If it’s a wee bit quiet around here today, that’ll be because most of us will be in London (that’ll be a 6:25 am flight for me) at the Social Liberal Forum Conference.
It’s the first time a major party gathering across the UK has tackled the subject of Brexit. Party President Sal Brinton, peers Lindsay Northover and Jonny Oates and others will be discussing what to do next.
The theme of the day is Inequality and its various effects on welfare, housing, health, about inter=generational inequality. It’s been planned in conjunction with the Equality Trust which was set up to take forward the ideas in The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson.
Vince Cable will be delivering the annual William Beveridge Memorial Lecture at 1:20 pm.
The event isn’t being streamed, but you can follow proceedings on Twitter using #SLFConf.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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Tastes change ~
Nine in ten paying more than necessary in Vehicle Excise Duty
A radical agenda but can Burnham deliver?
Reg Calvert and his boarding school of rock
A shocking abuse of the legal system where the rich try to bully the weak and poor into submission
Jack Meredith
GWYN WILLIAMS
Graham Evans
Nigel Quinton
Katharine Pindar
One Comment
It was excellent and got better. Mind you, at the end one of the organisers (Sarah?) said “It gets better every year”, which could also be rendered, “I expect next year’s speakers will be better than this lot”. But really they were good. The “outsiders” – the guy from Compass and the Youth Council speaker, for example – were good speakers in challenging mode. I had regarded Vince Cable as an excellent minister but an unexciting speaker, but he really got me thinking.
More diversity would be welcome. All visible minorities (men probably excepted) were underrepresented and the young, Black Youth Council speaker will no doubt have noted she was the only young African/Caribbean present (hope I didn’t fail to see someone).
I’ve been to conferences and seminars that were poorly organised. This one is always superbly organised.