Caron Lindsay

Chesham & Amersham: a campaign we’ll be talking about for years

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 17th June 2021 - 11:04 pm

Every so often a by-election campaign comes along that will be remembered for generations. Orpington in the 60s, Edge Hill in the 70s, Hillhead in the 80s, Littleborough and Saddleworth in the 90s, Dunfermline in the 2000s, Eastleigh in the 2010s. Many of them came at critical moments for the party, maybe at times when we were a bit down in the dumps. And at those times the party comes together and runs a spirited and joyful campaign that everyone talks about for years afterwards.

Chesham and Amersham comes on top of, to be honest, unspectacular elections in Scotland, Wales and English Councils in May.  It would be a massive ask to win it. This is true blue territory, after all. A year and a half ago, we got less than half the Tory vote, finishing in second place. In 2017, just 4 years ago, we got 13%. We need the sorts of swings we were getting in the 90s to win.

But we’ve given it our best efforts. We’ve run a good old fashioned Liberal Democrat by-election campaign at full pelt in the middle of a pandemic. I’ve seen so many comments about how the warmth of the welcome was matched by the efficiency of despatch with leaflets or canvassing pack.

https://twitter.com/LaylaMoran/status/1405630741262782475?s=20

From as far apart as Edinburgh and Cornwall, activists flocked in their thousands to help Sarah Green’s campaign. It was clear that this was a campaign everybody wanted to be a part of. My tiny contribution was to help host the nightly maraphones, where people from Orkney to Cornwall made thousands of calls.

 

I was very touched that Simon Foster from Southampton dedicated 50% of his sterling contribution putting up stakeboards to me as I couldn’t get there. But the loveliest gesture was friends of Erlend Watson, our campaigning legend who has been a key and beloved presence at so many by-elections, taking his place in this campaign. Natasha Chapman and Olly Craven from Lincoln were Team Erlend. Erlend himself is recovering well from major surgery and we hope to see him back at a by-election or Conference before too long.

The positive feedback from voters was incredible. Phoning voters and asking them to put up stakeboards is far from my favourite sort of campaigning activity, yet I couldn’t believe how easy a sell it was.

The Tories have been doing all sorts of expectation management.

Sometimes you can do every single thing right in a campaign and not get the result you deserve. Sarah Green and her campaign team richly deserve a victory. Let’s hope that they get it. She’s been a fantastic candidate – impressing voters on the doorsteps and motivating her army of helpers. One activist, bitten by a dog the other day, was very surprised that she took time out of her day to phone them and make sure they were ok.

In an email to members tonight, Ed Davey expressed his pride in the campaign we ran:

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Lord Roger Roberts

Lord Rogers Roberts: The Napier Barracks scandal

By Lord Roger Roberts | Thu 17th June 2021 - 4:07 pm

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A couple of weeks ago, the BBC reported that the High Court had ruled that the Home Office’s decision to house cross-channel migrants in a “squalid” barracks in Folkestone was unlawful.

Six asylum seekers brought the case, claiming Napier Barracks was “unsafe” and dormitory use caused a Covid-19 outbreak earlier this year.

The ruling could see a damages claim against Home Secretary Priti Patel.

The Home Office said use of the barracks would continue, and it was considering its “next steps”.

This report is so different from the assurances  by the government.

In answer to a question that I asked on January 29 Baroness Williams, home office minister in the Lords, justified the use of Napier Barracks – built 1794 – for Asylum Seekers. She wrote:

Following a review of available government property, the Ministry of Defence agreed to temporarily hand over two of their sites: the Penally Training Camp in Pembrokeshire and the Napier Barracks in Kent.

These sites were both suitable and immediately available to be used to house asylum seekers.

The accommodation, which until recently was used by the MOD is safe, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped in line with existing asylum accommodation standards contractual requirements.

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Paul Reynolds

Myanmar’s simmering civil war – and the UK’s moral duty

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 17th June 2021 - 2:06 pm

Following the coup d’etat in Myanmar on Feb 1st this year, the ‘Tatmadaw’ military have killed more than 860 civilians and imprisoned more than 6000 people. Random bombings of civilians, burning villages and killing protestors, have made a full scale civil war likely. The de facto leader of Myanmar is now the brutal General Min Aung Hlaing, the Chairman of the State Administration Council.

The coup ended 5 years of ‘democratic’ governance. This period followed 53 years of military rule, which began in coup in 1962. Myanmar (Burma) was part of British India before 1948.

The colonial past is one reason why the UK has a duty to help.  More specifically, the flawed legacy of the British contributed to 7 decades of conflict.  After the 1962 coup, the oil and gas sector was nationalised, and oil & gas majors such as Anglo-Dutch Shell and British Gas, with the support of the British Government,  have been intimately involved.

The UK can thus have major positive role to play.

Reducing violence, and preparing for the consequences from full civil war, necessitate understanding, however.

Two thirds of the population in Myanmar are Burmese (Bamah). From independence, and as part of the British legacy,  the government has had a system of ethnic control centred on the peripheral provinces. This led to armed resistance, ‘justifying’ military rule. There have been nine major conflicts; four still persist  – involving Rakhine/Rohingya, Shan, Kachin, Kayin, and Mon. Citizens have an ethnic designation written on their ID cards. The exception is the mainly Muslim Rohingya, who do not receive ID cards, on the grounds they are ‘foreigners’.

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The Voice

LibLink: Mark Pack’s June report

By The Voice | Thu 17th June 2021 - 10:35 am

Party President Mark Pack has written on a number of topics in his monthly report to members for June. Here are some extracts:

Chesham and Amersham

I’m writing this month’s report before we know the result. But we do already know that we’ve had the best candidate in Sarah Green, run the best campaign and had an awesome amount of help from people all around the country.

Westminster selections are up and running

New Parliament, new name: this time around we are ‘tiering’ our seats, so the most winnable seats (aka target seats, aka key seats) are now called Tier 1 seats. Selections have started up, with advertisements going out to people on the approved list and appearing on the members-only section of the main party website.

…

One of the new things for this Parliament is Project Stellar: a support package for our top candidates from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Anyone selected in a Tier 1 seat from such a background can automatically qualify for this support, and depending on the numbers, we may also be able support candidates in Tier 2 seats in this way too.

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Times: Lib Dems hopeful of by-election upset in Chesham & Amersham

By Andy Boddington | Wed 16th June 2021 - 10:47 am

The Times today has the headline we need ahead of Thursday’s by-election. The newspaper reports that Sarah Green, the Lib Dem candidate has 41 per cent of the vote and the Conservative candidate, Peter Fleet, 45 per cent. That is close and this long held Tory stronghold could fall to the Lib Dems. Key issues according to the Times are HS2 which is railroading through the constituency and the government’s plan to bulldoze green fields with its planning reform act.

We are almost there. A win in Chesham & Amersham would not only upset the Tory applecart. It will give our party a boost. A clear sense of winning. Delivering seats at national and local level from the growing Lib Dem surge.

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Caron Lindsay

Blood donation gets more equal and inclusive

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 16th June 2021 - 10:29 am

I was smiling a lot on Monday. On World Blood Donation Day, in the middle of Pride Month, the blood donation rules changed so that they were the same whatever your sexuality.

A decade ago, men who had ever had sex with men were completely banned from giving blood. The rules have been gradually relaxed since then but we now have a more equal system based on a level playing field.

This means that many gay and bisexual men can now give blood, whereas before we lost out on their donations.

This applies over England, Scotland and Wales.

My friend Euan was one of them.

Euan was involved with the then Liberal Youth Scotland’s Freshers campaign to end the blood ban in 2010. The year before, LYS had brought a motion to Scottish Conference calling for an evidence based, scientific approach to this issue.

They kept pushing on this. Euan and his co-President Hannah Bettsworth led a campaign on the issue when they were co-Presidents of LYS a few years later.

It made me really happy that their campaigning over years worked. These things are now decided on the basis of scientific evidence because people campaigned and took up the issue.

The Liberal Democrats have been working to bring this about for 15 years.

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Keith Aspden

Working together to end homelessness and rough sleeping in York

By Keith Aspden | Wed 16th June 2021 - 7:30 am

Earlier in April I was pleased to join the national Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping alongside representatives from local government, housing, health and homelessness bodies, to examine and learn the lessons from the emergency response which supported people sleeping rough during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the start of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Government launched the Everyone In initiative, which sought to ensure that anyone who was sleeping on the streets was immediately provided with safe and secure accommodation.

This involved unprecedented collaboration between government at central, regional and local levels, alongside work between health and local authority housing colleagues to identify health and housing options for clients in real time. This resulted in immediate assessment of their health needs and positive moves for many clients. In many areas this work has continued with a coordinated approach to vaccinations and GP registrations.

Councils across the country are determined to build on the success of the Everyone In initiative, which has demonstrated what can be achieved when all parts of the public and voluntary sector work together to get people sleeping rough off the streets and into safe accommodation.

In joining the commission I will work to share learning from local government, from Liberal Democrat led councils and on York’s approach to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping. In York, intensive and personalised work by City of York Council and partners continues to offer support to rough sleepers and homeless families. The work is underpinned by the Council’s Homelessness Strategy, focusing on prevention, early intervention and local integrated services that step in when things go wrong. Beds are being offered in a wider variety of accommodation, supporting people to stay in their accommodation and to manage often complex needs that contribute to rough sleeping. This has been supported by over £433k funding secured from the Rough Sleeping Initiative as well as the extra capacity offered by James House, York’s newest purpose-built temporary accommodation, which opened last summer.

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Paul Walter

Going down to the wire at Chesham & Amersham

By Paul Walter | Tue 15th June 2021 - 6:23 pm

Today I again went to Chesham & Amersham to help Sarah Green and team. I helped to deliver targeted letters to residents in Great Missenden and Chalfont Saint Peter.

My task was greatly assisted by my excellent co-deliverers, Baroness (Liz) Barker and Mukta Patil from Chesham & Amersham Young Liberals. They both greatly helped in plotting our various routes and in making the task a great pleasure in the sunshine! The selfie above shows us with our suitably coloured conveyance!

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David McDowall

How much do we still want a rules-based international order?

By David McDowall | Tue 15th June 2021 - 1:15 pm

At the end of the recent G7 meeting, participants declared their commitment to ‘democracy, freedom, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights’. How many had fingers crossed behind their backs? Boris Johnson for one, but probably others, spared their own blushes by the blatant fraudulence of their host regarding Northern Ireland.

But it is not just Northern Ireland. Last week his government declined its obligations under Common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, ‘to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances’. After Israel’s recent punitive and extensive destruction of life and property in the Gaza Strip, the UK rightly rebuked Hamas for its undoubted war crimes but declined to rebuke Israel, essentially because it is ‘an important strategic partner for the UK’. To our shame, we pick and choose. Currently, the UK defies the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea regarding the Chagos Islands, which in January ruled that the UK has no sovereignty, confirming the same conclusion by the International Court of Justice in February 2019. Of course, the UK should have recognised the human rights of the Chagossians at the outset in 1965, or when challenged in the ensuing decades. Persistent failure to do so constitutes a crime against humanity. I feel sullied and I expect you do too.

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The Voice

Priti Patel failing on legal routes for refugees

By The Voice | Tue 15th June 2021 - 11:20 am

As Refugee Week begins, the Liberal Democrats have tabled a motion in Parliament calling on the Government to establish safe and legal routes for refugees to come to the UK.

The motion, tabled by the party’s Home Affairs Spokesperson Alistair Carmichael MP, calls on the Government to resettle 10,000 refugees each year, as well as a further 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children from elsewhere in Europe over the next 10 years.

It follows Home Office data showing that just 353 refugees were brought to the UK last year, compared with 4,968 the year before.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Alistair Carmichael MP said:

The UK has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those in need, but now the Conservative Government is turning its back on refugees.

Priti Patel is threatening to punish refugees who don’t come here by safe and legal routes, but at the same time she is failing to provide those routes.

Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to make an ambitious, ten-year commitment to resettle 10,000 vulnerable refugees a year from Syria and other dangerous conflict areas.

That is the best way to combat people smuggling and human trafficking, and to prevent people from making dangerous attempts to cross the Channel.

The full text of the motion is as follows;

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Phil Bennion

ALDE Party Congress online or, how to juggle four screens and a print-out

By Phil Bennion | Mon 14th June 2021 - 2:12 pm

At the weekend we met with old friends and new from our European sister parties for ALDE Congress, albeit via a Zoom link, as the Congress was online for the first time. It was my privilege to lead a diverse Lib Dem delegation of around forty, which in addition to the official categories for diversity, included several UK nationals resident in the EU and a few EU citizens resident in the UK.

Ahead of the Congress we had met to propose amendments and again to discuss the amendments tabled by other delegations. These are negotiated in the “Working Groups”, which usually take place onsite at the beginning of Congress. Online they were held several days in advance of Congress and a high proportion of delegates were unavailable. Some were unaware that this was the real forum for debate. The procedure is not unlike the European Parliament Committee stage where the political groups negotiate compromise amendments. At the final plenary voting session there is no debate and delegations work to voting lists.

The Working Groups did not go to plan, as the scheduled sessions of two and a half hours each ran to six and five hours respectively. Even delegates who started the sessions were often not there by the end. I was sat with original text on one screen, amendments on another, proceedings on my iPad, delegation WhatsApp and the voting platform both on my iPhone plus a print-out of our voting line.

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Duncan Brack

Journal of Liberal History – a preview of the latest issue

By Duncan Brack | Mon 14th June 2021 - 11:28 am

The latest issue of the Journal of Liberal History, just published, is a special issue on the early-nineteenth-century roots of Liberalism – a somewhat neglected period in party history.

Historians generally treat 1859 as the date that the Liberal Party came into existence, when three parliamentary factions – Whigs, Peelites and Radicals – agreed to unite under Palmerston to oust a minority Conservative administration. Yet, in truth, the Liberal Party can trace its roots back to a much earlier period in the nineteenth century. The term ‘Liberal’ came into common use in the 1820s. As the authors in our special issue suggest, it was a cultural as well as a political label, indicating a philosophical and artistic outlook as much as a defined political position. It represented a tendency and a state of mind: a willingness to be open to change and a desire to challenge social and political orthodoxy – a radical departure from the repression and authoritarianism of the Tory governments of the Napoleonic Wars and after.

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John Kelly

Change of Guard in Tel Aviv – what hopes for peace?

By John Kelly | Mon 14th June 2021 - 9:07 am

It’s a momentous day because Netanyahu has been voted out of office and like his predecessor Ehud Olmert now faces the prospect of jail and so will hopefully disappear. He leaves power as Prime Ministers often do because he lost. But as Anshel Pfeffer in today’s edition of Ha’aretz points out, he is overall a winner.

The man who was written off so many times as a passing and inconsequential politician, even after his first term as prime minister in the 1990s, became Israel’s longest-serving leader – even longer than the founder, David Ben-Gurion. Someone who managed to hold onto power for 15 years didn’t lose, even if he was forced out at the end.

According to Pfeffer all previous Israeli Prime Ministers thought that the problems between Israel and Palestine had to somehow be solved, otherwise the rest of the world wouldn’t leave them alone.

(Netanyahu) ..was the first to recognize the fatigue of world leaders, as well as that of Arab dictators, over the Palestinian issue. As a ruthless pragmatist, he correctly assessed that as time passed, his fellow statesmen would prefer economic and security ties with Israel, and that the Palestinians had nothing to offer.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Christine Jardine – Biden has changed the narrative

By NewsHound | Sun 13th June 2021 - 10:30 am

Writing in the Scotsman as the G7 summit takes place in St Ives, Christine Jardine breathes a sigh of relief that we have a grown-up in the White House again and looks at how Joe Biden has been a good friend to the UK. Sometimes, she says, your best friends tell you the truth.

She compared this summit to the Atlantic Charter, Churchill and Roosevelt’s vision for the post war world:

Eighty years later, Biden referenced that moment as he cast the other leaders in his shadow to declare that the United States will donate half a billion dozes of Pfizer vaccines to 92 low and middle income countries.

“America will be the arsenal of vaccines in our fight against COVID-19, just as America was the arsenal of democracy during World War Two”, he promised.

This was the statement of intent that the world needed.

A commitment from a US President to those who had begun to doubt his country’s engagement with foreign affairs. Leadership.

The UK and others have made similar vaccine commitments but this was America’s moment to step forward and begin to lay the foundations of a post-Covid international order.

Christine also sees hope in the fact that we now have Joe Biden in power after four years of someone who inspired contempt, protests and blimps.

America got rid of Trump, and maybe we can get rid of our equivalent:

Three years ago, every utterance of the then President brought fresh waves of disillusionment bordering on despair.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review: China and the US, democracy and Brexit fallout

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th June 2021 - 8:00 am

There has been an acute outbreak of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. It has been brought about by an even more acute outbreak of Sinophobia. It appears that the one—and possibly only—thing that upon which Democrats and Republicans can agree is their common fear of the rise of China. But most of all, they worry about they worry about defeat in the technology race which provides the essential tools for all the above. That is why the Senate this week voted by an overwhelming majority of 68 to 32 to pump $250 billion over five years into and development in America’s high-tech industries. It needs it. They worry about losing the values debate, the economic competition and the military debate. At the core of the technology business is semi-conductors and America’s global share of production of semi-conductors has dropped from 37 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2021. Meanwhile, China, this year surpassed America’s spending (private and public) on R and D spending in high-tech. Xi Jinping has said that he aims to have China self-sufficient in the production of semi-conductors and other high-tech products and services by 2025. It is a short jump from self-sufficiency to global dominance. US and Chinese competition in this field should be great news for the rest of the world because the likely result is more and better technology services for the rest of us. It should also spur other countries to follow suit for fear of falling behind. Israel and South Korea already invest more of their GDP’s on research and development than anyone else—4.6 percent according to the latest available figures. Britain has recently announced that its R and D investment will rise to more than $250 million a year to turn the country into a “science super power.”

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: The Biden/Putin Circus

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th June 2021 - 2:30 pm

G7 in Cornwall, NATO heads of government in Brussels and finally a Putin-Biden face-to-face on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It is President Joe Biden’s first foreign trip and designed to show, in his words, that “America is back.”

Not with the unilateralist, like it or lump it foreign policy of the Trump years, but with a return to across the board multilateralist-driven leadership. One of the keys to this new policy will be US-Russian relations. And a big part of the meetings in Cornwall and Brussels is finalising tactics for the summit in Geneva.

The US president has a long list of grievances to present to Vladimir Putin: Belarus, Crimea, Ukraine, Syria, election meddling, cyber-attacks, intermediate nuclear weapons, human rights, corruption, sanctuary for ransomware criminals….

He will deliver the list and then move on. Biden did not ask for the summit to list grievances. He asked for it to forge a new and more pragmatic relationship with Moscow as a counter to the real threat—China. During the Cold War years, the US successfully played Beijing off against the Russians. Now it is time to play the reverse side of the diplomatic coin: Russia against China.

But to judge the success of such a strategy you have to first understand the Russian leader’s position. And to do that you have to start from the premise that Russia is a failing state. However, it is also an ambitious failing state with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal—6,257 warheads. Putin inherited an economy that was tanking. He stopped the precipitous decline by selling out to oligarchs and has ended up a prisoner of the corrupt system he created.

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The Voice

And the new chair of Federal Conference Committee is…..

By The Voice | Sat 12th June 2021 - 12:39 pm

… Cllr Nick Da Costa.

Nick was one of the Committee’s Vice-Chairs and is also a Councillor in Haringey.

In a post on Facebook, he said:

I am delighted to have been elected as Chair of the Federal Conference Committee taking over from the brilliant Geoff Payne who stood down as Chair at the end of May.

Firstly, a massive thanks to Geoff for his hard work for this party as member, Vice Chair and then Chair of the Federal Conference Committee. He has always championed the importance and sovereignty of Conference in our party and will be sorely missed as he moves onto his next exciting work.

My previous position as Vice Chair of FCC will be filled at the next meeting of the Federal Conference Committee on 11th July, which will also be the agenda setting meeting for Autumn Conference.

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Colin Bloodworth

End of 15-year rule – a big opportunity for all Lib Dems

By Colin Bloodworth | Sat 12th June 2021 - 10:58 am

In the fine print of the recent budget was an announcement that UK citizens living abroad for more than 15 years were to get the right once again to vote in general elections. Eligible voters would register at the location where they lived prior to moving abroad (although we would like to see the establishment of overseas constituencies).

Legislation should be laid before Parliament later this year to bring about the reform.

It is estimated 5 million British citizens live overseas, and that 3 million have lived overseas for over 15 years.

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Mark Valladares

ALDE Party eCouncil – a comfortable seat, a nice cup of tea and a cast of hundreds…

By Mark Valladares | Sat 12th June 2021 - 8:45 am

Friday morning and, for those of us that aren’t naturally early risers, the hour time difference between Brussels, the nerve centre of the ALDE Party, and the United Kingdom was the cause of a slightly hurried morning routine for your correspondent.

First, there was a rather sad piece of business, as the Congress was asked to make a decision on how to proceed following the sad demise of Party President Hans van Baalen. There had been some consultation as to whether or not a by-election should take place to fill the vacancy, amidst rumours that a candidate was already “working the room”, and our delegation had concluded, having read the Statutes, that it should wait until the regular Autumn Congress, on the basis that the post would have been up for election then anyway.

We apparently weren’t alone, as Congress voted pretty overwhelmingly to postpone, leaving the senior Vice Presidents, Senator Timmy Dooley from Fianna Fáil and Ilhan Kyuchyuk MEP from the Bulgarian Movement for Rights and Freedom, to act as joint President for the time being.

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Caron Lindsay

Chesham and Amersham is THE place for Lib Dems to be this weekend

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 12th June 2021 - 8:29 am

There is nowhere I would rather be at the moment than Chesham and Amersham. Well, maybe not doing what is becoming known as the “Mark Pack” delivery run which is apparently vertiginous, taking in both sides of a valley. Our party president tackled it the other day and other alumni include Kevin Lang, who was Wendy Chamberlain’s campaign manager.

A Lib Dem by-election campaign at full pelt with the prospect of a win is a thing of joy and you really, really want to be part of it.

One  previous by-election victor is there:

 

People are heading there from all sorts of places. I know three people who are there from Edinburgh this weekend, on top of another three who have already visited.

Sadly, I can’t leave home at the moment, but I am spending time making calls and hosting some of the daily Maraphones. Last night, I was phoning people who had already been there, thanking them and asking them to go again. That was not the most difficult sell in the world and it was great to see people changing their plans and saying they’d jump on a train or a tube to go and help get Sarah Green elected.

It was particularly lovely that so many of them volunteered how impressed they had been with the campaign team. They loved the efficiency of the operation and the warmth of the welcome. It’s also clear that Sarah Green is an exceptional candidate. People who had been canvassing with her said how brilliant she was on the doorsteps.

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The Voice

The Economist talks up Lib Dem revival in Chesham and Amersham

By The Voice | Fri 11th June 2021 - 1:43 pm

There is a buzz of excitement down in South Bucks. The Lib Dems are fighting hard in in the Chesham and Amersham by-election. Sarah Green, our Liberal Democrat candidate, is gaining ground. While not going as far as suggesting she will win, this weekend’s Economist makes much of the leafy commuter belt in South Bucks becoming more socially liberal as younger people move out of the capital.

We could win this by-election. Ways everyone can help are detailed below.

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NewsHound

Moran attacks Hancock on his denial that there was a PPE shortage early in pandemic

By NewsHound | Fri 11th June 2021 - 11:36 am

The collective memory, the memories of the front like medical workers and the records in all manner of media outlets are wrong. The PPE shortage in the early months of the pandemic was an illusion, maybe a few shortages locally. That’s according to Health Secretary Matt Hancock.

He is blind to PPE shortages and the consequences. His appointment at Specsavers is overdue. Today, Layla Moran takes Hancock to task and tells of harrowing evidence she has heard from families who lost loved ones to Covid caught on wards, and from NHS and care home staff who were left without adequate PPE.

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Isabelle Parasram

Isabelle Parasram: Time… well spent

By Isabelle Parasram | Fri 11th June 2021 - 7:00 am

Liberal Democrat Vice President Isabelle Parasram announces her move to Social Value UK.

Almost everyone I know has experienced a defining moment during lockdown.

We now recognise the value of so much we’ve taken for granted – green spaces, our freedoms, key workers, our loved ones… even the air that we breathe.

I’ve always dreamed of being at the helm of an organisation that creates grassroots change. I’d put that dream on hold for years, believing what I’d been told – that it would take years of applications and competition would be too fierce. I was also content to postpone my dream, because my roles within law, education and politics were extremely fulfilling. I felt I was already making a difference where it mattered.

However, during this pandemic period, I lost a member of my household. This was not due to COVID, but to a tragic set of circumstances. Something shifted. This was a defining moment. I rediscovered the value of my time – that I can’t get it back or create more of it.

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The Voice

Simon Hughes wins damages from the Sun

By The Voice | Thu 10th June 2021 - 7:00 pm

The publisher of the Sun has paid an (undisclosed) substantial sum to Simon Hughes over phone hacking. According to The Guardian:

Hughes claimed “he had been the victim of unlawful information gathering by various journalists and executives at the Sun” who were intent on publishing details of his past relationships with men.

…

Speaking outside the court, Hughes said: “It went to the top in the Sun – senior editorial people, senior people at the top were clearly involved.”

Asked if he thought Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the Sun in 2006, knew about how his private information had been obtained, Hughes said: “I have been very clear that we have not named names, but it is clear from all I have seen that it went to the top of the Sun. I think I will have to leave you to draw your own conclusions about that.”

…

The former MP, who describes himself as bisexual, said he now believes this “private and sensitive information was obtained through unlawful information-gathering techniques and was used with the knowledge and approval of key senior executives at the newspaper”.

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Mary Reid

Tories worried about Chesham and Amersham

By Mary Reid | Thu 10th June 2021 - 2:20 pm

With so many Lib Dems heading over to Chesham and Amersham to support Sarah Green, it was interesting to read a letter published today in The Guardian. Dr Peter Dawson, a voter in the constituency, writes:

This has long been an ultra-safe Conservative seat, but there appears to be some anxiety among Tories, locally and nationally, about a possible Liberal Democrat win. Boris Johnson has made an appearance here and canvassers have been drafted in from London.

Apparently Rishi Sunak has written to all voters encouraging them to vote for a candidate “who can work with me”. As Dr Dawson says:

Now, I am not a Lib Dem supporter, but I recognise that the Lib Dem candidate is not some beyond-the-pale extremist, so I see no reason why Sarah Green and Sunak could not work together. But perhaps Sunak is not that kind of politician, and perhaps this is not that kind of government.

Most party members will by now have received emails (possibly more than one!) explaining how to get involved.

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Caron Lindsay

Jane Dodds questions First Minister on preventing violence against women

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th June 2021 - 9:12 pm

Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds used her first question as a Member of the Senedd to the First Minister to demand action on ending violence against women and girls.

This comes at a time when Operation Encompass, an initiative set up to notify schools if domestic abuse has taken place in pupils’ homes, report that there has been a huge rise in Public Protection Notices to do with domestic abuse to 2254 from September 2020 to March 2021 compared to 1043 during the same period in the previous year. The impact of Covid-19 appears to be severe.

What actions, Jane asked,  will the Welsh Government take to end violence against women and girls, particularly within black, Asian and minority ethnic communities?

After Mark Drakeford talked about an increase in funding that the Government had put in place, she followed up with:

Can I just follow that through with a focus on what’s been happening in this COVID time? We all know that there’s been a significant increase in the need for refuge places, in the need for services, and better, more focused responses to those women and children who are coming forward after these lockdown periods. I’m particularly interested to hear what issues and services will be targeted into rural areas, where we know that there are particular shortages of those effective responses and services.

You can watch the exchange here at about  32 minutes in.

Afterwards, Jane said:

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Caron Lindsay

End of an era as Matthew Clark leaves Holyrood

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th June 2021 - 5:31 pm

When I first arrived back in Scotland in 2000, Matthew Clark worked in the Lib Dem staff pool in the Scottish Parliament, then deputy to a certain Willie Rennie. He went on to serve as a senior special adviser in those happy days of the Lib Dem/Labour coalition. Out of Government, he became Chief of Staff to the Lib Dem Group, a role he’s held since 2007.

He actually started out as a very young councillor in Southampton and he and Willie first met at the Christchurch by-election where Willie was the campaign manager and Matthew had the job of developing the railway survey. In 1993 he became, at he age of just 25, chair of the Hampshire Police Authority.

I can’t quite believe that I’m about to go to his leaving do. He’s decided that he’s going to retire – and, after 6 Scottish Parliament elections, 2 referendums, and 6 General elections, all of which he’s had a major role in producing our manifestos and messages for, he certainly deserves a break.

I’m struggling to imagine how the party will cope without him. They say nobody’s indispensable, but he might well be the exception that proves the rule.  He knows pretty much everything there is to know about Scottish politics.

I just marvel at the way he brings so many disparate sources of information together and makes coherent messages out of them. He’s been a total powerhouse of policy, assisting on every major policy initiative and pulling together things like Menzies Campbell’s commission on Federalism, and its predecessor the Steel Commission back in the day.

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Caron Lindsay

Lembit Opik “expelled” from Lib Dems for advising Tories how to beat us

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th June 2021 - 8:55 am

Controversial former Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik has reportedly been expelled from the Liberal Democrats after he spoke at a Conservative Party event on how to beat the Lib Dems.

From Nation Cymru:

Lembit Öpik, who used to be the MP for Montgomeryshire, upset his former colleagues when he claimed the party had become a “become a parody of itself” and suggested that there is “currently no vaccine against stupidity”.

In the run up to the Senedd election, he spoke at a ‘How to Stop the Lib Dems with Lembit Öpik’ event organised by the Conservative Party.

He was introduced by former Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling, Conservative Member of Parliament for Epsom and Ewell.

I feel quite sad about this because I remember the good times. I first came across Lembit in the early 90s when he was so focused on growing the party’s membership and was making a name for himself in the north east.

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The Voice

Boundary Commission proposals – what do you think?

By The Voice | Tue 8th June 2021 - 8:55 pm

Today the Boundary Commission for England released its first stage proposals for parliamentary seats in England. You can read the proposals for every part of the country here. The proposals for Scotland and Wales come out next month.

For Liberal Democrats, there was mixed news.

In Hertfordshire, there is a new constituency which comprises the entire Three Rivers Council area, which should be a good prospect for us as we have run that Council successfully for a long time. This will mean that one ward from Daisy Cooper’s St Albans constituency will move into the new seat but it’s otherwise largely unchanged.

However, the news was less promising in Cumbria where Tim Farron’s seat is proposed to be split with our strong areas of Westmoreland and South Lakes being put into separate seats.

It’s fair to say that Tim was less than impressed:

The overall picture is that seats are being created in the south east and lost in other parts of England.

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Lord William Wallace

Why levelling up is not just a challenge for the Conservatives

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 7th June 2021 - 5:32 pm

The pledge to ‘level up’ the left behind parts of England is key to what happens in English politics over the next 3-5 years and beyond (I say ‘English’ politics because the dominant political issues in the four nations of the UK seem to be diverging). Boris Johnson’s promises to revive the towns and industrial communities of northern and coastal England have raised expectations, and won votes and seats. But even if he calls an election early in 2023 he will need to have demonstrated that commitment in increased expenditure to retain many of the votes won over in 2019.

The difficulty of reconciling this promise with the Conservative ideology of low taxes and a constant squeeze on public expenditure has just been demonstrated by the refusal to accept Sir Kevan Collins’s estimate of the scale of investment need in schools to catch up with years of neglect capped by 18 months of pandemic. £50 per pupil, offset by a reduction in the pupil premium, presents ‘an undervaluation of the importance of education’, Collins declared as he resigned.

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