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

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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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A Basic Income is a story the Liberal Democrats can champion

By Mark Henderson | Fri 15th January 2021 - 12:47 pm

This time last year my Lib Dem council colleagues and I on Hull City Council tabled and passed a motion to call for a Universal Basic Income pilot in Hull; we were the first of what is now many Liberal Democrat Councillors to do so. Little did we know a year on Basic Income would pass overwhelmingly at our Autumn party conference into policy and be championed in Parliament by a number of our MPs.

Now, as we see the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic hit our society harder than ever before it is essential for Liberal Democrats to be pioneering and spearheading the charge towards making Basic Income a reality.

This, of course, comes with challenges.

Sceptics, of which I was one, always say,  “no one’s heard of it”, “we’ll never be able to make it work” or “it’s just for policy wonks” but the pandemic gives the idea of Basic Income limelight. It gives Liberal Democrats a lightbulb moment that can commit us to a caring society where no one gets left behind.

A Basic Income is explained simply – it is a fixed, unconditional, universal payment to all in our society. It has the power to be a great leveller to the economic insecurity Coronavirus has exposed.

A Basic Income would have seen the free school’s meals meltdown from government melt away with parents having a safety net. A Basic Income would see those who have fallen through the cracks of Covid support catered to and supported. A Basic Income, if championed by Liberals, could be our generation’s answer to the National Health Service.

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Caron Lindsay

Are you joining the Maraphone this Saturday?

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 15th January 2021 - 8:55 am

This Saturday sees the first National Action Day of the year. Under normal circumstances, we’d be out delivering tonnes of leaflets and knocking on doors, talking to voters.

We can’t do that at the moment, so the plan is that we phone as many voters as possible.

There are events taking place all over the country.

During the leadership election, both campaigns worked out that if you get a bunch of people together in a Zoom room, have a bit of a chat, and a briefing session, put ourselves on mute, sign into Connect …

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Caron Lindsay

Nationalism even extends to fish now, apparently

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th January 2021 - 9:32 pm

Our Parliament has a reputation as being one of the oldest and best in the world. Every time I walk through the Palace of Westminster, I am reminded of who has walked these same corridors.

Shirley Wiliams, Barbara Castle, William Wilberforce talking about abolishing slavery, Lloyd George bringing forward the People’s Budget, Aneurin Bevan bringing in the legislation that set up the NHS.

All these great things, over centuries.

In 200 years time, I doubt they’ll be talking about the Day the Fish Smiled.

It was Business Questions. The SNP’s Tommy Sheppard raised the crisis in our fishing industry caused by the Government. But of course, he couldn’t just leave it there. He had to use it as a proxy to ask to have a Commons debate on Scottish independence. I mean, the industry is on its knees. One of its key players, Loch Fyne, is talking about only being able to last another week. And all because the Government first of all pursued Brexit, did so in such a cack-handed manner that the decisions were only made about how the seafood industry would operate on Christmas bloody Eve with a week to go and then didn’t get its finger out to produce the relevant paperwork. This level of incompetence is pretty much standard practice for this lot.

It’s infuriating that the SNP constantly let the Tories off the hook by turning the question to independence. Keep it on the subject. Make them own the mess that they have made. Nope.

So what should have been an exchange on a crisis of the Tories’ making ended like this.

The fishing issue was covered a moment ago by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should have tuned into that debate, rather than bringing it up at business questions, but the Government are tackling this issue and dealing with it as quickly as possible. The key is that we have our fish back: they are now British fish, and they are better and happier fish for it.

Not exactly edifying, is it?

Earlier, the grown-ups were present. Our Alistair Carmichael  took the Government’s actions to pieces in an urgent question, laying bare the damage that they had done.

Boris Johnson had hinted at compensation yesterday, and his ministers have since spent their time trying to row back from that.

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Mark Hunter

Help grow the debate and beat the Conservatives at the same time!

By Mark Hunter | Thu 14th January 2021 - 5:48 pm

If the last week has shown us anything, it’s that 2021 could be stranger and potentially more worrying than 2020.

The anti-democratic attack on the US Capitol Building was an awful thing to witness. Four deaths, countless injuries and more news coming out that suggest things could have been a lot worse.

In the UK, the mishandling of the pandemic has cost lives and livelihoods. Depending on which figures you read, nearly 100,000 people have died from COVID-19 or because of it. Economists point to an impending double-dip recession, and across the country trust in the Government and its institutions is quickly eroding.

A strong, liberal voice has never been more needed.

It is vital that the Liberal Democrats keep growing both as a campaigning force and as a home for progressive ideas and policies.

Which is why I am delighted to have joined The Shirley Williams Lectures this week.

This is an exciting membership and fundraising organisation that will champion new ideas for how we meet the challenges being faced by the UK and the planet.

What’s even better is that all money raised in subscriptions goes towards winning the North West’s top target seat – Cheadle!

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The Voice

Ed Davey’s Green Alliance podcast

By The Voice | Thu 14th January 2021 - 3:45 pm

Ed Davey was interviewed recently for a podcast published by the Green Alliance.

Shaun Spiers, executive director at Green Alliance, asks him about the historical commitment of the Liberal Democrats to environmental policies. Ed talks about his achievements in the Coalition, and the rather tepid support from the Conservatives since then for green issues. He also makes the case for regulation, and the opportunity offered post-pandemic to rebuild our economy on greener lines.

At one point Ed reveals that, after the Coalition, George Osborne took legal advice about cancelling the 15 year contracts set up under the Contracts for Difference scheme, which supported various green initiatives. Osborne was told that he could not unpick them because they were private law contracts – which is exactly what Ed has planned in order to protect them from future Government interference.

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Joe Otten

Who gets the vaccine next?

By Joe Otten | Thu 14th January 2021 - 10:54 am

I’m losing track of calls for vaccine priority for one group or another. Teachers, police, this morning port workers – one might logically add the whole food supply chain of 4 or 5 million people. Unpaid carers have been raised (currently in group 6 of phase 1 ahead of 60-64 year olds in group 7).

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Paul Walter

US politics: Amidst the mud-slinging, a ray of hope

By Paul Walter | Thu 14th January 2021 - 8:45 am

In the aftermath of the November 2000 US presidential election, I was off-work with a stress-related mental illness. In a good way, this meant I had plenty of time to read about the Bush/Gore hanging chads dispute. As a result, I discovered Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire. In the twenty years since then, hardly a day has gone by that I have not logged on to Political Wire – often several times a day.

It is a news aggregation website which is “light touch” – providing a miscellany of key political news and articles each day.

In the last few years, I have enrolled as a Political Wire member. The other day I saw a post advertising a webinar for members. I thought it would be fun to join it. This meant staying up until 1am last night! But it was a real treat. Amongst an audience of 900, there were such eminences as legendary pollster Charlie Cook and Obama adviser David Axelrod!

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Paul Walter

History is made – Trump is the first US President to be impeached twice

By Paul Walter | Wed 13th January 2021 - 10:09 pm

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Just a few minutes ago, I watched as Nancy Pelosi brought down her gavel on the US House resolution to impeach Trump a record second time.

That means, the President is referred to the US Senate for a trial chaired by the Chief Justice, where a two-thirds majority is needed to convict President Trump of “inciting an insurrection”. The timetable appears to suggest that a Democratic-controlled Senate will consider the matter after President-elect Biden is sworn in.

Extraordinarily, ten Republicans voted for impeachment in the US House. This included Rep Liz Cheney – which is very significant. This was the most bipartisan impeachment in the history of the United States.

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Tahir Maher

Brexit chaos is costing the Scottish fishing industry £1million a day.

By Tahir Maher | Wed 13th January 2021 - 4:30 pm

 

Time-consuming new customs and health paperwork is sparking long delays, with one Scottish fishing business losing £50,000 on a single consignment.

In another alarming development, fish prices have plummeted by 80 per cent at Peterhead Fish Market, while a third of Scotland’s fishing fleet is tied up in the harbour.

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has secured an urgent question in Parliament tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 10.30am, in which he will address the devastating impact the Government’s trade deal with the EU is having on the industry

 

Alistair Carmichael said:

“After a week of intensifying disruption for seafood exporters and with long-term challenging from the deal as well, I am glad to have secured this urgent question to hold the Government to account. I would urge businesses affected by the trading changes to contact me so that we can put the strongest possible case to the Minister.”

ENDS
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John Pugh

An endangered species – Where are we with party reform?

By John Pugh | Wed 13th January 2021 - 9:00 am

John Pugh and Sir David Attenborough John Pugh with Sir David Attenborough

We are, by nature, political outsiders. None of us has been able to find a home in the establishment parties that dominate our political landscape. The political climate – electoral system, media, financial backing- is not favourable to us either. We struggle to get our voice heard, and our limited grip on power is always in peril and often short-lived.

As an endangered species, we would merit the David Attenborough treatment and as any endangered species need to husband carefully and efficiently our resources to survive. We survive by campaigning effectively on causes that matter to us and the electorate. However as Dorothy Thornhill said in her landmark report on the 2019 election “winning seats in elections has too often come second to internal discussion and management”, pointing out that “resources are being deployed on committees concerned with operational ..minutiae and their purposes and agendas at all levels of the party-national, regional and local”. The Thornhill report called for a review of the governance of all areas of the party.

Interestingly Dorothy in the report describes herself as “not an insider”, but even a party of outsiders needs its insiders. We should be grateful for those prepared to sit through the committee hours keeping the party’s cogs turning year after year as leaders, MPs and other stellar luminaries explode temporarily onto the scene, as membership waxes and wanes.

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Caron Lindsay

What is the Tories’ problem with feeding children?

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th January 2021 - 9:15 pm

Just when you think that the Tories couldn’t sink any lower than their opposition to providing help to families with free school meals during the holidays, they have gone one further.

All over social media, there are pictures of the sorts of food packages that are being sent to children who would normally qualify for free school meals.

Daisy Cooper has written to the Education Secretary to ask him to investigate and sort this out – by giving vouchers to families rather than these “woefully inadequate” and “abysmal” packages:

It is completely unacceptable that parents have received woefully inadequate food parcels in place of free school meals.

The amount of food parents have received to feed their children is not anything like enough to provide an adequate, nutritious lunch every day. Nor do they appear to represent value for money, given what the parcels should theoretically be worth.

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Caron Lindsay

Tories kill off bid to give NHS workers right to remain in UK

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th January 2021 - 7:56 pm

On Sunday we brought you the news that Christine Jardine’s Private Member’s Bill to give NHS workers the right to remain in the UK.

Sadly, today, the Tories tried to kill that hope by cancelling all sitting Fridays until the end of March. At best this postpones when the  Bill will be heard.

Christine’s Bill proposed that all health and social care staff from outside the EU would be granted indefinite leave to remain, enabling them to avoid the hellscape that is our immigration system and granting them rights enjoyed by British citizens.

Christine vowed to fight on, though:

Like the rest of our wonderful NHS and care staff, hundreds of thousands of people from other countries are on the frontlines of the Covid pandemic, putting themselves in harm’s way to make sure we get the care we need.

The UK should say, loudly and unequivocally, that those who have put their lives at risk for our country are welcome to live in it. That’s what my Bill would do, and I am deeply disappointed that the Government is not even letting it be debated in Parliament.

I am not giving up. I will urge Ministers again to make Government time available to pass this urgent legislation, which has cross-party support.

The idea that anyone who has worked so hard to save lives during this emergency might one day be forced to leave should be unthinkable.

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David Gray

I spent over four hours in a cell for busking during lockdown – that was wrong

By David Gray | Tue 12th January 2021 - 11:45 am

The increasing polarisation of politics across the globe is concerning for many reasons. The storming of the Capitol felt like a defining moment in this trend, while our government’s hollow pleading for the nation to unite over their shoddy Brexit deal has done nothing to bring opposing sides together. One area where this polarisation is becoming increasingly worrying is over Covid-19 measures. The world is not made up of Covid-denying conspiracy theorists and authoritarian-loving lockdown fanatics, but whenever a debate crops up, the position you take on that debate will inevitably see you lumped into one of those categories.

Most people accept that the temporary suspension of some liberties is a tragic necessity. But scrutiny has never been more important. John Harris’ excellent Guardian article goes into this at some length, so I will add the dimension of my own experience to this.

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Iain Roberts

Fifteen minutes to paradise: cities for people

By Iain Roberts | Tue 12th January 2021 - 9:45 am

Over the last year the pandemic has brought home just how much time we spend – and waste – travelling. How many hours are eaten up stuck in traffic or on trains or buses, just going about our daily lives. Instead of responding to our needs, towns and cities demand that we shape our lives to suit them, and too often that means long, inconvenient, polluting trips.

How much better would it be if all the places you needed to visit regularly were within 15 minutes of your home: shops, cafes, restaurants, medical centre, park, playground, leisure centre, cinema and theatre as well as school and work. And all accessible without a car.

That’s the vision Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is following.

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John Surie

Insights from the 2020 US Elections: A report from Liberal Democrats Overseas North American Branch

By John Surie | Mon 11th January 2021 - 5:15 pm

For the past six months, while liberals everywhere were biting their nails, the LDO North American Branch were analysing data sources and talking to anyone they could to gain useful insight into the US Elections.

The result is a report and Paddy Ashdown Forum / Liberal Democrats Overseas webinar entitled US Elections: Insights and Lessons for Lib Dem Campaigning to be held on Monday January 18th at 18:00 GMT.

So, what are the insights and lessons learned? The LDO report distills it all down to 7 key insights.

1. The ‘non-campaign’ campaign: Virtual campaigning comes of age

While Trump repeated his 2016 strategy, relying heavily on big rallies and live cable news coverage, the Biden team relied on virtual campaigning tactics. Democrats had to completely rethink how to connect with voters, finding new, imaginative ways of re-creating the emotional connection over the phone, text, Facebook message, and Zoom. In fact, virtual campaigning turned out to be more efficient, greatly extend reach, and be as impactful as traditional in-person events and door-knocking operations.

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Joe Otten

Lockdown weak, NHS in danger, where next?

By Joe Otten | Mon 11th January 2021 - 2:45 pm

With coronavirus case numbers still growing strongly (though perhaps slowing a little according to symptom tracking) and the NHS struggling to cope with the numbers of people needing hospitalisation already, driven by the much lower case numbers of 2 or 3 weeks ago, this is clearly the most dangerous time of the whole pandemic for any of us to contract the virus; there is every chance, wherever we live, that the NHS may not be able to give us the treatment we might need.

Acceleration of the vaccine programme is of course essential and the delay to second doses to give more people the protection of a first dose is a proportionate response to a crisis of this magnitude. But it will take until mid February to vaccinate (first dose) the most vulnerable 15 million people, accounting for 88% of deaths. So we should expect a big drop in pressure on the NHS by mid March. But that is 7 weeks away. For now, growth in the virus is adding pressure faster than vaccination can relieve it.

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Lord William Wallace

Johnson IS Britain’s Trump

By Lord William Wallace | Mon 11th January 2021 - 12:45 pm

The Conservative Party is now racing to disassociate itself from the US Republican Party and Donald Trump. In the Times on January 8th James Forsyth did his best to argue that Boris Johnson was a very different politician from Trump. But he did not deny that the political, personal and financial links between the American Right and the British Conservatives have been growing closer for many years, and that right-wing foundations and think tanks in the USA have worked hard to infiltrate British Conservatism.

This first struck me many years ago, when at Heathrow at the beginning of a short parliamentary recess and waiting for a plane to Washington (full disclosure: I was going to a conference sponsored by the German Marshall Fund and the Transatlantic Policy Forum). There were over a dozen Conservative MPs boarding alongside me, none of them foreign policy specialists, going to a Heritage Foundation conference and to meet Republican Congressmen and advisers.

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Geoff Reid

The Best of England

By Geoff Reid | Mon 11th January 2021 - 10:11 am

In debates about the nature of England and “Englishness” some, with justification, have turned to George Orwell. But there is an earlier 20th century literary figure who is worth listening to, even if only for one quotation. In 1992, for the third and final time, I stepped up to the plate as a reliable parliamentary candidate for hopeless northern seats. This was in the Eccles constituency, part of which was formerly in the Salford South constituency represented by the Liberal MP Hilaire Belloc from 1906 to 1910.

The 1992 Good Beer Guide contains an entry for the Ashley Brook in Salford: “New pub, cleverly blended into adjacent, terraced properties. Licence was first sought in the 1920s, but a local campaign, led by a methodist minister, helped permission to be granted in the 90s! Good wheelchair facilities.” For once local people at the opening ceremony outnumbered bosses from the brewery (Joseph Holt) and their guests. As I pulled the first pint, I quoted the pub-lover, churchman and writer Belloc, “When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day – 11 January 2021

By Mark Valladares | Mon 11th January 2021 - 9:04 am

Good morning, everyone!

You’ll have to bear with me this morning, as Creeting St Peter is running on emergency generators this morning following an underground cable failure, and this has had the apparent side effect of shutting down broadband service to the village until at least lunchtime.

Once I’ve dealt with the outstanding household matters, we’ll be bringing you Geoff Reid’s thoughts on an aspect of Englishness, whilst William Wallace has been provoked into comment by events in Washington and the domestic fallout here. We also have some reflections on the US elections from John Surie of Liberal Democrats Overseas.

So, stay tuned …

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