Liberator subscribers have just received the latest edition of Liberator magazine (issue no.347 – August 2011). For those of you who are not yet subscribers, here’s a summary of the contents:

• The editorial column Commentary looks at the implications of phone-hacking scandal. There is also a call to withdraw the whip from Liberal Democrat peers who oppose reform of the House of Lords.
• The insider gossip column Radical Bulletin begins with revelations of what went on at a recent ‘awayday’ for Liberal Democrat MPs.
• ‘Lansley undone’ – John Pugh (Liberal Democrat MP for Southport) says the party has finally found its voice over NHS reform, but that the politics of the Health Bill have been inept.
• ‘Health Bill ‘Future Forum’ faces two ways’ – The Liberal Democrats have trumpeted the changes they achieved in the Health and Social Care Bill. John Bryant (a Liberal Democrat councillor in Camden) questions how good these changes really were.
• ‘Off with their robes’ – A few months in the House of Lords have been long enough to convince Liberal Democrat peer Claire Tyler that it needs radical reform.
• ‘Still floundering’ – Liberal Democrat peer Tony Greaves says that the Liberal Democrats show no idea of how to play the politics of coalition, or of how to publicise their achievements.
• ‘Don’t blame Nick’ – Liberal Democrats have no shortage of simplistic or absurd explanations for their catastrophic defeat in May. Simon Titley (a member of the Liberator Collective) says it’s time party members looked in the mirror.
• ‘Wrong end of the Cable’ – Ed Randall (a senior lecturer in politics and social policy at Goldsmiths, University of London; and chair of Greenwich Borough Liberal Democrats) says that coalition economic policy ignores the evidence and is heading straight for disaster.
• ‘Losing from strength’ – David Faulkner and Wendy Taylor (respectively leader and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats on Newcastle City Council) explain why a strong record was not enough to save the Liberal Democrat administration in Newcastle, when hostility to the government brought out Labour voters in droves.
• ‘Lessons from the AV catastrophe’ – Simon McGrath (a member of Wimbledon Liberal Democrats) notes that the party has finally agreed to hold an inquiry into the fiasco of the alternative vote referendum, but asks whether those culpable will learn the lessons or just close ranks. This article draws on Simon McGrath’s website Why we lost AV.
• ‘Sent to the vets’ – Justine McGuinness (a member of the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Conference Committee) explains why she was the only member of the FCC to oppose police vetting of conference representatives.
• Letters.
• Lord Bonkers’ Diary – in which Lord Bonkers (Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10) enjoys the final day of the annual Rutland International Arts Festival.

If you missed any of our previous editions, they are available online here.
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The Liberator Collective may be e-mailed at: [email protected]

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