Stephen Harte

Struggling with complexity – the continuing crisis in Israel and Palestine

By Stephen Harte | Sat 14th October 2023 - 10:07 am

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

I often think of these wise words when reading “hot takes” on social media on whatever issues are on the front page at a given time. As a lawyer, I tell my junior colleagues that the correct initial answer to any legal issue is often “it depends” and to distrust attempts to oversimplify the complicated.

As we have all grappled with yet more tragic news from Israel and Palestine, we have seen commentators and politicians often explain their thoughts by saying that the issues are “complex”. This is undeniably true but at the same time, though complexity should caution us against glib, easy answers, it should never be an excuse for failing to engage with rights and wrongs.

In my professional life, I engage with complicated legal issues by trying to break it down into constituent parts as much as I can. Through this I can sometimes get a greater understanding of the whole and, at the very least, it allows some answers to be agreed along the way. So this week, I have tried to do the same in my personal engagement with the situation in Israel and Palestine.

In doing so, like readers of this short article, I have tried to read widely. I have benefited from communicating with an Israeli friend living in Jerusalem and from reading the wisdom of our own Layla Moran MP – with her writing from the perspective of being the only British MP of Palestinian heritage while embracing a deep commitment to peace and justice in the Middle East for Israelis and Palestinians alike. I also spent time talking with a colleague who is passionate about the plight of the Palestinian people.

I struggle to say what I think about the totality of it all, but I can identify building blocks along the way where my personal view is clearer. I am not seeking to offer answers to everyone but rather I’m sharing my process in case that is helpful to anyone.

So, what do I believe?

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Charles Quinn

ALDC By-Election Report, 12th October

By Charles Quinn | Fri 13th October 2023 - 3:11 pm

It has been a quiet week for principal council by-elections with just two taking place. However there were positive results in both – including a great hold in Suffolk – and we also had a great town council gain too.

We held Woodbridge division on Suffolk County Council – winning over 50% of the vote. Congratulations to Councillor Ruth Leach and Suffolk Lib Dems on holding the seat in a more crowded election than when it was last fought with over half the vote.

Suffolk CC, Woodbridge
Liberal Democrats (Ruth Leach): 990 (51.2%, -12.3%)
Conservative: 642 (33.2%, -3.3%)
Labour: 301 (15.6%, new)

The other principal election this week was in Cheltenham Borough Council in Prestbury ward. Lib Dem candidate Ben Ingram moved the Lib Dem vote share forward by over 5% and jumped from 4th to 3rd place. A really good result. Thanks to Ben for standing. The ward was held by the People Against Bureaucracy Group.

Cheltenham BC, Prestbury
People Against Bureaucracy: 644 (32.7%, -8.5%)
Green Party: 484 (27.9%, +9.7%)
Liberal Democrats (Ben Ingram): 346 (20%, +5.4%)
Conservative: 258 (14.9%, -6.5%)

Finally we had a great gain reported to us on Great Aycliffe Parish Council in Shafto St Mary’s ward. Congratulations to Councillor Ben McAnaney and the team in Great Aycliffe for a great gain from Independent.

Great Aycliffe TC, Shafto St Mary’s
Liberal Democrats (Brian McAnaney): 260 (63.3%)
Independent: 151 (36.7%)

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Katharine Pindar

Our party has nothing to lose by being bold now

By Katharine Pindar | Fri 13th October 2023 - 12:49 pm

It has seemed as if our party leaders may have been hanging back from committing the party to radical policies which we hold, such as the pledge to build 380,000 new houses, reasserted at the Bournemouth Conference after a Young Liberal amendment, and the policy passed at the Spring York Conference to tackle poverty in general and end deep poverty within ten years through the establishment of Guaranteed Basic Income.

Lack of commitment by the leadership to promote these policies, together with the announcement of ending our policy to add 1p on income tax to pay for investment in the NHS and social care, seem to suggest a fear of putting forward radical policies which will cost large amounts of taxation to implement.

The Labour Party seems to be holding back similarly on costly proposals, but it is understandable that they would fear Tory equating of them with the expensive policies of the former leader Jeremy Corbyn if they promote them, while pointing out that British citizens are already highly taxed. We have no such need to be silent.

The electorate is unlikely to be making any such comparison with our policies, which have been found to be properly costed in our previous Manifestos. People may instead well be disappointed not to have, both a clearer idea of Liberal Democrat policies, and especially, knowledge of those which sound most relevant to them.

Where our policies may coincide with Labour’s, moreover, perhaps they are borrowing our ideas: Sir Keir Starmer is now announcing a policy to build several New Towns, while Liberal Democrats already have a policy to build ten!  There are areas in which our policies may sensibly dovetail with theirs – possibly in the areas of NHS funding and development, where new plans are so much needed.

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Stuart Bourne

We need to be talking about allotments more

By Stuart Bourne | Fri 13th October 2023 - 10:01 am

They may not be sexy or glamorous, and they may rarely come up on the doorstep when talking to residents. Yet since the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, the demand of allotments has skyrocketed, and we as a party need to start talking about them more.

Allotments have the potential to do so much to help some of the important issues facing our country. Growing our own fresh food dramatically reduces food miles and the carbon footprint of supermarkets. Studies have indicated that allotment sites vastly increase biodiversity, showing that they can increase insect populations by 70%.

Also, with our nation facing a health and cost-of-living crisis, what better way is there to resolve this with more people exercising on their allotments growing cheap healthy food? Allotment sites are a great catalyst for bringing communities together. Whatever your ethnicity, country of birth or age, I’ve seen them talking and chatting together, side by side as they work their plots. It’s getting to the point where I have trouble finding an issue that can’t be helped by having more allotments.

I undertook some research and talked to allotment holders in my local town of Medway, to see what the current state of the application process was, and the results were not great. In just the last 4 years, the waiting list has tripled. From 695 applicants in 2018, it has grown to 2009 in 2022, tripling in four years. The average waiting time for a person is now 2.5 years, and one person has waited 5 years. Speaking to allotment wardens, they say even though they have sped up the process of identifying disused plots and getting them to new tenants, the demand just keeps growing.

In 1971 the government introduced a recommended number of plots per household and councils still use this as benchmark today. It recommends 15 full sized plots per 1000 households. In Medway we have just 9 plots per 1000 households, so clearly Medway needs more allotment sites.

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Mark Valladares

12 October 2023 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 12th October 2023 - 10:30 pm
  • NHS waiting list: Public are tired of waiting on this government that has given up
  • London Assembly Liberal Democrats Back Motion to Condemn Hamas Terrorist Attacks

NHS waiting list: Public are tired of waiting on this government that has given up

Responding to the news that the NHS waiting list has risen to 7.7 million, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson, Daisy Cooper MP said:

This is yet another damning indictment of this Conservative government’s record on the NHS.

They broke their promise to recruit 6000 GPs, broke their promise to build 40 hospitals and now they’ve broken their promise to bring down

…

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Mike Tuffrey

Green Book is back!

By Mike Tuffrey | Thu 12th October 2023 - 11:59 am

LDV readers with long memories will know that ten years ago a group of us published The Green Book – New Directions for Liberals in Government.  We were urging the LibDems to adopt an approach to social and economic policy that put centre stage the need to preserve the natural world on which society and economy depends for its health, wellbeing and prosperity.

We’re back – and this time with a podcast series where external experts and party insiders explore the major challenges now facing the UK.  Future sessions on Green Book Pod will tackle climate change and then Europe, with more hot topics next year. Our first, launching our series later this month, focuses on the economic challenge.

Here’s a short trailer about the series and announcing our guests for the economics podcast:

 

Of course, since we published the original book a decade ago, the political context has changed radically … Britain’s exit from the European Union, the rise of populist and polarising forces here and elsewhere, the accelerating climate crisis, growing inequality, and much else.

Our belief remains, however, that there is a massive opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to set out an agenda for making a real difference – but only by identifying innovative, radical and robust solutions with realistic strategies to deliver them.  Our hope is this podcast series will help inform the party’s manifesto process too.

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Lord William Wallace

William Wallace writes: Making the case for Constitutional Reform

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 12th October 2023 - 9:44 am

Rishi Sunak has told the Conservative Party conference that British politics are ‘broken.’  That will make it more difficult for his party to resist changes in the way we do politics – constitutional reform, as we nerds put it.

It was the Conservatives that broke British politics, of course – or rather, populists inside and outside the party, cheered on by right-wing media (and American and Russian encouragement and funding) that swept aside established conventions on political behaviour and governmental restraint.  A major new report on political reform, jointly published by the Institute for Government and the Bennett Institute for Public Policy in Cambridge, notes the breakdown of constraints on executive behaviour, attacks on judges and the rule of law, attempts to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and the steady erosion of local government that has characterised the past eight years.

Four prime ministers since 2015, seven chancellors of the exchequer, nine secretaries of state for education – constant ministerial churn, changes in policy announced without much preparation or consultation and then reversed by the minister’s successor.  This single-party government has given Britain an object lesson in incompetent government.

The Conservative conference demonstrated how ungovernable the Conservative Party has become.  Liz Truss peddled her free market nonsense to a packed fringe meeting.  Ministers attacked policies that no-one had yet put forward. Danny Kruger, representing the American-influenced evangelical right wing, channelled conspiracy theories about the threat that climate change efforts were intended to bring ‘world government’.   Nigel Farage swanned round the conference, wearing his GB News pass: not a delegate, but a highly visible presence, benefitting like other right-wing populists from generous GB News funding.

Keir Starmer in his Labour conference speech almost echoed the prime minister.  ‘Our politics feels broken’, he declared; ‘we must win the war against the hoarders in Westminster, give power back and put communities in control.’  But beyond a reference to strengthening local government, he has said nothing specific about political reform beyond making it clear that he is opposed to changing the voting system.  He gives every impression that he intends to govern within the same centralised, executive-dominated structure the Conservatives have used and abused, with only minor adjustments to improve relations with the UK’s three devolved governments.

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Phoebe Winch 1931-2023

By Nick Winch | Wed 11th October 2023 - 11:55 am

There may be some LDV readers with elephantine memories who can recall Phoebe Winch who died last week in Bristol aged 92. 

Described by Tony Greaves as “an outstanding community politician” she joined the Liberal Party in the early 1960s after attending a Jo Grimond meeting and served the inevitable apprenticeship as membership secretary in a (then) derelict Surrey seat. In 1966 she moved to Dorset and started campaigning on local issues – rural bus subsidies and the like – and then led a successful campaign to stop Sherborne being moved from Dorset into Somerset under the proposals for local government reform. This provided the platform for her election as the first Liberal ever to sit on Sherborne urban District Council in 1971. Two years later she was elected to the reformed Dorset Council County beating the sitting Tory by a majority of 2 to 1 in an election with an astonishing 69% turnout. This was the first time a Good Morning leaflet and a blue letter had been used in Dorset, and while now old hat, their impact was astonishing. 

On the renamed Sherborne Town Council, she ensured the introduction of a Public Question Time at Council meetings and stopped the extraordinary tradition of holding Planning Committee meetings in secret! She became Sherborne’s first female Mayor in 1976 – ending something like a billion years of male domination. The sky did not fall in. 

She lost her County seat in 1977 (partly the result of a poor national result but also because she supported comprehensive education in a grammar school-dominated town) and resigned her town Council seat two years later in protest at the decision of the Town Clerk not to accept Focus Grumble Sheets as expressions of public views. “I will not sit on a Council which only listens to the middle classes writing on Basildon Bond paper” she said as she left the Council Chamber.

In 1980 she moved to Bristol and was agent for Don Foster in his first successful council campaign but turned to being an “inky-fingered Liberal” printing, she estimated, about 4 million leaflets over a period of 20 years.

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The Voice

Alex and Wendy go paddleboarding – the new Scottish Liberal Democrat broadcast

By The Voice | Wed 11th October 2023 - 10:25 am

Last night the new Scottish Liberal Democrats PPB, featuring Alex Cole-Hamilton and Wendy Chamberlain was broadcast. Enjoy

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Simon McGrath

Ed Davey : I stand in solidarity and support tonight with Israel and all Israelis

By Simon McGrath | Wed 11th October 2023 - 9:20 am

Those were the opening words of a powerful speech by Ed Davey at the  Vigil outside 10 Downing Street on Monday evening following the Hamas attack on Israel. Ed was there  representing our Party with Daisy Cooper. 

Ed went on to say: 

The Liberal Democrats stand in solidarity and support tonight with Jewish people across the world and we stand in support and solidarity with the amazing Jewish community in Great Britain.

And I stand in support together tonight with Tom, with Robert, with David .  Let them hear this, the government and the opposition stand in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people. This most horrendous terrorist attack by the terrorist Hamas must be condemned by everybody completely.

Let us, as we do that, remember the people who were killed. Let us mourn for each and every one of them.

The children, the women, the men who were killed in their homes, killed in their villages, killed as they came together in a festival for music and peace.

That is what the terrorists want to do. They want to kill innocent civilians going about their everyday lives and they must never be forgiven or forgotten that they impose this murderous act on Israel.

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Suzanne Fletcher

Destitution and homelessness to increase

By Suzanne Fletcher | Tue 10th October 2023 - 4:30 pm

Draconian new rules are affecting asylum seekers in Home Office accommodation, and those who have been given leave to remain.

If given leave to remain it is a time for rejoicing for an asylum seeker. They are safe, they won’t have to be returned to the country they have fled from, and can begin a new life. But later in the day that the letter with good news is received, a whole set of new problems begin.

Up till August 1st they had twenty-eight days to find somewhere to live, find a job, and probably claim benefits. Even with the help of good friends and organisations, and a helpful local council it takes longer than twenty-eight days. Can you imagine if YOU were suddenly, with no warning, were expected to find a home for yourself and any family, and a way of supporting yourself? YOU who have maybe lived here all your life and have a good circle of friends, family and contacts?

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Mark Valladares

Lord Paddick to join the Metropolitan Police as a Non Executive Advisor

By Mark Valladares | Tue 10th October 2023 - 8:04 am

Metropolitan Police have announced that Lord Brian Paddick is joining them as a Non Executive Advisor.

As a result he is stepping back from his position as a Liberal Democrat Peer to a non-affiliated Peer for the duration of the appointment.

Lord Paddick said:

It is with some sadness that I am leaving the Liberal Democrat Group in the Lords, but I know that they will continue to work as an extraordinary force within Parliament to represent the very best of Liberal Democrat values in this House.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey MP said:

I wanted to personally thank Lord Paddick for all his incredible

…

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Ruvi Ziegler

The attacks on Southern Israel – a personal perspective

By Ruvi Ziegler | Mon 9th October 2023 - 10:15 am

This time, it’s personal. My nephew’s fiancé‘s family was in hiding all day in a small room in Kibbutz Magen in Southern Israel that was attacked by Hamas. They survived after fierce fighting. Others were not so fortunate. Hundreds of civilians were murdered, many of whom teenagers and young adults who were at an overnight rave and were machine-gunned.

Other civilians were taken hostage. The clips of an elderly woman and a gun-shot naked young woman being paraded by Hamas and cheered in the streets of Gaza are sickening. There is a video circulating which shows toddlers harassing a 3 year-old Israeli boy who is held hostage. A woman was taken hostage with her two very young daughters. A teenage girl was shown bleeding, hands tied behind her back, dragged out of a vehicle. You cannot watch this and not be repulsed.

And, of course, there are ongoing rocket attacks, in their thousands, directed at major civilian populations – not inadvertently or recklessly but deliberately seeking to cause civilian casualties.

This concerted attack on civilians in their homes and cities is vile; the responsibility lies squarely not just with Hamas, a proscribed organisation for good reason, but with its regional supporters.

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 9 October 2023 – “the train now arriving on platform 2 is an aspiration…”

By Mark Valladares | Mon 9th October 2023 - 7:45 am

It’s one of the most obvious things about a Government attempting to be populist that the things it does should be vaguely popular. There’s also an implication that they should get their messaging right as well.

And yet, this Government doesn’t seem to be terribly good at even something so simple, as demonstrated by this week’s announcement that HS2 was to be abandoned beyond Birmingham and the £36 billion supposedly saved would be spent on other projects. In principle, given that HS2 has been easy to attack due to overspends and a false prospectus – speed was merely a benefit, the …

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 8th October 2023 - 10:46 am

United States

The ripple effects following the ejection of Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair in the US House of Representatives are severe and wide-reaching. The issues most affected are moderates in the Republican Party, Ukraine and the credibility of the United States.

The mainstream of the Republican Party – or at least the congressional caucus – is not as unreasonably far-right as it is portrayed. Out of the 221 Republican members of the lower house, only 40 are signed up members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus. And of those, only about 20 could be considered extreme right by American standards.

The problem is that the Freedom Caucus – especially the far-right 20 or so members – are really a separate political party using the broad coattails of the Republican establishment to pursue policies which are antithetical to their own party. They can succeed in their aims because the Republicans’ majority as a whole is so narrow that the Freedom Caucus holds the balance of power.

In practice this means that the next Speaker could easily be Congressman Jim Jordan, a rabid Trump supporter and founding member of the Freedom Caucus. He has already secured the ex-president’s endorsement.

It also means that Ukraine will find it difficult to secure the next tranche of US military aid it has been promised. For the Freedom Caucus and Donald Trump the issue of self-determination and respect for the rule of law comes after support for Vladimir Putin.

The ejection of McCarthy also makes a US government shutdown almost certain.  It was McCarthy’s successful 11th-hour deal to prevent a shutdown which provided the straw that broke the back of the caucus camel. Any future Speaker will be all too aware that he will suffer the same fate if he allows Biden’s budget through Congress.

All of the above bolsters the belief that political divisions are rendering the US ungovernable. This in turn undermines credibility at home and abroad. America is the recognised standard bearer of world democracy. Alternative systems—especially Russia, China and Iran—argue that if democracy can’t work in America… then it can’t work.

Ukraine

Support for Ukraine this week suffered a blow on the European side of the Atlantic as well as the American.

It came in the form of an election victory for the pro-Russian Slovakian politician Robert Fico and his Direction-Social Democracy (or SMER-SD) Party. Fico’s party failed to win an outright majority in parliament, but with 24 percent of the votes it is the largest single party and is currently in coalition talks with smaller pro-Russian parties.

They have until 16 October to form a government and in the interim period have announced an end to all aid to Ukraine; a block on Ukrainian membership of NATO and an end to Slovakian support for EU sanctions against Russia.

Unlike most of the current batch of European populist parties, SMER-SD is left as opposed to right-wing. This, however, has not prevented Hungary’s populist right-winger Viktor Orban from welcoming Fico’s victory. Clearly common ground on the populist positions on the EU, Russia, gay rights, woke culture, immigration, media restrictions, curbs on the judiciary, sanctions and the war in Ukraine trumps the political spectrum issue.

This is not Fico’s first run at Slovak prime minister. He was initially elected to the job in 2012 with a whopping 83-seat majority. He was forced into coalition after the 2016 election and shortly afterward ran unsuccessfully for the presidency. In 2018 he was forced to resign as prime minister after the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. He had been investigating the Slovakian mafia and police later linked Maria Troskova, Fico’s assistant, to the gangs.

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The Voice

Layla Moran: Lib Dems condemn the terrorism of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

By The Voice | Sat 7th October 2023 - 11:51 am

We will all feel very anxious about the horrendous scenes from Israel and Palestine this morning and for what might happen as a result.

The Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Layla Moran has condemned the attacks and called for an end to the violence:

I am horrified to wake up to such dreadful scenes of violence in Israel and Palestine this morning.

Last year, I met with Israelis living in villages on the Gaza border. I am mortified to learn that these places are facing terrorist attacks as we speak.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Pivotal Turkey

By Tom Arms | Sat 7th October 2023 - 9:44 am

Turkey is emerging as a pivotal country in the Ukraine War. As the fighting on land grinds to a bloody stalemate, the importance of naval power has dramatically increased.

As far as Ukraine and Russia are concerned this means the Black Sea and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles that links the sea to the wider world.  Turkey has control over these straits through a series of conventions dating back to the early 19th century.

Unsurprisingly, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is using his position to extract every possible concession from the Russians, Ukrainians and NATO.

At the start of the war the naval balance weighed heavily in Russia’s favour. The Ukrainians had one warship stuck in the repair yard. Moscow, on the other had its Crimea-based Black Sea fleet of 40 surface ships and seven submarines.

Putin used his naval superiority to good advantage. A successful amphibious landing was staged at Mariupol and the Sea of Azov and Kerch Straits were closed to Ukrainian shipping. Odessa and other southern Ukrainian ports were effectively closed by a Russian blockade, bombardment and minefield.

Then the Ukrainians hit back with shore to ship missiles and drones. The first major victim was the fleet flagship, the cruiser Moskva. Then the bridge connecting Russia to Crimea was bombed and now Russian naval installations on Crimea are under bombardment.

Putin badly needs to reinforce his Black Sea naval forces with ships from the Pacific, Baltic and Mediterranean commands. But he can’t. And the reason for this takes us back to the 19th  and early 20th centuries and Moscow’s perennially unsuccessful efforts to gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus.

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Charles Quinn

ALDC By-Election Report, 4th and 5th October

By Charles Quinn | Fri 6th October 2023 - 6:55 pm

There were 4 principal council by-elections this week. Unusually there were 2 on Wednesday and then 2 on Thursday. But it was great to see Lib Dem candidates in most elections and some very positive results too.

Beginning with Wednesday night – there were two elections on Haringey London Borough Council.

Thank you to David Schmitz and David Vigoureax for standing in South Tottenham and White Hart Lane wards respectively and giving hundreds of Lib Dem supporters in the area a Lib Dem option on the ballot paper.

Labour held both wards. But in both elections the result was tight behind them. In White Hart Lane in particular we were just  a few dozen votes off second place.

Haringey LBC, South Tottenham
Labour: 1258 (68.2, +4.6)
Conservative: 286 (15.4%, +0.4%)
Green Party: 235 (12.6%, -3.3%)
Liberal Democrats (David Schmitz): 71 (3.8%, -1.8%)

Haringey LBC, White Hart Lane
Labour: 1081 (59%, +1.6%)
Conservative: 289 (15.8%, +3.7%)
Green Party: 247 (13.5%, new)
Liberal Democrats (David Vigoureux): 215 (11.7%, +1.4%)

On Thursday night there was another London by-election with Vauxhall ward being contested on Lambeth LBC. Here Lib Dem candidate Fareed Alderechi pulled off a fantastic performance – increasing our vote share by 17% and jumping from fourth to a very close second – just a couple of hundred off winning and setting the ward up for the future.

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Mary Reid

Michael Steed obituary in The Guardian

By Mary Reid | Fri 6th October 2023 - 5:31 pm

Last month Michael Meadowcroft wrote an obituary for Michael Steed in The Guardian, but it has only just appeared in the print edition where it occupies a whole page.

It focusses on his pioneering work as a psephologist, working with David Butler and John Curtice on, amongst other things, some new approaches to measuring election swings, and as a Lecturer in Government at Manchester University.

Amazingly he had been a member of the Liberals, followed by the Liberal Democrats, for 65 years. He was at various times a Parliamentary, European and Council candidate. I only got to know him a few years ago through the Social Liberal Forum, where his deep knowledge of liberalism and the Liberal Democrats influenced our thinking.

A prominent Liberal party activist, he was the vice-chair of the National League of Young Liberals during its radical phase in the 1960s, frequently at odds with the party leader at the time, Jeremy Thorpe. He consistently championed gay rights, called for a federal Europe and proposed constitutional reform, including regional government. Steed did not just snipe from the wings but took on key roles in the party, becoming a member of the party executive and serving as its president (1978-79) under an election system he had devised and which the party backed.

William Wallace wrote a beautiful tribute to him on Lib Dem Voice last month, and Michael Meadowcroft’s contribution stands alongside that.

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Michael Taylor

The hole in our democracy

By Michael Taylor | Fri 6th October 2023 - 3:33 pm

There is an increasing hole in our democracy, a place where election candidates and political parties are finding increasingly difficult to reach. I refer, of course, to gated communities and those many high-rise blocks where access is by code or fob.

This is not assisted by owners and managers of these houses making it almost impossible to contact them to seek access. I have personally been escorted off the premises by officious caretakers who point blank refuse to give details of who manages the blocks. Now whether this only applies to political parties with whom they disagree, I have no idea.

Sometimes, there is a way round this problem. Some blocks have a trades button that operates for a few hours in the morning and enable those in the know to get in. Sometimes, it is possible to persuade a resident to let you in. (However, as I found out in a gated community in Mid Beds, that doesn’t mean they leave the gate open long enough to get out and I found myself having to climb over the gate!)

There are some rights, I am led to believe, in the Representation of the People Acts that purport to give candidates access to voters, but they are difficult to enforce, and obdurate officials simply stonewall and refuse to give access.

I now think this is a case for legislation to ensure that candidates and campaigners get access to every property to deliver leaflets and to canvass. If such houses were obliged to display at their access gates the name, address, phone number and email of the company managing the block (with suitably large fines for non-compliance) and those property managers were obliged to arrange access for election campaigners within say 48 hours of a request (again with large fines for non-compliance), then this problem might be solved.

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Michael Berwick-Gooding

Ending deep poverty by April 2029

By Michael Berwick-Gooding | Fri 6th October 2023 - 12:34 pm

At our Spring Conference in York we passed a policy which stated, we would ‘end deep poverty within the decade’.

This commitment has made it into the pre-manifesto passed at Bournemouth along with establishing ‘an independent commission to recommend annual increases in Universal Credit to achieve it’.

Also at York we passed that we would fundamentally reform the welfare system ‘by introducing a Guaranteed Basic Income by increasing Universal Credit to the level required to end deep poverty within the decade and removing sanctions’.

Ending deep poverty in the UK means ensuring that no-one has an income below the deep poverty level. Every year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation publish a UK poverty report. And on page 115 of this year report they set out the deep poverty thresholds:

Household type Deep poverty threshold (50% of median) weekly
Adult, with no children

 

 £137
Lone parent with two children, one 14 or over and one under 14

 

 £283
Couple with no children

 

 £236
Couple with two children, one 14 or over and one under 14

 

 £382

The current levels of Universal Credit for people over 25 are:

  • £85.09 a week for a single person and £133.57 for a couple.
  • Child benefit is £24 a week for the first child and £15.90 for each child after that.
  • The child elements of Universal Credit are £72.69 a week for the first child if born before 6th April 2017 and £62.21 for the second child.

This means that a lone parent with two children as above receives £259.89, which is £23.11 below the deep poverty line, and a couple with two children receives £308.37, which is £73.63 below the deep poverty line.

Our policy is to increase Universal Credit and the legacy benefits by £20 a week as soon as we are in government. If we then increased the single person’s rate by the rate of inflation in April 2025 and by £7.98 a week plus the rate of inflation every April thereafter, by April 2029 they would receive £137.01 in real terms. The couple rate would need to be increased by £20.61 a week for the four years after 2025, plus the rate of inflation, taking their rate to £236.01 a week in real terms.

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Yue He Parkinson

Don’t take freedom for granted

By Yue He Parkinson | Fri 6th October 2023 - 10:03 am

I attended the fringe meeting titled “Is International Liberalism dying? Persuading the world that the future is liberal” in the Autumn conference. One panel member expressed a sentence like this: “The reason the Global South countries are not cooperative with the West is so-called Liberal Imperialism.”

Coming from one of Global South countries – China – 19 years ago, I knew different answers, which could be the more realistic ones, yet have rarely been noticed by the West. Thanks to Rachel Smith’s encouragement, I raised my hand up for the first time in this conference, and got the attention of host Christine Jardine MP, to ask: “I am a British Chinese. I took 18 years to learn what freedom is after I moved here in 2004. The West has taken freedom for granted, my question is – Do the South counties who don’t know much about freedom have rights to pursue global fairness? ”

There were a few of the audience who gave me applause, yet stopped immediately, because of no more echoes.  My question didn’t get well received from the panels, the one who answered my question said: “Your question is not what we are talking about.” Yet from what I have seen, her attitude was exactly the problem – Western have taken democracy and freedom for granted.

When I studied International Relations at the University of Bristol, there are two major theories – Realism and Liberalism. The latter is based on the principle of individual liberalism in our party,  and was the leading theory representing then global positive cooperation atmosphere, economic globalization. I didn’t know Lib Dems then and thought Brits were all liberals. I corrected myself this year as I finally realized Labour and Tory both borrowed the idea of liberalism from the Lib Dems. We are the true liberals.

I am a different liberal though. I remember the first year I was in the UK;  a few Brits asked me a question: ‘’Why doesn’t China have democracy?’’. The attitude was like ‘”how come you don’t have such a easy political system?”. I spent my first 30 years in China before I immigrated to the UK. I have always known how impossible it is to have freedom in China. Sometimes people asked: ‘’Why don’t your people fight?’’. I was speechless, at that time I was equipped with a 1.0 generation (1.0 G) of immigrants’ mindset (Mainland Chinese mindset, I set Brits’ mindset as 2.0 G), had never been educated about civil society, never known what human rights are truly about,  let alone known about campaign action, all of which took me about 20 years to learn, until today.

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Mary Reid

New qualification to replace A levels and T levels?

By Mary Reid | Thu 5th October 2023 - 1:21 pm

So Rishi Sunak wants to replace A and T levels with a new qualification at 18. My first reaction was one of cautious approval – I have long argued that the post 16 curriculum needs to be broadened for all students. I also welcome any move to integrate so-called “academic” and “vocational” studies. Having taught, and written text books for, a subject that crosses those boundaries (Computing) I know how artificial that binary approach is.

There has been some opposition – allegedly – to broader studies from the Universities, who, it is claimed, expect students to have already reached a certain level of proficiency in their chosen subject before starting on a degree course. They claim that they can offer shorter degrees than in other countries because schools will have already provided foundation degree teaching.

That argument rather falls down in many subjects when looked at in detail. For example, a student starting on a history degree will not be expected to have studied every period of British and world history at A level – they will have studied specific periods and themes in detail. Instead they should arrive with an understanding of historical research and perspectives.

Even in my own subject, Computing, there were quite wide variations between the syllabuses of the A Level Exam Boards, and in any case, students are not required to have studied it before embarking on a degree. In fact, many degrees have no specific requirements but are looking for generic competences such as problem solving, research skills and creativity, which are exactly what a broader curriculum should equip them with.

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Paul Reynolds

Rivers of Blood Mark II

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 5th October 2023 - 11:12 am

There has been a lot of publicity this week about Tory factionalising and Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s apparent positioning for the party leadership, after the Tories’ expected 2024 GE loss of power.

However, there has been a lot of muddle in the media about which faction proposes what and why. What is really going on ? Clearly if Braverman’s far right platform is to be opposed, what exactly are we opposing ?

The start point is to remember that the jostling of Tory MPs is missing the point. The competition is between different sets of interests, which MPs attach themselves to in order to advance politically. Each set of interests has their own narrative (sincere or not) as to why the UK is seemingly in steep decline and why the Tories are currently unpopular.

There is a group of interests that broadly revolve around international finance, the City and global investment groups. They support privileges for investment banks and are unfussed about monopolies, or high state debt. Sunak vaguely might be placed here.

There is a Thatcherite free market group supported by industry and commercial interests; many being victims of monopoly and fiscal problems. Folks might put Liz Truss in this group.

There is a small military-orientated group, and a small social libertarian group which are both rather limp politically.

Braverman is closer to the expanding Neo-Conservative group, supported by think tanks in Washington DC. They are unfussed about BOTH markets and monopoly finance, sanguine about fiscal risks, and are supported by groups linked to global wars of choice, and by US/UK armaments interests. It is funded via opaque donation intermediaries (although leaks have shed light on the actual international donors).

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Mark Valladares

5 October 2023 – the overnight press release

By Mark Valladares | Thu 5th October 2023 - 7:30 am

IFS Report: Schools are paying for “Government’s economic incompetence”

Commenting on the IFS report being published tomorrow showing that schools costs are growing faster than economy-wide inflation, particularly support staff pay, energy and food costs, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Munira Wilson MP said:

Today’s IFS report mirrors what I am being told by head teachers day-in and day-out. Schools are struggling to make ends meet.

School trips are being axed, teaching assistants are being laid off and urgent classroom repairs are being ignored as buildings crumble. The lack of proper funding means pupils with additional needs won’t get the

…

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Mark Valladares

4 October 2023 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 4th October 2023 - 10:30 pm
  • Ed Davey on Sunak speech: PM has lost control of his party and lost the trust of the country
  • 10 things Rishi Sunak didn’t mention in his conference speech

Ed Davey on Sunak speech: PM has lost control of his party and lost the trust of the country

Responding to Rishi Sunak’s conference speech, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

This chaotic conference shows Rishi Sunak has lost control of his party and lost the trust of the country.

Every bungled announcement confirms that this shambles of a Conservative Party is not fit to govern.

Sunak had no answers on how to fix our crumbling health services or help people seeing their bills go through the roof. Instead we got just more empty rhetoric from a lame-duck Prime Minister who is running scared of a general election.

It’s time to give the British people the chance to kick Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party out of government.

10 things Rishi Sunak didn’t mention in his conference speech

The Liberal Democrats have accused Rishi Sunak of being so out of touch he may as well be living on another planet, after highlighting ten pressing issues facing families which the PM didn’t mention once in his speech.

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Adam Robertson

Could the Liberal Democrats be part of the Official Opposition by 2025?

By Adam Robertson | Wed 4th October 2023 - 12:46 pm

In politics, we see a ‘paradigm shift’ occur generationally, which we are now seeing with the Conservatives in office, but not in power. Labour is a party heading for power, but not yet in office. Where do we as Liberal Democrats stand in this generational event, or could it be an event of a political realignment which usually happens once in a century? 

Antony Hook has started a serious debate about our long-term vision after the General Election. This article seeks to furtherer this debate, and will prove to be controversial to some readers. However, as Liberals we believe in free debate, as this is a fundamental right in a free and fair society and it is in this spirit, this article should be read. 

This article presumes that there will be two seismic political events next year, on which I will focus on the second one:

  1. General Election
  2. Conservative Leadership Election

With Keir Starmer likely to be Prime Minister after the General Election, the Conservatives will have a leadership election, which will lead to a civil war within their party. As Conservative Home points out, One Nation MPs have fallen out with the Conservative Grassroots. This has been further illustrated by Tim Montgomerie, who wrote that

He (Nigel Farage) got quite the reception. I’m convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.

Rishi Sunak has even left the door for Nigel Farage to return to the Conservative Party. It is evident that Farage is seen as the doyen of Conservatism, and Liberal Conservatives may need to find a new political home after the General Election.

Despite One Nation Tories pledging to hold Suella Braverman (or Liz Truss) to account if she is elected, they are more likely to have more in common with the new cohort of Liberal Democrat MPs who will be elected at the next General Election, as they will be representing their traditional heartlands. 

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Michael Kilpatrick

More flexible debates at Conference

By Michael Kilpatrick | Wed 4th October 2023 - 10:25 am

Following my earlier article about my thirty-second speech at the recent Autumn Conference, I wanted to share some thoughts on the conduct of our debates. On two occasions now I have submitted Speaker’s Cards offering to speak for either thirty or sixty seconds and I was called on both occasions. However, a member of Federal Conference Committee informed me that other members have done likewise in the past but have then spoken for considerably longer – somewhat an abuse of the Chair’s trust. I have only heard from one other party member who has spoken briefly after volunteering such, so it’s definitely not the norm. On the whole, members speak for three minutes and many of them overrun (I hasten to add that I wouldn’t wish to be unreasonable by criticising nervous first-time speakers for overrunning).

What is so magic about three minutes? Nothing, it’s arbitrary. So why do we have such a rigid structure and why do only a few debates, usually only the longer ones, include the short interjections from the floor microphone? Isn’t that back to front? Surely the shorter debates – some only thirty minutes – would benefit more from more speakers speaking for a shorter time in order to ensure a variety of views?

Why instead don’t we have a system in which Speaker’s Cards for *all* our debates, long or short, allow applicants to offer to speak for either three minutes or, say, ninety seconds and for that individual requested limit then to be enforced by the Chair? Not everything that needs to be said needs to fill three minutes for the sake of it. Conversely long, technical arguments may sometimes be difficult to compress into three minutes. Let’s have more flexibility, please. On the practical issues, I think the loss of time caused by speakers approaching and leaving the podium isn’t a big deal and if it were, more use could be made of the floor microphone for any shorter speeches.

This flexibility of speaking time was the reason for my attempted Reference Back to motion F34 “Standing Order Amendment: Speaker Card Selection” the other week. I was hoping the mini-debate would allow me to suggest more variable speaking times and that FCC might endorse such an idea. In all honesty, I hadn’t prepared this properly, nor submitted a Speaker’s Card. What’s more, F34 had been on the agenda for the cancelled 2022 Autumn Conference and the idea I have just presented here originated back then. I only have myself to blame for doing nothing about this in the interim.

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Mark Valladares

3 October 2023 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 3rd October 2023 - 10:30 pm
  • Twenty’s plenty: 20 Conservative politicians and Councils who backed 20 mph zones
  • Ed Davey slams Sunak over Conservative conference chaos on visit to Mid Bedfordshire

Twenty’s plenty: 20 Conservative politicians and Councils who backed 20 mph zones

The Liberal Democrats have accused Rishi Sunak of “rank hypocrisy” and “playing politics with road safety” for criticising 20 mph zones, despite Conservative politicians across the country backing them.

It comes as analysis by the party reveals a list of 20 Conservative MPs and Councils, including three Cabinet Ministers, that have backed 20 mph speed limits.

Among those who have previously backed 20 mph zones is Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who pledged his support to a 20’s Plenty campaign saying that “dropping your speed by merely 10 mph can make all the difference in preventing potentially fatal accidents.”

Other Cabinet Ministers who have expressed support for 20 mph speed limits include the Welsh Secretary David Davies and Justice Secretary Alex Chalk.

Health Minister, Helen Whately, has backed the expansion of 20 mph speed limits in her constituency saying “there are benefits for everyone from a lower speed limit – safer roads, cleaner air, and better quality of life.”

And even in Rishi Sunak’s own backyard, Conservative run North Yorkshire Council has proposed the ‘the most significant 20 mph zone the council has ever introduced’ as they believe they are ‘safer’.

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Paul Walter

Government announces new plan to help those impacted by ME/CFS

By Paul Walter | Tue 3rd October 2023 - 4:27 pm

There’s been a recent government announcement about ME/CFS which deserves some attention.

As the government says:

Plans to help improve the lives of people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) have been outlined by the government today and a consultation launched on how best to deliver the plan.

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