Liberator subscribers have just received the latest edition of Liberator magazine (issue no.349 – November 2011). For those of you who are not yet subscribers, here’s a summary of the contents:

• The editorial column Commentary explains why Liberator is re-publishing Really Facing the Future (the alternative to the party’s ‘Facing the Future’ policy paper). It also argues that the party should contest the forthcoming police commissioner elections.
• The insider gossip column Radical Bulletin begins with a report on the party’s search for a new chief executive to replace Chris Fox.
• ‘Money mad’ – Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge) asks why we are obsessed with GDP when it fails to measure what is really important.
• ‘Offshore state’ – Andrew Duff (Liberal Democrat MEP for the East of England) says that a fiscal union across the eurozone threatens to leave the UK in limbo. His pamphlet Federal Union Now has recently been published by the Federal Trust.
• ‘Their hands in your pension pot’ – Janice Turner (co-chair of the Association of Member-Nominated Trustees, whose members are responsible for some £200bn of pension fund assets) says that the party that introduced old age pensions cannot stand by while the other two main parties destroy reliable provision.
• ‘No fight to duck’ – Nick O’Shea (a former Liberal Democrat councillor in Mole Valley) warns that failing to run official Liberal Democrats as police and crime commissioners will hand these posts to right-wing populists.
• ‘Fight for Europe’ – Dirk Hazell (secretary of Liberal International British Group) says that, if a referendum on EU membership comes, the Europhobes will offer a future only of naked impotence and posturing irrelevance.
• ‘Back to front’ – Mark Pack (co-editor of Liberal Democrat Voice) asks why the Liberal Democrats talk up the past yet cast gloom on the future.
• ‘Really Facing the Future’ – The Liberal Democrats’ recent policy paper ‘Facing the Future’ was supposed to confront the major policy challenges for the remainder of this parliament. But it fails to face the future, say David Boyle and Simon Titley. This is their alternative.
• ‘A quiet life disturbed’ – Tim Leunig (chief economist at CentreForum) says that universities should have to demonstrate value for money and attract students’ fees. His publication ‘Universities challenged’ can be downloaded here.
• ‘How green was my book’ – Steve Bradley (chair of the Green Liberal Democrats and a councillor in Lambeth) explains why the Green Liberal Democrats plan a Green Book on sustainability to rival the Orange Book’s impact.
• ‘Is compassion more than a slogan?’ – Matthew Gibson (author of the Solution Focused Politics blog) argues that the Liberal Democrats say they are compassionate but that this claim won’t convince unless it is made meaningful.
• ‘I’m not buying that’ – Roger Jenking (a member of the Liberal Party in Oxfordshire) says that consumer boycotts are characteristically liberal.
• ‘Camels, straws…’ – Simon Hebditch (one of Liberator’s founding editors) says that the Liberal Democrats must be out of the coalition by 2013 to avoid electoral massacre.
• Letters.
• Book reviews – including a review of the new party history, Peace, Reform and Liberation.
• Lord Bonkers’ Diary – Lord Bonkers (Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10) recounts another week in Rutland.

If you missed any of our previous editions, they are available online here. You can subscribe to Liberator here. Liberator welcomes your articles, letters and book reviews. Please read our style guide before submitting any copy.

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