Mark Valladares

15 October 2020 – the overnight press release

By Mark Valladares | Thu 15th October 2020 - 7:30 am

Government must follow Wales and guarantee free schools meals over holidays

Responding to the announcement that the Welsh Government has guaranteed free school meal provision for all school holidays up to and including Easter 2021, thanks to £11m confirmed today by Welsh Education Minister Kirsty Williams, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Daisy Cooper said:

This decision by Liberal Democrat Kirsty Williams is wonderful news and will really ease the worries of thousands of parents in Wales as they look ahead to the uncertainty of the next six months.

It is essential that Conservative Ministers in Westminster follow the Liberal Democrats lead in Wales,

…

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The Voice

John Leech shortlisted for Lifetime Achievement award

By The Voice | Wed 14th October 2020 - 5:00 pm

The Liberal Democrats are delighted to announce, alongside the LGIU, that John Leech has been shortlisted for their Lifetime Achievement in public service for his dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.

John Leech, who has dedicated nearly three decades of his life to public service, has been shortlisted for the Lifetime Achievement award from more than 200 nominations.

The Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey MP, praised the “relentless and fierce public servant.”

Whilst working at McDonald’s as a student, John Leech began getting involved in local campaigns and social good projects. In 1998, he was elected to Manchester City Council and has continuously served its …

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Lord William Wallace

UBI, a new social contract and citizen identity

By Lord William Wallace | Wed 14th October 2020 - 2:30 pm

We can’t avoid facing up to the issue of citizen identity – the visibility or invisibility of citizens to the state, the impact of the digital transformation on the collection, retention and integration of public data, and the safeguards that need to be built in to prevent its abuse. The private sector has already moved a long way down that path. A thriving sector of data scientists now works on aspects of personal verification: of age (for access to adult content online, for purchases of alcohol, for concessions for pensioners), financial status and probity, confirmation of qualifications and certification of address.

The government has been behind the curve on these developments since the Government Digital Service’s ‘Verify’ proposals ran into resistance six years ago – from Whitehall Departments unwilling and unauthorised to share data, and from Conservative ministers dithering between a private-public partnership and the hope of making a profit from access to public data. That’s leaving significant groups of citizens and residents increasingly excluded, as both government and private sector move online.

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The Voice

Party Awards: Anton Georgiou and the Brent Liberal Democrats – winning against the odds

By The Voice | Wed 14th October 2020 - 11:58 am

Next in our celebration of this year’s party awards winners is the Dadabhai Naoroji Award, given to the local party which has done most to promote its BAME members to public office.

You can watch the whole party awards ceremony here and the full submission for Anton and the Brent Lib Dems is under the cut.

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Callum Robertson

The Young Liberals needs to change

By Callum Robertson | Wed 14th October 2020 - 9:15 am

When deciding to run to be co-Chairs of the Young Liberals, Jack and I recognised that we needed to address what we call the three big challenges facing YL: the need to professionalise our operations, the need to organise ourselves more effectively and the need to inform members about what the executive are doing.

This article focuses on the need to professionalise our operations and more importantly, how we intend to do this.

Firstly, we need to work better with the wider Liberal Democrats; their success is our success and vice versa. There is much to be gained by our organisations working well together. This success means we must interact with the party at all levels.

Both Jack and I have seen the fruits of positive working relationships in our roles as chair of English Young Liberals and East of England Young Liberals, respectively. In his role as chair of EYL, Jack built relationships with the English Liberal Democrats and consequently, he was able to secure extra funding to the tune of £4000 for YL. This money is being used to increase branch developments by; assisting with the production of materials, more money into the branch development fund and increasing support for accredited branches.

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Mark Valladares

13 October 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 13th October 2020 - 10:50 pm
  • Liberal Democrats: Rising unemployment shows Chancellor must do more
  • Liberal Democrats: Record high hate crimes must be combatted

Liberal Democrats: Rising unemployment shows Chancellor must do more

Responding to the statistics released this morning showing that unemployment has reached 4.5%, the highest level in over three years, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Christine Jardine said:

Today’s figures throw into stark and depressing relief the scale of the issues facing families and businesses and act as a reminder that the Chancellor must extend more help.

Liberal Democrats have warned that by prematurely ending the Furlough scheme, this Government is potentially leaving thousands to face ruin.

Responsibility sits squarely on the Chancellor’s shoulders. Instead of dismissing lost jobs as not viable, he should be working day and night to protect people’s livelihoods.

Generations will judge whether this Government has taken every conceivable step to protect people’s’ livelihoods and futures, or tossed them on the unemployment pile marked non-viable.

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NewsHound

Luisa Porritt selected as our candidate for London Mayor

By NewsHound | Tue 13th October 2020 - 4:50 pm

Luisa Porritt has tweeted this today:


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The Voice

Party Awards: Thay Thayalan, a strong campaigner with a problem-solving, can-do attitude

By The Voice | Tue 13th October 2020 - 3:20 pm

Our third Party Award features Thay Thayalan, former Mayor of Kingston, who won the President’s Award at this year’s Conference. Watch the whole Party Awards segment below and read the full submission in support of Thay under the cut.

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Ian Jones

Cancel the 2021 GCSEs to save our future

By Ian Jones | Tue 13th October 2020 - 1:50 pm

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The government has turned crisis into catastrophe by deciding to retain the 2021 GCSE and A Level examinations and institute rigorous mock exams beforehand. It displays a woeful ignorance of teaching and learning, combined with a total failure to learn from past mistakes.

Students have not been at school for six months and their return this autumn is marked by further periods of absence due to Covid-19 outbreaks and quarantine requirements: something highly likely to increase as autumn turns to winter.

The current pressure on both students and teachers to catch up on missed learning, while managing ongoing disruptions in attendance, is doubled by a requirement to revise for their mocks what they may have not yet sufficiently covered in class, and then for exams that may still have to be cancelled – whatever the government says.

Another U-Turn is required because teachers need whatever time will be available to concentrate on teaching and to support students who are undergoing the biggest disruption to education since World War II.

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Joe Otten

Government and Labour reject scientific advice and let virus rip

By Joe Otten | Tue 13th October 2020 - 12:16 pm

The SAGE meeting on 21st September warned that covid cases may be doubling every week and that a package of interventions would be needed to bring R below 1. This didn’t happen. Cases continued to rise from 4,368 that day to 13,972 yesterday.

Yesterday the Prime Minster announced his new (urgent, delayed and briefed for a week) three tier system of local measures. This amounts to:
– a Medium tier of no change
– a High tier of no household mixing indoors – largely no change for authorities already under local measures, though a useful simplification, and adding Nottingham, Glossop and South Yorkshire (though they forgot to mention South Yorkshire)
– A Very High tier where non-food pubs are closed in Liverpool City Region.

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Anita Prabhakar

Reflections on Black History Month

By Anita Prabhakar | Tue 13th October 2020 - 11:10 am

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The month of October in the UK is celebrated as Black History Month (BHM), which I must admit, I was not aware of till couple of weeks back. So, when I read about it, I thought ‘why not to write few lines for the people like me who may have not paid much attention to BHM?’

Black History Month is celebrated to recognise the struggle of black people for equal rights and civil justice. This celebration of BHM is for achievements to the contribution of black people, who, despite so much hardship, strive to contribute to humanity in every way.

Today during the pandemic, when we visit either the hospital or the care home, we see people from the black community, along with others, working tirelessly to save lives.

To tell you the truth sometimes when you read the history you find it so difficult to believe that any community has had to struggle so much for equal rights, a right which should be part and parcel of every human at the time of birth.

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Mark Valladares

12 October 2020 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Mon 12th October 2020 - 10:30 pm
  • Liberal Democrats: Tories must stop dragging their feet on ethnicity pay gaps
  • PM has failed the north of England and the whole country

Liberal Democrats: Tories must stop dragging their feet on ethnicity pay gaps

The Liberal Democrats are calling on Conservative Ministers to “stop dragging their feet” and require large employers to publish their ethnicity pay gaps, as new figures released today from the Office for National Statistics show that, on average, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and certain mixed-race groups are paid 15% less than white people.

Liberal Democrat Equalities Spokesperson Wera Hobhouse said:

Too many people’s lives are blighted by discrimination and inequality. Black and Asian children are more likely to grow up in poverty than other children, and ethnicity pay gaps contribute to that injustice.

Gender pay gap reporting, introduced by the Liberal Democrats in Government, has been incredibly powerful to help force employers to take steps to improve gender equality in the workplace. Now we must do the same for ethnicity pay gaps.

It’s now two years since the Government launched a consultation on requiring large employers to publish their ethnicity pay gaps, but they have still not introduced it. It’s time Conservative Ministers stop dragging their feet and act.

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The Voice

Party Awards: Mark Jeffery – key to Lib Dems winning back control

By The Voice | Mon 12th October 2020 - 11:28 am

Our second of our series of features on this year’s party awards winners features Mark Jeffery, the winner of the Belinda Eyre-Brook Award given to people who work for our elected representatives.

See the whole party awards segment in the video, and the full submission in support of Mark below.

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James Croft

The USA is a warning to liberals: Tell a new story, or die

By James Croft | Mon 12th October 2020 - 9:59 am

Yesterday we learnt about the newly formed Lib Dem North American branch. Today we hear from one of their members.

In the USA, “liberal” is a dirty word. Conservatives have for years used the term to mean “profligate lovers of state-spending, weak on crime and devoid of moral values.” As such, even Democratic politicians shy away from the moniker and have done for decades. With Trump in the White House, and a febrile political polarisation infecting US politics, this dynamic has only sharpened: “owning the libs” has become the favourite pastime of conservative commentators, who seem to hate “liberals” more even than they love their president.

More recently, “liberal” and “liberalism” have come under fire from a newly-energized progressive left. When young progressive activists term Joe Biden a “liberal,” they mean it as a smear. “Liberal,” to this growing portion of the political population, means “centrist, reformist, non-radical, boring, and too willing to compromise.”

Those who champion radical changes to the US political system – healthcare for all, dismantling the mass-incarceration state, defunding the police – would never accept the label “liberal.” They feel let down by decades of leaders who compromised their principles for power, content to prop up massively unequal social and economic systems while accepting piecemeal reform.

UK politics is different: we haven’t slid so far. The UK is a less polarised country, and our right is not as extreme, populist, or racist as it is in the US. The centre of political gravity in the UK is far to the left of the centre of US politics, such that many US Democrats could only fit into the Conservative Party.

I am reminded of the old joke told by a British comedian to a US audience: “In England, we have two main political parties: the Labour Party – or as you would say, the Democrats – and the Conservative Party – or as you would say, the Democrats.” The joke still works: only our most conservative Conservatives could find common cause with today’s Republicans. Yet these winds are blowing across the Atlantic: UK politics is becoming more divided, more partisan, and more populist. In politics, as in culture, we are trending American.

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Laurence Cox

Looking at the other side of the ledger

By Laurence Cox | Mon 12th October 2020 - 9:02 am

Often articles here in LDV advocate new spending commitments but rarely look at their costs, or consider what a fairer taxation system looks like. I like to start with what I call Harold Wilson’s ‘pound in your pocket‘ principle. Wilson was reassuring the public that devaluation didn’t mean that their £ was worth less in sterling, but I take a deeper message from it:: the ‘pound in your pocket’ buys exactly the same however you came by it, whether that was by working for it (earned income), from rents, interest or dividends on savings (unearned income) or by selling …

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NewsHound

LibLink: Jane Dodds We must fulfil our moral duty and embrace refugees who seek safety and sanctuary

By NewsHound | Sun 11th October 2020 - 4:20 pm

Jane Dodds makes a compelling case for a compassionate and welcoming approach to seekers of sanctuary in a column for Nation Cymru this week.

She challenges the “invasion’ narrative put out by the right:

With Nigel Farage decrying an “invasion” of our shores and Sarah Atherton, Conservative MP for Wrexham, calling for the Royal Navy to stop “huge scale” crossings, you could easily be led to believe we were seeing hundreds of thousands of people coming to the UK every day.

But the numbers of people seeking asylum are not increasing; despite the rhetoric which wants us to believe we are being invaded.

By allowing this dangerous narrative, which tells us we are under attack, we are directly putting lives at risk.

This is far from hyperbole – earlier in the summer Abdulfatah Hamdallah, a refugee from Sudan, tragically lost his life trying to cross the channel in an unsafe makeshift vessel.

When did we become so heartless and cruel, she asks:

Five years ago I travelled to Calais to donate tents, tarpaulin sleeping bags collected from across concerned people in Powys and saw first hand the living conditions these people were in and heard about the horrors they were escaping from. Just like Abdulfatah they weren’t coming to the UK to “scrounge” or to “take our jobs” they were doing what anyone of us would do if we found ourselves I n that situation – striving to make life better and safer for them and their loved ones.

I am a child protection social worker by profession. I have spent years supporting vulnerable people all around the world, particularly children seeking refuge and do you know what? I have never met a single family who does not have a heart breaking story for why they’re making the journey.

We hear a lot of talk about how “we’re full”, that we should “look after our own” and “have enough problems already to deal with”. Since when did we become so heartless and cruel?

These are people’s lives we are talking about, people who have nothing and are risking their lives to travel to a place where they feel is safe.

And she points out that those who come here seeking asylum contribute to our country too:

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The Voice

Willie Rennie pays tribute to long-standing Lib Dem Cllr Ellen Morton

By The Voice | Sun 11th October 2020 - 2:47 pm

Sad news this week from Helensburgh. Ellen Morton, a councillor since 1999, has passed away.

From the Helensburgh Advertiser:

She was first elected to Argyll and Bute Council as a Scottish Liberal Democrat in 1999, representing the Helensburgh North ward.

From 2007, following the introduction of a new system of local government elections across Scotland, she became one of three councillors representing the Helensburgh and Lomond South area, taking in the Colgrain, Craigendoran and Churchill areas of Helensburgh as well as villages and hamlets including Cardross, Ardoch, Arden and Muirlands.

In her 21 years as a councillor she served in a variety of roles, including chair of the authority’s Helensburgh and Lomond area committee and depute to long-serving council leader Dick Walsh, as well as chair of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park planning authority and chair of the Northern Roads Collaboration.

She is survived by her husband Gordon, children Catriona, Aileen, Andrew and Fiona, and grandchildren Kate, Logan, Emily and Elliot.

Willie Rennie highlighted her humour and leadership:

Ellen Morton was a lady that you crossed at your peril.

She was quick, bright and, occasionally, sharp tongued and she was kind, caring and such a hard worker.

Her twenty one years on the council were colourful because she had firm beliefs and was a fierce defender of her constituents.

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The Voice

Party Awards: Gregan Crawford, the Data Dynamo

By The Voice | Sun 11th October 2020 - 12:30 pm

One of the highlights of Party Conference is the annual presentation to those people who have gone above and beyond. The Harriet Smith Award was established to recognise those who had never held elected office. This year, it was won by Edinburgh’s Gregan Crawford. Watch the whole party awards session here and read the submission in support of Gregan under the cut.

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Mark Iliffe

Building the Lib Dem North American Branch

By Mark Iliffe | Sun 11th October 2020 - 10:39 am

Seventy-five years ago, the United States of America changed the world with two acts that define our current global order. Through dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, America simultaneously brought World War Two to an end and took on the mantle of the pre-eminent global superpower. As the nominal “leader of the free world”, America cultivated science and the arts at an unprecedented scale while taking on the role as the global beacon of liberal, internationalist principles. However, as James Croft has superbly illustrates in his upcoming article, being a “Liberal” in America has become a smear. But, it doesn’t have to be this way and wasn’t this way until recently.

For UK citizens working and living abroad, we have a unique perspective of the memories of the United Kingdom and the current experiences of our countries of residence. In a time where we are physically isolated due to Covid-19, we can also connect over our shared values and principles. In this environment, a group of likeminded, internationalist liberal activists has formed in the North American region – the North American Branch of Liberal Democrats Overseas.

The Branch has formed to action our liberal principles, be a forum for liberal discussion in the region and work to raise the profile of international liberalism. As a Branch of Liberal Democrats Overseas, we are the local ‘home’ for British liberals of all stripes, living in America, Canada and the Caribbean.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: The West Wing is coming back (briefly)

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 11th October 2020 - 9:23 am

I am a massive fan of The West Wing. There are several episodes (The Midterms, for example) where I am almost word perfect. So you can imagine how excited I am that it’s very briefly returning in an HBO Max special on Thursday. It’s being done for When we all vote, an organisation chaired by Michelle Obama to:

increase participation in every election and close the race and age voting gap by changing the culture around voting, harnessing grassroots energy, and through strategic partnerships to reach every American.

The cast will reunite to perform the 2002 episode Hartsfield’s Landing. It’s the one where Josh and Donna try to make sure that there as many Bartlet votes as possible in a small village in New Hampshire that votes at midnight. I love it.

The trailer, published this week, gave me goosebumps. If you haven’t seen it, enjoy.

I’ve heard that a lot of fans have this week been rewatching the episodes at the end of Season 4 which involve the invocation of the 25th Amendment for reasons that I can’t imagine.

It comes at a time when Democrat House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed legislation on the subject of the 25th Amendment, looking in more detail about when a President is unfit for office.

From the Guardian

The office of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced a Friday press conference about the bill after she expressed concern that Trump, who is under treatment for coronavirus at the White House, is suffering a “disassociation from reality”.

The president has unleashed a barrage of erratic and self-contradictory tweets and declarations in recent days that have left staff scrambling and raised concerns over his stability.

In a zig-zagging interview on the Fox Business channel on Thursday, his first since being hospitalised, Trump, 74, boasted: “I’m back, because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young. And so I’m lucky in that way.”

If Aaron Sorkin had put forward scripts for the West Wing which outlined what is going on now, he would have been laughed out of the tv studio.

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Caron Lindsay

Reflections on World Mental Health Day

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 10th October 2020 - 3:43 pm

Back in 2007, when Nick Clegg made mental health the focus of his first major speech as Lib Dem Leader, it was pretty groundbreaking. And we walked the walk as well as talked the talk. Arguably the most successful part of our time in coalition was Norman Lamb’s work as mental health minister. Not only did he do so much to talk about mental ill health and so challenge the stigma, but he improved mental health services for people.

I often wished Scotland had a Norman Lamb. It took years for the SNP Government to update its mental health strategy and even now young people have to wait for such a long time to be seen. The pandemic has made that even worse. I know a young person who was seriously self-harming who had to wait for over a year for an appointment with a consultant. The impact that can have on education is seismic. If you have to wait a year to be seen and then another year at least before you actually start to feel like you can function, that is a third of your secondary education gone, just like that.

Over the past year and a half, my mental health has ricocheted between terrible and just about getting through the day with a smile on my face. The election campaign and its aftermath broke me and I ended up having two months off work at the beginning of the is year because I had reached the end of my ability to cope. In reality, I’d had nothing in the tank for a good while but kept ploughing on regardless, relying on adrenaline to get me through. That heaps on its own special kind of exhaustion. Sure, you can do your job and get through the day but it is so incredibly tiring until  eventually you just can’t.

What helped me earlier this year was my GP taking one look at me and sending me off to a community wellbeing hub where I had someone help me untangle all the stress, classes to help understand what was going on, a stress management course which took up my Wednesday evenings for a couple of months and, for the first time in my life, I went to a Yoga class. Believe me, I am terrible at Yoga, but it is very good at calming me down.

I’ve always thought that peer support is an essential part of recovery from anything, whether it’s breastfeeding problems or Cancer or stress. Meeting other people going through the same thing and listening to their experiences and what had helped them was invaluable.

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The Voice

Lib Dems and lockdown heroes honoured

By The Voice | Sat 10th October 2020 - 7:00 am

The Queen’s Birthday Honours were postponed this year so they could include people who had served the community during lockdown. I’m sure a number of those will be Liberal Democrat members, so please let us know and we will update this post.

Congratulations to Councillor Susan Prochak, Deputy Leader of Rother District Council, who has been awarded an MBE for services to the community in Robertsbridge Parish, East Sussex.

We will add more names to this list if you let us know of other Lib Dems who have been honoured. Contact us on [email protected].

UPDATE from Caron

Two more Lib Dems I’ve spotted. Firstly a very well deserved OBE for Racial Diversity Campaign Vice Chair Josh Babarinde

And for John Loughton, whose Scran Academy operation provided thousands of meals to people who were isolating in Edinbugh, a BEM.

I’m not sure whether he is still a Lib Dem member, but he is a fantastic and inspiring man. I went to an event last year where he was motivating young people and encouraging them to make themselves heard to politicians and he truly is a force of nature.

 

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Mark Valladares

8-9 October 2020 – yesterday and today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Fri 9th October 2020 - 10:30 pm
  • Liberal Democrats: Government must grant EU citizens proof of settled status
  • Slow economic growth reinforces need for furlough extension
  • Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group at risk of collapse shows need for furlough extension
  • Liberal Democrats: Sunak’s offer does not go far enough

Liberal Democrats: Government must grant EU citizens proof of settled status

The Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to grant EU citizens the automatic right to stay in the UK, with the physical proof they need, as new Home Office figures reveal thousands are being refused and 1.8 million have not been granted the right to stay permanently.

The latest EU Settlement Scheme statistics, which were published this morning, revealed 16,600 people have been refused Settled Status – including 5,700 in September alone. They also revealed that 1.6 million have only been granted temporary ‘Pre-Settled Status’ and 180,000 are still waiting for a decision.

On Monday, the House of Lords passed a Liberal Democrat amendment to the Government’s Immigration Bill which would require the Government to provide EU citizens with physical proof of their Settled Status. The party is urging Conservative MPs not to overturn that amendment when the Bill returns to the Commons.

Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said:

EU citizens in the UK – our families and friends – have been living under a cloud of uncertainty for far too long. They must have the right to stay.

Boris Johnson and the Conservatives promised to automatically guarantee the rights of EU citizens to stay, but they have broken that promise, as they have with so many others.

This Government’s botched scheme is anything but automatic and, without physical proof of their rights, EU citizens will be at the mercy of the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment.

To prevent a new Windrush-style scandal, Liberal Democrats are fighting for EU citizens to be given the automatic right to stay in the UK, with the physical proof they need.

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Geoff Crocker

Passing the buck on Coronavirus

By Geoff Crocker | Fri 9th October 2020 - 7:31 pm

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Opposition parties are right to challenge government mismanagement of the coronavirus epidemic. Competence is crucial to saving lives, maintaining wider public health, and not unnecessarily constraining personal liberty. So far, the UK government has got it spectacularly wrong on all these counts.

The twin major government failures in managing the pandemic have been

  1. Insufficient PPE in March. As a result, many thousands of people died. Care homes have since achieved zero infection with full PPE.
  2. Insufficient tests in September. As a result, thousands of uninfected people are now subject to 14 days avoidable quarantine, losing their liberty and their work.

Germany shows how to do it far better, limiting mortality to 115 deaths per million population compared to the UK rate of 627. People arriving in Germany from UK and EU take a test and are not quarantined if negative. All very sensible and effective.

Not only government ministers, but also their medical and scientific advisors, share responsibility for this UK failure. Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty gave a presentation (text here), on the current level of threat. But this fell short of being the ‘best science’ by lack of any peer review, scrutiny, or questions.

Vallance claimed that the increase in infection is not due to greater testing, but to increased positive test outcomes (quote ‘Could that increase be due to increased testing? The answer is no.’). He’s wrong. The current huge increase in infections must be partly due to increased testing. Vallance should have attributed increased infections between these two causes.

Having long dismissed international Covid comparisons because they show the UK in a very bad light, Vallance then presented current infection data from France and Spain, whilst ignoring the German outcome which requires their scientific explanation. This matters, because it determines best policy recommendations.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Trump, Covid and me

By Tom Arms | Fri 9th October 2020 - 5:44 pm

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Donald Trump and I have something in common. We are both on steroids. And I can tell you from personal experience, that heavy doses of steroids can affect you mentally – and physically.

It can make you angry and a shade irrational. Just ask my wife. In fact she says I should delete the word “shade”. In my case it affects my feet and hands as well; swelling the feet and making the hands shake.

The reason for these changes is that steroids dramatically and rapidly push up your sugar levels. It is a bit like suddenly swallowing a kilo of the white stuff in one 10 second sitting. You become hyper. I have also become a steroid diabetic. As President Trump weighs about 20 kilos more than me, it is possible that he has suffered the same or similar fate.

In my case, I have to take steroids for a chronic cancer called Multiple Myeloma. The bad news is that the nature of the cancer, the steroids and a bewildering cocktail of other drugs, means that I will be boring you with this column for many years to come. Steroids affect your behaviour and your quality of life. But they save lives. They don’t end them.

Your body also adjusts to the initial onslaught of steroids and the chemicals that accompany them. In my case it took about four months and a reduction in steroid intake. I have no idea how long it will take Trump to physically and mentally acclimatise. But, I can assure you that a weekend at Walter Reed Hospital – no matter how good the doctors are – is insufficient.

Of course, Donald Trump’s behaviour was erratic in the extreme long before he swallowed his first dose of dexamethasone. He stands apart as a person who refuses to accept that the laws of nature and man apply to him. Facts, historical records and evidence of our own senses are an irrelevancy as far as Donald J. Trump is concerned.

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Paula Widdowson

Improving York’s air quality and rebuilding a greener and more sustainable city

By Paula Widdowson | Fri 9th October 2020 - 3:45 pm

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At this year’s Air Quality Day York is proudly leading the way nationally by working to implement ambitious plans across the city to improve York’s air quality and move towards becoming carbon zero by 2030.

Earlier in April new research had revealed that York’s air quality had seen significant improvements during lockdown. This follows a positive long-term trend that has seen carbon emissions decrease by 37% over the last 13 years. Whilst similar reductions in air pollution have taken place across the country, here in York we aim to capture, retain and speed up this trend to aid in the administration’s ambitious plan to become zero carbon by 2030.

We have an ambitious electric vehicle programme for the city, and we are now leading the way nationally with the introduction of the largest zero emission Park & Ride fleet in the country. The 21 new vehicles will see us save 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions each year. This work builds on the £1.6 million investment already made to deliver York’s Clean Air Zone, the first voluntary Clean Air Zone in the UK, as well as our ambition to become the first fully electric bus city.

Whilst York will by no means be the only council aiming to enable a green recovery locally, the crisis has focused our minds on setting in place longer term plans, which would ensure that locally we can rebuild a more sustainable and greener city. This has seen our broader city recovery plans commit to investing in the creation of the next generation of green jobs and the development of the necessary skills to fit the future economy. As a city with two excellent research universities and the most skilled population in the North, we are aiming to take full advantage of our capabilities in bioeconomy and low carbon technologies, which put our city in a unique position to deliver the workforce and facilities to truly build back greener and better.

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Mark Valladares

7 October 2020 – today’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Wed 7th October 2020 - 10:30 pm

Liberal Democrats: PM’s speech no more than a pipe dream

Responding to Boris Johnson’s speech to Conservative Party Conference, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:

The Prime Minister’s speech utterly failed to deliver a credible plan to beat Coronavirus. With the Government’s tracing system in meltdown, a quarter of the UK in lockdown and millions set to face unemployment, this speech was nothing more than a pipe dream.

People and business need not only reassurance from the Prime Minister, but concrete measures to help them face the next six months of this pandemic. They got neither.

Even when talking of recovery,

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Posted in News and Press releases | Tagged and | 15 Comments
Tahir Maher

Tom Brake, former Member of Parliament, appointed as Director of Unlock Democracy

By Tahir Maher | Wed 7th October 2020 - 12:00 pm

PRESS RELEASE:

Unlock Democracy is pleased to announce Tom Brake as their new Director. Tom was until recently the MP for Carshalton and Wallington.

Tom brings a wealth of campaigning experience to the role from his years in Parliament. In Westminster he was active in pushing for democratic reform, including extending Freedom of Information (FOI) laws to private companies like Serco and Capita when they undertake work for the public sector, defending UK elections from foreign interference, and for votes at 16.

Tom leads the organisation at a time when the UK’s democracy and political institutions are under strain from: the pressure of responding to Covid-19, which has seen the Government given civil liberties-threatening emergency powers; an attempt by Government to shut down Parliament; and ID checks which will stop some younger people and people from disadvantaged backgrounds voting.

Speaking on behalf of Unlock Democracy’s governing Council, Chair Jessica Metheringham, said:

“I am delighted to welcome Tom to Unlock Democracy. At this critical time for democracy, our challenge is to bring together people from different backgrounds and perspectives. Together we can counter the threats to our democracy and build a better foundation for our political system. Tom brings experience and enthusiasm and I am looking forward to working with him.”

Tom Brake added:

“It is a great honour to be appointed Director of an organisation with a strong campaign pedigree and an experienced and committed team.

“The risks are genuine. The freedoms people cherish in their day-to-day lives depend on a strong and vibrant democracy.  Unlock Democracy’s mission is to deliver a written constitution, drafted following an open and engaging public process. This is the best guarantee that the freedoms we enjoy now will continue to be exercised by our children and grandchildren.”

Unlock Democracy is a pressure group that campaigns for a vibrant, inclusive democracy that puts power in the hands of the people, underpinned by a written constitution created through a participative process.

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Posted in News and Press releases | Tagged and | 3 Comments
Alastair Gordon

Assisted Dying

By Alastair Gordon | Wed 7th October 2020 - 9:15 am

The Party has a proud record of taking the lead in Parliament on socially liberal issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, and we should be doing the same on assisted dying. It is now eight years since Conference passed a motion in favour of this, but I have seen no sign of any follow-up action. Ed Davey, our new Leader, has made great play with the need to listen to the public and act on their concerns. Well, assisted dying is a case in point. The public’s support for changing the law to permit assisted dying has been rising steadily, and in the last five years, polls have shown it at over 80%. Let’s listen to that.

It is not just that the public is massively supportive. The main opposition has also been crumbling. The medical profession is coming round, with Paul Cosford, the former medical director of Public Health England, is the latest to show support, and on the religious front two former Archbishops, George Carey and Desmond Tutu, are among those who have spoken out in favour. The recent book ‘Last Rights’ has described in detail the kind of deaths that people have to face in the absence of law change – over 6,000 people a year are dying in pain and without dignity. How long are we going to go on condemning people to suffer unnecessarily like this? Palliative care has made great advances but cannot help in every case. I have been assisting the campaign personally for nearly ten years, spurred on by my wife’s Parkinson’s disease.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged | 22 Comments
Mark Valladares

6 October 2020 – today’s press release

By Mark Valladares | Tue 6th October 2020 - 10:30 pm

Prime Minister “not ambitious enough” when it comes to renewables

The Liberal Democrats are calling for an investment of £150 billion over the next three years to drive a green economic recovery. The call comes as the Prime Minister is set to unveil plans to invest just £160 million in wind turbines in a speech at the Conservative Party Conference.

Ed Davey, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said:

People across the UK are worried about the planet and for their children’s futures. We need a Government that leads from the front when it comes to tackling the climate emergency. But just a

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