First of all, answering the major question of the day:
I’m planning on taking on one Boris Johnson sized Boris Johnson.
(Though currently he’s acting more like a 🐔 than a 🦆 ) #JoinJo https://t.co/hdtecVb9hd
— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) June 27, 2019
And on to the Victoria Derbyshire BBC live tv hustings
“Our country is crying out for a liberal movement. Our country deserves better than Boris’s Brexit vision”
Lib Dem leadership contender @joswinson makes her opening pitch to our studio audiencehttps://t.co/itWoqHR0hH #VictoriaLIVE pic.twitter.com/YxCyfYI7fd
— Victoria Derbyshire (@VictoriaLIVE) June 27, 2019
And, later on, the Gatwick hustings:
Having attended the hustings tonight & watched two excellent candidates, both of whom would make great leaders, @joswinson has just won my vote with her “non-tribal and the edge in reaching out to voters from other parties”. #LibDemLeadership #LibDemSurge #JoinJo pic.twitter.com/4u5CvQUMtE
— Duncan Ponikwer🔶🇺🇦 #FBPE #FBPPR (@DuncanPonikwer) June 27, 2019
When PM, which Liberal measure do you most want to leave on the statute book? PR says @joswinson #LibDemLeadership pic.twitter.com/POwogxpo71
— rawliberal 🔸 (@rawliberal) June 27, 2019
"Housing is the big issue for intergenerational fairness. There is a whole generation of people who can't imagine ever owning their own home, stuck in appalling quality rented accommodation. We need big investment in new homes." #LibDemLeadership #LibDemHustings #JoinJo
— Rachael Clarke (@rachaelfrclarke) June 27, 2019
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One Comment
Published in “New European”. implying that if the LibDems want to keep their poll ratings, they need to move to the left.
The Remain surge has pushed the Bad Old Days of the coalition government far out of view – that is, until the moment Swinson and Davey want to start talking about their experience in office. They might as well tell Labour voters of their days clubbing baby seals before they remind them of their ministerial roles in the Lib Dem pact with the Tories, when their voting records on welfare and benefits followed the Tory whip.
Albeit with hands tied, they voted for the bedroom tax, against raising welfare benefits in line with prices, and voted 26 times (Jo) and 24 times (Ed) to reduce spending on welfare, at a time when austerity was biting its hardest.
On taxation, they’ve gone down the middle of the road, voting to increase the rate of VAT and taxes on booze and flights; but high rollers needn’t worry about either of them slapping a tax on bankers’ bonuses or their massive homes.
Davey, who will want to buff his green credentials by talking about his time as energy secretary, was quietly ok with limited fracking, and applied a market-solutions-will-provide attitude to just about everything. For him, social democracy is “not very convincing” compared to Orange Book-style free-market liberalism, he told Total Politics, so that won’t help.
As business minister Swinson was against banning zero-hours contracts, and made a slightly bizarre push to revoke the Pedlars Act, a kind of mini deregulation of street trade that the local government association quickly pointed out would lead to a free-for-all for frauds and con merchants.