Category Archives: Op-eds

Jen Yockney

For Bi Visibility Day

By Jen Yockney | Fri 23rd September 2022 - 7:46 pm

Today is Bi Visibility Day, also known as International Celebrate Bisexuality Day.

The date highlights bisexuality and the challenges posed by biphobia and bisexual erasure – the tendency for bi people to be misread or have their lives retold as if they were straight or gay based on their public relationships.

When it began in 1999, then as International Celebrate Bisexuality Day, there was far less TV and media representation of bi life – and what there was so often depended on negative stereotypes. Media representation still has some way to go but has increased greatly in quantity and quality.In our understanding of real life experience too, biphobia was once dismissed as ‘homophobia lite’. It’s an odd idea – as if an employer that sacked staff for being gay back when that was legal would have just moved a bi worker to part-time hours.

As a party the Lib Dems have a good record: it was a Liberal Democrat equalities minister who sent the first ministerial message of support for Bi Visibility Day, and in councils like Stockport we have seen Liberals bring forward motions recognising this date and the need for year-round action on inclusion to address inequalities facing bi people.After the lull in many things due to the pandemic, this year the Bi Visibility Day website has over 100 events listed once more – from small things like flags being hoisted on universities and town halls to whole Bi Pride marches in France and Germany.

There’s even a film screening in Kyiv, where you might feel people had a good excuse to say they were a little busy and distracted right now.

But Bi Visibility Day is not simply about a bit of flag-waving and a party. The shift to a focus on visibility was not just for its own sake, but for the things that should flow from being visible and recognised.

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Mary Reid

Does trickle down economics actually work?

By Mary Reid | Fri 23rd September 2022 - 11:28 am

I will start by stating loud and clear that my understanding of economics is at a very basic level. However the concept of trickle down economics is refreshingly simple, so even I get the gist. But does it work?

Ed Davey addressed the question in his interview on Sky News yesterday, where he says that the practice of boosting big business with tax cuts will not help the 4 million SMEs:

And neither will it help those many millions of people who are struggling now, at this very moment, with the cost of living crisis. Even if Truss’s proposals did manage to kickstart the economy again it would take months, if not years, to impact on ordinary citizens/consumers.

However the evidence appears to be that, even in the long term, trickle down (or supply side) economics doesn’t achieve its intentions.

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Davey: We have most right wing government in modern history

By Andy Boddington | Thu 22nd September 2022 - 7:30 pm

In an interview with the Guardian yesterday, Ed Davey discussed Liz Truss’s administration ahead of tomorrow’s budget that is not a budget. He said of Truss:

She is saying some of the most extraordinary ideological things. She has appointed probably the most right wing government in modern history. And it seems completely out of touch.

He said Truss’s decision to style Friday’s announcement as a “fiscal event” rather than a budget seemed to be aimed at preventing the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) scrutinising its impact.

The failure to have an OBR assessment shows the economy is being run by ideology, not a plan. They clearly don’t want the evidence, because that would be unhelpful to their argument. And that should trouble everybody.

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Fracking go ahead is not a coherent energy policy

By Andy Boddington | Thu 22nd September 2022 - 5:42 pm

Jacob Rees Mogg announced to the Commons today: ”I am glad to be able to announce that the moratorium on the extraction of shale gas is being lifted.”

This is a bizarre announcement driven by ideology that has no basis in science or economics.

It has long been apparent that Liz Truss lacks environmental credentials and ambitions. She doesn’t even have Margaret Thatcher’s grasp of global warming (who was the only prime minister in my lifetime to have a science degree). This a government that is not scientifically literate. It is parliament that is not scientifically literate with just 17% of MPs having science, engineering, technology and medicine higher education (STEM) qualifications. That compares to 46% of higher education students qualifying in 2019.

Rees Mogg said today that fracking will help with the energy crisis. He seems to think that getting shale gas is no more difficult that turning on a tap. The blunt reality is there not enough gas to make fracking viable in the UK and what there is, is difficult to extract. And that can’t be done overnight and the founder of Cuadrilla Resources, which had wells halted in Lancashire, says no sensible investors would risk embarking on large fracking projects in the UK.

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Mary Reid

The question of monarchy

By Mary Reid | Thu 22nd September 2022 - 12:30 pm

“Well, I wouldn’t start from here if I were you.”

I don’t think any of us would have invented our current constitutional setup from scratch. It is something that has evolved over hundreds of years, emerging from a bloody history that includes the execution of monarchs and civil war, as well as the Glorious Revolution. And like all evolved creatures it bears redundant remnants of its past.

However there are some very beneficial features of the system that we have inherited:

  • It has given us a stable parliamentary democracy, which is rightly envied, and copied, across the world. The formal power of the aristocracy and the wealthy are severely curtailed.
  • There is clear separation between the Head of State and Government, to the extent that the Head of State is effectively banned from taking part in any political activities. This is coupled with clear separation between Government and Judiciary.
  • The smooth transition of power from one Government to another is pretty much guaranteed.
  • The (normal) longevity of the Head of State gives them a perspective on the nation and the world that few others can emulate, and this can inform Prime Ministers (who are, of course, free to ignore it).
  • The ceremonial and historical aspects of the monarchy are hugely popular and act as a focus for community cohesion.

However there are still some problems.

  • The legacy of Empire is still problematic, marked as it was by slavery, abuse and cultural annihilation, and for many the monarchy represents all that was wrong with imperialism.
  • The House of Lords still exists in a form that has echoes of its feudal past. Its scrutiny role is essential, and the inclusion of cross benchers with real expertise is undoubtedly a good thing. The question is how to create an elected chamber which is not just a pale reflection of the Commons.
  • Members of the Royal Family (as opposed to the office of the Monarch, which is funded by income from the Crown Estates) have accumulated vast personal wealth.
  • The wealthy from all sectors of society can still wield substantial soft power over Government.
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Lord William Wallace

Which public services will the Conservatives shrink further?

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 22nd September 2022 - 10:34 am

Liz Truss has just handed Liberal Democrat campaigners a powerful set of questions to put to Tory MPs. She insists that tax cuts are the answer to Britain’s economic problems – amounting to 1-2% of GDP, perhaps more once the full package of proposed cuts emerges. She’s pledged to raise defence spending by 1% of GDP – for which, sadly, there is a case when Russia intervention in Ukraine threatens European security. She’s promising to provide financial support for household and business energy bills, likely to amount to between 2% and 4% of GDP over the coming year, without offsetting the cost through a windfall tax on energy companies of the sort that most of our continental neighbours are levying. Other government programmes will have to be slashed to prevent public deficits spinning out of control.

So what cuts in other public services will Conservative MPs accept in order to prevent government debt spiralling and the pound sinking further on international markets? A squeeze on schools, or policing, or on the already-overstretched NHS? Holding down public service pay, while letting bankers’ bonuses soar? Slashing public investment in hospitals and transport infrastructure, and reducing local authority budgets further, thus saying goodbye to the promises of ‘Levelling Up’ that helped them to win the last general election? Or holding down benefits, leaving the poorest in our society even poorer? Ask every Conservative MP what further cuts they will support – or whether they will oppose this tax-cutting strategy.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Wed 21st September 2022 - 12:38 pm

Editor’s Note: This was submitted on 9th September but held back because of the death of the Queen.

Queen Elizabeth II

One of my other hats is leader of the local cub scout group. As such, an important part of my job is explaining the cub scout promise to incoming cubs. The second line was, until this week, “to uphold scout values and honour the Queen.” Now it will be “honour the King.”

But regardless, of the gender of Britain’s monarch, my explanation of the importance of that line will be the same. It is that the monarch is the physical repository of a thousand years of British history, tradition and laws. Many of these laws and traditions have spread all around the world and, by and large, have influenced it for the better. I tell my cubs that they are not pledging an allegiance to a person so much as to the unwritten constitution which the monarch represents. I believe this to be true. I wouldn’t tell my cubs so if I thought otherwise.

BUT Queen Elizabeth II was different. She did more than act as a constitutional repository. She did so in a way that demonstrated a selflessness and devotion to duty which set an example for every person in the United Kingdom and for hundreds of millions in the Commonwealth and beyond. She was working up until two days before her death. Queen Elizabeth II was loved and respected around the globe because she loved. Her reign was a link between Euro-centric imperial world with only 50 members in the United Nations to one with 193. Her first Prime Minister was a hero of the Boer War. Her last was seven years old when the Falklands Task Force set sail.

Viewed from the rose-tinted perspective of 70 years of hindsight, the world seemed a secure and certain place when Elizabeth Windsor was crowned Queen. But it was only seven years after the end of World War Two. Rationing was still in force. Britain was staggering under the burden of a huge war debt and an empire it could ill afford. Today it is recovering from the cost of a pandemic and facing mounting bills brought on by the withdrawal from the EU and a war in Ukraine. Since the time of Victoria the role of the British monarch has been to stand aloof from politics. To play the role of the rock of constancy in a sea of constantly shifting tides. Queen Elizabeth II played her part magnificently and has the established the template for King Charles III.

Ukraine

Volodomyr Zelensky and his generals have fooled me. More importantly, they have fooled Vladimir Putin and his generals. Everyone knew that the Ukrainians were planning a counter-offensive, if only to prove to their Western backers that they were worth the military aid and economic sacrifices. The riverside city of Kherson in Southeast Ukraine was expected to the main target of the counter-offensive. Ukrainian forces controlled or destroyed the main bridges across the Dnieper River. Putin rushed troops to the city and built up his forces in Crimea to the immediate south. But Zelensky’s men decided instead to focus their counter-offensive in the northeastern sector of Ukraine and the city of Kharkiv. In a single day the Ukrainians managed to break through Russian lines and regain several towns and villages in the Kharkiv region and 400 square kilometres of territory.

The Russians have grudgingly admitted the Ukrainian success.  While the Ukrainians were advancing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting Kyiv to announce another $2 billion in US aid. So far Washington has contributed $15.2 billion to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defence has reported that 15,000 Russian soldiers have died in Putin’s “special military operation.” That is the same as the official Moscow death toll for the Soviet Union’s ten-year war in Afghanistan (although the recognised unofficial figure is nearer 50,000).

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Mark Pack

Mark Pack’s monthly report: September 2022

By Mark Pack | Wed 21st September 2022 - 9:29 am

Paying tribute to the Queen

As Ed Davey said in paying tribute,

For many people, including myself, The Queen was an ever-fixed mark in our lives. As the world changed around us and politicians came and went, The Queen was our nation’s constant. The Queen represented duty and courage, as well as warmth and compassion. She was a living reminder of our collective past, of the greatest generation and their sacrifices for our freedom. My thoughts and prayers today go especially to the Royal Family. And they also go to people in every corner of the world whose lives she touched.

You can watch the tributes from other Liberal Democrats here

Cancellation of party conference

Following the death of the Queen, the Federal Board received a recommendation from the Federal Conference Committee (FCC) to cancel our autumn conference. We agreed to this after a special meeting. There was widespread understanding of the many drawbacks of cancellation, and how disappointed and out of pocket many members (including committee members) would be. But it was the least worst of the options available.

FCC chair Cllr Nick Da Costa explained the reasons for the cancellation, including the range of options considered, in an email to those registered for conference and which is also online here.

(If you were registered for conference and did not receive the email, you can contact [email protected] to check the party has an up-to-date email address for you and that you’re not opted out from such messages. It’s also worth checking to see if the emails are ending up in your spam folder.)

FCC is now looking at ways of putting on extra events to help fill some of the gaps left by cancellation, such as online sessions to hold party committees (and people like me!) to account and extra online training. If you were hoping to ask the Board any questions at conference, either at our helpdesk or in the formal Board report session, you can instead email them to me and I’ll do my best to ensure they all get answered.

The Returning Officer has also decided to adjust the timings for this autumn’s internal elections as they overlapped with The Queen’s funeral. Details are on the party website.

Receiving emails from the party

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Antony Hook

Change when we hold Autumn Conference

By Antony Hook | Tue 20th September 2022 - 2:55 pm

Like every member of the party, I was sorry that the party Conference had to be cancelled because of the Queen’s sad death.

But it was the right decision. Conference Chair Nick da Costa and the whole team, volunteers and staff, deserve our thanks for taking that decision and dealing with the massive practical consequences.

This has sparked ideas about next year. Should Spring Conference 2023 be earlier? Longer? An extra conference? These questions were discussed in an interesting special Lib Dem Podcast.

But this may be the right time to take a big step back and reconsider when we hold Autumn Conference every year.

The choice of date impacts on the success of the Conference, which is an important tool in achieving the party’s aims. 

Conference helps us elect more Liberal Democrats by networking members, building relationships and team spirit, sharing know-how through training, enriching our policy platform, interaction between Lib Dem parliamentarians and grassroots members, providing a media showcase for our Leader and key spokespeople and the forum for members to exercise democratic control of the party.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Diagnose First

By Tom Arms | Tue 20th September 2022 - 11:55 am

Editor’s Note: This was submitted on 9th September but held back because of the death of the Queen.

Britain’s new Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss is doomed to failure because she has failed to correctly diagnose the cause of her country’s problems.

Any doctor will tell you that before you can successfully treat a patient you must first know what you are treating. In fact, the treatment is often the easiest part of the medical business.

The same rule applies to most aspects of life, especially politics. Before you can correct social and economic ills with new policies, laws or decrees you must correctly identify the cause of the problem. If you fail to do so the problem will fester and grow in much the same way as an untreated cancer.

Problems in political diagnosis often arise when the politician insists on examining the patient through a narrow ideological lens. Medieval Europe, for example, was a socially stagnant period because all social issues were addressed through the pages of the Bible. The Soviet Union collapsed because the ruling Politburo decreed that all of society had to be organised through the prism of Marxist-Leninism.

Liz Truss is attempting to solve Britain’s mounting problems through a narrow conservative, anti-European window.

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James Baker

Snooping on our WhatsApp is a step too far

By James Baker | Tue 20th September 2022 - 10:25 am

We rely on private and secure messaging services to keep our personal information and correspondence safe. Privacy is essential in many situations. Whether we’re communicating with a loved one, seeking advice on a sensitive situation, or sharing pictures on the family WhatsApp group. For some people such as journalists, whistle-blowers, or the Ukrainians fighting Russia it can be a matter of life or death. The ability for people to communicate privately is a human right and a long-standing cornerstone at the foundation of Liberal Democracy and Western values.

Government ministers and the security services make no secret that they want to spy on your private messages and WhatsApp groups. Our last Home Secretary vocally opposed Meta’s intention to make Facebook messenger DMs encrypted by default.  Default end-to-end encryption is important as it means people can’t spy on your messages. Sadly this is not a new trend. Brian Paddock previously sounded the alarm when another Conservative Home Secretary Amber Rudd was looking to take the same draconian approach.

Being able to message someone privately and securely keeps us safe, yet it is being put at risk by a bill that incorrectly claims to promote safety. It asks companies that provide services such as WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram, to monitor the content of messages. It also empowers OFCOM to compel providers of user-to-user messaging services to run accredited software to scan, detect and report instances of CSEA or terrorism.

The Online Safety Bill doesn’t explain how this might technically work, most likely it would involve something called ‘client-side scanning’. This is where software is installed on every device and scans your private messages before they are sent. The Open Rights Group has stated this amounts to installing a ‘spy in the pocket’ of every mobile phone user. Any messages the software ‘thinks’ contains prohibited material could be either blocked and/or reported automatically to authorities. This sort of software will certainly lead to false accusations as happened recently when Google reported a man to the Police. 

Recently we saw an example of someone’s private messages being used against them when private messages on Facebook were handed over to the Police to assist in prosecuting a Woman in an abortion case. This highlights the risk women in the US could face if more states move to criminalise abortion. What happens if we see a similar erosion of women’s right to choose here in the UK?

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Caron Lindsay

Life resumes…..

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 20th September 2022 - 6:57 am

It’s been an intense 11 days  since the Queen died.

For many people, a national bereavement takes a similar pattern to any other. The adrenaline gets you through to the funeral and it’s only afterwards that you have to adjust to the loss and its consequences. However we may feel about Queen Elizabeth’s legacy or, indeed, the institution of monarchy itself, it will take some time to get used to the new normal, not least because we have a brand new monarch and a brand new Government.

Anyone under the age of about 75 will not be able to remember having any other monarch than Queen Elizabeth. It’s  astonishing that we have had two Queens, covering 134 of the last 185 years. Both reigned during periods of intense social and economic change. I was thinking about this yesterday  as I woke up and looked up exactly how long they had been on the throne. Victoria had been on the throne for 63 years, 7 months and 2 days – and Elizabeth for 70 years, 7 months and 2 days. In all the wall to wall coverage I’ve absorbed since 8th September, I hadn’t heard that mentioned. Or maybe I’m the only one that finds it worthy of note.

We haven’t in any sort of memory had a new Head of State and Prime Minister in such quick succession. Elizabeth had wartime giant Winston Churchill as her first PM. When George V died, Stanley Baldwin was on his third prime ministerial stint. The last liberal Prime Minister, Asquith, had a couple of years under his belt before Edward VII died and Viscount Melbourne was extremely experienced when the 19 year old Victoria acceded.

The new King Charles has had decades to learn his trade and he has acknowledged that he can’t be as vocal on issues close to his heart as he was as Prince of Wales. A climate change denying Government is bound to be a test.

The cost of living emergency has not gone away. It is biting the most vulnerable every single day.  Inflation may have dipped a tiny bit down to 9.9% in August but households are still finding that the basics in life are a lot more expensive than they were last year before you even think about heating your house.

The last big political announcement was Liz Truss’s plan to deal with meteoric energy price rises. She intends to limit price rise so that the average household will pay no more than £2500. It’s likely you will pay more if you live in an energy inefficient, damp house. That includes many people on low incomes in private lets and social housing.

Ed Davey called Truss’s plan a “phony freeze” saying:

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Simon McGrath

Floella Benjamin pays tribute to the late Queen

By Simon McGrath | Fri 16th September 2022 - 2:42 pm

Baroness Floella Benjamin has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II in the House of Lords.

Floella  talked about the late Queen as someone constant in the lives of young people :

She gave them that sense of pride which is so important for the human soul and spirit, which young people need.

She also  talked about her own meetings with the Queen – something which as she said is something she could never have dreamed of as a child growing up in Trinidad in the 1950s and singing “God Save the Queen ‘ at school.

I first met her in 1995, when I was president of the Elizabeth R Commonwealth broadcasting fund, which was set up with funds she donated from the royalties of the BBC programme for the 40th anniversary of her reign and which hundreds across the Commonwealth have benefited from.

And she goes on to talk about a visit paid to the University of Exeter when she was Chancellor :

As Chancellor, I had the task of hosting her. It was then that I got a glimpse of the true character of this remarkable woman. It was like having a masterclass in people skills. She loved to indulge in finding out about everything and in a short time I had to judge who she wanted to find out more about and when she wanted to move on

The Queen had a well known admiration for, and friendship with, Nelson Mandela and this came out in her conversation in Exeter:

We chatted and shared stories about everything, including faith and forgiveness, which were qualities she told me she admired in Nelson Mandela

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New issue of Liberator out

By Liberator Collective | Fri 16th September 2022 - 11:14 am

Liberator 414 can be downloaded here (click on the 414 icon). This is the free September 2022 online-only edition of Liberator and we hope you enjoy reading it.

You can sign up here to be emailed each time a new bi-monthly Liberator comes out.

What’s inside this issue?

Alongside Radical Bulletin, Commentary and Lord Bonkers’ Diary, Liberator 414 includes:

THE LOUSE AND THE FLEA.

The Tories have made the worst of a bad choice of leader, Nick Winch looks at how to beat them

LOOK AT THE ELEPHANT.

There’s one in the political room, it’s called Brexit. Labour ignores it and the Lib Dems are shy of it. Confront it, says David Grace

FOUR INTO ONE WON’T GO

Jonathan Calder concludes from Duncan Brack’s Compass Progressive Alliance publication that this concept cannot work if imposed top down

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS?

To go by at the Liberal Democrat conference agenda, no crises face the UK and a few detailed changes are all that is needed. Get real, says William Tranby

BUILDING A LIBERAL WORLD

Liberal International can seem remote; Robert Woodthorpe Browne explains its work on human rights, climate justice and international trade.

TWO UKRAINIANS, ONE CAT

Rose Stimson’s Ukrainian guests are now safely in the UK, no thanks to the Home Office.

DEDICATED FOLLOWERS OF FASHION

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It has been a week like no other

By Andy Boddington | Thu 15th September 2022 - 6:42 pm

The queue is more than four miles long with waiting times of nine hours as I write. Nothing like this has happened in my lifetime. Certainly, it has been a week like no other like no other in living memory. Perhaps like no other. The sudden and dramatic death of Princess Diana created an unprecedented outpouring of grief and astonishing scenes in the capital as crowds flocked to be in London. To camp in the parks. To put flowers on the trees. But it does not match what is happening in London today.

The arrangements after the death of Queen Elizabeth II were well rehearsed. Like many deaths it was not unexpected but the timing was unknown. Her last duties as Mary Reid said earlier, were to accept the resignation of the outgoing prime minister, Boris Johnson and the incoming prime minister, Liz Truss. Perhaps we will never know Her Majesty’s views on the prime ministers she agreed could the lead country, or those leaders from around the world she must have met with gritted teeth behind the famous smile.

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Mary Reid

Coins of the realm

By Mary Reid | Wed 14th September 2022 - 1:22 pm

Some people have been asking whether coins and banknotes with the image of Queen Elizabeth will continue to be legal tender. The answer, of course, is yes.

When I was growing up I used to look out for coins from as many different reigns as possible and I kept them safe, so I have just spent a nostalgic hour looking through them again. At the time of the Coronation coins were still in circulation from many years before, and even Victorian pennies would turn up in change from time to time. We looked out for the very rare Edward VIII coins, which I never found.

Not surprisingly I still have plenty of George VI coins, plus ones from the time of George V and Edward VII, and I’m pleased to say, Victoria. They all turned up in my change in the 1950s and 1960s. The oldest one has a portrait of the young Victoria, dated 1891 – you can see it on the right of my photo of pennies and halfpennies.

It seems some Victorian coins are still legal tender, though they are not ones you are likely to have in your purse – gold sovereigns and half sovereigns and silver crowns, originally worth £1, 50p and 25p in today’s money.

Coins are very robust and can survive for 50 years or more. Although new Elizabethan coins, with the pretty portrait of the young Queen, entered circulation they only slowly displaced the ones from earlier reigns. But that was given a jolt with decimalisation in 1971, when coins were minted with the new values of 10p, 5p, 2p, 1p and 1/2p, eventually joined by 50p and £1. Coins with the same values as previous ones (5p = 1 shilling, 10p = 2 shillings) hung around for a while, but the old threepennies, pennies, halfpennies soon disappeared. The pretty little farthing (1/4p) coin, with a picture a wren, the UK’s smallest bird, on the obverse had been withdrawn earlier.

One thing we do know about the new coins which will be minted for Charles III is that he will be facing to the left. Monarchs face alternatively left and right as you can see in the photo, with a gap where Edward VIII should be.

We will be using a mixture of coins from two reigns for many years to come, or at least for as long as coins are in circulation. Most of us are now quite used to presenting credit and debit cards for quite small payments, so there is a question mark about how long we will be seeing them. You might be wise to hang on to a mint collection of Charles III coins when they do appear as they could be quite valuable to collectors in the future.

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Paul Walter

Peaceful protest

By Paul Walter | Tue 13th September 2022 - 12:34 pm

It is very concerning to see incidents of peaceful protesters being arrested.

This is opposite to everything that the late Queen stood for – and presided over – for 70 years.

We have a right to peaceful protest in this country. We cannot pretend that dissent does not exist. There will never be 100% agreement on everything. It is ridiculous to try to pretend that there is 100% approval of the monarchy. Our strength is that we tolerate dissent.

We should wear peaceful protests as a badge of honour. It is sign of a healthy democracy.

The young lad in Edinburgh should have been protected from the mob – not allowed to be yanked about by members of the crowd, and not arrested for some trumped-up charge.

There seems to have been some lack of preparation here. In all the plans about proclamations etc, had no one thought to prepare for peaceful protests?

As Alistair Carmichael tweeted:

 

The greatest way we can honour Her Majesty the Queen is to preserve and celebrate dissent – and the peaceful protest which goes with it – in this country.

There needs to be urgent recalibration of the police response to peaceful protest in the light of the current period of mourning and ceremony.

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John Grout

This cancelled Conference jeopardises member participation and party democracy

By John Grout | Mon 12th September 2022 - 4:05 pm

If you went back in time to September 2019 and told the Lib Dem Conference in Bournemouth that members would not convene again in person for over three years, they would rightly be horrified. If you told them that we would be the only party to fail to do so, that horror would at best turn to astonishment.

And yet, that is the position we find ourselves in. We are a party which prides itself on its internal participatory democracy, in which members elect party leadership and committees, determine policy, form internal organisations like Lib Dem Women and the Green Lib Dems, and scrutinise party committees and office-holders, both informally, and formally at Conference twice a year. While the debate about the accessibility of Conference rightly rumbles on, and remote Conferences proved successful for carrying on training and essential business during the Pandemic, we are not yet in a world where other crucial elements can survive purely online. The Fringe, Exhibition, fundraising, congregation of thousands of party members together, and meetings of the many party grassroots organisations, have been almost entirely lost since 2019, with many party organisations facing a future where they are unable to effectively engage new members or fundraise while having to shoulder the costs of last-minute cancellations (which, as with members, disproportionately affect the less well-off).

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Mary Reid

The transfer of power

By Mary Reid | Mon 12th September 2022 - 1:02 pm

I am not a historian nor a constitutional expert but I was always a bit smug about the way the transfer of power happens in the UK. The evidence from the USA demonstrates that even in long established democracies the handover period can be fraught with danger. In comparison the changes from one Prime Minister to another, and from one Monarch to another, seem pretty seamless here.

The events of the last week have shown me that the processes are not as seamless as I had imagined. On Tuesday, for a short period between the visits of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, full constitutional power lay in the hands of the Queen. We were dependent on her acting in the interests of democracy and the country, which of course she did. Two days later we realised just how risky that short period had been. Although unlikely, malign interventions, or indeed death, could have thrown the process into unplanned chaos.

And then we lost her. Charles was immediately hailed as King and we all assumed that the powers that come with monarchy had transitioned smoothly at that point. But in fact there was an awkward wait until the Accession Council on Saturday, which showed that was not the case.  In Part 1 of the meeting the Council proclaimed Charles as King, without him present – this was the acceptance of him as King by the people. In Part 2, the King held his first Council during which he had to assent to a long list of Orders of Council put to him by the Lord President of the Privy Council, and then take an oath to formally recognise the status of the Church of Scotland.

Is there anyone still alive today who attended the last Accession Council in 1952, or even remembers what it was about? It was held in private and probably did not register in the minds of most citizens at the time. For some historians it has always been a matter of deep interest, but I imagine most of us were simply unaware of its complexities and risks.

Maybe you all knew that already and I am just showing my ignorance. But I think not, as judged by the many comments on social media deploring the ban on political activity until after the Queen’s funeral. At first I too thought it was excessively restrictive, and I fussed about the piles of undelivered Focusses sitting in my home and the dilemmas for people fighting by-elections this week, not to mention the cancellation of Conference. I too thought it was all about showing respect for Queen Elizabeth during a period of mourning, and I sympathised with the view that she would have wanted democratic practices to continue. But the events on Saturday were a revelation and changed my mind.

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Sarah Olney

Conference: the right decision even if it’s a regrettable one

By Sarah Olney | Mon 12th September 2022 - 10:05 am

I very much share everyone’s upset and frustration about the cancellation of our Autumn Conference. I’m set to lose a great deal of money on my non-refundable, fully-paid in advance hotel booking, and I’ve spent many hours and a great deal of angst on a speech that I’m not going to deliver. And, above all, I very much wanted to attend conference in person for the first time since my re-election in 2019 – now nearly three years ago!

But I fully support the decision. The death of her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II last Thursday isn’t just the death of an individual. We haven’t cancelled conference just out of deference to the feelings of her family, or the many other people up and down the country who feel a personal sense of loss. This is the death of a Head of State, which demands a different level of response. It’s right that as a party, we respond at an institutional level, and pay respects to the long years of service Her Majesty gave to this country.

But more importantly than that, this is a period in which the powers of the Head of State transfer from one person another, and it’s a sensitive constitutional moment. Even more so, because it hasn’t happened in this country in most people’s memory. Of the six former prime ministers present at the Accession Council on Saturday, only one of them – John Major – would have had any memory of the previous accession, and even he was only nine years old at the time.

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Caron Lindsay

Autumn Conference is cancelled

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 10th September 2022 - 7:46 pm

This afternoon, Federal Board met to discuss a recommendation from Federal Conference Committee that our  Autumn Conference should be cancelled. It was due to take place in Brighton from 17-20 September. The sad death of the Queen, and her funeral on 19th September, on the penultimate day, meant that  FCC had to think about what to do. They spent a lot of time looking at all sorts of options, working with party staff.

Both Federal Board and Federal Conference Committee are made up of people who love going to Conference. It’s one of the great loves of my life. There is nothing like the joy of being amongst the Lib Dem family. It’s not something I would take away from anyone lightly. And that is exactly the same for everyone else involved in the decision.

At the heart of our discussions was the impact on members, emotional and financial and the Conference Access Fund will be pressed into operation to help those with unrefundable costs. The more donations it gets, the more people it can help. Had I been going, I’d have been going out for dinner and drinking in the bar, so I will certainly be donating some of that money that I would have spent anyway to help others.

Nick Da Costa, the Chair of FCC, sent this email to members registered for Conference earlier. The text is below.

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Mary Reid

Our memories of the Queen

By Mary Reid | Fri 9th September 2022 - 9:54 am

I cried on the day the King died. And I surprised myself when I cried again yesterday when his daughter died.

I’m not an ardent monarchist but Queen Elizabeth has been a constant presence in my life, her picture all around, and her celebrations writ large across the nation. As my colleague wrote yesterday “It is difficult to think of a public figure who has been so well thought of for so long.”

This feels like a seminal moment and a date in history that we won’t forget.

Back in February 1952 the teachers at my school were huddled around a radio one lunchtime, looking very serious. Then we were told the news and sent home. I remember telling my mother that the King was dead but she already knew and was in tears. The words “God save the Queen” sounded very odd to us then, just as it did yesterday when the Prime Minister said “God save the King”.

I don’t remember anything about George VI’s funeral, but we didn’t have a television so it wouldn’t have had much impact on me. But I know that, to the adults around me, it seemed to bring closure to the long dark years of the war and the post-war challenges, as food rationing finally came to an end.

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Ed Fordham

Chosen family – making sure loved ones are respected

By Ed Fordham | Thu 8th September 2022 - 11:55 am

The loss of a close friend, the death of a life partner, even a long standing neighbour can hit us all hard. The processing of the loss along with the recollection of times well spent can be emotionally draining.

Yet for many as well as being emotional in and of itself, a friend or partner dying can also be a time when people can demonstrate harsh and unremitting cruelty. And unspoken truths about sexuality and identity are used against those mourning.

I am naming no-one but I’m sure many of us know stories of a person dying, their life partner is upset and processing the news. A relative arrives, reveals that they are the next of kin, take over control of the situation and exclude that same sex partner – the denial that the family member was LGBT+. There are too many cases that document the exclusion of the life partner – “you’re not married and I’m the sister/nephew/next of kin”. The power of the standing of “next of kin” has been used to whitewash over a truth about a same sex relationship that due to historical context or lack of legal protection has never been protected through a marriage or civil partnership.

That is why I have written to my local hospice to open a dialogue with them about people’s “chosen family”. Who do they wish to have decision over their effects and their send off? How do we, as a society, give some humane protection to those who have for years stood alongside, helped, cared and laughed and make sure that they are not cast aside in the sadness of the situation.

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Kevin Langford

Towards a Fairer Society: Universal Basic Income vs Guaranteed Basic Income

By Kevin Langford | Thu 8th September 2022 - 9:45 am

The country faces an immediate cost of living crisis – requiring drastic action. This needs short term measures which can be funded through taxes on the additional short term profits of energy companies or through increase in debt. Measures which wouldn’t be sustainable long term but are needed to address today’s issues.

But we also need a long term strategy to make our unfair society better, and in particular, to reduce levels of poverty which pre-existed the current crisis. The conference paper and the debate on a Fairer Society address this. The paper covers policies which will make society fairer including lifelong employment support, more power to local communities and better workforce protections.

But in one specific area the paper offers a choice – and conference will vote between two ambitious long term proposals to end poverty – a Universal Basic Income (“UBI”), and a Guaranteed Basic Income (“GBI”).

(There is also a third option which reserves judgement until both of these have been fully tested over a number of years.)

The UBI proposal scraps income tax and national insurance personal allowances for everyone of working age, so that we all pay tax and national insurance on the first pound that we receive. That costs anyone currently paying tax £78 a week. The proposal also introduces a new payment to all working age adults of £78 (the ‘Universal Basic Income”) – so if you were previously paying tax you end up in the same place as before, but if you aren’t earning enough to pay tax, you are better off.  The current benefits system is retained but the UBI is treated as ‘income’ under it – so that benefits are reduced; someone on Universal Credit would typically see a net benefit of £35 a week.  This way of delivering UBI is the output of two years of development by working groups – on which I served – and is very similar to proposals by some of the leading think tanks advocating UBI.

The GBI proposal is more directly targeted on ensuring everyone has a decent minimum standard of living. It establishes a commitment over time to get all households to a certain income level, and uses a reformed version of the existing benefits system to steadily increase the amount of this ‘guaranteed base’. An independent commission is set up to hold the government to account in terms of setting the right level over time – in much the same way as has been successfully done with the minimum wage.

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Kicking off Conference: The Lib Dem Newbies Pint

By Lib Dem Newbies Admins | Wed 7th September 2022 - 2:52 pm

For the first time since 2019, Autumn Conference is hoving into view, and a welcome sight it is too.  Brighton 2022 will be our first in-person Conference since Bournemouth 2019, and for many members, it will be their first experience of an in-person Conference with the Lib Dems.

Ever since 2015, the Lib Dem Newbies admins have hosted a Newbies Pint the evening before Conference, to welcome members to Conference, with a focus on welcoming new and first-time attendees.  All are welcome – as we’ve found, Newbie-ness is more a state of mind than it is a date on a membership card!

Our 2022 Newbies Pint will take place in the North Laine Brewhouse in Brighton, at 7pm on Friday the 16th of September.  A £2 entry fee will help cover the cost of the venue, and as always, we’ll donate any profits to Newbies standing for election up and down the country via the Newbies fighting fund.  We have four exciting informal speakers confirmed for the Pint, including Sarah Green and Jamie Stone, and our fab PPCs for South Cambridgeshire and Eastbourne, Pippa Heylings and Josh Babarinde.

Please use this link to book your ticket in advance to avoid disappointment on the night – on-the-night tickets will be first-come first-served.  Attendance is for Brighton Conference attendees only – https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lib-dem-pint-autumn-2022-tickets-403731922047

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Oliver Robbins

What is ‘The Science’, anyway?

By Oliver Robbins | Wed 7th September 2022 - 12:53 pm

When Boris Johnson locked us all down in March 2020, he did so on the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). At the time, the group contained no molecular virologists, immunologists or social scientists. Despite Boris’ inability to attend a meeting, instead preferring to make speeches filled to the brim with vague Churchillian platitudes, practically all of his decisions throughout the pandemic were taken on the advice of SAGE. In fact, the only major instance of the PM ignoring SAGE was his decision not to increase restrictions beyond Plan B – incidentally, the COVID deaths in the following period were lower than SAGE’s predicted ‘best case scenario’ for this policy.

This article isn’t about disparaging the hardworking men and women of SAGE. I have no qualms with them as scientists. I do, however, have an issue with them as ‘The Science’. Certain scientists, and indeed non-scientists, discovered in the early stages of the pandemic that all they had to do to be taken seriously was to label themselves as ‘The Science’, in a statement of authority and arrogance that would make Emperor Palpatine blush. Independent SAGE, an organisation set up, confusingly, to oppose SAGE by pushing for harder restrictions at every turn, even used ‘Following the Science’ as their tagline.

The issue, of course, is that science is not fixed. It is built on discussion, disagreement and scepticism. There were a number of high-profile scientists – such as Sunetra Gupta (Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford), Carl Heneghan (Director of the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford) and Jay Bhattacharya (Professor of Medicine at Stanford) – who raised their concerns about the efficacy, ethics and negative consequences of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as lockdowns. That is not to say that they were right. On some things, they were certainly wrong, just as on some things the likes of Neil Ferguson, Susan Michie and Eric Feigl-Ding, the quote-on-quote ‘other side’, were wrong. But the dismissal of these fine scientists as ‘fringe’, and in some cases ‘right wing’ – Sunetra Gupta had to reveal that she was a Corbynite to rebuke this particular attack – should concern us all. Science is not settled overnight. SAGE are not ‘The Science’, and nor are the signatories of the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’. ‘The Science’ is the illusion of authority and certainty in a field that is built on disagreement and scepticism.

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Jamie Stone

Jamie Stone writes: The UK’s nuclear deterrent

By Jamie Stone | Wed 7th September 2022 - 10:16 am

The question of the party’s stance on nuclear weapons has often been a hot topic at conference.

Our most recent policy was passed in 2017. It committed the party to supporting a step down the nuclear ladder – with a move away from the current continuous patrols of Trident submarines, to a stance where submarines are not continuously deployed. The thought was that this would require the construction of three new Trident submarines, rather than the planned four.

Spring 2017 now feels like a very long time ago – indeed, since that policy was passed we’ve had two elections (and three Prime Ministers), Brexit, the Trump presidency, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I was asked by the FCC and the FPC to write a spokesperson’s paper, and an accompanying motion, to bring to Autumn Conference 2022. I consulted widely across the party and spoke to external experts too – thanks to everyone who helped inform the paper.

It was clear that the dramatic deterioration of security in Europe necessitated a review of our previous stance.

We have long been the most forward-thinking UK-wide party on global disarmament, and the 2017 policy is part of that tradition.

But we have also always argued for flexibility – indeed, our proposals always included the possibility that changes in the strategic environment might require steps up, as well as down, the nuclear ladder, were that necessary to keep the people of this country safe.

At a dangerous time such as this, we must be realistic. It’s clear that choosing to take a step down the nuclear ladder of the kind proposed in 2017 – in the face of Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats of nuclear use – would send entirely the wrong signal to that despot. It risks encouraging him to be even more gung-ho with his nuclear brinkmanship.

And it would send the wrong signal to our NATO allies, who are protected under our nuclear deterrent, about the UK’s willingness to come to their defence. At a time where we should be showing European leadership, it would instead send a message of insularity.

Nor would taking such a step in this environment do anything to improve the chances for global disarmament.

That’s why I am putting forward a new proposal – at the heart of which is for the UK to maintain the current posture of continuous, at-sea deployment. That would mean a Trident submarine patrolling UK waters at all times.

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Caron Lindsay

Lord help us all….Lib Dems react to new Cabinet

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 6th September 2022 - 9:39 pm

So Liz Truss is now ensconced in Downing Street appointing her new Cabinet. And it looks like it is going to be one of the most socially as well as economically conservative governments in over quarter of a century. This is somewhat surprising given that she is the first Prime Minister of my lifetime who is younger than me.

After a 1000 mile round trip to see the Queen, she went  to her private Commons office  to send Rishi Sunak supporters Grant Shapps, Steve Barclay and Dominic Raab packing.

Every time a new Conservative PM announces their top team, you think it couldn’t get any worse. Remember when Theresa May appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary? And then when Boris in turn made Priti Patel Home Secretary.

So far, Liz Truss has made some very worrying appointments.

First of all, someone who opposes abortion and same sex marriage to health:

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Caron Lindsay

Another day, another new Conservative Prime Minister to muck up our lives

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 6th September 2022 - 9:15 am

Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are in for an absolute treat today. It’s more of a faff to get to Balmoral than a quick spin up the Mall to Buckingham Palace, but the journey from Aberdeen through Royal Deeside is absolutely gorgeous. The heather in the hills round about Aboyne is particularly stunning, even if it is, as forecast, tipping it down.

I am so glad that they are going north to see the Queen. The 96 year old monarch has earned the right to say that they should come to her.

I wonder what arrangements have been made for Boris and Carrie to get back from Balmoral. Normally the outgoing PM gets a taxi from Buckingham Palace. Will the estate manager drop them in Ballater so they can get the bus back to Aberdeen to catch the Easyjet back down south? Probably not, but it’s an amusing thought.

Much has been said about the new Prime Minister’s bulging in tray. Competing economic, energy, international and health crises require urgent action. I don’t think we are emphasising enough, though, the extent to which all these issues have been made worse by the foolish actions of the Conservative Party in Government since 2015.  From David Cameron’s ill-advised pledge to hold a referendum on our EU membership, to Theresa May’s and Boris Johnson’s choice to pursue the most extreme form of Brexit, they have helped create much tougher economic circumstances than in similar economies.

Sectors like social care are falling apart because of their anti-immigrant ethos. As care workers went back to the EU, our disabled and elderly friends and family found that the help that they relied on disappeared.

Boris Johnson’s boasterish farewell speech this morning didn’t mention this. He didn’t get Brexit done. He left a predictably impossible situation in Northern Ireland and the new PM intends to take the nuclear option of breaking international law rather than find a more pragmatic solution.  Deaths from Covid in the UK are the highest in Europe and the long term consequences of their pretence that the pandemic is over are being felt by too many people.

It takes some brass neck to deliver such a bullish speech when you have been forced from office in disgrace after the resignation of half of your government. Tim Farron summed it up this morning:

Jo Swinson said back in 2019 that the worst thing about Boris Johnson was that he just didn’t care. He simply couldn’t be bothered to understand how his Government’s actions affected people. Liz Truss, similarly, shows no sign of giving a damn and she doesn’t have anything like the charisma of her predecessor.

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Caron Lindsay

Your last chance to put in a question for Party Leaders at Conference

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 4th September 2022 - 7:44 pm

Do you fancy putting Party President Mark Pack on the spot? Or any other party committee chair?

Or asking Ed Davey something important to you in his leader’s question and answer session?

Maybe you want to ask Federal Conference Committee about making Conference more accessible, or affordable.. Maybe you want more information about the party’s diversity strategy from the Federal People Development Committee. Or perhaps you want to ask Chief Whip Wendy Chamberlain about what MPs are doing on a particular issue.

You only have until 1pm tomorrow to submit your question. Do so here.

One of the advantages of asking a question is that you get the chance to do a follow-up actually in the Conference hall. This can be a really good way of getting the feel of speaking at Conference.

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