Here’s a quick roundup of some of the things that the media are saying about Lib Dem Conference:
Steve Coogan and Carol Vorderman lead rally for proportional representation. Sky
Liberal Democrats face housebuilding targets row at Liberal Democrat Conference BBC
Man pleas for assisted dying reform at Lib Dem Conference Bourmemouth Echo
Lib Dems would double shared parental leave pay and increase leave Guardian
The number of hospital operations cancelled twice or more surged to over 25,000 in 2022, an investigation by the Liberal Democrats have revealed.
That is up 18% from the 21,477 operations cancelled twice or more the previous year.
The figures were obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Freedom of Information requests, with data provided by 78 of the 124 hospital trusts in England.
Some of the worst hit trusts include Mid and South Essex, which cancelled over 4,000 operations twice or more in 2022, and Portsmouth with over 2,500. In total, a staggering 112,000 operations have been cancelled twice or more in the past five years.
The figures also reveal that some patients have seen the same operation cancelled up to 13 times over the past five years. Portsmouth is also at the top of the cancellation list for individual cases with one patient suffering the indignity of having their operation cancelled 13 times in 2019. This was followed by Mid and South Essex with one patient whose operation was cancelled 11 times, and North Midlands with one patient having 10 cancellations for a single operation. In total, 20 trusts had one individual patient who had faced five or more cancellations since 2018.
In the ever-evolving landscape of British politics, it’s easy to forget that the Liberal Democrats were once hailed as a natural choice for young professionals. With a steadfast commitment to progressive values, environmentalism, internationalism, and leading the way on equality & diversity, the party had successfully captured the aspirations of a generation.
Many of these commitments remain today – we remain ahead of the conversation on social care and health, we are leading the way on electoral reform, and we have never faltered in our commitment to standing up for diverse communities. We remain a party which believes in opportunity for all, and we have the policies to back that up.
We are the party of business, and of workers. The Liberal Democrats will invest in innovation and embrace the opportunities of modern technology, while making sure that economic growth is human-led and that workers are at the heart of our industrial strategy.
We are the party of internationalism, and we will embrace the academic and scientific benefit that comes with being able to work with and participate in the international community – opening new opportunities for people and society.
Tackling the housing crisis is one of the most important things Lib Dems can do. As the Leader of Chelmsford City Council I agonise about housing every day. We have over 450 homeless families in my city this week, and no houses to put them in.
So I welcome the huge number of positive things in the conference housing motion F31 and policy paper that will allow us to do that.
But one of the other really important things I want to do as a Lib Dem council leader is to help get many more Lib Dem MPs elected. And removing the national housing target (which we voted FOR just two years ago) will make that job harder.
We’ve already seen public criticism for the removal of targets. It doesn’t matter how much the leaders try to explain that “actually, removing the target will mean we are able to build more houses”. We should have learned long ago that when you’re explaining you’re losing.
What do you call a 33 year-old who still lives with their parents?
No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke. Instead, this is the reality for many people, including myself.
Six years ago, I moved out of my parents’ house with my then wife and into a three-bedroom end of terrace house. I was working full-time on a salary significantly lower than the average, while she was working ad-hoc as a supply teacher.
It was tight for us financially, but we made it work, just about. How? The house we moved into was bought by my granddad in 1955 and, by the time we moved in, it was owned by my dad and my aunt. We were paying rent, obviously, but it was considerably lower than the market rate.
When my ex-wife left, I took in a lodger to make ends meet. When my dad and aunt’s circumstances changed and they sold the house in 2021, I moved back in with my parents because I could not afford a place of my own. Since then, my salary has increased by almost one-third (through job changes, not employer pay rises), but it is still significantly below the average and I still cannot afford to buy or rent a place of my own.
Today, Conference will be asked to debate and vote on a new housing policy.
There is a certain irony in the party establishment standing before a banner of “for a fair deal”, while simultaneously proposing the removal of an ambitious – yet still insufficient – national housing target.
Here, in full, is Alex Cole-Hamilton’s speech to Conference.
Conference, this is the first time I’ve addressed you in person since Willie passed the baton to me two years ago. Can I take this opportunity to thank you Willie for your leadership, your service to our party and your friendship over the years.Willie mentioned I am the first Liberal Democrat parliamentarian to be officially sanctioned by the Kremlin. My Ukrainian house guest calls that Santa’s good list.
And by the way, if you do nothing else at conference, do not miss Kira Rudik in this hall tomorrow, the leader of our sister party in Ukraine. In over 20 years of attending our conferences, I’ve never heard anything like her speech to us in Dundee earlier this year.
Conference, there are few things in life that cheer me more than the sight that greets me now. I am thrilled to my fingertips to be here.
I love this party. For nearly quarter of a century, I have served it at one time or another in every capacity: activist, staff, candidate, parliamentarian.
Wherever you are I feel at home.
The evidence of my devotion to this party can be found in the pages of a well-thumbed road atlas and a loyalty card for the Starbucks at Charnock Richard Services in Chorley.
It’s why I drove a carload of young liberals 9 hours down the M6 from Edinburgh to North Shropshire. It’s why I drove them 11 hours to Frome.
And why I’ll do it again in the 7 hours it’ll take us to get to Mid Bedfordshire.
Friends, I come with news of the north, and it is good news.
The liberal revival is underway for us too and we have taken such inspiration from Ed’s leadership and your victories in the south.
Last May, as they had done since I took over as leader, the pundits were writing us off – predicting that the Scottish local government elections would see us slip backwards.
Conference, we outperformed every other opposition party and increased our councillor base by a third.
It made me realise that the history of our movement is rooted in local politics and so too lies the promise of our future.
Liberal Democrat Leader Deputy Leader and Health Spokesperson Daisy Cooper will today (Sunday 24 September) give her first in person speech at the party’s Autumn Conference, issuing a rallying call to party activists to take on the Conservatives in the Blue Wall and deliver a brighter future.
She will also set out bold new plans to give people access to regular mental health MOT checks at key points in their lives where they are most at risk, such as women after childbirth, men aged in their 40s or those in retirement.
On taking the fight to the Conservatives in the Blue Wall, …
It’s day 2 of Conference and I know many of you will be bleary eyed from the disco last night.
Here is my pick of today’s fringe.
Your get there early warning is for Ukrainian Holos leader Kira Rudik’s conversation with John Sweeney 1pm. It is bound to be PACKED
Christine Jardine speaks at the Hunanist and Secularist Lib Dems’ fringe on assisted dying
Vince Cable is appearing at Compass’s meeting on how progressives can work together. That might grab some headlines.
Helen Morgan appears at Shelter’s reception on the housing emergency
LGBT+ Lib Dems and the Lib Dem Disability Association explore problems faced by older people needing social care
Wimbledon PPC Paul Kohler on restorative justice – Mad Dogs and Englishmen is the title of the fringe.
This isn’t an official fringe, but you can still get tickets for Layla Moran’s appearance with Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith’s For the Many Live event. It will be hilarious.
Ukraine has approximately 30 days before the autumn/winter rains bring their counter-offensive to a muddy halt.
To date they appear to have broken through the first line of a three-line Russian defense in an area around Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia. There is an outside possibility they can achieve a major breach, but that is highly unlikely.
There is more depressing news for Ukrainian troops. For a start the bromance between Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un will keep the Russian troops supplied with artillery shells to help keep the advancing Ukrainians at bay.
Then there are problems with Poland. Up until this week the Poles have been a driving force behind EU and NATO support for Ukraine. But Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – with one eye on the farming vote and next month’s general election – has stopped military supplies to Ukraine because Ukrainian grain is driving down Polish wheat prices.
Poland has the support of Slovakia and Hungary and wants EU-wide restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain. The Ukrainians, of course, are exporting their grain to EU countries because the Russian blockade makes it impossible for them to ship it to their usual customers in the Middle East and Africa.
The next problem is signs that US support is waning. This week Volodomyr Zelensky turned up in Washington to assure American lawmakers that Ukraine is slowly but surely winning. President Biden responded with a $325 million military aid package. Zelensky also has the support of the leadership in both the Senate and House of Representatives. But a group of far-right Republican Trump supporters are threatening to block a financial package which includes an extra $24 billion in aid to Ukraine.
And then, finally, there is the fact that Trump has pledged to stop military aid to Ukraine if he is elected in 2024.
It has taken seven years, but it looks as if the investigation of France’s right-wing leader Marine Le Pen may end up in court.
She and 23 members of Her Rassemblement National – including her father Jean-Marine Le Pen – are accused of misuse of EU funds. They allegedly used a total of about $620,000 of money which was meant to be spent on EU administration to fund party activities.
The accusation comes from the Paris Prosecutor’s office and still has to be confirmed by the prosecuting judges. But it seems highly likely that that is a formality.
If she is found guilty, Marine Le Pen faces the possibility of a $1 million fine, 10 years in jail, and a 10-year ban on holding public office. Her conviction would have a major impact on the French and European political landscape.
According to the Paris Prosecutor, Ms Le Pen spent $45,000 of EU funds to pay her personal bodyguard. On another occasion she is alleged to have diverted EU funds to pay for a meeting to discuss party activities and hung an EU flag outside the meeting room. When the meeting started she told party members “take that s**t down.”
We’re in the final hours before conference debates our Housing paper and it’s been good to read the discussion taking place on Lib Dem Voice and elsewhere. I am looking forward to a similar debate in the conference hall on Monday. Liberal Democrat’s really care about housing and we all agree that we need to build more homes, our discussions are about how we best achieve this.
When we started our working group we wanted to achieve two things. To offer a credible housing policy for the Liberal Democrats to show we actually want to build homes, and to help those who don’t have a home to get one and be protected while they’re renting. And I believe we’ve achieved that.
I have led a council that is facing a housing crisis, I’ve seen people trapped in temporary accommodation unable to join the community, I’ve seen people have no choice but to leave their area. People can’t afford to live here in the Lake District and this is hurting our communities and our economy. Too many of the homes that are being built or that come up for sale are being sold into the second homes or holiday lets market and there simply aren’t enough smaller homes for people looking to buy their first home. Without new blood the Lake District will simply become a playground for the super wealthy and its communities and heritage will die.
In South Lakeland, we have built new social housing to help people get on the housing ladder. As leader I introduced a target of 1,000 affordable homes to rent and this has led to more homes being provided.
Across England we build around 8,000 new council homes a year and this number is outstripped by the losses. This is a result of Conservative governments deliberately and cynically seeking to reduce the social housing sector.
The main evidence of war in Kyiv in the last few days has been a series of loud bangs in the middle of the night – Russian rockets meeting Patriot Missiles apart from the one which got through and hit a power plant.
Otherwise, Kyiv is a normal and beautiful, bustling European city of 3.5 million with busy pavement cafes and restaurants, flourishing shopping centres and street stalls, traffic jams and young people zooming round on e-scooters. After a while you notice the numbers of burly off-duty soldiers in uniform, the exhibitions in civic squares honouring war casualties and the forest of flags to the memory of those who died in Maidan Square in the 2014 Orange revolution. So, not so normal. A war for national survival is taking place, to expel the Russian invaders.
The proportion of people waiting four weeks or more for a GP appointment is three times higher in rural parts of England than in London, stark new figures published by the Liberal Democrats have revealed.
It comes as Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey calls on the government to launch a new strategy to improve access to GPs in rural areas. The Liberal Democrats are also set to put their proposals to give everyone the right to see a GP within a week at the heart of their pre-manifesto being adopted today.
The House of Commons Library research, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, shows that on average people in rural areas are facing significantly longer waits for GP appointments than those in urban ones.
One in five (20.6%) patients living in rural areas waited two weeks or more for a GP appointment between April and June of this year, compared to 16.9% of those in urban areas.
The divide for waits of four weeks or more for a GP appointment was even more stark. 6% of patients in rural areas faced waits of 28 days or more for a GP appointment, around a third higher than the 4.6% of those facing four-week waits in urban ones.
Without a doubt, the Ukrainian Military’s recent counteroffensive has proved more challenging than the last one. Ukraine’s ability to put together such counteroffensives and defend the wider country remains at the mercy of the generosity of military aid donors. “Give us the tools and we will finish the job” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky pleaded.
However, the arrival of military aid has often been delayed for political reasons as much as logistical ones. This counteroffensive for instance has seen the Ukrainian Military forced to determinedly advance without air cover. This is despite the Ukrainian Government requesting Fighter Jets, such as F-16s, to be sent for their defence since the start of the 2022 invasion. The delay in the arrival of equipment for the current counteroffensive gave ample time for the invading Russian enforces to entrench and defend the land they have stolen. Some reports say it has even given them ample breathing space to counter some Western weapons such as HIMARS. Western leaders have justified the incremental approach to giving such aid to encourage de-escalation. Despite this, Russian President Vladimir Putin reading Western reticence as weakness, as he has always done, has proceeded on his same imperialist course.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting that the short-term concerns of Western democracies, such as the US Presidential election next year, will mean that the alliance that supports Ukraine will ultimately fall apart. This is why those democracies, especially European ones need to convene a long term plan to support Ukraine. Bilateral and piecemeal military aid announcements were never sufficient to achieve victory. If NATO membership is barred to Ukraine, then alternative security assurances need to be given to Ukraine. A Memorandum of Understanding enshrining a commitment to support Ukraine could either be agreed between that country and it’s allies collectively or on a bilateral basis. What is imperative is that European countries in particular plan for a future where the considerable US aid to Ukraine is potentially no longer available. Brexit aside, the UK needs to be involved in any European discussions about supporting Ukraine in the long term to coordinate efforts.
The first policy speech of the first in-person autumn conference since 2019 brought a smile to my face and very positively answered the question “What is Tim Farron for?”
Happily coinciding with the first day of our first terrestrial conference since the Ice Age, today is the 25th anniversary of Bi Visibility Day, also known as “Does this thing open from the inside?” Day.
Over on Stonewall’s website, their digital officer, George Alabaster, has answered the question “Why do we need Bi Visibility Day?”:
Conference kicks off officially today. The whirlwind of debate and socialising and fringe meetings is guaranteed to have at least three things in every slot that you want to go to.
Here’s my pick of the fringe for today, all of which can be found in the directory:
Federal Conference Committee invite people to suggest ways of improving disability access at future Conferences.
I suspect the New Liberal Manifesto’s meeting with Sir John Curtice on the need for the party to have bolder messaging will be very busy, so get there early. It’s chaired by Layla and Dick Newby, our leader in the Lords is also speaking.
Social Liberal Forum has Sarah Olney and others on a radical and liberal approach to economics
I’m liking the collaboration between ALDES (Lib Dem Engineers and Scientists) and the Young Liberals to chat all things tech
Liberal History Group launch their book asking What have the Liberals ever done for us? Layla Moran, Wendy Chamberlain and Janey Little take part.
Liberal Democrats will offer free small-group tutoring to 1.75 million children a year who struggle with their learning, the party’s education spokesperson will say today (23 September).
It comes analysis by the party shows that more than one in seven teenagers fall behind with English or Maths at secondary school. These 64,000 students meet government reading and maths standards at age 11 but then fail either GCSE English or Maths at age 16.
In her keynote speech at the party’s Autumn Conference in Bournemouth, Munira Wilson MP will accuse Rishi Sunak of letting down these children by “pulling the plug” on school-based tutoring. The National Tutoring Programme ends this year.
She will compare Sunak to Mr Bumble from Oliver Twist for consistently rejecting cries “for more” investment in education when he was Chancellor. Sunak rejected bids from Government advisers and officials for greater investment in COVID catch-up lessons, free school meals and new school buildings.
Instead, Liberal Democrats will call for tutoring to become a permanent fixture in England’s schools. Schools, sixth forms and further education colleges would receive £390 million a year for intensive small-group sessions for students who have fallen behind in class.
Families in Blue Wall hit with £3,000 “Truss tax” in year since mini-budget
New research reveals homeowners in London and the South East have seen their mortgage payments rise by £3,000 in year since mini budget
The two ‘Blue Wall’ regions are the hardest hit, compared to an average hit of £2,000 across the country
Those on a 2-year deal who remortgaged in the wake of the mini budget saw their mortgage rate jump by average of 1.69% to 5.17%
Homeowners in London and the South East have seen their mortgage payments rise by a staggering £3,000 in the year since Liz Truss’ shambolic mini budget, new research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed.
The party said it showed that homeowners are still paying a “Truss tax” on their mortgages and suffering the consequences of years of Conservative chaos.
According to figures provided by the House of Commons Library, typical homeowners coming out of a two-year deal in the week after the mini budget last September would have seen their rate shoot up from 1.69% to 5.17%.
India is likely to escape the consequences of allegedly murdering a Sikh Canadian on Canadian soil.
And this in turn will have consequences for democracy and political structures in India, the sub-continent’s relations with the rest of the world, Canadian relations with its allies and the international rule of law.
Let’s start with the fact that the claim that Indian intelligence agents were responsible for the murder of Sikh nationalist Hardeep Singh Nijjar is – so far – an allegation. And that the government of Narendra Modi has dismissed it as “absurd.”
But, at the same time, it is inconceivable that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have stood on the floor of the Canadian parliament and announced that he had “credible evidence” that India was behind the murder given the dire repercussions of such a claim.
India is fast becoming one of the most important countries in the world. It has overtaken China as the most populous. Its economy is growing at 7.8 percent and is set to overtake Japan as the world’s third largest.
It has become a go-to destination for Western companies seeking to “de-risk” their investments in China. And as a member of the Quad Alliance it is a key counter-balance to Chinese influence in the world.
All this means that the US and its allies – including Canada – have been actively courting the Delhi government of Modi and this courtship has turning a blind – or at least blinkered – eye to its excesses.
For many Liberal Democrats like us, rejoining the European Union is an article of faith and a top political priority. Helen and her family were advocates of European integration in the 1950s; William joined the Liberal Party when Jo Grimond was arguing for joining the EEC, Harold Macmillan was struggling to persuade his party, and Gaitskell was moving to oppose the idea.
We’re now back at a similar juncture: outside, increasingly aware of the costs of exclusion, this time with Labour edging awkwardly towards a half-commitment to closer relations, the Conservatives divided between realists wanting to re-establish a degree of mutual trust and collaboration and a hysterical anti-European right wing. We are the only party that has set out a road map for moving back towards the EU, in stages, including rejoining the Single Market, with the intention in time of rejoining the EU.
Many Liberal Democrats are unhappy that we have not come out for a faster path to rejoining than the stage-by-stage road map set out by the working group in last year’s policy paper. The contrast between that strategic path, from re-establishment of mutual trust to association to eventual membership, and Starmer’s effort ‘to make Brexit work better’ without joining either the customs union or the single market, is clear enough. But we need to recognise, as we re-assert that we are committed to moving back towards the closest possible relationship with our European neighbours, that the EU is itself changing rapidly, and that the UK cannot fully rejoin until public opinion has accepted the full consequences of doing so.
The Ukraine conflict and the need to respond both to China’s technological and industrial challenge and the USA’s commitment to an industrial strategy have shifted priorities within the EU. After years of prevarication, further enlargement is now firmly on the agenda: to include Ukraine first and foremost, but also Moldova and the Western Balkan states. That will necessitate major increases in shared funding, above all to pay for Ukrainian reconstruction. It will also require painful changes in the way over 30 diverse states agree decisions, in a context in which Hungary and Poland have already shown the difficulties that recalcitrant governments can create for collective policy-making.
In the interests of transparency, I am not impartial (is anybody?). I am a volunteer director of a community land trust (not named as I am writing for the community housing cause in general). Also I am no longer a party member largely down to becoming exasperated with national party housing policies and the focus on being electable locally thus encouraging nimbyism. This policy could go further but is comprehensive and well thought out.
We cannot have arbitrary targets that are nationally set without paying the price. This cost was felt deeply during the COVID-19 pandemic with those in flats with no gardens, overcrowded with children and parents attempting schooling and working in 2/3 rooms. Local to me there was also a suggestion in my local area the unit targets be artificially met by implying micro pads could fill the gap in targets in affordable housing. This was of great concern as micro studios are worse than what many families are forced to endure in emergency accommodation. Most of our housing list is families; we don’t need commuter studios we need family homes.
However, today a leader I believed was part of the problem surprised me. Ed Davey has suggested exactly what is needed in the heart of many local authorities: A community-led approach to housing. This policy could have gone further and spoken more of the role of community land trusts and the role they could possess e.g. access to Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 Funds. These are usually incorporated local not-for-profits accredited by the FCA, so why not? They also are also by and large are committed to co-designing affordable housing at the most local level.
However, the reaction of many seems to be to ridicule and attempt to call this out for something it really isn’t. The disposal of current targets that count the numbers and bottom line rather than the quality is something to celebrate not scorn. Social housing is sorely needed and the private rental market is broken.
Housing and planning policy continues to provoke controversy across the country. The UK desperately needs more homes, particularly decent, affordable homes. But instead, too many politicians are only interested in point-scoring, attacking their opponents as either NIMBYs who will block any housebuilding, or in the pocket of developers who want to concrete over the countryside.
For years this Conservative government has paid lip-service to increasing housebuilding, but then repeatedly u-turned under pressure from their backbenchers, who simply don’t want new homes built.
It is in this context that the Liberal Democrats, at conference, will be discussing our new policy paper: Tackling the Housing Crisis. Our attempt to find a positive way forward in the face of a dysfunctional national debate.
The paper is positive about the need for new homes. It makes clear that councils should have well-evidenced 15-year housing targets – ensuring that there is no backsliding from building homes. Yet it also goes further encouraging the expansion and strengthening of Neighbourhood Plans, including genuine engagement with local communities in finding innovative ways of providing more homes and the sustainable expansion of existing towns.
As the former Mayor of Watford I’m well aware of how urban renewal and bringing back residential communities to town and city centres can be a sustainable housing solution that drives regeneration. But this development can only work if it’s combined with investment in infrastructure too. The government’s controversial new infrastructure levy is said to address this, but it will take a decade to be fully implemented.
We also need to ensure that we deliver homes that people can genuinely afford. Affordability is the major issue that no one is addressing. That’s why our paper is positive about delivering more social housing. It doesn’t shy away from setting a target for these homes, empowering councils with more powers to borrow in order to build. It is scandalous that the delivery of social homes has been given such a low priority.
In England’s beauty spots the issue of second homes and holiday lets is also not helping. This paper tackles that tricky question. People are entitled to buy properties from themselves or as a way of generating an income, but in some areas the market is so seriously skewed it prices out local people. So where councils can demonstrate that these homes are having a negative effect on their communities then they should have powers to address this including new planning classes to limit their numbers if needed.
Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper has said the party will be using their Autumn Conference in Bournemouth this weekend to “fire the starting pistol” on its General Election campaign.
The Liberal Democrats are looking to build on their four historic by-election wins and major local election gains in formerly safe Conservative areas.
Liberal Democrat MPs will today hold a Blue Wall summit in Bournemouth with top candidates in marginal seats, discussing their strategy to win more Conservative seats and elect MPs who will act as local champions for their communities.
On Sunday, the Liberal Democrats will become the first party to adopt …
Liberal Democrats call on Sunak to commit to maintaining fracking ban
The Liberal Democrats have called on the Prime Minister to personally commit to maintaining the ban on fracking after Liz Truss praised his watering down of key clean energy pledges and urged Sunak to lift the ban on fracking.
Liz Truss’s premiership ended last year following chaos around a Labour opposition day motion on fracking.
Liberal Democrat Climate and Energy spokesperson, Wera Hobhouse MP said:
Rishi Sunak seems hellbent on taking his policy cues from the worst Prime Minister in living memory, Liz Truss. There is no telling how far he
…
It is now eight years since we set up the Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI), to represent women born in the 1950s, whose state pension age was increased without proper notice.
As astute Lib Dems will know, the law was changed by John Major’s government in 1995, but neither his nor Tony Blair’s administration saw fit to tell women about these changes.
P60s were duly issued by HMRC each year, without a word about how women’s retirements would be affected. The DWP website continued to say the state pension age for women was 60 until 2016!
Liberal Democrats have been the leading party on this issue, taking the trouble to understand what our campaign is really about. Too often, ministers have hidden behind the completely false idea that we are arguing to reverse state pension age equalisation. Quite obviously, that would be absurd.
Our campaign argues simply that women were – through no fault of their own – heavily disadvantaged by the Department of Work and Pensions’ successive failures over some two decades. DWP’s own research in 2004 made clear that women simply didn’t know about the impending changes but still the Department did not get on with targeted mailings to those affected.
The impact of this incompetence and neglect is very real. In a recent survey of 8,000 WASPI women, we found that three in five had already given up work or cut back on their hours by the time they discovered their state pension would not be paid when they’d expected it.
As anyone in our age group knows, getting back into the workplace at that stage in life is often nigh-on impossible, and as such women found themselves falling back on meagre savings to see them through the gap from 60 to 66. No wonder one in three is now in debt and one in four has struggled to buy food or basic essentials in the last six months.
When we met with Lord (Dick) Newby recently to discuss the Liberal Democrat manifesto, he spoke for so many of us in saying it’s just unbelievable that this mess has yet to be sorted out. Since 2015, more than 250,000 of the affected women have died awaiting justice. Another dies every 13 minutes.
We have potholes. They have craters. We have a cost of living crisis. They have a cost of dying crisis. We have hospital waiting lists. They have a list of bombed hospitals. As I write this in Kyiv, Vladimir Putin is trying to kill me. Not just me but everyone in the Ukrainian capital. To be fair, Russia’s hypersonic missiles, sorry, elderly Russian ironmongery, keep getting shot out of the sky. But the war in Ukraine is not over by a long chalk. The charge sheet of Russian barbarism gets grimmer by the day: targeting civilians, torture, execution, rape, castration.
The values of Ukraine are our values: democracy, liberalism, we don’t just respect the other – we fight for them. Together, we must stand against the Fascist International. Our job as Liberal Democrats is to keep up the pressure on the Conservative government and remind the rather too many people in the Labour Party that the word of Vladimir Putin is not reliable, to put it mildly. That’s why we are setting up the Liberal Democrat Friends of Ukraine.
Three policies stand out. We must support Ukraine with the military hardware necessary for the defeat of Russian fascism. We must make Britain as welcoming to Ukrainian refugees as the European Union is: if you have a Ukrainian passport, you can stay and live and work in Britain for three years, just as you can in Germany, Italy, France, across the whole union. We must burn down Londongrad and send Russia’s ill-gotten gold to help rebuild Ukraine.
I am no arsonist. But Londongrad – where Russian oligarchs hide their dirty money – is a danger not just to Ukraine but also to our own democracy. For far too long, the Labour and Conservative parties let Vladimir Putin get away with murdering people in Britain because they liked the sheen of Moscow gold.
Senior figures in Labour and the Tories have been far too close to the Kremlin and its proxies for comfort. Tony Blair made a catastrophic mistake when he identified radical Islam as a greater danger than Russian fascism. To secure cover for the “war on terror” he went out of his way to cosy up to Vladimir Putin.
Chinese President Xi told President Putin at their summit in Moscow this year: “Right now, there are changes, the likes of which we have not seen for 100 years. And we are the ones driving these changes together”.
Repressive regimes – such as China’s under the CCP, Russia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others – are linking up. Democracies around the world are being subverted. War is raging in Ukraine. China and Russia are in cahoots together, in particular enlisting many developing countries from the Global South to their cause through their disinformation and misinformation campaigns.
That’s why the FCC has agreed that I propose an amendment to the F23 pre-manifesto motion on behalf of the Federal International Relations Committee (FIRC) which calls for the UK to have a comprehensive strategy to challenge regimes such as that led by the CCP in China. My article in the latest Liberator gives the full background.
I also support FIRC’s emergency motion on China to be selected at the ballot for debate at autumn conference.
Back in 2019, the European Commission was already calling China a “systemic rival”. This summer, President Xi’s intentions became even clearer when he boycotted the G20 summit, which unites major developed and developing economies, in favour of posing as the leader of the beginnings of an alternative world economic system at the BRICS summit as well as lobbying the Global South at the G77+China summit of 135 developing countries.
China’s new Global Development, Security and Civilisation Initiatives say that China’s development model shorn of human rights is more suitable for developing countries, that Western military alliances are a threat to world peace and that criticising the CCP is a racist assault on the Chinese people.
As many authoritarian governments grow wealthier, and the West’s clout weakens, an urgent new approach is needed if the post-Western global order for human rights and the rule of law is to remain centre-stage.
This party believes that the UK must always stand on the side of democracy, human rights, international law and multilateralism.
I first visited Hong Kong in the summer of 1989, a few weeks after the massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. At the time the people of Hong Kong feared for their future, whilst the rest of the world considered how to deal with a regime prepared to shoot its own people to remain in power. Over the next decades I would come to work and live in China, receiving the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2002 for developing the Economist’s business in China. Whilst recognising that we were dealing with an autocratic state and rightly concerned at its human rights record, we considered that by engaging with China – and in my case helping Chinese businesses align their commercial practices with those of the West – we were helping to create a new partner in the global world order.
However, since Xi Jinping’s ascent to power over a decade ago, things have gone backwards. Instead of a partner China is increasingly setting itself up as an adversary to the West, set on undermining the liberal world order. Within our own liberal family, some condemn our engagement back then with China – arguing that we should have foreseen what was coming. On a recent trip to Berlin, I met up with an old friend who at one time ran the business operations of Siemens in China. I asked him for his thoughts on whether we had got it so wrong back then. He defended our actions, but with our knowledge now of China’s recent behaviour, we cannot carry on with business as normal. Germany that has invested 10 times more in China than the UK and therefore has much more to lose, is having to face some tough decisions.
In recent years we have seen the Chinese Communist Party CCP prepared to resort to ever more extreme measures to maintain its grip on power. In its repressive treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang – classed by many as genocide – to its crushing of Hong Kong’s civil liberties, to the oppression of civil society in mainland China itself – it has become ever more autocratic. In today’s Hong Kong commemorating the victims of Tiananmen Square in public – a major public event up until only a few years ago – will now land you in jail. People are afraid to criticise the government even in the privacy of their own homes. The CCP has clamped down on activities within China itself that it feels unable to control. Shanghai Pride – an amazing weeklong celebration attracting thousands of LGBT people from across China – was closed down last year. It’s main organiser having to flee the country or face arrest. A similar fate has brought thousands of Hong Kongers to live in the UK.
And in our battle with Putin’s Russia which is primarily aimed at stopping the spread of liberal democracy, where Ukraine is the front line – China has aligned itself with Russia. We should be under no illusion that should Russia succeed in its plan, that the invasion of Taiwan will be next on China’s agenda.
In a futile attempt to prevent Boris Johnson’s defenestration last year Jacob Rees Mogg tried to browbeat his ministerial colleagues by demanding that a change of Prime Minister required a General Election. Johnson himself seemed equally deluded that he had achieved a personal mandate in 2019 to which no successor could lay claim.
Our constitution – at the moment at least – doesn’t work like that. We don’t elect a President. We vote for individual MPs who collectively give authority to an executive team, and (in theory) hold them to account.
But is it working like that ?
In recent months a range of commentators from across the political spectrum have identified a series of faults and follies, which call in question our democratic norms. With some 53 years of parliamentary service between us we attempt a more comprehensive analysis in our book “Can Parliament Take Back Control?”, published this week.
Amidst all the other challenges which politicians will face after the next election the damaged relationship between Parliament and the executive may seem relatively less urgent. Yet the insidious shift of power from the former to the latter in recent years may prove to undermine the very foundations of Britain’s democratic constitution.
In so doing, it could make it increasingly difficult to secure public support for practical responses to those other challenges.
This book highlights the various ways in which governments have neutered, side-lined and ignored Parliament to an extent which now demands a deliberate restoration of the balance of power. We suggest that events since 2015, in particular, have caused slippage towards the “elective dictatorship” about which Lord Hailsham warned in his Dimbleby Lecture in 1976. Hence our subtitle: “Britain’s Elective Dictatorship in the Johnson Aftermath”. The text of the Lecture is reprinted as an Annex with the encouragement of the present Lord Hailsham.
Our Liberal Democrat London Mayor challenger Rob Blackie, wrote a great article on determination to meet housing targets. His first statement “Britain spends more on housing benefits than any other rich country,” hits the mark on the choice we can make: increase home ownership and maintain a fair democracy for Britain.
We can continue spending on housing benefits, but our current model has a few issues. First, our social housing strategy has shifted towards rental accommodation in the private sector. No longer are councils owning sufficient housing to provide affordable rentals. This meant shared ownership and social credits to rent privately were the only solutions. The former further distorts the market as, in essence, gives free public money to expand property developers into bigger landlords. This is the kind of market distortion faced in Berlin where most Berliners used to rent. They are effectively providing quantitative easing to property developers. The latter, private rentals, is funding an unregulated market to exploit the less privileged. Because of the security this had offered to the private lessor, they find it easier to simply offer a shelter without the necessary up-keep while monthly rentals are directly paid into their accounts by the council. It is effectively a secured, fixed-deposit investment for private lessors; so secured they have no incentives to upkeep the property they leased out. This is quite similar to New York City where the rent ceiling exacerbated the issue.
The solution can only be ownership. The responsibility of a citizen can be driven either through harsh and unjust punishment or through providing a sense of belonging. The logic is infallible because of social psychology. The state can employ harsh laws to imprison rule breakers with long incarceration or allow for the creation of individual opportunities where each has a stake in the society they can treasure.
A democracy can be built upon the rule of law. But a liberal democracy must be sustained through private equity.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
What can we really do to influence the situation in the West Bank? (Alan Juriansz)
Welcome to Lib Dem Friends of Gaelic Language and Culture (Caron Lindsay)
Going for four in a row in Scotland (Grant Toghill)
Lib Dems call for action on smart spectacles – some constructive feedback (Caron Lindsay)
AI has moved from future threat to present reality (Sean Worrell)
The Joy of Six 1571
Same old, same old from Farage
How Long Has it been?
Oh no, not another by-election
Restoration of Gone to Earth to be shown in London Film Festival
Lib Dem policy is light on politics not on outside expertise
Back to Sandy Campbell and Tsar Nicholas II
Discovery
Starmer makes the ultimate betrayal
Tŷ Newydd National Writing Centre's Open Day - 27 September 2026
William Wallace 
Peter Davies 
Graham Jeffs 
Chris Lewcock 
Alasdair 
