protect people (including refugees) from being killed or subject to inhumane and degrading treatment. It also exposes the Home Secretary to the charge of unlawful imprisonment and the denial of basic legal rights.

In anticipation of these obstacles, Ms Braverman has said that the European Court of Human Rights is “at odds with British values” and the “will of the British people,” thus raising the spectre of British withdrawal. It was British lawyers in the early post-war years who were largely responsible for drafting the European Convention of Human Rights and establishing the court. For their template they used Magna Carta and the 1689 English Bill of Rights with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, the US Bill of Rights and the UN Declaration of Human Rights thrown in for good measure. Ms Braverman would appear to be “at odds” with legal history.

Ukraine

Russian missile attacks on Ukraine reached new levels this week and raised the danger levels at Europe’s largest nuclear reactor at Zaporizhzhia.  The missiles temporarily knocked out the outside power source which was needed to cool the reactors.

Power was restored on Thursday, but this was the sixth time that outside power has been cut off and workers have been forced to switch to emergency diesel generators to protect the reactors. Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN’s International Atomic Entergy Agency, said: “Each time this happens we are rolling the dice. One day our luck will run out.”

He accused the international community of complacency over the fate of the Zaporizhzhia power plant and urged the Russians, Ukrainians and all other interested parties to “commit to protect the supply and safety of the plant.”

Not all, nuclear experts agree with Senor Grossi’s dire warning. Some say that the reactors have been shut down to such an extent that they require little or no power to stay safe. They all agree that the ones in greatest danger are the Russian soldiers guarding the site and the Ukrainians working there.

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Caron Lindsay

Has the BBC been impartial over Lineker?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 11th March 2023 - 12:30 pm

There was a moment last night when I wondered if we were going to see tonight’s Match of the Day presented by Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries after pundits and commenters alike responded to Gary Lineker’s suspension with solidarity.

Gary Lineker is a national treasure and sports presenter. While he is on telly, he talks about football. If he talked about politics, I doubt he’d have the following among football fans that he has. I never watch him because I am not a football fan. However, I have a very positive opinion of him from Twitter, where he has, for years, been chatting away about all sorts of stuff. He wasn’t a fan of Brexit, you know.

Lineker is far from the first BBC star to have political views. One of the first I remember was Kenny Everett, with his Let’s Bomb Russia comments and cruel jibes about Michael Foot back in 1983 at a Conservative Party election event.

And what about Ian Hislop and Paul Merton? They have rarely been complimentary about any Governemnt? Are they next in line for the chop?

When Rishi Sunak tweeted on Tuesday with some pride that he was removing modern slavery protections from people who arrive in this country illegally,  anyone with a commitment to human rights was rightly concerned:

Here was our Prime Minister basically giving a free pass to slavers who could then tell their victims, correctly, that there was no recourse to help. It’s hardly surprising people were angry.

Lineker’s response was strong but justifiably so. He called the Bill:

An immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s

The way in which the Tories have been othering vulnerable members of society, from immigrants to people who need social security to survive to trans people to fat people to those suffering from addictions, disabilities and mental ill health has been of concern for some years. Remember when David Cameron described migrants crossing the Channel as a “swarm?” It’s dehumanising and creates a culture where vulnerable people are seen as a threat and not as fellow human beings just like us. It’s done to set people against each other to distract from a failing government.

Our Tim Farron is both a mad football fan and passionately pro supporting refugees. He tweeted:

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Lord William Wallace

Are we ready to fight the Culture War?

By Lord William Wallace | Sat 11th March 2023 - 10:30 am

Two op-eds in the Sunday Telegraph in recent weeks have hailed Ron de Santis, Governor of Florida and strongest alternative Republican candidate for the US Presidency in 2024 to Donald Trump, as showing the way forward for British Conservatives: to fight the culture war as vigorously as possible. It looks as if the Conservatives are already doing so.

The whole point of culture wars is to distract the attention of voters from economic difficulties and concerns about inequality by attacking ‘the liberal establishment’ which – it is claimed – is betraying the instincts and traditions of ordinary people. Migration, friendliness with foreigners, intellectual sophistication (instead of ‘common sense’ and ‘what you know in your gut’), concerns about diversity, gender, rewriting history and what used to be called political correctness and is now called ‘woke’ make up the mix.

De Santis is a graduate from Yale University, where he now claims that he was ‘taught that communism was superior’, and Harvard Law School, who is now attacking the autonomy of Floridan universities. He’s tightened state laws on abortion, thrown doubt on climate change, resisted the Covid lockdown and removed tax privileges for the ‘woke’ Disney Corporation. That’s the example that many Tory strategists want to follow.

Over the past week we have seen the political technologists of Tory political strategy take over from the reasonable face Rishi Sunak has been presenting. ‘Stop the boats’ is a three-word slogan borrowed from Australia rather than the Trump phrasebook. A ‘new’ deal has been launched which is much the same as last year’s anti-migrant initiative, with no clearer indication of how its targets can be reached or those who manage to reach the UK removed. At Prime Ministers’ Questions on March 8th a ‘red-wall’ Tory MP raised the threat of ‘graphic lessons on oral sex, how to choke your partner and 72 genders’ to children in English schools, and the Prime Minister promised an ‘urgent review’ into sex education. And the following day Conservative HQ circulated a digital message in Suella Braverman’s name blaming “an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour party” for blocking her attempts to stop the flow of undocumented migrants across the Channel.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Adjusting the thermostat

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th March 2023 - 8:33 am

European thermometers dropped this week. But generally speaking it has been a relatively mild winter and temperatures are starting to rise. This is good news for Ukraine. Good news for Europe. Bad news for Russia and great news for America.

Twelve months ago the Western Alliance was seriously worried that Europe’s reliance on Russian gas and oil would render it powerless to stand up to Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The outlook is now considerably brighter. Cash-strapped consumers turned down thermostats. Russian gas supplies have been cut by two-thirds. Nordstream pipelines have shut down (thank you saboteurs whomever you  may be). New storage facilities have been built for liquefied natural gas (LNG). The US has increased its shipments of LNG and Europe is moving faster towards renewable energy sources.

Glitches remain. Landlocked countries such as Austria, Hungary and Slovakia remain heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas and some 20 billion cubic metres (BCM) of Russian gas is still being pumped by pipeline into the EU. Ironically, the pipeline runs through Ukraine. Also, Europeans have increased purchases of Russian LNG, but moves are afoot to reverse that.

The bulk of Europe’s gas is now coming from America. Exports from the US are up 137 percent from a year ago. Companies such as Chevron and Exxon have stepped up fracking operations in Texas, Appalachia, New Mexico and Louisiana. They freeze the gas in terminals and then ship it to Europe. There it is transferred to either newly built storage facilities or specially adapted ships where it is returned to its gaseous state and piped to homes, power stations and factories.

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Mary Reid

Nepotism

By Mary Reid | Fri 10th March 2023 - 11:01 am

I can’t remember an actual case of nepotism – strictly offering a leg-up to one’s nephew – but the spirit of nepotism lives on. The word was coined to refer to the practice of mediaeval popes when they appointed family members, usually nephews, as cardinals.  It is used more broadly today to include family members and friends, although cronyism is a variant that specifically refers to friends and associates.

Donald Trump famously practiced the art and gave White House and advisory posts to members of his own wider family (although he actually denied his nephew essential medical care).

Is there a word for favouring one’s father? Not paternalism, which refers to a benign form of dictatorship. Can we invent one, as it seems to be a thing? Maybe paterism?

Anyone in public office who offers jobs or awards to people close to them can expect to be ridiculed and criticised. This is true even where the recipient genuinely deserves the honour – those decisions should be left to others.

As a councillor I was well versed in the need to declare an interest when a proposal was being discussed.  That would certainly have included instances when members of my family or close friends would have been affected, for better or worse, by the outcome. If in doubt we were encouraged to take advice, if necessary from the Council’s Monitoring Officer (usually the Head of Legal Services). If the interest was substantial or pecuniary then I would remove myself from the debate and not vote. This is standard practice in local government.

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Caron Lindsay

My highlights of International Women’s Day

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 9th March 2023 - 2:11 pm

The internet always goes wild for International Women’s Day. If we thought more of improving women’s lives for the rest of the year, the world would be a much better place for half its citizens. For example, how can you have decent economic growth if women are being forced out of work because of the cost of childcare.

From the Guardian:

Data for 2021 showed the gender pay gap widening four times faster in the UK than the average for the OECD, primarily due to the financial penalty from motherhood.

Larice Stielow, a senior economist at PwC, said: “An 18-year-old woman entering the workforce today will not see pay equality in her working lifetime. At the rate the gender pay gap is closing, it will take more than 50 years to reach gender pay parity.

“The motherhood penalty is now the most significant driver of the gender pay gap and, in the UK, women are being hit even harder by the rising cost of living and increasing cost of childcare.

“With this and the gap in free childcare provision between ages one and three, more women are being priced out of work. For many it is more affordable to leave work than remain in employment and pay for childcare, especially for families at lower income levels.”

That said, here are some of my highlights of yesterday:

Wera calls for misogyny to be made a hate crime.

Predictably the replies are an absolute bin fire.

Later she talked about the importance of understanding the impact of sexual assault on victims:

Gender pay bot

Social media is awash with platitudes from every organisation in the country, trying to show that they are there with the women.  Gender Pay Bot’s Twitter account calls them to account by highlighting their gender pay gap.

Of course all of this is possible because Jo Swinson introduced the legislation requiring companies with more than 250 employees to report on their gender pay gap.

It’s worrying that so many of them are NHS related;

The Daily Express had a gap of 15.7%, although this is down 6.8% in the last year.

Sotheby’s is doing terribly.

Emma Ritch Law Clinic

Some of you may remember Emma Ritch, (pictured here back right) who spoke at our 2018 fringe meeting at Brighton Conference on how Scotland’s feminist and LGBT organisations worked together to help achieve better rights and status for all. She talked about the concept of “radical kindness” which underpinned relations between these organisations – something that we could do with in these awful times.

Sadly, Emma died suddenly in July 2021. She was an outstanding feminist, with the sharpest and wisest of minds, the best sense of humour and a flair for snazzy pencil cases. Scotland misses her a lot. Yesterday, Glasgow University announced that a law clinic, specialising in rape and sexual violence, opening this September would be named for her.

From Glasgow University’s announcement:

As well as offering legal advice, through a specially constituted legal practice unit, the Emma Ritch Law Clinic will offer innovative teaching to students, enabling the next generation of Scottish lawyers to gain critical legal and ethical skills. It will also produce valuable research, providing an insight into the difference that specialist legal advice and representation can make to complainers’ experiences of prosecution, and gather data to better understand why cases might fail to reach, or progress, through the criminal justice system.

The Clinic will also instil awareness of trauma-informed lawyering, and the practice of criminal law, an area with longstanding issues in terms of recruitment and retention.

Engender’s Making work visible

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Neil Stockley

Shirley Williams: Liberal Lion and Trailblazer

By Neil Stockley | Thu 9th March 2023 - 8:55 am

When Shirley Williams died in April 2021, Sir Ed Davey paid tribute to a “a Liberal lion” and remembered her as a “trailblazer” and an “inspiration to millions”. 

There were many other affectionate tributes. Unusually for a politician, Shirley was widely loved during her lifetime. David Steel once described her as “a national treasure, rather like the late Queen Mum”. As a Liberal Democrat icon, she stood alongside Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy.

Shirley Williams was, after all, the most popular of the “Gang of Four” who broke away from Labour in 1981 and formed the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Roy Jenkins and David Owen provided the political weight and gravitas, but Shirley provided the personal warmth and empathy. With her stunning victory at the Crosby by-election in November 1981, she was the first candidate to be elected as an MP under the new party’s banner. “Shirl the Pearl”, as she was known, later became the first president of the SDP. 

Even so, her broad and enduring popularity was, in some ways, remarkable. Shirley last held government office in 1979 –as education secretary in Jim Callaghan’s ill-fated Labour government, from when she was best remembered for expanding the comprehensive school system. She passed up the chance to contest the SDP’s first leadership election in 1982 and lost Crosby the following year, a victim of adverse boundary changes, and never returned to the Commons. 

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Leon Duveen

Democracy in Israel and Palestine

By Leon Duveen | Wed 8th March 2023 - 7:30 pm

If you have been following to news from Palestine & Israel in recent weeks, you will have seen the appalling rise in violence which has left many dead and even more severely injured on both sides.  The violence reached a peak last week with what can only be described as a pogrom carried out by Israeli Settlers on the Palestinian village of Harawa after two young Israelis had been killed by a Palestinian gunman.

This rise in violence is worrying and is no doubt connected with the threats to democracy by the new Israeli Government under Binyamin Netanyahu which includes, for the first time in Israeli history, two far right extremist Parties, the Religious Zionists led by Bezalel Smotrich, and Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) led by Itamar Ben Gvir and also by total lack of democracy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council & President haven’t been held since 2006.

In Israel, as part of the Coalition agreement for the new Israeli Government, Netanyahu is introducing what he calls “Judicial Reforms” that will have the effect of:

  1. severely curtailing Judicial Independence in Israel,
  2. limiting the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to overturn laws passed by the Knesset that that violate fundamental rights protected by Israel’s “Basic Laws”,
  3. dilute the role of the Attorney General in giving legal advice and
  4. give Ministers more powers to act without fear of Judicial Review.

This means that the Israel Judiciary will no longer have a role in containing the excesses of the Government, a Government that seems hell bent on creating an apartheid regime in Occupied Palestine and silencing its critics in Israel.

For the last two months, since the Judicial Reform legislation was published, every Saturday night ten of thousands of Israelis have been taking to the streets in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and many other towns across Israel to protest against these proposals.  Even President Herzog has called for the Government to pause the legislation and reach a compromise with its opponents.  Even here in the UK, Israelis living here have protested outside the Israeli Embassy.  This week, reservist pilots in the Israeli Air Force have refused to attend training days in protest against these “Reforms” and other reservists (and most adults under 45 in Israel are in the reserves) are also refusing to show up for duty.  Many are realising that the Occupation of Palestine is what is destroying democracy in their country.

In Palestine, the lack of any democratic outlet for change is driving many, especially younger Palestinians to support new armed militant groups such as Lion’s Den.  The old guard around Mahmoud Abbas is clinging to power but there is a vacuum behind them. This has allowed the militants groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and now Lion’s Den to try to fill the gap because they see no other obvious possibility for achieving self-determination and statehood.  The Israeli Government hasn’t helped, with its very heavy-handed raids on these militant groups’ safe houses in the Occupied Territories, killing not only members of these groups but also civilians.

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We can’t ignore AI – we should teach it politics

By Andy Boddington | Tue 7th March 2023 - 11:12 am


Embed from Getty Images

On Monday evening, BBC Radio 4 presented a documentary on ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence star of the moment. The programme was partly written by ChatGPT.

I am a fan of AI. It has the potential to transform our access to information, our understanding, our health services and much more. If it would only get it right.

Whether you like the current generation of AI (services like ChatGPT) or not is like Marmite. More on Marmite below.

ChatGPT is good at national party and international politics. But it can be rubbish at a constituency level. Some answers are like a teenager grabbing random books in the library. Some old. Some newer. Some right. Some wrong. Superficially believable results may be completely wrong because I can’t check the “facts” it gives us.

ChatGPT can make serious errors about recent political events, including by-elections. We need to teach AI to get it right to ensure misinformation does spread.

We can’t walk away from AI. The reality is that it is here to stay. You can no more resist it than some early authors resisted word processors and some ledger clerks resisted computers. But we can make it better.

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 6 March 2023 – it’s beginning to feel a lot like Conference…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 6th March 2023 - 8:59 am

It’s been a long time since I attended a Federal Conference, or even a Regional one, in person, and the world feels like a somewhat different place post-COVID. But I don’t have a role or function, and it’ll be nice to simply try to take the pulse of the Party less than two years before a General Election.

I suppose that my key question will be, “does the Party offer a sense that it has a destination in mind?”, and it isn’t clear to me yet that there is one, other than give an impression that we’re better than the Conservatives. That’s a pretty low bar, if we’re being honest.

And yes, I support the Party’s line on the issues it has chosen to feature – river pollution, carers and competence in government are all worthy causes. But are we talking about the issues that engage the wider public? We’re cautious (at best) on Europe, even though it’s now widely acknowledged that the trade barriers between the United Kingdom and its nearby markets are the cause of slower economic growth and thus less resources to share around. We’re keen to offer financial support to those struggling with higher mortgages, heating and food bills. But that’s reactive rather than strategic.

We’ll be talking about a fairer society too, which vaguely troubles me, as fairness is a deeply subjective term, very much an “eye of the beholder” concept. But the motion to be debated on Saturday week does offer some meaningful choices, as long as we campaign on them after they’re adopted. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention Europe at this point…

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Caron Lindsay

Wera Hobhouse calls for action to tackle eating disorders

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 5th March 2023 - 11:15 am

Anyone who has supported a loved one with an eating disorder will appreciate Wera Hobhouse’s tireless efforts to get better support and services for those living with these terrible and distressing conditions.

I know first hand how horrendous it is to watch someone suffering in this way. The agony that my loved one went through will stay with me forever, as will all the related anxiety. And I really appreciated that Wera drew attention to eating disorders in men for that reason.

What made things much worse is that there was so little in the way of practical support available. It is great to know that we have a champion in Parliament who gets this and who is fighting for more.

This Eating Disorders Awareness Week, Wera held a Westminster Hall Debate. She called for action to tackle an epidemic of eating disorders. She asked for a targeted strategy for eating disorders to tackle the waiting times for treatment for children and adults, provide training for health and education staff to recognise the signs that an eating disorder might be developing, earlier intervention and evidence based treatments.

The full text of her speech is below:

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 5th March 2023 - 9:15 am

Northern Ireland

It may be that the British lion may be learning how to wag its Irish tail instead of the reverse. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has negotiated a settlement of the Northern Ireland Protocol which has bedevilled UK-EU and UK-US relations and Britain’s standing in the world since the 2016 Brexit Referendum.

The chief stumbling block has been Northern Ireland’s ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative, ultra-protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). For them Brexit was an opportunity to reverse the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which they never liked even though it ended the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The DUP’s hopes were seemingly dashed by Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit it Done” settlement which moved the UK-EU border to the Irish Sea and left Northern Ireland in Europe’s Single Market and Customs Union. Then faith was restored by Johnson’s threat to withdraw from the agreement he made, damaging relations with the EU; undermining belief in British adherence to international law and, because the US is a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, making an eagerly-sought US-UK trade deal a distant prospect.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has replaced ideologically-driven threats with pragmatic compromise and negotiations and come up with what is called the “Windsor Framework.” It is not perfect. It leaves the EU with a great deal of say in Northern Irish affairs, but is possibly the best deal that could be secured with a weak British hand.

For a start, the Windsor Framework establishes “red and green lanes” for goods entering Northern Ireland from mainland Britain. The green lanes are for goods staying in the province and are customs free. The red lanes for goods transiting on to Eire and are subject to EU tariffs.

Of perhaps greater importance is the sovereignty issue. Disputes will now be discussed by a joint EU-UK consultative body with final arbitration by an independent arbitrator working within the framework of international law. The Stormont Assembly will have a say through a mechanism called “The Stormont Brake”, but this cannot be used for “trivial reasons” and Westminster can veto Stormont.

The “Stormont Brake” can be used if the Assembly is in session. At the moment it is not because the DUP refuses to attend as a protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The DUP has neither accepted nor rejected the “Windsor Framework.” It has said it wants time – lots of it – to consider its options. Sunak has said fair enough. Take all the time you want. But the framework will be approved with or without your support. This is no empty threat. The prime minister has support from the Opposition Labour Party and Liberal Democrats and can easily outvote the DUP and any rebel right-wing Tories.

Covid-19

Donald Trump’s number one conspiracy theory may be right. That is according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.  Covid-19 may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory specialising in coronavirus research. America’s Department of Energy agrees with Christopher Wray and even the World Health Organisation is making noises about reversing its previous position and saying that the claims are worth a fresh investigation.

However, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies continue to report that the most likely scenario is that the virus jumped from animals to humans via the Wuhan food market. The vast majority of the world’s scientists agree with the spooks at Langley, Virginia and the White House says there is no firm proof either way.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese steadfastly maintain that the virus started in animals, not their lab. In fact, some officials have come up with a counter conspiracy claim that the virus was manufactured in a US research facility in Ft. Derick, Maryland and released in Wuhan by American agents.

Beijing is determined to avoid any blame. Not only does it undermine their claims to scientific competency, it also lays them open to lawsuits. Notoriously litiginous Trump has demanded that the Chinese pay $10 trillion and thousands of Floridians have signed up for a class action suit with Miami-based law firm the Bernard Law Group. Of course, the chances of collecting any money is nil.

Whether the virus started in a lab or a bat is important to know. The knowledge will help public health officials to prevent future pandemics. For that reason alone the lack of Chinese transparency is disturbing.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: A Chinese peace

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th March 2023 - 8:55 am

The Chinese Ukrainian peace kite is unlikely to remain aloft for long for several reasons:

  • Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are prepared – yet – to throw in the towel.
  • Vladimir Putin cannot afford failure.
  • Neither Ukraine nor its NATO backers can afford failure.
  • A Chinese brokered peace is unacceptable to the US because it increases Beijing’s position in the world at Washington’s expense.

However, both Volodomyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin will meet President Xiping, foreign minister Wang Yi and any other Chinese emissaries. Zelensky needs to be seen to be willing to talk to keep Beijing from supplying Putin with weapons and Putin must do the same to secure the weapons.

In one sense, the Chinese are the ideal peace brokers. Putin is the aggressor. He is the one who must be persuaded to stand down. The Chinese are the only ones with sufficient leverage over the Russian leader. The Turks have tried and failed. So have the Israelis. The US and its allies have ruled themselves out by supplying weapons to Ukraine.

In the best diplomatic traditions, Beijing’s 12-point proposal manages to annoy both sides in the conflict while at the same time projecting lofty aspirations with the minimum of detail.

The proposal calls for respecting sovereignty. Russia has clearly breached Ukraine’s sovereignty. Abandon the Cold War mentality. This is a state of mind for which both Russia and NATO could be blamed. Protect civilians and POWs. Great, and remember Bucha, Kharkhiv, Mariupol and Kherson. Resolve the humanitarian crisis, which has created 6.8 million Ukrainian refugees. Promote post-war reconstruction which so far is estimated to cost Ukraine $1 trillion. Stop threatening to use nuclear weapons; a threat which only Putin has used. And end unilateral sanctions which means sanctions not approved by the UN and would undermine Western sanctions against China.

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Jack Wilkin

Irredentism: the greatest geopolitical threat of our time

By Jack Wilkin | Fri 3rd March 2023 - 5:15 pm

Today, many countries around the world are nation-states: sovereign political entities in which one “nation” (a particular ethnic, cultural, or linguistic group) comprises a large majority of a country’s population. In a way, it does make sense; after all, it is easier to communicate with people who speak the same language as you. But some issues do arise: what about people groups who fall outside of the “nation”? What if members of your “nation” live outside of your country’s borders? Despots of all creeds have answered these questions with the same response: genocide and irredentism.

Irredentism is defined in the Free Dictionary as “a national policy advocating the acquisition of some region in another country because of common linguistic, cultural, historical, ethnic, or racial ties.”  This is a fair description of Russia’s and China’s “national policy” towards Ukraine (especially Crimea and the other Russian-majority areas of the country) and Taiwan, respectively. Putin has been loudly proclaiming the Russian people’s historical rights and interests in that country whilst denying that the Ukrainians even exist as a distinct people. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China is building up its military to potentially invade the island of Taiwan, which the Beijing government regards as a breakaway province.

Both geopolitical crises have the potential to spiral into a new global conflict, and this threat has historical precedence. Irredentism is the intersection between ethnonationalism and war, as irredentist movements can spiral from a “political talking point” to an invasion.

National unification appeals to people who oppose an irredentist regime, hence irredentism’s political usefulness to dictators. In Russia, for example, Putin’s popularity increased following the annexation of Crimea. Irredentist regimes thrive in an environment of perceived persecution, whether the Germans in the Sudetenland or Russians in the eastern and southern Ukraine, so the irredentist can claim that the invasion of a neighbouring country can be justified as “helping your own”.

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Noel Hadjimichael

Securing a liberal Britain in hard times

By Noel Hadjimichael | Fri 3rd March 2023 - 9:49 am

Getting elected locally, becoming a citizen and living in freedom or security should be tackled in the right order. I just did the opposite. Arriving from Australia as an immigrant in 2016 (pre Brexit), getting elected a Councillor last May and becoming an UK citizen last month was a journey that made me think: how do I as a LibDem contribute to the safety, security and sustainability of our country? There are no easy answers but some clear pointers to what we might need: progressive, practical and patriotic steps to make Britain its liberal best.

I wrote back in March 2022 on LibDem Voice (Defence and Security: at the heart of liberal societies) about a growing think tank based at the National Liberal Club that reaches hundreds across the UK and the world by hybrid talks and expert discussions. I am also an Armed Forces Champion of my Council (shared with a colleague) with responsibility to the whole community. Veterans, serving members, cadets and their families expect all local governments to keep the covenant between community and those who serve.

But that is the smaller arena and the local or narrow pathway.

We as LibDems are at the heart of many national debates on matters of significance: the war in Ukraine, the risk of further Russian aggression, the role of China as a strategic competitor to our internationalist and liberal values for starters. Times have never been harder since the 1980s.

We also remain the voice of many who are deeply disgusted by this shabby Conservative government and are unconvinced by the rising Labour Opposition. Data and polling may suggest that our voters and supporters are well informed, educated and engaged on the big issues – the environment, education, cost of living crisis economics and social justice. But we are also the proud custodians of traditions of liberalism, social democracy and dissenting progressive values that reflect on the defence of the realm, the international order and our broader obligations to allies, partners and neighbours.

The emergence of an associated organisation “LibDem Friends of the Armed Forces” is no surprise. The upcoming debate at York Conference in less than three weeks on an enhanced/evolved defence policy fit for purpose and electorally sound for the times we face is another natural step.

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Caron Lindsay

World Book Day – What are your favourite books?

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 2nd March 2023 - 12:55 pm

Today is World Book Day, a chance to celebrate our favourite books and authors and talk about what we love to read.  So, please use the comments to talk about your favourite political books and those you read for pleasure.

One of the things which upsets me most about Long Covid is that I have been able to read so little for pleasure. Normally I’d read one book a week. Last year,  in total, I read one whole book and two half books.  However, in January alone, I’d already surpassed that. February has not been so good as I’ve been slowly increasing my hours at work which has used up pretty much all my energy.

It’s always good on World Book Day to scroll through social media and see all the children heading off to school dressed up as their favourite character. It’s a testament to the creativity and ingenuity of their parents. All too often they find out at 8pm the night before that such an event is happening and have to magic an outfit out of nowhere.  And as we come up to International Women’s Day next week, it’s worth mentioning that it is likely to be the unseen and under-appreciated work of women that  makes these things happen.

My favourite political book of all time has got to be the memoir of the 1992 US presidential campaign written by James Carville and Mary Matalin. He was Clinton’s campaign director, she was a senior member of the Bush campaign. They fell in love just before the campaign kicked off.  All’s Fair – Love, war and running for President was their hilarious account of that campaign, which shows their eccentricities off at beautifully and is a superb piece of history.

Purple Homicide, by John Sweeney, is a brilliant reminder of one fo the 1997 election’s non Lib Dem highlights. Former BBC journalist  Martin Bell took on Conservative MP Neil Hamilton in an anti-sleaze campaign after Hamilton was implicated in the Cash for Questions affair.  Again, this account is hilarious, getting its title from the “homicidal purple” trousers worn by Christine Hamilton to a dramatic encounter on Knutsford Heath.

Shirley Williams’ autobiography Climbing the Bookshelves is another special book for me. Shirley is one of my political heroes and when I read it I hear the words as she would speak them. From her evacuation across the Atlantic as a child during the war to her election as an MP, to her career as a Labour minister and then with the SDP and Liberal Democrats.

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Massimo Ricciuti

Let’s take a look at the Lib Dems

By Massimo Ricciuti | Thu 2nd March 2023 - 9:42 am

This post was originally published in Italian on 17th February in the daily La Ragione (page 6). We offer you a translation.

The formation of the UK Lib Dems is very interesting. The party is actually very young. It was formed in 1988 from the merger of the traditional Liberal Party with the Social Democrats, a group born in the early 1980s from the split between the reformist and moderate wings of Labour. Thus, from this union that took place during the Thatcher period, a completely new political entity arose in the cultural setting, but also in the political structure.

Agile, mobile, attentive to the movements and moods of every segment of society which in those years was undergoing a great transformation, the new party established itself as a new presence, above all for its roots in the regions. The Liberal Democrats immediately assumed the vocation of embracing the demands that are not limited only to the City. The big idea is not to focus on Westminster, and not restrict itself to established boundaries, geographically and socially.

As a third force in the country, the new party speaks a new language, and makes communication a strong point. It is a place of continuous comparisons, of calling into question certainties, of overcoming ancient belongings and of the ability to bring the kaleidoscopic world of liberal culture to life in a single but multi-facetted entity.

Inform, inform, inform! This is the motto. But also inform itself and citizens every day about what is happening throughout the territory. From Scotland to Wales, but also and above all in every single municipality, every district, town council,  etc. The imperative is to be present everywhere, as much in a community of five hundred inhabitants as in hundreds of thousands.

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Mary Reid

Marriage age raised to 18

By Mary Reid | Wed 1st March 2023 - 6:54 pm

I must admit that I hadn’t been following the process of raising the age of marriage or civil partnership to 18 in England and Wales, so it rather took me by surprise when it was announced that the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 was being implemented on 27th February.  It was introduced as a Private Members Bill by a Conservative MP, supported by the Girls Not Brides Coalition, but quickly gained cross-party support.

We may wonder why such an Act was necessary. After all very few people marry these days in their teens, let alone at 16 or 17.

When I was a teenager I attended a friend’s wedding, when she was just 16. She wasn’t pregnant or forced into the marriage. She later moved away and I lost touch so I have no idea whether the marriage survived. The social and moral context was very different back then – unmarried couples simply did not live together, effective contraception and legal abortion were not available, single pregnant girls were expected to marry or give up their babies for adoption, and sex before marriage, let alone outside it, was socially frowned upon.  In fact, marriage was for many the only way they could enjoy a sex life. It seems like another world!

At that time, the age of majority was 21, so anyone marrying below that age in England or Wales had to have permission from their parents. The rules were different in Scotland so young couples would elope to Gretna Green, just over the border, to get married.

The main intention of the Act is to protect young people from being forced into marriage. There is a wide spectrum of cultural practice, across the world and reflected in the UK, ranging from arranged marriage to forced marriage, sometimes at a very young age.  I can understand why parents might explore their networks, and maybe using a matchmaker, to find a suitable partner for their son or daughter. This may be seen as sensible in a culture where young people have limited opportunities to meet socially, and indeed is not so very different from using a dating app. But most of us would want that to be the potential starting point for a relationship, which either partner could drop out of at any time.

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