A larger Parliamentary Party means a spreading of the burden of covering the waterfront of Government activity, and Ed Davey has this morning announced a reorganisation of responsibilities amongst our MPs. The new lineup is as follows;
- Ed Davey – Leader
- Daisy Cooper – Deputy Leader, Health and Social Care
- Alistair Carmichael – Home Affairs, Justice and Northern Ireland
- Wendy Chamberlain – Chief Whip, Work and Pensions
- Tim Farron – Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
- Sarah Green – International Trade and Wales
- Wera Hobhouse – Energy and Climate Change, Transport
- Christine Jardine – Cabinet Office, Women & Equalities, Scotland
- Layla Moran – Foreign Affairs and International Development
- Helen Morgan – Communities and Local Government
- Sarah Olney – Treasury and Business & Industrial Strategy
- Jamie Stone – Defence and Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
- Munira Wilson – Education
No job yet for Richard Foord, but he’ll need time to get his office set up and recruit staff, but he’s already making an impression, so we suspect that it won’t be long before he’s given a more formal role. UPDATE – he’ll be taking up the role of Defence Spokesperson after Federal Conference in September.
I am honoured to be appointed the Liberal Democrats Defence spokesperson and given the chance to demand better for our servicemen and women, of whom we can all be proud.
— Richard Foord MP (@RichardFoordLD) July 11, 2022
Any thoughts, readers?
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20 Comments
I had been wondering when, or if Sarah Green and Helen were going to get dedicated roles, or if they were to focus on being great constituency MPs. When you have a small parliamentary group there’s not really any such think as a backbencher, but I think it’s been smart to give them both time to bed into working with their communities.
On the other hand, it’s important to share the workload and allowing Jamie and Richard to have a period of transition with the defence role makes sense.
Who is taking over ‘Housing’ from Tim?
Two things worry me in this news: the responsibility for Brexit and Europe is no longer mentioned and the ‘Climate Emergency’ role is now about ‘Climate Change’. Seems to me the spokesperson for International Trade should continue to be responsible for Brexit and Europe – all the more important now that Labour is ruling out rejoining the EU, Single Market etc. As for the Climate Emergency, when did it become just climate change?
Brad Barrows: Good points.
Who is taking over housing, and disability matters.
I am really appalled that our leader seems to have decided that he won’t mention the EU, even though our party policy is clear. For reasons I simply don’t understand he seems to think that talking about Europe is a vote loser. After 58 years of party membership, in which I first campaigned to join the EEC and then to stay in the EU, I have really had enough. If our party doesn’t offer the UK electorate a path back to at the minimum the Single Market and the Customs union, then why do we exist? No-one else is going to do it. So Ed, what about it? You won’t get my help and support unless you start campaigning on this vitally important issue for our country
@ Mick Taylor. Unsurprisingly, I agree with Mick. Surprised it took so long.
Mick Taylor:
I had a similar reaction. In the leadership campaign Layla could have won me over by convincing me that she was committed to Europe, but it was clear then that both Ed and Layla had agreed to give as little as possible and say there is no difference between us.
The result is that hardly anyone in the Party dares even spell out the damage caused by Brexit, that as a result of Brexit virtually everyone (bar a few speculators) is worse off. It really is a modern version of the emperor’s new clothes. I would like to see someone such as Wera given responsibility for Brexit and European affairs.
I can see that, though we should be exploring avenues, there are difficulties with a route back into the Single Market, nonetheless we should at least be able to tell people that we would all be better off if we had stayed in the Single Market.
I agree very much with Martin, Mick and Brad. It is very frustrating that the Lib Dems aren’t taking a much clearer pro-European position and advocating to rejoin the single market. This is at a time when Labour have rejected the single market yet Brexit is going badly and losing popularity. The Lib Dems should seize the moment.
I’ve tried to find the last conference resolution on the EU on the party website, but cannot find it anywhere using the search facilities available on the site itself. In the end I googled it and what I found, which appeared to be under 2019 manifesto and was labelled ‘passed motions’ was the motion as set out in the agenda, not what was actually passed. Our website really is one of the worst I have ever used. I gather it is being replaced sometime. It can’t come too soon.
In these difficult times I’m surprised by so few comments.
Martin Lewis was made a comment on the lack of a government, weeks will be further wasted as the infighting continues. Meanwhile, families struggle.
This government is not capable of delivering, how long will it take to make thing’s easier?
I think Ed Davey was pretty explicit in January 2021: “We are not a rejoin party, but we are a very pro-European party.” He didn’t even say pro-EU! (https://www.libdemvoice.org/why-giving-up-on-rejoin-is-the-last-straw-66776.html)
That might have contradicted the conference vote to which David Blake refers, but, especially in the minds of voters, what defines party policy? Public statements by the leader or conference votes that the party chooses to ignore? I’ve a couple of longstanding bugbears about academic and faith-based selection in schools that convince me it’s not the latter! 🙁
Without legitimate (i.e. proportional) political power,
the LibDem party is and will remain irrelevant.
The sole path to legitimate (i.e. proportional) political power for the smaller parties
is through a combination of
a cross-party tactical voting arrangement for the next (final FPTP) election
(to force a well-hung Commons),
followed by a cross-party Confidence a Supply arrangement
in that well-hung Commons
(to force constitutional reform).
Who, in the LibDem party, is to be responsible
for the cross-party negotiations to get our act together for the above.
I can understand peoples frustration on the lack of emphasis on the disaster that is Brexit. it is one of the reasons that I joined three years ago, although I was in the Liberals during the seventies. Probably too late for my generation but I hope that young people will see the UK re- enter. We just need patience and a chipping away at the Brexiteers lies. Ed. is doing a grand job. I think a cautious step by step approach is the best way. Please don’t be too rude when you disagree!
Might an unstated H. Q strategy underneath these gaps and backgroundings, be one of turning our party into a party of “Nice Conservatives”?
I’ll add my name to thew list who are concerned about the absence of EU/Brexit from the list (which is otherwise very good). Ed needs to remember that there is actually now a government dept with a full cabinet minister, called Brexit Opportunities dept. If we’re calling our list a shadow cabinet, that means we need to shadow ALL departments. And this one is a really easy job for someone – just pointing out how few Brexit opportunities there are and what a sham the whole thing is. And yes how we want one day (admittedly not right now) to get back in.
I would agree on the lack of mention or support for the EU. Supporting membership of the single market/customs would be the ideal position and unique for this party. I reckon this one thing would help improve the economy. I can’t understand why the leadership is ignoring it, in any case it’s not the same as rejoin. I think speaking of voting reform rather than electoral reform or PR has more traction with the electorate. Who is covering levelling up?
To add to my earlier comment:
I acknowledged difficulties with re-entering the Single Market, this is because it would require other European countries to have trust in the UK, but we do not have to make it difficult: our aims can be to restore the trust that the Tories have squandered and build bridges with the aim of rejoining EFTA in order to restore unhindered trade across the continent.
We are painfully aware that so long as the UK is a trading nation and is geographically close to Europe, having a land border with the EU Brexit will be a festering sore and will never be ‘done’. We need to have a recognised spokesman/woman for Brexit issues; we are in no position to complain that the media ignore us if we cannot even provide a named speaker for such an important political issue.
“We are in no position to complain that the media ignore us if we cannot even provide a named speaker for such an important political issue.”
That’s a great point Martin.
I’m actually going to send an email to the leader about this, and I invite contributors in this thread to do the same. And those of you who are fortunate enough to have LibDem MPs can message them as well. Much as I’d love to believe the leadership avidly reads LDV I’m not convinced they do, so let’s tell them directly how we feel about this. [email protected]
@Steve Trevethan “Might an unstated H. Q strategy underneath these gaps and backgroundings, be one of turning our party into a party of ‘Nice Conservatives’?”
That does seem to underpin the “blue wall” strategy, which appears to be the only game in town for the party. How much excitement have we seen about elections elsewhere? How much emphasis have we seen on radical or progressive policies that might scare away blue wall voters?
In a similar vein to “nice conservative”, I saw a recent Guardian piece in which an unnamed senior Lib Dem was reported as describing the party’s archetypal new voter as the “Surrey solicitor”!