Yesterday Scottish Conference Convener Paul McGarry announced in an email to members that our online Autumn conference will take place online on 8th and 9th October.
So the key deadlines are:
Drafting advice: 16th July at noon
Constitutional amendments: 16th July at noon
Motions deadline: 12th August at noon
You can get your ticket here. And the first timer rate for Scottish members is but a mere pound.
This week’s news included an early “obituary” for Apple Daily, the eponymous newspaper founded by Jimmy Lai, a long-time critic of the Hong Kong and Beijing Governments.
The prediction of closure of the pro-democracy paper by the end of the week followed the arrests of the executives (including the editor-in-chief and the chief executive) and freezing of the assets of the parent company, Next Digital. All the staff of the publication are expected to resign this week and the last issue may be the June 26 edition.
This news is remarkable to me in 2 respects:
First, that the charges made against Apple Daily and its executives were based on breaches of the National Securities Legislation (NSL) for alleged “collusion with a foreign country” to endanger national security. Which foreign country is implicated here? The US, one assumes, rather than the UK, as there is a narrative that Hong Kong is a mere pawn in the US-China rivalry. But do HKers who object to the imposition of the NSL have to collude with any external forces? Or are they simply objecting because they do not like to see the rights and freedoms that they had grown accustomed to being taken away?
This new crime of collusion with a foreign country or external forces (one of the 4 new crimes introduced by the NSL on 30 June 2020, the others being “secession” “subversion” and “terrorist activity”) should raise alarm bells for us in the UK too. It would suggest that the more vocal the Lib Dems are in criticising China and the NSL, the higher the risk to our members and supporters in Hong Kong.
Secondly, the authorities have frozen the company’s core assets even before trial or any legal process, as the NSL operates outside of the HK legal system. As the paper is unable to pay their staff and even their utility bills, they are forced to shut-down. Here is a clear example of an attack on independent media and critics of the government in the name of national security, and attacking where it hurts, at its finances.
As restrictions are gradually eased, it is heartening to see our public spaces once again being filled with shoppers, cafe-goers and those who just want to make the most of being able to socialise freely again. This should also prompt us to have a serious look at the value we place on our public spaces, for if we do not act soon, we could lose them without realising until it is too late.
A small but growing number of commentators and activists are drawing our attention to increased use of pseudo-public spaces – that is, those which to all intents and purposes appear to be public spaces but are in fact privately managed and owned. Vast swathes of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham (as well as many more) are under private ownership, but this is no longer an issue confined to big cities. Devastated by years of austerity, councils have been selling off land at alarming rates to private corporations and as a busker, this is more obvious to me than most. With the number of busking pitches available on genuinely public land reducing, it is now very difficult to make a living without busking on publicly accessible private land. It is not just in the large metropolises – I have faced attempts to move me on in Didcot, Stourbridge, Redditch and countless others. They will never try to argue that I am causing any genuine problems – simply that ‘management don’t allow it’.
I will almost always stand my ground, pointing out that, not only does a specific section of public highways law allow for privately owned land to act as a de jure public highway in many instances, but also that with trespass being a civil offence, there needs to be some evidence of harm being caused in order to compel me to leave. Where there is no material harm, I see no reason to leave. Usually, the security guards hired by these private corporations give up and let me continue. They’ve even, on one occasion, returned to buy a CD from me. But if they dig in, problems can occur, which has led to me being arrested for ‘breach of the peace’ in 3 different locations. In all of these instances, the police have admitted that I was not actually breaching the peace, nor did they have any evidence that I was likely to. But for a breach of the peace arrest, none of this is actually required. All that is required is for the police officer to believe that a breach of the peace may occur. Note that it is not legally relevant who will be causing that breach. The last time this happened, officers in Birmingham accepted my argument that they were effectively arresting me because, if I didn’t leave, the security guards might initiate a physical altercation.
Two new proposed laws threaten to escalate this to a worrying extent. One is Priti Patel’s much-publicised policing bill, which has rightly been the subject of mass protests. For me, it is almost laughable to see her argue that existing powers regarding Public Order are not strong enough, given my experiences of being arrested under the very laws that apparently do not give the police enough power.
Went staking, found a Daisy
Orkney’s Lib Dem MSP this week lodged a bill in Holyrood which would enable assisted dying in Scotland. This would enable terminally ill, mentally competent adults to have an assisted death.
Here he is talking about it to the BBC.
This is a subject that is obviously emotive and needs to be handled with compassion and sensitivity. I can’t think of anyone better than Liam to do this.
He is very thoughtful and wise and will take concerns about the measure very seriously and try to address them as best he can.
I have been a supporter of assisted dying for a long time. I don’t feel that I can say to someone that they must endure unbearable suffering before their inevitable death if they don’t have to. I went to a Dignity in Dying event at the start of the Holyrood campaign where Prue Leith described how horrendous it was for her brother David who died in great pain because of a brain tumour. At that same event, sisters described the intolerable suffering which preceded their mum’s death from oesophageal cancer. I really think that people should be able to choose a more controlled, dignified death.
I do get, though, that we need to make sure that disabled people, who are already marginalised don’t feel even more so. Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy had this to say:
Media reports suggest the Government is to hold off on announcing its plans to reform social care until at least the autumn amid continued disputes within the Cabinet. Boris Johnson this week delayed a meeting with the Chancellor and Health Secretary to discuss the reforms and is said to have ruled out using rises in income tax, VAT and national insurance to pay for social care in England.
In a letter in the Times this morning, Sir Norman Lamb, minister of state for care from 2013-15, calls for the “Dilnot cap” to be implemented and for all parties to work together to resolve funding.
I’d never done stake boarding before on such a large scale. Yes, I’d put up the odd stake. So when the chance came to visit Chesham and Amersham, I thought I’d just pop in and show my face.
However, our by-election team doesn’t quite work like that.
It seems timely to show some of the excellent Getty Images which are available, depicting the Chesham and Amersham campaign. Scroll down to view them all or click on them individually to view them within the Getty Images website.
So very pleased to see Sarah Green MP sworn in to the House of Commons this afternoon (I got permission to nip out of a meeting to watch it live!). https://t.co/iwWoUkAGgs
— Colin Ross (@colinross1975) June 21, 2021
The Tories aren’t revolting, at least over planning. Yesterday evening, they were told not to vote in the opposition debate over the planning bill. Yet it was clear from the debate that many remained unhappy with the proposals which contributed to the historic defeat in Chesham and Amersham.
The debate lasted for just over three hours and 17 members did not get the chance to speak. All twelve Lib Dems voted for the opposition motion. There were no votes against as the Tories went into hiding at the end of the debate. Many of them might not like the planning reforms but they are certainly not going to be brave enough to defy a whip and vote against them.
Wera Hobhouse and Tim Farron spoke for the Lib Dems.
Now that Chesham and Amersham is triumphantly over, attention will turn to the by-election in Batley and Spen on July 1st. There has been plenty of discussion about the Tory vs Labour battle but not much about the excellent candidate standing for the Lib Dems, Tom Gordon.
Tom is a local man, born and raised in West Yorkshire, who is a Councillor in the neighbouring Borough of Wakefield – the first Lib Dem councillor there in a decade. With a background in biochemistry and public health, and a stint working as a health economics research assistant, he is well placed to understand why local residents are so fed up with a Labour Council that doesn’t care and a Tory Government who see Northern Labour voters as people they can bamboozle with empty promises.
Tom spent a considerable amount of time in Chesham and Amersham and, as he says:
I had life long Labour voters in Chesham and Amersham who were voting for us because Sarah and the campaign had a strong message and they knew what we stood for, whereas in Batley and Spen they say they don’t know what Labour locally, or Keir Starmer nationally, stand for.
In the few days since our remarkable victory in Chesham and Amersham, some are suggesting we shouldn’t campaign, or even stand, in Batley and Spen.
On the face of it, it makes sense. The Lib Dems are closer to Labour on most policies than we are to the Tories, so we could be taking votes from Labour and gift the seat to the blues.
However, that view relies on one massive assumption. One we consistently make internally, even though the evidence of our eyes and ears disproves it. We assume that with no Lib Dem, our voters are more likely to go Labour than Tory. This is categorically untrue. Our data shows us that our voters split almost perfectly in half when no Lib Dem candidate is available.
Ed Davey did the Sunday morning media round today. He did look a tiny bit smug, but he’s allowed to given Sarah Green’s spectacular win in Chesham and Amersham, declared in the early hours of Friday morning.
First he appeared on Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday:
Liberal Democrats have shown that the Conservatives can be beaten.
Join our winning team: https://t.co/xOHtAN8CQ2 pic.twitter.com/gjdiOb20eZ
— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) June 20, 2021
And then we went on Marr:
Disappointment, even despair, was the general reaction by Lib Dems to the 2019 General Election results. But some of us saw a different picture. A week or so after that election I wrote a post for Lib Dem Voice under the headline “It’s a long game” in which I said:
I’m absolutely delighted to see the progress made in so many seats, and it fills me with such hope for the future. Do not give up. What you have done is to lay the foundations for future successes. Keep building your teams and keep targeting Council wards. Get all the advice you can on how to do that. Hold long term ambitions, and do not become dependent on external help.
Since Thursday the media have been speculating on which other blue wall constituencies are now fair game for the Lib Dems – exactly the ones I was addressing in that extract. It’s worth looking at the map in this article in The Guardian, which shows those seats in the southern half of the UK that could be vulnerable to the small but powerful orange mallet.
Too often we imagine that we win in general elections through smart national campaigning in the last few weeks, and that all seats will reflect the mood of the day. That is simply not true. Seats are won on the back of long campaigning, which itself is dependent on building the capacity of the local party. Given Thursday’s result we can safely assume that Boris Johnson will not be calling for a general election soon, even if the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act is rescinded, so we have the luxury of three years to build on the energy generated by Chesham and Amersham.
Speaking of which, back in 2019 I also wrote:
There is a good reason why by-election gains are often lost at the next general election. Hundreds of people piling into to help in a by-election can produce exhilarating results, but unless the infrastructure of the local party is seriously strengthened it will be struggling when it is left to its own resources.
We held the second in our current programme of meetings focussed on finishing off policy papers for autumn conference, on 9 June 2021. We discussed the future of power structures at regional level within England, Universal Basic Income, the natural environment and how to influence voters. Work continues to finalise motions for the autumn conference.
In today’s briefing from our foreign affairs correspondent, Tom Arms look at congestion, vaccination and schooling in Israel. The NATO summit allowed Joe Biden to stress that the Trump Era was over and “America is back”. And Biden is prepared to retaliate for any cyber attacks from Russia. Elections are due in Ethiopia on Monday – they are “worthless”. Finally, Tom talks of Donald Trump’s new book. Move over the Bible and the Koran, this will be “the greatest book ever.” Should this “great” book be called “Trump Through the Looking Glass”? Suggestions on a title are welcome.
It has concerned me for some time that as Liberal Democrats we spend an inordinate amount of time discussing pacts and electoral arrangements, and then complain the media is rarely interested in what we stand for, only in whom we will work with in the event of a hung Parliament.
The fantastic Chesham and Amersham by-election result will probably fuel this debate further.
Before discussing arrangements over who should stand down where, should we not consider what is likely to happen politically were such an endeavour to be successfully undertaken? I have a major concern about the Party going down the pacts route.
It is not our ability to give ground and surrender future opportunity that worries me most, we’ve been there before with the Liberal/SDP Alliance, and in more recent times single seat arrangements with the Greens, although they were hardly convincing examples of pacts delivering the expected success. The problem will be the Labour Party.
The Tories are revolting. After Thursday’s dramatic loss to the Lib Dems in Chesham and Amersham, MPs are warning Boris Johnson that the proposed planning reforms will lose them seats. Many Conservatives didn’t like the proposals before Thursday but I suspect many MPs hadn’t paid attention amid the challenges of the pandemic and other excuses. Some in the South East had given voice to their concerns but there has been no open rebellion until now. And now that is mostly on WhatsApp according to the Times.
HS2 certainly came home to roost on Thursday. Protected areas in the Chilterns, north Bucks and Warwickshire lose out badly from this line that brings those areas no benefits. There is still time to cancel this madness and restore the landscape. But I don’t think it will happen.
The HS2 row has spilled over to into planning. The government’s proposed planning reforms strip powers from local councils. It is a Lego approach to planning. Standard blocks. No local sensitivity.
The Tories lost in Chesham and Amersham because they thought they would win against a great candidate and a great campaign. But planning is now the Tories Achille’s Heel. In many areas, it could help us win more seats.
Commitment to free trade has been one of the core elements of British liberalism for nearly 200 years. It went along with peace through open borders and shared prosperity, with opposition to aristocratic landowners and cheap food for the working man. There’s a picture of John Bright (joint founder with Richard Cobden of the Anti-Corn Law League) in my living room, inherited from my wife’s Liberal forebears.
The economic liberals who left the Liberal Party in the late 1950s to set up the Institute of Economic Affairs still do believe. For them it’s an article of faith as much as their commitment to a smaller state and a deregulated economy. Liz Truss, a student liberal transformed into an ideological free marketeer, is celebrating the conclusion of the UK-Australia Trade Agreement and promising more deals to reduce tariffs and lower regulatory barriers. Our party press office has criticised her for neglecting the interests of British farmers – not something that Bright or Cobden would ever have said.
But trade isn’t as simple as it was.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un doesn’t often admit problems. How could the hermit kingdom/nuclear-armed rogue state admit failures or even difficulties? Such a thing is an oxymoron as North Koreans, by definition, live in a socialist paradise.
So, when the Great Leader goes before the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party, swallows his pride, puts his reputation on the line and basically says “the food situation is tense,” it is a political earthquake in North Korea. It also means that North Korea is in a famine situation or, at the very least, heading rapidly in that direction.
Everyone is tired. Everyone is ebullient. Except the Tories of course. Or Labour for that matter who came fourth in yesterday’s by-election in Chesham and Amersham.
Ed Davey has been doing the rounds of media today. He said he hadn’t expected such a huge swing. The Tory obsession with the Red Wall has meant they had ignored their own Blue Wall. “Last night we punched a hole in it.”
He talked of Chesham and Amersham voters being taken for granted by the Tories. Boris Johnson is not the decent Conservative they used to vote for. The Lib Dems are making progress in the south. Conservative MPs there should be worried.
This is not a flash in the plan by-election result. It is a trend that is demolishing the Blue Wall. Conservatives in the south should be worried.
The result was in just before 2am this morning. What a result.
Readers should beware that this post includes allegations of a kitchen sink drama and cruelty to animals. Allegations from the Tories of course.
When you read Peter Fleet’s comments – he was the low profile Conservative candidate by the way – you can understand why he didn’t win. He blamed the result on the Lib Dems working hard. Yes. That’s what we do. He hadn’t expected the result. How broken is the Tory machine that it can’t read the writing on the wall? The posters in the windows. The talk on the doorsteps. The changing demographics in a constituency.
Very broken it seems and nothing to do with kitchen sinks.
Nick Tyrone – that’s T-Y-R-O-N-E – concludes the article as follows:
Instead, the Lib Dems will lose on Thursday, most likely fairly badly, and they will have no one to blame but themselves. If they want to get back to being the by-election masters of old, they will have to do a lot better than this.
You can read the full article here: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-lib-dems-are-utterly-lost
Full Result in Chesham & Amersham
LDM: 56.7% (+30.4)
CON: 35.5% (-19.9)
GRN: 3.9% (-1.6)
LAB: 1.6% (-11.2)
RFM: 1.1% (+1.1)
BRK: 0.5% (+0.5)
FAL: 0.4% (+0.4)
REU: 0.3% (+0.3)A swing of over *25%* pic.twitter.com/YyuB72jc11
— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) June 18, 2021
Here’s the full result from tonight’s election in #cheshamandamersham where there has been a swing of more than 25 percent to the Lib Dem @SarahGreenLD from the Tories. pic.twitter.com/AxBH7kKYgz
— Amy Holmes (@AmyHolmesMedia) June 18, 2021
Liberal Democrat Leader @EdwardJDavey responds to a huge victory in Chesham & Amersham. 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/CDeKHUzfNd
— Lib Dem Media Team (@LibDemPress) June 18, 2021
Chesham & Amersham results since the formation of the constituency at the the Feb 1974 General Election: pic.twitter.com/93RvdUydGY
— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) June 18, 2021
In a confident speech earlier this morning, Sarah Green said she was humbled by the faith the people of Chesham and Amersham had placed in her.
Together, we have said enough is enough. We will be heard. And this government will listen.
No matter how safe the seat, you can have a Lib Dem representative.
Sarah had a message for young women. Don’t let people put you down or block your way. You can. You must. You will.
THIS ISN'T A DREAM IS IT?!?
— ALDC (@ALDC) June 18, 2021
A very loud cheer as @SarahGreenLD arrives for the #CheshamAndAmersham by-election result ‘@LibDems pic.twitter.com/v5XE1jm4yD
— Rory Butler (@rorythomasb) June 18, 2021
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