Category Archives: Party policy and internal matters

What makes us different

With the Labour government becoming deeply unpopular so quickly and with Reform on the rise, the need for us to expand into being a credible force across more of the country has never been more pressing.

We are the party that stands up against populist extremists, willing to call out Donald Trump and willing to take on Nigel Farage.

With the pernicious volume of extremist views – aided by Elon Musk’s love affair with extremism – there’s a crucial role for the Liberal Democrats in being willing and proud to stand against such extremism.

While both Reform and the Conservatives spend so much time trying to excuse it or benefit from it, and Labour prevaricates, we simply oppose it.

Rather than putting our energies into telling people how many fellow Brits we dislike and relentlessly seeking to stoke anger and division, our focus is on improving people’s lives through improving our NHS, fixing social care, reining in the excesses of water companies and tackling the cost of living crisis.

Central to growing our economy – to fund the better public services we need – is improving our trade relations with the European Union. Those promises made by Brexit campaigners have turned to dust. They broke their promises – and our economy.

That is why continuing to up our game is so important. We can see in local council by-elections week in, week out, the results where we do. We consistently can take on and beat Reform, even in wards where we were not in contention the previous time, while Labour and the Conservatives nearly always lose out to Reform.

That should give us optimism – and spur us to do more.

Balanced media coverage shouldn’t just be for election time

The BBC is our national broadcaster, people expect and deserve balanced news coverage.

It’s clear to everyone the BBC is giving Nigel Farage and Reform far too much coverage. Reform UK only have 4 of the 250 opposition MPs, but Nigel Farage accounts for 60% of the BBC website’s mentions of opposition leaders.

The BBC should have to balance its political news so it doesn’t boost Nigel Farage’s dangerous, divisive politics.

There are special Ofcom rules on balance at election time, these rules should apply all year round so people can trust the BBC.

That is the message for the new Liberal Democrat ‘Balance the BBC’ petition, which you can sign and share here.

(As usual, the data from this petition flows into the usual party systems, so local parties can integrate it into their work too.)

Internal elections

The big three-yearly round of Federal Party elections – such as for my successor as President and also to various party committees – is now underway. All members for who the party has the correct, opted-in email address (important caveats!) are receiving a series of emails from the Returning Officer and from Civica (previously known as Electoral Reform Services), the firm who is running the online nominations and voting system for us.

It’s the Lib Dems who can beat Reform

Here are some statistics that should both encourage us and spur us on. They are for principal authority council by-elections since May 1st where a Reform candidate finished as one of the top two:

• Reform and Conservative in the top two : 0% Conservative wins
• Reform and Labour in the top two: 17% Labour wins
• Reform and Lib Dem in the top two: 78% Lib Dem wins

In fact, the figures are even better than that, because those other 22% of contests where Reform finished first and the Lib Dems second were all contests in previously Labour held seats and where we had moved up from further behind to second. Even though we did not win in those, they were still good results for us, taking significant steps forward.

In other words, just as liberalism is the philosophical answer to populism, so Liberal Democrat campaigning is the practical answer to populism.

Thank you, Dick Newby

The Leader of the Liberal Democrat group in the Lords, Dick Newby, has announced that he is standing down as leader of the group after almost a decade in post. That period has been a real rollercoaster for the party, and included a long stretch when the Lib Dem Lords group had to take on a big extra burden of work due to the shrunken size of the Commons Parliamentary Party.

Huge thanks for everything you have done, and for making me so welcome as one of the newest members of the group.

Constitutional amendment

The Board is still consulting on the wording of a ‘tidying up’ omnibus amendment to submit to Autumn Federal Council. This is designed to tidy up slight ambiguities of wording, missed cross-references and the like rather than to make any substantive change. Such periodic housekeeping does however end up saving time and making things easier.

So please grab your constitutional magnifying glass, ready your pedantic skills and take a look at the consultation.