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Category Archives: Op-eds

An open letter to Andy Burnham

By Tony Vickers | Tue 21st July 2026 - 4:15 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Dear Andy,

Like you, I’m an advocate of taxing differently, so as to stimulate economic growth in a fair and sustainable way. We shouldn’t be taxing workers and businesses more.

Every Lib Dem Conference I’m there with colleagues promoting “Action on Land-value Tax and Economic Reform (ALTER ).

Along with the late Dave Wetzel, chair of Labour Land Campaign, ALTER helped found the Coalition for Economic Justice (CEJ ) in 2004. CEJ was Secretariat to the APPG on Land Value Capture , chaired by Vince Cable from 2017 and then by John McDonnell.

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Tagged land value taxation | 6 Comments

Four challenges in Andy Burnham’s in-tray

By Callum Robertson | Tue 21st July 2026 - 11:00 am

Embed from Getty ImagesWe have a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who has successfully pulled off a bloodless coup more akin to the Glorious than the French Revolution. However, now he is in office, he cannot escape the reality of four core issues that he will need to fearlessly take on if he is going to get economic growth going again.

Bringing Investment into the UK

In 2025, we had a trade deficit of about £39 billion, this is principally because we import more in goods and services than we export (mainly a deficit in goods and a surplus in services).

We remain an acceptable location for foreign direct investment, however some of the key drivers behind turbocharging Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) include high regulatory burden, trade and tariff risks post-brexit and high levels of tax comparatively to other English language economies.

By easing some regulatory burden on existing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and having an attractive offer such as tax breaks for companies who relocate to the UK for the first 18 months, we could increase income tax revenue, create jobs and increase the corporation tax receipts in the medium term without raising tax.

Additionally, Andy Burnham should not shy away from having the courage to increase market certainty by re-assessing our relationship with the European Union.

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5 Comments

A plea to our new Prime Minister – abolish me!

By Tim Leunig | Tue 21st July 2026 - 9:00 am

It has been a big week for me, personally. On Thursday 16 July, the government announced 26 new members of the House of Lords – and I am one of them: I am to be Lord Leunig. Since it is His Majesty’s Government, the official announcement read “The King has been graciously pleased to signify His intention of conferring Peerages of the United Kingdom for Life upon the undermentioned:”

Sixteen new peers will be Labour, five Liberal Democrat (including me), and three Conservative. These twenty four were nominated by their political parties. The remaining two will be “crossbenchers”, that is, not taking the whip from any political party.

Those numbers: sixteen, five, three and two are entirely, as I understand it, the choice of the PM. He could have created no peers at all, or had a completely different ratio. He could have created peers for other parties, and he could have offered Count Binface a peerage. It really is up to him. (For those wondering why the Conservatives got only three new peers, they have more peers than other parties already: to be honest I am surprised that they were given any.) But either way, it is the PM’s choice. There are currently no Reform Lords, and only two Greens.

The House of Lords is indefensible in so many ways. Once appointed, peers have been appointed for life, although a retirement age of 80 is planned. That means I could be a legislator for almost 25 years – in which time my views could change spectacularly, or my principles lose support in the country. In neither case would I be removed. A side effect is that peers are typically rather old – the majority are over 70, and well over a third are over 80.

Nor is the Lords representative. Whether they win or lose general elections, the Conservative party always has more peers than Labour. No other democracy gives one party the biggest share of legislators, no matter how badly that party does in elections. That is offensive to anyone who calls themselves a democrat.

The Lords are unrepresentative in other ways. Fewer than a third of peers are women. Some political parties do better: 45% of Labour and 43% of Liberal Democrat peers are women, similar to their Commons mix (46% and 44% respectively). In contrast only 29% of Conservative peers are women. More than half of peers attended private schools.

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Tagged andy burnham and house of lords | 2 Comments

Mathew on Monday: Burnham has made a promising start. Now comes the hard part

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 20th July 2026 - 9:00 pm

Andy Burnham’s first speech as the new Prime Minister, outside No.10 Downing Street, earlier today, struck exactly the right tone. After years of political instability, he spoke of restoring trust, rebuilding Britain, devolving power and creating a new economic and political model. It was hopeful, ambitious and refreshingly optimistic.

Britain has been crying out for a politics that inspires rather than merely manages.
One pledge particularly struck me: his commitment to make ending rough sleeping his first instruction as Prime Minister. It speaks to values I share about dignity and compassion. Yet it also comes with a note of caution. Burnham made a similar commitment as Mayor of Greater Manchester, achieving significant early progress before homelessness later rose again amid wider housing pressures. National government gives him more levers than City Hall ever did, but this promise will ultimately be judged on results, not rhetoric.

His reshaping of the Cabinet (from what we know of it as I write) is equally significant. The departure of prominent figures associated with the Starmer era (Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Steve Reed, Peter Kyle etc) signals that this is not intended to be continuity with a different face.

If Burnham genuinely wants a fresh start, he needs ministers who share his vision rather than yesterday’s assumptions.

For all of the excitement of today, however, governments are not remembered for inauguration speeches. They are remembered for what they achieve (or, perhaps more often, what they don’t. Burnham will have a honeymoon, but it may well only be a brief break.

I genuinely hope he succeeds. Britain needs stable, compassionate and effective government. The words outside No.10 were encouraging. The challenge now is turning them into lasting change. That is the test by which this premiership will ultimately be judged.

Where is the anger on Local Government reorganisation?

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Tagged andy burnham, cabinet and mathew on monday | 5 Comments

Orange with Bits

By Brendan Roberts | Mon 20th July 2026 - 3:01 pm

The British political establishment will be pulling off another stunning magic trick. With Sir Keir Starmer’s departure from Downing Street, the Labour Party has crowned its new leader, and Andy Burnham will be going through the black door of 10 Downing Street on a regular basis. The flags will be red, the rhetoric will be unashamedly Labour, and the history books will record it as a victory for the governing party’s soft-left faction.

But if you ignore the partisan badges and look closely at the actual structural blueprint Burnham is bringing from Manchester to Whitehall, a fascinating question emerges: Are we actually about to witness the arrival of the UK’s first Liberal Democrat Prime Minister?

Don’t be fooled by the red tie. Look closely at what Burnham is actually doing, and you see an admission of absolute intellectual bankruptcy from the national Labour Party. Having spent two years in government drifting without a clear ideological anchor, Labour has been forced to commit an act of shameless ideological theft. To save themselves, they have raided the Liberal Democrat policy pantry, stealing the very clothes our party has meticulously tailored for years. Why should voters settle for a pale, focus-grouped imitation when they can have the real thing?

The Stolen Successes: Raiding Our Pantry

Let’s be fair: where Burnham’s platform actually shines, he is simply copying our homework. Take his headline promise to oversee the biggest council and social housebuilding programme since the post-war period. It is a fantastic policy, but it wasn’t invented in Manchester. In the last general election, it was the Liberal Democrats who held the most aggressive, unapologetic housebuilding targets in the country.

The same copycat strategy extends to older voters. Before entering Downing Street, Burnham had been firm on his public commitment to uphold the state pension triple lock despite growing fiscal friction. It is another example of a policy the Liberal Democrats originally created and championed to guarantee community stability. Whenever Labour needs a trusted mechanism to safeguard family incomes and protect vulnerable communities, they have to reach for one of our templates.

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Tagged andy burnham and policy | 5 Comments

If Andy Burnham isn’t the Messiah… Good

By Roz Savage MP | Mon 20th July 2026 - 12:55 pm

“He’s not the Messiah,” a voice from the Conservative benches heckled during Andy Burnham’s swearing-in.

Quite right. Britain doesn’t need another political saviour. We’ve spent far too long investing our hopes in the next charismatic leader, only to discover that no Prime Minister, however capable, can fix our beleaguered country with a laying on of hands.

If I had 15 minutes with Andy Burnham as he crosses the threshold of Number Ten, I wouldn’t expect him to work miracles to rescue Britain. Instead, I’d ask him to help build a Britain that no longer needs rescuing.

1. Redistribute power

Power has been sucked into Westminster and Whitehall for decades. The UK raises less than 6% of tax revenue locally, against an OECD average of 11%; we are the most fiscally centralised country in the G7, and 62% of local government funding comes from Whitehall grants, more than any comparable economy. Since 2010-11, councils’ core spending power has fallen 18% in real terms per person, a cut of almost £14 billion, hitting deprived areas hardest. Too much hinges on who occupies Number 10, because too little power exists anywhere else.

Democratic renewal should be the foundation of any reforming government: proportional representation (49% public support against 26% for first-past-the-post, spanning party lines), cleaner political funding, and devolution that reaches neighbourhoods and communities, not just city halls. Citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgeting and community ownership turn politics from something done to people into something done with them. Liberal Democrats have always understood that freedom is the practical power to shape your own life, not merely freedom from interference.

2. Build a resilient Britain

Our politics has been optimised for growth, as though GDP were the purpose of society rather than simply one measure of its success. Growth matters, but it isn’t enough: an economy can grow while communities weaken, services deteriorate and nature declines. Given the challenges ahead, I would propose a different mission: optimise for resilience.

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Tagged andy burnham | 4 Comments

Vince Cable writes: The rebirth of council housing

By Vince Cable | Mon 20th July 2026 - 8:55 am

One of the few clearly articulated commitments which Andy Burnham has made is “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period”. No sooner had he made the pledge than critics were lining up to pan it. The Economist, far from being Labour’s fiercest critic, described it as “the wrong fix” and the council house system as “wasteful, unfair and a barrier to growth”. Others have dismissed it as impractical, even if desirable, and a throwback to a bygone age.

It is not clear if the Burnham pledge is to use councils – either mayoral combined bodies or single district councils – as developers to boost housing supply of a variety of tenures; or specifically to build and own more houses for – below market -social rent. In the three decades after 1950 local authorities did both, at scale. The high point was 1968 with over 190,000 houses were built, and let, by UK councils and the 1970’s average was 130,000. I was a Glasgow city councillor in the heyday of council house building to replace slum dwellings in the early 1970’s and 5,000 a year was achieved in Glasgow alone (albeit that some were of poor quality and later demolished – like the Red Road development). With the advent of the Thatcher government, council house building largely stopped, 2 million council homes were sold at a discount under the Right to Buy policy and most new ‘social housing’ was provided by non-profit housing associations. In 2025, English councils delivered a mere 1,705 new council houses and started a negligible 300.

Nonetheless, 16% of the total housing stock still consists of social housing.

Much of the criticism of Burnham’s vision is a criticism of social housing. Tenants, who enjoy (implicitly) subsidised rents, are not necessarily in financial need: one third are not judged to need welfare benefits with a small number -usually well publicised in the popular press – enjoy relatively high incomes. There can be indefinite tenure and, in some instances, inheritance. Most council tenants are in a more favourable position than those who rent privately, often with insecure short-term tenancies, and – if they can find a landlord willing to house benefit recipients- rely on far-from-generous housing benefit ( capped by local Housing Allowance). And there are growing numbers of homeless in temporary accommodation or shipped out to councils with housing surpluses, far from work and family support networks. Such invidious comparisons do not however mean that we should have less social housing. Rather, more. Without more social housing, families on low and unstable incomes are forced out of more prosperous areas, where there is work; there is a rise in homelessness; and villages die for lack of trade and tradesmen. At the same time, rents can rise, gradually, to reduce the subsidy element (with housing benefit for those in need) and the option of sale is available for those who are able to progress to ownership.

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Tagged featured, housing and social housing | 13 Comments

Britain should confront history honestly, not selectively

By Gavin Stollar | Sun 19th July 2026 - 8:59 pm

Alex Cole-Hamilton’s recent article on LDV is right about one thing: Palestine should be run by Palestinians. Israelis, likewise, should determine their own future in peace and security. But that aspiration is not advanced by presenting a highly selective reading of history that assigns Britain primary responsibility for a century of conflict while overlooking the choices made by Palestinian leaders and the wider Arab world.

The central premise of his article is that Britain deliberately prevented Palestinian self-determination and that today’s conflict flows principally from decisions taken during the Mandate. That is a powerful political narrative. It is also an incomplete and misleading one.

The Balfour Declaration did not promise a Jewish national home in a political vacuum. It also committed Britain to safeguarding the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. It reflected international recognition, later endorsed by the League of Nations, that the Jewish people had legitimate national aspirations in their historic homeland alongside the rights of the Arab population. The tragedy of the Mandate was not simply British policy. It was the failure of successive leaders on all sides to embrace compromise.

Alex Cole-Hamilton argues that Britain denied Palestinians democratic representation. Yet he overlooks the repeated rejection by Arab leaders of proposals that would have created Arab and Jewish states living side by side. The Peel Commission in 1937 and the UN Partition Plan in 1947 both offered opportunities for two states. Neither was accepted by the Arab leadership. Those decisions, no less than Britain’s actions, shaped the decades that followed.

His call for Palestine to be run by Palestinians also raises an important contemporary question. Mahmoud Abbas is now in the twenty-first year of what was intended to be a four-year presidential term. Palestinians have not elected a president since 2005 or a legislature since 2006. The absence of democratic accountability within the Palestinian Authority cannot simply be attributed to Britain or to Israel. Indeed, this underlines the importance of the Liberal Democrats’ long-standing support for free and fair Palestinian elections as an essential step towards establishing democratic legitimacy, strengthening accountable institutions, and creating the conditions for a lasting two-state peace.

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Tagged Alex Cole-Hamilton and palestine | 15 Comments

An early win for affordable housing – now let councils build

By Victor Chamberlain | Sun 19th July 2026 - 11:32 am

Less than two months into Southwark’s new Liberal Democrat-Green Joint Administration, we’ve secured an encouraging early win.

One of our first decisions was to support the legal challenge against the Mayor of London’s proposal to reduce the affordable housing threshold from 35% to 20%. That proposal has now been dropped. It is welcome news for everyone who believes London’s housing crisis will not be solved by making fewer homes affordable.

For us, this was about more than planning policy. It was about what kind of politics we want to practise.

Southwark faces one of the most acute housing crises in the country. Thousands of families remain on the housing waiting list. Thousands more are living in temporary accommodation. Young people who grew up here increasingly cannot afford to stay. Key workers are being priced out of the communities they serve.

Against that backdrop, reducing expectations for affordable housing was never the answer.

That doesn’t mean opposing development. Quite the opposite.

Liberal Democrats should be unapologetically pro-development. We need significantly more homes. We need private investment. We need housing associations, SME builders, institutional investors and especially councils all playing their part in increasing supply.

But development should be a means to deliver better communities, not an end in itself.

Too often, housing debates become polarised between those who oppose development altogether and those who argue that any development is good development. Neither reflects the challenge we face.

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Tagged featured, housing, liberal democrat councillors, Local government, southwark and victor chamberlain | 4 Comments

Defining our future in Burnham Britain

By Gareth McAleer | Sat 18th July 2026 - 10:42 am

British politics has been reshaped. Andy Burnham has consolidated the centre left, pushed Reform to the margins and made a progressive coalition government the new baseline. The right is fragmented and unable to command a majority. In this new landscape, the Liberal Democrats face a simple but brutal question: will we be the kingmakers who define the next era, or the footnote that history barely records?

Current polling points to three possible futures. The difference between them is not fate. It is choice.

The first future is collapse. If we enter the next general election without bold, memorable policies, with weak national leadership and no clear position on rejoining the EU, we risk falling back to around 12 seats. In this scenario, Burnham’s Labour consolidates the progressive vote in urban and suburban seats. The Conservatives recover enough in the Blue Wall and rural constituencies to win back many of our 2024 gains. We are left with a handful of ultra Remain, highly educated seats, clinging to relevance as a token junior partner in any coalition. Our brand is shattered, our leverage is minimal and our voice is drowned out.

The second future is survival. If we run a competent but unexciting campaign, we end up with roughly 55 seats. Burnham’s Labour continues to surge, reaching around a third of the national vote and becoming the largest party by a clear margin. Much of that gain comes at our expense and from the Greens, especially in London, the South East and university towns. We hold many of our 2024 gains but lose ground where Labour re establishes itself as the default progressive choice. We remain the second largest force in a progressive coalition, but we are weakened. We can extract concessions on local government, education and some environmental policies, but we cannot dictate the direction of travel on Europe, tax or public services. We are relevant, but not decisive.

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Tagged andy burnham and party strategy | 18 Comments

Andy Burnham – new messiah or naughty boy?

By Mark Hunter | Fri 17th July 2026 - 7:19 pm

I worked with Andy Burnham as a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for three years, so am perhaps uniquely placed to offer a personal perspective on what his super-charged run for No.10 means for us Liberal Democrats. As leader of Stockport Council 2022-2025, I was one of ten council leaders (nine Labour and me!) who formed Burnham’s cabinet and met regularly under his chairmanship, arguably putting me in a good position to judge what makes him tick.

The first thing to understand is that he is a skilled and collegiate operator with an easy, friendly manner on a one-to-one basis. Burnham is not a tribal politician in the traditional sense, and I was often able to joke with him that he and I had a more positive relationship than the one he enjoyed with his many Labour Party colleagues in Greater Manchester. It’s also true that we were friendly when we both previously served in Westminster, football banter often the subject of conversation in the tearoom queue.

However, underneath Andy’s benign exterior is a steely and ambitious politician who it would be unwise to underestimate. His tact and diplomacy, often deployed to full effect, can be impressive at close quarters. He is also backed by a capable and experienced team of close advisors who will serve him well as he makes his bid for power. It was always clear to many of us that he missed being at the heart of government. Therefore, it was no great surprise when he began manoeuvring to return to the House of Commons.

It would be fair to say that here in Stockport we enjoyed a mostly positive relationship with him during his time as Mayor of Greater Manchester. For example, our multi-million-pound town centre regeneration scheme was largely driven by the creation of the first Mayoral Development Corporation in the whole of Greater Manchester which couldn’t have happened without his patronage. While this did provide a unique advantage in attracting interest from developers and investors, a bi-partisan approach was also considered a key element of our success in transforming the town centre. The results are clear, with Stockport now attracting national recognition for its achievements.

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“Palestine should be run by Palestinians” so why won’t Britain reckon with what it did?

By Alex Cole-Hamilton | Fri 17th July 2026 - 5:12 pm

In the past year Britain has recognised Palestinian statehood, sanctioned violent settlers and extremist ministers, and committed £10 million to support Palestinian Authority frontline services.

However, one line in Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper’s recent statement caught my attention. Discussing Palestinian governance, she said simply: ‘Palestine should be run by Palestinians.’ She is right but the problem is that Britain spent three decades ensuring that this did not happen. When Britain controlled Palestine between 1917 to 1948, the rights of Palestinians were not accidentally overlooked but rather deliberately set aside. Britain has never acknowledged that suffering nor how the methods of control and coercion it implemented laid the groundwork for many of the ills perpetrated by the Israeli government today.

This is the central question that the Britain Owes Palestine campaign has placed before the Government in a legal petition drafted by leading KCs and historians.

The petition sets out a disturbing history absent from the wider public consciousness. In 1917 The Balfour Declaration committed Britain to supporting a Jewish national home in a land that was over 90 percent Arab, without the consent of those who lived there. In the decades that followed, Britain denied the Palestinian majority any meaningful democratic voice.

The UK’s failure to advance conditions for a two-state solution before the end of the Mandate laid the groundwork for decades of violence.

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Tagged palestine | 16 Comments

You can’t defend your way to a World Cup… or No. 10

By Tom Reeve | Fri 17th July 2026 - 9:04 am

On Wednesday night England went 1-0 up against Argentina, retreated to protect the lead, and lost 2-1. We invited the pressure, the pressure kept coming, and eventually it went in. Twice. On Saturday England play France for third place, the fixture nobody dreams about.

I couldn’t stop thinking about our party.

We are 1-0 up. Seventy-two seats, our best result in a century, net gains in eight straight rounds of local elections. And the draft party strategy now heading to conference reads like a team protecting a lead. It even talks about consolidating our “fortresses”. Parties that think in fortresses have stopped playing in the other half of the pitch.

Defence matters; ask any incumbent MP. But if defence is all you’ve got, it’s a strategy for losing slowly. In politics, attack means having something to say. Ask a Liberal Democrat what we’d do for pubs and you’ll get a decent answer: exempt hospitality from the National Insurance rise. High streets: cut VAT for cafés and back independent shops. Farmers: a billion more for environmental land management.

Now ask what we’d do about the economy. Watch the pause. That pause is our missing attack.

Some will say we’ve fixed it. In February, Daisy Cooper launched Get Britain Growing Again and a plan to break up the Treasury into a Department for Growth. Good; it was refreshing to hear a frontbencher talking about the economy at all. But when the country asked what we’d do about the economy, our answer was to redraw the Whitehall org chart. A department is a means, not a story. Nobody on a doorstep says “I’m worried about the machinery of government”. They say the rent, the bills, the wages.

We’ve been here before

In 2021, Conference passed a strategy promising to develop “a compelling and distinctive political narrative” with “emotional as well as rational appeal”. Five years and a record election win later, the 2026 draft promises, almost word for word, the same thing. We are pledging, for the second strategy running, to work out what to say. The consultation found members’ biggest worry is that voters don’t know what we stand for. The strategy’s answer is a communications plan. But you cannot communicate an answer you don’t have.

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Tagged economy and party strategy | 10 Comments

The financing timebomb in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Britain should do — and isn’t

By Rupinder Singh | Thu 16th July 2026 - 8:07 pm

The IMF recently highlighted a 25% cut in aid to Sub-Saharan Africa — largely, but not solely, driven by Trump’s dismantling of USAID. The UK’s own cuts echo a wider trend: aid is being redirected, relabelled under different expenditure lines or simply eliminated as defence spending and domestic social security demands crowd it out. Some of those cuts exposed genuine waste. But the scale is not sustainable — particularly for fragile low-income states where aid accounted for up to 6% of GDP. For them, this is potentially brutal.

Aid remains a fiscal lifeline for millions. It is also in our own interest to help stabilise these economies and their health systems – a simple point not rammed home to our British electorate: the ongoing Ebola outbreak in DRC and migration flows from the Horn of Africa — amidst unresolved conflicts — are a reminder of what happens when that financial lifeline frays. Disease and displacement do not respect borders. The contagion risk to richer countries is real and potentially rapid.

The immediate fiscal fallout

Countries relying on aid to fund healthcare and education face a stark choice: borrow, cut, or collapse basic services. For war-torn or post-conflict states such as South Sudan, there is no good option.

Tax collection is weak because state capacity is weak — and because in too many cases, key extractable sectors like oil have become private ATMs for a ruling kleptocratic elite. That is not a comfortable thing to say in polite development circles. But it is true, and any serious discussion of aid reform has to start there rather than talk around it.

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Tagged sub-saharan africa | 6 Comments

William Wallace writes: The case for higher taxes

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 15th July 2026 - 11:55 am

Liberal Democrats believe in a limited state and a market economy. We are naturally cautious about how much of the economy should be taken by the state. Our party started out strictly opposed to high taxes: ‘peace, retrenchment and reform’. But the largest share of 19th century central taxation went on the army and navy, and Liberals opposed imperial expansion and geopolitical strategy. At the local level Liberals taxed and spent, on the ‘municipal socialism’ of water, public health, gas, electricity and transport, against Tory opposition. From W. E. Forster’s Education Act onwards, Liberals committed government to spend on improving the opportunities and welfare of British citizens; and under Keynes the party also committed to investment in public infrastructure and the promotion of economic growth. We have even fought an election campaign, in 1997, on a commitment to raise income tax, against comments from Labour strategists to our manifesto team that ‘no-one will ever vote for a party that wants to raise taxes.’

Again in 2024, Labour campaigned cautiously on a manifesto that committed to holding down the three most important revenue-raising taxes, in spite of recognising the enormous backlog of public investment that had built up since 2008 and the challenges of our ageing society and rapid technological change. The two years since then have further exposed the neglect of our armed services in the face of rising foreign threats and an unstable world. The Conservative Party denies that there is a serious problem, and is still calling for tax cuts, suggesting that welfare spending that rose sharply when it was in government can be cut back enough to fund stronger defence at the same time. Burnham’s government thus faces some hard choices. Either it cuts back again on public investment and research and development, as well as squeezing welfare, or it raises taxes to fund both stronger defence and rebuilding our economy.

How should we react, as a responsible opposition party? The easiest line would be to attack Labour for betraying their manifesto, without saying what we would recommend instead. The Tories have adopted a radically economic liberal line, assuming that the market will sort most things out and that cutting public spending – after 35 years of privatization and austerity (yes, the Blair Government did not entirely break with the Thatcherite model) – will leave more space for entrepreneurs to flourish. But the free market model is now questioned even in the USA, while the hybrid Chinese model of market and state capitalism has unbalanced the global economy, ‘Geoeconomics’ – the combination of political, industrial and economic objectives in state strategies, coherently in China and incoherently in the USA – has overturned many of the assumptions of economic globalization, strengthening the case for participation within a regional confederation, the EU, capable of bargaining with both.

Accepting the case for higher taxes now does not mean rolling over into uncritical support for the government. It recognises that the country has to spend more on defence – not on more aircraft carriers or F-35 interceptors, but learning the lessons of the Ukraine war, sharing security with our neighbours and investing in homeland defence. We should be calling for a major programme of tax reform, to sort out the horrifying complexity of our tax code and the loopholes it contains. We should support welfare reform, under careful parliamentary scrutiny, recognising that housing allowances can only be brought down if more social housing is built and that paths to training and employment are vital elements in reducing the number of young people not in employment, education or training.

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Tagged featured, social liberal economics and taxation | 32 Comments

“I’ve worked with Andy Burnham. There is much to look forward to”

By NewsHound | Wed 15th July 2026 - 10:37 am

An interesting perspective on working with Andy Burnham comes from former Special Adviser to Nick Clegg Shabnum Mustapha. Shabnum advised Nick on Scotland media matters during the coalition years.

In 2019, she moved to Manchester to take up a job with the Greater Manchester Authority as Assistant Director of news and media. She writes about how then Mayor Andy Burnham, before he was King of the North and Future PM, operated:

My experience of working with him is that he gets things done. He has a strong work ethic, he’s very driven and he’s ambitious about what he wants to deliver. For those of us who had to get on and do the delivering, it could be tough with long hours, and we were being constantly stretched to go further and faster. However, Burnham’s strength is that he keeps people motivated, he takes people on the journey with him, and he always went out of his way to thank and acknowledge colleagues for their work.

He’s likeable and he makes people feel that he’ll stand up for them which is why the showdown during Covid resonated with a lot of people outside of Greater Manchester and led to the moniker “King of the North”. He reminds me of the late Charles Kennedy who had the charm to put people at ease, he could speak human and he had the ability to transcend party politics.

He also has a bit of Vince Cable about him. Having worked for both, I never knew what they were going to say in a speech until they said it because they didn’t use notes. It may sound like I’m a Burnham fangirl but I’m not. I’m actually a card-carrying member of the Liberal Democrats and I worked as a political adviser to Nick Clegg when he was Deputy Prime Minister during the coalition years.

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Tagged andy burnham and shabnum mustapha | Leave a comment

Mathew on Monday: Ann Widdecombe, robust debate and the need to disagree agreeably

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 13th July 2026 - 5:30 pm

I disagreed with Ann Widdecombe on almost everything. Most fundamentally, I profoundly opposed her views anti the rights of LGBT+ people, which I regarded as illiberal and deeply hurtful.

Yet politics is rarely as simple as agreement and disagreement.

I first interacted with Ann Widdecombe twenty years ago when she was a Tory MP and I was a local radio reporter in the Midlands and I interviewed her down the line about an event she was due to be attending at Coventry Cathedral. More recently, I had the pleasure (and, I’ll admit, slight dread) of debating her live on GB News this past April. On neither occasion did we see the world through the same political lens, but I respected her who someone who held her values and principles deeply (as I do mine).

She held strong views and expressed them forcefully, but it was rarely if ever personal. We argued our respective cases and then moved on as human beings. There is a lesson in that, one which seek to give voice to in the podcast I co-host (with a former Tory advisor), Political Frenemies, where we debate robustly but remain friends at the end. That is how our politics should always be.

As I said on GB News earlier today, Ann Widdecombe was that rare and very special thing in politics: authentic. Utterly herself. She said what she meant, and she meant what she said. Whether you agreed with her or not, there was never any doubt that she believed every word. No ducking and weaving needed, like other politicians, to get through the day or the latest media interview.

At a time when our politics can feel increasingly performative, over-managed and tribal, that authenticity stood out. I respected it, even when I fundamentally rejected the conclusions to which it led her. To think that her life has allegedly been taken by another is beyond horrifying. It is a tragedy that transcends politics and demands our shared humanity.

My thoughts and prayers are with Ann Widdecombe’s family, her many friends and all those mourning her.

Rest in power.

Four years on, still fighting for Mum

Yesterday marked four years since my beloved mum, Jackie, died, just two days after waiting eleven agonising hours for an ambulance following a fall at home. Those long hours, watching the person I loved most in the world, in pain and without dignity while desperately waiting for help, will stay with me forever.

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Tagged ann widdecombe, football and NHS | 6 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th July 2026 - 10:30 am

NATO

The NATO summit was a wild diplomatic roller coaster ride. But then, how could it be otherwise with President Donald J. Trump in attendance.

Ankara was another example of his negotiating style: Start with the maximalist position delivered in the loudest and most belligerent style and then gradually back away from that and claim a happy agreement which is probably nowhere near the truth.

Trump arrived demanding Denmark give him Greenland. If the Danes refused, he would withdraw all US troops from Europe. He also said that the US was ending all trade with Spain because of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s refusal to let Trump use American airbases for attacks on Iran, or even to allow him to use Spanish airspace. Finally, he attacked Iranians “as vicious scum” and again criticised NATO allies for refusing to help him in the Middle East.

It didn’t work. Denmark, backed by the rest of the alliance, stood firm on Greenland and the Europeans are turning a deaf ear and blind eye to his rants about Iran. Trump started the war. He can finish it.

Spain is more interesting. US companies have billions invested in Spain and the trade between the two countries runs into billions more. Ending trade is not that simple and is self-defeating. Trump has instructed lawyers to come up with a plan. They will likely come up with some form of selective tariffs, but even that is difficult because of Spain’s membership of the EU.

What Trump achieved in Ankara was more headlines that he thinks made him look good for his MAGA base. What the rest of the Alliance achieved is confirmation that they are right to increase defence spending; become less dependent on American-built weaponry; become politically more independent of America and to continue to work towards becoming a separate Western political pillar supported by their own military-industrial complex.

Ukraine

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky went to Ankara hoping to buy more American Patriot missile systems. He left with a licence to manufacture them.

For months Donald Trump’s approach to Ukraine has been characterised by pressure on Kyiv. He has attacked Zelensky, paused aid, presented himself as the equidistant honest broker between Russia and Ukraine when he was leaning heavily towards Russia.

Then came Ankara. Trump publicly praised Zelensky. He spoke of his “very good relationship” with the Ukrainian leader. And then…Trump presents Ukraine with the gift of the license to manufacture Patriot air defence missiles in Ukraine.

Ukraine now ceases to be merely a consumer of Western weaponry (although its drone manufacturers were also steering Ukraine towards weapons independence) and becomes a producer of Western weapons. The licence to produce inside Ukraine also means that replacement missiles and components can be manufactured and moved more quickly to the frontline.

The license also represents another step towards integrating Ukraine into the Western defence-industrial base without having to grant it NATO membership.

But why the change in Trump’s policy? Mainly because the gods of war are starting to move to Ukraine’s side. For years, Vladimir Putin had Trump convinced that he was “holding the cards” in the Ukraine war. That there was no way that the Russian steam roller could lose.

Ukraine is not winning. But neither is it losing. The Russians continue to throw waves of suicidal attacks against a seemingly impenetrable Ukrainian frontline. Meanwhile the Ukrainians have started to score points with long-range drone attacks on Russian oil installations and factories.

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Tagged 2026 world cup, donald trump and ukraine | 2 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Visions of America

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th July 2026 - 10:25 am

For those who looked carefully, there were two contrasting visions of America at its 250th birthday. Each was presented by a prominent American and could not have been more different.

The first Is Donald Trump’s America First vision. This is an America where immigrants are not only refused entry but are rounded up by armed agents; sent to overcrowded detention camps and deported. It is vision which is viewed through the narrow lens of American nationalism.

The second was rooted in the idea that America has a responsibility beyond its borders—a universal vision which is closely linked to immigration, human dignity and the belief that America’s ideals belong to everyone, not just Americans.

The universalist vision was expounded by another prominent American, Pope Leo XIV. The pope was invited to Washington for the 4th of July celebrations. He declined the invitation. The Vatican has never explained why the pope declined, but some papal observers have speculated that Leo was concerned that his visit would be used for political purposes supporting Donald Trump.

Pope Leo did, however, visit via video link the day before the big day. On July 3rd, he was presented via Zoom link with the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia. The medal is presented annually to the individual whose “courage and conviction” has done the most to advance the cause of liberty around the world. The centre is strictly non-partisan, and former recipients have included Volodymyr Zelensky and the Dalai Lama

In his acceptance speech, Pope Leo was careful to echo the centre’s non-partisan tradition. He did not criticise the administration. He did not mention Trump’s name. He did not call for open borders. However he did express the hope that America would remain “ever true to the dream that has earned it the title of land of the free and home of the brave.”

He also praised the Declaration of Independence whose ideals he hoped would remain “a guiding light for the present moment and for the years to come.” Finally, the pope said that America had become a “byword for freedom” because of the way the country had welcomed successive generations. And he urged Americans to remain faithful to that tradition.”

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Championing stronger AI resilience: Take-away from ALDE Congress 2026

By Larry Ngan | Thu 9th July 2026 - 10:04 am

ALDE Congress is the largest gathering of our party members alongside our European sister parties. The Liberal Democrats delegation was at the heart of Europe in Vienna last weekend. First, we got most of the resolutions we had cooperated on in the previous months passed. Moreover, Baroness Smith was elected as the ALDE Vice President.

While interacting with our European sister parties as the chairs of both the Liberal International British Group and the Lib Dems Friends of Hong Kong, I brought up interesting discussions on AI and especially how younger generations use such technology to engage in politics. AI and digital technologies have been used to challenge authoritarian regimes while allowing democracy activists to reduce their physical exposure in countries such as Belarus and Russia.

But given democracy campaigns have now engaged the use of AI, what is our commitment to AI resilience?

What shifts are needed in the EU’s economic model to create a more favourable environment for the AI industry to grow? You can read my summary of the resolution – ‘Building European Technology Sovereignty for Democratic Resilience’ here.

This is the resolution European governments need. I have long advocated that the EU needs to build up its resilience in the IT sector under the current chaotic geopolitical environment. The vulnerabilities posed by a potential US ‘kill switch’, geographically concentrated AI infrastructure, and reliance on US-led payment systems have been exposed by the Trump administration. Worse, Trump has used Europe’s vulnerabilities as leverage in negotiations, often to Putin’s advantage.

However, while I am glad to see the overwhelming support among our European sister parties, I am frustrated because our party lacks momentum on policy on AI and Cloud infrastructure, and other technical details.

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Tagged ALDE, ALDE congress and artificial intelligence | 1 Comment

Introducing The Grimond Society

By Jack Meredith | Wed 8th July 2026 - 10:01 am

Embed from Getty Images
Last week, a comment appeared under my last LDV piece from Dennis Delice, in which he said he would be interested in an internal party group focused on furthering the case for economic democracy by encouraging a more co-operative and mutualistic economy. After reading it, I got in touch with Dennis via LinkedIn, and within a few hours, we had brought the idea to life.

The Grimond Society launched on Thursday, 2 July, to put economic democracy at the heart of Liberal Democracy policy.

We named it after Jo Grimond because this was the same cause he championed over six decades ago. He wanted workers to stand alongside shareholders in company law, praised employee mutuals long before they were fashionable, and helped found Job Ownership Limited; the forerunner of today’s Employee Ownership Association.

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The proud independence of the Isle Of Man

By Paul Walter | Tue 7th July 2026 - 10:27 am

Recently I had the great thrill of visiting the Tynwald – the Isle Of Man’s parliament.

The Isle Of Man is, of course, proudly a separate nation – a self-governing British Crown Dependency. Jersey has the same status, but there is something a little more accentuated about the Isle Of Man’s independence – the distinctive flag with the motto of the three legs, which is seen everywhere; much evidence of a separate historical narrative etc.

So, it was worth visiting the island just because of its independent status.

The Tynwald tour was very interesting – we were told about the make up of the tri-cameral system with its lack of party politics.

We were allowed to sit in the speaker’s chair in the House of Keys and I took the liberty of handling the gavel for my photo (see above).

We were reminded of the independence of the Isle Of Man because, when we were there, the last amendments to the Assisted Dying Bill were passed, reading for the bill to be given royal assent.

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Mathew on Monday: Carl Cashman is a Liberal Hero – and his critics would love his media reach

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 6th July 2026 - 7:00 pm

There has been no shortage of criticism directed at Carl Cashman over the past few days following his appearance as the cover star of Attitude magazines Pride edition. Yet, looking at much of the reaction, I cannot help but conclude that there is more than a hint of the green-eyed monster at work.

The truth is that many of those complaining would love to have Carl’s reach, his charisma and his ability to connect with audiences far beyond the traditional Liberal Democrat bubble. His interview is an excellent one. He speaks about the importance of promoting positive masculinity to young men, something desperately needed in an era when too many are being lured towards toxic online influences. He stands unapologetically alongside trans people at a time when far too few politicians – sadly, even within our own party – seen prepared to do so publicly. He criticises former leader Tim Farron’s stance on gay sex after losing the leadership, reflects honestly on the shortcomings of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat 2010-15 Coalition government, and consistently roots his politics in the liberal belief that individuals should be able to live their lives without unnecessary interference as long as doing so doesn’t stop others from doing the same.

That is liberalism with conviction.

When I sat down with Carl in Liverpool late last year for what became the first longform interview that he gave – available in three parts on this site – I came away convinced that his political future looked to be exceptionally bright. Nothing that has happened since has changed that judgement. If anything, it had reinforced it.

Of course Carl is undeniably photogenic. Politics has always rewarded people who communicate visually as well as verbally. But reducing his success to his appearance misses the point entirely.

The real reason he is becoming such an effective communicator is that he does not look, sound or behave like what many peoplr imagine a Liberal Democrat politician to be. He reaches parts of the electorate that the rest of us often struggle to engage. He’s authentic, comfortable in his own skin and able to communicate liberal values in a language that resonates well beyond Westminster or party conference. That is a gift.

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Tagged carl cashman, heatwave, leadership, max wilkinson and publicity | 4 Comments

Welcome to my day: 6 July 2026 – a nation dares to dream?

By Mark Valladares | Mon 6th July 2026 - 11:44 am

We don’t often “do sport” here at Liberal Democrat Voice – perhaps a reflection of the Editorial Team’s interests – but it would seem strange not to mark last night’s extraordinary events in Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium where an English team put up one of its most memorable performances to win 3-2 against Mexico.

From an English Nationalist (a.k.a. Reform) perspective, it’s obviously a mixed blessing. England win – good – but with a team mostly consisting of people whose families would be on the next available plane out if they could gain power at the next election.

I’d argue though that …

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Tagged ALDE congress, FIRC, football and julie smith | 12 Comments

The Jenkinsite Policy Network present a new vision for British liberalism

By Rosemary Runswick | Sun 5th July 2026 - 1:15 pm

In March this year we announced the Jenkinsite Policy Network after a members vote, and though it has taken longer than any of us expected, we have finally gotten to the stage where we can announce our statement of intent! The statement was drafted by myself, Andy Chandler and Mathew Hulbert (of Matthew on Monday fame) and is intended to set out the principles of Liberal Social Democracy that will inform the policies we intend to push going forward.

We have done this with the aim of …

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Tagged jenkinsite policy network | 14 Comments

Observations of an Expat: I am an Immigrant

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th July 2026 - 10:03 am

I am an immigrant. I emigrated from the United States to the United Kingdom on the 12th of December 1971.

I had studied for a year in Britain 18 months before and fell in love with the country and one of its citizens and moved back despite the dreary weather and traffic jams.

I did not flee a Middle Eastern War. I did not turf up at Heathrow claiming political persecution. I did not risk my life to cross the English Channel in freezing weather. Nor was I fleeing from poverty or conflict. In fact, if I had stayed in America I would probably be enjoying a comfortable country club existence.

Nevertheless, I feel an affinity with African, Asian, Hispanic, or any person from any race or country who left their homeland to seek a new life. It is not easy to leave the safety net of cultural familiarity, family and friends.

If you are born to a country your acceptance is automatic. As an immigrant you have to constantly prove your worth and justify your decision to uproot your entire life and start afresh. At the end of the day, you, more than a native-born person must feel that you have contributed something.

I feel I have succeeded. I started an international news agency which launched the careers of well over a hundred journalists. My children are all a credit to me as are the 200 boys—many of them now young men– who have passed through my scout group over the past 25 years.

I am not boasting. In fact, I don’t regard myself as particularly unusual. Immigrants in every country have outstanding records of contributing to their adopted homelands.

Think about it. By their very nature immigrants have proven through their actions that they are risk takers. They are adventurers. They are focused, determined and prepared to work hard to achieve their aims. Such people are assets to any community lucky enough to have them.

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Tagged immigration | 13 Comments

Liberalism must mean something again

By Stephen O'Brien | Fri 3rd July 2026 - 5:06 pm

I have been a Liberal Democrat, and part of the wider liberal tradition, for my entire adult life. I believe there has rarely been a more important time for liberal politics to be at the forefront of British public life.

Yet too often, our party seems more comfortable talking about blocking 16 and 17-year-olds from social media than trusting the same young people we have long argued should have the right to vote.

That matters.

Liberalism is not meant to be timid. It is not meant to chase every passing moral panic. It is not meant to dress itself up as small-c social conservatism in the hope that people who do not share our values might suddenly decide to vote for us. They will not. Worse than that, it risks alienating the very people who naturally look to a liberal party for leadership, courage and principle.

In 2024, the Liberal Democrats got the campaign right. We returned to Parliament in significant numbers, and that achievement should not be dismissed. It was a remarkable electoral success.

But what have we done with it?

We have gone from being a party that once had a huge impact on British politics to one that too often seems willing to support almost anything if it gets a cheap headline. For a party with our history, that is not good enough.

We are the party of Gladstone, Lloyd George, Grimond, Ashdown and the long liberal tradition of reform, liberty, internationalism and individual freedom. Yet today, too many people remember us less for bold liberal ideas and more for stunts. That should worry every single one of us.

For me, the problem is simple: we are missing the moment, and in doing so we are forgetting our purpose.

The Liberal Democrats should be the party of liberalism. That means defending civil liberties, trusting individuals, challenging the overreach of the state, standing up for democratic reform, protecting human rights, and being radical where the country needs radical answers.

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Tagged liberalism | 11 Comments

Andy Burnham has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew British democracy. He should take it.

By Roz Savage MP | Thu 2nd July 2026 - 5:37 pm

On Monday I had lunch with an American friend who was visiting London. I mentioned that later that day I was co-sponsoring an event in Parliament with Labour MP Clive Lewis on the subject of defending UK democracy.

Her expression changed immediately. “Please,” she said, “learn from us.”

She wasn’t talking about Donald Trump as an individual. She was talking about what has happened to the institutions of American democracy over the past few years, especially in the 18 months of Trump 2.0.

“We assumed the system would protect itself. We assumed there would always be enough guardrails. We assumed no one would really push it that far.” Then she paused. “Please don’t let our pain have been in vain.”

We need to look across the Atlantic, and pay heed. Because I fear we sometimes comfort ourselves with exactly the same assumptions. Britain, we tell ourselves, is different. Our institutions are older. Our democracy is stronger. Our traditions will protect us.

But democracies are not self-defending. They need rules and structures that don’t assume only good people acting in good faith, but can withstand bad actors willing to exploit every weakness they can find.

That was the central message of the Defensive Constitutional Reform report that was the basis of our panel discussion on Monday night. It argues that Britain has relied for too long on what Peter Hennessy famously called the “good chaps” theory of government: the comforting assumption that those who attain power will generally exercise it responsibly. In an era of disinformation, billionaire influence, hostile foreign interference and growing political polarisation, that assumption no longer looks sufficient.

Rebuilding trust in democracy

Last week, I argued that first-past-the-post is no longer simply unfair. It is becoming dangerous.

This week I want to ask a different question. If we agree our democracy needs strengthening, how should we go about it?

The answer matters because we are living through a profound crisis of confidence in politics itself. Too many people no longer believe their voice matters. Too many feel governments are imposed upon them rather than chosen by them. Too many look at Westminster and conclude that politics is something done by elites, for elites.

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Tagged andy burnham and electoral reform | 32 Comments

Why the Lib Dem Defence Bonds plan is a bad idea

By Nick Baird | Thu 2nd July 2026 - 2:00 pm

The recent (and long overdue) release of the UK’s Defence Investment Plan (DIP) has only intensified the long-running debate about how to fund an increase in the UK Defence Budget, a debate that has already cost the Labour Government two Ministers. Cursory examination of the Government’s plans soon revealed that rather than being “fully funded”, the plan actually requires a further £4.7bn of cuts to other departments and £10.7bn of “efficiency savings” in the next 4 years, neither of which have yet been identified. It also fails to provide any budget for 2030 onwards, with that can kicked down the road for the next Prime Minister.

In January of this year, Ed Davey announced our solution to the problem – Defence Bonds (https://www.libdems.org.uk/press/release/ed-davey-calls-for-defence-bonds-to-fund-pound20bn-boost-to-military-spending-and-reduce-reliance-on-us), a policy announced without consultation or debate within the Party. This plan proposes raising £20bn over 2 years, ring-fenced for defence capital spending, to “give ordinary people the opportunity to contribute to Britain’s security”.

In my opinion, this plan is both a bad way to fund defence, and also won’t work. For background, I spent over 30 years working in the defence industry, the last 20 of those as a Director and part-owner of a manufacturing SME. I lived with the daily challenges of budgeting and planning, and in that time experienced both the best and worst of UK defence procurement. While I enjoyed the dubious “pleasure” of being a supplier on the infamous Ajax armoured vehicle programme, it’s important to note that despite the bad press UK defence procurement is not all bad. I was also directly involved in numerous projects where the MOD and industry worked together to achieve amazing results, delivered quickly and on budget, that saved lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

My first objection is that a short, sharp injection of £20bn over two years is not nearly as helpful as it might sound. What the MOD, and just as importantly industry, needs is the certainty of a long term (10+ year) cash budget to plan against. Uncertainty leads to inefficiency, and suddenly throwing £20bn at the MOD would lead to some terrible outcomes. The MOD would of course do its level best to spend that money, because it would fear any under-spend getting clawed back by the Treasury. But as we have seen before during the Pandemic, when the Government tries to spend a lot of money quickly it leads to failure, waste and fraud. While some good, innovative solutions might be funded, it would also act as a honeypot to every snake-oil salesman with a glossy powerpoint and no track-record.

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Tagged defence bonds | 16 Comments

Vince Cable writes: Manchesterism and Localism

By Vince Cable | Wed 1st July 2026 - 2:55 pm

Andy Burnham’s launch speech in Manchester raised hopes of a sustained plan to devolve power away from Whitehall. If the reality matches the rhetoric, that will be a massive achievement and will greatly improve our system of governance.

But any Liberal Democrat who has been battling for decades for genuine local, community-based decision making and against the infantilisation of local government is entitled to some scepticism. My own formative experience is somewhat different: serving in the Coalition Cabinet which first launched the idea of devolving powers to elected mayors for city-regions broadly on the London model (prompted by a report for the Coalition by Michael Heseltine) ; and having earlier served as a – then, Labour – City Councillor in Glasgow) in the early 1970’s, before Scottish devolution, and when councils had serious powers (inter alia, we could appoint head teachers, build council houses and set the rents).

The fundamental idea that decisions by public. authorities should be made as close as possible to local communities – subsidiarity- is not in dispute. As a leading force in local government- and, at times, the leading force, Liberal Democrats have sought to apply that principle and have often tried to devolve further to lower, ward, levels. But they have been swimming against the tide of gradual centralisation as successive governments have stripped away local powers in the interests of a national ideology or of financial control. As a result, we are highly centralised (and especially so in England after substantial devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

Devolution of power is not the same thing as decentralisation or relocation. Various governments have despatched government departments to the provinces to be administered locally. Under the Boris Johnson administration, Darlington became a northern outpost of government. Andy Burnham envisages some Cabinet Office activities being based in Manchester. In the day, I recall advocating the relocation of the Treasury to Liverpool as a means of shifting thinking regionally. But none of these approaches empower people in towns and cities outside London.

There is an important distinction between devolution of power to spend central government tax revenue on local priorities and fiscal autonomy with responsibility for local revenue raising. British devolution is largely the former albeit with very limited (income) tax raising powers for the Scottish and Welsh governments. There is nothing like the revenue raising responsibility of Danish local government or German Lander, let alone US states and, so far, city mayors have none. Arguably, city mayors have become popular- or at least unobjectionable – precisely because they can spend without having to tax, though spending discretion is better than none.

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Tagged andy burnham, devolution and localism | 1 Comment