Category Archives: Op-eds

Matt McLaren

How to get your Conference amendment selected for debate

By Matt McLaren | Mon 7th February 2022 - 2:41 pm

The full Agenda or Spring Conference 2022 (11-13 March) is now out. There are full range of motions on a diversity of topics and, as such, probably at least one instance (if not many) whereby something has been proposed in relation to a particular issue which you may yourself disagree with.

That is where amendments come in. Both business motions (concerning how the party operates internally) and policy motions (concerning our position on and policy proposals for a particular external issue) are subject to amendment. The deadline for amendments is Monday, 28 February 2022.

The Federal Conference Committee (FCC) runs a drafting advice service so that anyone thinking of submitting an amendment (or an emergency motion for that matter) can get advice on how best to draft this, to maximise your chances of getting the amendment selected for debate. The deadline for requesting drafting advice is Monday, 14th February 2022 and you can access the service here.

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John Marriott

Have we ever had such an awful prime minister?

By John Marriott | Mon 7th February 2022 - 12:49 pm

I first discovered ‘politics’ when I was about 16. I’d just entered the sixth form, having taken only four years to do my O-levels and had joined the Debating Society (yes, we had them in inner city grammar schools in Leicester back then). It was at the time of the 1959 ‘Life is better under the Conservatives, don’t let Labour ruin it’ General Election, that pitted ‘Supermac’ against the cerebral Hugh Gaitskell at a time when the two main parties were still mopping up around 90% of the votes and, or so it seemed, nearly 100% of the seats between them.

So, my ‘involvement’ goes back a long way and, being a bit of an historian back then, I have experienced at first hand and read about a motley collection of mostly men, who have climbed the greasy pole of Prime Ministership and slid down it again usually into the comforting embrace of a peerage. After their demise, with one or two notable exceptions, few ordinary people have a good or kind word to say about any of them, while many who worked for them still generally paint a favourable picture, even if a few warts cannot be avoided. Do we really think that most of our politicians are really out to screw us? Surely, that says as much about our take on life as it does about the quality or talent on display at any given time.

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Rome and Jericho – Are Gove’s Levelling Up plans Byzantine?

By Andy Boddington | Sun 6th February 2022 - 8:00 am

On Wednesday, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up – he used to be Secretary of State for Growing Up – Michael Gove, published the long awaited Levelling Up white paper. There is every hint that this policy paper was rushed out to distract from the ongoing tribulations of the prime minister. It includes paragraphs copied and pasted from Wikipedia. It mentions Jericho three times, ancient Rome twice and modern day Shropshire (where I am a councillor) just once. It also mentions Byzantine, which might be a good description of the white paper.

Michael Gove has responded to Shropshire’s complaints saying we must have an elected mayor before he will part with any money. This is yet another example of how Westminster politicians profess to support giving more power to local areas, while dictating how they operate democratically. As Baroness Cavendish says in this weekend’s Financial Times, Whitehall “isn’t structured to accept that the right answer may be different in different places or that locals may know best”.

Levelling Up is a bad white paper from a government obsessed with the struggles of the prime minister and not the struggles of counties outside the South East.

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Jeremy Hargreaves

A key internal party reform built from liberal principles

By Jeremy Hargreaves | Sat 5th February 2022 - 10:33 am

The seventeenth century had a big impact on British liberal thinking. In response to unrepresentative and unaccountable monarchical government, liberal thinkers developed a strong focus on dispersing power so that it was not all held by one individual, opening those who do hold power up to scrutiny and accountability – and in choosing those in power through election. They might not straight away have got to modern standards in all these areas – slight understatement! – but these fundamental principles remain central to how liberals and Liberal Democrats view power, society and government today.

So – fast forward three and a half centuries, and what does all this mean for how Liberal Democrats actually organise themselves in the twenty first century? The challenge from the Thornhill review of our governance arrangements, combined with a wider general sense that perhaps the party’s board at 41 does seem to be rather on the large size, means that proposals to change this are coming to this spring conference. The consultation exercise on them sent this message pretty clearly too. So how does this proposal measure up against these basic liberal principles about the organisation of power?

Let’s start first with the test of democratic election. The proposed new-size Board would have sixteen members, all except four elected directly by party members. (The Leader, President and Vice President elected by all members; the Scottish party convenor and Welsh President, councillor representative, and chair of the Young Liberals elected by all party members in those groups; the FCC chair and FPC vice chair elected initially by all members and then additionally by their colleagues on those committees to the chair / vice chair roles; and three others directly elected. The four elected indirectly, each by a committee of themselves elected party members, are the Chair of the English Party, and Chairs of the Finance (FFRC), Elections (FCEC) and People (FPDC) committees).

Secondly – scrutiny and accountability. Among the options coming to Conference are two different possibilities for new committees specifically to hold the new smaller Board to account (either a “scrutiny committee” of about twenty or a “party council” of about forty) – as well as an option for it being accountable directly Conference. Conference will choose one of these scrutiny and accountability mechanisms.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Revive Détente

By Tom Arms | Fri 4th February 2022 - 6:25 pm

Remember Détente? If you do you are definitely getting on in years. It was one of the diplomatic buzzwords of the 1970s and played a major role in reducing East-West tensions and, many say, helped bring about the end of the Cold War.

Well, if the world manages to avoid a war in Ukraine, it might be time to think about a revived Détente because the Russian problem did not end with the Cold War.

Détente was a Cold War process which found its diplomatic expression in the Helsinki Accords. This semi-legal agreement was signed in the Finnish capital in July 1975 by 33 European heads of government and the American president and Canadian prime minister.

I say semi-legal because it was not a formal treaty. That would have required parliamentary approval of all the signatory countries and there were many in America – and other NATO countries – who were unhappy with the accords. But despite the absence of a formal binding law, Helsinki carried significant moral diplomatic weight.

The main cause of American unhappiness was a clause which bound the participating countries to respect the existing borders and territorial integrity of all the countries in Europe. This was seen as a massive diplomatic coup for the Soviet Union because the West was saying that it would not attempt to push the Soviets out of the Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Ukraine.

In short, the Helsinki Accords, appeared to accept de facto Soviet control of Eastern Europe. In return, the Soviets would stop threatening Western Europe and start talking with the US about limiting nuclear weapons.

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Michal Siewniak

Why did I decide to stand?

By Michal Siewniak | Fri 4th February 2022 - 9:10 am

A lot of people think that I am mad. A lot of people think that politics, even at the local level, has never been more toxic.

Those who decide to stand, often do it for a number of different reasons. I strongly feel that being a Councillor is not like a vocation; it is a vocation. You do it, because you believe in it, you feel a sense of civic duty. Most of the time, you want to make a difference and improve your local community.

Standing is never easy. There are a lot of barriers and obstacles to overcome. If you want to do it, unless you stand in a super safe seat (do they still exist?), you have to put a lot of hard work into it; casework, leaflet delivery and canvassing, which I personally absolutely love! Door-knocking gives me a great joy, even when I don’t get a warm reception on the doorstep. Standing, whilst being a “foreigner” is probably even harder. As soon as I open my mouth, people know that I am not necessarily very “local”. This, in all honesty, doesn’t bother me too much; I will never judge someone based on their accent or the colour of their passport.

It is a wonderful feeling and more importantly a huge privilege to REPRESENT a particular area and a particular community. Moreover, being elected, at the local or national level, means being at the SERVICE for other people.

As I said before in many of my previous articles, I absolutely love the civic process; I enjoy listening, talking and working with people. This will never change, even if my circumstances do. Speaking to residents on regular basis gives me a fantastic opportunity to find out how people feel about politics at the local and national level. It worries me hugely that so many individuals that I’ve encountered feel deflated and disheartened. Some are not planning to vote. The sense of political desperation and political apathy is felt throughout the country.

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Is the Big Squeeze set to become the Big Freeze?

By Andy Boddington | Thu 3rd February 2022 - 3:06 pm

Ofgem today announced the price cap will rise by £693 in England, Scotland and Wales, an increase of 54 per cent. This means bills for the average customer will rise to £1,971, up from its previous limit of £1,277.

This is just one factor in the soaring cost of living. Food prices are rapidly increasing. National Insurance is due to be hiked. Borrowers, including some mortgage holders, will feel the impact of the 0.5% hike in interest rates announced by the Bank of England today. Council taxes are due to rise in many areas, though lessened by a one off reduction of £150 to ease the burden of the surge in energy prices.

Those on pre-payment meters, who are often the most insecure in their finances and housing, will typically see their annual bills rise by £708 from £1,309 to £2,017. around £14 a week.

Even for relatively wealthier households, the loss of an average £13 a week to the energy companies will suck money out of the local economy.

The big fear is that households already skimping on heating will begin to sit in the cold affecting their health and wellbeing. The Big Squeeze could become the Big Freeze.

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John Knox

Being serious about Council services

By John Knox | Wed 2nd February 2022 - 10:25 am

In the run-up to the Council elections in Scotland in May, can I suggest that the Liberal Democrats offer voters a real solution to the shortfall in Council budgets which has had such a devastating effect on local services.

We should be campaigning for a realignment of the council tax bands to bring them into line with the market value of houses and asking people in all bands, except the lowest, to pay more.  This would be a relatively simple and fair way to raise the extra £250m the Councils say they need just to keep services as they are.   

Before the Scottish Government published its budget, COSLA the local councils umbrella organisation, called for an increase in their funding by £1bn, just to stand still, and preferably a £1.6bn increase to “thrive.”  The budget did indeed give them an extra £1bn, or a 6 per cent increase, but it did not include money for wage increases or increases in National Insurance or the increasing  demand for services (eg home care). It left them £370m short.

Last month, in the final budget statement, the finance secretary Kate Forbes, found an extra £120m.  She suggested this was equivalent of a 4 per cent rise in council tax, hinting there was no need for councils to increase taxes in an election year.  This is an attempt to go back to the old SNP policy of freezing council tax which has led to years of unnecessary austerity in local services.    

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems welcome LGBT+ History Month

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 1st February 2022 - 8:13 pm

Happy LGBT+ History Month!

January this year has been horrible in so many ways. It has seemed even longer and more tortuous than usual. But now February is here and there are many things to cheer us – it’s not dark at 5pm, pancake day is not far away and it’s LGBT+ History Month, a chance to learn about those whose stories may have been hidden.

It’s a chance to celebrate the diverse LGBT+ history and honour those who trod a difficult path to make thing easier for generations to come.

I was particularly taken by this series of tweets:

This was only 35 years ago. In this Pink News story, Paul O’Grady recounts the events of that night:

“It was 34 years ago when the cops raided the Vauxhall,” he wrote. “I was doing the late show and within seconds the place was heaving with coppers, all wearing rubber gloves. I remember saying something like, ‘Well well, it looks like we’ve got help with the washing up.’

“They made many arrests but we were a stoic lot and it was business as usual the next night,” he continued.

“I was in quite a few police raids all over the country at the time. I was beginning to think it was me – in fact the South London Press in an extremely homophobic article called Lily ‘a lascivious act’ which I was very proud of.”

It was great to see our Mathew Hulbert’s video as Chair of the National Association of Local Council’s LGBT Network:

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Catherine Crosland

Mandatory staff vaccines – No apology to sacked care home staff…

By Catherine Crosland | Tue 1st February 2022 - 3:29 pm

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Not even an apology! – And I’m not referring to Boris Johnson’s statement on Sue Gray’s Report.

Boris did at least say the word “sorry”, even though it was an inadequate, half hearted “apology”. But Sajid Javid made no apology at all, when he made his statement in parliament announcing that the government was scrapping the policy of mandatory vaccines for NHS staff, and for staff in care homes and other care workers.

Around eighty thousand NHS staff would have been told, on February 3rd, that they would lose their jobs. Not for any wrongdoing or incompetence – many had an exemplary record over many years’ service – but just because they had declined to be vaccinated. Just for exercising their right to bodily autonomy, which had previously been accepted as a basic principle of medical ethics.

Around forty thousand care home staff had already been sacked, in November 2021. Care home managers were forced to sack excellent, much valued staff members, for no other reason than that they had made a decision not to be vaccinated. These care home staff found themselves without any income, just a few weeks before Christmas. Most of these people had been on very low incomes, and were unlikely to have much in the way of savings to fall back on.

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Leon Duveen

Towards an elected Head of State

By Leon Duveen | Tue 1st February 2022 - 1:47 pm

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Whenever Lib Dems talk about what we would want to do when we are in Government again, Constitutional Reform always comes up. PR for elections to the Commons, an Elected Second Chamber and Devolution to the English Regions are the normal areas that get mentioned. I would like to raise another are we should also be talking about as part of a new constitutional settlement, electing our Head of State.

Having a Hereditary Monarch is something that should not fit well with a Party that believes in rejecting “all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, ethnicity, caste, heritage, class, religion or belief, age, disability, sex, gender or sexual orientation’ and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality.”

Yet when raised, many seem to think that the only alternative is to have an Executive President as in the USA, Russia or France.

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Samuel Jackson

How we could solve technical difficulties with STV

By Samuel Jackson | Mon 31st January 2022 - 11:55 am

Our party is proudly committed to the replacement of archaic First Past The Post with Single Transferable Voting, an electoral system which satisfactorily balances proportionality, local representation and voter choice.

However, a major roadblock to the introduction of STV for Westminster and English local elections would be quizzical or apprehensive attitudes amongst a sizable section of the British electorate over its precise technical details, which our party currently fails to address. As a party, we should develop our position on electoral reform by adopting more specific policies regarding technical details for STV.

Firstly, we Liberal Democrats should consider adopting as policy the requirement for a minimum number of candidates to be ranked, as currently mandated in elections for the Australian Senate and the Tasmanian House of Assembly. This would mean that voters would be required to rank at least as many preferences for candidates as there are available seats for their ballots to be deemed valid.

Whilst STV is designed to encourage split-ticket voting and foster political cooperation and moderation, FPTP would likely cast a long shadow for several parliamentary terms after being replaced. Some voters would probably vote solely for candidates from just one party, or even just for one candidate, with FPTP having imprinted upon them either a deeply engrained partisanship or an imperative to vote tactically, both of which are intrinsic components of said system.

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Caron Lindsay

Lessons from 97 Lib Dem/Labour co-operation – Compass/SLF podcast

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th January 2022 - 1:26 pm

Lib Dems and Labour swapping lists of target seats, co-operating on policy and not getting in each other’s way helped oust the Tories in 1997. What lessons can we learn from that today?

This week, I went along to the recording of Compass’s “It’s Bloody Complicated” podcast. Our own Duncan Brack, Compass’s Neal Lawson who was one of the fixers of the deals between Blair and Ashdown and YouGov’s Peter Kellner  who looked back to 1997 and the co-operation between Tony Blair and Paddy Ashdown.  The event was chaired by Compass’s Frances Foley

Duncan explained how, after the disappointment of the 1992 election, there were tentative attempts  to float idea of co-operation between non Conservative parties but Labour under John Smith were not interested.

When Blair became leader, there was significant co-operation including swapping information on target seats. Later on, Neal Lawson told of a meeting in a pub in Victoria where bits of paper were swapped.

A significant part of this was that information was fed  to the Mirror during the campaign. Their subsequent recommendations on tactical voting meant that we won 20 out of our 22 targets.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey: Boris Johnson is concentrating on saving his own skin, not rising living costs

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th January 2022 - 11:30 am

In a strong appearance on The Sunday Morning Show, Ed Davey called on the Government to hold a cost of living summit in No 10, a work event, not a party, if you like.

He called for a windfall tax on energy companies and said that if the Conservatives had stuck with the policies he introduced when he was Energy Secretary, our bills would be £2.5 billion. You can watch the whole thing here:

He was challenged by Sophie Raworth on his tweet:

Ed replied that he had respect for rank and file police officers who put their lives on the line to keep us safe. For them to do their job, the public have to have confidence in them and the way the Met has handled this has undermined that.

He took us through the Met’s actions of the past few weeks, first saying they wouldn’t investigate the Downing Street Parties, then they said they might but wanted to let Sue Gray get on with her report, then they would investigate but Sue Gray’s report could be published in full and then they changed their minds for a fourth time and said that Sue Gray’s report had to wait for their investigation to be completed. “This is chaos, absolute chaos.” It might be cock up, he added, but it could also be something much worse.”

He said that he had called for an investigation by the Metropolitan Police several weeks ago. If they had done that then, they would have completed their  investigation and we wouldn’t have the paralysis in Government that we are seeing now.

He said that nobody wanted the Met to make such a hash of this and had a go at Boris.

“We have a Prime Minister who has broken the rules and lied about it to Parliament. No-one trusts this Prime Minister. It’s why I’ve called very strongly that he should resign.”

 

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Mark Argent

Are the Tories planning an early General Election

By Mark Argent | Sun 30th January 2022 - 9:58 am

A few days ago Jacob Rees Mogg suggested that a change of Prime Minister would lead to an early General Election. He must know this isn’t true: are we being softened up for one?

His remarks have been read as an attempt to stop Tory MPs in former “red wall” seats siding against Boris Johnson, but aren’t these the Tory MPs with the strongest incentive to ensure that their party has a leader who people support?

What he’s reported to have said on Newsnight is:

“It is my view that we’ve moved, for better or worse, to an essentially presidential system and therefore the mandate is personal rather than entirely party and any PM would be very well advised to seek a fresh mandate.” 

The Tories won in 2019 on a promise to deliver Brexit, and shouldn’t be able escape the consequences by going to the polls early. The unravelling of Brexit and the consequences of their handling of Covid will mean they are in a weak position when the next General Election is due, in 2024. Going sooner than that, while they have a comfortable majority, would attract criticism. But a General Election in the “honeymoon” period of a new leader could be sold as “democratic”. Supporters of opposition parties would — rightly — cry “foul”, but the Tories would be gambling on coming back with a reduced, but viable, majority. 

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review – 30 January 2022

By Tom Arms | Sun 30th January 2022 - 8:30 am

A new Justice

It is time to appoint another Justice to America’s Supreme Court.  The new vacancy has been created by the resignation of liberal 83-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer. President Joe Biden has responded by announcing that he will nominate the first-ever African-American woman to the court. But will she win the approval of the Senate which is split 50/50 but with the casting vote of Vice President Kamala Harris tipping it into the Democratic camp? It is not a foregone conclusion. If the Republicans stand firm on blocking Democratic presidential nominations (as they have done in the recent past) then Biden may chalk up another failure. It will take only one Democrat to break ranks. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, have proven that is an only too real possibility. If Biden does get his way then there are half a dozen top contenders: Keranji Brown Jackson, Leonora Kruger, Michelle Childs, Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, Eunice Lee and Sherrilyn Ifill. Some legislators have already taken issue with the president basing his decision on race and gender. But each of the likely candidates have impeccable liberal Democratic Party credentials. None of them, however, will change the political direction of the court. Donald Trump’s three appointments mean that there will continue to be twice as many conservatives as liberals on the Supreme Court.

Talking to Taiwan

Words spoken by top politicians matter, even if they are limited in number and confined to a few pleasantries at a public occasion. That is why Beijing has taken offence at a verbal exchange between Vice President Kamala Harris and her Taiwanese counterpart William Lai. The two exchanged words at the recent inauguration of Honduran President Ximara Castro. The White House said it was a brief conversation in which neither China or Taiwan were mentioned. In fact, they didn’t talk about anything in Asia. Instead, said the White House, Ms Harris briefly mentioned America’s immigration policy and its “root causes” strategy aimed at curbing migration from Central America. Taiwan’s Central News Agency was even more circumspect—“It was a simple greeting,” the agency reported. The brevity of the conversation was irrelevant complained Beijing. The fact is that the Number Two in America’s political hierarchy implicitly recognised the political existence of Taiwan. This is unacceptable to the Chinese. The cursory exchange was not an accident. It was almost certainly arranged well in advance and American diplomats would have pointed it out to reporters. It was meant to annoy Beijing—and keep them on their toes.

Northern Ireland Protocol

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex-pat: Ukrainian Light

By Tom Arms | Sat 29th January 2022 - 8:30 am

There is a glimmer of light the end of the Ukrainian tunnel. The messages emanating from Moscow have shifted from unrestrained militant threats to militant threats with the occasional conciliatory murmur.

 

For a start, Moscow has agreed to continue negotiations. Most encouraging was an interview Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave to Russian radio stations on Friday. “If it depends on Russia,” he said, “then there will be no war. But we also won’t allow our interests to be rudely ignored, to be trampled.”

 

Of course, the only person whose opinion really matters is President Vladimir Putin, and he is the personification of Churchill’s definition of Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

 

Attempts to fathom the inner workings of the Russian leader’s mind seem destined to failure as one of his clear aims is to keep the US-led Western Alliance guessing and off-balance in order to constantly retain the initiative.

 

One possible guide to Putin’s thinking is the Russian media. The state broadcaster Russian TV (RTV) is sticking to a bellicose line. The Ukrainians are “Nazis” threatening to attack “peace-loving” Russian speakers in the Eastern part of Ukraine. Little is reported about the 125,000 troops on the Ukrainian border but when they are referred to, the commentators stress the Kremlin position that Moscow has the right to move its forces whenever and wherever it wants within Mother Russia.

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John Marriott

When it comes to Ukraine let’s not forget the geopolitics before we rush in

By John Marriott | Fri 28th January 2022 - 11:03 am

A while ago I read a book by British journalist, Tim Marshall, entitled ‘Prisoners of Geography’, where he argues that where you live colours to a great extent your perception of the world around you. That Mr Marshall is an believer, if that’s the right word, in ‘geopolitics’ is very clear. He’s now followed this up with ‘The Power of Geography’, which I have yet to read; but I assume this takes the idea further.

Geopolitics states that politics, especially international relations, is influenced by geography. That certainly makes sense to me and I would argue, for example, that, living on an island as they do, it is perhaps not surprising that so many English voters, many with an atavistic fear of ‘Johnny Foreigner’ and being prepared to believe some of the myths pedalled by Messrs Farage and Johnson etc, voted to leave the EU.

Interestingly, in the furthest extremities of our islands, namely Scotland and Northern Ireland, support for continued EU membership was higher. With the luxury of firm frontiers and never having been occupied by a foreign ‘power’ for a millennium it is clearly very hard for many to empathise with many European citizens whose parents and grandparents have witnessed occupation at first hand. Who can blame them if many still see in closer economic and political cooperation with their neighbours a way of avoiding such disruption in the future?

There are many places where geography, or possibly our interpretation of it, have, since WW2 alone, come back to bite us, for example in Korea, the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Whether it is the arbitrary drawing and redrawing of boundaries, linguistic, cultural or religious boundaries, trying to impose ‘solutions’ based on our own, largely western  perception of what is best is often a recipe for strife and unnecessary bloodshed. I would urge our leaders in the West to be careful not to overreact to what is going on today on the border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

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Mary Reid

Support jobseekers, don’t sanction them

By Mary Reid | Thu 27th January 2022 - 12:51 pm

Were you as incensed as I was at reading the latest Government move against some of the most vulnerable people in our society?

The scheme is called “Way to Work” and according to this report, jobseekers will have only four weeks (reduced from three months) to find work in their preferred sector. After that period they will be forced to widen their job search to other sectors.  If they turn down employment or don’t make “reasonable efforts” to find work then they will be sanctioned and lose some of their Universal Credit.

I do understand the context. There are 1.22 million job vacancies, many of these in essential services such as care work or delivering, and it is important for all of us to get those filled. But forcing people to take on jobs that they find difficult or unpleasant does not produce a happy and productive work force. And reducing benefits for people who are already on the breadline is dangerous, as it can push people into criminality or homelessness.

Wendy Chamberlain MP is our Work and Pensions Spokesperson, and she said:

Rather than supporting people to find secure long-term employment, the Government is now attempting to force people into accepting any job going.

This callous move could see skilled workers forced to accept insecure short term employment, for fear of having the rug pulled out from under them, and create a cycle of unemployment.

What is worse, these harsh sanctions could be applied within weeks of applying for Universal Credit – before people’s first payment even arrives.

We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis, with energy bills soaring and reliance on food banks rising. If the Government can write off billions in Covid fraud, they can afford to genuinely support those looking for work instead of sanctioning them.

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Catherine Royce

The long road to eliminating FGM… is too long

By Catherine Royce | Thu 27th January 2022 - 10:31 am

It’s nineteen years since the Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2003 became  law, and seven years since mandatory reporting of cases was introduced in 2015. So how are we doing? – and is FGM still an issue? – short answer, we are making some progress but it is still very much an issue affecting thousands of girls living here in the UK on the same streets as us, and millions of girls globally.

February 6th  will mark the 10th anniversary of  the International Day of Zero Tolerance of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) with all UN agencies moving towards elimination by 2030 by ‘collective abandonment’ of this ancient but cruel cultural practice which is carried out on 2-3million girls every year, thousands of them  here in the UK.

It is worth reiterating that there is no religious obligation or reason, in any religion for this practice, it is purely cultural.

It is estimated that globally 100-200 million women survivors are living with the consequences of FGM, which has devastating effects on their lives, health and well-being. For comparison, approximately 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.

Last weekend I attended a medico-legal conference on the multidisciplinary approach being taken to Female Genital Mutilation in the UK, and here is what I learned.

There has now been a successful prosecution in England (2019) resulting in a lengthy prison sentence for the perpetrator. A handful of other cases are currently under investigation, but it is increasingly clear that we cannot prosecute our way to elimination, we were told by a police specialist. Successful prosecutions are likely to remain few and far between, although they do send a very strong signal.

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John Pugh

John Pugh writes…Lord Ronnie Fearn 1931-2022

By John Pugh | Wed 26th January 2022 - 11:55 am

Most people who knew Ronnie have a Ronnie story. If there is a book written about how to become an MP or a Lord, Ronnie never read it.

He was never going to be one to tick all the boxes in a bloodless modern selection process  and yet he was loved by his constituents and possibly the only one who could have in the 1987 General Election delivered the only Liberal gain in England. He won because he was no political careerist using the constituency as a stepping stone, but because his only ambition was to represent the town of his birth and the people in it.

Southport, albeit it has its eccentricities and detractors, has deep Liberal roots and the heart of Southport liberalism is valuing each individual regardless of where they stand in the social hierarchy.

Ronnie practised rather than theorised about Liberalism showing an omnivorous and genuine interest in the daily life of ordinary and not so ordinary folk, patronising ,in the proper sense, all sorts of groups and associations.

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Caron Lindsay

Erlend

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 25th January 2022 - 11:34 pm

You might know sad news is coming, but when it actually arrives, it still smacks you round the chops.

That’s how so many people in the party will feel tonight. Few people were as loved as Erlend Watson.

We knew time was short. His update on Boxing Day was very him.

FAREWELL
I wanted to break it to you all personally.

I am more certainly not going to make it through more than the next few months. Any extra events could shorten that so my best guess is 3 to 6 moths. I will put myself down for a proxy vote for May (not Theresa) in case of any survival. Cynical to the end.

The affection shown on social media since my op was lovely but I have lost a quarter of my weight and I no longer have the physical reserves to do that.

I am currently able to communicate and will do so as long as possible but clearly the timetable is very loose and the end could be sudden.

My final affairs I am leaving to my siblings and my social media executor as Simon Drage as he knows more of you than they do.

In the meantime I will take/return calls as and when I can. Some longer some shorter according to what I can do.

There will be a funeral and I think a memorial service (probably the latter in London during parliamentary session for those who that works for. Elements of English and Norwegian I hope the committal of ashes to be in Orkney next summer about the time of the shows next August subject to to Covid but that is obviously an open story..

In terms of my politics I haven’t a Liberal and a Liberal Democrat since age 10. I see there being anti liberal forces working in the world and that makes me very sad. These must be fought. I am partisan but include on the side of good not just my own leaders but many Labour, Conservative and other politicians and obviously many non Party folk. I am a multiple identity person. In terms of nationality I am an Orcadian who was born in Fife with other IDs through my genome (but that leaves the key flag at the funeral as a St Magnus one rather than a rainbow 🌈 one).

To end with a couple of (mis)quotes.
1)You are not wholly gone from Earth until the last soul you touched comes up to heaven to greet you..

2) Well dear friends, now we have come to the end of our fellowship in Middle Earth. I will not say do not weep for not all tears are an evil. Or in Norwegian, Vel kjære venner nå har vi kommet til enden av vårt felleskap i Midtgård. Jeg vil ikke si gråt ikke, for ikke alle tårer er av det onde.

Number 2 may be familiar to readers of The Lord of the Rings.

Within days, both the Young Liberals and ALDC had honoured him.
And tonight the news came that he had died, very peacefully, and with a friend by his side.

We’d been hoping that he would somehow defy the odds.

Erlend was a familiar sight at by-elections and at the Conference Glee Club. He devoted so much of his life to the party, working to elect parliamentarians and councillors alike.

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Caron Lindsay

Happy Burns Night!

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 25th January 2022 - 8:08 pm

On 25th January 1759, Robert Burns was born. 263 year later, Scotland celebrates its most famous national poet with haggis, neeps, tatties, poetry, song and more than a small amount of decent single malt.

Whoever runs the Scottish Government digital comms for today is probably going to be feeling a bit sheepish tonight:

 

I got to wondering how Burns would deal with social media. Imagine the Twitter pile on the lady with the louse on her bonnet would get if Rabbie had live tweeted from the church service. The wider points Burns was trying to make about social justice and the importance of all life would have been entirely lost.

I have to say that I have mixed feelings about Burns’ poetry. You might have the vividness of Tam o’Shanter, the tenderness of Ae Fond Kiss and the humour of odes to mice and lice, but there’s the dark side. Telling henpecked husbands to charm their wives with the magic of a switch is never going to spark joy in my feminist heart. And he also advises the guy to kiss her maids and kick the perverse….well, it rhymes with switch.

And in the Rights of Women, he said women should have protection, decorum and admiration. You know, the vote would have been nice. You know, some actual political power. If I was writing this in Burns’ time, the copyright would have belonged to my husband. 

Nevertheless, the Edinburgh South Burns Supper is one of the highlights of my year. On Saturday, I gave the Reply to the Toast to the Lassies in a virtual event. It was bittersweet to be doing it over Zoom.

I had never been to a Burns Supper before about 2012 when I first went to the South one. Since then, I’ve been on the Naughty Table every year.

For those of you who don’t know, a traditional Burns Supper goes something like this:

The Selkirk Grace kicks off the proceedings. It’s simple:

Some hae meat and canna eat,And some wad eat that want it,But we hae meat and we can eat,Sae let the Lord be Thankit!

The Haggis is piped in and someone does a dramatic reading of Burns 1786 Address to a Haggis. On Saturday this was performed by Edinburgh South’s Rebecca Wright with so much spirit and passion. She really needs to think about a career in acting. And I am a bit scared of her, having seen her wield that knife.

Then the Chief Guest of Honour delivers the Immortal Memory, a personal reflection on Burns’ life and relevance to the modern day. On Saturday night that was delivered by Alex Cole-Hamilton and was one of the best that I have heard. He had us all in stitches with his Burns Style account of the Downing Street parties.

Then there’s a Toast to the Lassies. In the not too distant past, Burns Suppers were all male affairs and this element was served with a large amount of cringeworthy sexism. In these more progressive times, Angus Councillor Ben Lawrie, also the Scottish Party’s Spokesperson on the Drugs emergency was absolutely brilliant  He talked abut his love of Tam O’Shanter:

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Helen Morgan’s inaugural: In the footsteps of the Women of Wem

By Andy Boddington | Tue 25th January 2022 - 5:36 pm

In her inaugural speech in the House of Commons today, the country’s newest MP Helen Morgan told MPs:

“I will not give up fighting for the issues that matter most to North Shropshire: better access to health and ambulance services, a fair deal for farming, and proper provision of public services.”

Helen began by setting herself in the context on North Shropshire:

“While I am the first woman to represent North Shropshire in parliament, I am continuing a fine tradition of women in North Shropshire defending our democracy.”

She follows in the footsteps of the Women of Wem and made clear the Lib Dems opposition to the Judicial Review and Courts Bill.

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The pros and cons for Liberal Democrats of Boris Johnson remaining in office

By Irina von Weise and Humphrey Hawksley | Tue 25th January 2022 - 4:30 pm

Embed from Getty Images

Why Johnson should stay — Irina von Weise

Just as tactical voting is an unfortunate, but indispensable result of our voting system, trade-offs between the shorter and longer term are often necessary. Here is the choice: putting up with a blustering, lying buffoon as PM for two more years, or the prospect of another seven (or more) years of Conservative governments.

Let’s not forget: Johnson is not the problem, he merely epitomises it. The problem is a Conservative party hardly recognisable to its own traditional voter base, one that ousted its internationalist, rule-based MPs and replaced them with a cohort of spineless, corrupt loyalists.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey: Boris Johnson must resign over birthday party

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 24th January 2022 - 10:33 pm

Every time we hear of yet another time when Downing Street staff behaved like the rules didn’t apply to them, it just brings back the pain. This isn’t just politics. It’s about reliving the emotions of a really difficult couple of years.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, it’s the hugs we didn’t have, the days we didn’t see our loved ones that really hurt.

Most of us bear the scars of this pandemic to a certain extent. If we hadn’t obeyed the rules, the death toll from Covid would have been so much higher. Staying at home for months on end was the only way to protect ourselves and others from a deadly virus.

But that came at a huge cost for many.

I am thinking of someone I love very much who wasn’t able to see their friends for months on end. They became very seriously ill as a result and could have lost their life. I heard yesterday about others who had not been so lucky and whose loved ones had died by suicide.

My son’s 21st fell not long before Boris Johnson’s birthday. He couldn’t see his group of friends.  His treat for the day was a trip to the drive thru McDonalds which had opened a few days previously. To be fair, he did get a nice home-cooked meal, but it’s far from the celebration he wanted.  I didn’t see my parents on their birthdays last year and my niece had to postpone her wedding. We’ve all got similar stories to tell.

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John Medway

We’re not going bust – but how will we manage our money in future?

By John Medway | Mon 24th January 2022 - 10:25 am

In earlier days of Covid, I argued that we should spend whatever was needed to tackle the pandemic and not worry too much about the national debt. It seemed a no-brainer then but, as we move into post-pandemic or endemic times, things don’t look so straightforward. 

To outsiders, including me, money and banking can look horribly arcane and complex. Still, it has a big influence on our lives. Active democrats need at least some understanding of it. I’ve tried to expand my own understanding and here, in summary, is how I see things:

In the UK we are in charge of our own currency, which is not pegged to any other currency or to gold or silver. We can borrow in our own currency. This means that we can’t involuntarily go bankrupt –  we can create money to settle our debts. A sovereign state is not like a household. 

We have to be careful. If we put too much money into circulation, by spending too much more than we raise in taxes, inflation can run wild and it can be difficult and painful to get it back under control. Too little money can mean unemployment, empty buildings and idle machinery. Things are particularly tricky at the moment because we have inflation driven by the world price of energy and by bottlenecks in supply chains from Covid and Brexit.

The size of the national debt doesn’t always matter much – it depends partly on who is financing it and at what rates of interest. At the moment, nearly 40% of the UK national debt is owed to the Bank of England, which the government owns, and there seems scant evidence that the debt is itself a problem. However, the debt is often used by right-wing Tories as an excuse for the austerity they love.

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Michal Siewniak

How do we create a passion for civic activism?

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 24th January 2022 - 8:55 am

Engaging, informative and instrumental in building “democratic foundation” for future generations. It is wonderful that the “civic tradition” of children from the Polish Saturday School in Welwyn Garden City continues! Always in January, when some might have preferred to stay at home, a group of 12 children and a few members of staff visited the Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council. Children had another opportunity to visit the Council Chamber, meet the Leader, Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council. 

 Throughout the meeting, children listened attentively and with a great desire to learn. They had a chance to learn to ask a number of questions, many surprising and thought-provoking. This time some of them included:

  • What is the best part of being a Councillor? 
  • How are our taxes spent?
  • Is the town planning to build additional sports facilities?
  • What specifically is the district doing about climate change?

 The trip also had another important dimension. It gave participants an opportunity to continue building a positive image of the Polish diaspora in the UK, having a real impact on our integration and inspire our students to become actively involved in the life of the local community. 

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John Grout

The funny thing all those demanding “free speech” have in common

By John Grout | Sun 23rd January 2022 - 12:00 pm

Having been active on Lib Dem social media for about eight years now, and being an admin or moderator of major Lib Dem groups for much of that time, I’ve witnessed many of the party’s internal debates lately.  I’ve noticed, with increasing despair, a trend in certain quarters to bemoan the fact that there are topics which people don’t like being debated within our party.

I would have far more patience with these internal ‘free speech’ arguments if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s only ever one thing that the people advancing them seem to want to talk about at the end of the day – and they’re desperate to talk about it; they’re just bursting to say it – except, there are all these mean people out there wanting them to stop, and hurting their feelings if they say it anyway.

Bluntly, it always seems to come down to how revolting they find LGBT+ people (particularly trans+ people) – how they wish they’d be less disgustingly LGBT+ in public where other people might actually have to do things like look at them and – horror! – share space with them.  And, of course, there are all these mean people wanting them to not say it, or at least to jolly well say it elsewhere, and there are all these intolerant LGBT+ folks and their allies with the temerity to call them things like “illiberal,” and “TERF,” which are terrible things to call them, because only Bad People™ are called those things.

We should not be surprised that people who are the subjects of a debate want to be a part of it.  It’s also not surprising that they won’t want to debate, particularly not endlessly and at length:

1) their worth as human beings,

2) their retaining rights that they currently do, and

3) any reduction of those rights (such as, say, their ability to use toilets, except in private homes)

It would be neither “Liberal” nor moral to insist that anyone sit by smiling sweetly while others debate, in public, whether they should have, or keep having, rights that those actually having the debate already enjoy.  That wouldn’t be “allowing debate” – that would be bullying.  Wanting people to stop doing it isn’t “stifling free speech”, or “stopping people from feeling offended” – it’s protecting an embattled minority from psychological abuse by people who either want to inflict that abuse in the first place, or are too pig-ignorant to see that that’s what they’re doing (and too righteously-offended at the very idea that they’re being insensitive to begin to think that perhaps the people asking them to stop might have a point).

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Paul Heilbron

ALDC by-election report: 20 January 2022

By Paul Heilbron | Sun 23rd January 2022 - 10:24 am

The first intriguing by-election Thursday of 2022 was operating under the backdrop of “Partygate”. Would the shenanigans at Number 10 cut through on the local level? Can the Lib Dems strike while the irons are hot and bring home the bacon, though it’s Veganuary don’t you know? Would this week’s polls throw up any surprises? Here we have it, the round-up of all Thursday night’s by-elections.

Most notably then, Lib Dems and town council by-elections are a better match than one made in heaven. Three town council by-elections in Hatfield, Carterton and Dawlish ushered in gains, gains, gains for the native golds. Elsewhere, Labour held on in East Lothian and Charnwood BC whilst the Conservatives secured victories at Selby DC and East Lindsey DC by-elections.

There is nowhere else to start than all things town councils. A fantastic night for the Liberal Democrats ushered in a trio of successes. Tim Rowse at Hatfield TC, Natalie King at Carterton TC and Rachel Hardy at Dawlish TC all ran phenomenal campaigns and we congratulate you on your successes. What a great night to be a Liberal Democrat!

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