Category Archives: Op-eds

We need to talk about Gorton and Denton

By Olivia Walker | Tue 12th May 2026 - 11:09 am

Although the party consolidated our voter base in areas such as Surrey, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire at the local elections, something which stuck out to me was the way that despite the best efforts of all our amazing hard-working volunteers, the party lost ground in Labour-facing urban areas such as Manchester and Sheffield as a result of being leapfrogged by the Green Party and I think part of the reason for this leads back to the Gorton and Denton by-election.

At a Q&A back in March, current Lib Dem leader Ed Davey was asked about the by-election, “wasn’t it the sort of seat we should be in contention in, the sort of seat we should be trying to win?” His response was the following: “We didn’t try because we knew we weren’t in contention to beat Reform… but what we do do though is where we think we can win, we put the resources in.”

I think this explanation was a massive middle finger to the Manchester Liberal Democrats from the leadership and I’m going to explain why I think the decision from the leadership to not give them a helping hand in Gorton and Denton was a massive mistake that proved detrimental to similar Labour-facing areas in the local elections.

The Manchester Liberal Democrats were placed in a very difficult position where they worked their arses off with what they could, like they always do and to say that ‘we didn’t try’ is such a disservice to them, because they did try, they tried their hardest to support Jackie and be a proud liberal voice for the people of Gorton and Denton – but what more could they have possibly done when they had no support from the leadership?

The leadership often complains about a lack of media coverage but I would argue the current approach is a factor in this because what is the point of us as a party if we see a high-profile Labour-facing by-election with an illiberal candidate like Matt Goodwin in contention and we have absolutely nothing to say about it? All because it happened to be in a seat we didn’t ‘stand a chance of winning’ in?

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Rob Blackie

The biggest risk is playing it safe

By Rob Blackie | Tue 12th May 2026 - 8:58 am

It’s a few years into a Labour government, who are making unpopular decisions. And in the London elections – we surge to power as the biggest party, or main opposition party, in Lambeth, Southwark, Brent, Camden, Islington and many other London boroughs.

2002 was a great year for us in London, and other cities where we fought Labour. We leapt forward as progressive voters switched from Labour to us.

By contrast in 2026 our vote share in inner London boroughs was the worst since 1978. We aren’t running any inner London boroughs. We are only even the main opposition party in one, Brent.

This isn’t just a London, or a city, problem though. Our 2026 local election vote share of 14% is worse than in the coalition year of 2011 – and our lowest in 8 years.

Why is this?

The youthfulness of modern cities seems an easy place to turn for an answer – dominated as they are by working age people. But this is simply a sign of our failure to reach these voters.

Liberal values in Britain are, generally, most strongly held by younger people. We should be doing much better among the working age voters.

We have this opportunity – but why aren’t we exploiting it?

Pollster Chris Annous points out that most voters do not believe that the Liberal Democrats actually want to change our country. In fact they see us as representatives of the status quo, alongside Labour and the Conservatives. And the public desperately wants to see Britain changed.

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John Grout

One of these things is not like the other

By John Grout | Mon 11th May 2026 - 7:15 pm

We Lib Dems have some reflecting to do after this week’s local and devolved elections. Yes, we made gains for a record eight years running – so yes, we now have more devolved parliamentarians and councillors, and run more English councils than we did before. But for the first time in a few years, our gains were not spectacular: we flirted with Labour, but ultimately they pulled ahead of us on numbers. We once again toyed with oblivion in Wales. And both the Green Party and Reform UK outperformed us on gains. Why?

The two “insurgent” parties are poles apart – Reform UK are far-right and have pledged to introduce actual concentration camps, while the Green Party are progressive and to the left, and have not. In fact, on many issues, our core vote and the Green Party’s overlap considerably, and on many more, we disagree only by matters of degree. Of late, the Green Party leadership has been decidedly more bullish on issues that only a few years ago, our own leadership would have been equally full-throated on and which many of us wish it were again. Reform UK, meanwhile, have gutted entire departments and programmes in councils they run, saving little money or less than none overall, but with huge impacts disproportionately affecting the women and minorities their party’s policies are crafted to undermine. They have promised to introduce Trump-style politics to the UK, specifically attacking the fundamental societal pillars of trust, inclusivity, state support, and public health which our party exists to defend. And again: concentration camps. I really shouldn’t need to say more.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday: Starmer’s time is up – Labour needs a new Leader and a new direction

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 11th May 2026 - 5:30 pm

There are moments in politics when you can see the tide has irreversibly turned. Keir Starmer’s much-hyped speech this morning was one of those moments – not because it miraculously reset his premiership, but because it confirmed just how exhausted and politically diminished it has become even after less than two years. Some Labour MPs are today saying it is “too little, too late” and the number calling for him to set out a timetable for his departure grows by the hour.

The problem for the Prime Minister is not merely that Labour has suffered very bruising electoral setbacks (to say …

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Tara Foster

“Politically Stagnant” – Local Elections 2026 reflections

By Tara Foster | Mon 11th May 2026 - 4:02 pm

This election has revealed issues with the Party’s messaging approach, policy approach, and electoral distinctiveness. These need to be reckoned with very soon if the Party is going to remain relevant.

This election cannot be regarded as a victory

Many senior figures are calling this a victory. That we have “held off Reform, won more councillors than the Greens, and trounced the Conservatives.” – quoting directly from Ed Davey’s Instagram page. This take feels detached from reality.

We haven’t held off Reform; despite only gaining overall control of a handful of councils, they’ve elected over 1000 new councillors. We haven’t won more new councillors than the Greens, they’ve elected a net-gain of 441 councillors compared to our 155. In an election year where the Tories and Labour combined lost over 2000 councillors, it is appalling that we did not win more. What’s even more shocking is that many of these races were won by our opponents with far less observed work in the ward.

The Lib Dems can no longer depend on the progressive vote

In many inner-city areas, the Lib Dem campaign put in a monumental shift. People I personally knew in those areas spent the last year canvassing and delivering yet found themselves really struggling on polling day. In one area where I had fully anticipated a LibDem win, we ended up coming third. The Greens, who had done no serious work in the ward, came second, and the Labour incumbents held on. Many of our wins were holds, suggesting that we enjoy incumbency bonus, but there is little penetration of our messaging, despite all this work. Months of work yield little meaningful payoff, and our candidates come away demoralised and defeated. In summary, in the eyes of progressively minded people, the Lib Dems are no longer perceived as a progressive party and cannot command a tactical vote sufficient to dethrone Labour and hold off Reform.

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Gareth McAleer

The end of the United Kingdom?

By Gareth McAleer | Mon 11th May 2026 - 2:20 pm

The latest election results have predictably consumed Westminster’s commentariat. Much of the focus has been on Nigel Farage, his rhetoric, his appeal and his ability to reshape the political battlefield. But in that fixation something far more significant is being overlooked. We are no longer debating the future direction of the United Kingdom. We are confronting the real prospect of its end.

Two political forces have collided and together they create a moment of genuine constitutional crisis. This is not another cyclical shift in British politics. It is a structural break that challenges whether the union can continue in its current form.

First all three devolved Celtic nations, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, have elected governments with strong nationalist mandates. On its own this is not decisive. The UK has weathered such moments before, with support for independence rising and falling within a functioning union.

But this moment is different because of the second force, the rise of Nigel Farage as a plausible occupant of Downing Street. His presence changes not just the tone of politics but the perceived direction of the state itself.

Farage does not simply represent another swing of the political pendulum. He embodies a politics that is hostile to immigration, dismissive of pluralism and deeply sceptical of devolution. His instinct is not to accommodate the diversity of the United Kingdom but to centralise power and impose a singular political identity.

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Johan Prinsloo

Decent results, but we need to learn

By Johan Prinsloo | Mon 11th May 2026 - 12:46 pm

On the 7th May, while we made some good gains in Scotland, and held strong in some areas in England, there are many who have left these elections feeling dissatisfied with their current results. While our results show stability and consolidation, this simply doesn’t cut it in regions we were expecting major gains.

Where this can be shown is through London, and as I have been campaigning across London, I have been feeling the dichotomy of jubilation and disappointment many are facing. In spite of a great ground game across London, we fell short in key target areas and this comes down to the national message we project. We can no longer exist as a party on results or simple ground game, but in an era of political whirlwinds we need to project hope through a strong national campaign instead, and project change.

In spite of this, the elections did see some positives. We saw major success stories in Brent and Ealing, with the local parties there making significant gains on Labour. Our ground game all across London was a marvel to watch, and the establishment of a 100% majority in Richmond, as well as maintaining/improving large majorities in Kingston and Sutton is something to champion going forward. These are emblematic of our strong ground game resonating well, when there was a record of results behind them.

However, it is also important to accept the reality of the situation that we have underperformed in many areas, even just in London. Our major target of Merton has fallen flat with only two councillors gained. Also, in Lambeth, Southwark, Islington and my home borough of Croydon, expected gains have somehow evaporated and in some areas, paper candidate Greens in areas like Newham, Barking and Enfield have won without ever campaigning!

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Shaun Ennis

Standing Still

By Shaun Ennis | Mon 11th May 2026 - 10:52 am

No one has ever asked me to devise an idea for Ed Davey’s next stunt. But if I was approached from on high, I might suggest having him wade through a river of treacle.

That’s how it feels trying to spread the Liberal Democrat message in the North of England these days.

It’s been an underwhelming set of elections in our part of the country. Despite some notable and very important exceptions such as Stockport, Preston and Sefton, the Liberal Democrats have failed to cut through with what has been a predominantly nationally motivated electorate.

And we’ve lost some great councillors too. Other campaigners that should have got over the line this time have fallen short.

It’s not for want of trying. Lib Dems across the region have pounded the streets delivering and knocking doors at truly impressive pace. But we have been overtaken by national voices competing on a national battleground that – in our part of the world at least – our party seems all too happy to vacate.

Our party leadership has said that our brand of community politics is the antidote to Reform’s division and I believe that with all my heart. Especially in the diverse metropolitan areas like the one I represent. Where Reform and the Tories seek to divide people based on ethnicity, race and religion for political gain. But we haven’t made our case well enough in northern cities.

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David Vigar

The far-right nightmare looms. What are we doing about it?

By David Vigar | Mon 11th May 2026 - 9:02 am

Am I alone in thinking our response to the local election results is a little too self-congratulatory? Of course we should broadcast our success in increasing our councillor count yet again and congratulate everyone who worked hard to make it happen.

But for me, the main message of the elections is that Britain now faces the nightmare prospect of a far-right totalitarian government. William Hill now has Reform 11-10 on to win the most seats in 2029. The next takeaway is that we, the Liberal Democrats, have a critical role in stopping it.

Almost exactly a year ago, Lib Dem Voice ran a piece that I wrote after the 2025 local elections when I was part of a winning team in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, beating Reform into second place in six out of seven divisions.

There, we developed an anti-Reform playbook based on our doorstep experiences. It included some rebuttal of Reform claims – to make people pause for thought – but more importantly, it offered a positive alternative in the shape of strong candidates and their vision for the town. Reform appealed to the worst instincts of voters. We appealed to the best.

Reform also appeal to the heart rather than the mind, so the response has to be directed to the same place. Logic doesn’t work – no more than it does with someone who’s fallen in love with a rat.

Last year I wrote that this needed a proper strategy, “a solid and well-researched plan for the rest of this Parliament”. I sent that blog to senior party members and I was told that action was underway. We even had a “Reform Watch” group. Anyone heard of it? It seems to be a self-help group for councillors, anything but a national campaign.

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Caron Lindsay

Another stream of consciousness on the election results – England this time

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th May 2026 - 12:33 pm

So we’re up 155 councillors in England. We can give ourselves a big pat on the back, right?

Well, maybe not.

Let’s look at London. A tale of two cities in one if ever there was one.

In the leafy southern areas, our heartlands, our results were, to be honest, unhealthily good. While it is a testament to how well our councils in Richmond, Sutton and Kingston are doing and are regarded by local people, holding virtually all the seats just isn’t conducive to good, inclusive government.  Even though it would disadvantage us, perhaps we should really be pushing for PR for local government as much as national.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing in that neck of the woods. In Merton, we had hoped to do much better against a dreadful Labour Council, but our gains were modest and Labour easily held control, gaining a seat from the Conservatives in the process.

It was a completely different story in inner London where the Green vote rocketed up.

Voters looked to them, not our well established Council groups, to defeat Labour and several councils, including Southwark, Haringey and Lambeth went to no overall control as the Greens surged. In Islington, where we once ran the Council, we didn’t make the breakthrough we had hoped and I was very sad that talented people like Rebecca Jones didn’t get elected despite spirited campaigns. In Haringey, voters again looked to the Greens and another disappointment was that Shamim Muhammad missed out. She spoke in the global women’s rights debate we had at Federal Conference and would have been a powerful voice for women’s rights on the Council.

We ran full, locally relevant campaigns in those areas and worked our socks off. The Greens did next to nothing on the ground but yet hoovered up hundreds of Council seats.

Why?

Everyone knows what the Greens stand for. They are speaking to people’s concerns about the divisive rhetoric we see from Reform and other socially conservative sources, about inequality, about poverty, about housing, about the international situation. And our lack of a cohesive national message is holding us back.  People do not feel that we get it, that we are on their side.

The challenge for us is that the Greens is that they are going full throttle with an emotionally resonant message that connects with people and we are not.  We sound technocratic. We lack passion. We don’t respond with suitable levels of outrage when the Prime Minister comes out with Reform lite garbage on immigration. In fact we come out with nonsense that sounds like we’re pandering to it only to put out a slightly better thing a few days later. It’s mixed messaging that makes us look untrustworthy.

We don’t have to promise everyone a free puppy, as the Greens frequently come close to doing, but we do need to wear our liberal values on our sleeve. It is simply not good enough to slightly shamefacedly and timidly put out something saying we are against division without actually taking on the arguments advanced by those who are stoking the division.

Our job as a liberal party is to bring people together and protect marginalised communities from attack and we need to be much better and clearer about it.

We look very much at the moment that we are here to serve the home counties and “blue wall” seats when we should be a voice for the north and our cities too.

So much of what we say seems to be moderated by timidity. We fear upsetting those in those seats more than we fear failing those in the rest of the country. Our liberal values are universal and we need to apply them and be relevant in every setting.

I understand that some key councillors across the country were warning that we needed to up our game against the Greens a long time ago and were ignored. The results this week show that we will lose out in the future if we fail to do that. In places like Oxfordshire we need to keep all progressive voters onside if we are going to continue to win. If we don’t, and at some point in the future the Tories and Reform merge and unite the right block vote, we will be in peril.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 10th May 2026 - 8:52 am

In a fit of pique Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany. He also said that he was considering pulling soldiers out of Italy and Spain.

Why these three countries? Because their leaders had the temerity to criticise the US president.

Trump is cutting off Uncle Sam’s face to spite his nose while shooting him in the foot. In short, it is a stupid move. America needs Europe. For a start. Europe is the largest financial pillar outside the United States supporting the US defense industry—it spends more than $100 billion a year. And the US defense industry is five percent of America’s GDP.

American bases in Europe also enable the US to project power throughout Eurasia, Africa, the Middle East and the western end of the Indo-Pacific region. It has bases in Britain, Germany, the Baltic countries, Poland, Spain, Italy and even Greenland.

The US bases enable the Pentagon to pre-position equipment and fuel for rapid deployments; provide some of the world’s finest hospitals; repair centres; intelligence; command centres and deployment infrastructure. Europe is the foundational stone that makes global power projection possible.

Trump’s recently published National Security Strategy focused on “civilisational decline” in Europe and the need to focus on the Western Hemisphere. But it also said that Europe would “remain as a platform for US global operations.”

Given the above, it should follow that the US president should learn to be nicer to the people he needs.

Trump is off to China next week. To be exact, he is in Beijing next Thursday and Friday for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

At the moment the US and China are in the middle of a trade truce. That is because the trade war that Trump launched last April proved disastrous to both countries. Trump raised tariffs to over 100 percent. China immediately cut off America’s access to the rare earth minerals. Trump retaliated by reducing Chinese access to American technology and financial instruments. The result was a Mexican stand-off.

Both sides backed away, lowered tariffs and resumed access to products. But the spate left a bad taste in the mouths of both leaders. They think that Sino-American cooperation will only benefit the other. In fact, the only thing keeping Trump and Xi talking to each other is the fear of the economic damage each can inflict on each other’s country.

This will upset US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who has spent the first part of this year negotiated a set of trade deals which he hopes will be signed in Beijing. According to diplomatic sources, it is more likely that the best result will be a pair of fixed smiles and a handshake.

May should be an interesting diplomatic month for India. It will have to perform a delicate balancing act between the American-dominated West and the Chinese-dominated East and South.

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Caron Lindsay

A stream of consciousness on the Scottish elections

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th May 2026 - 4:11 pm

Now that I have  had some sleep, and before I have some more,  I’m going to just quickly jot down a few thoughts about yesterday’s elections, what happens next and what I think our party needs to do going forward.

Scotland

Going up from 4 MSPs elected in 2021 to 10 in 2026 is undeniably a good result. The journey uphill is always slower and more laborious than the rapid descent downhill that we experienced in 2011.

We are on our way back, though, and the Highlands are coloured gold again in their entirety. Not so the islands, though. The loss of Shetland …

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Mary Reid

Slow and steady growth

By Mary Reid | Sat 9th May 2026 - 3:16 pm

Many of us are imagining what it might be like to experience a major surge in support like that being enjoyed by Reform UK at the moment, and to a lesser extent by the Greens. However I have always argued that slow steady growth is much more sustainable, especially for a centrist party based on strong values rather than populism, and there are some good examples from this week.

I am looking at East Surrey and West Surrey, where the councillors have been elected to set up the new unitaries in 2027 to replace Surrey County Council.

The last full elections to Surrey County Council were in 2021; 81 seats were up for grabs with these results: 47 Con (58%), 14 Lib Dem (17%), 2 Lab (2.5%), 2 Green (2.5%) and 16 other (20%). The others are mainly Residents Associations.

And yet on Thursday we won both of the new authorities.

On Thursday, there were 162 new seats in total in East and West Surrey. The combined results were: 96 Lib Dem (59%), 30 Con (19%), 14 Ref (8.5%), 8 Green (5%) and 14 other (8.5%).  How did that happen?

To understand the apparent leap in our seats from 17% to 59% we have to track all the smaller gains made in the intervening years. This wasn’t a sudden and unexpected victory but a steady build-up over time.

For a start we were beavering away at the County Council by-elections as they occurred. By the time of this election the Conservatives were already down to 38 (from 47) and we were up to 18 (from 14).

But a more revealing picture emerges when we look at the gains in the eleven District Councils within Surrey. All of them elect by thirds so the effects were cumulative over time. By this year we had taken control of Woking, Mole Valley and Surrey Heath and we had become the largest party in Elmbridge, Guildford, and Waverley, so we were effectively running more than half the districts.

On top of that we made some important gains in Westminster in 2024. Prior to that we had no Lib Dem MPs in the county. Of the 13 constituencies we won six, and welcomed Chris Coghlan in Dorking and Horley, Will Forster in Woking, Zoe Franklin in Guildford, Monica Harding in Esher and Walton, Helen Maguire in Epsom and Ewell and Al Pinkerton in Surrey Heath.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex-pat: War’s end?

By Tom Arms | Sat 9th May 2026 - 12:17 pm

The Gulf region is on the cusp of peace. That is according to President Donald Trump who issues more lies and obfuscations than my dog Bear barks in any given day.

Having said that, both Axios and Reuters report that there is now a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which indicates Iranian willingness to discuss suspending uranium enrichment, a partial lifting of US sanctions against Iran and unfreezing of assets and some sort of return to normality in the Strait of Hormuz.

It should be stressed, however, that an MOU is not a peace deal. It is merely an agreement on talking points.

But According to Trump the MOU was enough for him to suspend “Operation Freedom”—a major US naval effort to throw a “red, white and blue protective umbrella” over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Wrong. The real reason for its suspension was the Saudis fear that Iran would fire on the protective convoy. The convoy would fire back. Trump would order renewed missile attacks, and the war would again spread throughout the Gulf.

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff may be the two Americans meeting with Iranian (and/or Pakistani) officials in Geneva and Islamabad, but behind the scenes America’s junior partners in the Iran War are calling at least some of the shots. These are Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

Israel is more like full partner than junior partner. Its Government is certainly the most hawkish. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played a key role in dragging Trump into the Iran War and according to him is in “almost daily contact” with the president. The Israeli security establishment views Iran as an “existential threat” to Israel. It wants to overthrow the theocratic regime and replace it with a pro-Israeli secular government that will end support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Netanyahu has the support of Israeli public opinion. It is starting to drop, but is still pro-war. At the start of March, 80 percent of Israelis supported the war. This had dropped to 54 percent by the end of April. 61 percent are opposed to the ceasefire.

Another factor in Israeli thinking is that they are totally unaffected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. None of their energy or fertiliser supplies come from the Gulf Region.

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Caron Lindsay

So we got a Highlands and Islands list MSP after all!

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 9th May 2026 - 9:54 am

Morven-May MacCallum MSP on a highland beach

Well, my last post last night has not aged well.

That first sentence:

There’s just the Highlands and Islands list left to count now but the Liberal Democrats will not win anything on that because we won 3 constituency seats.

was, not to be overly dramatic, bollocks.

And I have never been more delighted to have egg on my face.

In the middle of the night, when they finally finished counting in Inverness, our Morven-May MacCallum took the fifth of seven seats. She is currently the Councillor for my favourite place on earth, the Black Isle just north of Inverness.

Morven is an author who campaigns to raise awareness about Lyme Disease, which she suffers from.  On the Council, she focuses on:

  • Prioritising road safety and road repair (and so is presumably responsible for the improvement in the road between Rosemarkie and Tore which is not like Swiss cheese any more).
  • Expanding the creation of more and better local jobs.
  • Support for community programs, organisations education and well-being.
  • A focus on local sustainability and green initiatives.
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Mary Reid

Good luck!

By Mary Reid | Thu 7th May 2026 - 8:06 am

So what are you doing reading this? Shouldn’t you be out telling or knocking up on the doorsteps?

OK, so I do know that not everyone has the opportunity, or the capacity, to do either of those tasks, and, of course, if that applies to you then your support is also precious.

During the day the BBC follows some pretty strict guidelines about what they can report – which is why there is always a story about dogs in polling stations. Things only really swing into action at 10pm.

So what should we be looking for after polls close?

In Wales the counts for the Senedd elections will begin on Friday morning, although returning officers are allowed to verify the votes the night before, which may speed things up a bit. Once the count begins Wales has adopted the D’Hondt system for the first time.  Six members are elected for each of the 16 constituencies, but voters can only select the party list they wish to support rather than individual members.

In Scotland the counts for the Scottish Parliament won’t begin until Friday morning either. Scottish elections are always logistically challenging because of the many very remote locations, so expect some delays. Voters will be selecting their MSPs using the Additional Member System. The country is divided into 73 constituencies, each of which elects a member under FPTP.  The constituencies are clustered into eight regions and they each elect 7 further members, with voters selecting a single party list.  A modified D’Hondt system allocates these additional members to reflect the overall balance of the votes. (Londoners will recognise this as the method for electing the London Assembly)

In England, there is a patchwork of local council elections in 136 local authorities. These include district councils, unitaries (some newly formed), metropolitan boroughs, county councils and all the London boroughs. Most of these are all-in all-out every four years, but some are electing by thirds. It is important to note that the seats being contested today only cover about a third of all the principal council seats in England. In addition six directly elected mayors are up for election. Some councils will be counting overnight, some on Friday.

Only Northern Ireland has a quiet day, with no elections taking place.

Mark Pack – election guru and past Party President – has an interesting analysis here: 6 ways to judge the Liberal Democrat election results.

We would love to hear from you in the comments about counts that are worth watching out for. I will kick off by saying that my money (metaphorically) is on the London Borough of Merton; it is one of those rare instances where we have won a Westminster seat – Paul Kohler in Wimbledon – before gaining control of the council. And it is counting overnight so we should get the result by breakfast on Friday.

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Caron Lindsay

Just peachy! Scotland needs change with fairness at its heart

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th May 2026 - 11:51 am

This Scottish election campaign has been exciting from a Scottish Lib Dem point of view. For the first time in 15 years, we have a real chance of making significant gains in our representation. The polls are putting us anywhere between 8 and 13 from our current 5.

Alex Cole-Hamilton has been brilliant at delivering our message. He lands it every time and somehow manages to make it sound fresh.

He has been on fire. Watch him tackle John Swinney on ferries in the last tv leaders’ debate:

We are focusing on 4 key areas:

  • Fixing health care so you can see a GP, mental health professional or GP when you need to
  • Cutting the cost of living by insulating cold homes and using our renewable energy to cut bills
  • Getting Scotland moving again – sort ferries, buses, other public transport and roads
  • Getting Scottish education back up the rankings by putting 2000 pupil support assistants back into classrooms and taking mobile phones out.

Our aims is to win an extra 6 constituencies in addition to the ones we already hold:

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Roger Harmer

Help turn Birmingham gold!

By Roger Harmer | Wed 6th May 2026 - 8:47 am

We are now a day away from the Birmingham City elections, which promises to be a momentous appraisal of the last four years of Labour rule in the second city. The party are set to lose not just their majority, but huge swathes of seats as residents have their say on the catastrophic failures presided over by the ruling group.

Labour knows this, their disingenuous ploy to pretend to settle the bin strike – which has left areas of the city piled high with bags of rotting rubbish, fly tipping, and rubbish strewn streets for over a year – has spectacularly backfired amongst voters who are asking “why should we vote for them to fix a problem they created themselves?”

The anger is palpable.

We offer an alternative. For the last few months we have fought the biggest campaign we have ever run. Our hard working campaigners have knocked on thousands of doors, delivered pallets upon pallets of literature, and have been improving their communities by reporting potholes, fly-tipping, and (in the case of one candidate) shovelling piles of used nappies from in front of a residential block.

Reform thinks that they are going to win control of the council, so we have worked hard to spread our message of hope and ambition to ensure that residents know that they have a voice in the chamber working hard for them already. Our manifesto – promising investment in our roads and communities as well as our plan to end the bin strike – has been received positively by residents and the media and is translating into support on the ground. 

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Shane Burke

Civil liberties and the proposed social media ban

By Shane Burke | Sun 3rd May 2026 - 11:55 am

Occasionally, one has the opportunity to comment on developments across two jurisdictions. The proposed social media ban for under-16s invites reflection on civil liberties, children’s rights, and perceptions of government in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

With both the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom mulling banning teens under 16 from social media such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and more, this piece warns that the solution to what ails young people is to address the root causes, not pursue crude policies like a ban.

To begin with, for the liberal parties that both Fianna Fáil, one of the current parties of government in the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom’s Liberal Democrats claim to be through their shared membership of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, this reflexive policy of an online ban for under-16s sets a bad example. What it says to young people is that their lived experience of life online does not matter, and that their civil liberties matter less than those of people over 16. Take the scourge of keeping children safe from online sexual predators, according to the Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes Report issued by Ofcom in 2024, the age group least likely to identify a fake online profile were those aged 65+. This is surely a key digital media skill for keeping children safe from paedophiles, yet nobody is suggesting granny should be banned from social media.

Maybe the answer to these debates is to actually listen to children themselves, something both the United Kingdom and Ireland agreed to as signatories of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12, which, in its simplest form, says, “I have the right to be listened to and taken seriously.” This is, to be fair to the incumbent Labour government, what it is trying to do, saying so in a recent Gov.UK press release titled “Government to drive action to improve children’s relationship with mobile phones and social media“. If that is so, hopefully, they will consider a book cited by Professor Paul Bernal, Professor of Information Technology Law in the University of East Anglia School of Law. He cites danah boyd’s (danah spells her name without capitalisation) seminal book: “It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens“. This book argues that an online ban will take away an important freedom from vulnerable teens, which is the freedom to shape their own identity, not be viewed through the personal traits bullies use to torment them.

People often talk as though the internet for kids is all about bullying – but it can often be exactly the opposite, a way to escape bullying. If you’re being bullied for your appearance, your ethnicity your name, your family, your poverty, any health condition – this is particularly important for many disabled kids, neurodivergence, sexuality, religion and much more, the internet can help. None of that has to show – you can create a life where the first thing that people see isn’t the thing that the bullies use to target you.
Prof Paul Bernal

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Tom Arms

Tom Arm’s World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 3rd May 2026 - 9:46 am

Ukraine

Robots are the future face of war. And Ukraine’s dominance in the production of drones and unmanned boats and ground vehicles means that it is well on its way to becoming a defense industry superpower.

Drone production is up from 800,000 a year three years ago to seven million in 2025. They enjoy a three to one advantage over the Russians over the top of the range First Person View (FPV) drones. These are drones fitted with a camera which allows the operator to see in real time everything the drone sees. Ukraine is also producing 1,000 fixed wing drones a day. These can travel up to 1,500 miles into Russian territory.

Ukraine’s success with unmanned boats and submarines has given it dominance in the Black Sea. But its latest success has been with a variety of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). They are used primarily to deliver supplies to front line troops, but they have also been used to lay mines and rescue soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. The latest versions are also used as launching pads for armed drones.

Ukraine has 2,500 companies involved in the development and production of drones and unmanned vehicles which, according to President Volodomyr Zelensky,  have conducted 22,000 missions in the first three months of this year.

Russia is, of course, also stepping up production of drones and unmanned vehicles. Early in the war Moscow had the advantage. But Ukraine adopted an entrepreneurial approach to production which has overtaken and streaked ahead of Russian manufacturing whose rigid production base is heavily centralised Soviet-style.

Which brings us to Ukraine’s future as a defense industry superpower. Most of the country’s unmanned weaponry is fully utilised fighting the Russian behemoth. But Ukrainians are starting to sell to other countries a limited surplus and—more importantly their expertise– to help pay for the war. And when the fighting finally stops, Ukraine’s lead in the field will play a major part in financing the country’s reconstruction.

Recently President Volodomyr Zelensky made an unscheduled trip to the United Arab Emirates to talk to them about drone defenses for protection against Iranian missiles. The Gulf States are already well-equipped with American-made Patriot missiles and THAAD (The High-Altitude Air Defense) systems. But these cost up to a $1million per fired missiles whereas Ukrainian drones range from $2,500 to $25,000.

So far Kyiv has concluded deals—or is the final stages of negotiations with the following countries: Germany, Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Romania, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Japan, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Syria. Defense experts estimate that sales of equipment and know could be worth $8billion this year, rising to $22 billion-plus in 2028. This means a substantial contribution to Ukraine’s defense budget of $80 billion. However, it is a drop in the ocean when one considers the estimated $500 billion in reconstruction costs.

The success of Ukraine’s drone industry has a wider financial impact than immediate cash revenue. It enables the country to project itself as an industrial power for decades to come which improves its ability to borrow on the international bond markets to pay for both the war and reconstruction.

The King and Trump

One does not discuss private conversations with the monarch. That is the convention—in fact, the rule—when talking with the British king.

There is an exceptionally good reason for this rule/convention. The king must be seen to be above politics. He must be to appoint prime ministers based on the wishes of the electorate rather than his own personal prejudices.

That does not mean that the king cannot discuss politics with politicians. And because he has been involved at the top end of the political process his entire life, he is well-placed to give advice. And he does. To political leaders around the world. He just does it PRIVATELY.

That is why eyebrows were raised when Trump revealed the contents of a private Oval Office conversation with King Charles when he told the world that the king is opposed to Iran having nuclear weapons. “Even more than I do,” he quipped.

The president’s comment was no great revelation. Of course, King Charles III is opposed to nuclear proliferation as Buckingham Palace made clear with a slightly raised eyebrow. That is the British government position, and the king supports the government of the day.

The king’s views on the subject are less important than the fact that – once again—Donald Trump has proven that he cannot be trusted to abide by the normal rules and conventions.

Iran

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Special Relationship

By Tom Arms | Sat 2nd May 2026 - 9:39 am

The phrase “Special Relationship” was coined by Winston Churchill in postwar triumph. It survives today in strain.

The call for Britain and America to continue their wartime alliance was a clarion call to defend against Soviet aggression.

It worked. The West won the Cold War and in the post-Cold War years the two countries have seen advantage – Britain more than the US—in continuing to cooperate in military and intelligence matters to counter terrorism and rogue states such as Afghanistan.

Of course, over 80 years, the “Special Relationship” has had its ups and downs. At the moment, it is having a serious down. King Charles’s successful visit has done little more than apply a sticking plaster to the widening transatlantic gulf.

However, the ties between Britain and the United States are more than political. As I make clear in my book “America Made in Britain” (note subtle plug), they cover the entire gamut of human relations and include language, trade, finance, philosophy, religion, law, sport, theatre, publishing…. The fact is that the two countries are joined at the historical hip and not even Donald Trump or JD Vance can change the past.

The political, military and intelligence ties that politicians call “The Special Relationship” would not be possible without our shared history.

Let us start with the law—the bedrock on which every nation is built. Every American state’s legal system is based on English common law. There is one exception—Louisiana’s French history means its legal system is based on the French. The federal courts and the Supreme Court use English common law and regularly refer to the Magna Carta medieval English court cases in their judgements.

Almost all the major American religious organisations—Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Quakers, Unitarians, Congregationalists, and Baptists—started in Britain before crossing the Atlantic. Roman Catholics secured their foothold in Maryland which was designated as a haven for Britain’s Catholics.

Britain and America are each other’s biggest foreign investor. American investment in Britain is $900 billion and creates 1.6 million jobs. Britain has $800 billion invested in the US and creates 1.4 million jobs.

America’s Declaration of Independence and constitution are the political expression of the English Age of Enlightenment. Sir Isaac Newton laid the foundations of the enlightenment in his 1687 “Principia” when he shifted the balance of society so that it was no longer based on faith and belief but on scientific observation and logically determined mathematical formulae.

Newton was followed in 1698 by John Locke who echoed the future words of Thomas Jefferson when he wrote in his “Two Treatises of Government that under “natural law” all people have the right to “life, liberty and property.” He further argued that that the governed have the right to overthrow incompetent rulers.

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Tanya Park

What’s next? The West Wing and the case for liberal idealism

By Tanya Park | Fri 1st May 2026 - 3:28 pm

I came to The West Wing late. Not when it first aired, in that long forgotten world before 9/11 when liberal democracy felt like the direction of travel rather than a rearguard action. I found it about five years ago, the way you sometimes stumble into exactly what you needed without knowing you were looking for it.

Every year, I have watched it several times. My wife has opinions about this.

I am not going to pretend that watching a twenty-year-old American political drama is a political act. But I want to make a genuine case for why it matters to me. Not as escapism, though it is that too. As an articulation of liberal values that I have not often found dramatised so clearly or so honestly anywhere else.

The West Wing is not subtle about what it believes. It believes that public service is a vocation. That the people drawn to government at its best are not there for the salary or the proximity to power, but because they think the work matters. It believes that competence and compassion belong together: that doing your job well and genuinely caring about the people your job affects are the same impulse, not competing priorities. And it believes that idealism is not a phase you grow out of when you become serious. It is, in fact, the most serious position available.

I think that last part is the one that resonates most with me as a liberal. There is a particular kind of political tiredness that presents itself as wisdom. The knowing shrug. The weary insistence that this is how things are, and anyone who imagines otherwise hasn’t been paying attention. The West Wing refuses that. Not naively, not by pretending the obstacles aren’t real, but by insisting that the obstacles are not the whole story.

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Jack Meredith

Owen Hart deserved better: The Liberal Democrat case for fairness, safety, and dignity in professional wrestling

By Jack Meredith | Thu 30th April 2026 - 12:23 pm

For as long as I can remember, I have loved professional wrestling: the pageantry, the storylines, the ability to suspend reality, even for an hour, and immerse myself in the world of powerhouses and body slams.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to appreciate the pressure that professional wrestlers are under to perform, night in and night out. For many people, wrestling is simply “fake”, but it’s more than that. The family of Owen Hart knows all too well about the human cost of the industry, as do thousands of other families.

In 1999, during the WWF pay-per-view “Over The Edge”, Owen Hart was set to portray his comical “Blue Blazer” character, a superhero that would regularly partake in pratfalls. On the day of the pay-per-view, Owen Hart confided in fellow WWF employee and industry legend “JR” Jim Ross that he was uncomfortable with the stunt, citing a fear of heights.

On the night of the show, as Hart prepared to take flight from the rafters, tragedy struck. The harness that he had been wearing malfunctioned before Hart had even left the rafters, dropping him almost 80 feet to the ring below. The referee for the match, Jimmy Korderas, recalled how he thought he could hear screaming while he was in the ring, before the top rope bounced back and hit his hand. Upon turning around, there was Owen, lying on the floor, unconscious.

Owen Hart died that night, at just 34 years old.

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Callum Robertson

Is it time to reinvent the Big Society?

By Callum Robertson | Thu 30th April 2026 - 9:48 am

At the heart of British liberalism lies a steadfast commitment to the individual their dignity, their rights, and their potential. We believe that by empowering individuals, we can enable people to lead richer lives while building a stronger, more cohesive society.

But liberalism is not simply about individual freedom. It is also about community – the relationships, institutions, and shared responsibilities that bind us together. Indeed, it is the politics of community that has underpinned Liberal Democrat success in places like Sutton, Three Rivers, and Watford, where local leadership has demonstrated the power of collective action electorally.

Yet when we look across our country today, it is clear there is much more to be done. Nearly one million young people are currently not in education, employment, or training (NEET), while many more face long-term unemployment or economic insecurity. These are not just statistics they are individuals and families in need of opportunity, support, and hope.

Despite this, there is a striking lack of urgency at the national level to embrace community-driven solutions. Too often, policy is designed centrally and delivered at scale, rather than rooted in the lived realities of local communities. One only needs to look at the gross incompetency of the DWP in administering welfare to know that centralised government lets down the individual and leaves them feeling lost in a system that is not built for the individual.

And yet, there are promising signs of what can be achieved when communities take the lead.

In Watford, for example, Liberal Democrat councillors in Meriden and Tudor wards are working with Bridge the Gap to deliver a targeted jobs programme, helping unemployed residents get back into work. Already, more than 30 people have signed up to receive support such as CV writing, mock interviews and more. While modest in scale, the impact is tangible. For those individuals, access to secure employment can be life changing.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey speech: We can’t let Trump’s America become Farage’s Britain

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th April 2026 - 7:45 pm

Ed Davey announced today a package of new Lib Dem policy aimed at ensuring that foreign actors have less influence in our politics.

He called for:

Banning payments from X and other social media platforms to politicians in the UK, including MPs.
Prohibiting anyone who has served a foreign administration from donating to UK political parties, think tanks, or campaign groups.
Banning foreign-funded online political adverts altogether.

The party will pursue these through amendments to the Representation of the People Bill.

Watch here.

The text is below

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Tanya Park

A year of being gaslit

By Tanya Park | Wed 29th April 2026 - 5:45 pm

The evidence, one year on from For Women Scotland

A year ago this month, a judgment about the meaning of words in a single Act was received, by many people, as a ruling on what I am.

The judgment in For Women Scotland ruled that trans women, including those holding a Gender Recognition Certificate, are not “women” for the purposes of the Equality Act’s sex provisions. What it did not do was make any ruling about identity, personhood, or what trans women are. That gap, between a statutory definition and a statement about human beings, is where a year’s worth of bad faith has taken up residence.

Open any right-leaning paper this month and you will find the same story, told and retold. “Public bodies, charities and businesses are failing to protect women and girls.” “Trans inclusion has run amok.” “The fightback is gathering pace.” “Brave women are speaking up.” “Sensible institutions are at last waking up to the threat.”

My trans siblings and I have been living through this false narrative for the past year.

So let’s look at this supposed threat. TransLucent submitted hundreds of Freedom of Information requests to major public bodies in England between 2022 and 2024. Across 40 large local authorities, 35 reported zero complaints about changing room facilities, five held no records, and the single incident logged involved a cis person in the wrong facility. Across 102 NHS trusts, not one reported a complaint from a cis woman patient about sharing a ward with a trans woman. Four complaints, across 382 public bodies, over three years. That is the empirical record.

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Paul Reynolds

The Mandelson debacle – Implications, Part 2 (remedies)

By Paul Reynolds | Wed 29th April 2026 - 8:55 am

On 25th April 2026 I wrote in LDV about the longer-term political background to the Mandelson debacle, referencing his time on Lambeth Council and the rise of the anti-left in the Labour Party, alongside the formation of the SDP, which partially sprung from there (see yesterday’s Guardian article).

The main conclusion of the LDV article was that Mandelson’s political orientation was shaped by opposition to the far-left in the Labour Party, (reinforced by the militant left’s control of Lambeth Council in the 1970s and 1980s). Mandelson’s close colleagues then, such as the subsequently ennobled Roger Liddle, Matthew Oakeshott, and the late George Thomson (associated with BBC and ITV governance), not only opposed the far left, they also objected to Thatcherism. They particularly opposed those of the left and right who were sceptical of internationalism and EU cooperation, especially dissenters from the quasi-corporatist European ‘social democratic consensus’. Mandelson stayed in the Labour party to fight the left, but Oakeshott and Liddle joined the SDP, the latter, being close to Mandelson, rejoining Labour after 6 years.

This group, and many Labour colleagues, believed that the Labour Party would never regain power again if it remained under far left control, hostile to ‘right-wing’ mainstream media and the big business and finance organisations behind them. Being cosy with international business helped get PM Blair elected in 1997, and softened media scepticism towards PM Starmer in early 2024. However, in cosying up to big business and finance, attitudes to economic elites and oligarchs began to border on adulation.

But there is a serious policy problem. The last 19 years has seen a transformation of the world economy, since the 2007-8 financial crisis. The rise of the Chinese economy has occurred alongside the rise of ‘financialisation’ and concomitant authoritarian bureaucratisation in the West; leading to increasing economic concentration and ‘stealthy monopolisation’. Asset prices rise in a bubble, as long term economic performance in the ‘real sector’ declines, and Western governments ignore the fiscal & debt sustainability tsunami.

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Roz Savage MP

What is the economy for? Liberalism already knows the answer

By Roz Savage MP | Tue 28th April 2026 - 9:10 am

What is the economy for?

It’s a simple question. But how we answer it underpins everything else in politics.

We created the economy to serve us – to make life easier, safer, better. It is a human system, designed to help people thrive.

But somewhere along the way, that relationship has become inverted. Too often, it feels as though people and communities are expected to bend themselves around the demands of the economy, rather than the other way round.

For decades, we have treated GDP growth as the ultimate measure of success. If the number goes up, we assume things are getting better. But most people instinctively know that isn’t the full story.

GDP can rise while people feel less secure, less connected, and less hopeful. It can rise while our rivers are polluted, our soils depleted, and our public services stretched. It can rise while inequality widens and communities fracture.

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Mathew Hulbert

Mathew on Monday – Ed Davey, Trump, and why legitimate criticism being blamed for violence is nonsense

By Mathew Hulbert | Mon 27th April 2026 - 6:05 pm

Early this morning on GB News I debated a former Tory MP (and the presenter) on why there’s no connection between our leader’s criticism of the present occupant of the White House and the alleged political violence that took place this past weekend -the argument simply doesn’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny.

Let’s start with first principles. All political violence is wrong. Full stop. Whether it’s an alleged incident at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this weekend, or the well documented events of January 6th, 2021 – when a mob of angry supporters of Donald Trump (arguably at his direct instigation) stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn a democratic election result – it is always indefensible. But what is both intellectually lazy and politically dangerous is the attempt to draw a straight line between robust democratic criticism and acts of violence. That’s not analysis – it’s deflection.

Because let’s be absolutely clear: Ed Davey criticising Donald Trump is not the problem here. It is, in fact, part of the solution.

We live in democracies. That means leaders – whether in Washington or Westminster – must be open to scrutiny, challenge, and yes, criticism. If a British political leader cannot express concerns about the rhetoric, behaviour, and record of this U.S. President without being accused by some of somehow “inciting” events thousands of miles away, then we are in very troubling territory indeed. Especially as, at the same time, I was being told that no one in the States has heard of the Lib Dem leader and that he has ‘no impact’ across the Atlantic.

Even as presented, the argument collapses under its own weight. Because it implicitly suggests that the real issue is not an act of alleged violence itself, but the existence of criticism that may have proceeded it. That is a profound inversion of responsibility.
And it also ignores the wider context. The United States has, in recent years, experienced a worrying increase in political tension and high-profile violent incidents, with experts pointing to the corrosive impact of genuinely inflammatory rhetoric and polarisation. To pretend that a British leader from the mainstream political centre is somehow the catalyst for that, or, indeed, plays any part in it whatsoever, is frankly absurd.

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Rodrigo Palmer

Post-growth ecological liberalism: A regenerative care economy within planetary limits

By Rodrigo Palmer | Mon 27th April 2026 - 11:24 am

Whether our economies can absolutely decouple from environmental harm at the scale required to mitigate the worst consequences of the socio-ecological crisis is a central debate in sustainability academia. Whilst green growthers and techno-optimists consider these achievable, ecological economists and post-growthers like myself are much more sceptical.

There are many peer-reviewed articles on both sides, with the post-growth movement gaining significant gravitas in economic and policy circles. A global survey of 789 climate policy researchers revealed increased scepticism towards green growth approaches. Following these findings, a vision for how an ecological, post-growth liberal society could work is increasingly necessary.

Our growth economies are designed primarily to generate surplus capital efficiently to fulfil societal needs and wants. An economy designed in such a way is doomed by a hamartia: a constant structural dilemma. Balancing just economic development with protecting necessary ecological spaces, all whilst not aggravating the social-ecological crisis, is developing into a near-Sisyphean task.

Such a dilemma would be eased significantly in a post-growth liberal economy, because it would be designed for ecological stability. The economy would be regenerative by design, with the adoption of the circular economy and technological developments in resource efficiency being core to its success. Whether growth is desirable would be subject to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, considering both social and environmental factors.

A post-growth liberal economy is grounded in the precautionary principle in environmental law. Whilst the debate of whether absolute decoupling remains ongoing, urgent action is required now. The socio-ecological crisis is much too pressing and urgent to warrant absolute certainty in this central academic debate.

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