The Voice

Listen to Rabina Khan on the Vanessa Feltz Show

By The Voice | Sat 23rd January 2021 - 11:34 am

Yesterday we published a post by Cllr Rabina Khan titled “The danger of anti-vaccine propaganda“.

Last week Rabina was interviewed by radio interview on the Vanessa Feltz Show about the same subject. Well worth listening to.

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Caron Lindsay

Conservative Government bans political leafletting – how should Lib Dems react?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 23rd January 2021 - 9:55 am

Yesterday afternoon, a letter arrived in the inbox of our chief executive from Chloe Smith, the Cabinet Office Minister. It said in stark terms that the Government was banning volunteer delivery of political material in England. Parties who are rich enough can pay to have their stuff delivered. Some parties are so rich that they can afford to send the same leaflet to a house twice in a week, as the Scottish Tories did to me this week.

Last night, Lisa Smart, the Chair of the party’s Federal Campaigns and Elections Committee wrote to regional and local chairs saying:

This afternoon we received a letter from the Tory constitution minister, saying that the Government is changing the rules to make political leafleting no longer permissible.

This is a clear and brazen attempt by the Tories to stop our work to support local residents, and to fix the elections in their favour.

We know that the Tories will do best if campaigning is limited.

We should see that as a strong sign that elections will go ahead on 6 May.

Updated campaigning guidance will be on the website on Monday, following checks with our lawyers. In essence we expect this to say:

No further Liberal Democrat political literature should be given to volunteer activists, and party political materials must be delivered through paid routes.

Elected representatives and local teams may still deliver literature to residents, so long as this is focused on their non-political work of supporting local residents.

This is a vital activity at a time when millions of households do not have internet access and rules and support services are changing quickly.

We will be writing shortly to all members, asking them to support telephone canvassing and asking for donations for paid delivery.

Our national teams will be focused on bulk buy deals and helping organise telephone campaigning.
Let me reassure you. We won’t let Tory dirty tricks stop us from making a difference for our communities.

Our party’s decision to allow leafletting during lockdown in England was controversial both within and outside the party. Although we know that other parties were also distributing leaflets, the Conservatives snd Labour both complained about us. Ed Davey was tackled about this on Marr last Sunday. I wrote at the time:

There are some very strong views on both sides of this argument in the party. I tend to think that, while delivery is one of the safest things that we can do and we’re all having many deliveries to our homes at the moment, my inclination is that we have much more meaningful interaction with people if we phone them and talk to them. The difficulty with that is that the proportion of phone numbers we have is quite small. If you want to give out information to the widest possible number of people you need to do what David Penhaligon said – put it on a bit of paper and push it through their door. Even if it were allowed in Scotland, I wouldn’t choose to do it at this point in the pandemic, but if other Lib Dems feel it is appropriate in their communities, I’m not going to argue with them.

I do think it was a mistake to lead with a defence that was very legalistic and tenuous at best in its understanding of volunteer work. We should have limited our remarks to the importance of reaching those in the community who don’t have access to the internet with what is in many communities a trusted source of information.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: High hopes, low expectations

By Tom Arms | Fri 22nd January 2021 - 6:17 pm

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Trump is gone. He boarded Air Force One on Wednesday and flew off into the Florida sunset.

Biden is now the President of the United States and has called for an end to the “uncivil civil war” of the last four years.

In his departing speech before a diminished crowd, the outgoing president promised (or was it threatened) that he would be back “in some form or another.”

And he probably will. Perhaps not the “The Donald” personally. His legal and financial problems ranging from the impeachment trial, to tax evasion, to fraud, to money laundering, attempted subversion of election results and massive debts could occupy his attention – and the courts – at the expense of any planned political comeback.

But Trumpism will be back. In fact, it is a solid political factor on the American scene. Donald Trump did not create Trumpism. The conditions for his hate-fuelled politics of anger and fear existed before Donald entered the White House. Trump’s trick was to spot the political advantage in this political undercurrent and exploit it.

In his first day in office, President Biden used presidential decree powers to reverse 17 Trumpist policies. He rejoined the World Health Organisation and the Climate Change Accord. “The Dreamers” were given back their path to citizenship and the Muslim travel ban was lifted. The Keystone XL pipeline and a host of other environmentally damaging Trump pronouncements were scrapped.

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Lord William Wallace

Post-Brexit political campaigning

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 22nd January 2021 - 3:55 pm

Brexit is not over. Nor have the Liberal Democrats given up on the issue – nor should you.  Ed Davey and others have taken the tactical decision that the campaigning priority now should be on the government’s incompetence across the board.  The Conservatives now ‘own’ Brexit, and are struggling with the consequences of sacrificing free access for the illusion of sovereignty.  They would love us to come out at once for rejoining: that would allow them to return to blaming ‘remoaners’ for somehow sabotaging Brexit, and avoid having to explain how they got us into this mess.

Voters are tired and confused by bitter arguments over the EU.  A clear majority now recognise the costs, and consider leaving a mistake; but there is not yet widespread support for trying to rejoin a month after we left.  Better for us immediately to focus on the detailed implications, issue by issue, and let voters come to terms with the painful reality of losing easy access to our neighbours’ countries and markets.

The Times on 21st January reported that the highly effective letter from professional musicians it had published the day before, which had led the Culture Secretary to retreat from his previously unhelpful position on future reciprocal EU working permits, had been ‘organised by the Liberal Democrats’ (thanks to our DCMS team, with Paul Strasburger in the lead on this).  Alastair Carmichael has been vocal in support of the fishermen now unable to transport and sell their fish in continental markets.  Jenny Randerson is campaigning in support of hauliers struggling with delays and paperwork.  Your parliamentary team are now stirring on the petty decision to deny the EU Representative in London diplomatic status: a gesture that will delight European Research Group MPs, but lose further good will among EU governments.

Much of what is now going wrong was perfectly obvious from the start of the Brexit negotiations, but denied by the hard Brexiteers who voted down Theresa May’s less minimalist deal and pushed for ‘sovereignty’ at the cost of all other considerations.  It may well get worse.  It won’t help us to say ‘We told you so’ to voters who are beginning to change their minds.  Better to help those adversely affected challenge the government on why it misled them on the consequences of Brexit.

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Rabina Khan

The danger of anti-vaccine propaganda

By Rabina Khan | Fri 22nd January 2021 - 12:22 pm

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I recently had Covid-19 myself and although it was not a serious case compared to many others, it knocked me for six and I was unable to do anything for several weeks. The first symptom I noticed was losing my sense of smell. Over the following 48 hours, I became very unwell. I suffered from severe headaches, which made me feel nauseous and every time I stood up, I had terrible vertigo. I could barely walk, so all I could do was to take painkillers, drink hot water with ginger, honey and lemon, and stay in bed. I requested an NHS home-test kit, which arrived within 48 hours and the results arrived within another 48 hours. An amazing NHS 111 staff member rang me 3 times on the fifth day of my illness to check on me as I had become so poorly and she was concerned.

Thankfully, by the 7th day I began to feel a little better. Even though I am no longer in quarantine, I am still suffering from the after-effects. I’m easing myself back into work as I still get tired and my sense of taste and smell have not returned fully. I have spoken to many people who say that the long-term effects of having COVDI-19 can be debilitating.

My experience, and that of many other people have reinforced my belief that it is absolutely crucial for everyone to have the vaccine as soon as it is offered to them. The medical professionals do not gain anything by endorsing the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines; they do it for our wellbeing and for the benefit of the country as a whole. The COVID-19 conspiracy theories are not initiated by medical professionals. For whatever reason, these myths are often invented by people with hidden agendas, or those who simply enjoy creating controversy. Some of these myths gain traction through social media, preying on the gullibility of some and others’ mistrust of government and the media.  These myths are far more dangerous than not having the vaccine.

In order to protect our communities and the economy, it is the responsibility of every individual in the borough take up the vaccine. Only by adhering to this collective responsibility can we hope to tackle this problem effectively.

Recent research conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health has shown that people on lower incomes appear to be less confident about a vaccine, with a wealth gap in take-up.  84% of high earners are planning to get vaccinated, compared with 70% of low earners. Ethnicity also appears to influence take up. 57% of Black, Asian and Minority Ethic people said they would take the vaccine compared with 79% of white people. The highest region for rejections was in London (14%). Several different surveys have also revealed that women are less likely to take the vaccine than men.

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David Chadwick

Contextualising our policies for our constituents

By David Chadwick | Fri 22nd January 2021 - 10:07 am

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It’s easy to criticise our party’s policy-making process and the amount of policy we produce. Such criticism feels a tad unfair. It’s amiss to suggest that members voluntarily producing detailed policy in their spare time prevent our party from winning its target seats. Our candidates ought to help us win by making our policies relevant to their constituents.

Are we missing an overarching theme that ties our policies together? Absolutely. As mentioned in the Thornhill review, our leader’s job is to develop that vision and articulate it. Is now the right time to roll that out? Well Lockdown 3 probably isn’t the best time to try and win the soul of the nation, as the nation is far more interested in Covid.

Until then, candidates should be thinking of ways to promote the policies we have. For example, in response to the Government’s Jobs White Paper Statement, Daisy Cooper asked Gavin Williamson if the government would consider offering a lifetime grant instead of a lifetime loan entitlement. Daisy pointed out that mature students aren’t particularly keen to take on extra debt they’ll be paying off until retirement. She suggested that the government consider the Liberal Democrats’ Skills Wallet instead.

The Skills Wallet is a policy the country sorely needs. Millions of people are out of work or reconsidering their careers. Covid aside, there are two trends reshaping our economy, one is digital transformation – more and more processes are being automated or moving online, leaving entire organisations and job roles redundant. This has been evident for years; think of the disappearance of travel agents.

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Max Wilkinson

We’ll always have a pro-EU message – but it’ll take time to get to ‘rejoin now’

By Max Wilkinson | Thu 21st January 2021 - 7:13 pm

“That’s the final straw.”

“This isn’t our conference policy.”

“I’m furious – we MUST form a new pro-EU party.”

Those of us who speak with fellow members and supporters will have heard a lot like this over the past few days.

Ed Davey’s interview on Marr may not have fully captured the nuance of our position or even our long-term aim.  But as much as we are all still upset about Brexit, contesting the content of that one interview misses the point about the challenges we face.

As we know, the context for us is very difficult.  The UK has left the EU.  We have lost the biggest political fight in a generation.  Our party has only 11 MPs – partly as a result of our failure to get the message right.

But to get a better view on the how we make our case from now, it may be instructive to consider how we became the most pro-EU party in the first place.

The day after the 2016 referendum our then leader Tim Farron addressed a public demonstration at a time when nearly all other politicians were silent.

Tim’s brave decision placed us at the heart of the pro-EU movement.  But his message was not a blunt ‘overturn the decision’ – and nor was that our policy.

Tim started with a simple call for a referendum at some point in the future.  The formal policy followed to push for a public vote on the government’s deal.

By the 2017 election, the message was that there would be a referendum and we’d campaign for remain.  As a candidate in that election, my Eurosceptic Labour opponent told me in hustings to “be honest and just say the Lib Dems want to cancel Brexit”.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Ed Davey – The Liberal Democrats are the most pro-European party in British politics

By NewsHound | Thu 21st January 2021 - 4:15 pm

It is fair to say that quite a lot of Liberal Democrats were a bit worried by Ed Davey’s comments on Andrew Marr at the weekend that “we are not a rejoin party.”

In an article on the party website, he sets out his thinking. Rejoin is not an issue for now, but the Lib Dems will make the pro-European arguments and hope to persuade people that we can rejoin in the longer term.

He also warns against Scotland repeating the mistake of Brexit with independence.

The Liberal Democrats are the most pro-European party in British politics. We truly believe that we are stronger together, and internationalism will always be one of our core values.

That hasn’t changed now that we have left the European Union.

I am proud how we Liberal Democrats campaigned tirelessly against Brexit, and proud that last month all Liberal Democrat MPs voted against Johnson’s dreadful EU Trade Deal – already proving so disastrous to small businesses, fishermen and the wider economy.

And I’m determined the Liberal Democrats remain a pro-European party committed to the UK being members of the European Union again.

But we are realistic. We get that we lost the battle to stop Brexit.

It’s also a simple fact that the UK won’t be rejoining in the immediate future because the Conservative Government has a majority of 80.

So for now we must make the case for a close relationship with the EU and for the merits of free movement of people and highlight the huge problems caused by the chaotic Brexit.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem peers unite musicians from Elton John to Iron Maiden over Brexit visa problems

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 21st January 2021 - 2:40 pm

Liberal Democrat peers have organised a letter to the Times signed by over 100 very well known musicians and others in the industry outlining the problems they are now facing as a result of the Brexit deal.

The letter has united Ed Sheehan, Iron Maiden and the Sex Pistols with just about everyone in between.

Significantly, the letter is also signed by Roger Daltrey, who was a prominent campaigner for Brexit.

The Times(£) has the details and quotes Lib Dem peer Paul Strasburger.

Lord Strasburger, the Liberal Democrat peer, said that while the government was “predictably” trying to blame the EU, Britain’s creative artists had been “left high and dry”

He added: “The artists who signed this letter are either furious or fearful for the future of their business, or both. If the Conservative government cares about these industries and the economy, they must get back around the negotiating table and get this sorted pronto.”

The basic problem is that up until 31 December, musicians could just go to any of the other EU countries and perform with zero hassle. Now they have a mountain of paperwork and visas to deal with.

The deal done with the EU has a gaping hole where the promised free movement for musicians should be: everyone on a European music tour will now need costly work permits and a mountain of paperwork for their equipment. The extra costs will make many tours unviable, especially for young emerging musicians who are already struggling to keep their heads above water owing to the Covid ban on live music. This negotiating failure will tip many performers over the edge.

We urge the government to do what it said it would do and negotiate paperwork-free travel in Europe for British artists and their equipment. For the sake of British fans wanting to see European performers in the UK and British venues wishing to host them, the deal should be reciprocal.

You can find out more in an article on the Lib Dem website which describes how musicians have been left high and dry by the Brexit deal.

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Lord William Wallace

How fragile is our democracy?

By Lord William Wallace | Thu 21st January 2021 - 1:10 pm

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“Democracy is precious.  Democracy is fragile.” – Joe Biden reminded us in his inauguration speech. The ceremony was a cheering celebration of constitutional democracy, with the three branches of the federal government interacting to mark the change of administration.

British democracy remains fragile, without much prospect of strengthening its institutions or healing its divisions before the 2024 election.  Our prime minister wields executive ‘prerogative’ powers inherited from the Tudor and Stuart monarchies.  The queen appointed Boris Johnson prime minister, a day before Parliament rose for its summer recess.  He then attempted to prevent Parliament from sitting for an extended period, to allow himself to govern without scrutiny.  And, of course, he, many of his MPs and the right-wing press labelled the Supreme Court ‘the enemy of the people’ for ruling that he lacked the prerogative authority to do so.

The Vote Leave campaign fought the 2016 referendum with the cry of restoring parliamentary sovereignty.  Johnson scarcely conceals his contempt for Parliament and its scrutiny: whipping his backbenchers to support whatever ministers propose, pushing through bills which allow ministers to fill in the details later (under what are called ‘Henry VIII powers’), and packing friends, relations and donors into the Lords.  Ministers insist that the 43.5% vote they received last year represented ‘the will of the people’. Local government continues to be weakened, starved of funds, bypassed by contracts given to consultancies and outsourcing companies.  No wonder so many voters are disillusioned and alienated from conventional politics.  Ministers are also trying to bully the Electoral Commission, and to raise spending limits for campaigns to favour their well-funded party.

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Why can’t NHS screening services include trans patients?

By Elle Cronin and Greg Webb | Thu 21st January 2021 - 9:55 am

NHS patients are regularly invited to screening tests for different conditions. The tests can be inconvenient or uncomfortable, but the evidence on screening clearly shows it identifies risks early, prevents disease, and saves lives. Patients are at greater risk if they don’t receive invitations, or receive the wrong information.

Trans patients can request to alter their gender marker and are given a new NHS number. Any gendered words are replaced with their new pronouns. However, this also changes their eligibility for screening programmes as many of these are gendered; men and women commonly receive different tests.

Trans patients may be given a leaflet about screening programmes and are invited to self-refer, and will receive no invitations other than those relevant to the gender marker on their NHS record. Therefore, for example, not all patients with a cervix are invited to cervical screening. Contrastingly, if a cis woman has a full hysterectomy, for example, their GP has a simple form to fill out to remove the patient from the cervical screening register as it is no longer relevant to her body. Trans patients should be included on screening registers that are relevant to their bodies.

Historic inequalities within healthcare for the LGBT+ community results in patients who are not comfortable in a healthcare setting. The LGBT Foundation, with projects such as Pride in Practice, is aiming to improve this, but whilst Public Health England (PHE) admit there are inequalities within services, they suggest population screening is inherently equitable. Yet, the issues they aim to improve barely mention gender inequality or LGBT+ communities.

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Paul Walter

US Presidential inauguration – potential meteorological impact of millions of simultaneous signs of relief

By Paul Walter | Wed 20th January 2021 - 5:16 pm

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If all 7.7 billion of people alive on earth jumped up at the same time, apparently (when they hit the ground afterwards) there would be a huge ear-piercing sound of 200 decibels and severe ground shaking which could cause 4-8 scale earthquakes and a tsumnami with 100-feet waves.

I wondered about that prospect when I read the words “Trump departs the White House” this morning. I certainly heaved a huge sigh of relief. I should imagine that millions of other people did the same thing at roughly the same time. So one speculates that all these sighs of relief may well have had some form of meteorological impact.

There was a lot of relief around as the Presidential inauguration proceeded today.

In the same place as rioters broke into the Capitol 14 days ago, we saw Joe and Dr Jill Biden serenely proceed up the steps flanked by military guards.

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John King

All quiet on the Brexit front

By John King | Wed 20th January 2021 - 1:15 pm

To judge by the silence in the media, Brexit is done and dusted, and the country has already moved on. Or perhaps it was all a bad dream and never happened.
Of course, the covid-19 pandemic has eclipsed much of the other news, but this is not entirely explained. There have been plenty of problems: mountains of red tape that never perished in any bonfire, failed deliveries, cargoes of rotting fish. Of course, the Government has played these minor irritations down, no surprise there. But more puzzlingly, Kier Starmer has staged a judicious retreat from the Brexit battlefield, fearful no doubt …

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Embracing New Communities: Championing Community Infrastructure

By Ian Thomas | Wed 20th January 2021 - 10:35 am

The pressure for new housing, especially affordable, has highlighted the gap between the party’s national policy of pressing for new homes for new families through the community-focused effort by the local Liberal Democrat parties and the opposition from the communities they try and serve.

Because of this gap, the housing campaign becomes two-dimensional and revolves around arguments on the new development’s location, construction times, transport links, and on-road access. There is an easy (dare I say lazy) tendency to slip into NIMBYism; allowing those who shout the loudest drown out the area’s needs and those who want to call it home. …

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The Voice

Debate: Should the May elections go ahead?

By The Voice | Tue 19th January 2021 - 1:55 pm

The Electoral Commission lists these UK elections which are due to be held in May this year:

Local council elections in England
Local and Combined Authority Mayoral elections
Mayor of London and London Assembly elections
Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales
Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliamentary election
Scottish Parliamentary election

That’s with any required by-elections on top. That is a huge slate of elections covering the whole of the UK except for Northern Ireland, which may well have the odd by-election or three.

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Peter Ellis

Homes within homes – a vital complementary approach to the housing crisis

By Peter Ellis | Tue 19th January 2021 - 12:12 pm

Our reliance on new build to solve the housing crisis fails us. Walk through most new housing estates and you will discover cheaply constructed flats that are unsuitable for families and children or houses that are largely unaffordable, whose price is inflated by a shortage of supply and not by the cost of house building – but credit availability. New build comes at a huge environmental and social cost, with implications for the well-being of our communities. The conventional response is to set targets for new build, ones that are never met; a case of setting the wrong measure to drive the wrong policy. It ends with the disgrace of algorithms determining how we build communities.

Seen through a societal lens promoting the common good, exclusive reliance on new build is wrong. We need to seek complementary solutions, ones consistent with our core Lib Dem values, policies whose outcome is not determined by privately owned companies or the State.

Our largest, physical, social asset is our existing housing stock. By encouraging homeowners to create social tenancies, providing separate areas for living for tenants at affordable, freely negotiated, social rents we can increase the supply of homes. Social rents include the provision of household services: energy, council tax and water charges which become costs shared between homeowner who pays them and tenant through the rent they pay. There are no shared living areas, with homeowners and tenants only sharing access ways. By sharing services there is no cost for converting metered services keeping internal conversion works to a minimum, works that are reversible. Energy use becomes a shared resource. Every single house in the UK has the potential to provide what I refer to as a “home within a home”.

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Layla Moran MP

Layla Moran writes… Liberal Democrats stand with others today to oppose trade deals with countries committing genocide

By Layla Moran MP | Tue 19th January 2021 - 10:06 am

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The UK should not sign trade deals with countries committing genocide.

A statement I hope we can all agree on. Unfortunately, the Government seems to disagree. They’re refusing to accept cross-party amendments to the Trade Bill that would put human rights at the heart of our trade policy.

This is particularly important because of what is happening to the Uyghur people in Xinjiang and across China. The Foreign Secretary last week described the mounting evidence to the Commons:

Internment camps, arbitrary detention, political re-education, forced labour, torture and forced sterilisation—all on an industrial scale.

And yet he refused to call it genocide. As I told Autumn Conference in September, and following Alistair Carmichael as the first MP to raise the plight of the Uyghurs, it is increasingly clear that that is exactly what this is.

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Nick da Costa

Federal Committee report – Spring Conference 2021 motion selection

By Nick da Costa | Mon 18th January 2021 - 6:45 pm

The Federal Conference Committee met via Zoom call on Saturday, 16 January for the agenda selection for our second virtual conference. The meeting was a lengthy one, which was in part due to the large selection of varied and interesting motions we received, but also to give us breaks from staring at computer screens for a number of hours.

As you will be aware, this year we will not be heading up to the historic city of York, but instead you will be able to take part in Conference from your own home via our third party provider, Hopin. You will be able to find more information about the virtual conference. If you are planning to attend conference, we highly recommend taking part in the interactive exhibitions and the fringes.

The FCC wants to pay its thanks to the continued amazing efforts of the Conference Office team and members who have worked so incredibly hard.

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Paul Young

Why giving up on “rejoin” is the last straw

By Paul Young | Mon 18th January 2021 - 4:45 pm

I’m afraid Ed Davey’s reply to Andrew Marr yesterday, agreeing that the Liberal Democrats are no different from the Labour Party in not being “a rejoin party” is a massively missed opportunity and it’s the last straw for me. Leaving the party I have supported, stood for and donated to, since my teenage years in the 1970’s will be very difficult and heart wrenching. Sadly, I am on the cusp of making that decision. If there is one thing we can learn from Brexiteers, it’s that persistent and passionate campaigning, even when things are not going your way, can pay off in the end.

I am not suggesting that we should be asking for another referendum now, but that we should be making it very clear that we will be doing everything possible to create the situation where it is possible for the UK to re-join the EU as soon as is practical, and that we won’t give up until we succeed.

Doing so would give the Liberal Democrats the powerful distinct reason we need to differentiate us and attract support from both Labour and the Conservatives. With a credible Labour leader, we will otherwise just fall back into our familiar position of getting votes from people whose preferred party can’t win. Opinion polls show at least half of the country would still prefer the UK to be in the EU. Boris’s large majority was not a long term mandate for staying out of the EU. They voted for him because they were fed up with Brexit and believed his would end it. At the same time they judged Jeremy Corbyn as unsuitable for the role of Prime Minister.

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Howard Sykes

Don’t get caught out this May!

By Howard Sykes | Mon 18th January 2021 - 1:05 pm

As I write this, I have never thought I would be so pleased to see the back of a year as I did 2020. At the same time, I have never felt so apprehensive about what 2021 and the next 12 months holds for our families, our communities and our country.

Since New Year there has been loads of speculation about the elections in May. We simply don’t know as I pen this. If I was in government, I’d want to keep the option open of May elections until the last possible moment.

What we do know is the Government (in the most recent case via Local Government Minister Chloe Smith) are saying they will go ahead in May, with the bar for delaying being set “quite high”. So that is as clear as mud then!

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Iain Roberts

How to build a better bus network

By Iain Roberts | Mon 18th January 2021 - 10:15 am

272 million trips were made on trams and light rail in England in 2018/19 and more than 1.76 billion on trains in the same year. But the trusty bus accounted for almost 70% of all public transport journeys – a massive 4.31 billion.

Yet bus services are treated as the poor relative, as an afterthought. The result is fewer people using buses each year and fewer services being run. Rural bus routes have been especially badly hit, with subsidies drastically cut back through years of austerity.

We broadly agree on what we want from our buses. We want them to be fast, frequent, reliable, run early in the morning and late at night, be clean, safe and comfortable. These days we want USB charging points and free Wi-Fi (though with 4G and 5G becoming ubiquitous, Wi-Fi usage on buses is already falling). We want electric buses that pollute less: they cost about twice as much to buy, but fuel savings mean the lifetime cost of ownership is no more than a diesel bus.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem parliamentarians Disneyfied

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th January 2021 - 7:30 pm

There’s an app on your friendly neighbourhood app store called Toon me.

It enables you to make cartoon images from photographs.

To cheer us all up, Oxford Lib Dem James Cox has put some of our party VIPS through this.

He started with the MPs:

By popular demand, he then started on the MSPs

Here’s Beatrice Wishart, Liam McArthur and Mike Rumbles

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Caron Lindsay

Layla Moran: Protect frontline workers who have Long Covid

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th January 2021 - 6:38 pm

You would think, wouldn’t you, that if you caught a disease because of your work, that your employer would be obliged to look after you.

This is not the case for frontline workers, even public sector workers. In a parliamentary debate she’d secured on Long Covid, Layla Moran highlighted the cases of three who had experienced the wrath of HR departments after contracting long Covid.

Take Daisy, an NHS nurse in Wales. For four months she received reduced and then no pay from NHS Cymru, which told her that it was unable to support staff who contracted covid-19. Her case was resolved, but she continues to say that this issue has not been resolved at a national level in Wales. That story, and many others like it, have left me speechless—a headteacher and a nurse, key workers on the frontline, who have no choice but to do their job with inadequate personal protective equipment and testing, and now face financial ruin for doing their duty. It is unacceptable, which is why the APPG recommends that the UK Government recognise long covid as an occupational disease and institute a long covid compensation scheme for frontline workers.

She asked the Minister for three things – better reporting of Long Covid – with the daily stats – research into the condition and how to treat it and recognition of the condition in the social security system and by employers.

I know several friends who have Long Covid and it is really debilitating.

Alistair Carmichael also spoke in the debate, saying that he expected problems in the social security system which had already shown its utter uselessness in dealing with people with ME.

There must be more flexibility in how the system responds to people who are affected in this way. The point has been made to me by constituents that there is a lot of crossover between the symptoms and treatment of people with long covid and those who suffer from ME; I think that point was also made by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). Certainly, looking back over the years at the way in which the benefits system has coped with people who suffer from ME, let alone the medical profession, we can see that this will be a problem with which we shall have to come to terms for some considerable time.

A Universal Basic Income would make a big difference, he said.

As the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Long Covid, Layla can speak with some authority on these issues. I think that the UK Government has been better than the Scottish Government which doesn’t even have a decent strategy for dealing with Long Covid and that in part is due to the fact that Layla’s leadership on this has been so good.

Here is Layla’s whole speech:

I would like to start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for giving us time to debate long covid today. I also thank members of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, especially the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) and my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who co-sponsored the debate. Most of all, I want to thank everyone who has written to me, the all-party group or their own MP in the last few weeks with their stories. Their accounts are deeply moving. Today’s debate is for them.

In one such email, a constituent of mine said,

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: US Congressman’s beautiful and heartbreaking tribute to his son

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th January 2021 - 4:41 pm

Content warning: Suicide:

I have been known to become exceptionally sweary while watching Sunday morning news programmes. The inane and out of touch utterances of some politicians drive me mad.

But today I was moved to tears by the proud and loving way in which Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin talked about his son, who died by suicide on New Year’s Eve.

He was very open about what he had been through, and spoke so eloquently about his son Tommy and what he had brought to the world. He sounds like a wonderful, community minded, considerate person who lived his values.

Four days after Tommy died, Rep Raskin and his wife Sarah wrote a tribute to him which was full of love and warmth.

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Caron Lindsay

LDV’s Sunday Six – 17 January 2021

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th January 2021 - 3:48 pm

Here’s my hand-clicked pick from this week’s Sunday newspapers. What have you been reading today?

An article in the Observer shows that those in the Red Wall seats stand to lose most from the Tories ending the £20 per week Universal Credit top-ups. Will any of the red wall MPs be tempted to vote for a Labour amendment to extend it? Or will the fall for Rishi Sunak’s idea to give families half as much?

In the same paper, Patience Akumu writes about the election in Uganda which saw the incumbent leader returned to power, despite the desire for change among many Ugandans.

There was once a time when the free world was a powerful ally in such matters but now it seems it has too many problems of its own to bother with yet another developing country grappling with a leader who will not relinquish his grasp on power. Following difficulties in getting election observers accredited, both the EU and US chose not to send any.

Perhaps the west feels that, with its own perceived failures, it does not have the moral authority to lecture Africa. Museveni and other African leaders love to hang on to this particular lifeline. Museveni, in a CNN interview, retorted that while Ugandans may have electoral problems at least they are not dying (of coronavirus).

As we prepare for an inauguration which many fear will see outbreaks of violence in the US, Scotland on Sunday takes us back 150 years to when Abraham Lincoln was sworn in, telling the story of how his life was saved when a Scottish detective uncovered a plot to kill him.

The Sunday Herald has some uncomfortable truths about Scotland’s role in slave trade and how our towns and cities benefitted from its profits.

But it was not just those who were directly involved in slavery who benefitted. The wealth derived from unfree labour in the plantations – including compensation – turbocharged the post-union Scottish economy, funding key infrastructure such as canals and waterworks and creating thousands of jobs.

“Slavery and its commerce also had wider effects; powering the Scottish Industrial Revolution and providing large scale employment in cotton mills from 1778, funding philanthropic initiatives in universities, schools and hospitals, as well as the repatriation of wealth to families of lower rank in wider Scottish society,” Mullen says.

The Mirror highlights how a Conservative MP’s company failed to pay casual workers the national minimum wage.

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Caron Lindsay

Ed Davey on Marr: We need £150 billion green recovery, not weak and timid government

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th January 2021 - 10:40 am

“We are not a rejoin party” was one of the first things Ed Davey said in his New Year interview with Andrew Marr. The starkness of that statement is bound to disappoint some Liberal Democrat members and activists who are committed to this country ultimately being part of the EU again. Party strategists are adamant that now is not the time to have that argument and that we need to re-establish our credibility after the 2019 election. Perhaps being proven right will take care of some of that issue. We just need to make sure that we can be better at benefitting from being right than we have been all the other times when we have called a major issue correctly – think Iraq and the 2008 economic crisis.

It’s also not what our policy, passed at Conference in September, says:

Conference resolves to support a longer term objective of UK membership of the EU.

I would have preferred to see a very quick addition to Ed’s line that we didn’t support Brexit for all the reasons we can see it going wrong before he emphasises the need for the closest possible relationship with the EU. There is nothing wrong with saying that while rejoin isn’t on the table now, we think we’ll get to a place where it will be a viable option. There is nothing wrong with keeping that hope alive.

However, he was very strong on one issue that differentiates us from the Labour Party. Keir Starmer is not going to fight for freedom of movement of people. The Liberal Democrats will. Ed said that taking away the freedom to live, work and raise families across the EU is illiberal. The issue is one that impacts on so many families in this country and should increase our support.

That’s a major point of difference with Labour and should attract young people.

The conversation then turned to students. Ed said that the Government had let down schools, universities and students. He called Gavin Williamson the worst education secretary in living memory, who had mismanaged the crisis for everyone in the education sector. He argued that students should be refunded some of their fees and the Government, not the universities should pay for this.

Marr then turned to another really important issue for Lib Dem voters – the environment.

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NewsHound

LibLink: Alistair Carmichael Scotland’s fishermen have been used by opportunists

By NewsHound | Sun 17th January 2021 - 9:35 am

In a hard-hitting and justifiably furious article in the Sunday Herald, Alistair Carmichael highlights the betrayal of those working in the seafood industry whose livelihood has been ruined by Brexit enhnced by the incompetence of UK Government ministers.

He sets out what is wrong with the deal:

Having made a great pantomime of holding out to get the best deal for fishermen, Johnson folded. Instead we found a deal that the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation described this week as “desperately poor” and “the worst of both worlds”.

On close scrutiny the deal leaves our fishermen able to catch fewer fish in most key species, “wins” us shoals of “paper fish” (which we have no economic interest in catching) and leaves us locked into a deal that we barely control and will only be able to leave in 2026 if we are prepared to pay a heavy political and economic price.

It’s already having a devastating impact:

Traditionally, the first week of the new year is a bumper one for exports before trade quietens down for a couple of months.

This year, red-faced Scottish traders were unable to meet their orders as the lorries carrying their slowly deteriorating stock sat idling in Larkhall – unable to penetrate the new fog of bureaucracy in Johnson’s deal.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Money talks

By Tom Arms | Fri 15th January 2021 - 7:26 pm

Money talks. And nowhere does it shout louder than in the political arena of the United States of America.

The roll call of companies turning against the president and his acolytes is impressive. A truncated and growing list includes: American Express, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Stripe, Apple, Amazon, Google, the PGA, Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank, Hallmark, Verizon, Comcast, AT and T, AirBnB, New York City, the Koch Organisation….

Several on the above list deserve special mention. Deutsche Bank has been (now was) the Trump Organisation’s bank for years. It is owed $340 million by the company. But that is not all, President Trump has personally guaranteed every penny of the loan which is interest only. This means that when the loan falls due in 2023 and 2024 he will have to stump up the full amount.

New York City building projects have been a Trump cash cow dating back to the early days of the business his father created. They have simply cancelled all contracts with the Trump Organisation. That will hurt the bottom line.

The Koch Organisation has been America’s leading contributor to conservative causes since Fred Koch financed the start of the ultra-conservative John Birch Society in 1953. Between 2009 and 2016 his sons Charles and David gave a staggering $889 million to the Republican Party, individual Republican politicians and conservative think tanks.

The Koch Organisation started going off Trump a few years ago. But after the attack on Capitol Hill they also turned against his Congressional supporters. They have warned those Republican congressmen and senators who either objected to the Electoral College vote or voted against impeachment that the Koch Organisation’s contributions to their electoral war chests will likely be axed.

They need the money. To run for a seat in the House of Representatives costs an average of $1.6 million and you have to raise that money every two years because that is the length of your term of office. Senators hold their seats for six years, but the average cost of a campaign is $12 million. Elizabeth Warren’s last run for office cost $42,506,349.

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Mary Reid

LibLink: Vince Cable asks “What if the vaccine isn’t enough?”

By Mary Reid | Fri 15th January 2021 - 6:04 pm

Vince Cable has written in the Independent today asking that rather worrying question.

Most of us, including the government, are assuming that if the mass vaccination goes ahead speedily we shall see relaxation of the Covid restrictions in March and be largely free of them in the summer. The economy will bounce back and we can begin to enjoy the Roaring Twenties with a good holiday in the sun. My own sense of optimism is fuelled by the fact that I am in line to get my first vaccine jab this week and I already feel safer and freer.

But maybe that is wishful thinking? What if the vaccination rollout is slower than we hope (and impeded by idiotic NHS bureaucracy, such as the requirement that volunteers should have a level 2 “safeguarding” qualification in case they encounter children)? What if another variant of the virus arrives that requires new vaccines and repeat vaccination programmes? What if there are sufficient numbers who fail to get vaccinated – because of ignorance, groundless prejudice or fear – as to keep the pandemic alive?

He says that we need to plan for these eventualities to avoid restrictions through 2021 and beyond. Several actions are required.

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Max Wilkinson

Lib Dems must stop being the tail end batter with all the kit

By Max Wilkinson | Fri 15th January 2021 - 4:16 pm

Embed from Getty Images

I wasn’t very good at cricket when I was a youth.  But I could bowl and bat and field well enough that I was asked to join the senior 3rd and 4th teams when I was 14 or 15.

They were a friendly bunch who played for the love of the game.  We weren’t going to win the World Cup (nor even the local league).  The success of the team was in the values we shared with each other and the people we played against.

We were sporting also-rans, but one man evidently couldn’t accept that.  He was our number 11 batter.  While the rest of us showed up with a bag full of standard kit: whites, bat, pads, jockstrap and box, our number 11 was the best prepared player in the league.  He had a large coffin-style hold-all, replete with at least two bats, changes of whites (all club branded, of course), alternative pads for all parts of his body, a helmet, a spare helmet, a few hats, plenty of sun cream options and even changes of sunglasses.

There was only one problem: he very rarely got to bat for any length of time.  And when he did, he was more preoccupied by his own kit than the reason he was standing at the crease.

He presumably thought people were impressed by all his kit.  In reality, his teammates ribbed him gently, while his opponents and anyone else watching on wondered why on earth he bothered.

It may not be obvious how this relates directly to Liberal Democrat politics, but bear with me.

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