We live in strange political times. Polarised politics, suffocating social media, a faltering economy. People want certainty in an age of ever swifter geopolitical change.
Some fall for the easy answers of the hard Right and the uncompromising Left. Where does that leave the moderate Centre? Sat on the fence? Stuck in the middle of the road, primed to become roadkill? Never prepared to give an opinion or pick a side? Always waiting to see which way the wind blows before choosing a direction of travel?
That is certainly how some see us. Are they wrong? Are we just the least worst option? A protest vote? Can a party which once saw in its ranks (even if not at the same time) both Darren Grimes (right-wing media regular and now a Reform deputy County Council leader) and Zack Polanski (now deputy leader of the Greens and running to lead that party on an unapologetically eco-Left agenda) really believe in anything? Are we just a blank canvas on which anyone can paint their particular brand of politics and sell it as Liberalism?
It is my contention that, with the Tories in the doldrums and Labour seemingly on a crusade to upset and anger as many different groups of voters as they can, space is opening up which we Lib Dems can take advantage of, as we began to do in the recent local elections.
The decent majority want to a vote for a positive, future-focused, outcomes-driven politics that actually delivers for them. That’s why when Lib Dems run councils, people vote for us again and again. Because we don’t just talk, we do. We embed ourselves in our communities, understand how they tick, know what the problems are and, in as much as we can within the constraints of local government powers and finance, set about solving them.
But what about at a national level?
If I’m honest it sometimes seems that our leaders are not quite confident enough in our values to sell them with as much passion and vigour as the snake oil salesmen on the Right and the populists of the Left ply their wares.
After the recent Supreme Court judgement it appeared to take an age for our party machinery to make a statement which should have taken mere moments: that Trans Rights are Human Rights and that we will always stand by the Trans community and do all we can in policy terms to protect them and all persecuted minorities.
On housing we can sometimes seem like the ‘yes, but…’ party – in favour of much needed new and affordable housing in theory but against each new planning application in practice.
And on Europe, we rightly say we need to fix the UK’s broken relationship with our allies on the Continent but have seemingly fallen silent on rejoining the EU as soon as is practically possible.
And so many voters are left thinking that we’re perfectly nice people but don’t quite have the courage of our convictions.
Where we have been bold, such as Ed’s anti-Trump stance and being clear that we are the political antithesis to the Reform agenda, people like that. It makes us stand out from the crowd and gives us a clear political position.
We need to do much of that. Not be timid, but bold, unashamedly and radically liberal. Not populist, but also not afraid to be popular. Not taking a ‘don’t upset the Tory shires’ stance, but helping move voters to where we stand. Liberal. Pragmatic progressives. Delivering for communities. In many respects, we Lib Dems are the last, best hope for a brighter future.
Let’s seize that opportunity!
In praise of Carl Cashman and Victor Chamberlain
If there’s any two people that give me hope that we can follow the agenda I set out above and be proud and bold in selling our Liberalism to an electorate desperate for a positive alternative, it is Carl Cashman and Victor Chamberlain.
It’s no surprise that they’re both from our thriving local government base. Carl, the leader of our council group in Liverpool and Victor, our leader in Southwark. It’s perhaps also not surprising that in both places Lib Dems are the main challengers to failing Labour administrations.
More so than any of our MPs (and I love our Commons caucus, just to be clear on that) Carl and Victor have led, with passion and purpose, campaigns against Labour’s debilitating welfare cuts which are set to plunge hundreds of thousands more people, including tens of thousands of children, in to poverty.
Carl and Victor are attractive, clear speakers, who brilliantly emobody our values and are champions of their communities. And, in Carl’s case, are a much needed Northern voice in our often Southern-dominated party.
I hope they get to lead their groups to victory when their Councils are next up for election. But I also hope that, one day, they will both run for Parliament. A new generation of leadership awaits!
Proud of Leicester’s favourite son
I’m a proud Leicestershire lad, born in Leicester and it’s always been my nearest city, and I’m proud of our favourite son, Gary Lineker.
As I type these words it’s reported that he’s to leave the BBC early and won’t host coverage of the World Cup for the Corporation as planned next year. Why? Because the Beeb, which I love and often defend, is yet again running scared of its own shadow, frit of the Radical Right and their media defenders.
Whilst not perfect, his recent re-posting was indeed a grave error for which he rightly apologised, Lineker has been spot on on issues including the horrors taking place in Gaza, the rights of Trans people, and much more besides.
The truth is he’s too good for Auntie and I hope, now freed of its constraints, he can be an even louder and bolder champion for progressive causes.
I wonder if he’d like to stand for Parliament?
* Mathew Hulbert is a former Councillor, is a regular commentator on TV and Radio, and is Co-Host of the Political Frenemies podcast.
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35 Comments
Delighted to see Carl Cashman mentioned here. He is clearly someone who is carrying the flame of Liberal radicalism, which is very much part of a Liverpool tradition harking back to the 1970s when Liberal councillors first started getting elected there.
I am delighted to announce he will also be one of the speakers at the SLF conference in Manchester on the 7th June. More details here: https://www.socialliberal.net/events
I guess the best way of thinking about the Gary Lineker issue is to think about what one’s position would be if he held rather different views to most readers of LDV. If he was a strong supporter of Israel, welcomed the recent Supreme Court decision and expressed concern about the effects of immigration on the NHS would you still be unhappy he was leaving the BBC or would you think he had breached their conflict of interest policy which says: “ A potential conflict of interest arises when there is the possibility that an individual’s external activities or interests may affect, or be reasonably perceived as affecting, the BBC’s impartiality and its integrity, or risk damaging the BBC’s reputation generally or the value of the BBC brand. Conflicts of interest may occur in any area of our work“ https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/conflicts-of-interest/
@Simon McGrath – in answer to your question, I would be fine with a BBC presenter having those views if he was presenting Match of the Day because his personal views are irrelevant to his job.
I did not have a problem with Geoffrey Boycott being a UKIP supporter when he appeared on a cricket programme, because it was irrelevant.
I think we need our BBC presenters to be politically impartial on political programmes, and we all know that Peter Jay was Labour, Robin Day was Liberal and Nick Robinson was a Tory. This works because it is not possible to tell when they are doing their job which party they belong to and nor did they in their spare time campaign on party political issues.
I think the restrictions on all the other staff outside of political programmes is wrong and an impingement on free speech. The crucial point is that in their spare time, ie when not employed by the BBC, they should like allowed to say whatever they like within the law.
That all said I think Gary Linneker made the right decision to resign from the BBC. I believe he made a genuine mistake and is not Anti-Semitic, but I can understand why reasonable people would think otherwise.
I think this article massively understates the malaise and cowardice that has taken over the party.
On the supreme court judgement we still haven’t proposed to either amend the law or opposed the government and ECHRs attempts to use the ruling to stop trans people from using the toilet.
We also haven’t been terribly load in supporting higher spending, have dropped our support for keeping the tax threshold at the level we set it at in coalition (which was our flagship policy at the time)
And despite having decent positions on Gaza have been specularly invisible on the issue, in contrast with the high profile leadership we took on Iraq and Bosnia. Even pushing out one candidate by stopping them campaigning on the issue (who then won as an independent).
Consequently our vote share fell in most seats with a Muslim population even in those that we had won in the post Iraq era.
Right now we seem to be Labour light, i.e not quite as heartless as the govt but not offering anything radically different.
@David Le Grice: 7 Independent, formerly Labour, councillors joined the party in Slough recently precisely because of our stance on Gaza.
Great article. “The party of middle England” sounds to me more like a sneer at our 2024 intake than a campaigning slogan.
I agree with Geoffrey Payne. I don’t think it matters a jot if presenters of programmes to do with sport, food, entertainment, travel et al express their political views outside of their programmes, even if I disagree with them.
The problem for Gary Lineker was the serious mistake he made in not reading a post properly before reposting it and including a clearly anti-semetic emoji in it. He clearly didn’t mean to but sometimes that’s not enough. Clearly he wants to keep on making political points and the BBC don’t want him to. As someone who has never really watched football, his departure is immaterial to me, but I do wonder if this somewhat crass move by the BBC is another attack on free speech.
See YOUGOV today has us third on 17%, Tories on 16 and Labour 22. I dreamt 2 months ago we would overtake the Conservatives, then a few months later Labour, leaving us to take on Reform who are on 29%.
Will this be my first dream ever to come true?
Why oh why is it that good Lib Dems in trying to support the cause of minorities repeatedly get sucked into the rabbit hole of ridiculous claims by some who will say anything to promote the cause rather than apply some real Lib Dem hard thinking and consider the real issue?
However, transgender rights, a cause that deserves our most careful consideration and support is an area where instead we just parrot one liners as if they are the absolute truth. As a consequence we have allowed ourselves to adopt silly complaints that people trying to apply some logic to a very difficult situation are in fact “bad actors” trying to stop trans people from using the toilet? Do give over.
We really should be wise enough to realise that simply accepting slogans designed to promote a cause is not the best way to seek to balance fundamental values relied on both by women and transgender women. George Orwell, a lifelong socialist, warned in his book 1984 of the distopian chaos that redefining the meaning of words could bring and when that redefinition was extended to as key a word as woman, we really should have thought twice about the slogan “A trans woman ins a woman,” rather than simply repeat it.
Now, having helped create the chaos, some are now decrying the organisations that are having to help unwind that chaos of misunderstanding we have helped create. We really should know better.
The Greens are now campaigning on a straight – “Rejoin The EU” platform, that should be us.
@David Evans: fine post.
Yes, Greens now campaigning on rejoining the EU.They are also up in this poll. We can be much firmer in our beliefs or we can be ,yet again, be left behind.
“However, transgender rights, a cause that deserves our most careful consideration and support is an area where instead we just parrot one liners as if they are the absolute truth”
Because David, if members , supporters , deviate from that they are labelled as transphobic and I can assure much worse. The party has been captured by the militant transgender movement, & supporters who don’t subscribe to that ideology are being silenced. Over a year on from the Cass review and still party officials tip toe around the subject as to not offend.
@ThelmaDavies. Your assertion is simply not true. I know of at least one prominent LGBTQ+ person who has faced disciplinary action at the behest of a prominent TERF member primarily because they stood up for LGBTQ+ rights. The TERF wanted the person banned from serving on party committees. As it happens to result was relatively benign, but the fact that the case was taken at all shows that the idea that the party has been taken over is laughable.
In a party that says it believes in human rights regardless of of background, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation et all, anti trans behaviour is questionable to say the least.
@Mick: The fact that you’ve chosen use a derogatory term to refer to women who have gender-critical beliefs, not once but twice in your post, doesn’t really give much credibility to your claims.
Hm. Doesn’t trans exclusionary radical feminist accurately describe the views of that (smallish) section of women who want to deny rights to trans people? I assumed that was a term in general use and not offensive.
I do find their views offensive even if as a Liberal I think they have every right to hold themas long as they don’t cause harm to anyone else.
@ Mick Taylor,
“…..that (smallish) section of women who want to deny rights to trans people” ??
I’m not sure it’s that small.
All the women I know aren’t happy about having to share their previously reserved spaces with individuals who still possess the crucial parts of their original anatomy.
My good wife, who is more aligned to the liberal centre than I am, (support for the EU etc) puts it in quite matter of fact terms which probably would be rejected by the admins on here. 🙂
I can see both sides of the argument so I’m somewhat torn. In any case, whenever I’ve ventured to express any opinion I’m told that as a man I should keep out of it!
@Peter Martin. I have skin in the game. Namely a trans grandson and more recently a trans stepdaughter.
I do think I have a right to a strong view on how they are treated in work and in social, sporting and other occasions.
And, by the way, many trans people no longer possess all the accoutrements of their previous gender. How will you know? Surely you don’t expect to investigate the contents of their pants/knickers in order to determine the right of access to any location?
This nonsense has been blown up out of all proportion by a small number of (mainly) women who ought to know better and actual evidence of any harm is vanishingly small. It has been latched onto by the anti-woke brigade with whom I would have thought that you would want to avoid given your socialist tendencies.
Just as a passing thought. How many men have you heard of complaining about trans men using male facilities? Precious few, if any, I suspect
@Mick Taylor
“Just as a passing thought. How many men have you heard of complaining about trans men using male facilities? Precious few, if any, I suspect”.
This is probably because men do not feel threatened by trans men.
” This nonsense has been blown up out of all proportion by a small number of (mainly) women who ought to know better and actual evidence of any harm is vanishingly small.”
I simply don’t t understand this kind of response. That is because the disquiet undoubtedly expressed by many women (at trans women using private spaces and based on fear of violence ) is surely exactly the same fear of violence as that understandably expressed by transwomen at using men’s private spaces.
The fear may or may not be irrational, but the way to quiet those fears is to come up with hard evidence beyond assertion.
Indeed, Mick, also there would be no complaints, if transmen wanted to take part in men’s sports.
Why is it that men are so much more tolerant than all those damn foolish woman worried about nothing?
A few days ago I asked in this forum:
“Is there any statistical or other evidence that can be used to show transgender women are no more likely to assault or harass [biological] women than [biological] women are?”
and since then I have been poking around on the internet to see if I can find any such evidence. I haven’t found anything directly bearing on the question and I haven’t seen any other post responding to my question either.
However: I have found the below evidence to submitted parliament referring to a Swedish study. The submission to parliament states:
“The [Swedish study] provides strong evidence that policy makers cannot safely assume (a) that transwomen’s offending patterns, including violent offending, will be
significantly different than those of the general male population or
(b) that they will be similar to those of the general female population.”
I have to say I find that conclusion somewhat counterintuitive, but there it is.
The evidence submitted to Parliament:
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/
The original Swedish Study is here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885
Cis women have been sharing women only spaces with trans women with few or no incidents for the last 20 years since the Gender Recognition Act, and probably for longer in some cases. Nothing much changed after the SC ruling, but apparently the status quo is suddenly unacceptable.
@ChrisMoore I sense sarcasm in your final sentence.
I have repeatedly asked for examples of trans women committing violence against other women in womens’ spaces and have been offered no evidence at all. Indeed it is more likely to be CIS women showing violence to trans women.
Yet we repeatedly hear this trope of wicked men pretending to be women to gain access to womens’ spaces with no evidence whatsoever, when the truth is that the sort of men who want to do violence to women wouldn’t be seen dead in womens’ clothing or pretending to be women.
The whole basis of the argument against trans women is false and it’s long past time when we should be standing up for all people who identify as women and not giving in to the arguments of the so-called gender critical brigade.
It’s pretty straightforward Mick. Many many women do not want to share their private spaces with biological males. Wether that be locker rooms / changing rooms as in the Fife nurse & the Darlington nurses, Hostels , Crisis Centres etc. They don’t want to compete against biological males in women’s sport , they don’t want to share women’s toilet facilities with biological males.
@ Mick,
I do agree that trans people shouldn’t be mistreated in our society. On the other hand I am aware that there can be problems whichever way we go. You’ve asked for an example of ” trans women committing violence against other women in womens’ spaces”. I can give you the name Isla Bryson.
I don’t know that this is particularly a left/right issue. It’s a difficult one. I don’t believe there’s a clear cut socialist position and it’s probably better to let women work though the issues themselves. I must admit I find it difficult when I’m told, that as a man, I shouldn’t be trying to define who should be classed as a woman.
There’s some further discussion on the question of trans women’s offending rates here.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/
@Thelma Davies. It’s not simple. Biological sex is not simple as it’s not a binary choice. Quite a lot of trans women have had surgery, which renders them female to all intents and purposes. Yet you want to deny them their right to be female and exclude them from female spaces.
The road you’re on leads to serious problems. I read today of a woman who has had a double mastectomy being challenged on her right to use female spaces. How do you think that makes her feel?
You write as if you speak for all women, yet the women in my life (daughter, step daughters, wife, most of my LibDem female friends and colleagues) would take a strong contrary view to you.
There is an issue with sport and strength that does need careful thinking about, but it’s peripheral to the main problem.
It remains the case that some (mainly) women seek to deny that men who have changed gender are really women, even if they have had radical surgery to achieve their aim. Perhaps you would like to introduce compulsory knicker content inspection in all female spaces? That’s how ridiculous this all is.
Except Isla Bryson didn’t. According to the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/28/trans-woman-isla-bryson-jailed-raping-two-women
she raped two women, and once sentenced she was temporarily held in the female prison estate before being transferred to the male facilities.
@Thelma It’s arguably transphobic to continually refer to “biological males” when you mean “trans women”. Cis men are also “biological males “(probably , we don’t yet have a proper definition apart from “it’s common sense”)
Jenny : I was using that terminology as clarified by the ECHR. An institution often quoted on this site – when it suits. Obviously recently, it’s fallen foul of it’s status amongst many liberals for not adhering to it’s precious mantra.
@Thelma Davies – “they don’t want to share women’s toilet facilities with biological males.” Well actually I don’t particularly want to share the Ladies with a cis man, but I am perfectly happy to share with a trans woman (and people with intersex conditions) – and have done so in the past.
The attempts to reduce this whole area to simple binaries is so mistaken. For a start the differing ways of defining biological sex identify many people who are one sex under one definition (eg visible genitalia) and another sex under a different definition (eg chromosomal or hormonal). The ruling did not specify which of these takes priority.
For me, liberalism is, at base, about treating people with kindness and respect.
Mary. Many women do not, and that where the issue lies. Compassion doesn’t require me to write and say things that are untrue.
Matthew’s article calls for us to be stronger as a party in our messaging and actions and I agree. Comments have gone on the tangent of the trans issue and I welcome Thelma’s point about the party trying to silence debate on this issue and pleased now to see some debate allowed. There is a difference between strong simple messaging of principle/policy and taking account of practicalities and people’s differences of feelings and views that have to be taken into account to help people live together happily.
@Mary I’m sure we all on both sides of the trans debate want to treat people with kindness and respect. Our different opinions reflect different understandings of the best way to balance the needs of different people in a World in which compromises always have to be made between different groups.
I’d be very careful about implying that only one side is interested in kindness and respect, or that kindness and respect necessitates taking one particular side in this debate.
Mick Taylor
“their right to be female”
Can you have a “right” to be female? Surely one is either “female” or one is not, and rights do not enter into it.
One may have a right to call oneself “female” (or “male” or anything else) whether that reflects the reality or not and ask the community to treat one as “female” (or whatever); and I think liberals should generally accept that; but I don’t think the community has an automatic obligation to accept and act on all or indeed any the consequences of such an assertion.
When then is it reasonable for the community to reject the assertion? I suggest – where the result of the assertion and/or acting on it does harm to the community or its members (or there is a reasonable prospect of such harm arising).
As I have mentioned in many places, the key thing that has enabled the UK to retain a broadly Lib Dem outlook has been a willingness on the part of the vast majority of the population to ‘rub along’ with each other despite differences in views on various issues. In the case of transgender – including toilets, other women’s only spaces etc this worked broadly just fine for a great many years until quite recently, when one side suddenly became much more insistent in their demands, and it wasn’t the women.
If we are to find a way out of this mess, which divides our party both internally and externally much more than the results of debates in conference indicate, we all need to look very carefully at why we allowed the old consensus to be broken down and turned what was a working, reasonable compromise into such a battleground.
It isn’t simply trying to turn back the clock, but we have to find a way to turn back from this perpetual infighting and a significant amount of ‘give’ will be needed to do this.
To take advantage of it we must paint a clearer vision of a future UK and communicate it more effectively. We must take more advantage of the media opportunities that our increased MPs create by being more proactive in articulating our vision of a better Britain.