Category Archives: Op-eds

Caron Lindsay

“Liberal lion” Ron Waddell has died

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 19th July 2022 - 9:30 am

We are losing so many brilliant liberals at the moment.  Ron Waddell,  who was Chief Executive of the Scottish Liberal Democrats back in the 90s, died suddenly on Sunday.

Somewhere in the middle of Saturday night , I was scrolling through Facebook. A photo posted by Ron on Saturday afternoon, of a cloudy saltire in the blue sky above his Derbyshire home, made me smile. Not least because Ron hardly ever posted on Facebook and it was lovely to see.

It was about 12 hours later that his wife Sandra posted the awful news.

In every single conversation I have had with people about Ron in the past two days, the words kind and gentle have featured very highly. He was a lovely man, always wise and one of those people who could instantly calm a frazzled situation or, dare I say, bruised egos.

He was one of the best humans, gone way too soon.

After working for the party, Ron was a Geography teacher, then deputy head and finished his career in Scotland working for the City of Edinburgh Council, firstly as an adviser on education to the LIb Dems and then as a senior manager in the Education Department. There, he often worked with my husband who was involved in health and safety for schools. Bob always found him helpful and supportive.

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Caron Lindsay

Mathew Hulbert describes his mum’s 11 hour ambulance wait

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 19th July 2022 - 7:32 am

Many of us will have seen on social media that Barwell Lib Dem Councillor Mathew Hulbert lost his mum, Jackie, last week. We were all shocked that she had to wait 11 hours for an ambulance after a fall at her home. The picture, taken by Mathew’s sister,  shows  a happy Mathew and Jackie enjoying a drink earlier this year.

Mathew went on LBC last night to talk to Iain Dale about their ordeal.

A week ago yesterday my mum fell in the early hours. She pressed her buzzer. I got to the house. She said her ribs hurt so we didn’t move her.  We phoned an ambulance and they said that they were telling people it would be 10 hours before one came but not to worry, it would be sooner.

Unfortunately, the hours passed by. Mathew kept kept ringing up and was being told that the ambulance would be there as soon as possible.

It was the indignity of it for my mum, 78, frail, scared wondering when help would come and it didn’t for 11 hours.

It was incredibly difficult. This is someone you love and who brought you up and cared for you.

Eventually, after 11 hours, the paramedics arrived. Mathew said;

They couldn’t have been more caring and compassionate but it was still 11 hours too late.

Jackie was conscious and chatting as they took her off to hospital and at that point, there was no indication that she was in any danger.

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If the Tories hate each other so much, how can they be good for our country?

By Andy Boddington | Mon 18th July 2022 - 9:52 am

Anyone listening to the criticism of the outgoing administration during the weekend’s leadership debates might get the impression that the Conservatives have been in opposition for the last decade. In some ways they have. In opposition to themselves. The show of unity as ministers flanked the prime minister during PMQs has proved to be nothing other than a flimsy façade.

Of course, it was always thus. Unity is not a feature of modern day Conservative politics, or Labour politics for that matter. But can an administration govern effectively when it is not only so bitterly divided but makes a public show of disunity?

These past few days have been a bit like watching Titus Andronicus, blood and gore galore while onlookers struggle with the plot.

This would be a black comedy and no more than entertainment if it were not an election for the highest office in the land. I fear that the undignified spectacle of so-called leading politicians tearing themselves apart

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Farron: Ministers must now wake up and smell the sewage

By Andy Boddington | Sun 17th July 2022 - 5:02 pm

While all eyes were on the leadership election last Thursday, the Environment Agency published its annual report on the environmental performance of water and sewerage companies. The agency has suffered from severe cuts to staff and that has limited its operational effectiveness. But it has too often pulled its punches, preferring diplomatic niceties to forceful language.

No longer. Outgoing chair Emma Howard Boyd didn’t mince her words in her last report on water and sewage. She called for prison sentences for the chief executives and board members of the companies responsible for the most serious pollution incidents. Company directors should be struck off. “Water companies exist to serve the public. Their environmental performance is a breach of trust. The polluter must pay.”

Reacting to the report Tim Farron said:

For months we have been calling for these water companies to pay for dirtying our precious rivers and beaches.  Time and time again, Ministers defended them whilst otters were poisoned and we swam in sewage infested waters.

Ministers must now wake up and smell the sewage. They can’t ignore the Environment Agency like they ignored the public.

We need a Sewage Tax on water companies making outrageous multi-billion pound profits. Why should they profit off destroying our environment? The whole thing stinks.

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The Voice

Ruth Coleman-Taylor: The future of the state

By The Voice | Sun 17th July 2022 - 3:39 pm

Yesterday  we reported  that much loved liberal activist Ruth Coleman-Taylor had died. She will be very much missed. Back in 2014, she wrote this piece for us on the future of the state which is as relevant now as it was then, probably more so. 

The Liberal Democrat pre-manifesto sets out our ambitions to take power from ‘the stifling hand of Whitehall’ and return it to citizens and communities: but does the state have the power it once did? Can we rely on having a strong state to implement our plans?

After the Second World War, the new architecture of the international order was based on bodies like the United Nations, the World Bank and the European Union. These have all developed upon states agreeing to share sovereignty, to trade individual power for the achievement of shared objectives. In more recent decades, states have devolved, out-sourced or sold off functions to other agencies or spheres of governance. Some 80% of business transactions now take place in the unregulated space of the transnational domain. How much state is there and how much power does it have?

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Michal Siewniak

Wimbledon, strawberries and immigration

By Michal Siewniak | Sun 17th July 2022 - 10:30 am

I really love sports! I remember that as a child, I could easily spend hours playing football, basketball, or badminton. Winning or losing a game, belonging to a team, communication & learning; sport gives us so many important lessons which can shape our adult life. When I moved to Croatia and then Italy, football was such a powerful way to meet new people. At the beginning, I didn’t speak Croatian or Italian so sport was a fantastic way to build new friendships and learn basic words in both languages. All of these experiences helped me a lot to feel less isolated and more valued. They helped me to break down barriers & feel more confident. Sport also creates ‘Community Champions’ and enables people to integrate better in their communities.

I like tennis and Wimbledon is one of my favourite tournaments in the annual calendar. There is drama, a bit of shouting and some fantastic matches. Strangely, strawberries and Pimms are often associated with this most famous grass competition in the world. Most people would argue that there is very little correlation between strawberries and tennis. However this year, while watching Wimbledon, I wondered what the impact of Brexit in the agriculture sector is.  

Although the Government increased the number of seasonal workers visas from 30,000 to 40,000, according to the Home Office, this offer was taken up by only 28,000 people. Am I surprised? Not at the slightest. If I had a chance to choose, why would I want to come to Britain? Paying for the visa, which as far as I understand is not transferable, demonstrating that I am self-sufficient, by providing my online banking balance, or not being able to extend my stay proves that the policy won’t work. There are far too many obstacles to even vaguely contemplate coming over. It is so much simpler to travel to any other member state or country countries such as Norway, which belong to the Schengen area.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 17th July 2022 - 8:35 am

A diplomatic truism is that some conflicts are insoluble. They are, however, manageable. Although the consequences of doing nothing or mismanagement can spell disaster. The Arab-Israeli conflict falls neatly into the above category.

President Joe Biden obviously came to this conclusion before stepping on the plane for his tour of the Middle East this week. A succession of American administrations – except Trump’s – has paid homage to the two-state solution. Biden reiterated the pre-Trump position, but not as forcefully as his predecessors. Part of the reason is that there was little point as his Israeli counterpart, Yasir Lapid, is merely a caretaker prime minister while the Jewish state struggles through another political crisis. As for the Palestinians, they are hopelessly divided between Hamas in Gaza who are a designated terrorist organisation and the PLO’s Mahmoud Abbas who, at 86, makes Biden look like the proverbial spring chicken. The result is that the two-state solution has been moved from the backburner to refrigerator.

Instead the US administration is focusing on maintaining relations with Israel and trying to draw other allies – mainly Saudi Arabia but also the United Arab Emirates and Qatar – into closer relations with Israel. To help with the first point, Biden has toughened his stand on Iran and the threat of nuclear weapons. One thing that all Israeli parties agree on is that Iran represents an existential threat. Biden has agreed that he will do whatever is necessary to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The second issue is more, problematic, especially as regards Saudi Arabia. There is no love lost between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Biden and the wider Democratic Party. Clearly a problem that needs managing.

Ukrainian military commanders are cock-a-hoop. The military equipment and training provided by the West are starting to work, especially the shoot and scoot American High Mobility Rocket Systems (HIMARS). The GPS-guided precision artillery have to date knocked out 19 forward-based Russian ammunition dumps.

The Ukrainians are now talking about a major counter-offensive involving hundreds of thousands of ground troops to retake territories lost in the Donbas Region. There are, however, problems. HIMARS rockets are accurate and effective, but they are also expensive and have to be used sparingly. So far the US has supplied eight launchers. Another four are on the way. The other problem is that their range is limited to 50 miles. As the Ukrainians advance, the Russians could simply stage a tactical retreat and still control a significant slice of Eastern Ukraine. Washington could supply Ukraine with precision weaponry with a range of 500 miles. These would be a war-winner but would mean that Ukraine could strike targets inside Russia which means escalation with disastrous consequences.

Meanwhile there appears to be the possibility of some movement on the movement of grain out of Ukraine. Between them, Russia and Ukraine account for 21-28 percent of the world’s grain supplies and 40 percent of this vital food for the inherently unstable North Africa and Middle East. A big chunk of that grain is – more than 20 million tonnes – trapped in Ukrainian siloes, unable to reach hungry world markets because of a Russian naval blockade. This week saw talks in Istanbul involving Ukrainian, UN, Russian and Turkish negotiators. They ended with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar promising a signed deal next week. Moscow and Kyiv have said nothing.

There are several sticking points. For a start the Ukrainians have mined the approaches to their ports to prevent a Russian amphibious landing and the Russians have imposed a naval blockade to stop the import of weapons. Going into this week’s talks Moscow demanded the right to inspect incoming ships for weapons. The Ukrainians said no. The Ukrainians, for their part insisted on grain carriers being escorted by convoys of friendly ships. That is a possibility and Turkey may play a role here.

A further complication, however, is that the exports would include Russian grain which Ukrainians assert has been stolen from land occupied by the Russians since their 24 February invasion.  Not surprisingly, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said: “There is still a way to go.”

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Caron Lindsay

Liberal legend Ruth Coleman-Taylor has died

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 16th July 2022 - 7:28 pm

Ruth Coleman-Taylor has been a friend to many generations of Liberals and Liberal Democrats – and to many generations of members of liberal parties across the world.

Many readers of this site will be very sad to hear that Ruth died on Wednesday in hospital in Greece, where she was moving with her husband Mick.

Ruth was one of the kindest, wisest people and I feel very lucky to have known her. I first met her back in 1992 at a Women Liberal Democrats (as it then was) AGM in Bath. Her daughter, Rachel was telling us about her experience at an international young person’s space school.

I loved spending time with her and Mick at every Conference. She gave excellent advice and was incredibly good at disagreeing well. She was a radical liberal and committed internationalist. She was as livid as many of us were about Brexit and its false promises.

She and Mick had the spirit, fearlessness and the drive to head off for a year’s travelling around the world in their 70s. While we missed them when they were away we couldn’t wait to hear about their adventures when they came back.

Ruth was Mayor of Todmorden when it was featured in the Sunday Times list of Best Places to live last year. Her comments to the Halifax Courier summed up the sorts of things she thought were important in a community:

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: cold winter cometh

By Tom Arms | Sat 16th July 2022 - 10:37 am

Enjoy the summer sun while you can. It is going to be a c-c-cold winter – literally and metaphorically.

Just about every corner of the globe will be affected. The US perhaps less than many. Europe more than most. But Inflation fuelled by energy shortages will affect almost every one. The rare exceptions will be those living in mud huts heated by gathered wood and financed by a barter economy.

The major cause is the Ukraine war, European reliance on Russian energy and Vladimir Putin’s willingness to use it as a weapon. But there are other factors: Grain and general food shortages caused by the war, slow recovery from a lingering pandemic, supply chain bottlenecks, inflation and rising interest rates to control it and political instability which is both the cause and effect of the above.

On 26 July the EU will hold a European energy summit to thrash out a coordinated response to the crisis. Failure to do so will damage the unity of the world’s biggest trading bloc with knock-on effects everywhere else.

On the agenda are increased development of green energy and boosted production of European oil and dirty coal to fill the gap. Also to be discussed will be coordinated purchases of Liquefied Natural Gas and the building of more gas storage facilities, the strength of the Euro, more help for Ukraine, holding the line against Russia, food inflation and, dare I say it, rationing. All of the above are inextricably linked.

The threat of a Russian gas blackmail has been hanging over Europe since before Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine on 24 February. The Reagan Administration issued warnings about it 40 years ago. Moscow supplies 25 percent of Europe’s gas. This week the main supplier – Gazprom – shut down Nordstream 1, the main gas pipeline from Russia to Europe. They claimed that the halt was for “maintenance purposes” but everyone knows that the shutdown is a thinly veiled threat.

Europeans have been actively hoarding gas supplies in storage facilities in preparation for the winter to come. German economists reckon that if they increase stocks to 80 percent of capacity by November then there will be enough for winter. Before the heatwave struck supplies were at 60 percent capacity. Now they are dropping as sweltering consumers switch on their air conditioning.

Germany has other energy problems. Consumer gas prices have been subsidised for years with an unrealistic price cap that at the moment reduces the household price by more than a third of the market price. This is unsustainable but politically difficult to change so the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz is tiptoeing around the subject of gas rationing.

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Mary Reid

Forced adoption: mothers demand Government apology

By Mary Reid | Fri 15th July 2022 - 10:01 am

A report published today from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights highlights the cruelty of forced adoptions in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Many women who were went through this, both as mothers or as the adopted children, are now calling for an apology from the Government.

You can download the latest report here: The Violation of Family Life: Adoption of Children of Unmarried Women 1949–1976

As Lib Dem Voice’s resident oldie, I can remember those days. I find it difficult to explain in these more liberal times that negative attitudes towards unmarried mothers ran right across society back then. As it happens, the Chair of the Committee is Harriet Harman, who was a near contemporary of mine at University, so she will also have recollections of life at the time.

The post-war years up until the mid 60s was a period of austerity, as the country recovered both economically and emotionally. Dramas set in that time often project today’s liberal values onto the period setting, assuming that people really were as sexually liberated as they are today but just hid it. I can assure you that was not the case. Not only was there a huge fear of getting pregnant without reliable contraception, but the opportunities for sex were limited for many young people, many of whom lived at home until they married. Couples simply didn’t live together, and girls were expected to be virgins at their weddings. There was huge shame associated with a pregnancy outside marriage.

If a young woman became pregnant she had three options – an illegal abortion, a so-called “shotgun” marriage or birth followed by adoption. Keeping the baby simply was not an option. I knew several girls who chose to have an abortion, got married straight away or whose babies were adopted, but I cannot remember anyone who kept their baby. It would have been impossible to live independently with a baby or young child as there were no benefits available, no jobs and no childcare.

As the report says

The experiences of the mothers and their children are at the centre of this inquiry. They did not, as is often said, give their children away. Unmarried women who found themselves pregnant during this period faced secrecy and shame from the earliest stages. Those who would have seized the chance to keep their sons and daughters with them and brought them up themselves did not have the opportunity to do so. Societal and familial pressures, and the absence of support contributed to thousands of children being taken from loving mothers and placed for adoption.

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It’s a woke leadership election. That is damaging

By Andy Boddington | Thu 14th July 2022 - 5:39 pm

It’s one of the most contentious topics of our times but hardly the stuff of debate on the top of the Clapham Omnibus and in the snug of your neighbourhood pub. Many people have never heard of “woke” and a third don’t know what it means.

Yet it features strongly in the Tory leadership campaign, mainly in respect of transgender issues. Why?

The anti-woke momentum in the leadership contest is partly driven by the rise of populism on the Tory right. The right wing media have been gunning against woke, especially transgender issues, for months. Searches for “woke” on Google have accelerated since the leadership contest got underway. Candidates have felt obliged to give a statement of their position on woke. Second runner Penny Mordant had been quite relaxed on transgender but toughened her stance yesterday quoting Margaret Thatcher:

“It was Margaret Thatcher who said that ‘every Prime Minister needs a Willie’. A woman like me doesn’t have one.”

This posturing by the Tory candidates in order to get approval from the right wing press is damaging. Discussions on matters such as colonialism and slavery and the transgender debate need space and time to move towards a consensus. Efforts to achieve a degree of understanding, even if a consensus is impossible, should not be wrecked by the ambitions of wannabe prime ministers.

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And then there were five… Sunak leads but Mordant closes

By Andy Boddington | Thu 14th July 2022 - 3:27 pm

The results are in and the list of wannabe prime ministers has been whittled down to five MPs:

  • Rishi Sunak: 101 (+13; +14.8%)
  • Penny Mordaunt: 83 (+16; +24%)
  • Liz Truss: 64 (+14; +28%)
  • Kemi Badenoch: 49 (+9; +23%)
  • Tom Tugendhat: 32 (-5;  -14%).

Suella Braverman has been eliminated from the contest with 27 votes (-5; -16%). Earlier she refused to stand aside for Liz Truss or Kemi Badenoch to concentrate support for the right wing of the party.

Penny Mordant has made the biggest gains and looks in reach of matching or overtaking Rishi Sunak. Liz Truss still lags and Tom Tugendhat looks close to elimination in the next round of voting on Monday.

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Mary Reid

Tory Leadership ballot – battles recommence

By Mary Reid | Wed 13th July 2022 - 7:20 pm

So we are down to six:

  • Kemi Badenoch
  • Suella Braverman
  • Penny Mordaunt
  • Rishi Sunak
  • Liz Truss
  • Tom Tugendhat

Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi did not make the cut.

What does this mean for Liberal Democrats? We are conflicted here – which contender would be best for the country and which would be better for our party’s electoral prospects?  Boris Johnson was a disaster for the country but a huge asset to us in recent by-elections, but that is, of course, is no reason to want him to stay in post.  I would certainly put integrity and decency in a Prime Minister at the top of my requirements, even though it would probably produce an upswing in Tory support.

Sadly, those on the more centrist or liberal wings of the Conservatives, that is, those we have most in common with, simply won’t find enough support these days in either the Parliamentary or wider party membership. Tom Tugendhat, a liberal Conservative, is likely to reach peak support in the next day or two.

Instead cultural warriors like Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman and Liz Truss represent the beating heart of the Conservative party – who will the MPs coalesce behind?

But what of Penny Mordaunt? – described as the dark horse of this contest. She is seen by some as a social liberal, but economic conservative, who seems to stand outside the normal rhetoric.

And then there’s Rishi Sunak, in a class of his own. Too many right wing connections, too much reckless spending during the pandemic (though matched by beneficial furlough schemes and, close to my heart, the Cultural Recovery Fund), too little understanding of the impact of his actions on the poorest members of our society, and too much money of his own – no wonder he appeals to the Tory faithful.

What’s your take on the race?

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Mary Reid

PM blocks Vote of No Confidence

By Mary Reid | Wed 13th July 2022 - 12:26 pm

Politics Home is one of the many media platforms covering Boris Johnson’s reaction to the Vote of No Confidence motion proposed by Labour, and supported by the Lib Dems.

It quotes Erskine May:

By established convention, the Government always accedes to the demand from the Leader of the Opposition to allot a day for the discussion of a motion tabled by the official Opposition which, in the Government’s view, would have the effect of testing the confidence of the House.

Instead, the Prime Minister has refused to allow the debate.

Although it was unlikely that the motion would have been passed, it was seen as a marker of the concern felt by many over Boris Johnson’s continued presence in No 10 over the summer.

It seems the refusal to allow the motion is based on a rather legalistic interpretation of the rules. The actual wording of the motion is this:

That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government while the Rt Hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip remains Prime Minister.

A Government spokesperson claims that it isn’t valid “because the Prime Minister has already resigned”. Well, we all know that, but clearly the motion is referring to the interim arrangements – the two whole months between his resignation and the installation of a new Prime Minister. This transition period can work smoothly in the hands of a person of integrity, and I include many former Prime Ministers in that, but is a dangerous period for democracy in the hands of someone shown to lack any moral compass. No wonder he has been compared with Trump – which is exactly what Ed Davey said in response:

This sounds more like Donald Trump than a serious British Government.

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Caron Lindsay

Seeing ourselves as others see us

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th July 2022 - 9:36 am

I’ve been a big fan of the Crooked Media organisation’s stable of podcasts for a few years now.

Crooked was set up in 2017 by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor in the wake of Trump’s victory to provide a progressive media outlet that encouraged activism to restore the Democrats’ fortunes. Its growing team and stable of podcasts informs and entertains about all aspects of US politics. Its Hysteria podcast, hosted by journalist Erin Ryan and former White House Head of Scheduling and Advance Alyssa Mastromonaco aired the day Justice Anthony Kennedy retired from the Supreme Court, paving the way for last month’s overturning of abortion rights and had to be re-recorded.

If you haven’t already, you might like to listen to their perspective on the events leading up to Boris Johnson’s long overdue resignation in the Boris Johnson Brexits edition of their Pod Save the World podcast presented by former national security spokesman Tommy Vietor and foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes. They have an interview with David Lammy who is their go-to Labour person. They could do with a go-to Lib Dem as well but Lammy pretty much covers all the bases on this one.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 10th July 2022 - 9:33 am

Shinzo Abe – Japan’s longest-serving prime minister who was assassinated on Friday – was best known for three things: His tough anti-Chinese stance; his efforts to beef up Japan’s military and Abenomics.

The first secured him the ire of Beijing which he wore as a badge of honour. Of course, as soon as the news of the shooting crossed the East China Sea, the official Chinese line was shock, horror and dismay. But on social media Chinese nationalists were busy expressing their glee. One of the reasons for the Chinese dislike of Abe was his skewed view of history and pro-defense policies. On the former, Abe – in common with many other Japanese politicians – denied, ignored or underplayed his country’s atrocities during World War II. The Chinese retain bitter memories of the Japanese occupation of most of their country in the 1930s and during World War Two. They welcomed the constitutional post-war curbs on the Japanese defense forces which banned the Japanese from using war “as a means of settling disputes.”

Abe, a staunch nationalist, wanted to re-write the constitution and increase defense spending from one to two percent of the GDP.  This policy has the support of Western governments who regard the restrictions on the world’s third largest economy as a post-war anomaly. Defense spending is a major issue in the current election.

Shinzo Abe was one of the many world leaders who lent their name to an economic theory. Abenomics combined monetary easing by the central bank with increased government spending and structural reform. Its purpose was to end decades of economic stagnation. Abenomics had some success but not as much as Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party hoped. Like all politicians, Shinzo Abe enjoyed successes and suffered failures. But his greatest achievement was to be the tough man of Japanese politics at a time when the Japanese required a stiff political backbone.

Vladimir Putin was blunt: We have just begun to fight, he told Russian parliamentary leaders this week. He then went on to blame the “collaborative West” for starting the war in Ukraine. It was the result, he claimed of a 2014 Western-supported military coup which ousted a pro-Russian government and launched a “genocide” in the Donbas Region.

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Michal Siewniak

Time to re-connect with politics!

By Michal Siewniak | Sat 9th July 2022 - 5:00 pm

On the day of the Prime Minister’s announcement, I was working from home. As some of us did, I received endless messages from friends and colleagues, who were commenting on a sequence of unfolding political events, which have never (?) been seen in British politics. When it was clear that Mr Johnson would eventually resign, I was actually looking forward to his speech. It has been the most extraordinary few years for the nation, democracy and the political process in Britain.

In recent weeks, we were all reflecting on the quality of politics, here at home, but also across the globe. Most of us would question the lack of integrity, decently and honesty of some of our politicians who, with decisions they make, have such a huge impact on our lives. I was so disappointed that the Prime Minister didn’t say sorry and that he didn’t apologise. Tons of articles and press releases have been issued to cover some of the horror stories of his government. The more I thought about it, the angrier I was with the rest of his Cabinet. In my view, there was absolutely no decency in what they did. They did know, all along, the character of the Leader of the Conservative Party and our Prime Minister. They knew that he was not trustworthy, they knew that he is a charlatan, someone who is not at the service of others but someone, who is self-centred, indefensible with, apparently, great character and charisma.

On Thursday evening, as I was getting ready for my last work meeting, I received a text message from a friend of mine. I said to him that the government, lack of leadership, incompetence across all governmental departments meant that I started to doubt whether there is any point in enhancing my passion and interest in the civic process.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Boris

By Tom Arms | Sat 9th July 2022 - 10:33 am

The rules, the law, other people… they were of little or no concern to Boris Johnson. At least not until this week when his contempt for parliamentary convention, constitutional law and common decency resulted in his being dragged kicking and screaming to the exit door of 10 Downing Street.

Boris Johnson’s lack of moral fibre has wreaked havoc on Britain’s unwritten constitution; the social contract between rulers and ruled; Britain’s position in the world and the country’s finances. The Conservative Party has been mortally wounded by the decision to elect him Party leader and to stand by him for three scandal-riven years.

He won them votes with his unruly mop of hair, boyish charm and extraordinary skill with the spoken and written word. But winning votes is only part of the job. A Prime Minister needs to be able to govern. Boris Johnson’s incompetence, laziness and skewed moral compass made him unfit for the tenancy of Downing Street.

The success of the British parliamentary system relies heavily on the “Good Chap” theory of Government. Politicians are expected to act with honesty and integrity. If they are caught in a lie – especially a lie to parliament – they have to be relied upon to do the honourable thing and resign.

This is not the law. It is a parliamentary convention which has been observed for centuries. But Boris is not a good chap. He is a bad chap. He cares not one jot for parliamentary convention. Parliament – as far as Boris was concerned – was an obstacle to be overcome rather than a political tool to be used.

For the past 50 years successive British prime ministers have tried to shift their role from that of  “First Among Equals” in a cabinet of high-achieving individuals to a more presidential type of government. This meant circumventing parliament as much and as often as possible. Boris embraced this trend with vigour and disastrous consequences.

It started with British membership of the EU. His lies narrowly swung the British behind Brexit. But then when parliament balked at the terms he negotiated with Brussels he illegally attempted to prorogue the legislature. That was followed by effectively booting 21 rebel conservative MPs out parliament, thus ensuring that his post 2019-election majority would be comprised mostly of fawning acolytes.

The cabinet he appointed has – with a few exceptions – been chosen not on the basis of competence but on personal loyalty to Boris Johnson. It is generally regarded as one of the most – if not the most – mediocre cabinet in British history.

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Andrew Brown

Bristol supports trans rights

By Andrew Brown | Fri 8th July 2022 - 9:37 am

On Tuesday evening, I proposed a motion to Bristol City Council entitled “Trans Rights are Human Rights”.

This had been put together locally by Councillors and activists from Lib Dems, Labour, and the Green Party as well as non-party people – and was seconded by a Green Party member of council. I am indebted to them for their hard work, and to the Councillors who supported it on the night: bar some abstentions, and Tory votes against, the motion was overwhelmingly passed.

The motion can be found here, and my speech was as follows:

This is the week of Bristol’s Pride march, and I couldn’t be prouder to bring this motion to Full Council. Why?

First, it has been put together by a cross- and non- party group of Councillors and Activists, including those with lived experience of being trans and non-binary in our society.

Second, allowing people to live their lives with freedom from conformity is one of the core principles enshrined in the Lib Dem constitution – and support for trans people is fundamental to living out that value.

Third, as a gay man, I know what it is like to not conform to society’s expectations – and for the state to make life difficult for people like. That spurs me on to work to make lives easier for others.

Finally, attacks on trans people are, when traced to source, orchestrated and encouraged by those who would seek to turn the clock back on the human rights of others – LGB people, women, ethnic minorities.

So, turning to the motion, what is being proposed? Well, it is fundamentally about three things: Solidarity, Support, and Advocacy.

Solidarity – this is about us, as a Council, standing with some of the most marginalised people in our city and communities. Trans people are amongst our residents and deserve to know that their elected representatives have their backs.

Affirming that we recognise that they are part of our community, flying the trans pride flag on appropriate days, and training our staff all have a part to play in reassuring our trans residents that the Council values them and their contribution to the city as much as any other group.

Support – there are a number of ways in which the Council can make life easier for trans people through the way it delivers services, the choices it makes about who to contracts with, and the way issues of sexuality and gender identity are approached in schools.

This last is of particular importance. One of the lessons of Section 28 is that the suppression of age-appropriate education on sexuality damaged the lives of a generation of gay people, we should be avoiding doing the same for the those who are trans.

Advocacy – to use our influence and position to lobby national government and parliament to implement measures that make accessing trans health services easier, tackle LGBT+ hate crimes, and enact a full ban on conversion therapies, as originally promised.

It is often said that Pride is a Protest not a Party – true equality has not yet been achieved for people like me, far less so for trans people. So, this Pride week, don’t just enjoy the party or pay lip service to LGBT+ rights: vote for this motion, stand with trans people, and commit to making their lives easier.

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The whole bus cheered but where do we go from here?

By Andy Boddington | Thu 7th July 2022 - 6:13 pm

It’s a long and winding bus journey from Ludlow to Shrewsbury and like many of the passengers this morning I was beginning to doze. Then. “He’s gone!” a man at the front of the bus shouted. Everyone cheered. Brian, the bus driver turned on the radio. People startled into awakedness stared earnestly at their smart phones. The bus briefly buzzed with chatter.

The excitement faded as I caught a second bus to Shirehall with a sobering thought: how do we get out of this mess? I think that was the thought on the mind of the forty odd Conservatives who had assembled in Shirehall who were for the most part unusually subdued, though not of course humbled.

The debate over Boris Johnson’s survival as prime minister has dominated political thinking for many weeks. Sapping political energy that is desperately needed to tackle the cost of living crisis and the creaking NHS.

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One wheel on my wagon and I’m still rolling along…

By Andy Boddington | Thu 7th July 2022 - 6:30 am

The government spent Thursday stuck in quicksand. The prime minister was in sand up to his neck. But he still blundered and blustered on regardless through PMQs and a parliamentary committee most people had not heard of. More than forty members of the government have resigned, some from the top table, some the servers who usually bow and scrape. Michael Gove was sacked.

I write this article in the early hours of Thursday before heading off for a lengthy day battling in a Tory dominated council. Will Boris Johnson still be prime minister when I leave the council chamber? Will there be more resignations as dawn breaks?

Boris Johnson has always been in denial of reality. He has always lived in a fantasy world. His world is centred around himself. He is stuck in Slogan Land. Sound Bite Land. Anything but Resigning Land.

When watching Johnson perform at PMQs yesterday, a song from my youth randomly popped into my head. “Three wheels on my wagon, and I’m still rolling along…” The song was nonsense and hasn’t aged well. The same might be said of Johnson. For all the sense he made yesterday, he might have been chanting the New Christy Minstrels’ chorus: “I’m singing a higgity, haggity, hoggety, high. Pioneers, they never say die.”

That’s Johnson. Never say die. Never say resign.

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Lord William Wallace

How do we respond to the economic emergency?

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 4th July 2022 - 5:30 pm

Readers of the Daily Mail are still being told that the UK economy is in good shape, that there is room for tax cuts for the better off, and that the opportunities Brexit offers are beginning to benefit the country. Readers of the Financial Times, and of the business pages of the Times, are now being told a very different story: that we are in an economic emergency, with a collapse in exports to our largest – European – market, a continuing decline in the external value of the pound (which pushes up domestic inflation and makes UK companies cheaper bargains for foreign private equity to snap up), and the slowest rate of growth in the developed world.

Even without the impact of the Ukrainian conflict, our falling currency would be exerting inflationary pressures. Disruption of oil and gas flows, as well as global grain and fertiliser supplies has imposed additional inflationary pressures on everyone in Britain; and the longer the Ukraine-Russia conflict continues, the worse this disruption will get. Growing authoritarianism and antagonism towards ‘the West’ in China is further disrupting the global economy. The prospect is of zero economic growth in the coming year, a widening external trade imbalance, falling private investment and declining living standards. Yet Boris Johnson’s boosterish approach to political campaigning means that the government has downplayed the seriousness of our current situation, even as food banks report record demands for help and unions go on strike for pay increases to cope with rising costs.

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Charley Hasted

Pride in the Lib Dems

By Charley Hasted | Sun 3rd July 2022 - 5:38 pm

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of London Pride and Liberal Democrats were right there marching with all the pride we could muster -both as Liberal Democrats and throughout the parade Liberal Democrats were marching with other groups and organisations from the Armed forces to NHS trusts to Sports Groups. It was amazing to be part of this piece of history with 1.5 million people involved! Thanks to every Lib Dem who came yesterday, whether you were marching with the group or elsewhere or supporting from the crowd – and many thanks to our fabulous GLA Assembly Members – Caroline, Hina and Luisa for sharing the day with us.


Thanks to Luisa, Caroline, Hina and all the other Lib Dems
who helped give us an amazing presence yesterday.

Pride has always meant a lot to me – it’s the first place I felt I could be unashamed of myself when I was 16 and had just come out as bi. I’ve seen some of the best moments of solidarity there – adults taking it upon themselves to hide hateful banners from teenagers going past, cis people passionately defending trans people, thousands of people screaming support for LGBT+ refugee groups to give a very few examples I’ve seen over the years.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 3rd July 2022 - 9:39 am

So we know that abortion is now, or is about to be, illegal in about half of the American states. But what about the rest of the world? And what affect is the Supreme Court decision having elsewhere?

In Brazil at the moment abortions are allowed in cases of rape and incest. Populist right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro has used the overturning of Roe v Wade to call for a total ban. At the same time, other countries have condemned the ruling. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it a “major step backwards.” Almost simultaneous with the Supreme Court decision, Germany scrapped a Nazi-era law that bans doctors from offering information about abortion procedures. Spain took steps to remove parental consent for 16-17 year olds. French legislators proposed a bill to make abortion a constitutional right and the Dutch voted to abolish a mandatory five-day wait for women seeking an abortion. Within the EU only Malta has a total ban on abortion. Poland is the next strictest country on abortion laws. It allows pregnancy terminations in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s life is threatened. Generally, abortion has become accepted as a woman’s right in all but 37 out of 195 countries in the world.

The Ukraine War is sucking ammo dumps dry. The Russians are the worst hit. A tough Ukrainian defense has forced them to resort to blanket artillery barrages. They started with high precision missiles and by mid-May had fired off an estimated 2,200 of them. They are not cheap. Each cruise missile costs $1.9 million. They also take time to build and involve semi-conductors and transistors which are unavailable in Russia. Moscow’s now depleted precision munitions means that it is using more low precision artillery shells – about 20,000 a day – which increases the collateral damage. Tanks are another problem. The Ukrainians have been particularly adept at knocking out Russia’s tanks. So far the kill rate has topped a thousand. Each tank costs about $4 million and takes a minimum of three months to build.

But the other side – Ukraine and its Western backers – is also having problems. Kyiv didn’t have much to start with and most of it was out of date Soviet-era Russian-produced weaponry. It now has to rely on NATO defense equipment which they do not know how to use. So they have to be trained which takes time. Britain has taken a key role in training Ukrainian troops. But NATO is also running short of weapons to send Ukraine, especially the Europeans who have been particularly generous. Poland for instance, has given a quarter of its tanks to the Ukrainian army. Britain has donated about a third of its highly-effective Starstreak anti-tank missile systems and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is pleading the special case argument to increase defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP.

Germany, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have seriously depleted their weapons stocks. One of the reasons that the NATO summit agreed to a near ten-fold increase in troop and weapons levels in the Baltic region is because the defense cupboards in that region are heading towards bare. US ammo dumps are also taking a hit. Ukrainians have made good use of American-made Javelin missiles. Seven thousand of them – roughly a third of the total US stock of Javelins – has been sent to Ukraine. The American armaments industry produces an estimated 1,500 Javelin missiles a year. But the US has other similar systems and the industrial capacity to expand production. In a war of attrition, the West is much better placed then Russia. The next question is: Does it have the political will?

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: unholy alliance

By Tom Arms | Sat 2nd July 2022 - 10:25 am

The unholy alliance of the Christian Right and the Republican Party has conquered its Everest with the end of abortion in most of America.

It still has other political mountains to climb: Same-sex marriage, gay rights, equal rights, Christian nationalism, creationism, contraception, sex education, political correctness, gambling, pornography, Sunday trading…

But Roe v Wade was top target. It was the emotively totemic issue that united hardline conservative Republicans and Evangelicals and differentiated them from the rest of the country.

The alliance, however, may now be facing the downward slope. A poll taken just after the Supreme Court decision showed that 59 percent of Americans support abortion and 58 percent now want a federal law making abortion available nationwide.

The unholy alliance’s victory shows what religious fervour linked with political organisation can achieve. But the majority has learned the hard lesson of complacency associated with defending the status quo. They have been galvanised, are removing the gloves and have electoral numbers on their side.

America has a long history of mixing politics and religion. New England was founded by religious dissidents who sought to breakaway from establishment Church of England and for a long time set up their own theocracy in America. The US constitution was seen as a triumph of rationalism, the summit of the Age of Reason and a victory over the religious superstition of the medieval world.

For about 100 years enlightened reasoning – with exceptions – reigned largely supreme within the American corridors of power. Then along came Darwin and the church split between the fundamentalists who dismissed evolution as heresy and those who reluctantly accepted it as the logical fruit of science.

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Max Langer

Reviewing how we campaign

By Max Langer | Sat 2nd July 2022 - 8:30 am

Liberal Democrat campaigns are well known for their strong community focus, their mountains of leaflets and their incessant door knocking. This strategy has shown some success from Chesham and Amersham to Tiverton and Honiton, to our great local election results.

However, to say that this is the only way to win elections would be short sighted. We’ve seen right wing forces like Trump and the Brexit campaign effectively harness digital technologies and micro targeting to win against the odds. But is this something that we should be doing?

Some academics have looked to answer these questions, showing how digital techniques have grown in importance. However, these studies have often overlooked local elections and their key role in our politics. I want to change this.

I’m studying Public and Political Communications at the University of Sheffield and am researching how Liberal Democrats campaign, and most importantly, what campaigning methods work. This interest has come from several years of working as a Lib Dem local organiser and for ALDC.

This study will look at the 2022 local elections and seek to determine, based on statistical analysis, which campaigning methods contributed most to our impressive victories. Is canvassing more important than direct mail? Is Facebook more important than Instagram?

But, to do this I need your help.

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Nicholas Chan

The fight for Hongkong continues subtly

By Nicholas Chan | Fri 1st July 2022 - 11:00 am

When Britain prepared to transfer the sovereignty of Hong Kong, London signed the Treaty with Peking to pave the way for a ‘One Country Two Systems’ (1C2S) Chinese rule over Hong Kong. Although the people of Hong Kong were not consulted, the plan seem logical at the time – it solved one of Britain’s moral liability and such power sharing / devolution is actively implemented within Britain and other decolonised territories. The governance model, was of course, not a new political model but a well-oiled framework used frequently by 1982.  When revealed to HongKongers that the question of Hong Kong will be resolved on 1st July 1997 under 1C2S, veteran democracy politician Martin Lee said “This is a moment when all Chinese people should feel proud”. He went on to mention that it could be a progressive way for Mainland China to catch up with the Rule of Law and way of life that Hong Kong had demonstrated for the Chinese people.

Such were the goodwill and courage from HongKongers. There were no plans to scuttle the will from Peking or London; there was no mutiny planned to bring instantaneous seismic changes to how Mainland China should be governed. But certainly HongKongers actively find ingenious ways to be represented even when seldom conferred, in order to treasure their identity. They challenged the crisis where the territory’s dollar crashed, and stabilised by pegging HK Dollars to the US Dollars through reserves achieved from the economic success of HongKongers. Also, the pro-democracy camp devoted time into social welfare, work rights and endeavour as much electoral reforms as possible drawn up since the times of Governor Mark Young. Although diplomats will only voice their concerns of a Chinese controlled 1C2S, HongKongers actively engage to give it the best chance and to make do with a future penned in other cities. The people of Hong Kong may never have had full democracy in their land, but certainly can express themselves in a democratic way.

Therefore, it could never be true that the people of Hong Kong destabilise or bring foul to their hometown. When 2 million clashed with the government on the streets in 2019, it was an act of perseverance of our efforts. There was a moment when there could have been a progressive way forwards, or at the very least, where both parts of China can excel in each of their own ways.

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David Brunnen

You Said, What?

By David Brunnen | Thu 30th June 2022 - 10:31 am

A regular complaint about politics is the lack of plain speaking.

Even when truths are unavoidably uncomfortable, a lack of ambiguity (removing any excuse for convenient misunderstanding) will annoy some people. No matter how gently explained, the tone of the varnish can be criticised as, of course, are expletives deployed for emphasis.

Just recently there was much media anguish over whether to describe Russian atrocities in Ukraine as genocide. Now we are all becoming familiar with those invaders being described as terrorists – a term previously reserved for extremists, revolutionaries or liberators depending on your attitude towards incumbent authorities, or their opponents, or any of the ‘others’ imagined for the purpose of blame avoidance.

Only a small linguistic step is needed to reclassify free-market fundamentalists as engaged in global terrorism. But then many would find the invented term ‘toryism’ in that implied context as shockingly offensive – not least because so many of us are complicit in the evolution of unmoderated capitalist systems that are now wrecking our planet. Avoidance of offence is impossible, especially when discussing belief systems like economics.

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John Barrett

Why I will vote No in a referendum

By John Barrett | Wed 29th June 2022 - 3:43 pm

Back in 2013, I wrote an article for the Scotsman newspaper outlining what issues were important to me in deciding what way to vote in the then upcoming Independence referendum.

In the end I decided to vote Yes, as at that time I believed the risks involved were worth taking. Nearly ten years on, the circumstances are now quite different and if, as proposed yesterday by Nicola Sturgeon, there is another referendum next year, I would now vote No.

It is very unlikely that the Supreme Court will confirm legality on the new proposals, as it is clear to even the SNP, that without the consent of Westminster the Scottish Parliament will not be able to hold a lawful referendum and as the SNP have already declared that they will then make the next Westminster election a single issue campaign on independence, there is time to consider what is the best way forward. We have seen before how splitting the vote on any single issue can let a party with a minority of the votes win first past the post elections on that issue.

Firstly, we need to understand why the SNP will never give up on their demands for a referendum on independence. It is similar to Liberals wanting a fair voting system and losing a referendum on it. A fair electoral system is at the heart of our beliefs, and regardless of how little support other parties, or the public give electoral reform, we will never give up our call for a system where those elected fairly represent the way people have voted. The SNP have a similar core belief, but they depend on the lack of a fair electoral system to deliver it for them.

There will also be support from those who oppose independence, for a referendum, as the best way to give the public their say and to deal with the question which has dominated Scottish politics for many years. It is a debate that will not go away by refusing to have it.

Since 2014 much has changed, not least the fact of Brexit.

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Ruth Bright

Welcome to Obs and Gynae

By Ruth Bright | Wed 29th June 2022 - 9:41 am

The camera follows a man on a hospital trolley. He gurns at the audience and is wheeled away with his hand up to some unfortunate woman who is screaming.  “Welcome to the NHS” he opines to the audience. We all laugh. It’s the opening of the series “This is going to hurt”. About an obs and gynae ward. We all laugh. Women. Women down there. Women and their unmentionable bits. All intrinsically funny. Apparently.

Not so funny is that during the pandemic the waiting list for gynaecological procedures grew by 60%. During the pandemic many more women who suffer extreme bleeding during their periods or bleed all the time had to go in for emergency blood transfusions because major surgeries like hysterectomies were suspended.

This is not women waiting for something cosmetic or with a few aches and pains. This is about women who cannot work, cannot care for their children or in some cases for themselves they are in so much pain or bleeding so heavily.

The average diagnosis time in the UK for the excruciating condition of endometriosis is an appalling 8 years.

My local trust, for instance, knocks you off the gynae waiting list and sends you back to your GP after a year even if your symptoms are worsening! You then have to have more unnecessary intimate examinations to prove you should have been on the waiting list in the first place.

Of course there are pressures on every single part of the NHS.  However, a recent report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is adamant that gynae waiting lists are growing faster than other waiting lists and that gynae conditions are often labelled as “benign”. Babies don’t wait to be born so quite obviously the obstetric ward is ever open; gynae is often the first to close its doors when pressures become too much.

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